D.R.M.–R.I.P.
The announcement that Apple is eliminating digital rights management controls from its I Tunes service is the final nail in the coffin of technology based solutions to piracy. Every time Apple or Microsoft would roll out a new DRM solution, it would take the hackers in Moscow about 20 hours to crack it and publish the hack. The belief on the part of both the RIAA and the MPAA that some technological magic bullet would be discovered was always a pipe dream.
In contrast to the parlous state of the CD business, the music publishing business is flourishing as never before, because of one simple difference–the mechanical license. Every time you go into a bar or a Gap store that is playing music, they are paying a fee to ASCAP or BMI for that privilege and the songwriter is getting paid. They do a monthly sample on a small percentage of the retail, radio, elevator, Internet and other outlets and divvy up the money. It works.
For the last 16 months I have been quietly suggesting to U.S. Trade representatives that the only solution to the real IP theft problem is some similar content license fee on worldwide broadband service. Assume that some international body like UNESCO was collecting $3 per month per subscriber from AT&T and China Netcom and every other provider. By my calculations that would come to about $1.5 billion a month to be doled out to copyright holders. Needless to say, if you counted in the cellphones running broadband, that figure would double and continue to grow as broadband spreads. Perhaps video downloads might get slightly more than audio, but it would not be hard to sample the world’s networks to see how to divvy up the funds. Companies like Big Champagne already do this.
Piracy is not a trivial issue. I can tell you that no one gets any home video revenue out of Asia or South America, even though millions of DVD players are sold there. We need to accept the reality of online file sharing and stop pretending there is some magic box DRM fix to this problem. Apple’s decision is at least a reality check.
Cory fails to see the silver lining…
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/06/apple-dropping-drm-f.html
Cory fails to see the silver lining…
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/06/apple-dropping-drm-f.html
I get the reality check and I understand the DRM issues. Some of us have known it wouldn’t work. On the other hand, it is the accounting that worries me. I am fully aware of how the playlists can be jiggered in radio and are to keep independents from benefitting and to keep the big dollars flowing into the right pockets. So do I trust BMI and ASCAP? Hell no. Do we need them? Something like them at least.
It’s a good idea, Jon. The Devil is where he usually is: in the numbers and the shreddin’ of the ‘natch.
I get the reality check and I understand the DRM issues. Some of us have known it wouldn’t work. On the other hand, it is the accounting that worries me. I am fully aware of how the playlists can be jiggered in radio and are to keep independents from benefitting and to keep the big dollars flowing into the right pockets. So do I trust BMI and ASCAP? Hell no. Do we need them? Something like them at least.
It’s a good idea, Jon. The Devil is where he usually is: in the numbers and the shreddin’ of the ‘natch.
This makes so much sense. Maybe too much.
But the reality is that not creating and legislating some model to compensate creatives for their work on the web will simply repeat the corporate low-brow/high-budget marketing model.
One key is to make the rate low enough that everyone will buy in: people that afford high-speed Internet can afford a low monthly rate in exchange for, um, all media ever created. The fee should be low enough that if users don’t pony up, they really deserve to be sued.
In music, groups like ASCAP and BMI have always paid royalties to artists for public performance (or at least purported to) … and if digital technology is good at anything, it’s counting.
So essentially, royalties from the pie could be directly correlated to user data: that is, users pay a fee; robot counts how many times someone checked out a song/video/picture/book; divides all uses by the amount of revenue and pays the creatives.
Finally, it’s pretty clear that this is a legislative issue, maybe one that could be folded into international net neutrality initiatives. One look at the history of the entertainment business — or the current state of American business in general — confirms that we cannot expect self-policing from The Man.
This makes so much sense. Maybe too much.
But the reality is that not creating and legislating some model to compensate creatives for their work on the web will simply repeat the corporate low-brow/high-budget marketing model.
One key is to make the rate low enough that everyone will buy in: people that afford high-speed Internet can afford a low monthly rate in exchange for, um, all media ever created. The fee should be low enough that if users don’t pony up, they really deserve to be sued.
In music, groups like ASCAP and BMI have always paid royalties to artists for public performance (or at least purported to) … and if digital technology is good at anything, it’s counting.
So essentially, royalties from the pie could be directly correlated to user data: that is, users pay a fee; robot counts how many times someone checked out a song/video/picture/book; divides all uses by the amount of revenue and pays the creatives.
Finally, it’s pretty clear that this is a legislative issue, maybe one that could be folded into international net neutrality initiatives. One look at the history of the entertainment business — or the current state of American business in general — confirms that we cannot expect self-policing from The Man.
As long as the money goes to the artist, I don’t mind. But from what I have seen, most of the money goes to paying the middleman parasites instead of the artist or the musicians.
As for iTunes getting rid of the DRM crap, for me to upgrade all of my albums that I have purchased, it would cost $44. Since I only listen to them on my iPod, it’s not a big thing to me if the DRM is there.
As long as the money goes to the artist, I don’t mind. But from what I have seen, most of the money goes to paying the middleman parasites instead of the artist or the musicians.
As for iTunes getting rid of the DRM crap, for me to upgrade all of my albums that I have purchased, it would cost $44. Since I only listen to them on my iPod, it’s not a big thing to me if the DRM is there.
I think copyright laws should be abolished altogether.
Wouldn’t we be better served by this interregnum and financial collapse to get rid of all the “fat”?
Like, say copyright laws, and businesses selling or renting movies in a box (to everyone but S.America and Asia, apparently).
I know it must be hard for all those entities that have been collecting copyrights over the years to see their “equity” vanish – but copyright laws should go the way of the dodo in my humble opinion.
I’m an artist by trade and I get paid for my talent. I can still sell my services. I get paid for time and effort invested.
I don’t need this silly notion of my ideas being treated as property in order to be paid.
I know that this would mean the death of entire industries – like Hollywood.
And I am as sad for them as I am for all those Luddites who saw the mechanical loom erase their trade and source of income in one fell swoop.
But really, they had to go.
Not because they were “standing in the way of progress” (or other romantic notions).
Simply because they had no place in the new technological ecosystem.
Copyright is simply a way to uphold a business model built around creativity that has no viability in the modern world.
It’s time to set creativity free from commercial constraints. History will not forgive us if we don’t.
…and from the ashes something new will be born.
I think copyright laws should be abolished altogether.
Wouldn’t we be better served by this interregnum and financial collapse to get rid of all the “fat”?
Like, say copyright laws, and businesses selling or renting movies in a box (to everyone but S.America and Asia, apparently).
I know it must be hard for all those entities that have been collecting copyrights over the years to see their “equity” vanish – but copyright laws should go the way of the dodo in my humble opinion.
I’m an artist by trade and I get paid for my talent. I can still sell my services. I get paid for time and effort invested.
I don’t need this silly notion of my ideas being treated as property in order to be paid.
I know that this would mean the death of entire industries – like Hollywood.
And I am as sad for them as I am for all those Luddites who saw the mechanical loom erase their trade and source of income in one fell swoop.
But really, they had to go.
Not because they were “standing in the way of progress” (or other romantic notions).
Simply because they had no place in the new technological ecosystem.
Copyright is simply a way to uphold a business model built around creativity that has no viability in the modern world.
It’s time to set creativity free from commercial constraints. History will not forgive us if we don’t.
…and from the ashes something new will be born.
I think copyright laws should be abolished altogether.
Wouldn’t we be better served by this interregnum and financial collapse to get rid of all the “fat”?
Like, say copyright laws, and businesses selling or renting movies in a box (to everyone but S.America and Asia, apparently).
I know it must be hard for all those entities that have been collecting copyrights over the years to see their “equity” vanish – but copyright laws should go the way of the dodo in my humble opinion.
I’m an artist by trade and I get paid for my talent. I can still sell my services. I get paid for time and effort invested.
I don’t need this silly notion of my ideas being treated as property in order to be paid.
I know that this would mean the death of entire industries – like Hollywood.
And I am as sad for them as I am for all those Luddites who saw the mechanical loom erase their trade and source of income in one fell swoop.
But really, they had to go.
Not because they were “standing in the way of progress” (or other romantic notions).
Simply because they had no place in the new technological ecosystem.
Copyright is simply a way to uphold a business model built around creativity that has no viability in the modern world.
It’s time to set creativity free from commercial constraints. History will not forgive us if we don’t.
…and from the ashes something new will be born.
Hmm, I’m reluctant to call this the final nail in the coffin. iTunes is a drop in the bucket of digital media.
Hmm, I’m reluctant to call this the final nail in the coffin. iTunes is a drop in the bucket of digital media.
Hmm, I’m reluctant to call this the final nail in the coffin. iTunes is a drop in the bucket of digital media.
A couple of points: JT, you’re painting with too broad a brush when you talk about Asia and South America. Well, the latter I know nothing about, but there are at least two exceptions in Asia: Hong Kong and Japan.
Like Cameron, I have no problems when the money goes to the artists, but I also don’t think that is often (or at least not sufficiently) the case with the traditional models.
Another problem with a blanket solution like that is stuff like remixes and fair use. It gets rid of both of those concepts (well, I suppose the former is just an example of the latter, but I think you get my drift).
I’d also question whether it is necessary. What was the biggest-selling album this year on Amazon’s mp3 store? Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV. (Much of?) Which was available for free, directly from the artist. Is piracy really the biggest problem?
Having said that, I’m very glad that Apple has finally dropped DRM on iTunes. I might buy some music there, now.
Oh, and Clayton, iTunes sold more music than any other store last year, so it is certainly more than a drop in the bucket (for better and for worse).
A couple of points: JT, you’re painting with too broad a brush when you talk about Asia and South America. Well, the latter I know nothing about, but there are at least two exceptions in Asia: Hong Kong and Japan.
Like Cameron, I have no problems when the money goes to the artists, but I also don’t think that is often (or at least not sufficiently) the case with the traditional models.
Another problem with a blanket solution like that is stuff like remixes and fair use. It gets rid of both of those concepts (well, I suppose the former is just an example of the latter, but I think you get my drift).
I’d also question whether it is necessary. What was the biggest-selling album this year on Amazon’s mp3 store? Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV. (Much of?) Which was available for free, directly from the artist. Is piracy really the biggest problem?
Having said that, I’m very glad that Apple has finally dropped DRM on iTunes. I might buy some music there, now.
Oh, and Clayton, iTunes sold more music than any other store last year, so it is certainly more than a drop in the bucket (for better and for worse).
A couple of points: JT, you’re painting with too broad a brush when you talk about Asia and South America. Well, the latter I know nothing about, but there are at least two exceptions in Asia: Hong Kong and Japan.
Like Cameron, I have no problems when the money goes to the artists, but I also don’t think that is often (or at least not sufficiently) the case with the traditional models.
Another problem with a blanket solution like that is stuff like remixes and fair use. It gets rid of both of those concepts (well, I suppose the former is just an example of the latter, but I think you get my drift).
I’d also question whether it is necessary. What was the biggest-selling album this year on Amazon’s mp3 store? Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV. (Much of?) Which was available for free, directly from the artist. Is piracy really the biggest problem?
Having said that, I’m very glad that Apple has finally dropped DRM on iTunes. I might buy some music there, now.
Oh, and Clayton, iTunes sold more music than any other store last year, so it is certainly more than a drop in the bucket (for better and for worse).
Hi,
I would also not be thrilled with a mandatory fee to the entertainment-industrial complex. If imposed soon, it would beyond doubt be completely unreasonably large.
There has been one pervasive theme in the campaigns of entertainment executives. That has to deny any benefit of technology to consumers.
From the disgracefully incompetent “Videotapes is the boston strangler (and will never make any money from them)”, to the criminally destructive “we want drm anywhere, and let’s plot to break the general-purpose computer do disallow any operation (especially copying bits) that we disprove of”.
As consumers we should insist on breaking the industrial attempts to monopolize culture, but we should not continue to pay the current monopoly fees for the privilege.
Best
Anders
PS http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php
Hi,
I would also not be thrilled with a mandatory fee to the entertainment-industrial complex. If imposed soon, it would beyond doubt be completely unreasonably large.
There has been one pervasive theme in the campaigns of entertainment executives. That has to deny any benefit of technology to consumers.
From the disgracefully incompetent “Videotapes is the boston strangler (and will never make any money from them)”, to the criminally destructive “we want drm anywhere, and let’s plot to break the general-purpose computer do disallow any operation (especially copying bits) that we disprove of”.
As consumers we should insist on breaking the industrial attempts to monopolize culture, but we should not continue to pay the current monopoly fees for the privilege.
Best
Anders
PS http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php
Hi,
I would also not be thrilled with a mandatory fee to the entertainment-industrial complex. If imposed soon, it would beyond doubt be completely unreasonably large.
There has been one pervasive theme in the campaigns of entertainment executives. That has to deny any benefit of technology to consumers.
From the disgracefully incompetent “Videotapes is the boston strangler (and will never make any money from them)”, to the criminally destructive “we want drm anywhere, and let’s plot to break the general-purpose computer do disallow any operation (especially copying bits) that we disprove of”.
As consumers we should insist on breaking the industrial attempts to monopolize culture, but we should not continue to pay the current monopoly fees for the privilege.
Best
Anders
PS http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php
Would a global license/tax result in all of the regional distribution deals (the reason US users can’t see the BBC iPlayer, the reason UK users can’t see Hulu) vanishing? Or would double-dipping be the order of the day?
I can’t see the former happening – and the latter Perhaps it’s an opportunity. It might be a good time to investing some thought into how to make a profit from the musical equivalent of click-fraud.
Would a global license/tax result in all of the regional distribution deals (the reason US users can’t see the BBC iPlayer, the reason UK users can’t see Hulu) vanishing? Or would double-dipping be the order of the day?
I can’t see the former happening – and the latter Perhaps it’s an opportunity. It might be a good time to investing some thought into how to make a profit from the musical equivalent of click-fraud.
Would a global license/tax result in all of the regional distribution deals (the reason US users can’t see the BBC iPlayer, the reason UK users can’t see Hulu) vanishing? Or would double-dipping be the order of the day?
I can’t see the former happening – and the latter Perhaps it’s an opportunity. It might be a good time to investing some thought into how to make a profit from the musical equivalent of click-fraud.
I don’t know if I’d go as far as Mister Asante, but it does seem that a change is in order. Piracy, bootlegging, knock-off work has existed for quite some time.
Now, it seems like a lot of the folks who post on here are involved or have been involved in creative professions at some point – and for the most part, I think it’s easy to agree that equity isn’t always the main proponent in the value to work equation.
It’s one thing to create the work, quite another to distribute it. Digital media makes that easier than ever before, which allows artists and musicians to distribute their material without the necessity of corporations behind them. The Halcyon days of big huge bucks are behind, however, so – more than likely, a re-think on the part of the individual as to why they are in their chosen profession might be in order.
Have we seen the end of DRM? Probably not. Anyone who’s had to buy some serious software in the past two years, anyone who decided to upgrade to Vista will tell you that license protection/verification is an ongoing issue in the computer age.
I suppose at one time, you could count on people’s innate honesty. If there is anything about DMR that truly depresses me, it’s the assumption that the customer needs to be treated like a crook.
I don’t know if I’d go as far as Mister Asante, but it does seem that a change is in order. Piracy, bootlegging, knock-off work has existed for quite some time.
Now, it seems like a lot of the folks who post on here are involved or have been involved in creative professions at some point – and for the most part, I think it’s easy to agree that equity isn’t always the main proponent in the value to work equation.
It’s one thing to create the work, quite another to distribute it. Digital media makes that easier than ever before, which allows artists and musicians to distribute their material without the necessity of corporations behind them. The Halcyon days of big huge bucks are behind, however, so – more than likely, a re-think on the part of the individual as to why they are in their chosen profession might be in order.
Have we seen the end of DRM? Probably not. Anyone who’s had to buy some serious software in the past two years, anyone who decided to upgrade to Vista will tell you that license protection/verification is an ongoing issue in the computer age.
I suppose at one time, you could count on people’s innate honesty. If there is anything about DMR that truly depresses me, it’s the assumption that the customer needs to be treated like a crook.
What does everyone think about this deal between the Authors Guild, the publishers, and Google?
http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/member-alert-google.html
What does everyone think about this deal between the Authors Guild, the publishers, and Google?
http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/member-alert-google.html
Cory makes a good point – this is but one nail in the coffin. There are still plenty more that need banging in.
And the fact that these other ones remain un-banged speaks to the larger point that Anders makes about the virulent hostility of today’s top media executives towards anything less than complete and total domination of the audience’s experience. He’s absolutely right in noting that there seems to be zero regard paid to the pre-existing cultural milieu that generated the languages, preferences, memes, and outlooks that media needs in the same way fire needs oxygen.
In other words, the heart of the problem is exploitation, and the caustic view that culture is like any other resource – available freely, to be harvested endlessly, with no recompense due to anyone, for anything, ever.
Operating under this delusion, hardline copyright defenders depend on and take from the cultural commons as though they owned them outright, then respond with violent rage, not to mention accusations of thieving instincts, disrespect for artists, and general moral turpitude when anyone suggests that their creations are not, in fact, 100% private. (This is especially rich when it comes from record company executives.)
Unlike Armand, I’ve yet to be persuaded that total abolition of copyright is necessary, though I can see how that, as the nuclear option, makes sense if groups like the MPAA continue their open assault on the general public in the name of what’s ‘theirs’.
Rather, I’d like to see a complete re-conceptualization of copyright law that acknowledges the debt any creator owes to the commons, and ensures that anything released to the public is, to some degree, a form of repayment, and is truly a part of the commons – from the very moment of introduction, instead of the insultingly absurd 5-6 generation lag that the current law proscribes.
As such, an immediate repayment to the commons would need to include some aspect of actual release – including release from perpetual demands for royalties, insistence on control over any derivative works, and restrictions on how, when, and where audiences choose to direct their attention to the work.
Currently, all these ‘freedoms’ are available to producers, who can assign them on a voluntary basis through the Creative Commons licensing scheme. But this is a lot like self-regulation, and, when faced by people who are fundamentally hostile to the idea that audiences have any rights whatsoever, they are of limited value. Moreover, they fail to account for the dignity of the commons themselves by implying that giving something back is still optional, and not a requirement for standing as a legitimate member of society.
So perhaps it’s worth considering the abolition of the all rights reserved standard that empowers the hard-liners in the first place, and the adoption of the CC system as the legal default. After all, it’s the all part that seems like the real monstrosity, as it implies that you can take from the commons by simply taking, while making no demand that something be given back, instead of sold for purely private gain.
Eliminate that from the discussion, and see if civility can return. Keep that on the table, and the most innovative and progressive efforts will remain subject to veto by those whose business models depend on all take and no give.
Thoughts?
Cory makes a good point – this is but one nail in the coffin. There are still plenty more that need banging in.
And the fact that these other ones remain un-banged speaks to the larger point that Anders makes about the virulent hostility of today’s top media executives towards anything less than complete and total domination of the audience’s experience. He’s absolutely right in noting that there seems to be zero regard paid to the pre-existing cultural milieu that generated the languages, preferences, memes, and outlooks that media needs in the same way fire needs oxygen.
In other words, the heart of the problem is exploitation, and the caustic view that culture is like any other resource – available freely, to be harvested endlessly, with no recompense due to anyone, for anything, ever.
Operating under this delusion, hardline copyright defenders depend on and take from the cultural commons as though they owned them outright, then respond with violent rage, not to mention accusations of thieving instincts, disrespect for artists, and general moral turpitude when anyone suggests that their creations are not, in fact, 100% private. (This is especially rich when it comes from record company executives.)
Unlike Armand, I’ve yet to be persuaded that total abolition of copyright is necessary, though I can see how that, as the nuclear option, makes sense if groups like the MPAA continue their open assault on the general public in the name of what’s ‘theirs’.
Rather, I’d like to see a complete re-conceptualization of copyright law that acknowledges the debt any creator owes to the commons, and ensures that anything released to the public is, to some degree, a form of repayment, and is truly a part of the commons – from the very moment of introduction, instead of the insultingly absurd 5-6 generation lag that the current law proscribes.
As such, an immediate repayment to the commons would need to include some aspect of actual release – including release from perpetual demands for royalties, insistence on control over any derivative works, and restrictions on how, when, and where audiences choose to direct their attention to the work.
Currently, all these ‘freedoms’ are available to producers, who can assign them on a voluntary basis through the Creative Commons licensing scheme. But this is a lot like self-regulation, and, when faced by people who are fundamentally hostile to the idea that audiences have any rights whatsoever, they are of limited value. Moreover, they fail to account for the dignity of the commons themselves by implying that giving something back is still optional, and not a requirement for standing as a legitimate member of society.
