From their standpoint, the silly artist is setting this stuff out for free, so why not?
But the whole of the concept of copyrighting, really of the whole notion of an economy, is that one cannot steal the sweat from another's brow and profit from it. Pretty sure US copyright law states that the artifact is "copyrighted" the minute it is produced in "fixed form". Actually registering the work with the copyright office is a way to safeguard the copyright with an authoritative registrar, but the work is copyrighted upon it's conception and capture thereof.
If they successfully defend this legally it is an extremely slippery slope.
Let's explore: Art, in particular, is essentially worthless until some larger consensus attaches value to it. But, this dubious "service" provides that consensus.
Ah, we should be grateful, then. Robert's heretofore worthless offering. set out for free, is now assigned a valuation!
But how does he reap the reward? The industrious aggregator is burdened with their costs, which they undoubtedly barely recoup from their fees, seeing as all the files they must slurp, and only a fraction are sold no doubt: surely they have no pennies to spare him.
But, Robert on the other hand suffers a loss, because the now valued work is being downloaded, doesn't he lose on each download?
Well, then, he should get to write off these losses. He owes less taxes!! Yay, a victory for artists everywhere.
But, accounting-wise, the money is being siphoned off across borders into this extra-national service. If it were all in the same country, the difference in state revenue would be made up by this service paying taxes on their income, which of course we're sure they must do because they are so on the legal up and up,
OK, let's say that tax payment happens. But, to whom are they paying taxes? Russia, I guess. But Robert's tax write off is in Deutschland, ja?
So, in that case, seems like Russia should end up owing Germany some money. Also, to every other country that the "aggregator" ends up slurping up artwork from and selling. How can the nations of the world collect our due from Russia??
so yeh, back to nice bass sounds
GAFM ***
