Hi all.

There's been a couple of scares around here in Australia with the MIPI (Music Industry Piracy Idiots, or something) busting ISPs and people running BitTorrent servers. This worries me because I run a BitTorrent server hosting my mixes, which under Australian law are uses of copyrighted works that aren't covered by fair use and therefore I should be paying to use them. I don't want to find a lawsuit on my doorstep or have my internet service pulled.

So I started doing the research into how much it would actually cost to use the CDs I have bought to make mixes which I give away. Due to some bizarreness, you have to register with both the APRA (Australian Performing Rights Association) to use the music, and the PPCA (Phonographic Performance Company of Australia) to use the recording. The PPCA, for DJs, charges about AUD$86 under Tarriff F (Mobile Discotheque Operators - how quaint). The APRA sounds reasonable at first - it's 8.5% of your gross takings from the performance of 'their' music.

Oh, but wait. If you're hosting more than 40 hours of discrete music mixes, your minimum charge is AUD$3,3600 PER QUARTER! WHo cares if you're not making a cent from your mixes, you've still got to pay around $13,500 per year for the pleasure.

You can bet that that fee doesn't go right back to the artists, too. Oh, both the APRA and the PPCA say they do, but I bet it goes to the Big Seven music copyright owners and disappears into the books from there.

Let's put it this way: at a conservative $20 per mix (cheap for the Antipodean Laidoutback mix, for example), I'd still have to get 168 people per quarter, or one and five sixths people to pay for a mix every single day, to pay my fees. You can bet that people aren't going to be queueing up for that one.

Oh,that's right; my mixes are copyrighted (if nothing else, by virtue of them being new arrangements). So if I'm registered with APRA (which, surprisingly, doesn't cost anything), some of those fees will come back to me because other people might be paying APRA to use my works. APRA doesn't attempt to measure this, from what I've seen, they just assume that everyone uses everything and distribute the money solely on the number of works you have registered with them. I'll bet that that gets nowhere near $3,360 per quarter.

All the evidence that I've seen shows that DJ mixes promote the music and industry far better than any record company. All the evidence I've seen shows that the music industry and its 'copyright owners' are the biggest pirates on the scene, as Courtney Love so nicely put it - they're ripping the artists off every way they can and want to make everyone pay for even hearing a song on someone else's radio. All the evidence I've seen shows that the music industry is not only gaining CD sales as internet downloads increase, but is shamelessly distorting and inventing figures to try and justify their pleas for more money.

God damn, it makes me angry.

I'd put a PayPal link on my site anyway, except for the fact that then I'd look even more like I'm profiting from my mixes and become even more of a target. I'll be buggered with a three-tined pitchfork and no lubricant before do that.

Have fun,

Paul

P.S. Congratulations for making it through this rant. I've released a new mix; it should be up on my web site in a couple of hours.