So perhaps it’s worth considering the abolition of the all rights reserved standard that empowers the hard-liners in the first place, and the adoption of the CC system as the legal default. After all, it’s the all part that seems like the real monstrosity, as it implies that you can take from the commons by simply taking, while making no demand that something be given back, instead of sold for purely private gain.
Eliminate that from the discussion, and see if civility can return. Keep that on the table, and the most innovative and progressive efforts will remain subject to veto by those whose business models depend on all take and no give.
Thoughts?
In the future, will rock and roll stars be viewed as robber barons?
Compare The Beatles’ I Feel Fine with Bobby Parker’s Watch Your Step. Are there not pieces of everything that are stolen, in the current frame?
It is clear that the overall goal is to find a balance between the individual and the community. To abolish copyright is to abolish private property.
Generosity is the hallmark of the artist.
In the future, will rock and roll stars be viewed as robber barons?
Compare The Beatles’ I Feel Fine with Bobby Parker’s Watch Your Step. Are there not pieces of everything that are stolen, in the current frame?
It is clear that the overall goal is to find a balance between the individual and the community. To abolish copyright is to abolish private property.
Generosity is the hallmark of the artist.
It’s a start, T-Bone. As they say, “I only want a taste”. Google and their like have to understand they aren’t free to burgle. Publishers have to understand they aren’t free to extort.
Fair dinkum is all one can ask.
It’s a start, T-Bone. As they say, “I only want a taste”. Google and their like have to understand they aren’t free to burgle. Publishers have to understand they aren’t free to extort.
Fair dinkum is all one can ask.
The other reason DRM makes no sense is the cost of supporting the technological solution. It’s good for rights owners, but lousy for online retailers.
For example, if you are running a Windows DRM based downloads service, and you sell tracks for 99c, you have to be prepared for the fact that around 5% of all downloads will, at some time in the first year after they’re downloaded, fail because of DRM. Each of those tracks may cost you a front-of-house support call, which, depending upon where you host that support, will cost between $5 and $20 per call. Since you, as the retailer, keep only a margin of the 99c, you need to sell an awful lot of tracks to make up for the support costs for the failures – especially since you pay the labels for the failures whether or not the end user gets to play them.
Unless you have a downloads service as part of a broader business strategy (eg a Telco triple-play), it’s close to impossible to make money as a downloads site operator. (Unless you go into ringtones, which are a different matter entirely, and which don’t rely on Windows DRM).
Apple has been more fortunate with the reliability of its DRM because it controls most of the parts of the distribution channel. Microsoft tried to do it and then shot itself in the foot repudiating its “Plays For Sure” (Not) “standard”.
Don’t even get me started on the problems deploying COPP protocols with DVD and BluRay media. I run a software company that has to implement this lunacy for some online distributors, and it’s so incredibly poorly thought out it makes me want to scream. I’m making a fortune out of my clients’ misfortunes at having to dance at the whim of studios, but it doesn’t make me feel good.
The essential problem with software or mechanical protection of digital media is that it can’t allow for the exceptions available under Berne, such as fair use. It’s therefore always going to be viewed by a substantial portion of the community – including the creative community – as inherently unfair.
I agree with Alex’s suggestion above, that CC makes more sense, but I think it’s unlikely to ever be adopted.
The irony in all this, of course, is that many large US businesses were built on the back of ripping off foreign owners of intellectual property (eg Charles Dickens). Although it signed the UCC in the 1950′s, which gave some degree of harmonisation with international law, the US didn’t even sign up to the Berne Convention fully until more than a century after its inception, with the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988. And now US corporations are urging us all to respect international law, and berating nations such as China.
Incidentally, I was in Beijing just before Christmas, and the Chinese have swallowed the “IP protection” racket hook line and sinker. The Brits, in particular, are in there offering them all sorts of advice on how to get rich treating their customers badly. There’s a huge banner under the new CCTV building promoting a big conference on copyright law to be held in Beijing next month.
If there’s anything that makes my blood boil in relation to the DRM debate it’s the way the music industry has chosen to treat the rights of musicians, such that an artist doesn’t get back their rights if the label stops distributing the record (unlike the case in book publishing, where an author can take their book elsewhere if it goes out of print). I always liked Janis Ian’s analysis of record industry contracts, here: http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
Notwithstanding this, Jon’s analysis of the effectiveness of the mechanical license is astute. If there’s money to be made by creators right now, it’s licensing to businesses rather than end-users, whether those businesses be coffee houses or movie producers. It’s simple to manage, relatively simple to enforce, and requires little to no technology. I am in total agreement that it’s the best way forward, but it’s harder to apply to media, such as films, that aren’t as easy to include in other media forms, or to use as background wallpaper. Nevertheless in the case of music it certainly makes sense.
Notwithstanding that, the whole history of US treatment of intellectual property rights is so shameful, so full of exploitation, so outrageous in its execution, that I’m emotionally, at least, drawn to Armand Assante’s argument that we should abolish copyright entirely. Intellectually I know there are good reasons for retaining some rewards for creators, but I’m sure whatever is put in place will be gamed by studios, labels and publishers to ensure the creatives are screwed anyway. I’m reminded of an old “snakes and ladders” type diagram explaining the flow of money in The Hollywood Reporter, which we had on our fridge fridge for years. You, the writer, started with the idea for a film, but no matter how you negotiated through the maze of agents, producers, studio heads, stars etc, you always ended up at the last panel, which was “you never see a dime”. Okay, so it was a joke, but there are an awful lot of writers who aren’t laughing.
The other reason DRM makes no sense is the cost of supporting the technological solution. It’s good for rights owners, but lousy for online retailers.
For example, if you are running a Windows DRM based downloads service, and you sell tracks for 99c, you have to be prepared for the fact that around 5% of all downloads will, at some time in the first year after they’re downloaded, fail because of DRM. Each of those tracks may cost you a front-of-house support call, which, depending upon where you host that support, will cost between $5 and $20 per call. Since you, as the retailer, keep only a margin of the 99c, you need to sell an awful lot of tracks to make up for the support costs for the failures – especially since you pay the labels for the failures whether or not the end user gets to play them.
Unless you have a downloads service as part of a broader business strategy (eg a Telco triple-play), it’s close to impossible to make money as a downloads site operator. (Unless you go into ringtones, which are a different matter entirely, and which don’t rely on Windows DRM).
Apple has been more fortunate with the reliability of its DRM because it controls most of the parts of the distribution channel. Microsoft tried to do it and then shot itself in the foot repudiating its “Plays For Sure” (Not) “standard”.
Don’t even get me started on the problems deploying COPP protocols with DVD and BluRay media. I run a software company that has to implement this lunacy for some online distributors, and it’s so incredibly poorly thought out it makes me want to scream. I’m making a fortune out of my clients’ misfortunes at having to dance at the whim of studios, but it doesn’t make me feel good.
The essential problem with software or mechanical protection of digital media is that it can’t allow for the exceptions available under Berne, such as fair use. It’s therefore always going to be viewed by a substantial portion of the community – including the creative community – as inherently unfair.
I agree with Alex’s suggestion above, that CC makes more sense, but I think it’s unlikely to ever be adopted.
The irony in all this, of course, is that many large US businesses were built on the back of ripping off foreign owners of intellectual property (eg Charles Dickens). Although it signed the UCC in the 1950′s, which gave some degree of harmonisation with international law, the US didn’t even sign up to the Berne Convention fully until more than a century after its inception, with the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988. And now US corporations are urging us all to respect international law, and berating nations such as China.
Incidentally, I was in Beijing just before Christmas, and the Chinese have swallowed the “IP protection” racket hook line and sinker. The Brits, in particular, are in there offering them all sorts of advice on how to get rich treating their customers badly. There’s a huge banner under the new CCTV building promoting a big conference on copyright law to be held in Beijing next month.
If there’s anything that makes my blood boil in relation to the DRM debate it’s the way the music industry has chosen to treat the rights of musicians, such that an artist doesn’t get back their rights if the label stops distributing the record (unlike the case in book publishing, where an author can take their book elsewhere if it goes out of print). I always liked Janis Ian’s analysis of record industry contracts, here: http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
Notwithstanding this, Jon’s analysis of the effectiveness of the mechanical license is astute. If there’s money to be made by creators right now, it’s licensing to businesses rather than end-users, whether those businesses be coffee houses or movie producers. It’s simple to manage, relatively simple to enforce, and requires little to no technology. I am in total agreement that it’s the best way forward, but it’s harder to apply to media, such as films, that aren’t as easy to include in other media forms, or to use as background wallpaper. Nevertheless in the case of music it certainly makes sense.
Notwithstanding that, the whole history of US treatment of intellectual property rights is so shameful, so full of exploitation, so outrageous in its execution, that I’m emotionally, at least, drawn to Armand Assante’s argument that we should abolish copyright entirely. Intellectually I know there are good reasons for retaining some rewards for creators, but I’m sure whatever is put in place will be gamed by studios, labels and publishers to ensure the creatives are screwed anyway. I’m reminded of an old “snakes and ladders” type diagram explaining the flow of money in The Hollywood Reporter, which we had on our fridge fridge for years. You, the writer, started with the idea for a film, but no matter how you negotiated through the maze of agents, producers, studio heads, stars etc, you always ended up at the last panel, which was “you never see a dime”. Okay, so it was a joke, but there are an awful lot of writers who aren’t laughing.
The other reason DRM makes no sense is the cost of supporting the technological solution. It’s good for rights owners, but lousy for online retailers.
For example, if you are running a Windows DRM based downloads service, and you sell tracks for 99c, you have to be prepared for the fact that around 5% of all downloads will, at some time in the first year after they’re downloaded, fail because of DRM. Each of those tracks may cost you a front-of-house support call, which, depending upon where you host that support, will cost between $5 and $20 per call. Since you, as the retailer, keep only a margin of the 99c, you need to sell an awful lot of tracks to make up for the support costs for the failures – especially since you pay the labels for the failures whether or not the end user gets to play them.
Unless you have a downloads service as part of a broader business strategy (eg a Telco triple-play), it’s close to impossible to make money as a downloads site operator. (Unless you go into ringtones, which are a different matter entirely, and which don’t rely on Windows DRM).
Apple has been more fortunate with the reliability of its DRM because it controls most of the parts of the distribution channel. Microsoft tried to do it and then shot itself in the foot repudiating its “Plays For Sure” (Not) “standard”.
Don’t even get me started on the problems deploying COPP protocols with DVD and BluRay media. I run a software company that has to implement this lunacy for some online distributors, and it’s so incredibly poorly thought out it makes me want to scream. I’m making a fortune out of my clients’ misfortunes at having to dance at the whim of studios, but it doesn’t make me feel good.
The essential problem with software or mechanical protection of digital media is that it can’t allow for the exceptions available under Berne, such as fair use. It’s therefore always going to be viewed by a substantial portion of the community – including the creative community – as inherently unfair.
I agree with Alex’s suggestion above, that CC makes more sense, but I think it’s unlikely to ever be adopted.
The irony in all this, of course, is that many large US businesses were built on the back of ripping off foreign owners of intellectual property (eg Charles Dickens). Although it signed the UCC in the 1950′s, which gave some degree of harmonisation with international law, the US didn’t even sign up to the Berne Convention fully until more than a century after its inception, with the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988. And now US corporations are urging us all to respect international law, and berating nations such as China.
Incidentally, I was in Beijing just before Christmas, and the Chinese have swallowed the “IP protection” racket hook line and sinker. The Brits, in particular, are in there offering them all sorts of advice on how to get rich treating their customers badly. There’s a huge banner under the new CCTV building promoting a big conference on copyright law to be held in Beijing next month.
If there’s anything that makes my blood boil in relation to the DRM debate it’s the way the music industry has chosen to treat the rights of musicians, such that an artist doesn’t get back their rights if the label stops distributing the record (unlike the case in book publishing, where an author can take their book elsewhere if it goes out of print). I always liked Janis Ian’s analysis of record industry contracts, here: http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html
Notwithstanding this, Jon’s analysis of the effectiveness of the mechanical license is astute. If there’s money to be made by creators right now, it’s licensing to businesses rather than end-users, whether those businesses be coffee houses or movie producers. It’s simple to manage, relatively simple to enforce, and requires little to no technology. I am in total agreement that it’s the best way forward, but it’s harder to apply to media, such as films, that aren’t as easy to include in other media forms, or to use as background wallpaper. Nevertheless in the case of music it certainly makes sense.
Notwithstanding that, the whole history of US treatment of intellectual property rights is so shameful, so full of exploitation, so outrageous in its execution, that I’m emotionally, at least, drawn to Armand Assante’s argument that we should abolish copyright entirely. Intellectually I know there are good reasons for retaining some rewards for creators, but I’m sure whatever is put in place will be gamed by studios, labels and publishers to ensure the creatives are screwed anyway. I’m reminded of an old “snakes and ladders” type diagram explaining the flow of money in The Hollywood Reporter, which we had on our fridge fridge for years. You, the writer, started with the idea for a film, but no matter how you negotiated through the maze of agents, producers, studio heads, stars etc, you always ended up at the last panel, which was “you never see a dime”. Okay, so it was a joke, but there are an awful lot of writers who aren’t laughing.
Alex, I very strongly agree with what you said about creators acknowledging the debt to the commons; after all, those commons created the situation in which the artist was able to create, even if it was misery at what that commons was that provided the impetus.
My personal thought on the best way to handle it, is to require copyright registration again. That registration would be free (or very nearly so) for the first 20 or so years. After that, the cost to renew would increase on exponentially. So everything would, eventually, slip into the public domain.
But, if something were extremely profitable, while it could remain protected by copyright for many years, the public would be getting “rent” for giving up on free access. And, like I said, they would eventually get that free access.
It also has the advantage of obscure things being freed almost immediately from copyright.
Alex, I very strongly agree with what you said about creators acknowledging the debt to the commons; after all, those commons created the situation in which the artist was able to create, even if it was misery at what that commons was that provided the impetus.
My personal thought on the best way to handle it, is to require copyright registration again. That registration would be free (or very nearly so) for the first 20 or so years. After that, the cost to renew would increase on exponentially. So everything would, eventually, slip into the public domain.
But, if something were extremely profitable, while it could remain protected by copyright for many years, the public would be getting “rent” for giving up on free access. And, like I said, they would eventually get that free access.
It also has the advantage of obscure things being freed almost immediately from copyright.
Alex, I very strongly agree with what you said about creators acknowledging the debt to the commons; after all, those commons created the situation in which the artist was able to create, even if it was misery at what that commons was that provided the impetus.
My personal thought on the best way to handle it, is to require copyright registration again. That registration would be free (or very nearly so) for the first 20 or so years. After that, the cost to renew would increase on exponentially. So everything would, eventually, slip into the public domain.
But, if something were extremely profitable, while it could remain protected by copyright for many years, the public would be getting “rent” for giving up on free access. And, like I said, they would eventually get that free access.
It also has the advantage of obscure things being freed almost immediately from copyright.
T-Bone, the Google/Authors Guild settlement contains arguments that are similar to Jon’s “mechanical copyright” argument.
Far more interesting for most of us — and the ambitious part of our proposal — is the prospect for future revenues. Rightsholders will receive a share of revenues from institutional subscriptions to the collection of books made available through Google Book Search under the settlement, as well as from sales of online consumer access to the books. They will also be paid for printouts at public libraries, as well as for other uses.
I do have a nervousness about the flow on effect of the decision upon writers of niche works, because we haven’t reconstructed territorial licensing yet – and this is essential to make IP licensing work on the Web. The right that authors currently have to sell their books in different markets could be impacted, because publishers may not think they are actually able to buy the rights the author is claiming that they have. How can you sell exclusive North American rights (or exclusive electronic rights) if Google is making copies available online?
As a writer it’s hard to get any respect if you can’t get a publisher to take on your work.
So, in general I think the deal is positive, because it conforms to the kind of model Jon is advocating. But there’s still a lot of work to be done dealing with the way that territorial licensing and recognition of new writers works before the bugs will be out of the system.
T-Bone, the Google/Authors Guild settlement contains arguments that are similar to Jon’s “mechanical copyright” argument.
Far more interesting for most of us — and the ambitious part of our proposal — is the prospect for future revenues. Rightsholders will receive a share of revenues from institutional subscriptions to the collection of books made available through Google Book Search under the settlement, as well as from sales of online consumer access to the books. They will also be paid for printouts at public libraries, as well as for other uses.
I do have a nervousness about the flow on effect of the decision upon writers of niche works, because we haven’t reconstructed territorial licensing yet – and this is essential to make IP licensing work on the Web. The right that authors currently have to sell their books in different markets could be impacted, because publishers may not think they are actually able to buy the rights the author is claiming that they have. How can you sell exclusive North American rights (or exclusive electronic rights) if Google is making copies available online?
As a writer it’s hard to get any respect if you can’t get a publisher to take on your work.
So, in general I think the deal is positive, because it conforms to the kind of model Jon is advocating. But there’s still a lot of work to be done dealing with the way that territorial licensing and recognition of new writers works before the bugs will be out of the system.
A very interesting issue indeed.
I’m interested to hear peoples opinions on this point. What makes one type of creator any more socially deserving of repeating income over time (copyright protection) than another?
Compare a musician to someone like an architect. They both create things of value to a community, and I’m sure most good architects would think they are every bit as creative as a musician, if in different ways. Which exact element of being a musician gives them rights to protection of a repeating income source over time compared to an architect?
A very interesting issue indeed.
I’m interested to hear peoples opinions on this point. What makes one type of creator any more socially deserving of repeating income over time (copyright protection) than another?
Compare a musician to someone like an architect. They both create things of value to a community, and I’m sure most good architects would think they are every bit as creative as a musician, if in different ways. Which exact element of being a musician gives them rights to protection of a repeating income source over time compared to an architect?
A very interesting issue indeed.
I’m interested to hear peoples opinions on this point. What makes one type of creator any more socially deserving of repeating income over time (copyright protection) than another?
Compare a musician to someone like an architect. They both create things of value to a community, and I’m sure most good architects would think they are every bit as creative as a musician, if in different ways. Which exact element of being a musician gives them rights to protection of a repeating income source over time compared to an architect?
@Rachel.
TBB is right – total abolition means doing away with property rights altogether. In the world of tangible assets, the existence of stable and effective property rights is the single greatest determining factor when it comes to a nation’s position on the poverty to wealth ladder. So it stands to reason that a total abolition of copyright will lead to a seriously impoverished culture.
What I find abhorrent is the uncomfortable parallel between today’s large commercial content providers, and the dictators of third world nations. Basically, they can take whatever they want, give nothing in return, and treat as criminal anyone who opposes them.
The idea that they’re supposed to be serving and enriching the body politic for the benefit of the body politic is anathema. The Chinese view is, by far, the more popular one. It’s all about forcible extraction, and strong delineation of privileged between those with ‘read’ and those with ‘write’.
So yes, private property is good, but when all property is private, and effective ownership (i.e. the ability to enforce one’s copyrights) is limited to very few, then you have an untenable state of affairs.
In some quarters, it could be viewed as a basis for revolution. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, as they tend to be painful, messy things for all involved.
It would be a shame to adopt the CC model in an eventual bid for peace, as opposed to adopting it now in an enlightened bid for progress.
@Rachel.
TBB is right – total abolition means doing away with property rights altogether. In the world of tangible assets, the existence of stable and effective property rights is the single greatest determining factor when it comes to a nation’s position on the poverty to wealth ladder. So it stands to reason that a total abolition of copyright will lead to a seriously impoverished culture.
What I find abhorrent is the uncomfortable parallel between today’s large commercial content providers, and the dictators of third world nations. Basically, they can take whatever they want, give nothing in return, and treat as criminal anyone who opposes them.
The idea that they’re supposed to be serving and enriching the body politic for the benefit of the body politic is anathema. The Chinese view is, by far, the more popular one. It’s all about forcible extraction, and strong delineation of privileged between those with ‘read’ and those with ‘write’.
So yes, private property is good, but when all property is private, and effective ownership (i.e. the ability to enforce one’s copyrights) is limited to very few, then you have an untenable state of affairs.
In some quarters, it could be viewed as a basis for revolution. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, as they tend to be painful, messy things for all involved.
It would be a shame to adopt the CC model in an eventual bid for peace, as opposed to adopting it now in an enlightened bid for progress.
@Rachel.
TBB is right – total abolition means doing away with property rights altogether. In the world of tangible assets, the existence of stable and effective property rights is the single greatest determining factor when it comes to a nation’s position on the poverty to wealth ladder. So it stands to reason that a total abolition of copyright will lead to a seriously impoverished culture.
What I find abhorrent is the uncomfortable parallel between today’s large commercial content providers, and the dictators of third world nations. Basically, they can take whatever they want, give nothing in return, and treat as criminal anyone who opposes them.
