Statement from Ricky regarding Sony's action against Circuslights.com

[Derek]

This is a statement from Ricky regarding the recent action taken by Sony with regard to Circuslights.com:

The news that Sony Music have put a gagging order over Circus Lights website is sad and entirely predictable. Sony and other music giants have very little idea which way the music business will turn next. Their clumsy attempts at embracing new technology are laughable. Had they tried to understand the www when it first dawned the music business would be in a much healthier state today. It's the story of capitalism: Over-paid executives make series of bad decisions and ordinary people suffer. No surprise really.

For what it's worth I've asked my management to take issue with them and point out that they are making a big mistake. How many times that has been said to them in the past I can only guess!!

Ricky Ross

[Angel]

Well,

I am sure that I am talking in name of many people saying THANKS to Ricky for his words.

Sony is a huge monster with 0% of understanding and human being. It is sad than even the songwriter-artist -but-not-owner ... only can do this.

I imagine the situation of the songwriters when you GIVE your brand new created songs to people (record company) that ONLY want to earn money.

There is an spanish artist called Quique Gonzalez that just broke with Universal Records months ago and he is beginning a new career being at the same time songwriter, performer, distributor, agent and bussines man .... and his new album (his 3th one and first in his own label) is out here since last monday and it is becomeing number one in all the record shops where is being selling .. just getting publicity from his webpage and music magazines.

So ... another world in THIS WORLD is still possible.

All the best from Madrid (Spain),

Angel.

[My Friend David]

Great to hear Ricky's view on this: I agree with Angel, in that it's really sad that Sony can do this without Rickys consent.... that's record contracts for you......

On a positive note, just downloaded the Jazz Cafe gig: big thanks for this: I've wanted a good quality recording of one of Rickys solo gigs since the firstone in King Tuts all that time ago!

[My Friend David]

Sorry for double posting, but it just occured to me: would Sony have the audacity to try the same thing with some of the downloads on Ricky's OWN site???

The whole thing just takes away the "fun" from music: especially with artists like Ricky, who has always had a good relationship with his fans.

I guess that's what the corporations do: ruin the fun and take the money......

I'll be quiet on the topic now....

[HD]

I don't understand Sony's action at all, so perhaps someone can explain for me...

Are ALL DB and RR songs tied to Sony in some way? Did their contract give them rights to everything RR wrote whilst under CBS, but also to anything he might write in the future?

I didn't think any of Ricky's solo albums or 'Homesick ' were published or distributed by Sony, so how can they have control over songs written for those albums?

Or perhaps it was just easier for Steve to remove all MP3s rather than just pick out the Sony ones and leave the rest??

Any help in understanding how this all works would be much appreciated

Thanks
Helen

[steve]

The letter from the BPI said that Sony had complained to them - and that Sony held the copyright to anything Deacon Blue had done while they were under contract to them. (Which is everything from 1986-1996, plus the Walking Back Home tour from 99, and the second tour in 2001.)

I could have deleted all the MP3s that came from tours that Sony were involved in - but that would have left me open for further discussions.

And I was given 24 hours to comply before they instructed lawyers, and contacted my ISP. (And my ISP would have just deleted my website, with zero discussion.)

If I ever get told what is not going to cause problems, then I'll put some of the files back... until then I'll just leave the setlists up.

[HD]

OK, thanks Steve. Now I understand....

Cheers.
Helen

[My Friend David]

Some "jobsworth" at SOny (sorry guys: UK term..lol) must've been really bored the day they decided to pen THAT letter....

[crazybeats]

Let's get some gigs back up now.

Ram Sony.

[granitecityanorak]

Arguably Steve at Circus Lights and Neil at Glasgow Skyline have spent more time, imagination and effort promoting Deacon Blue and Ricky Ross's music than Sony have done since the release of Our Town! I could understand Sony's position if both sites were streaming Sony's official DB recording or making them available as free downloads or if the material was likely to mean people would buy stuff from circuslights instead of Sony... but hey we are talking about recordings that Sony HAVE NO INTEREST in EVER releasing: old live in concert radio broadcasts, fans' audience recordings, and the band's own soundboard recordings!

