This whole GEMA (Germany's collections society) apparatus of rules, conditions and rates really is complex. If I get anything wrong - be it either to GEMA's advantage or disadvantage - please tell me and I'm going update my article. Email me or simply post a reply below. I gladly will stand corrected. I don't know what it looks like with ASCAP et al. - I can't imagine it to be worse than here.
There's something going on in Germany. We already had our share of GEMA within the past few weeks (see Rapidshare and Jamendo). Read about it at ContentSphere, or do it over at TechDirt. GEMA, Germany's only collections society, still is surprisingly entertaining (if you're into cynism). But, there's some uprising fresh breeze, and it's coming from Germany's most southward located town: Sonthofen.
As you are reading this, it is old news that Popkomm 2009 has been cancelled. I intended to go yet I began to hesitate as soon as I read the Preliminary Programme 2009 as of 11 May. Even a preliminary program should have had more. Only two persons were actually announced to participate in panels or sessions respectively: Lawyers. Not to be disrespective, but I think it shows there's lots of crisis.
Today, it is the second and third part of my interview with Wolfram Huschke aka Cellonaut I present you with. We get to know about an interesting collaboration between Huschke and the Theatre of Trier's ballet company. Also, it highlights the economic shortcomings of working within full band context if you are a solo artist.
After publishing the most recent article on Dubber's pitch for Popkomm, I once more browsed Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture" (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 1.0 Generic License). Actually, I happened to find a metaphor he used that perfectly fits my comment on ContentSphere which I'd like you to think about.
Andrew Dubber just recently pitched a topic to Popkomm - "Music As Culture". If you read the outline of this hopefully upcoming speech at New Music Strategies, you might recognise a bit of Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture". We've seen the USA extending copyright terms, and European countries suggesting to do so. Just yesterday, the European parliament voted in favour of a prolongation.
