Blake and AMM, you fucking people make me sick...

There's no one spends so many words praising their own work ethic and raising so many excuses at the same time who isn't completely full of shit.

Plus the mass of evidence, censorship and testimony is clear. Guy just isn't important enough for that volume of accusation and upset to be mere smear.

Nobody should ever cover Swans. EVER. And for fuck's sake, Arial Rounded is your font of choice in attempt at copying the classic Young God cover layout? Take a lethal overdose, already.

#YouFuckingPeopleMakeMeSick is my favorite. I like to think he never actually listened to that song prior to this series of incidents. So who will he get to sing the parts that were recorded by one of Gira's kids on the original? Should Blake be around kids?

Could you elaborate on how it got worse than it was?

I wonder if he got any kind of go ahead from M Gira for covering the songs and for making shitty rip offs of the artowrk. There are some good covers of Swans but this looks like a tragedy.

Michael Gira doesn't even sing in that song, the singer is Devendra Banhart which makes it even funnier. An actual foto of Devendra.

I'm sure the album gatefold inside will contain a haphazardly typed statement that they totally have written permissions from Gira stored in the AMM vaults, unlike the trolls at Metal Archives would let you believe.

Oh man, I'm sorry for your shitty experience, but your post made it all come back to me now

Once a package failed to arrive in like three-four weeks, and then Steffen wrote me saying it got sent back to them and didn't know why. Turns out he'd left out half of my address on the parcel, including the goddamn country it was supposed to reach...




BULLSEYE!!!

Ummm you dont have to have permission from a band to cover them....

Pretty sure you need permission if it infringes on copyright.

Interesting that they'd gravitate to such a 'dodgy' guy like Gira... not.

A cover song is not infringing on anyone's copyright. Just means the band can only get royalty on physical sales and not on publishing. Any band or artist can cover any other band/artist with impunity.

The cover of the EP might be. It depends on how Gira has copyrighted his cover/shirt designs.

That design has been used by many other bands. Pretty sure Gira has a lot of more important things to do, I know he signed bootleg Swans merch he saw at a fest in one of the merch stands so I doubt this upsets him that much.

This isn't the first Swans tribute either. https://chvrchdvstrecords.bandcamp.com/ ... e-to-swans

Another Swans influenced cover (the interludes of the album too).



https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.co ... lion-hymns

Metal bands have been using copyrighted material for decades too, it's not a big deal unless you get really big which I doubt is the case.

The band covering still needs permission, because the actual song writing is copyrighted as well.

There's a big difference between those two covers. Nachtmystium is blatantly copying the Young God Records style, and copies imagery from "The Great Annihilator" and "Various Failures."

Man's Gin uses...the same location for their text?

Like I said previously, it depends on how Gira has trademarked his album art / designs.

Look, stop making us defend anything that Blake has done...

Gira could not trademark HOW his art is reinterpreted. If you have examples of similar cases where someone sued someone because "this is like the one I did..." then please share because I can't see anything in this that would be open to litigation. If you can't sue this clown for bootlegging records without permission, then it's probably not possible to sue someone because they are using art influenced by other art.

Boy, am I excited for Judas Iscariot Deluxe Bootleg Release Day that is still scheduled for tomorrow! Looking forward to all those 'lost' packages and damaged goods! And I'm willing to bet the Internet will explode due to the fallout that will inevitably ensue after buyers realize they got scammed after receiving substandard quality products with burn marks and scratches all over!

They'll pull something along the lines of "we realised the quality isn't up to our standards so we decided to pull them back and have a new batch made in better quality, please send more money so we can not deliver what was promised again" next.

This will throw more confusion over the matter, buy them time, give them an excuse for the sub-standard quality, and provide them an avenue to generate even more revenue on something they were paid for but still haven't delivered, and most importantly, provide them with another scapegoat to throw under a train, so they can continue scamming people.

First: "Trademarks may include original artistic designs which are subject to copyright protection."

Second: I didn't say he would be sued. I said it was a possibility, if the other parties were interested.

Third: The Swans' covers include original art from Deryk Thomas. Nachtmystium's cover lifts designs from original art. That would fall under a trademark or copyright violation, depending on how Thomas/Gira handled their art/designs.

Fourth: This is probably the smallest infraction he's committed. I'm surprised he hasn't been hit with a fraud charge.



Further reading for those of you who need it:

https://www.calawyersforthearts.org/art ... twork.html

http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/are-a ... improperly

https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/05 ... copyright/

So I just read this on NWN:





I guess a new run of BlakeCrush shirts is in the works..

"I lent credibility to a well known scammer and junkie, got played AGAIN and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!"

One can only laugh.

I'd buy one!



Fucking shocking, I tell you!
So I guess threads about AMM are not verboten anymore when it's the landlord doing the bitching? How sweet.