Circus Lights and Glasgow Skyline have both done more to advertise new Deacon Blue releases on Sony than Sony's own website has!

If Sony want to deny DB fans the chance to listen to old gigs, demos online then they should do the decent thing by the fans and release a nice box set of great live recordings of DB in concert and doing radio sessions and recording demos and alternate takes for their album sessions... but since that ain't ever gonna happen please leave Steve alone!!!

Since DB reformed in 1999 Sony have financed the recording of 7 new tracks: 3 for Walking Back Home (poorly promoted compilation album), 4 songs for Singles (3 got released on the CD), released 1 DVD The Bigger Picture, and issued 2 further 'best of' 2 CD sets (The Very Best Of... and Dignity) both of which were a) superfluous due to the availability of Our Town and Singles already and b) poorly advertised. The one highlight in this period of Sony guffness towards the band and fans was the remastering of Raintown (poorly advertised again!) and remastering of tracks for Singles.

Here's hoping DB make all future releases free of any Sony involvement!

[steve]

The incident with Sony was almost seven years ago now.

Four years ago, Sony approached me, and asked me to stream "Bigger Than Dynamite" as part of the promotion for the Singles album.

Shortly after that, they did give me permission to stream live recordings of gigs, which is why I started to put up some Real Media streams.

The problem was, the band then made a deal for all of the 2006 gigs to be recorded by ConcertLive, which meant they was no new material available, and the older gigs required several hours of work to convert to streams.

When I go to a gig, I do try to get a recording, and if I think it's good enough, I do convert it for use on the site.

I might do a few older gigs at some point in the future - but with major changes in my professional and personal life over the last four years, I really don't have a lot of spare time to go digging through boxes of old minidisc recordings! (We moved house two years ago, and the bootleg collection is still in the moving crate - and I'd packed it a good year before the move.)

What I do know is I've got much more picky in terms of the audio quality for the site - when I started most people had slow dialup connections and small MP3 files didn't need great source material - now people expect far higher quality than most of the bootlegs will provide.

Finally I should say, for the past 4-5 years, Sony, P3 Music and Cooking Vinyl have all been very supportive of the site.

[granitecityanorak]

Steve I replied thinking that Ricky's statement was recent, and then saw after i posted that it, and most of teh other posts on the thread were from 2003, and only crazybeats post was from 2010.

Glad Sony did become more supportive in the end.

[Neil]

Bizarrely when Steve received that request from Sony, I didn't hear anything. I had over 100 songs available for download and they left me alone.

The only time I ever got asked to take anything down, was when I put up bootlegs of the 3 tracks from Singles, (One about Lonliness, Bigger Than Dynamite and Haunted).

I too received nothing but positive support from all those involved, sending me free copies of the CD's, DVD's. Press releases, photos etc.

I'm in a similar position to Steve, changes in life, moved home, recordings in boxes in storage. But I found the lack of new material, lack of anything to really say anymore the major factor in deciding to put Glasgow Skyline on Ice.

I love what Glasgow Skyline was in it's day, and I had a real blast doing it, and met some great people. I still renew the lease on the site every year and I think one day I'd like to work on it again.

Neil

[craig75]

Hi Neil

Glasgow Skyline was and remains a wonderful source of DB/RR info, it was always my first port of call each day on the web. If you can revive it at some point I, and I'm sure many others, will be delighted. Thanks for all the hard work you've put in to it over the years.

Cheers

Craig

[Angel]

Steve / Neil,

Just one simple word: THANKS!

Life have changed for everyone in the last 5-7 years (our previous life seems to be all packed in boxes, isn't it?)



Hope 2011 could be a good year to relaunch both sites: "Glasgow Skyline" and "Circus Lights"!

Rafita .... and what about "The Very Thing"

Cheers from sunny Spain,

Angel.