Spud wrote:Sweeping generalizations are ALWAYS bad.
Spud is funny.
Yeah, Songfight admins definitely don't want to sign up to give permission or not for anyone to do anything with people's posted music. Bjam, problem with podcasters looking up people on the forum is so many people post under different names from their bandname.
-bill
songfight isn't a public service or a state program or anything else.
If it was just some site, run by some guy neither of us know anything about... say, a site that you could submit mp3s to, and then they were posted and people could review them. just a big list of mp3s, updated every so often. if you send songs there, you're just taking a gamble and sending this song in at your own risk. because you don't know that guy. maybe he doesn't have a FAQ or rules posted at all.
if you want to do a radio show or make personal mix CDs or put tracks up on podcasts that's at your own risk. email addresses aren't posted on the site, so if you can't get ahold of somebody through google or the message board and you want to play their song then you do it at your risk.
in more than 99% of the cases I expect people would have no problem with noncommercial use, and probably even use on commercial radio. This isn't a good extrapolation to make, but I do make it and extrapolate from somebody having sent their song in to SongFight that they don't mind noncommercial use.
I haven't asked anybody if they're cool with me playing their songs on my radio show. it's from 2-6 A.M. and we have a <10-mile broadcast radius. Glenn, Spud, Blue and others have said thanks for playing their stuff on my show (a show with, I am confident, less than one hundred listeners, and probably significantly less). A small minority of artists have profiles in the SongFight Archive, and if an artist isn't contactable through there or the message board or Google, one has no way of getting in touch with them. So if Kissing Contest, or Piltdown, or Mother Funker, one day sue me for unlicensed reproduction and broadcasting of their songs, they could. But they'd probably settle.
"It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards." Søren Kierkegaard
I think the FAQ is perfectly worded to make people think long and hard about sending their music to someone and expecting those people to put it up on their website. It should be scary, not accomodating. "Feeling regret over letting us pimp your songs for free? Sucked at the tit of songfight until it has nothing left to offer you? Let us know and we will consider taking your songs down, because after all, you are a special and unique snowflake!"
Caveat roxxor; let the rocker beware. If one is concerned about the fact that their music will be made available for free, then they shouldn't be sending it in to songfight, because that's the whole point of songfight. If you don't want to distribute your music that way, no one is going to force you. But if you decide that this is a good way to get your music out there, then don't go crying to your momma when you later on change your mind about the decision.