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diskonext
Joined: Aug 26, 2004 Posts: 306 Location: London, UK
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LoKi
Joined: Feb 11, 2005 Posts: 72 Location: Netherlands
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 8:34 am Post subject:
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Thanks!
@Kassen: I really dig the minimalist site! (by design or necessity?) _________________
Quote: | "I reject reality, and substitute my own." - Adam Savage |
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mosc
Site Admin
Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18197 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:53 am Post subject:
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This topic is going far and wide. I would have jumped in earlier but I was travelling and had to spend all of my time I could get on the internet trying to fix the server stalls we were seeing. Turns out our server is overloaded. We are in the process of getting more capacity. This is a good thing.
As for trademarks. My intension isn't so much as going after people to sue them, but to protect myself from being sued. There are people who look for fast rising business and they quickly trade mark the name. Then they sue the business for trademark violation. When I said we use the [tm] symbol on electro-music, it is for this primary purpose.
Now, if someone want to sue me, I have some basis of defense. It's not bad to trademark a name for the opposite purpose either. Say, Kassen, your music suddenly gets really popular and everyone wants the latest Kassen music. If you haven't trademarked the name, someone could put together some schlock and release the latest Kassen music and cash in on your name. They could also ruin your name but the association of the schlock. Artists should protect themselves from this.
A trademark doesn't have to have the [tm] symbol, or its derivatives. You can establish a trademark by using it in commerce. So, in some way your name is already trademarked, but the use of the symbols makes a stronger case for it.
I know of several cases where people have been sued and courts have disallowed them from using their own names. Take for instance, Bob Moog. For years, he couldn't use the name Moog in association with his instruments because CMI bought his business in the late 70's. When he started making Theremins when he moved to North Carolina, he had to call them Big Briar theremins, not Moog. He recently bought the trademark back. Now he can make Moogs again.
There is a lot of stuff of interest about trademarks. I'm not an attorney, but I think in these matters you can't be too careful. _________________ --Howard
my music and other stuff |
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LoKi
Joined: Feb 11, 2005 Posts: 72 Location: Netherlands
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:19 pm Post subject:
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mosc wrote: | This topic is going far and wide. |
Always nice to see one of my threads grow into a big discussion!
A few points have been raised here that lead me to more and more questions...
Like:
Should I or should I not...
...trademark my production alias(es)?
...join an artists' association/organisation?
...register my tracks somewhere?
...start writing [tm] after everything I consider to be pertinent to my music?
(please suffix all of the above with "...and WHY?")
_________________
Quote: | "I reject reality, and substitute my own." - Adam Savage |
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diskonext
Joined: Aug 26, 2004 Posts: 306 Location: London, UK
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:48 pm Post subject:
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But as Paul E. quoted:
Quote: | "We have an obligation to protect our trademark; otherwise we'd lose it, " said Monster Cable founder Noel Lee. |
Don't you have to be assholish about your trademark to have any chance of holding out in court? As in what Kassen said: know which fights to pick...
The matter is a complicated one though.
-diskonext _________________ :wq |
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Kassen
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Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 1:16 pm Post subject:
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That´s realy anoying. aparently a recent server insident cost me my #1 position for the search term "kassen" in google. Ah, well, it´ll be back soon enough.
Anyway, yeah, that´s my site, it´s also linked from my posts here. The tracks there are quite old my label boss doesn´t like it when I post new to be released stuff online which I suppose is fair since he´s the one running the financial risk and not me. The whole thing needs a update.
It´s my own design, sorta, it´s all hand coded html and relies on your browser for font and colour settings. This is intentional, I think it´s quite impratical to tell people what font and colour they should use to view sites. This style also has the advantage of rendering everywhere from amigas to the latest pentiums. Typically it´s the webdesigners that like it. Strange people, those :¬). There a re multiple professional website designers that would love to redo it for me but I hate the posibility of excluding a single visitor kind enough to grace me with his time over technical trivia. That means no frames, no tables, no nothing.
Mosc, if I inadvertedly get popular people will cash in on my name anyway. Currently there´s a Russian site that´s selling lots of small independant artists, including me, in mp3 format. Aparently that´s legal in Russia. Trademark wouldn´t help there. Either way, you seem to miss my point that this is a battle I have no intention of fighting. I doubt people could buy the trademark "Kassen", then challenge me without getting laughed out of court in the Netherlands (which has a different culture concerning trademarks then the U.S. does) but if they would I´d simply not contest it.
This is the third time I mention it but please look up the case of Underground Resistance v.s. Sony, A quick google gave me this which may serve as a quick introduction after which you may decide to learn more. It might also be worthwhile to look into the book "The letter U and the numeral2" written by Negative Land for another facinating look at "creative people v.s. people with money". That book comes with a nice cd of audio collage art. _________________ Kassen |
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Kassen
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Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
G2 patch files: 3
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 1:34 pm Post subject:
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LoKi wrote: |
A few points have been raised here that lead me to more and more questions...
Like:
Should I or should I not...
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You should write the best music you possibly can and get it to others in the way that feels most satisfying to you. You may elect to follow my stance, one a lot of professionals frown at (though they can´t answer any of the questions I invariably follow up with) so there must be downsides to it but the positive side is that a lot of things become a lot more simple and clear and topics that cause other people a lot of stress will be things you can smile about.
