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Copyright problems

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Edit: now on 23 July – the below has become redundant in view of new information that has come to light … ah well.

Over the last couple of years I’ve released some music as digital downloads through international netlabels. The music has been covered by a Creative Commons licence – which means that I give up certain rights (ie. royalties) to make the music available. The licence is an Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Sounds simple, huh? I sign the licence and people can download for free, nobody pays, nobody receives payment. Except, uh-oh, I joined APRA, which protects copyright for New Zealand artists (eg. if a copyrighted track gets played on the radio, APRA ensures that any fees get to the artist). That seems like a good idea in case I release some copyrighted (as in not Creative Commons) music. Except that some of the music was released on a netlabel in a country where APRA’s equivalent asks for licence fees for members. Meaning that the label owner may have to pay them, who I presume would then pay APRA who would then pay me. Except that I’ve relinquished my rights to payment quite clearly. Apparently that doesn’t wash. The label owner can’t pay (of course not, s/he does this as a hobby, for the fun of it, not for money) so will have to take my music off the label. So here’s the craziness:

Because I belong to APRA, which protects the abuse of my music, my music is going to be unavailable.

Believe me, I think APRA do great work (which is why I joined). It’s too easy for artists’ work to be used for the benefit of others (eg. ambience in a cafe) without any reward for the artist. Many people depend on this kind of remuneration for their livelihood and APRA’s work, along with other agencies, is great in protecting that. But the irony here is that my work will become entirely unavailable because of APRA’s protection as it applies internationally.

While the netlabel scene is small time when related to the music industry as a whole, I feel sad that this little bit of New Zealand culture on the international stage is going to be hobbled by what is really a technicality.

It looks as if I will have to resign my APRA membership in order to make my music available in the future. Even then, it also seems that because of being an APRA member at the time the music was released it’s now going to be permanently unavailable through the netlabel.

mood: sad, disconsalate

Shifting sands

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

It seems there’s a shift going on here as my writing year expands faster than my soundscape year. While this has been a good year for Venus Vulture, I notice that the blog has become more focused on my fiction and writing – it has been my best year for writing by far too. And typing this post will push the most recent music post off the blog’s frontpage and make my header “ambient music yada yada” sit atop a bunch of posts about flash-fiction. That’s kind of weird, so I’ll be re-thinking a little. Should I have separate blogs for each? Next year’s secret project will have its own blog, and probably my focus will be on that anyway. Perhaps I’ll just change the header. If I can figure out how to do that – it must be possible since I put it in there in the first place ….

The goals progress

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Earlier this year I was really looking at my goals and what I wanted to achieve. I had this cocky idea of trying to publish 26 stories for the year – that’s one a fortnight. Crazy stuff. Especially considering in my entire publishing list up until the end of last year was a total of 17 stories – since the first in 1986. In the whole of the nineties I only published five (and one of those was a short poem). My best year until 2008 had seen three stories published, and in 2008 there were four. There have been a lot of years with none at all.

26 is pretty crazy. Anyway, I’ve published nine so far this year [will update the bibliography soon – but check posts below for more recent details], with two more coming out later in the year (okay, one of those is three poems, but I’m going to count that as a publishing credit). I’ve got another five submissions out in the world so I feel like I’m nearly halfway there, halfway through the year.

I’m stoked, really, this has been my best year ever, more than twice as many stories published as my previous best (2008) and more than in the whole of the eighties or the whole of the nineties or the whole of the rest of the 00s – very close to the whole of the eighties and nineties combined.

Admittedly I’ve found some friendly editors (thanks especially Aldo and Nathan), but I do think my writing is improving. I’ve just had some amazing feedback on a rejected story, from a very generous editor, that has thrown new light on my approach to writing and revising.

Next year’s goal will be even crazier – I’m planning to create a separate blog about that.