DGM HQ Creative action by
09.42
DGM HQ.
Creative action by one enables creative action in another.
11.50 Making a connection to our experiences & experiencing in the past enables us to continue learning from them.
The street I…
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14.50 Today’s example-for-the-innocent as the how the music industry actually works, on a day-to-day & year-to-year basis…
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DGM Auditor > BMG / UMP Person:
Sent: 12 June 2008 22:27
Subject: RE: King Crimson
I enclose the report submitted to BMG.
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DGM Auditor > BMG / UMP Person:
Sent: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:46
Subject: RE: King Crimson
As you are aware David and I are still waiting for a response on the Robert Fripp BMG audit… there are still substantive audit claims that there has not been a response on and it is more than a year from when the report was rendered.
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RF > BMG / UMP Person:
Sent 21 Aug 2009
Subject: Re: King Crimson
i am not as numerate as any of you, but i calculate that the distance between june 2008 and august 2009 is approximately 14 months.
but i stand to be corrected.
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BMG / UMP Person > RF
Sent: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:34
Subject: Out of Office: King Crimson
I'm out of the office from Thursday 20th August until Tuesday 1st September inclusive. I'll get back to you on my return.
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RF > BMG / UMP Person:
Sent 21 Aug 2009
yes, but which year, please?
16.07 A discussion with Nicky Bookkeeper regarding the music industry. She finds it regretful that I loathe my professional life, and am hard pushed to find good memories from within 42 years of professional grief, 40 years of successful professional grief, and many years of Endless Grief.
My own regrets, however are greater even than Nicky’s; albeit ameliorated by a catalogue of music which, during the past 15 years, has increasingly been recognized.
But my feelings on the industry are beside the point, and mostly irrelevant. A young man, en route to university, had an instinctive sense that the life of a professional player would provide a better liberal education than any formal course of studies; and his sense of this was correct. The resulting liberal education has provided remarkable opportunities for directly experiencing heaven & hell, often in juxtaposition; standing face-to-face with Music; standing face-to-face with lying & theft, even by persons respected within the community & the professions, and many shades in between; knowing the benevolence of the Creative Impulse as freely available, without judgment & reservation & with acceptance, as we are ourselves available; and the endless frailties of human nature that blind us to the Gift available.
This education is priceless; the price has been high.
And with that short, onto today’s professional arising: Spotify. Nominally, Spotify acts within a rights-approved & legal framework. From their website…
We’re music lovers like everyone else.
We want to connect millions of people with their favorite songs by creating a product that people love to use. We respect creativity and believe in fairly compensating artists for their work. We’ve cleared the rights to use the music you’ll listen to in Spotify.
Wow! The rights are cleared & my cheque (honouring distributive justice + fairness = equity) is in the post.
From our DGM Distributor > Mr. Spotify Person…
Sent: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:03
Subject: Re: Stolen Content - King Crimson
Please be advised,
You are currently carrying two King Crimson tracks on your service - 'Catfood' & 'Groon'. I suspect they have been delivered by UMG.
I regard this as theft of copyrights owned by Robert Fripp & licensed to my company.
Please remove these tracks immediately & inform me as to how you plan to address your repeated theft of King Crimson copyrights.
For the final time, I have no interest in having King Crimson music featured on your parasitic service & if Universal, EMI or any other major record company delivers King Crimson tracks to you - they are delivering content that they know they do not control.
It is in effect stolen goods that you, in turn, are offering to the public.
From Mr. Spotify Person > DGM Distributor in reply…
Many thanks for your note. Not sure what happened here, but we'd love to be able to include your content in the service going forward, which should be of tremendous benefit to you as well.
As you may have seen, Spotify is really getting great press across Europe and the service should provide a great platform for you to reach new and old fans of KC.
Can we have a discussion as soon as possible about getting your content licensed alongside the hundreds of Indies already on board? Please feel free to call me any time on… I look forward to speaking with you very soon, after which I could send our contract proposal over.
(RF Interjection: a music lover does not refer to music as content).
My today-response: RF > Mr. Spotify Person…
this is to confirm that Panegyric acts on my behalf as copyright owner in the material under discussion.
(you write) “the service should provide a great platform for you to reach new and old fans of KC”.
it's certainly easier to make music available when the wider interests of the artists are not taken into account.
i have a responsibility to all the members of King Crimson to ensure that equity in distributed income prevails in our licensing arrangements. this means that i am unable to license any material whatsoever to you; with the significant exception that i become a large shareholder in your operation. in which case, the artists wouldn't have to be paid at all, would they?
so, please be informed: any king crimson content on your site at all is unauthorised & illegal; and you are formally notified of such by both Panegyric, as my agent, and myself, as rights owner / controller.
This is the wheeze: the copyright owner / controller supplies Spotify (and others) with a license to make their catalogue available in exchange for shares, perhaps bought for a minimal sum. Shareholding is not a record sale, therefore no accounting is necessary to artists, although artists may receive a nominal pittance. Meanwhile, Spotify shares rise in price,
17.35 E-flurrying drawing to a close. Enough. Shortly, home.
21.28 Bredonborough.
En route, a visit to Mr. Romain at Romain’s Emporium Of Antiquities, Wonder & Delight Arising in Wilton…
… and home. Hooray!
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