The war is over, we have lost. There is no real difference between artist organisations, SLSK users, Jetgroove and Sony, they´ll take your music if it´s good enough to be taken in their opinion, they may pay you if they deighn, if you accept you´ll be their acomplice, but people will in fact hear your music. It may not have your name on it anymore, somebody else will get paid more then you but your music will be heard.
I´d be delighted if Clearchannel would steal my festival. Chances are it´s not going to be making profits anyway and it costs a lot of time but we want a festifal. It´d be much better if they would put the work, time and risk in since we´d still have a festifal. _________________ Kassen |
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mosc
Site Admin
Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18197 Location: Durham, NC
Audio files: 212
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 4:21 pm Post subject:
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Kassen wrote: | "creative people v.s. people with money". |
This makes as much sense as religious people who say "Members or our group vs. evil people who are hated by God." You can have money and be creative, can't' you?
This phrase seems to equate money with evil - rather Calvanist I would think. I would think creative people would be the first to see through that. _________________ --Howard
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Kassen
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Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 5:03 pm Post subject:
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Let me rephrase that. I meant "creative people v.s. people who use money gained from the work of creative people in order to control other and in this process gain more money regardless of the creative works".
That should´ve been more clear.
I´m not talking about "good", "bad" or even "evil", I´m talking about effort and gains. I´m talking speciffically about the different kind of effort various people expend and the different things they might (desire to) gain from this. I´m adressing how various groups of people might get in conflict over this. I´m also explaining how I try to maximise my effort/gains ratio by concentrating on what I wish to gain as opposed to what the world in general wants to lure me into desirering, thereby minimising conflicts which in turn increases the amount of effort I can expend and thus my net gains.
Profit!
There is no good or bad there and if there´s any religion it´s not western. Admittedly both money and creativity are involved.
If that´s all you got from those texts I realy need to learn how to write clearly...... _________________ Kassen |
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LoKi
Joined: Feb 11, 2005 Posts: 72 Location: Netherlands
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 5:16 pm Post subject:
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Kassen wrote: |
There is no real difference between artist organisations, SLSK users, Jetgroove and Sony, they´ll take your music... |
I don't quite understand your reference to slsk users (I take it you are referring to Soulseek?)...
Could you explain further please? _________________
Quote: | "I reject reality, and substitute my own." - Adam Savage |
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mosc
Site Admin
Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18197 Location: Durham, NC
Audio files: 212
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 5:25 pm Post subject:
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Kassen wrote: | Let me rephrase that. I meant "creative people v.s. people who use money gained from the work of creative people in order to control other and in this process gain more money regardless of the creative works".
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Ahhh. That is a little bit different. Exploitation...
Quote: |
If that´s all you got from those texts I realy need to learn how to write clearly...... |
Or maybe I need to read more carefully. Seriously there's a great deal of what you say that I agree with. In fact, I don't disagree with much at all. Too bad this conversation happens to coincide with a lot of server debugging and a long drive this afternoon through an ice storm. I'm kinda _________________ --Howard
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LoKi
Joined: Feb 11, 2005 Posts: 72 Location: Netherlands
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 5:37 pm Post subject:
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Someone else, in another thread (I'm too lazy to go look for it) commented on yet someone else's post - saying they would make it their personal mantra...
I think I've found mine:
Kassen wrote: | (slightly edited)
I will maximise my effort/gains ratio by concentrating on what I wish to gain as opposed to what the world in general wants to lure me into desiring, thereby minimising conflicts which in turn will increase the amount of effort I can expend and thus my net gains. |
Now I just need to figure out how to remember it all _________________
Quote: | "I reject reality, and substitute my own." - Adam Savage |
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Kassen
Janitor
Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
G2 patch files: 3
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 5:54 pm Post subject:
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Point taken, Mosc. It goes a whole lot better combined with monitoring my latest changes to my track (gotta be carefull with that feedback, a change here will mess it up there) with the nice "auto notification" on.
with LoKi´s permission we´ll continue once both the electric and the snow storms lie down.
Oh, and LoKi, I´m not on messenger systems. Sorry. Please use that mantra with care. _________________ Kassen |
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elektro80
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Joined: Mar 25, 2003 Posts: 21959 Location: Norway
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Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 3:47 pm Post subject:
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I want to jump back to the initial post done by Loki. The repercussions of having artist orgs that are working in oredr to protect "our" rights is something we really should get back to. i would even suggest inviting representatives from various orhgs in order to get to the bottom of this. But, I suggest we start that discussion again in some other thread.
Yes, Loki.. this site does present you with music that is not mainstream. In essence we mostly have unpublished musicians here, and if they do release material it is on pretty non mainstream labels. Many even release their own music on their own labels.
Personally I am not completely convinced about the stuff here being 100% experimental. I have another take on this. This commuity as it is right now, represents an underground but also probably presents a better understanding of what "electronic music" ( whatever that is ) is right now in 2005 than any label can offer. I suggest that the music posted or linked to here is what is REALLY happening out there right now and we can then perhaps claim to be the true "mainstream".
Personally I prefer to see the concept of experimental music in a slightly bigger context, and right now we have no major movements going on that redefines music. We do however have a grand new tradition of using electronic instruments and tools and this tradition is maturing.
The music however, might still be perceived as experimental by the uninitiated, but that is a completely different issue altogether. _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
MySpace
SoundCloud
Flickr Last edited by elektro80 on Wed Feb 16, 2005 12:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
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paul e.
Joined: Sep 22, 2003 Posts: 1567 Location: toronto, canada
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Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:14 pm Post subject:
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well said.....excellent post..that should clear things up... _________________ Spiral Recordings |
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