The idea that they’re supposed to be serving and enriching the body politic for the benefit of the body politic is anathema. The Chinese view is, by far, the more popular one. It’s all about forcible extraction, and strong delineation of privileged between those with ‘read’ and those with ‘write’.
So yes, private property is good, but when all property is private, and effective ownership (i.e. the ability to enforce one’s copyrights) is limited to very few, then you have an untenable state of affairs.
In some quarters, it could be viewed as a basis for revolution. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, as they tend to be painful, messy things for all involved.
It would be a shame to adopt the CC model in an eventual bid for peace, as opposed to adopting it now in an enlightened bid for progress.
Perhaps eventually we’ll have a system of limited-time copyright again in this country.
Perhaps all the people who are shackled with the mental yoke of conflating tangible, scare goods, with intangible information (which wholly lacks scarcity) will become free from that handicap… or, at the very least, die off.
Intellectual property isn’t property. It never has been. *sigh*
Perhaps eventually we’ll have a system of limited-time copyright again in this country.
Perhaps all the people who are shackled with the mental yoke of conflating tangible, scare goods, with intangible information (which wholly lacks scarcity) will become free from that handicap… or, at the very least, die off.
Intellectual property isn’t property. It never has been. *sigh*
Perhaps eventually we’ll have a system of limited-time copyright again in this country.
Perhaps all the people who are shackled with the mental yoke of conflating tangible, scare goods, with intangible information (which wholly lacks scarcity) will become free from that handicap… or, at the very least, die off.
Intellectual property isn’t property. It never has been. *sigh*
Alex, I completely agree – as I said, I have an emotional attachment to Armand Assante’s argument, but I know that, intellectually, we need some form of ownership.
Having said that, I’m still wrestling with an earlier topic that Jon started a few weeks ago, about the nature of art. I’m not entirely convinced we have the model entirely right, since the notion of what is valuable in art is peculiar to the culture it comes from. The things we value in art have changed over time, and between cultures, and it’s by no means clear that Western culture has the right mix. Consider that in China, until the restoration of the entombed warriors, the notion of preservation of an original artifact was largely subservient to the preservation of the form of the artifact – that is, so long as something *looked* like the original, and was functionally the same, it was as valuable. It wasn’t until Italian conservators got into the act and convinced the Chinese there was a lot of money to be made from the authenticity of the original that the Chinese started trading off it.
Our western model of cultural value places “authenticity” at the heart of the value chain, and this is an increasingly difficult problem to work with in the digital realm.
Plus, as T-Bone Burnett has said, there’s the problem, in most of our art forms, of the use of prior works in art. Postmodernism practically relies on referentialism to sustain it. It’s not, long term, a very interesting way of viewing art, and it’s clear that what we’re seeing now is the a kind of fragmentation of arts practice that parallels the phenomenon Sontag wrote about in “Approaching Artaud”.
I started writing about this in response to Jon’s post a while ago, but my thoughts are still incompletely formed. I’ll come back when I have something more useful to say on the subject. In the meantime, I think we approach a new model of intellectual property at our peril until we have a new model of arts values that are broadly shared. We need to know what it is we value about creativity and art beyond the products that are created.
I have, of course, no idea how in hell we’re going to get there.
Alex, I completely agree – as I said, I have an emotional attachment to Armand Assante’s argument, but I know that, intellectually, we need some form of ownership.
Having said that, I’m still wrestling with an earlier topic that Jon started a few weeks ago, about the nature of art. I’m not entirely convinced we have the model entirely right, since the notion of what is valuable in art is peculiar to the culture it comes from. The things we value in art have changed over time, and between cultures, and it’s by no means clear that Western culture has the right mix. Consider that in China, until the restoration of the entombed warriors, the notion of preservation of an original artifact was largely subservient to the preservation of the form of the artifact – that is, so long as something *looked* like the original, and was functionally the same, it was as valuable. It wasn’t until Italian conservators got into the act and convinced the Chinese there was a lot of money to be made from the authenticity of the original that the Chinese started trading off it.
Our western model of cultural value places “authenticity” at the heart of the value chain, and this is an increasingly difficult problem to work with in the digital realm.
Plus, as T-Bone Burnett has said, there’s the problem, in most of our art forms, of the use of prior works in art. Postmodernism practically relies on referentialism to sustain it. It’s not, long term, a very interesting way of viewing art, and it’s clear that what we’re seeing now is the a kind of fragmentation of arts practice that parallels the phenomenon Sontag wrote about in “Approaching Artaud”.
I started writing about this in response to Jon’s post a while ago, but my thoughts are still incompletely formed. I’ll come back when I have something more useful to say on the subject. In the meantime, I think we approach a new model of intellectual property at our peril until we have a new model of arts values that are broadly shared. We need to know what it is we value about creativity and art beyond the products that are created.
I have, of course, no idea how in hell we’re going to get there.
The architect/musician comparison is unfortunately worthless unless you consider works for hire on the part of composers, etc.
Architects get paid usually based on the value of the entire building whether or not it is successful as a business venture, an artistic statement, or even whether or not it works…see all the screwed up Frank Lloyd Wright buildings that leak and break, for instance.
Some songwriters do just work for a living with copyrights assigned to companies they work for. That’s also true of inventors who work for larger companies.
With copyrights, it’s all getting weird because of “the Mouse”. Disney has been in the forefront of pushing copyright extensions to protect Steamboat Willie…oh, I mean Mickey Mouse…from being knocked off.
All that said, if writers, artists, musicians, and composers can’t get paid for their work, they’ll stop doing the work. All the CC writers I see on line have already made their fortunes off of copywritten material, they have websites with lots of advertising money, or they’re just not pros.
The architect/musician comparison is unfortunately worthless unless you consider works for hire on the part of composers, etc.
Architects get paid usually based on the value of the entire building whether or not it is successful as a business venture, an artistic statement, or even whether or not it works…see all the screwed up Frank Lloyd Wright buildings that leak and break, for instance.
Some songwriters do just work for a living with copyrights assigned to companies they work for. That’s also true of inventors who work for larger companies.
With copyrights, it’s all getting weird because of “the Mouse”. Disney has been in the forefront of pushing copyright extensions to protect Steamboat Willie…oh, I mean Mickey Mouse…from being knocked off.
All that said, if writers, artists, musicians, and composers can’t get paid for their work, they’ll stop doing the work. All the CC writers I see on line have already made their fortunes off of copywritten material, they have websites with lots of advertising money, or they’re just not pros.
The architect/musician comparison is unfortunately worthless unless you consider works for hire on the part of composers, etc.
Architects get paid usually based on the value of the entire building whether or not it is successful as a business venture, an artistic statement, or even whether or not it works…see all the screwed up Frank Lloyd Wright buildings that leak and break, for instance.
Some songwriters do just work for a living with copyrights assigned to companies they work for. That’s also true of inventors who work for larger companies.
With copyrights, it’s all getting weird because of “the Mouse”. Disney has been in the forefront of pushing copyright extensions to protect Steamboat Willie…oh, I mean Mickey Mouse…from being knocked off.
All that said, if writers, artists, musicians, and composers can’t get paid for their work, they’ll stop doing the work. All the CC writers I see on line have already made their fortunes off of copywritten material, they have websites with lots of advertising money, or they’re just not pros.
Espenia
Difficult to copy a house. Easy to copy a music file.
What if an architect designed a house and the owner of the house sold the plans for another, say, million houses to be built? Would it be jake for the architect to receive only the first payment, and the owner receive payments for the rest? Or, if the owner gave the plans away to a million other owners, how hard a time might the architect have finding work?
Some would say that a piece of music has value in and of itself, with or without a community. I would say the piece of music has great value to the individual who creates it by its very creation.
(I don’t really think music and architectural plans are a great comparison. I would guess that, generally speaking, more people could get more out of a piece of recorded music than the out of an architectural drawing.)
When you go into a studio to record a piece of music, the result is that something is there that was not there before. You can”t see it, but there it is. There is no greater feeling than to write a piece of music and know that it is good. Killer also to record one- not nearly the same, but also killer.
I can tell you this- it doesn’t feel that great when you have a good idea, and someone takes it and makes hay with it.
Crazy that people will pay three dollars for a cup of coffee, but won’t pay ninety-nine cents for a recording of a song.
Live music is the joint, anyway. (As far as I know, there is no such thing as live architecture.)
Espenia
Difficult to copy a house. Easy to copy a music file.
What if an architect designed a house and the owner of the house sold the plans for another, say, million houses to be built? Would it be jake for the architect to receive only the first payment, and the owner receive payments for the rest? Or, if the owner gave the plans away to a million other owners, how hard a time might the architect have finding work?
Some would say that a piece of music has value in and of itself, with or without a community. I would say the piece of music has great value to the individual who creates it by its very creation.
(I don’t really think music and architectural plans are a great comparison. I would guess that, generally speaking, more people could get more out of a piece of recorded music than the out of an architectural drawing.)
When you go into a studio to record a piece of music, the result is that something is there that was not there before. You can”t see it, but there it is. There is no greater feeling than to write a piece of music and know that it is good. Killer also to record one- not nearly the same, but also killer.
I can tell you this- it doesn’t feel that great when you have a good idea, and someone takes it and makes hay with it.
Crazy that people will pay three dollars for a cup of coffee, but won’t pay ninety-nine cents for a recording of a song.
Live music is the joint, anyway. (As far as I know, there is no such thing as live architecture.)
I think T-Bone is totally right on this one.
I think T-Bone is totally right on this one.
Rick- I wanted to say that if I don’t get paid for writing songs, I will continue writing songs. In fact, I have been doing just that for years. I don’t look at it as work, nor do I look at the years as a career. I view the entire thing as a great privilege, one for which I am deeply grateful.
Rick- I wanted to say that if I don’t get paid for writing songs, I will continue writing songs. In fact, I have been doing just that for years. I don’t look at it as work, nor do I look at the years as a career. I view the entire thing as a great privilege, one for which I am deeply grateful.
Rick- I wanted to say that if I don’t get paid for writing songs, I will continue writing songs. In fact, I have been doing just that for years. I don’t look at it as work, nor do I look at the years as a career. I view the entire thing as a great privilege, one for which I am deeply grateful.
Oh, Rick, what the hell. I’ll just go ahead and say this. If someone stops making art because he is not getting paid for it, he does not deserve to be called an artist, nor does what he makes deserve to be called art. (Not that there is anything wrong with not being an artist.) In fact, to my way of seeing things, if he stopped, that would be a good thing.
Oh, Rick, what the hell. I’ll just go ahead and say this. If someone stops making art because he is not getting paid for it, he does not deserve to be called an artist, nor does what he makes deserve to be called art. (Not that there is anything wrong with not being an artist.) In fact, to my way of seeing things, if he stopped, that would be a good thing.
Oh, Rick, what the hell. I’ll just go ahead and say this. If someone stops making art because he is not getting paid for it, he does not deserve to be called an artist, nor does what he makes deserve to be called art. (Not that there is anything wrong with not being an artist.) In fact, to my way of seeing things, if he stopped, that would be a good thing.
T-Bone, understood, but you are able to make a living at your art. Some composers would not be able to. Hey, I still play guitar for free, but now it’s really folk music! But if “recording artists” were not able to be paid for their recordings or their songs, what would happen. You’re sure not going to make it on the road very easily… And you’re in that position of having made an impact before the days of file sharing, etc. I would imagine you get checks from ASCAP or BMI, as do the artists you work with. I’m all in favor of that.
Jon has suggested an Internet tax to be split up the same way ASCAP and BMI take care of things, and with digital watermarks, it could all be even more fairly distributed. Good luck on getting that through, though, because of privacy concerns…thanks to the porn industry…
T-Bone, understood, but you are able to make a living at your art. Some composers would not be able to. Hey, I still play guitar for free, but now it’s really folk music! But if “recording artists” were not able to be paid for their recordings or their songs, what would happen. You’re sure not going to make it on the road very easily… And you’re in that position of having made an impact before the days of file sharing, etc. I would imagine you get checks from ASCAP or BMI, as do the artists you work with. I’m all in favor of that.
Jon has suggested an Internet tax to be split up the same way ASCAP and BMI take care of things, and with digital watermarks, it could all be even more fairly distributed. Good luck on getting that through, though, because of privacy concerns…thanks to the porn industry…
T-Bone, understood, but you are able to make a living at your art. Some composers would not be able to. Hey, I still play guitar for free, but now it’s really folk music! But if “recording artists” were not able to be paid for their recordings or their songs, what would happen. You’re sure not going to make it on the road very easily… And you’re in that position of having made an impact before the days of file sharing, etc. I would imagine you get checks from ASCAP or BMI, as do the artists you work with. I’m all in favor of that.
Jon has suggested an Internet tax to be split up the same way ASCAP and BMI take care of things, and with digital watermarks, it could all be even more fairly distributed. Good luck on getting that through, though, because of privacy concerns…thanks to the porn industry…
I got you, too, Rick. I’m with you. We have to find a balance. That’s for sure. I’m not at all opposed to making money, even a great fortune. As you know, there are those who spend more time each day counting money than they do making art. That is a hell of a note. The porn industry?!? God.
I got you, too, Rick. I’m with you. We have to find a balance. That’s for sure. I’m not at all opposed to making money, even a great fortune. As you know, there are those who spend more time each day counting money than they do making art. That is a hell of a note. The porn industry?!? God.
I got you, too, Rick. I’m with you. We have to find a balance. That’s for sure. I’m not at all opposed to making money, even a great fortune. As you know, there are those who spend more time each day counting money than they do making art. That is a hell of a note. The porn industry?!? God.
I got you, too, Rick. I’m with you. We have to find a balance. That’s for sure. I’m not at all opposed to making money, even a great fortune. As you know, there are those who spend more time each day counting money than they do making art. That is a hell of a note. The porn industry?!? God.
For what it’s worth, Frank Lloyd Wright thought of architecture as ‘frozen music’ (which animation coming, I suppose from the motion of an individual through the building).
I believe his favorite composer was Beethoven, who has been credited with imagining ‘cathedrals of sound’. Here, the compounding memories of sound illuminate a single timeless pattern.
Not that this sheds any direct light on the copyright issue, but it did seem to make an interesting aside to this conversation.
For what it’s worth, Frank Lloyd Wright thought of architecture as ‘frozen music’ (which animation coming, I suppose from the motion of an individual through the building).
I believe his favorite composer was Beethoven, who has been credited with imagining ‘cathedrals of sound’. Here, the compounding memories of sound illuminate a single timeless pattern.
Not that this sheds any direct light on the copyright issue, but it did seem to make an interesting aside to this conversation.
‘with animation’ not ‘which’. sorry.
‘with animation’ not ‘which’. sorry.
Rick- I was thinking about this conversation on the way to dinner, and it occurred to me that for artists to threaten to go on strike, as it were, is probably not going to be a successful strategy. It’s not like there is a shortage of art or music out there. I do this full time, and I am a few centuries behind on my reading. The authors might have made a step in the right direction. Looking forward to seeing you.
Rick- I was thinking about this conversation on the way to dinner, and it occurred to me that for artists to threaten to go on strike, as it were, is probably not going to be a successful strategy. It’s not like there is a shortage of art or music out there. I do this full time, and I am a few centuries behind on my reading. The authors might have made a step in the right direction. Looking forward to seeing you.
Where I take issue is that the design and plans of a house are not as worthy as a song. Plans are copied, rights are paid, it is a system that works. Contractors buy those plans. Houses are not one-offs and a well-designed efficient house can currently do MORE for the state of things in the world than even the best written song. Let’s be honest. A hyacinth to feed thy soul is good as long as you still have one of the two loaves of bread you sold to buy the flower.
The situation for music is somewhat like what goes down in a city with limited gig rooms. The pros defend their turf and the amateurs cut their costs, and then as Gresham’s Law kicks in the price settles into a mean for the amateurs, and the opportunities for the pros to make top dollar drops until only a few of them do. We can argue quality but in fact, in music as in all arts, good enough is good enough in the commercial market. That isn’t the art point of view but it is the fact of live gigging. If you do it for the fame and wealth, best of luck to you, but if you do it for the community of the band and the thrill of the crowd, or because this is how you’ve learned to express yourself, you have a lifetime of mostly pleasuable experience ahead.
We have to be honest that the commercial value of published music has been wildly inflated for some time. As we’ve discussed before, there is still some money to be made in the sheet music, in the derivatives such as ringtones, in selling samples, in doing commissions for online worlds, and other page types. What is dieing is the Big Old Ceegar Chompin’ Boy You Gonna Be Very Rich Man industry of Nashville, LA and New York. And good riddance. Like any ecosystem, that which is unnecessary and can’t be sustained by artificial means dies. What we are witnessing is the last act of the ‘artificial means’ period. When The Bluebird became a museum, Nashville became irrlevant to the art of songwriting.
Copyright should not die. Some people are only now waking up to the expense of enforcing it while others are just waking up to the reality that it still exists and is enforceable. Ask Coldplay about Joe Satriani.
It would be good if we could enforce it without the goons. Frankly, mechanical royalties are in some ways dumb and wide open to corruption. At least with iTunes, there is if forced, transparent accounting and that is the real issue at hand.
A little offtopic but related in the sense of what open IP-unencumbered tech can accomplish: Google shuttered its much ballyhooed virtual world offering, Lively, telling the content makers they could take screenshots but otherwise, they were screwed. The virtual worlds industy is immature and this sort of thing happens. Then this week, a group of Chinese programmers using ISO standard IP-unencumbered VRML/X3D, a standard the Web 2.0 VR vendors have spent many shekels trying to kill, duplicated most of Lively in one month and then offered it to the former Lively residents. It is a stunning act of revolution to the American vendor who thought it could talk open source and free out one side of its mouth while working to seize proprietary high ground on the other.
So perhaps every time a kid takes a Beatle album, rips it and puts it up for free, it makes the world just a little bit better all the time. I’m not convinced it really hurts Paul and Ringo as much as shuttering those worlds hurt the Google customers.
Where I take issue is that the design and plans of a house are not as worthy as a song. Plans are copied, rights are paid, it is a system that works. Contractors buy those plans. Houses are not one-offs and a well-designed efficient house can currently do MORE for the state of things in the world than even the best written song. Let’s be honest. A hyacinth to feed thy soul is good as long as you still have one of the two loaves of bread you sold to buy the flower.
The situation for music is somewhat like what goes down in a city with limited gig rooms. The pros defend their turf and the amateurs cut their costs, and then as Gresham’s Law kicks in the price settles into a mean for the amateurs, and the opportunities for the pros to make top dollar drops until only a few of them do. We can argue quality but in fact, in music as in all arts, good enough is good enough in the commercial market. That isn’t the art point of view but it is the fact of live gigging. If you do it for the fame and wealth, best of luck to you, but if you do it for the community of the band and the thrill of the crowd, or because this is how you’ve learned to express yourself, you have a lifetime of mostly pleasuable experience ahead.
We have to be honest that the commercial value of published music has been wildly inflated for some time. As we’ve discussed before, there is still some money to be made in the sheet music, in the derivatives such as ringtones, in selling samples, in doing commissions for online worlds, and other page types. What is dieing is the Big Old Ceegar Chompin’ Boy You Gonna Be Very Rich Man industry of Nashville, LA and New York. And good riddance. Like any ecosystem, that which is unnecessary and can’t be sustained by artificial means dies. What we are witnessing is the last act of the ‘artificial means’ period. When The Bluebird became a museum, Nashville became irrlevant to the art of songwriting.
Copyright should not die. Some people are only now waking up to the expense of enforcing it while others are just waking up to the reality that it still exists and is enforceable. Ask Coldplay about Joe Satriani.
It would be good if we could enforce it without the goons. Frankly, mechanical royalties are in some ways dumb and wide open to corruption. At least with iTunes, there is if forced, transparent accounting and that is the real issue at hand.
A little offtopic but related in the sense of what open IP-unencumbered tech can accomplish: Google shuttered its much ballyhooed virtual world offering, Lively, telling the content makers they could take screenshots but otherwise, they were screwed. The virtual worlds industy is immature and this sort of thing happens. Then this week, a group of Chinese programmers using ISO standard IP-unencumbered VRML/X3D, a standard the Web 2.0 VR vendors have spent many shekels trying to kill, duplicated most of Lively in one month and then offered it to the former Lively residents. It is a stunning act of revolution to the American vendor who thought it could talk open source and free out one side of its mouth while working to seize proprietary high ground on the other.
So perhaps every time a kid takes a Beatle album, rips it and puts it up for free, it makes the world just a little bit better all the time. I’m not convinced it really hurts Paul and Ringo as much as shuttering those worlds hurt the Google customers.
