Sweet's Andy Scott learns an expensive lesson

rahock · June 13, 2012, 05:12:01 AM

Quote from: nofi on June 11, 2012, 08:58:51 AM
that's what happens when you wear tight leathers, not enough blood flow to the brain.

That's why I had to give it up. Spandex too. It was starting to cause drain bamage

Rick

uwe · June 13, 2012, 06:49:25 AM

Save for the LP version of Love is like Oxygen with its extended Mike Oldfield middle part, this is my favorite Sweet track. Sort of their Kashmir.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5oKFRsrAog&feature=related

Big_Stu · June 17, 2012, 03:27:17 PM

Statement From Andy

"The end result according to the final Court of Appeal is that copyright and intellectual property protection in Austria is far short of what it should be."
So said our Austrian lawyer after the final appeal was lost, all I could manage was "You win some, you lose some".

Question - Why would anyone sue a true fan for selling one CD on the internet? No I'm not looking for the answer because the question is rhetorical. The CD is a rough recording of the original hits by an unknown cover band but has info and photos on the sleeve to lead you to believe it is the Sweet. Nobody is disputing that the CD is an illegal item with several judgements against it in other parts of Europe but for this case to be judged on the rights of an individual to sell the item rather than the illegality or not of the item has tested the boundaries of what is right and what is wrong. I know where I stand but the world as we know it is changing so fast that it seems there is very little protection for any artistic copyright any more, certainly in Austria.
Where does that leave us? Well most music is available for free on the net should you have the wherewithal to search it out. Very soon the only place where you will be able to buy a physical disc/CD that is not a fake is from the artists own website or at a show.

We have Trade Marks and the good name of Sweet to protect [with the lawyers supposed know-how] and during the past 10 years have tried to keep the internet free of rogue CDs and the like. All of this is done with one aim - Quality. This latest judgement will not change our endeavours but we will all have to be vigilant in the future. I may not be i-Tunes' biggest fan but at least you get to "demo" the tracks so you could do worse.

In the end this judgement will not change much. It might have a few luxury goods manufacturers, watches, clothing etc, looking over their shoulders for the "fakes" on-line but generally if the law is not seen to protect then the future for all creativity is not good.

It is a funny old world - one week we're raising a substantial amount at the "Rock Against Cancer"* concert and the press showed little interest then a couple of weeks later we're seen to be losing a substantial amount in a court case in Austria and the press are all over it. This is obviously the new "Feelgood Factor" in the media everyone is talking about.

*(Andy organised it in his home village along with Queen's Brian May. It was featured on Planet Rock, but little else anywhere - it raised, IIRC, in excess of £50,000)

Dave W · June 17, 2012, 08:10:46 PM

He's utterly clueless.

If what he says about the CD is true, that it's a cover band posing as Sweet, then his recourse is against the cover band and other people and companies that put out the "rogue" CD. Once it's sold, he has no recourse against anyone who bought the CD and is trying to resell it. The seller of a used CD is not violating the band's copyrights or trademarks. This has already been decided by the courts.

Big_Stu · June 18, 2012, 02:02:10 AM

It doesn't stop Rickenbacker going after both the maker and the individual seller. You seen what happens to an individual trying to sell a Rick copy?
They do that successfully because they go after any & all that they're aware of and don't let go.
YVMV.

Dave W · June 18, 2012, 08:38:51 AM

Quote from: Big_Stu on June 18, 2012, 02:02:10 AM
It doesn't stop Rickenbacker going after both the maker and the individual seller. You seen what happens to an individual trying to sell a Rick copy?
They do that successfully because they go after any & all that they're aware of and don't let go.
YVMV.

They're trademark bullies. They can't legally stop a resale transaction and they know very well they would lose if anyone took them to court. But they also know that it typically takes over a million dollars to fight an infringement lawsuit in today's world. What seller is going to do that? So they just abuse their privileges on eBay by falsely swearing that a perfectly legal resale violates their trademark. eBay complies and the seller doesn't have any realistic way to fight it.

drbassman · June 18, 2012, 09:02:05 AM

I listened to most of stuff posted. Not particularly good IMHO.

Big_Stu · June 18, 2012, 10:20:01 AM

Quote from: Dave W on June 18, 2012, 08:38:51 AM
They're trademark bullies.

Exactly, though I can see their point a little. But this makes Andy Scott either an idiot for going after the little man (in this case the seller had a history of selling on bootlegs - it's not as transparent as the newspapers have claimed) or a bully, bit of a no-win situation.
He does go after the makers too - when they can be found, but many of them are long after the event - in the same way as most Rick clones are 70's copies rather than the "styled after" copies of today.
As you say, Rick have a bit more financial clout than a 70's star.

gweimer · June 19, 2012, 06:24:13 AM

There are other ways of stopping, or at least disrupting, sellers of bootlegs. I once reported an Ebay seller for selling illegal live bootlegs of a King Crimson concert. This guy was selling CDs of a 4 day old concert and no artwork. I reported to Ebay that there was no logical way anyone could be selling a legitimate product that quickly, and the lack of artwork earmarked the CD as unauthorized. I believe they removed the seller, but I would bet he opened a new account not long after that and was back in business. Still, it was an easy thing to do, and didn't cost me a cent.

uwe · June 19, 2012, 09:29:16 AM

Live boots are a different thing though. Realistically, they do not harm an artist's regular output, because you can be sure that anybody mad enough to buy a King Crimson live boot has everything regular from King Crimson several times over already. As I do with Deep Purple. The only real argument against the live boots is that as an artist I want to have control about what I release as live work or not, but perfectionist as Herr Fripp might be, he's been at it long enough that even a bad King Crimson night (by his standards) will still sound decent.

Lots of bands have discovered the live gig recordings market of diehard fans and cater to them by releasing soundboard recordings to their concert goers immediately after the show. This is what King Crimson ought to do.

Uwe (owner of a couple of hundred DP boots, yet also of at least 20 versions each of their regular output, I've made them wealthy!!!

)

gweimer · June 19, 2012, 11:06:02 AM

Quote from: uwe on June 19, 2012, 09:29:16 AM

Lots of bands have discovered the live gig recordings market of diehard fans and cater to them by releasing soundboard recordings to their concert goers immediately after the show. This is what King Crimson ought to do.

They have been, in retrospect. A number of years back, DGM started the Collector's Club, a limited run of various live recordings. So, I managed to get such shows as The Beat Club 1982, or Live in Jacksonville from 1972. They also sold a live CD titled Level Five just prior to the studio release of The Power To Believe, containing live and working versions of the eventual studio songs. And, lastly, an old vinyl boot, Un Reve Sans Consequence, was eventually purchased, remixed and officially released as The Night Watch.