^ That was the first thing I noticed. I won't rule out that that thread ends up getting the YK treatment after all if things get out of hand, but no, I definitely didn't expect him to A. leave the thread unlocked and B. to even address his own problems with Blake on top of that. If he went all 'Death to Blake! Do not trust this parasite of the underground! We are now looking into taking this rat to court!' over, what, not getting three hundred bucks worth of merch a couple of years ago I for one am really, really curious how this pans out, because there's no doubt in my mind that Blake will never be able to deliver hundreds and hundreds of records as well as what must be at least a several thousand dollar investment YK put in for that cancelled Heaven In Flames bootleg anytime soon, though.

Guess he used that money to fund more pre-orders but he didn't expect basically everyone to put in PayPal claims. Maybe Blake is able to find some dollar bills next time his boss tells him to mop the vaults of the AMM business vaults, though!

And of course, no one reacts accordingly. Just the usual (paid?) sycophants expressing their sympathy to YK. It's sickening, actually.

surprised amm wasnt celebrating the 9/11 release date

Well, cannot be called a "celebration" exactly, but it can certainly offer us some pleasure as we read this:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnpJmSDhUom ... mentsmedia

Wow. I'm sure PayPal would be very interested to hear that they are actively punishing their fans who file legitimate disputes.

So they pressed 500 instead of 250, judging by the back of the sleeve?

Notwithstanding their constant fuck-ups, I cannot fathom the audacity this "label" has throwing random stuff ("amazing goodies for all you who didn't file paypal claims", wow!) inside an order that the buyer didn't ask for. Mind you, I'd rather have the product I originally paid for and not having someone else decide for me what will be included in my order.

If someone sent me a different item without asking me first I'd be genuinely pissed off and asking for a refund unless they send the correct one - and I'm talking about legitimate labels/distros that may have run out of stock here. Getting sent a broken test press? Par for the course for AMM. By now anyone whose IQ reaches beyond a single digit knows that no buffoonery is too low for those shitstains.

Incorrect.

Copyright protects several different facets of an artist's intellectual property, including: the right to reproduce the song through physical or digital copies; the right to control the production of other works derived from the song; the right to distribute copies; and, the right to control public performances. Both recorded versions of cover songs and live performances of cover songs potentially violate copyright.

You are wrong about that and Bingewolf is correct. Anyone can cover any song without needing a single word of written permission--live or recorded; the PRO that the original rights holders are signed up with simply collect royalties on behalf of their artists.

Source; I am a professional musician with over 10 years of industry experience as well as being part of multiple international music publishing libraries and a member of BMI, and have several works that fall under the spectrum of being derivative or covers. This is literally exactly how it works.

Yes, there are institutions worldwide that deal exclusively with this whole royalties business.

I am not sure, but I think an artist can sue someone who "perverts" the original message of the song, for example German RAC band Stahlgewitter covered Anarcho-Punk band Zusamm-Rottung's "Germania" but changed the lyrics into the opposite political meaning. In any case, it would be very difficult to prove legally and I don't know a single case where this would have been taken to court.

Maybe Weird Al Yankovic knows more about that?

Again, incorrect. You are looking at the issue from the practical side: so long as royalties are paid, the rights-holder impliedly acquiesces in the cover song, assuming that royalties are sufficient. But the law is much more protective of the rights-holder's interests. For instance, look at the controversy over "Bittersweet Symphony", where the Verve obtained a license to use part of a Rolling Stones track. Even though they had a contract and had paid money, the Verve got sued by the rights holders, with the demand that they disgorge ill-gotten gains. The Verve ended up relinquishing all of their royalties to their song. Or, witness Steven Tyler demanding that the Trump campaign stop playing "Livin on the Edge" at the campaign rallies. The bottom line is that the rights-holder remains in complete control of how their work can be used. If Metallica wanted to cover "Peace Sells" and Dave Mustaine said piss up a rope, he would have the final say.

Source: I am a lawyer with over 20 years of experience.

Again, incorrect. I am looking at the issue from the reality side. You literally never need permission to record or play a cover song under any circumstance, the cases you're referring to have absolutely zero to do with this aspect of music business law and instead cites other outlying issues. Also, you should know that sampling recorded audio is quite literally not even the same thing as creating a derivative work based on musical composition--looking at your Verve example here.

Where's your ASCAP or BMI checks?

Again, so long as royalties are paid, the cover is impliedly authorized, based on the structure that the industry has put in place. So, you are correct, that prior written permission is generally not necessary. But that is not the same thing as the rights-holder losing any say over who may use their work. If the rights holder objects to a particular artist using their work, they can absolutely stop it, because they retain the say.

Read the complaint that Jake Holmes filed against Led Zeppelin in his suit over "Stairway to Heaven." Specifically, paragraphs 174, 179, and 184. He basically said that Zeppelin covered the song "Taurus" by Spirit. In each cause of action, he alleged that Zeppelin used the song with authorization or permission. He alleged that because lack of authorization is a necessary element of the claim, which the law requires.

We've digressed far enough, so I won't be responding anymore.

Allegations are not convictions. I can allege anything I want in court and that won't make it true, as a lawyer you should know that.

And yes, I am 100% correct in my original (and ONLY) statement in this thread, that one literally never requires any sort of permission to cover a song in recorded or live format.