That process is so inherently stupid. Someone has to win in this situation. I'm guessing lawyers.

Between the artists, producers, and unions, no one was smart enough to come up with a way to keep making money by infinitely selling a virtual good?

This boggles the mind. Or, lawyers are to blame.

 

it might also that they are not getting paid enough from the itunes to justify selling it per their contract costs and revenue reimbursement....

Taylor swift just pulled all her portfolio of music off spotify due to not being paid adequately....

so it might be more indicative of a problem that publicly want to discuss/dispurse to the public consumer market.

 

It's weird rules and confusing contracts lIke this that drives people away from iTunes and to just pirate their music from torrent sites.

 

Or just buy the CD and not bother with any of this.

 

Nothing says I appreciate your hard work then illegally downloading it.

 

Later, the score will become one of the most pirated soundtracks in years, and they'll wonder why.

 

Because it is popular, it goes away. One would seem to think they could charge enough to make up for the fee. Certainly I am sure they didn't produce the scores for 1 and 2 at a loss. Also, those scores were dragged down by the quality of the accompanying soundtracks, which were awful, meaning they likely might have sold even more if they didn't waste their time thinking it is still 1996.

Someday we'll get some type of expensive box set. Only movie 2 got a full and proper score release which is sad considering almost every other "blockbuster" sees a full score release today. Just another middle finger at fans from Hasbro and the Producers. Can't even properly enjoy the one part of the movies I like.

 

Well, I guess this finally explains why the DOTM score was removed as well, and it had nothing to do with the plagiarism in It's Our Fight.  

Really sorry to see these scores disappear. I'm lucky enough to have bought both from iTunes early on, so I have no trouble re-downloading them on my devices - which brings up my point: the data is totally still there. Not sure just how expensive the post-15k licenses are, but if so many people are interested in the score, wouldn't that price be insignificant compared to the gains?

Heck, Mr. Jablonsky mentions 5k-10k score sales are considered great - that it broke 15k means it's really, really popular.


Ah well...I guess there are people working on it who know much better how this system works and have determined it's not worth it. Still sucks for those of you who wanted to get it, because of the ease and because you genuinely want to support artists.

First off, this has nothing to do with Hasbro. I don't even understand why you'd come to that conclusion - the Transformers movie licenses are being held by Paramount, the music is apparently Warner Bros. They do not need approval from Hasbro to put these tracks online for sale, nor does Hasbro determine it's too much money for them to be worth it.

Also, none of the movie scores have released a 'full score'. Movie 1 and ROTF's expanded scores do circle around the net (and I'm sore one day the DOTM and AOE ones will too), but they have not been offered as genuine products to buy.


I do agree that they're an enjoyable part of the movies. Even if you hate the movies, the scores rock.

 

didnt the afm screw over austin wintory and martin o'donnell too

seems to be less about protecting musicians and more about collecting fees to me

 

This might be the heart of the issue, actually. If 10k sales is "great" then it's unlikely that they'd get that much more; they're not going to renew the license fees* if all they're only getting is another thousand or two sales. It's a bit weird since this is major movie and the score's been selling so fast, but presumably they're confident it won't keep going to ~25-30k.

*evidently they went for a "$xx for each bulk of sales" type of payment rather than a "$x for each individual copy" royalty.

 

So to make sure these musicians get their fair share, they want fans to... pirate the soundtrack?

 

I found the DOTM expanded score some time ago, along with the expanded scores from Movie 1 and ROTF; in that time I didn't even knew they were supposed to exist.

 

While Steve's explanation states the reason why the score has been pulled, it also underlines how and why copyright as it exists is fundamentally broken.

That artists have created a thing, and that thing can be duplicated an infinite number of times without cost, and that thing becomes unsaleable because remuneration exceeds the costs of extending existing contracts is clearly not in the consuming public's best interest. Patrons of the arts are losing out here. Artists are losing out here. Distributors are losing out here. Everybody is losing out here, culturally and financially.

The system as it exists clearly is overly complicated. It seems that exceeding 15k copies incurs a lump sum payment for an additional block of copies. The rights-holds likely recognize they won't sell enough of the next block to justify that lump sum. So culture loses out. Instead there should be a per-unit extension; for each unit over the 15k base, a payment should be payed equal to the original negotiated payment divided by 15k. Clearly the industry tracks number of copies sold. So do the math. Sell some stuff.

But no. Instead they'll spend money combating piracy. Huh.

 

Thanks buddy!

 

I looked on lala land records and couldn't find any trace of the score...

 

Let's just blame Hasbro for everything that goes wrong. It was raining in Seattle... thanks Hasbro clearly you hate the Pacific Northwest.

 

Steve Jablonsky is so friendly and what a great response. give him a medal

 

Wow, more stupid American laws concerning music and the sale of music. Way to murder an already-haemorrhaging industry.


Hey, New Zealand, did you hear that? The US thought of some other stupid thing. You better copy this bad idea and make it worse, too. That's what you guys are good at, right?

 

Pretty much this.

I'm a full supporter of buying everything legit, I never pirate. Except in situations like this. I do the same thing with shows I like that aren't on DVD. It's like, I'd LIKE to give these people my money, I really would, but if there's no product available that makes it very very difficult.