Engineer is giving my band information, IS IT THE TRUTH??

[Evil Jack]

Originally Posted by ThatOneGuyOverThere

We like what he has done with the EQ
We like what he has done with compression
We like some of the reverb & delays he has used.
We just want to work on the mixes, panning, add verb & delay in spots

Sounds pretty much like a standard recall to me...

[Bob Olhsson]

Lots of stuff about copyright getting mushed together here.

A sound recording is owned jointly by everybody who took part in making it unless there is an agreement to the contrary. This includes engineers, mixers, producers, programmers and everybody who performed in front of a microphone. It is also not necessarily a music recording.

Jointly means that nobody can do anything with the recording without having every joint owner's permission.

[BaileyBass]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Lots of stuff about copyright getting mushed together here.

A sound recording is owned jointly by everybody who took part in making it unless there is an agreement to the contrary. This includes engineers, mixers, producers, programmers and everybody who performed in front of a microphone. It is also not necessarily a music recording.

Jointly means that nobody can do anything with the recording without having every joint owner's permission.

Bob, with all due respect... a LOT of due respect. Everyone, unless they have a "points" arrangement (or other arrangement), is performing a "Work for Hire" which is clearly detailed in the Copyright Amendment. Either implied or by the signing of a release, which has happened occasionally to me. "you don't get paid till you sign this"
This is the stuff lawyers love to argue over, and run up billable hours. Kind of like what is going on here in this thread.
I would love to hear your experience, if it is contrary to this. And I actually agree with you in principle, but the courts have a very limited artistic perspective...
IF you agree on a fee to perform a service, and there is no other concrete agreement in place (points), then you are performing a Work for Hire. Even if you get stiffed on payment, you only got em for breach.
If you know a lawyer who has been able to convince a court otherwise, I want to put his # in my book. and thanks for all the great work you have done and are doing. SB

[deerock]

yeah, that's very odd what Bob said a couple of posts up there...and not true at all. Almost all of what he wrote...sorry Bob.

As for the fix to continue your mix - just get the guy to output mix stems if you like various parts of the mix that include the outboard gear.
So simple to do. Takes very little time.

I think he's protecting himself and wants to continue - or afraid that somebody else might do better as well. That's too bad.

The cool thing about Pro Tools, and with the plug-ins, etc. is that we can take mixes that others have done (which I'm often paid to fix other's mistakes) and open it up and continue and make it much better. Sometimes I have to step backwards because I might not have that odd plug-in that was included in the mix - but it's not that hard to recreate the mix again if you know what you are doing or have some experience.

Derek

[Bob Olhsson]

Copyright on the most basic level is about owning and controlling the distribution rights to a work. This has nothing at all to do with royalty contracts other than the obvious need for owning and controlling distribution in order to engage in such a contract. There was an attempt several years ago by the RIAA to change the law to imply that any commercially released recording is a work for hire. This only lasted a few months before an outcry from the creative community caused the RIAA to ask Congress to reverse it. (The reason they had asked for this change was that the defenders of internet piracy were claiming only an artist has the right to sue for copyright infringement of their recordings.)

An SR copyright on a mix would only be useful for stopping somebody from releasing it using an injunction however in most cases that threat of doing so would be enough to get somebody to pay their bill. I think people are confusing this with sound for picture which is generally considered work for hire.

[Howardk]

This is simply a question of what you get when you hire someone to Mix your project.

Sounds pretty much like a standard recall to me...

That is the point, mixing does not include providing a total recall of the mix for others to use by default, unless it is specified within the scope-of-work. To avoid confusion, a scope-of-work should be defined in advance, to avoid unexpected deliverables (extra work not budgeted for).

All the people I work with define 'Mixing' as providing a 2 track mix of the song in the requested format (typically Stereo 44k1 24bit). Anything else is extra, and should be specified/agreed to in advance otherwise there is no obligation.

There are 3 good reasons that people may prefer to not provide Recall (session files), as follows:
1) A good mix ruined by someone with bad ideas, and the original mixers name associated with the ruined mix.
2) Another mixer getting credit for the original mixer's work, when all they did is take out a BG Vocal in Chrs 1, add some subjective reverb to a tom hit etc. . . which the artist could have easily had the original mixer handle.
3) Another mixer using the original mixer's work as a template to complete a project. That is unfair use of the original mixer's efforts (cheating in my book, like signing up for a layout and production of a brochure, and then taking the layout sample to another print place for manufacturing, maybe to save a little money after the fact). Although I would agree to this in certain situations and quote accordingly, if it was part of the plan up-front.
4) If things really goes awry, the Artist can always take their original sessions (hopefully they kept a copy for safety), go somewhere else, and not pay the original mixer because they are dissatisfied with the work. . . and the issue can be handled thru legal recourse if the mixer believes he has been hard-done-by.