We have no issue.
We have no issue.
We have no issue.
T-bone and all, what I object to is this whole idea that “information wants to be free”. No, it doesn’t. There are those whose labors are primarily mental. They should benefit from their labors no less than the brick layer or carpenter or doctor. If they invent or design or compose or write “information” that is of benefit to a lot of people…even if that “benefit” is “merely” aesthetic, then those people should be able to make a fair living from their talent/hard work/luck recipe. But defining “fair living”…now there’s the rub.
I personally think it’s pathetic that sports heroes get signed for mega-millions while symphony orchestras go begging. On the other hand, I think it’s really fabulous when a stupidly rich rock star like Robert Plant goes and makes a fantastic album with Alison Krauss who I first heard at Follows Camp with an audience of maybe 300 dusty people. Ditto seeing John Paul Jones play mandolin on stage at Merle Fest with the Duhks. These guys are moving forward with their art and staying relevant. But that’s my own values. Some would love that A-Rod is fucking Madonna in between ball games…
But intellectual property should be regarded as valuable as physical prowess in my little booklet. Why should Bob Dylan’s intellectual property be free and some football player’s work be worth millions? Is a ball player’s contribution to society worth more or less than Richard Thompson’s? I’ll take an Ali Farka Toure over your Bjorn Borg any day of the week… Or any member of Ralph Stanley’s band over any player on the Oakland Raiders… And the dollars seem to be going one way with the musos and quite another with the heroes of the Modern Roman Circus Games… Bread lines and the Coliseum… Blood sport wins, I guess…
T-bone and all, what I object to is this whole idea that “information wants to be free”. No, it doesn’t. There are those whose labors are primarily mental. They should benefit from their labors no less than the brick layer or carpenter or doctor. If they invent or design or compose or write “information” that is of benefit to a lot of people…even if that “benefit” is “merely” aesthetic, then those people should be able to make a fair living from their talent/hard work/luck recipe. But defining “fair living”…now there’s the rub.
I personally think it’s pathetic that sports heroes get signed for mega-millions while symphony orchestras go begging. On the other hand, I think it’s really fabulous when a stupidly rich rock star like Robert Plant goes and makes a fantastic album with Alison Krauss who I first heard at Follows Camp with an audience of maybe 300 dusty people. Ditto seeing John Paul Jones play mandolin on stage at Merle Fest with the Duhks. These guys are moving forward with their art and staying relevant. But that’s my own values. Some would love that A-Rod is fucking Madonna in between ball games…
But intellectual property should be regarded as valuable as physical prowess in my little booklet. Why should Bob Dylan’s intellectual property be free and some football player’s work be worth millions? Is a ball player’s contribution to society worth more or less than Richard Thompson’s? I’ll take an Ali Farka Toure over your Bjorn Borg any day of the week… Or any member of Ralph Stanley’s band over any player on the Oakland Raiders… And the dollars seem to be going one way with the musos and quite another with the heroes of the Modern Roman Circus Games… Bread lines and the Coliseum… Blood sport wins, I guess…
T-bone and all, what I object to is this whole idea that “information wants to be free”. No, it doesn’t. There are those whose labors are primarily mental. They should benefit from their labors no less than the brick layer or carpenter or doctor. If they invent or design or compose or write “information” that is of benefit to a lot of people…even if that “benefit” is “merely” aesthetic, then those people should be able to make a fair living from their talent/hard work/luck recipe. But defining “fair living”…now there’s the rub.
I personally think it’s pathetic that sports heroes get signed for mega-millions while symphony orchestras go begging. On the other hand, I think it’s really fabulous when a stupidly rich rock star like Robert Plant goes and makes a fantastic album with Alison Krauss who I first heard at Follows Camp with an audience of maybe 300 dusty people. Ditto seeing John Paul Jones play mandolin on stage at Merle Fest with the Duhks. These guys are moving forward with their art and staying relevant. But that’s my own values. Some would love that A-Rod is fucking Madonna in between ball games…
But intellectual property should be regarded as valuable as physical prowess in my little booklet. Why should Bob Dylan’s intellectual property be free and some football player’s work be worth millions? Is a ball player’s contribution to society worth more or less than Richard Thompson’s? I’ll take an Ali Farka Toure over your Bjorn Borg any day of the week… Or any member of Ralph Stanley’s band over any player on the Oakland Raiders… And the dollars seem to be going one way with the musos and quite another with the heroes of the Modern Roman Circus Games… Bread lines and the Coliseum… Blood sport wins, I guess…
@Rick Turner “[Artists] should benefit from their labors no less than the brick layer or carpenter or doctor”
Right. But they should not have special privileges either. Artists should be paid _once_ , when they release a work to society! Not per copy made thereafter.
If an artist is not willing to make the bet that the initial fee will cover his costs, he should stop trying to be an artist. Or he should work on a contract. Or he should secure pledges before working.
And he most certainly should not be allowed privileges on how, where and by whom the song is used afterwards. (No more than carpenters can mandate “no colored people in this house I built”, or doctors can say “I fixed your hand, now you must never use it for woodcutting again”).
@Rick Turner “[Artists] should benefit from their labors no less than the brick layer or carpenter or doctor”
Right. But they should not have special privileges either. Artists should be paid _once_ , when they release a work to society! Not per copy made thereafter.
If an artist is not willing to make the bet that the initial fee will cover his costs, he should stop trying to be an artist. Or he should work on a contract. Or he should secure pledges before working.
And he most certainly should not be allowed privileges on how, where and by whom the song is used afterwards. (No more than carpenters can mandate “no colored people in this house I built”, or doctors can say “I fixed your hand, now you must never use it for woodcutting again”).
@Rick Turner “[Artists] should benefit from their labors no less than the brick layer or carpenter or doctor”
Right. But they should not have special privileges either. Artists should be paid _once_ , when they release a work to society! Not per copy made thereafter.
If an artist is not willing to make the bet that the initial fee will cover his costs, he should stop trying to be an artist. Or he should work on a contract. Or he should secure pledges before working.
And he most certainly should not be allowed privileges on how, where and by whom the song is used afterwards. (No more than carpenters can mandate “no colored people in this house I built”, or doctors can say “I fixed your hand, now you must never use it for woodcutting again”).
@Rick Turner “[Artists] should benefit from their labors no less than the brick layer or carpenter or doctor”
Right. But they should not have special privileges either. Artists should be paid _once_ , when they release a work to society! Not per copy made thereafter.
If an artist is not willing to make the bet that the initial fee will cover his costs, he should stop trying to be an artist. Or he should work on a contract. Or he should secure pledges before working.
And he most certainly should not be allowed privileges on how, where and by whom the song is used afterwards. (No more than carpenters can mandate “no colored people in this house I built”, or doctors can say “I fixed your hand, now you must never use it for woodcutting again”).
…or no “No humming this song in the shower – it was meant to be sung damnit, so sing properly!”
…or no “No humming this song in the shower – it was meant to be sung damnit, so sing properly!”
…or no “No humming this song in the shower – it was meant to be sung damnit, so sing properly!”
…or no “No humming this song in the shower – it was meant to be sung damnit, so sing properly!”
Anders, I’d sure like to know how you think that can possibly work. It can’t.
And pro football players should get $1,000.00 a game, too, right?
Anders, I’d sure like to know how you think that can possibly work. It can’t.
And pro football players should get $1,000.00 a game, too, right?
Anders, I’d sure like to know how you think that can possibly work. It can’t.
And pro football players should get $1,000.00 a game, too, right?
Anders, I’d sure like to know how you think that can possibly work. It can’t.
And pro football players should get $1,000.00 a game, too, right?
@T-Bone:
“To abolish copyright is to abolish private property.”
How so?
When I have a house, or a computer or a bottle of coke that is my property and someone else takes is – I am left without it.
Property laws are there to protect me from losing what I have.
When I have a recording of a song and someone else copies it – I am not bereft of that recording.
I am not advocating abolishing private property. I am simply saying that creativity and ideas should not be regarded as private property. Just because we’ve grown up in a world where things of the spirit and of the mind were regarded as property does not mean our children need grow up in such a world too.
Your example with the architectural plans is a perfect example of where abolishing copyright would help.
If I, as an architect, am afraid of my idea leaking out – I will not release those plans. I will keep them in a vault.
They will stay my property.
However if someone saw a house built with those plans and wanted to make one just like it – he’d have to pay me for those plans or pay another architect to draw up similar plans based on the house already built.
Either way, architects get paid and houses are built. And in the process more people get the type of houses they wish for.
The common good is served (perhaps at the expense of a singular genius architect). But such is a small price to pay as a society in my view.
If the idea is good enough, it will be copied or emulated – thus serving the creator’s ego.
And if the idea is generic enough that it can be easily copied or reproduced by another, then there shouldn’t be a law restricting it – thus serving the common good (though maybe not some huge company’s pocket – the artist is usually NOT left holding the copyright anyway).
There is no reason, in my mind, that such a thing should not be allowed.
The only issue my stance on complete abolition of copyright does NOT address is the issue of attribution.
Such an issue might need enforcement through legislation (or might not – I don’t know) but copyright laws do not address that issue anyway.
So the issue of attribution would not stand in the way of abolishing copyright laws outright.
@T-Bone:
“To abolish copyright is to abolish private property.”
How so?
When I have a house, or a computer or a bottle of coke that is my property and someone else takes is – I am left without it.
Property laws are there to protect me from losing what I have.
When I have a recording of a song and someone else copies it – I am not bereft of that recording.
I am not advocating abolishing private property. I am simply saying that creativity and ideas should not be regarded as private property. Just because we’ve grown up in a world where things of the spirit and of the mind were regarded as property does not mean our children need grow up in such a world too.
Your example with the architectural plans is a perfect example of where abolishing copyright would help.
If I, as an architect, am afraid of my idea leaking out – I will not release those plans. I will keep them in a vault.
They will stay my property.
However if someone saw a house built with those plans and wanted to make one just like it – he’d have to pay me for those plans or pay another architect to draw up similar plans based on the house already built.
Either way, architects get paid and houses are built. And in the process more people get the type of houses they wish for.
The common good is served (perhaps at the expense of a singular genius architect). But such is a small price to pay as a society in my view.
If the idea is good enough, it will be copied or emulated – thus serving the creator’s ego.
And if the idea is generic enough that it can be easily copied or reproduced by another, then there shouldn’t be a law restricting it – thus serving the common good (though maybe not some huge company’s pocket – the artist is usually NOT left holding the copyright anyway).
There is no reason, in my mind, that such a thing should not be allowed.
The only issue my stance on complete abolition of copyright does NOT address is the issue of attribution.
Such an issue might need enforcement through legislation (or might not – I don’t know) but copyright laws do not address that issue anyway.
So the issue of attribution would not stand in the way of abolishing copyright laws outright.
@T-Bone:
“To abolish copyright is to abolish private property.”
How so?
When I have a house, or a computer or a bottle of coke that is my property and someone else takes is – I am left without it.
Property laws are there to protect me from losing what I have.
When I have a recording of a song and someone else copies it – I am not bereft of that recording.
I am not advocating abolishing private property. I am simply saying that creativity and ideas should not be regarded as private property. Just because we’ve grown up in a world where things of the spirit and of the mind were regarded as property does not mean our children need grow up in such a world too.
Your example with the architectural plans is a perfect example of where abolishing copyright would help.
If I, as an architect, am afraid of my idea leaking out – I will not release those plans. I will keep them in a vault.
They will stay my property.
However if someone saw a house built with those plans and wanted to make one just like it – he’d have to pay me for those plans or pay another architect to draw up similar plans based on the house already built.
Either way, architects get paid and houses are built. And in the process more people get the type of houses they wish for.
The common good is served (perhaps at the expense of a singular genius architect). But such is a small price to pay as a society in my view.
If the idea is good enough, it will be copied or emulated – thus serving the creator’s ego.
And if the idea is generic enough that it can be easily copied or reproduced by another, then there shouldn’t be a law restricting it – thus serving the common good (though maybe not some huge company’s pocket – the artist is usually NOT left holding the copyright anyway).
There is no reason, in my mind, that such a thing should not be allowed.
The only issue my stance on complete abolition of copyright does NOT address is the issue of attribution.
Such an issue might need enforcement through legislation (or might not – I don’t know) but copyright laws do not address that issue anyway.
So the issue of attribution would not stand in the way of abolishing copyright laws outright.
I’d like to get back to a point talked about earlier in regards to “cultural commons” and it’s impact on the creative output of the individual.
All forms of creativity borrow to one degree or another from the world at large – it’s part of the process. For example, I earn my living as a commercial artist/illustrator. One of the necessities for an illustrator is what we used to refer to as a “scrap pile” – basically the collection of images and objects you’ve run across over the years and said, “gee, I might need to reference this kind of tweed or mica encrusted granite or a Shetland pony sometime.” With the advent of the internet, suddenly, the whole friggin’ world is your scrap pile – easily referenced and bursting with options.
Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelly, back in the 60’s, made reference to the “image bank” – basically stating that all visual material is a “cultural common”. In this frame of reference, plagiarism becomes meaningless and a poster such as their October 6-7th Avalon Ballroom 1966 “Girl with Green Hair” that completely lifts an Alphonse Mucha lithograph as its’ central image – without accreditation or acknowledgement is seen as perfectly valid. Alton Kelly later said, “when I use an image, I don’t steal it – I made it my own. I felt I had a right to use it.”
Now, is that a valid definition of “fair use”? It’s one thing to do a “Mucha-like” drawing, which I would consider fair use, since you are referencing the style but creating an original, albeit referential work – it’s quite another to merely replace Mucha’s signature with your own.
Copyright is one of the few areas that protect the artist from wholesale misuse of their work. Money aside, I would be less than happy to see work that I did being passed off as the efforts of someone else. As a commercial artist, I have less protection from this sort of misuse, fortunately, the majority of material I produce for clients is so obscure that I doubt if anyone is going to be lifting my illustrations of exercises for stroke patients to make a critical artistic statement on their own.
But, I think you see the point. Because people can get lazy with values, without some sort of protection for intellectual/creative property, anyone creating anything can be victimized by a loose “fair use” standard.
So, the question I’d like to toss out at this point is, where does fair use stop and piracy begin?
I’d like to get back to a point talked about earlier in regards to “cultural commons” and it’s impact on the creative output of the individual.
All forms of creativity borrow to one degree or another from the world at large – it’s part of the process. For example, I earn my living as a commercial artist/illustrator. One of the necessities for an illustrator is what we used to refer to as a “scrap pile” – basically the collection of images and objects you’ve run across over the years and said, “gee, I might need to reference this kind of tweed or mica encrusted granite or a Shetland pony sometime.” With the advent of the internet, suddenly, the whole friggin’ world is your scrap pile – easily referenced and bursting with options.
Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelly, back in the 60’s, made reference to the “image bank” – basically stating that all visual material is a “cultural common”. In this frame of reference, plagiarism becomes meaningless and a poster such as their October 6-7th Avalon Ballroom 1966 “Girl with Green Hair” that completely lifts an Alphonse Mucha lithograph as its’ central image – without accreditation or acknowledgement is seen as perfectly valid. Alton Kelly later said, “when I use an image, I don’t steal it – I made it my own. I felt I had a right to use it.”
Now, is that a valid definition of “fair use”? It’s one thing to do a “Mucha-like” drawing, which I would consider fair use, since you are referencing the style but creating an original, albeit referential work – it’s quite another to merely replace Mucha’s signature with your own.
Copyright is one of the few areas that protect the artist from wholesale misuse of their work. Money aside, I would be less than happy to see work that I did being passed off as the efforts of someone else. As a commercial artist, I have less protection from this sort of misuse, fortunately, the majority of material I produce for clients is so obscure that I doubt if anyone is going to be lifting my illustrations of exercises for stroke patients to make a critical artistic statement on their own.
But, I think you see the point. Because people can get lazy with values, without some sort of protection for intellectual/creative property, anyone creating anything can be victimized by a loose “fair use” standard.
So, the question I’d like to toss out at this point is, where does fair use stop and piracy begin?
I’d like to get back to a point talked about earlier in regards to “cultural commons” and it’s impact on the creative output of the individual.
All forms of creativity borrow to one degree or another from the world at large – it’s part of the process. For example, I earn my living as a commercial artist/illustrator. One of the necessities for an illustrator is what we used to refer to as a “scrap pile” – basically the collection of images and objects you’ve run across over the years and said, “gee, I might need to reference this kind of tweed or mica encrusted granite or a Shetland pony sometime.” With the advent of the internet, suddenly, the whole friggin’ world is your scrap pile – easily referenced and bursting with options.
Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelly, back in the 60’s, made reference to the “image bank” – basically stating that all visual material is a “cultural common”. In this frame of reference, plagiarism becomes meaningless and a poster such as their October 6-7th Avalon Ballroom 1966 “Girl with Green Hair” that completely lifts an Alphonse Mucha lithograph as its’ central image – without accreditation or acknowledgement is seen as perfectly valid. Alton Kelly later said, “when I use an image, I don’t steal it – I made it my own. I felt I had a right to use it.”
Now, is that a valid definition of “fair use”? It’s one thing to do a “Mucha-like” drawing, which I would consider fair use, since you are referencing the style but creating an original, albeit referential work – it’s quite another to merely replace Mucha’s signature with your own.
Copyright is one of the few areas that protect the artist from wholesale misuse of their work. Money aside, I would be less than happy to see work that I did being passed off as the efforts of someone else. As a commercial artist, I have less protection from this sort of misuse, fortunately, the majority of material I produce for clients is so obscure that I doubt if anyone is going to be lifting my illustrations of exercises for stroke patients to make a critical artistic statement on their own.
But, I think you see the point. Because people can get lazy with values, without some sort of protection for intellectual/creative property, anyone creating anything can be victimized by a loose “fair use” standard.
So, the question I’d like to toss out at this point is, where does fair use stop and piracy begin?
@rick and t-bone: From the personal and professional perspective, you hit the nail on the head. Who one gets to work with is in some ways more important than what is done with the work because that is the fast lane to learning, growing, and life long pleasure. It makes a huge difference to both the artist and the art. When T puts together two wildly divergent artists and blends that, magic happens. It’s the same for Rick working with his partners making axes or playing folk. I’ve friends that I would go gig with despite the pay or the room just to be in that sound. Those who won’t don’t get it. Enough said.
@Tom: Fair use is hard. At two extremes, sampling has been shown not to be fair use given it infringes the right to copy the audio recording. Ripping off licks within a different structure is pretty much how art works within a genre, thus T-Bone’s example. Blues would not have left the Delta if that weren’t possible and it would be a fairly crude genre mechanically. The art rock world of the late Seventies (say Yes) would be nowhere without Debussy. The lick that starts Layla is a standard pull-off/hammer-on used everywhere and it only becomes a signature lick past the first measure.
But in this kind of fair use, we are reapplying the materials and it is a matter of size and volume. There are no algorithms for this so it comes down to lawyers and a judge. The web community has long been in the habit of pilfering, in fact, the web is itself made of pilfered ideas and openly shared/discussed information. Much of the thinking that has made its way into the art world comes of computer scientists trying to justify that. As the twig is bent…
Without copyright, though, I have to disagree with Armand, it would be very hard to make enough money to be and stay a pro. It comes down to asking yourself if you really want to have professional songwriters and arrangers. There is plenty of text explaining how points work so I won’t get into it, but a single song will not make one fabulously wealthy where a decent sized catalog of reasonably distributed work will make one comfortable. For a pro, it is necessary to not just write but produce, perform, play sessions and so on depending on the lifestyle.
But the issues that are most pertinent in my opinion are
a) recognition that the technology of digital technology is irrevocable and changes the means and rewards for the digital arts of all forms and
b) the accounting means we have relied on and which have been used in all media industries to enrich and defraud have to change and become transparent. This is another case where transparency is good for everyone except the criminals.
c) The media industries that create new business models to adapt to this will continue to thrive because no one stays in business suing the customers and as long as there are speaker wires and means to decompile code, no means of DRM will work without strong enforcement.
d) Companies and individuals that are enriching themselves by burgling the commons and the private property of the media industry need to be sued into bankruptcy if that is what it takes. Otherwise, the media industry has to declare war on the software giants that choose to use the mantras such as “information wants to free” (a really dumb but slick way to defraud) up to and including supporting breaking their binaries open. Let’s put fair use to the ultimate test of tit for tat.
It won’t come to that but I’m a bit tired of watching 20 somethings claim rights they don’t have to information they don’t own so they can possess wealth they did not earn. If the kids don’t get this, let them do six months at the big house until they do.
