CVGM.net - Chiptune, Retro & Video Game Music

In support of the ongoing SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) protests on Jan 18th, CVGM will go off the air for the day. Our streams will go dark, and our main pages will display information on how you can fight against SOPA.

SOPA is an act trying to pass through congress that will allow governments, movie studios and other IP holders to permanently block and remove content on the web that they deem to be a violation of their copyright, including music, movies and games. This allows shutdowns of legitimate websites and their subdomains without any provocation, or investigation. Many businesses, websites and services can be permanantly shut down for hosting even a simple picture of someone else's work (think of a news website showing a picture of a movie poster). This will affect more than just US based sites.

For more information on SOPA, you can read this great link Here.

Americans can read information at http://americancensorship.org/ to learn what they can do locally to prevent this law from passing.

Thanks for your support.

FishGuy876

go for it and good luck over there!

against SOPA

It's so dumb idea (SOPA, not protest) that it's hard to believe US want to shoot
its foot with that concept just to broaden stream of $$$ going into greedy
pockets of few fat assholes from movie/music industry.

\o, to the protest. And what about putting a simple placeholder note on the site
why it's down? I was also thinking about putting one song looped on a stream
with anti-SOPA jingle (if there is something like that - but since it is wide US issue,
then maybe someone already made something like that?).

Is it really just black and white?

I mean, as someone who is trying to get a songwriter-deal right now, I can't see just black and white. I understand your will for freedom etc.. but it's quite a fact that radios like cvgm do infringe copyright (IMO, I haven't checked legally) in the strict sense, but of course many authors don't mind whether this infringement is actually happening.

I also have to say that the music industry does NOT consist of just moguls with fat asses and pockets. I mean, a simple example: a songwriter gets a percentage of each time a CD is sold or each time it's played on the radio. Web-radios often didn't have to pay these fees, services like Spotify didn't pay until they made a deal with the copyright-organisations. With CD-sales declining massively, it's only logical that the songwriters get a lot less than in "the old days". Of course there's still massive amounts of money made in the top ranks, but don't just look at the top ranks, also look at the people further down in the food chain. It's like saying all bankers are making 5 million dollars on bonuses each year. Applies to a few that make the headlines, but not to the majority.

So if I'm a songwriter I'd be interested in my copyrights being protected. What exactly the conditions are in this whole SOPA bill I don't know so I'm talking halfway on my gut feeling only.

But when I look at the people who download games, movies and music for free from the net and then claim they have the right to do so, I have to say "no, guys, you don't".

But like I said, I've only read these forum posts for now and have no further background knowledge on this particular bill.

No, it's not. Internet is a huge pirate ship, no doubt. I am not going to deny. But I do not
like the way they want to fight with that. I do not like attitude of

"people, you do not obey, so we have to blind you"

Regarding CD sales are going down. It's time to face it. Internet changed our lives and will
change musicians' life too. So many talented people give their work for very little money
or just free. I am not going to buy web browser, email program or text editor anymore.
Well, in fact if I was not forced by company requirements I would not buy a compiler too.

The same for music. There is so much great free music I do not even listen to more than ~5 of
my old CDs. Even if I wanted to buy music much higher chances would have cheaper digital distribution and/or independent musicians than regular CD shops.

As for the fat asses. The law is not pushed by little fishes down the food chain. These
are f*sckin huge sharks behind that affair and I do not believe they do it for anything else
than love of $. Even though I know you are right. It hits mostly those down the chain.
As in every industry.

And finally, I am totally against ANY government activity that prevents people from protecting
their privacy with all means known to human mind and/or computer technology. And that's
what they want to make illegal under "child pr0n" banner.

And with radios copyright infringement - true, some game tracks here are copyrighted. But what
if it's just copyrighted with NO copies on the market and no ability to buy that? How much
requesting song each 10 days harms CD sales of the Dune game soundtrack that was sold
out decade ago and even Picq (composer) could not release on his own, because Virgin
showed him ?

I am really pissed off by the fact that most of the copyrighted material would be copyrighted
just for the sake of being copyrighted. I know it's commie theory and it's against the law. True.
It's just along reason.

Honestly speaking CVGM could remove ALL tracks that are available on the commercial market, even though I do not believe removing Katamari Damacy or Shadow of The Colossus changes
anything in the market for those titles when both albums are all around the net on the Rapidshare & co. as mp3.

Still that would be MINORITY of the material here. And if we wanted to remove all material someone
may says it's copyrighted (almost all game tracks I believe) we'd have to remove Speccy beeper tunes from the 1988 as well. And it does not make any sense to me. Would make more harm than help anybody. But that's what "fat asses" want. They do not care. I do.

I guess I partly agree. Some of the organizations that fight for this are also associations like ASCAP that protect the rights of around 800'000 songwriters. And that's mostly the ones further down the foodchain. But sure, I agree. It surely is a game of power as well.

I have one question though: Let's say you love a song, and downloaded it, and the person wants to make a living on music.. don't you think he/she should get some compensation for making something that you enjoy so much?

And copyright isn't just the right to sell CDs.. copyright also is covering if a company uses a song in a commercial or played on the radio . Companies sell product with your music, and radios sell advertising with the help of your music. So why should the composer not be compensated? Sure, what I think is wrong is that the composer should be allowed to give songs for free if he wants to.. and that's what the ASCAPs etc don't get yet.

but you already know most of that, I just wanted to say it anyway

I feel very small talking with you about music industry, as for me it's a lot more about
"feelings" without solid knowledge about how entertainment companies work. But

when I check the list of companies against and pro SOPA and I see:

Supporters:

Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Macmillan US, Viacom, Nike, L'Oréal, NBCUniversal, Pfizer, Ford Motor Company, Revlon, NBA.

and opposition:

Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Mozilla Corporation, Roblox, Reddit,[105] the Wikimedia Foundation, Reporters Without Borders,[107] the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the ACLU, and Human Rights Watch.

wikipedic lists

and I have too choose sides, I would go along services I identify with (at least more )

I know that SOPA wants a tool that can do a lot of good, but it's just too powerful.

I will answer the question, but have to contact you on OL first for some details.

i agree with you Goat. Maybe I should read the stuff in detail

It's never all black / white. Giving large the tool to shut down sites more or less at-will will of course make a dent in the pirating too (until they develop tech to go around that again), but that doesn't mean we should give them that.

First some videos, because we all love videos (no, they're not of cats):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBy7yooz3MM | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM

Some interesting fact : The actual text of the bill allow parties to send notifications to service providers (I've only read the money (visa, paypal, ad networks) part of it) and ask for a takedown. The service providers can choose to honor it, and if they do, they get immunity against lawsuits regarding that issue. This is btw outside of court.

I can easily see them more or less automatically honoring all requests from certain big, lawsuit-happy companies, and ignoring requests from Joe Random. I haven't read the whole legalize (my brain can only handle small amounts of that type of crazy at a time), but supposedly the same rules apply to things like search engine results, internet directories, and even domain names...

But, a lot of that uglyness can happen already now.. Just look at WikiLeaks, and what happened to their donations.. There are also some other ugly examples out there too...

While piracy is a problem, I don't think giving those guys more abuse-able power is the right thing to do.

Edit: Actual bill text