Further to the above, 1) most mixers prefer to start from scratch if the client is looking for something different, 2) it is easy to get the original mixer to make reasonable changes to satisfy 3) There are things that experienced/successful mixers just will not do, because there is integrity/pride, and a style to their work (but they are open to new ideas). Personally I have fired a client/artist before (early in the process) and I will do it again if they are: a) totally out-to-lunch and b) not willing to listen/learn. . . of course as a Mixer we need to listen/learn from our clients desires, which is paramount, but we do not have to let our good names get smeared by the odd idiot (few and far between mind you).

In short, people need to hire the right mixer that has a style, or breadth of style, they appreciate, and work with them to complete the project. If the Artist has a change of plans on how they want to complete things at the end of the project, it is no longer the same project and the rules change. . . reasonable people work things out, others make lawyers rich.

[peppertree]

To clarify some points about intellectual property (IANAL btw):

There are a few forms of IP relevant here.

1) Copyright
2) Patent
3) Trademark
4) Trade Secret

What most of you are talking about isn't copyright, it's #4, Trade Secret.

Mixing is about a PROCESS of taking given input and generating given output. This could be protected by Patent or Trade Secret protections. Patents would be hard to obtain here; you might invent something like putting an oscillator on a sidechain to make that Belgian dance throb effect and patent it, but most mixing processes would be invalidated by the "prior art" clause.

Still, you can argue that your specific mixing technique is a trade secret and that is what you are in fact saying. Copyright has nothing to do with it...you could, I guess, copyright your DAW session files and recall data, but that would be a total waste of time. Trade secrets are what you are arguing, and those are indeed protected even though they obviously aren't registered with the gov't like other IP's.

Trademarks refer to your brand...hiphoppers/R&Bers have recently taken to putting "tags" on their "beats" where they have some sexy or robotic voice say the name of their studio or producer at the start of a song. That would be a trademark and you could argue rights over where those trademarks are placed (i.e. on everything you make and nothing you didn't approve of, etc.).

But back to trade secrets; it's all negotiable, as stated, as to what you will yield or expect from a client. You can, as a mixer, sign a nondisclosure agreement covering your trade secrets, which would prevent what Kenny is worried about but still give the client recall capability of the ITB mix. You could put the recall data into an escrow service. There's tons of things you could do.

But more practically, the general gist to the OP here is that "real mixers" start from scratch (well, usually final edits are nice to have) and so the recall data is usually of little use. However, it's possible that a special effect was achieved at the earlier studio that people want to retain...for instance, a specific Filter Freak setting that is endemic to the production...and in those cases, a print of that effect or recall data is something the client should negotiate for with the earlier mixer.

"I never say no, I only quote a price..."

[Howardk]

Just thought of another scenario that might help some people get it:

Situation A
An artist hires me to mix their tour. I work with the band and monitor tech in advance to refine the stage gear and setup, select the mics/placement, get the rig and console(hopefully a venue) dialed in with my favorite plugins and mix the first show. After the show the Tour Manager says thanks, fantastic job, but sorry man, I (the tour manager) am going to mix the rest of the tour because we have to cut budget. I have just documented the complete setup, done CAD drawings for stage plot, setup the FOH using my experinece, and I have the show on my flash drive. Do I just hand it over to him? I don't think so, I was hired to mix the tour, not prep the show. There are rarely contracts of any sort in this world, but any reasonable Tour Manager/Band will float some extra cash to compensate for the extra prep work and last minute change to the commitment, and I would provide the info with understanding. Karma down the road would probably provide replacement work etc. . . However if I smelt a scam, I would walk away and leave the folks to their own devices.

Situation B
An artist hires me to rehearse and prep their show, supporting their junior engineer. I help get things worked out, providing training/support for the FOH fader monkey, work the first couple shows, and provide a complete info package to the FOH FM, Tour Manager and Production manager, and then consider the job complete.

These are 2 completely different projects, are defined as such at the start and would be priced accordingly. Changing gears in mid-stride, for whatever reason, does not mean automatic/default access to information/settings/documentation that was not already defined as a deliverable for the completed project. It is that simple.

"I never say no, I only quote a price..."

Exactly.

[Mark Dann]

I would like Digidesign to add an option in the "Save A Copy In..." dialog box. And that is the ability to save a session WITH ALL PLUGINS removed. I think there are situations where a lot of mixers would want to choose that option when handing sessions over. In those situations, that would save a lot of time.

[Bob Olhsson]

Not really a lot of time. Just option click on an insert and select none.