@rick and t-bone: From the personal and professional perspective, you hit the nail on the head. Who one gets to work with is in some ways more important than what is done with the work because that is the fast lane to learning, growing, and life long pleasure. It makes a huge difference to both the artist and the art. When T puts together two wildly divergent artists and blends that, magic happens. It’s the same for Rick working with his partners making axes or playing folk. I’ve friends that I would go gig with despite the pay or the room just to be in that sound. Those who won’t don’t get it. Enough said.
@Tom: Fair use is hard. At two extremes, sampling has been shown not to be fair use given it infringes the right to copy the audio recording. Ripping off licks within a different structure is pretty much how art works within a genre, thus T-Bone’s example. Blues would not have left the Delta if that weren’t possible and it would be a fairly crude genre mechanically. The art rock world of the late Seventies (say Yes) would be nowhere without Debussy. The lick that starts Layla is a standard pull-off/hammer-on used everywhere and it only becomes a signature lick past the first measure.
But in this kind of fair use, we are reapplying the materials and it is a matter of size and volume. There are no algorithms for this so it comes down to lawyers and a judge. The web community has long been in the habit of pilfering, in fact, the web is itself made of pilfered ideas and openly shared/discussed information. Much of the thinking that has made its way into the art world comes of computer scientists trying to justify that. As the twig is bent…
Without copyright, though, I have to disagree with Armand, it would be very hard to make enough money to be and stay a pro. It comes down to asking yourself if you really want to have professional songwriters and arrangers. There is plenty of text explaining how points work so I won’t get into it, but a single song will not make one fabulously wealthy where a decent sized catalog of reasonably distributed work will make one comfortable. For a pro, it is necessary to not just write but produce, perform, play sessions and so on depending on the lifestyle.
But the issues that are most pertinent in my opinion are
a) recognition that the technology of digital technology is irrevocable and changes the means and rewards for the digital arts of all forms and
b) the accounting means we have relied on and which have been used in all media industries to enrich and defraud have to change and become transparent. This is another case where transparency is good for everyone except the criminals.
c) The media industries that create new business models to adapt to this will continue to thrive because no one stays in business suing the customers and as long as there are speaker wires and means to decompile code, no means of DRM will work without strong enforcement.
d) Companies and individuals that are enriching themselves by burgling the commons and the private property of the media industry need to be sued into bankruptcy if that is what it takes. Otherwise, the media industry has to declare war on the software giants that choose to use the mantras such as “information wants to free” (a really dumb but slick way to defraud) up to and including supporting breaking their binaries open. Let’s put fair use to the ultimate test of tit for tat.
It won’t come to that but I’m a bit tired of watching 20 somethings claim rights they don’t have to information they don’t own so they can possess wealth they did not earn. If the kids don’t get this, let them do six months at the big house until they do.
@rick and t-bone: From the personal and professional perspective, you hit the nail on the head. Who one gets to work with is in some ways more important than what is done with the work because that is the fast lane to learning, growing, and life long pleasure. It makes a huge difference to both the artist and the art. When T puts together two wildly divergent artists and blends that, magic happens. It’s the same for Rick working with his partners making axes or playing folk. I’ve friends that I would go gig with despite the pay or the room just to be in that sound. Those who won’t don’t get it. Enough said.
@Tom: Fair use is hard. At two extremes, sampling has been shown not to be fair use given it infringes the right to copy the audio recording. Ripping off licks within a different structure is pretty much how art works within a genre, thus T-Bone’s example. Blues would not have left the Delta if that weren’t possible and it would be a fairly crude genre mechanically. The art rock world of the late Seventies (say Yes) would be nowhere without Debussy. The lick that starts Layla is a standard pull-off/hammer-on used everywhere and it only becomes a signature lick past the first measure.
But in this kind of fair use, we are reapplying the materials and it is a matter of size and volume. There are no algorithms for this so it comes down to lawyers and a judge. The web community has long been in the habit of pilfering, in fact, the web is itself made of pilfered ideas and openly shared/discussed information. Much of the thinking that has made its way into the art world comes of computer scientists trying to justify that. As the twig is bent…
Without copyright, though, I have to disagree with Armand, it would be very hard to make enough money to be and stay a pro. It comes down to asking yourself if you really want to have professional songwriters and arrangers. There is plenty of text explaining how points work so I won’t get into it, but a single song will not make one fabulously wealthy where a decent sized catalog of reasonably distributed work will make one comfortable. For a pro, it is necessary to not just write but produce, perform, play sessions and so on depending on the lifestyle.
But the issues that are most pertinent in my opinion are
a) recognition that the technology of digital technology is irrevocable and changes the means and rewards for the digital arts of all forms and
b) the accounting means we have relied on and which have been used in all media industries to enrich and defraud have to change and become transparent. This is another case where transparency is good for everyone except the criminals.
c) The media industries that create new business models to adapt to this will continue to thrive because no one stays in business suing the customers and as long as there are speaker wires and means to decompile code, no means of DRM will work without strong enforcement.
d) Companies and individuals that are enriching themselves by burgling the commons and the private property of the media industry need to be sued into bankruptcy if that is what it takes. Otherwise, the media industry has to declare war on the software giants that choose to use the mantras such as “information wants to free” (a really dumb but slick way to defraud) up to and including supporting breaking their binaries open. Let’s put fair use to the ultimate test of tit for tat.
It won’t come to that but I’m a bit tired of watching 20 somethings claim rights they don’t have to information they don’t own so they can possess wealth they did not earn. If the kids don’t get this, let them do six months at the big house until they do.
My concern with a global license is this:
What incentive do the copyright owners have to ever do anything new? It seems that if $1.5bn/month is just being handed to them, they might as well shut down their entire operation, except for a small office full of lawyers, and just collect rent on music being downloaded or played.
Why would they ever bother promoting new acts, or letting anyone else into the revenue sharing pool?
My concern with a global license is this:
What incentive do the copyright owners have to ever do anything new? It seems that if $1.5bn/month is just being handed to them, they might as well shut down their entire operation, except for a small office full of lawyers, and just collect rent on music being downloaded or played.
Why would they ever bother promoting new acts, or letting anyone else into the revenue sharing pool?
My concern with a global license is this:
What incentive do the copyright owners have to ever do anything new? It seems that if $1.5bn/month is just being handed to them, they might as well shut down their entire operation, except for a small office full of lawyers, and just collect rent on music being downloaded or played.
Why would they ever bother promoting new acts, or letting anyone else into the revenue sharing pool?
My concern with a global license is this:
What incentive do the copyright owners have to ever do anything new? It seems that if $1.5bn/month is just being handed to them, they might as well shut down their entire operation, except for a small office full of lawyers, and just collect rent on music being downloaded or played.
Why would they ever bother promoting new acts, or letting anyone else into the revenue sharing pool?
Armand- If you own a house and somebody makes copies of you, reorders your thoughts, and starts using those copies of you to make money or steal money or attack someone or to sell something, that is what we are talking about. The house in this conversation is almost irrelevant.
Or, Starbucks sells you a cup of coffee. After you drink it, it is full again. The cruise of oil that never fails. If Starbucks wanted to sell you another cup of coffee, they would have to come up with a new kind of coffee. Every cup has to be unique.
Or, you own a house and people start moving into your house, eating your food and rifling through your papers, invading your privacy, and they keep coming until everyone is standing in the exact same space. It is not a great idea to assign a greater value or significance to physical property than to intellectual property. My view is the opposite. A few tens of thousands of years ago, there were only twelve hundred people on Earth, living in Africa. The human race was almost extinct. Then something happened- one of the people started making art, abstract thought entered the race and the entire migration that brought us to where we are today began. It is of profound importance that intellectual property have standing as private property.
Rick- That’s right, a painting is not information. That is a serious reduction. The fastest machine we make will not be able to decipher the information, so to speak, in a Jackson Pollack painting or tell you what it is talking about.
Armand- If you own a house and somebody makes copies of you, reorders your thoughts, and starts using those copies of you to make money or steal money or attack someone or to sell something, that is what we are talking about. The house in this conversation is almost irrelevant.
Or, Starbucks sells you a cup of coffee. After you drink it, it is full again. The cruise of oil that never fails. If Starbucks wanted to sell you another cup of coffee, they would have to come up with a new kind of coffee. Every cup has to be unique.
Or, you own a house and people start moving into your house, eating your food and rifling through your papers, invading your privacy, and they keep coming until everyone is standing in the exact same space. It is not a great idea to assign a greater value or significance to physical property than to intellectual property. My view is the opposite. A few tens of thousands of years ago, there were only twelve hundred people on Earth, living in Africa. The human race was almost extinct. Then something happened- one of the people started making art, abstract thought entered the race and the entire migration that brought us to where we are today began. It is of profound importance that intellectual property have standing as private property.
Rick- That’s right, a painting is not information. That is a serious reduction. The fastest machine we make will not be able to decipher the information, so to speak, in a Jackson Pollack painting or tell you what it is talking about.
Armand- If you own a house and somebody makes copies of you, reorders your thoughts, and starts using those copies of you to make money or steal money or attack someone or to sell something, that is what we are talking about. The house in this conversation is almost irrelevant.
Or, Starbucks sells you a cup of coffee. After you drink it, it is full again. The cruise of oil that never fails. If Starbucks wanted to sell you another cup of coffee, they would have to come up with a new kind of coffee. Every cup has to be unique.
Or, you own a house and people start moving into your house, eating your food and rifling through your papers, invading your privacy, and they keep coming until everyone is standing in the exact same space. It is not a great idea to assign a greater value or significance to physical property than to intellectual property. My view is the opposite. A few tens of thousands of years ago, there were only twelve hundred people on Earth, living in Africa. The human race was almost extinct. Then something happened- one of the people started making art, abstract thought entered the race and the entire migration that brought us to where we are today began. It is of profound importance that intellectual property have standing as private property.
Rick- That’s right, a painting is not information. That is a serious reduction. The fastest machine we make will not be able to decipher the information, so to speak, in a Jackson Pollack painting or tell you what it is talking about.
Armand- If you own a house and somebody makes copies of you, reorders your thoughts, and starts using those copies of you to make money or steal money or attack someone or to sell something, that is what we are talking about. The house in this conversation is almost irrelevant.
Or, Starbucks sells you a cup of coffee. After you drink it, it is full again. The cruise of oil that never fails. If Starbucks wanted to sell you another cup of coffee, they would have to come up with a new kind of coffee. Every cup has to be unique.
Or, you own a house and people start moving into your house, eating your food and rifling through your papers, invading your privacy, and they keep coming until everyone is standing in the exact same space. It is not a great idea to assign a greater value or significance to physical property than to intellectual property. My view is the opposite. A few tens of thousands of years ago, there were only twelve hundred people on Earth, living in Africa. The human race was almost extinct. Then something happened- one of the people started making art, abstract thought entered the race and the entire migration that brought us to where we are today began. It is of profound importance that intellectual property have standing as private property.
Rick- That’s right, a painting is not information. That is a serious reduction. The fastest machine we make will not be able to decipher the information, so to speak, in a Jackson Pollack painting or tell you what it is talking about.
Information does not want to be free. Information doesn’t give a damn. In fact, it has no idea whatsoever.
“d) Companies and individuals that are enriching themselves by burgling the commons and the private property of the media industry need to be sued into bankruptcy if that is what it takes. Otherwise, the media industry has to declare war on the software giants that choose to use the mantras such as “information wants to free” (a really dumb but slick way to defraud) up to and including supporting breaking their binaries open. Let’s put fair use to the ultimate test of tit for tat.”
I thought that bore repeating.
Information does not want to be free. Information doesn’t give a damn. In fact, it has no idea whatsoever.
“d) Companies and individuals that are enriching themselves by burgling the commons and the private property of the media industry need to be sued into bankruptcy if that is what it takes. Otherwise, the media industry has to declare war on the software giants that choose to use the mantras such as “information wants to free” (a really dumb but slick way to defraud) up to and including supporting breaking their binaries open. Let’s put fair use to the ultimate test of tit for tat.”
I thought that bore repeating.
Information does not want to be free. Information doesn’t give a damn. In fact, it has no idea whatsoever.
“d) Companies and individuals that are enriching themselves by burgling the commons and the private property of the media industry need to be sued into bankruptcy if that is what it takes. Otherwise, the media industry has to declare war on the software giants that choose to use the mantras such as “information wants to free” (a really dumb but slick way to defraud) up to and including supporting breaking their binaries open. Let’s put fair use to the ultimate test of tit for tat.”
I thought that bore repeating.
What about people who have no interest in downloading music or movies, will they also have to pay this extra tax on top of their internet costs???
The real problem is that this industrialized model of production is out of date. It’s in an “interregnum”, as you’d call it, Mr. Taplin. The cost of producing a record is almost nothing now that hardware and software are widespread and cheaply available. A record company is no longer necessary to financially back artists. Artists can now do their own distribution and advertising just by creating a myspace page or setting up a Jamendo account.
Regarding “information wants to be free”: Information, in this case music records, has become so widespread that it is worthless.
Film production is istill another matter as it takes major moneys to make some films, so film studios are still necessary for backing. Even so, equipment and software are always getting better and cheaper and amature filmmaking can now flourish. The film studios suffer from free information and need to price their DVDs and movie tickets accordingly as well. People will pay for quality in a DVD but it’s hard to justify $30 for something I can click and obtain for free. Then again, people who aren’t paying for these movies now probably weren’t going to buy them in the first place.
The upside to all of this is that we’ll hopefully get higher quality intellectual products as the “banks” (film & record companies) are forced to be more selective about what risks (movie/music ventures) they take on.
What about people who have no interest in downloading music or movies, will they also have to pay this extra tax on top of their internet costs???
The real problem is that this industrialized model of production is out of date. It’s in an “interregnum”, as you’d call it, Mr. Taplin. The cost of producing a record is almost nothing now that hardware and software are widespread and cheaply available. A record company is no longer necessary to financially back artists. Artists can now do their own distribution and advertising just by creating a myspace page or setting up a Jamendo account.
Regarding “information wants to be free”: Information, in this case music records, has become so widespread that it is worthless.
Film production is istill another matter as it takes major moneys to make some films, so film studios are still necessary for backing. Even so, equipment and software are always getting better and cheaper and amature filmmaking can now flourish. The film studios suffer from free information and need to price their DVDs and movie tickets accordingly as well. People will pay for quality in a DVD but it’s hard to justify $30 for something I can click and obtain for free. Then again, people who aren’t paying for these movies now probably weren’t going to buy them in the first place.
The upside to all of this is that we’ll hopefully get higher quality intellectual products as the “banks” (film & record companies) are forced to be more selective about what risks (movie/music ventures) they take on.
What about people who have no interest in downloading music or movies, will they also have to pay this extra tax on top of their internet costs???
The real problem is that this industrialized model of production is out of date. It’s in an “interregnum”, as you’d call it, Mr. Taplin. The cost of producing a record is almost nothing now that hardware and software are widespread and cheaply available. A record company is no longer necessary to financially back artists. Artists can now do their own distribution and advertising just by creating a myspace page or setting up a Jamendo account.
Regarding “information wants to be free”: Information, in this case music records, has become so widespread that it is worthless.
Film production is istill another matter as it takes major moneys to make some films, so film studios are still necessary for backing. Even so, equipment and software are always getting better and cheaper and amature filmmaking can now flourish. The film studios suffer from free information and need to price their DVDs and movie tickets accordingly as well. People will pay for quality in a DVD but it’s hard to justify $30 for something I can click and obtain for free. Then again, people who aren’t paying for these movies now probably weren’t going to buy them in the first place.
The upside to all of this is that we’ll hopefully get higher quality intellectual products as the “banks” (film & record companies) are forced to be more selective about what risks (movie/music ventures) they take on.
Anders:
For the most part (and yes, there are exceptions in the reproduction/poster/glicee) market, visual artists DO only get paid once for their work.
Because of the “one off” nature of a painting or a sculpture that is not cast, occasionally, that item rises in value and then you get into a whole ‘nother realm of art and commerce.
While I don’t think that it ever will be resolved without poisoning the well, over the years, especially during the 90’s when gallery art became a HUGE investment pot, there were a number of attempts to try and get some legislation drafted that would allow artists or their estates to profit from the resale of their work.
On the one hand, you have the classic story of Van Gogh unable to sell a single canvas during his lifetime and then having Portrait of Doctor Gachet auction off for $82mil – on the other, you have the point of why Van Gogh was hanging out with a bunch of crows in Arles and asking Theo for money on a regular basis. If you’re in it for profit, art is probably not a good career choice.
“Making a living” in creative endeavors has been problematic through history. On the one hand, guys like Leonardo, Bach and Bernini existed through patrons, on the other, fellows like Vermeer ran taverns and painted when they had a chance.
While I can’t speak for the other folks on this board, I would venture to guess that being able to make a living doing what you love is the ideal, but you’re going to keep doing what you love, regardless.
What blows monkey chunks is the exploitation of creativity – I don’t care if it’s pirating films or music, creative accounting when it comes to paying royalties or club owners that short the band on the door count – there needs to be a level of ethical understanding that just because it’s “creative” it doesn’t give everyone else license to screw you over.
Anders:
For the most part (and yes, there are exceptions in the reproduction/poster/glicee) market, visual artists DO only get paid once for their work.
Because of the “one off” nature of a painting or a sculpture that is not cast, occasionally, that item rises in value and then you get into a whole ‘nother realm of art and commerce.
While I don’t think that it ever will be resolved without poisoning the well, over the years, especially during the 90’s when gallery art became a HUGE investment pot, there were a number of attempts to try and get some legislation drafted that would allow artists or their estates to profit from the resale of their work.
On the one hand, you have the classic story of Van Gogh unable to sell a single canvas during his lifetime and then having Portrait of Doctor Gachet auction off for $82mil – on the other, you have the point of why Van Gogh was hanging out with a bunch of crows in Arles and asking Theo for money on a regular basis. If you’re in it for profit, art is probably not a good career choice.
“Making a living” in creative endeavors has been problematic through history. On the one hand, guys like Leonardo, Bach and Bernini existed through patrons, on the other, fellows like Vermeer ran taverns and painted when they had a chance.
While I can’t speak for the other folks on this board, I would venture to guess that being able to make a living doing what you love is the ideal, but you’re going to keep doing what you love, regardless.
What blows monkey chunks is the exploitation of creativity – I don’t care if it’s pirating films or music, creative accounting when it comes to paying royalties or club owners that short the band on the door count – there needs to be a level of ethical understanding that just because it’s “creative” it doesn’t give everyone else license to screw you over.
Anders:
For the most part (and yes, there are exceptions in the reproduction/poster/glicee) market, visual artists DO only get paid once for their work.
Because of the “one off” nature of a painting or a sculpture that is not cast, occasionally, that item rises in value and then you get into a whole ‘nother realm of art and commerce.
While I don’t think that it ever will be resolved without poisoning the well, over the years, especially during the 90’s when gallery art became a HUGE investment pot, there were a number of attempts to try and get some legislation drafted that would allow artists or their estates to profit from the resale of their work.
On the one hand, you have the classic story of Van Gogh unable to sell a single canvas during his lifetime and then having Portrait of Doctor Gachet auction off for $82mil – on the other, you have the point of why Van Gogh was hanging out with a bunch of crows in Arles and asking Theo for money on a regular basis. If you’re in it for profit, art is probably not a good career choice.
“Making a living” in creative endeavors has been problematic through history. On the one hand, guys like Leonardo, Bach and Bernini existed through patrons, on the other, fellows like Vermeer ran taverns and painted when they had a chance.
While I can’t speak for the other folks on this board, I would venture to guess that being able to make a living doing what you love is the ideal, but you’re going to keep doing what you love, regardless.
What blows monkey chunks is the exploitation of creativity – I don’t care if it’s pirating films or music, creative accounting when it comes to paying royalties or club owners that short the band on the door count – there needs to be a level of ethical understanding that just because it’s “creative” it doesn’t give everyone else license to screw you over.
Daniel: “The upside to all of this is that we’ll hopefully get higher quality intellectual products as the “banks” (film & record companies) are forced to be more selective about what risks (movie/music ventures) they take on.”
Top Ten Box Office Sales for 2008
Twilight
1) The Dark Knight
2) Iron Man
3) Indiana Jones and the Yda yada yada
4) Hancock
5) Wall-E
6) Kung Fu Panda
7) Madagascar 2
9) Quantum of Solace
10) Horton Hears a Who!
So, we have 2 movies based on comic books, 2 franchise pictures, 4 computer animation movies, 1 hope to be franchise picture and one that actually had an original script but was dependent on star power.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for “higher quality intellectual products” any time soon.
Daniel: “The upside to all of this is that we’ll hopefully get higher quality intellectual products as the “banks” (film & record companies) are forced to be more selective about what risks (movie/music ventures) they take on.”
Top Ten Box Office Sales for 2008
Twilight
1) The Dark Knight
2) Iron Man
3) Indiana Jones and the Yda yada yada
4) Hancock
5) Wall-E
6) Kung Fu Panda
7) Madagascar 2
9) Quantum of Solace
10) Horton Hears a Who!
So, we have 2 movies based on comic books, 2 franchise pictures, 4 computer animation movies, 1 hope to be franchise picture and one that actually had an original script but was dependent on star power.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for “higher quality intellectual products” any time soon.
“What about people who have no interest in downloading music or movies, will they also have to pay this extra tax on top of their internet costs???” quoted from Daniel…
Well, Daniel, you currently pay a hidden “tax” every time you go into a store or other venue where there is canned music playing in the background. Ditto for if you ever go out to hear live music. Ditto if you listen to the radio, though there your “tax” is having to listen either to ads or pledge drives. All I/we are saying is that some sort of equivalent be applied to this new medium of the Internet. Yeah, it freaks people out because of the wild west nature of the Internet and how everybody thinks it’s free and a new paradigm and all that. That’s the folly of unexamined independence. You’re not independent, and some folks would like to be paid for what they do.
“What about people who have no interest in downloading music or movies, will they also have to pay this extra tax on top of their internet costs???” quoted from Daniel…
Well, Daniel, you currently pay a hidden “tax” every time you go into a store or other venue where there is canned music playing in the background. Ditto for if you ever go out to hear live music. Ditto if you listen to the radio, though there your “tax” is having to listen either to ads or pledge drives. All I/we are saying is that some sort of equivalent be applied to this new medium of the Internet. Yeah, it freaks people out because of the wild west nature of the Internet and how everybody thinks it’s free and a new paradigm and all that. That’s the folly of unexamined independence. You’re not independent, and some folks would like to be paid for what they do.
“What about people who have no interest in downloading music or movies, will they also have to pay this extra tax on top of their internet costs???” quoted from Daniel…
Well, Daniel, you currently pay a hidden “tax” every time you go into a store or other venue where there is canned music playing in the background. Ditto for if you ever go out to hear live music. Ditto if you listen to the radio, though there your “tax” is having to listen either to ads or pledge drives. All I/we are saying is that some sort of equivalent be applied to this new medium of the Internet. Yeah, it freaks people out because of the wild west nature of the Internet and how everybody thinks it’s free and a new paradigm and all that. That’s the folly of unexamined independence. You’re not independent, and some folks would like to be paid for what they do.
“What about people who have no interest in downloading music or movies, will they also have to pay this extra tax on top of their internet costs???” quoted from Daniel…
Well, Daniel, you currently pay a hidden “tax” every time you go into a store or other venue where there is canned music playing in the background. Ditto for if you ever go out to hear live music. Ditto if you listen to the radio, though there your “tax” is having to listen either to ads or pledge drives. All I/we are saying is that some sort of equivalent be applied to this new medium of the Internet. Yeah, it freaks people out because of the wild west nature of the Internet and how everybody thinks it’s free and a new paradigm and all that. That’s the folly of unexamined independence. You’re not independent, and some folks would like to be paid for what they do.
Here’s another thought. Do you rip CDs for other people?
I don’t. I won’t. If I want to give music to someone, I buy it so the artist gets something. I love buying CDs directly from artists at gigs. That way they get the lion’s share of the dough, but I also have no problem buying new or used CDs in stores so I know that the artist got paid at some point. I also refuse to abuse guest list privileges at gigs. If the artist offers, then I’m happy to be on a guest list, but I never, never hustle an artist for that. Often enough I pay to get in AND am on the back stage list. I believe in supporting the artists who support me and who make the music I love to listen to.
I was talking about this subject with Jackson Browne one day, and for him to play the Wiltern or the Universal (or whatever the damned place is called now…) is at best a break-even affair because of the intense pressure for comps. The accountant’s lawyer’s pool boy plus three, etc…
It made me think that the way to run a club is to charge everyone…even the staff, even the club owners, even the band and crew…to get in. Those who actually work get a bonus that covers admission, but everybody pays to get in the door.
Here’s another thought. Do you rip CDs for other people?
I don’t. I won’t. If I want to give music to someone, I buy it so the artist gets something. I love buying CDs directly from artists at gigs. That way they get the lion’s share of the dough, but I also have no problem buying new or used CDs in stores so I know that the artist got paid at some point. I also refuse to abuse guest list privileges at gigs. If the artist offers, then I’m happy to be on a guest list, but I never, never hustle an artist for that. Often enough I pay to get in AND am on the back stage list. I believe in supporting the artists who support me and who make the music I love to listen to.
I was talking about this subject with Jackson Browne one day, and for him to play the Wiltern or the Universal (or whatever the damned place is called now…) is at best a break-even affair because of the intense pressure for comps. The accountant’s lawyer’s pool boy plus three, etc…
It made me think that the way to run a club is to charge everyone…even the staff, even the club owners, even the band and crew…to get in. Those who actually work get a bonus that covers admission, but everybody pays to get in the door.
Here’s another thought. Do you rip CDs for other people?
I don’t. I won’t. If I want to give music to someone, I buy it so the artist gets something. I love buying CDs directly from artists at gigs. That way they get the lion’s share of the dough, but I also have no problem buying new or used CDs in stores so I know that the artist got paid at some point. I also refuse to abuse guest list privileges at gigs. If the artist offers, then I’m happy to be on a guest list, but I never, never hustle an artist for that. Often enough I pay to get in AND am on the back stage list. I believe in supporting the artists who support me and who make the music I love to listen to.
I was talking about this subject with Jackson Browne one day, and for him to play the Wiltern or the Universal (or whatever the damned place is called now…) is at best a break-even affair because of the intense pressure for comps. The accountant’s lawyer’s pool boy plus three, etc…
It made me think that the way to run a club is to charge everyone…even the staff, even the club owners, even the band and crew…to get in. Those who actually work get a bonus that covers admission, but everybody pays to get in the door.
Here’s another thought. Do you rip CDs for other people?
I don’t. I won’t. If I want to give music to someone, I buy it so the artist gets something. I love buying CDs directly from artists at gigs. That way they get the lion’s share of the dough, but I also have no problem buying new or used CDs in stores so I know that the artist got paid at some point. I also refuse to abuse guest list privileges at gigs. If the artist offers, then I’m happy to be on a guest list, but I never, never hustle an artist for that. Often enough I pay to get in AND am on the back stage list. I believe in supporting the artists who support me and who make the music I love to listen to.
I was talking about this subject with Jackson Browne one day, and for him to play the Wiltern or the Universal (or whatever the damned place is called now…) is at best a break-even affair because of the intense pressure for comps. The accountant’s lawyer’s pool boy plus three, etc…
It made me think that the way to run a club is to charge everyone…even the staff, even the club owners, even the band and crew…to get in. Those who actually work get a bonus that covers admission, but everybody pays to get in the door.
” The cost of producing a record is almost nothing now that hardware and software are widespread and cheaply available. A record company is no longer necessary to financially back artists. Artists can now do their own distribution and advertising just by creating a myspace page or setting up a Jamendo account.”
That is not really true. The cost of producing a record with the same care with which pre-digital era records were made is significantly more than it was then.
It is true that one can make a record for nothing now. One could make a record for nothing in the fifties, as well, but at the time there was a notion of the caliber of the recording. No artist, at the moment, has the infrastructure necessary to release and keep track of a record, nor wants to. It is not that simple and a full time job for a lot of people. I do know what you mean, though.
“Regarding ‘information wants to be free’: Information, in this case music records, has become so widespread that it is worthless.”
That is true in that way of looking at it. Music as it is most widely distributed is for all intents and purposes, worthless as a commodity. Just as a Zerox of a Polaroid of a photograph of a painting has little value. (And, for other reasons as well.) Art and music and all that, however, are not information, and should not be categorized as such.
” The cost of producing a record is almost nothing now that hardware and software are widespread and cheaply available. A record company is no longer necessary to financially back artists. Artists can now do their own distribution and advertising just by creating a myspace page or setting up a Jamendo account.”
That is not really true. The cost of producing a record with the same care with which pre-digital era records were made is significantly more than it was then.
It is true that one can make a record for nothing now. One could make a record for nothing in the fifties, as well, but at the time there was a notion of the caliber of the recording. No artist, at the moment, has the infrastructure necessary to release and keep track of a record, nor wants to. It is not that simple and a full time job for a lot of people. I do know what you mean, though.
“Regarding ‘information wants to be free’: Information, in this case music records, has become so widespread that it is worthless.”
That is true in that way of looking at it. Music as it is most widely distributed is for all intents and purposes, worthless as a commodity. Just as a Zerox of a Polaroid of a photograph of a painting has little value. (And, for other reasons as well.) Art and music and all that, however, are not information, and should not be categorized as such.
” The cost of producing a record is almost nothing now that hardware and software are widespread and cheaply available. A record company is no longer necessary to financially back artists. Artists can now do their own distribution and advertising just by creating a myspace page or setting up a Jamendo account.”
That is not really true. The cost of producing a record with the same care with which pre-digital era records were made is significantly more than it was then.
It is true that one can make a record for nothing now. One could make a record for nothing in the fifties, as well, but at the time there was a notion of the caliber of the recording. No artist, at the moment, has the infrastructure necessary to release and keep track of a record, nor wants to. It is not that simple and a full time job for a lot of people. I do know what you mean, though.
“Regarding ‘information wants to be free’: Information, in this case music records, has become so widespread that it is worthless.”
That is true in that way of looking at it. Music as it is most widely distributed is for all intents and purposes, worthless as a commodity. Just as a Zerox of a Polaroid of a photograph of a painting has little value. (And, for other reasons as well.) Art and music and all that, however, are not information, and should not be categorized as such.
” The cost of producing a record is almost nothing now that hardware and software are widespread and cheaply available. A record company is no longer necessary to financially back artists. Artists can now do their own distribution and advertising just by creating a myspace page or setting up a Jamendo account.”
That is not really true. The cost of producing a record with the same care with which pre-digital era records were made is significantly more than it was then.
It is true that one can make a record for nothing now. One could make a record for nothing in the fifties, as well, but at the time there was a notion of the caliber of the recording. No artist, at the moment, has the infrastructure necessary to release and keep track of a record, nor wants to. It is not that simple and a full time job for a lot of people. I do know what you mean, though.
“Regarding ‘information wants to be free’: Information, in this case music records, has become so widespread that it is worthless.”
That is true in that way of looking at it. Music as it is most widely distributed is for all intents and purposes, worthless as a commodity. Just as a Zerox of a Polaroid of a photograph of a painting has little value. (And, for other reasons as well.) Art and music and all that, however, are not information, and should not be categorized as such.
Mr. Burnett:
Are you implying that mp3′s compressed at 96kbs AREN’T friggin sonically amazing?
Mr. Burnett:
Are you implying that mp3′s compressed at 96kbs AREN’T friggin sonically amazing?
Mr. Burnett:
Are you implying that mp3′s compressed at 96kbs AREN’T friggin sonically amazing?
Tom Wilmot- I would say that. Sonically, I prefer cassettes to CDs.
Tom Wilmot- I would say that. Sonically, I prefer cassettes to CDs.
Tom Wilmot- I would say that. Sonically, I prefer cassettes to CDs.
The problem, Tom, as I think everyone knows, is that we are a pirate nation and always have been and are emulated around the world. That is, No Money No Thrills and No Pay Without Provocation. In my experience, there is a wide variation among club owners for pay at the end of the night, but generally they do or if it is a door gig, our man is on the door. The west coast where pay to play happens is a different region.
Unfortunately, the only defense against the monkey chunks tends to be having your own monkeys: lawyers, accountants, goombahs. IOW, what I think the goal of changing the system should be, and Jon’s suggestion is a step in that direction, is to remove the need for force in collections. I’m not an iTunes fan because it rebuilt the filtering system of middle men, but the idea is right because digital downloads from licensed sources means we can get what we have never gotten from the old school and that is, transparent accounting.
For me personally, it isn’t that relevant but I understand precisely why it is for T-Bone, Rick and their colleagues. They dedicated their lives to the quality of their work, and the truth is that with rare exceptions, weekend warriors, the Sultans of Swing can’t provide that quality.
Yes, the cost of recording has dropped, yes the cost of distribution has come down, and yes we have lots of new toys to improve bad performances, but it comes down to the power of the hand, the eye and the heart over the hours of practice put in. Only a few can or will do what is necessary because otherwise “Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene. He’s got a day time job. He’s doing alright.” But that won’t work if you really want to hear Krauss and Plant blended together as only a professional master producers with decades of experience can do. The board man, the grip, the guitar tech, the girl driving the Escalade or answering the phone all have to be paid and they are all necessary to the process.
No Money. No Thrills. It doesn’t matter that these guys will play regardless; it matters if YOU want to be there or get a copy made well. It isn’t cheap and it isn’t free.
The problem, Tom, as I think everyone knows, is that we are a pirate nation and always have been and are emulated around the world. That is, No Money No Thrills and No Pay Without Provocation. In my experience, there is a wide variation among club owners for pay at the end of the night, but generally they do or if it is a door gig, our man is on the door. The west coast where pay to play happens is a different region.
Unfortunately, the only defense against the monkey chunks tends to be having your own monkeys: lawyers, accountants, goombahs. IOW, what I think the goal of changing the system should be, and Jon’s suggestion is a step in that direction, is to remove the need for force in collections. I’m not an iTunes fan because it rebuilt the filtering system of middle men, but the idea is right because digital downloads from licensed sources means we can get what we have never gotten from the old school and that is, transparent accounting.
For me personally, it isn’t that relevant but I understand precisely why it is for T-Bone, Rick and their colleagues. They dedicated their lives to the quality of their work, and the truth is that with rare exceptions, weekend warriors, the Sultans of Swing can’t provide that quality.
Yes, the cost of recording has dropped, yes the cost of distribution has come down, and yes we have lots of new toys to improve bad performances, but it comes down to the power of the hand, the eye and the heart over the hours of practice put in. Only a few can or will do what is necessary because otherwise “Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene. He’s got a day time job. He’s doing alright.” But that won’t work if you really want to hear Krauss and Plant blended together as only a professional master producers with decades of experience can do. The board man, the grip, the guitar tech, the girl driving the Escalade or answering the phone all have to be paid and they are all necessary to the process.
No Money. No Thrills. It doesn’t matter that these guys will play regardless; it matters if YOU want to be there or get a copy made well. It isn’t cheap and it isn’t free.
The problem, Tom, as I think everyone knows, is that we are a pirate nation and always have been and are emulated around the world. That is, No Money No Thrills and No Pay Without Provocation. In my experience, there is a wide variation among club owners for pay at the end of the night, but generally they do or if it is a door gig, our man is on the door. The west coast where pay to play happens is a different region.
Unfortunately, the only defense against the monkey chunks tends to be having your own monkeys: lawyers, accountants, goombahs. IOW, what I think the goal of changing the system should be, and Jon’s suggestion is a step in that direction, is to remove the need for force in collections. I’m not an iTunes fan because it rebuilt the filtering system of middle men, but the idea is right because digital downloads from licensed sources means we can get what we have never gotten from the old school and that is, transparent accounting.
For me personally, it isn’t that relevant but I understand precisely why it is for T-Bone, Rick and their colleagues. They dedicated their lives to the quality of their work, and the truth is that with rare exceptions, weekend warriors, the Sultans of Swing can’t provide that quality.
Yes, the cost of recording has dropped, yes the cost of distribution has come down, and yes we have lots of new toys to improve bad performances, but it comes down to the power of the hand, the eye and the heart over the hours of practice put in. Only a few can or will do what is necessary because otherwise “Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene. He’s got a day time job. He’s doing alright.” But that won’t work if you really want to hear Krauss and Plant blended together as only a professional master producers with decades of experience can do. The board man, the grip, the guitar tech, the girl driving the Escalade or answering the phone all have to be paid and they are all necessary to the process.
No Money. No Thrills. It doesn’t matter that these guys will play regardless; it matters if YOU want to be there or get a copy made well. It isn’t cheap and it isn’t free.
T-Bone:
The house in my example was a real house – not a metaphor I cooked up like you seem to with your Starbucks example. It is NOT irrelevant. I presented a realistic situation with a realistic house and a realistic architect.
If someone designs a good enough house, then other people should be able to copy those designs to build awesome houses for everybody else.
Without having to enter litigation or pay astronomical fees (or perhaps not even being allowed to build one in the first place).
That is my opinion of how the world should be.
And I’ve yet to hear one good argument (not hyperbole) why it shouldn’t be so.
I did not suggest people move into your home (actual property) or invading your privacy (at the moment, copyright concerns are actually pushing ISP’s to invade your privacy – not the other way around). You’re all over the place.
Also, I’m glad you brought history (and the admission that art is abstract) into the fold.
Those early human artists in Africa did not hold intellectual property on their art. They only held as property the artifacts themselves.
The abstract remained abstract.
Other humans were ALLOWED to mimic and copy and enhance upon this early art until it evolved into this awesome thing it is today.
We ALL benefit from the lack of intellectual property in those early days.
Imagine if Shakespeare’s Hamlet was still under copyright – we would never be privy to Tom Stoppard’s Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Hell, we would probably not be privy to Hamlet himself, as the costs of licensing would enter many production houses’ considerations of putting on that play.
My wish is to give back to our children and our culture those common rights again – to allow anyone to create art freely and to be able to build upon the art that is already here (be it for artistic or commercial or political or whatever consideration). Without the specter of commercial concern and litigation hanging needlessly over their heads.
As you’ve said – art is abstract.
Why in the world would the abstract be regarded as property?
How can we even force the abstract to conform to our idea of property?
And more importantly – what do we, as a society, have to gain from doing so?
What we have to lose is painfully obvious…
T-Bone:
The house in my example was a real house – not a metaphor I cooked up like you seem to with your Starbucks example. It is NOT irrelevant. I presented a realistic situation with a realistic house and a realistic architect.
If someone designs a good enough house, then other people should be able to copy those designs to build awesome houses for everybody else.
Without having to enter litigation or pay astronomical fees (or perhaps not even being allowed to build one in the first place).
That is my opinion of how the world should be.
And I’ve yet to hear one good argument (not hyperbole) why it shouldn’t be so.
I did not suggest people move into your home (actual property) or invading your privacy (at the moment, copyright concerns are actually pushing ISP’s to invade your privacy – not the other way around). You’re all over the place.
Also, I’m glad you brought history (and the admission that art is abstract) into the fold.
Those early human artists in Africa did not hold intellectual property on their art. They only held as property the artifacts themselves.
The abstract remained abstract.
Other humans were ALLOWED to mimic and copy and enhance upon this early art until it evolved into this awesome thing it is today.
We ALL benefit from the lack of intellectual property in those early days.
Imagine if Shakespeare’s Hamlet was still under copyright – we would never be privy to Tom Stoppard’s Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Hell, we would probably not be privy to Hamlet himself, as the costs of licensing would enter many production houses’ considerations of putting on that play.
My wish is to give back to our children and our culture those common rights again – to allow anyone to create art freely and to be able to build upon the art that is already here (be it for artistic or commercial or political or whatever consideration). Without the specter of commercial concern and litigation hanging needlessly over their heads.
As you’ve said – art is abstract.
Why in the world would the abstract be regarded as property?
How can we even force the abstract to conform to our idea of property?
And more importantly – what do we, as a society, have to gain from doing so?
What we have to lose is painfully obvious…
T-Bone:
The house in my example was a real house – not a metaphor I cooked up like you seem to with your Starbucks example. It is NOT irrelevant. I presented a realistic situation with a realistic house and a realistic architect.
If someone designs a good enough house, then other people should be able to copy those designs to build awesome houses for everybody else.
Without having to enter litigation or pay astronomical fees (or perhaps not even being allowed to build one in the first place).
That is my opinion of how the world should be.
And I’ve yet to hear one good argument (not hyperbole) why it shouldn’t be so.
I did not suggest people move into your home (actual property) or invading your privacy (at the moment, copyright concerns are actually pushing ISP’s to invade your privacy – not the other way around). You’re all over the place.
Also, I’m glad you brought history (and the admission that art is abstract) into the fold.
Those early human artists in Africa did not hold intellectual property on their art. They only held as property the artifacts themselves.
The abstract remained abstract.
Other humans were ALLOWED to mimic and copy and enhance upon this early art until it evolved into this awesome thing it is today.
We ALL benefit from the lack of intellectual property in those early days.
Imagine if Shakespeare’s Hamlet was still under copyright – we would never be privy to Tom Stoppard’s Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Hell, we would probably not be privy to Hamlet himself, as the costs of licensing would enter many production houses’ considerations of putting on that play.
My wish is to give back to our children and our culture those common rights again – to allow anyone to create art freely and to be able to build upon the art that is already here (be it for artistic or commercial or political or whatever consideration). Without the specter of commercial concern and litigation hanging needlessly over their heads.
As you’ve said – art is abstract.
Why in the world would the abstract be regarded as property?
How can we even force the abstract to conform to our idea of property?
And more importantly – what do we, as a society, have to gain from doing so?
What we have to lose is painfully obvious…
T-Bone:
The house in my example was a real house – not a metaphor I cooked up like you seem to with your Starbucks example. It is NOT irrelevant. I presented a realistic situation with a realistic house and a realistic architect.
If someone designs a good enough house, then other people should be able to copy those designs to build awesome houses for everybody else.
Without having to enter litigation or pay astronomical fees (or perhaps not even being allowed to build one in the first place).
That is my opinion of how the world should be.
And I’ve yet to hear one good argument (not hyperbole) why it shouldn’t be so.
I did not suggest people move into your home (actual property) or invading your privacy (at the moment, copyright concerns are actually pushing ISP’s to invade your privacy – not the other way around). You’re all over the place.
Also, I’m glad you brought history (and the admission that art is abstract) into the fold.
Those early human artists in Africa did not hold intellectual property on their art. They only held as property the artifacts themselves.
The abstract remained abstract.
Other humans were ALLOWED to mimic and copy and enhance upon this early art until it evolved into this awesome thing it is today.
We ALL benefit from the lack of intellectual property in those early days.
Imagine if Shakespeare’s Hamlet was still under copyright – we would never be privy to Tom Stoppard’s Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Hell, we would probably not be privy to Hamlet himself, as the costs of licensing would enter many production houses’ considerations of putting on that play.
My wish is to give back to our children and our culture those common rights again – to allow anyone to create art freely and to be able to build upon the art that is already here (be it for artistic or commercial or political or whatever consideration). Without the specter of commercial concern and litigation hanging needlessly over their heads.
As you’ve said – art is abstract.
Why in the world would the abstract be regarded as property?
How can we even force the abstract to conform to our idea of property?
And more importantly – what do we, as a society, have to gain from doing so?
What we have to lose is painfully obvious…
@TBB
You put your finger on the crux of the problem (or one of the major ones anyway) when you point out that
This is exactly the reason why copyright law is far more of a hurt than a help to independent, amateur, and otherwise non-commercial artists.
And because copyright law is a component of civil law instead of criminal law, police agencies can’t be expected to prevent or investigate abuses. The costs of enforcement are, in large part, born by the copyright owner.
In short, copyright, as a practical matter, can only be maintained by the very, very rich. This is less so is more confined arenas like the museum world, but in terms of what it takes to maintain a copyright on popular culture among the general public, ‘infrastructure’ is the operative word. As in the kind of infrastructure that requires its managers to be listed on national stock exchanges.
Putting aside all criticisms of the efects, what I find remarkable is that the basic law still covers everyone under a default ‘all rights reserved’ scheme. Currently, my doodles on a cocktail napkin are afforded the same level of legal protection as ‘The Dark Knight”. This seems crazy – especially when it’s manifestly clear that I’ve got no effective way of enforcing my rights.
So forgetting, for a moment, about what the ideal arrangement is, and considering only what actually works, it seems an initial step in copyright reform would be making it an opt-in system, where copyright registration isn’t simply the formality that gives you standing to pursue your claims in court, but the basis for protection itself.
Unfortunately, art can’t be considered effectively, or even fairly, in solely practical terms. I share a deep appreciation for the notion that art done for money alone isn’t art at all (unless you’re Jeff Koons, and have gotten entirely meta about this situation).
As you say, this is something that people just do. Creative works are like a forest – an ecosystem that just grows by itself. I recognize that real artists have an easier time not breathing than not creating (something that leads many to early graves, I’m sure). I find the idea that this output can simply be ‘harvested’ abhorrent – especially when, as you point out, art seems to have played such a critical role in our evolution and survival. And so I recognize that some form of fundamental protection really is necessary. Which is to say, I understand the droit d’auteur as conceived by Rousseau, and recognize this as the idealistic basis for our current law.
It’s easy to look at groups like the RIAA and the MPAA as being fundamentally stupid, self-destructive monstrosities standing in the way for all that is good and right (see Cory Doctorow for specific details). The contention here is one that’s easy to reduce to good v. evil because the actual people involved come across as generally unprincipled and abusive, even if they are, legally, in the right.
The larger issue is harder, as it pits right against right. Reasonable enforceability is a bedrock requirement of legitimate law. At the same time Rousseau’s view has enormous merit – not to mention a deep concern with plight of artists that are simultaneously relied on and exploited by the societies they live in.
At this stage, I’m wondering if it’s even possible to divine what the ‘right’ approach is – especially when we’re living through an Interregnum, and have a rather unclear sense of the topography that will emerge on the other side.
In short, I’m wondering if ad hoc and transitory arrangements are the only effective ways to strike a balance now, with the goal of determining, by steady experiment, what arrangements can actually work in a legally and morally sustainable fashion.
I’ve actually started a blog to explore these exact issues, and the ways that creative producers can remain economically viable while generating new and mutually beneficial alignments between audiences, artists, promoters and distributors.
In short, it’s about navigating the Interregnum. I’ve called it Onward through the Fog, for all the obvious reasons.
@TBB
You put your finger on the crux of the problem (or one of the major ones anyway) when you point out that
This is exactly the reason why copyright law is far more of a hurt than a help to independent, amateur, and otherwise non-commercial artists.
And because copyright law is a component of civil law instead of criminal law, police agencies can’t be expected to prevent or investigate abuses. The costs of enforcement are, in large part, born by the copyright owner.
In short, copyright, as a practical matter, can only be maintained by the very, very rich. This is less so is more confined arenas like the museum world, but in terms of what it takes to maintain a copyright on popular culture among the general public, ‘infrastructure’ is the operative word. As in the kind of infrastructure that requires its managers to be listed on national stock exchanges.
Putting aside all criticisms of the efects, what I find remarkable is that the basic law still covers everyone under a default ‘all rights reserved’ scheme. Currently, my doodles on a cocktail napkin are afforded the same level of legal protection as ‘The Dark Knight”. This seems crazy – especially when it’s manifestly clear that I’ve got no effective way of enforcing my rights.
So forgetting, for a moment, about what the ideal arrangement is, and considering only what actually works, it seems an initial step in copyright reform would be making it an opt-in system, where copyright registration isn’t simply the formality that gives you standing to pursue your claims in court, but the basis for protection itself.
Unfortunately, art can’t be considered effectively, or even fairly, in solely practical terms. I share a deep appreciation for the notion that art done for money alone isn’t art at all (unless you’re Jeff Koons, and have gotten entirely meta about this situation).
As you say, this is something that people just do. Creative works are like a forest – an ecosystem that just grows by itself. I recognize that real artists have an easier time not breathing than not creating (something that leads many to early graves, I’m sure). I find the idea that this output can simply be ‘harvested’ abhorrent – especially when, as you point out, art seems to have played such a critical role in our evolution and survival. And so I recognize that some form of fundamental protection really is necessary. Which is to say, I understand the droit d’auteur as conceived by Rousseau, and recognize this as the idealistic basis for our current law.
It’s easy to look at groups like the RIAA and the MPAA as being fundamentally stupid, self-destructive monstrosities standing in the way for all that is good and right (see Cory Doctorow for specific details). The contention here is one that’s easy to reduce to good v. evil because the actual people involved come across as generally unprincipled and abusive, even if they are, legally, in the right.
The larger issue is harder, as it pits right against right. Reasonable enforceability is a bedrock requirement of legitimate law. At the same time Rousseau’s view has enormous merit – not to mention a deep concern with plight of artists that are simultaneously relied on and exploited by the societies they live in.
At this stage, I’m wondering if it’s even possible to divine what the ‘right’ approach is – especially when we’re living through an Interregnum, and have a rather unclear sense of the topography that will emerge on the other side.
In short, I’m wondering if ad hoc and transitory arrangements are the only effective ways to strike a balance now, with the goal of determining, by steady experiment, what arrangements can actually work in a legally and morally sustainable fashion.
I’ve actually started a blog to explore these exact issues, and the ways that creative producers can remain economically viable while generating new and mutually beneficial alignments between audiences, artists, promoters and distributors.
In short, it’s about navigating the Interregnum. I’ve called it Onward through the Fog, for all the obvious reasons.
@TBB
You put your finger on the crux of the problem (or one of the major ones anyway) when you point out that
This is exactly the reason why copyright law is far more of a hurt than a help to independent, amateur, and otherwise non-commercial artists.
And because copyright law is a component of civil law instead of criminal law, police agencies can’t be expected to prevent or investigate abuses. The costs of enforcement are, in large part, born by the copyright owner.
In short, copyright, as a practical matter, can only be maintained by the very, very rich. This is less so is more confined arenas like the museum world, but in terms of what it takes to maintain a copyright on popular culture among the general public, ‘infrastructure’ is the operative word. As in the kind of infrastructure that requires its managers to be listed on national stock exchanges.
Putting aside all criticisms of the efects, what I find remarkable is that the basic law still covers everyone under a default ‘all rights reserved’ scheme. Currently, my doodles on a cocktail napkin are afforded the same level of legal protection as ‘The Dark Knight”. This seems crazy – especially when it’s manifestly clear that I’ve got no effective way of enforcing my rights.
So forgetting, for a moment, about what the ideal arrangement is, and considering only what actually works, it seems an initial step in copyright reform would be making it an opt-in system, where copyright registration isn’t simply the formality that gives you standing to pursue your claims in court, but the basis for protection itself.
Unfortunately, art can’t be considered effectively, or even fairly, in solely practical terms. I share a deep appreciation for the notion that art done for money alone isn’t art at all (unless you’re Jeff Koons, and have gotten entirely meta about this situation).
As you say, this is something that people just do. Creative works are like a forest – an ecosystem that just grows by itself. I recognize that real artists have an easier time not breathing than not creating (something that leads many to early graves, I’m sure). I find the idea that this output can simply be ‘harvested’ abhorrent – especially when, as you point out, art seems to have played such a critical role in our evolution and survival. And so I recognize that some form of fundamental protection really is necessary. Which is to say, I understand the droit d’auteur as conceived by Rousseau, and recognize this as the idealistic basis for our current law.
It’s easy to look at groups like the RIAA and the MPAA as being fundamentally stupid, self-destructive monstrosities standing in the way for all that is good and right (see Cory Doctorow for specific details). The contention here is one that’s easy to reduce to good v. evil because the actual people involved come across as generally unprincipled and abusive, even if they are, legally, in the right.
The larger issue is harder, as it pits right against right. Reasonable enforceability is a bedrock requirement of legitimate law. At the same time Rousseau’s view has enormous merit – not to mention a deep concern with plight of artists that are simultaneously relied on and exploited by the societies they live in.
At this stage, I’m wondering if it’s even possible to divine what the ‘right’ approach is – especially when we’re living through an Interregnum, and have a rather unclear sense of the topography that will emerge on the other side.
In short, I’m wondering if ad hoc and transitory arrangements are the only effective ways to strike a balance now, with the goal of determining, by steady experiment, what arrangements can actually work in a legally and morally sustainable fashion.
I’ve actually started a blog to explore these exact issues, and the ways that creative producers can remain economically viable while generating new and mutually beneficial alignments between audiences, artists, promoters and distributors.
In short, it’s about navigating the Interregnum. I’ve called it Onward through the Fog, for all the obvious reasons.
@TBB
You put your finger on the crux of the problem (or one of the major ones anyway) when you point out that
This is exactly the reason why copyright law is far more of a hurt than a help to independent, amateur, and otherwise non-commercial artists.
And because copyright law is a component of civil law instead of criminal law, police agencies can’t be expected to prevent or investigate abuses. The costs of enforcement are, in large part, born by the copyright owner.
In short, copyright, as a practical matter, can only be maintained by the very, very rich. This is less so is more confined arenas like the museum world, but in terms of what it takes to maintain a copyright on popular culture among the general public, ‘infrastructure’ is the operative word. As in the kind of infrastructure that requires its managers to be listed on national stock exchanges.
Putting aside all criticisms of the efects, what I find remarkable is that the basic law still covers everyone under a default ‘all rights reserved’ scheme. Currently, my doodles on a cocktail napkin are afforded the same level of legal protection as ‘The Dark Knight”. This seems crazy – especially when it’s manifestly clear that I’ve got no effective way of enforcing my rights.
So forgetting, for a moment, about what the ideal arrangement is, and considering only what actually works, it seems an initial step in copyright reform would be making it an opt-in system, where copyright registration isn’t simply the formality that gives you standing to pursue your claims in court, but the basis for protection itself.
Unfortunately, art can’t be considered effectively, or even fairly, in solely practical terms. I share a deep appreciation for the notion that art done for money alone isn’t art at all (unless you’re Jeff Koons, and have gotten entirely meta about this situation).
As you say, this is something that people just do. Creative works are like a forest – an ecosystem that just grows by itself. I recognize that real artists have an easier time not breathing than not creating (something that leads many to early graves, I’m sure). I find the idea that this output can simply be ‘harvested’ abhorrent – especially when, as you point out, art seems to have played such a critical role in our evolution and survival. And so I recognize that some form of fundamental protection really is necessary. Which is to say, I understand the droit d’auteur as conceived by Rousseau, and recognize this as the idealistic basis for our current law.
It’s easy to look at groups like the RIAA and the MPAA as being fundamentally stupid, self-destructive monstrosities standing in the way for all that is good and right (see Cory Doctorow for specific details). The contention here is one that’s easy to reduce to good v. evil because the actual people involved come across as generally unprincipled and abusive, even if they are, legally, in the right.
The larger issue is harder, as it pits right against right. Reasonable enforceability is a bedrock requirement of legitimate law. At the same time Rousseau’s view has enormous merit – not to mention a deep concern with plight of artists that are simultaneously relied on and exploited by the societies they live in.
At this stage, I’m wondering if it’s even possible to divine what the ‘right’ approach is – especially when we’re living through an Interregnum, and have a rather unclear sense of the topography that will emerge on the other side.
In short, I’m wondering if ad hoc and transitory arrangements are the only effective ways to strike a balance now, with the goal of determining, by steady experiment, what arrangements can actually work in a legally and morally sustainable fashion.
I’ve actually started a blog to explore these exact issues, and the ways that creative producers can remain economically viable while generating new and mutually beneficial alignments between audiences, artists, promoters and distributors.
In short, it’s about navigating the Interregnum. I’ve called it Onward through the Fog, for all the obvious reasons.
“…it seems an initial step in copyright reform would be making it an opt-in system, where copyright registration isn’t simply the formality that gives you standing to pursue your claims in court, but the basis for protection itself.”
That was once the case. Then the law was changed to grant copyright once a ‘fixed version’ was created. Registration is the formality that obligates the government to be a witness in a litigation, but otherwise changing it back would make no difference. The cost or force of collection is the essential problem and this is where the digital media and means can be a huge boon. iTunes, despite some flaws, is a working solution.
Derivative works: this is where it gets murky. How much of “I Feel Fine” can one lift without violating the copyright? If one samples, none. If one duplicates the feedback sound of the first lick, all of it. If one lifts the chord progression, almost all of it. If one lifts the chord progression and the melody: BZZZT. Paul McCartney talks about how the Beatles and the Beach Boys and the Byrds were lifting sounds from each other, snippets of chord progressions, but also the he and Lennon had explicitly lectured Harrison about the right way to go about that and Harrison erred by going too far with “My Sweet Lord” and Coldplay clearly went over the mark with Joe Satriani.
In other words, because the boundaries are fuzzy, litigation and negotiation are about the only way one can do it. We’ve experimented a lot in the online world with how to trade on our materials and there is a lot of progress there as Lessig notes. But it is not an open IP world without participation agreements. It can’t be and still expect the best to do their best work.
Looking at those agreements where they are working is a good place to start. For example, what did it take to get all of those stars on stage with Roy Orbison in the B&W film, not in terms of the copyrights, but use of image, pay for the gig and so on? I dunno, but I don’t think it was done without some up-front agreements.
I know what we had to do to make it possible for VRML/X3D technology to be IP-unencumbered because I had to help write those agreements. It turns out in the long run that formal participation agreements are the best way to keep things open by understanding what has to be closed first, in that case, how submissions of technical materials can be made for inclusion in the standard to avoid submarine patents. We tried the Ally Ally In Come Free approach and almost sank the ship. There is a balance but it emphasizes transparency and up-front terms and conditions particularly to avoid the appearance of malfeasance. It’s rule number one of collaborative songwriting and problem all collaboration: be clear and transparent about the work conditions and fruits thereof. Don’t assume.
BTW: what does the technology do for the non-pro?
1. I can make a much better demo cheaper. A Mark of the Unicorn card is a wonderful thing.
2. I can keep improving and re-releasing a work, in other words, I can version the music just like it was software. That sort of approach would be death for the work in the professional publishing world for several reasons.
3. I can scrub and fix mistakes ten years later. Say what you want about the preciousness of the original, if I can fix truly bum notes, I will.
These are things that are tougher for the pros and raise hell with the concept of the copyright for the audio recording itself. With high professionalism comes some loss of freedom and the obligation to be very clear about the results of working together or contributing.
I’ve worked on several efforts to do some of what you are talking about on the web. TCB first.
“…it seems an initial step in copyright reform would be making it an opt-in system, where copyright registration isn’t simply the formality that gives you standing to pursue your claims in court, but the basis for protection itself.”
That was once the case. Then the law was changed to grant copyright once a ‘fixed version’ was created. Registration is the formality that obligates the government to be a witness in a litigation, but otherwise changing it back would make no difference. The cost or force of collection is the essential problem and this is where the digital media and means can be a huge boon. iTunes, despite some flaws, is a working solution.
Derivative works: this is where it gets murky. How much of “I Feel Fine” can one lift without violating the copyright? If one samples, none. If one duplicates the feedback sound of the first lick, all of it. If one lifts the chord progression, almost all of it. If one lifts the chord progression and the melody: BZZZT. Paul McCartney talks about how the Beatles and the Beach Boys and the Byrds were lifting sounds from each other, snippets of chord progressions, but also the he and Lennon had explicitly lectured Harrison about the right way to go about that and Harrison erred by going too far with “My Sweet Lord” and Coldplay clearly went over the mark with Joe Satriani.
In other words, because the boundaries are fuzzy, litigation and negotiation are about the only way one can do it. We’ve experimented a lot in the online world with how to trade on our materials and there is a lot of progress there as Lessig notes. But it is not an open IP world without participation agreements. It can’t be and still expect the best to do their best work.
Looking at those agreements where they are working is a good place to start. For example, what did it take to get all of those stars on stage with Roy Orbison in the B&W film, not in terms of the copyrights, but use of image, pay for the gig and so on? I dunno, but I don’t think it was done without some up-front agreements.
I know what we had to do to make it possible for VRML/X3D technology to be IP-unencumbered because I had to help write those agreements. It turns out in the long run that formal participation agreements are the best way to keep things open by understanding what has to be closed first, in that case, how submissions of technical materials can be made for inclusion in the standard to avoid submarine patents. We tried the Ally Ally In Come Free approach and almost sank the ship. There is a balance but it emphasizes transparency and up-front terms and conditions particularly to avoid the appearance of malfeasance. It’s rule number one of collaborative songwriting and problem all collaboration: be clear and transparent about the work conditions and fruits thereof. Don’t assume.
BTW: what does the technology do for the non-pro?
1. I can make a much better demo cheaper. A Mark of the Unicorn card is a wonderful thing.
2. I can keep improving and re-releasing a work, in other words, I can version the music just like it was software. That sort of approach would be death for the work in the professional publishing world for several reasons.
3. I can scrub and fix mistakes ten years later. Say what you want about the preciousness of the original, if I can fix truly bum notes, I will.
These are things that are tougher for the pros and raise hell with the concept of the copyright for the audio recording itself. With high professionalism comes some loss of freedom and the obligation to be very clear about the results of working together or contributing.
I’ve worked on several efforts to do some of what you are talking about on the web. TCB first.
“…it seems an initial step in copyright reform would be making it an opt-in system, where copyright registration isn’t simply the formality that gives you standing to pursue your claims in court, but the basis for protection itself.”
That was once the case. Then the law was changed to grant copyright once a ‘fixed version’ was created. Registration is the formality that obligates the government to be a witness in a litigation, but otherwise changing it back would make no difference. The cost or force of collection is the essential problem and this is where the digital media and means can be a huge boon. iTunes, despite some flaws, is a working solution.
Derivative works: this is where it gets murky. How much of “I Feel Fine” can one lift without violating the copyright? If one samples, none. If one duplicates the feedback sound of the first lick, all of it. If one lifts the chord progression, almost all of it. If one lifts the chord progression and the melody: BZZZT. Paul McCartney talks about how the Beatles and the Beach Boys and the Byrds were lifting sounds from each other, snippets of chord progressions, but also the he and Lennon had explicitly lectured Harrison about the right way to go about that and Harrison erred by going too far with “My Sweet Lord” and Coldplay clearly went over the mark with Joe Satriani.
In other words, because the boundaries are fuzzy, litigation and negotiation are about the only way one can do it. We’ve experimented a lot in the online world with how to trade on our materials and there is a lot of progress there as Lessig notes. But it is not an open IP world without participation agreements. It can’t be and still expect the best to do their best work.
Looking at those agreements where they are working is a good place to start. For example, what did it take to get all of those stars on stage with Roy Orbison in the B&W film, not in terms of the copyrights, but use of image, pay for the gig and so on? I dunno, but I don’t think it was done without some up-front agreements.
I know what we had to do to make it possible for VRML/X3D technology to be IP-unencumbered because I had to help write those agreements. It turns out in the long run that formal participation agreements are the best way to keep things open by understanding what has to be closed first, in that case, how submissions of technical materials can be made for inclusion in the standard to avoid submarine patents. We tried the Ally Ally In Come Free approach and almost sank the ship. There is a balance but it emphasizes transparency and up-front terms and conditions particularly to avoid the appearance of malfeasance. It’s rule number one of collaborative songwriting and problem all collaboration: be clear and transparent about the work conditions and fruits thereof. Don’t assume.
BTW: what does the technology do for the non-pro?
1. I can make a much better demo cheaper. A Mark of the Unicorn card is a wonderful thing.
2. I can keep improving and re-releasing a work, in other words, I can version the music just like it was software. That sort of approach would be death for the work in the professional publishing world for several reasons.
3. I can scrub and fix mistakes ten years later. Say what you want about the preciousness of the original, if I can fix truly bum notes, I will.
These are things that are tougher for the pros and raise hell with the concept of the copyright for the audio recording itself. With high professionalism comes some loss of freedom and the obligation to be very clear about the results of working together or contributing.
I’ve worked on several efforts to do some of what you are talking about on the web. TCB first.
“…it seems an initial step in copyright reform would be making it an opt-in system, where copyright registration isn’t simply the formality that gives you standing to pursue your claims in court, but the basis for protection itself.”
That was once the case. Then the law was changed to grant copyright once a ‘fixed version’ was created. Registration is the formality that obligates the government to be a witness in a litigation, but otherwise changing it back would make no difference. The cost or force of collection is the essential problem and this is where the digital media and means can be a huge boon. iTunes, despite some flaws, is a working solution.
Derivative works: this is where it gets murky. How much of “I Feel Fine” can one lift without violating the copyright? If one samples, none. If one duplicates the feedback sound of the first lick, all of it. If one lifts the chord progression, almost all of it. If one lifts the chord progression and the melody: BZZZT. Paul McCartney talks about how the Beatles and the Beach Boys and the Byrds were lifting sounds from each other, snippets of chord progressions, but also the he and Lennon had explicitly lectured Harrison about the right way to go about that and Harrison erred by going too far with “My Sweet Lord” and Coldplay clearly went over the mark with Joe Satriani.
In other words, because the boundaries are fuzzy, litigation and negotiation are about the only way one can do it. We’ve experimented a lot in the online world with how to trade on our materials and there is a lot of progress there as Lessig notes. But it is not an open IP world without participation agreements. It can’t be and still expect the best to do their best work.
Looking at those agreements where they are working is a good place to start. For example, what did it take to get all of those stars on stage with Roy Orbison in the B&W film, not in terms of the copyrights, but use of image, pay for the gig and so on? I dunno, but I don’t think it was done without some up-front agreements.
I know what we had to do to make it possible for VRML/X3D technology to be IP-unencumbered because I had to help write those agreements. It turns out in the long run that formal participation agreements are the best way to keep things open by understanding what has to be closed first, in that case, how submissions of technical materials can be made for inclusion in the standard to avoid submarine patents. We tried the Ally Ally In Come Free approach and almost sank the ship. There is a balance but it emphasizes transparency and up-front terms and conditions particularly to avoid the appearance of malfeasance. It’s rule number one of collaborative songwriting and problem all collaboration: be clear and transparent about the work conditions and fruits thereof. Don’t assume.
BTW: what does the technology do for the non-pro?
1. I can make a much better demo cheaper. A Mark of the Unicorn card is a wonderful thing.
2. I can keep improving and re-releasing a work, in other words, I can version the music just like it was software. That sort of approach would be death for the work in the professional publishing world for several reasons.
3. I can scrub and fix mistakes ten years later. Say what you want about the preciousness of the original, if I can fix truly bum notes, I will.
These are things that are tougher for the pros and raise hell with the concept of the copyright for the audio recording itself. With high professionalism comes some loss of freedom and the obligation to be very clear about the results of working together or contributing.
I’ve worked on several efforts to do some of what you are talking about on the web. TCB first.
Armand- One cannot ask why in the world the abstract would be regarded as property without asking the same question of everything else.
You have not understood what I wrote. Really. That doesn’t make you a bad person.
You have me at a disadvantage. What do you do with your time?
Say you had an idea for a film. Say you told it to your friend, and he made the film without including you. The film would not have existed without your idea. Other people have benefitted from your idea while you have not.
Say you saw a piece of land that was a place you wanted very much to buy. You take your friend out to see it, and that afternoon he buys it.
Say you were a film actor. Say you acted in a film. Say someone took that performance, that character and put it in another film. He didn’t pay you or credit you. Or, worse, he credits you and sells the film using your name.
I can’t imagine you would like that sort of thing all that much.
(Anyway, the discussion of the building of the house is an entirely different matter.)
Armand- One cannot ask why in the world the abstract would be regarded as property without asking the same question of everything else.
You have not understood what I wrote. Really. That doesn’t make you a bad person.
You have me at a disadvantage. What do you do with your time?
Say you had an idea for a film. Say you told it to your friend, and he made the film without including you. The film would not have existed without your idea. Other people have benefitted from your idea while you have not.
Say you saw a piece of land that was a place you wanted very much to buy. You take your friend out to see it, and that afternoon he buys it.
Say you were a film actor. Say you acted in a film. Say someone took that performance, that character and put it in another film. He didn’t pay you or credit you. Or, worse, he credits you and sells the film using your name.
I can’t imagine you would like that sort of thing all that much.
(Anyway, the discussion of the building of the house is an entirely different matter.)
Armand- One cannot ask why in the world the abstract would be regarded as property without asking the same question of everything else.
You have not understood what I wrote. Really. That doesn’t make you a bad person.
You have me at a disadvantage. What do you do with your time?
Say you had an idea for a film. Say you told it to your friend, and he made the film without including you. The film would not have existed without your idea. Other people have benefitted from your idea while you have not.
Say you saw a piece of land that was a place you wanted very much to buy. You take your friend out to see it, and that afternoon he buys it.
Say you were a film actor. Say you acted in a film. Say someone took that performance, that character and put it in another film. He didn’t pay you or credit you. Or, worse, he credits you and sells the film using your name.
I can’t imagine you would like that sort of thing all that much.
(Anyway, the discussion of the building of the house is an entirely different matter.)
Len,
All good notes. My own feeling is that the financial core of any creative enterprise will require a door. It may be actual, it may be virtual, but at some point, there’s a concrete moment in time in which something happens, and for which somebody will have to pay – either as a member of the audience, or as an underwriter operating on behalf of an audience (leaving it and the audience to get square later, on whatever terms – and for whatever recompense – both sides find mutually agreeable).
I think the problem with pre-internet copyright law in general, and DRM in particular, was that the old door didn’t move, even though the audience did. This degenerated into a food fight almost immediately.
My view is that nobody can afford to – or even insist upon the ‘right’ to resist change as profound as the emergence of networked culture.
In other words, everybody – artists, distributors, promoters, and audiences – will have to change the terms of their respective gives and takes if any broadly accepted (i.e. fair, stable, and sustainable) convention is to emerge. In the absence of such a convention, it’s going to be hard to formulate good law.
Obviously, this is going to be like herding cats – especially since everybody wants the one thing they can’t have: change on their own terms. And because any one of these constituencies can also decide to be a dick by taking without giving, any tentative models that reach a certain, though undetermined scale run the risk of falling into immediate disarray.
My own feeling is that I’ll be able to develop models for my work that function on a limited of transitory plane, but won’t be able to scale without protection from the law.
Others will probably figure out the same thing. Eventually, a consensus of what’s generally fair and viable will emerge, along with a set of principles that account for why this is so. At this point (which may be a generation from now) policy makers will be able to codify the rights and responsibilities of each player, so that generally civil creative society can operate without fear from pirates and vandals.
In the meantime, I think hopes for legal reform will have to be limited to the simple removal of glaringly pre-internet barriers to post-internet innovation. It will be some time before the law can take the second step of settling on something that’s of positive benefit to our age.
Len,
All good notes. My own feeling is that the financial core of any creative enterprise will require a door. It may be actual, it may be virtual, but at some point, there’s a concrete moment in time in which something happens, and for which somebody will have to pay – either as a member of the audience, or as an underwriter operating on behalf of an audience (leaving it and the audience to get square later, on whatever terms – and for whatever recompense – both sides find mutually agreeable).
I think the problem with pre-internet copyright law in general, and DRM in particular, was that the old door didn’t move, even though the audience did. This degenerated into a food fight almost immediately.
My view is that nobody can afford to – or even insist upon the ‘right’ to resist change as profound as the emergence of networked culture.
In other words, everybody – artists, distributors, promoters, and audiences – will have to change the terms of their respective gives and takes if any broadly accepted (i.e. fair, stable, and sustainable) convention is to emerge. In the absence of such a convention, it’s going to be hard to formulate good law.
Obviously, this is going to be like herding cats – especially since everybody wants the one thing they can’t have: change on their own terms. And because any one of these constituencies can also decide to be a dick by taking without giving, any tentative models that reach a certain, though undetermined scale run the risk of falling into immediate disarray.
My own feeling is that I’ll be able to develop models for my work that function on a limited of transitory plane, but won’t be able to scale without protection from the law.
Others will probably figure out the same thing. Eventually, a consensus of what’s generally fair and viable will emerge, along with a set of principles that account for why this is so. At this point (which may be a generation from now) policy makers will be able to codify the rights and responsibilities of each player, so that generally civil creative society can operate without fear from pirates and vandals.
In the meantime, I think hopes for legal reform will have to be limited to the simple removal of glaringly pre-internet barriers to post-internet innovation. It will be some time before the law can take the second step of settling on something that’s of positive benefit to our age.
The problem is that the consumers here want free access to the artists’ catalogs. One does wonder how they would feel if their own methods of making a living were challenged so completely by a new technology that made their knowledge nearly worthless.
I also think that an architect should be paid for each house built to his or her design unless it was a work for hire. Sure, put a copyright or patent style limit on the duration of protection.
I posted the following little story here a couple of months ago… A friend of mine is an ASCAP enforcer…call him a goon if you like, but he’s a good guy. I asked him one day, “What would it be like to be Bob Dylan and go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning $10,000.00 richer on royalties?” Mike said, “It’s more than that…” And I think that is just fucking fantastic.
@rick: If one hits big enough, often enough, it is a LOT of money. Curly Putman once told me what Green Green Grass of Home was worth a year and I’d be happy to live on that. Again, the problem is the abuse of the system. I’ve seen it done by BMI, ASCAP and the radio stations managers. They can’t do it to Dylan because he has the muscle to push back. How many really do?
So again, a system that relied a lot less on force and is transparent to all qualified participants is the right one even if it means accounting for five sales or plays of one song from a bongo band in Sheboygan. As long as it is a battle in a pyramid, you can expect ponzi.
@alex: The simplified point is having a model for agreements that enable participants to know up front and clearly the benefits and obligations of participation. In effect, that is what copyright law is but no one has to sign up. On the other hand, performance organizations are precisely what was created to be where the recording artists, producers, etc., sign up and their function is to collect the royalties. It may be time to look at royalty structures and rethink these in terms of the new technologies, but we have no way to enforce them without collection agencies such as ASCAP and BMI in terms of the mechanical royalties. We have iTunes on its own terms for collecting for sales of copies and some harsh words had to be said to Apple for that to become a bit more fair. There are definitely other ways to get the music out there and artists all over the world are using those, but to get paid, there is no way around the need for participation agreements and collections. What Jon has proposed is a different means of collection and what I fear about that proposal is that it will be rigged the same way airplay mechanicals were rigged for the top artists enabling their producers and labels to benefit by scraping not only what they really earned in terms of play, but also the fractions of time going to the independents where a little means a lot.
So Gian’s point is valid: it matters a lot how and who can sign up for the monies distributed and the formulas for the shreddin’ the natch. It has to be a transparent system or it will not work and we will be right back here having this same discussion: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Jon- What to you think about several of us here sitting down together somewhere? A lot of good notes here. Maybe we should actualize.
If I may make one suggestion: in a world built on software, software is the coin of the realm. Some of the changes may be to adopt software means or near likenesses. DRM was such an attempt because the people who crack these are the same people who learned to crack compiled software three decades ago and they’ve developed ways to get around it.
It may be completely wrong, so I’m just tossing it out there. Sibelius, etc., call home when the software is registered. Songs don’t do that. Software has a kill switch: a license timer. People hate that with music. Software can be shipped with features disabled. That’s awkward for music (Hey, who turned off the drums!!). Early attempts were made with music to give away low rez versions. Some of think an mp3 IS a low rez version. People adjusted by lowering their listening standards. Rats.
And … one of the hardest problems of the software business, even work for hire, is collecting if it wasn’t shrink-wrapped. So this isn’t unique to art. It is digital media in general which is why it was called DRM.
If the artists want more protection and a fairer shake, they need their own goons but then someone has to manage them and artists don’t do that well, so they hire other goons (lawyers) and we’re right back to the label. Labels can band together but isn’t that what the RIAA is?
So if you plan to actualize, pick the battles that you can win. Some progress will be better than none. Good luck. Everyone can benefit and you are the people who can get it done because you are the pros.
“Digital watermarks” could work, and downloads tracked. It involves privacy issues, but it could be done at the ISP level, not on the individual account level. A fee built into ISP billing would feed the fund for royalty distribution. It would make the CC folks freak out, but from what I can tell, too many of them are the leaches who want free entertainment and contribute little. Those who do contribute seem to have made their names and dough before this was all an issue, so they got theirs and don’t want to share.
As soon as you start bringing up “digital watermarks” and tracking downloads you’re getting right back to trying to “solve” the “problem” that DRM is supposed to “solve”. There is no digital watermark that can be placed that cannot be removed, and all it takes is one removal to let the “genie” out of the bottle. You’re falling into the same incorrect reasoning that brought about DRM in the first place.
Ubiquitous high bandwidth data transport capability and the ready availability of general-purpose computers makes the world different. Period.
You can’t have your old world back, no matter how you pine for it and try to legislate it back into existence. Bits are easy to copy, and will become easier to copy. Instead of clinging to your buggy whips, why not think about new ways to do business in the world.
The model where “artists” got paid for making copies of their work was a nice model (for those who profited from it) while it lasted. It was created as an artifact of a world where moving information involved physical media, and thus was subject to scarcity. That ship has sailed. If “professional” musicians, composers, movie-makers, and all the “professions” who have business models that rely on bits being hard to copy can’t make it in the world then they won’t. Boo-hoo. Find another job or starve. Seems like arts and culture did alright before media publishing industries existed, and they’ll do alright after it crumbles. Maybe we’ll have more earnestly interested artists, and less profiteering “professionals”. Sounds good to me.
I’ve said it here before, and I’ll say it again, unpopular though the opinion is: No one “deserves” to be compensated for anything, much less compensated again and again for labor they performed once. Either you have a market or you don’t. If your particular trade involves creating bits (which can be easily copied), you’ve chosen to limit your market, effectively. Perhaps you should think about providing a service that doesn’t create easily reproducible bits, or maybe producing a physical good.
Good riddance to stupid business models, and of the “cult of the professional”. I, for one, would like to see culture taken back from the “professionals” and put back in the hands of people.
Digital watermarks can work. It is one of the means used by other digital media.
Another idea is the business model has to account for accept a certain amount of pilferage. Where the industry went waaay wrong was those lawsuits against teen agers and their parents. It is one thing to make examples out of the big cos and the Chinese; it is quite another to sue the customers who are otherwise buying occasionally. Just as we learned to ignore the cassettes, we have to ignore the CDs unless someone is making a goodly shekel, and then demand the fair dinkum.
Fine Evan. Then the next time Microsoft sues a cracker, please join the brigade headed to burn down Redmond.
Good for the goose…
Oh, and can I sleep with your wife? After all, it is a renewable resource and your use won’t be affected.
Gunpowder changed warfare forever. We still signed the Geneva Accords.
A physical good is a sound idea. Also pianos in homes.
I suppose, if the issue strictly revolves around illegal copying, there has to be a synthesis between the producers of the artistic and the manufacturers of equipment used to rip the material aftermarket.
A while back I was doing research on counterfeiting currency, and came across and interesting little fact. Japan, back in the 60’s developed micro printing in the background of their currency that contained a specific arrangement of dots. They then approached copier manufacturers and asked them to create a specific safeguard that would cause the copier to stop scanning the moment this configuration of dots was encountered.
The US worked with Xerox, Savin, etc., to apply the same system when currency in the U.S. was redesigned/re-issued in the mid 90’s.
I see no reason that some sort of binary imbedded within the code of a digital file, whether audio, video, photography, digital art, etc. couldn’t be recognized by either computer operating systems or the specific software involved in copying or duplicating or ripping a file from an outside source. JPG files allow one to write specific information in the header of the file, which I use to “watermark” my work without compromising the integrity of the image.
I do think we’re headed down a slippery slope though. It seems any sort of protection measure created in the digital realm is like a red flag to folks wanting to “beat the system”. How long did it take Blue Ray to get hacked…. 6 hours?
” I, for one, would like to see culture taken back from the “professionals” and put back in the hands of people.”
Not meanly, but please, these are The People. Artists are people too and they are the people that MAKE the art.
Make a poster.
But if you want to use network effect, form your own IP consortia and set your own rules for participation.
If the technologists tell us there is no solution, then the technologists don’t have one or don’t want one. Fine.
IP-distribution rights can be controlled by absolute subscription: a record of authority has a watermark. If removed, that is a crime.
Then leave it to the artist community to form it’s own IP-consortia and set their own rules for how distribution is enabled. By contract. By agreement.
There are some heavy hitters on this list. You have the power to put the thought through the community. In a network, you are most strongly bound by type. Make your own tribe. Set your own rules.
The power is in the art community network itself and as with all great changes, there is usually a small group of individuals that makes it happen. So, Stars, set some rules.
But please, art is a community at every scale. Let that tribe be as large as it is reciprocal and clear. The coin of the realm is the work.
“Oh children, feed my sheep”
The “free music and video” types are such mean-spirited bastards. I hope they run smack into a golden rule or two soon.
In the old days of ASCAP and BMI, the only “water marks” were rooms full of listeners who would listen to tapes of radio broadcasts, etc., identify compositions and then log them. The data base that came out of that established the royalty base. Since compositions are unique combinations of notes, why could there not be song/composition identifying software that could quickly ID what was being streamed, downloaded, etc.? Composers could register their works digitally to be recognized as they were disseminated over the Internet. Every tune that went through an ISP would be logged. No watermark needed…the song is the watermark. In cases of ambiguity, humans could intervene.
GraphicMagick: Scaling opens spaces.
For example, change collection policies to create a space for the level of the art where the songs are created.
Set a low non-zero limit on the size of a room from which a fee is collected to enable small acts to work and no royalties are collected. IOW, get the cost of mechanicals off the backs of the club owners so they can open space for the songwriters. Big rooms sell art. Small rooms breed it.
Use similar scalars in other arts to open space. It is a network bound by shared types of events among routed but self-selecting objects. Pick your own rules.
Music is free. Anyone is free to make it anytime he wants. Recorded music is expensive. For a music artist to put recorded music into the public domain is a generous gift. For people to take recorded music without permission is not generous. I am writing as an amateur.
From a purely comp-sci point of view, Rick, the watermark is a lot faster in performance. CPU cycles.
On the other hand, on the web, all objects have URLs. It is the URL that you need to register, and then you must not change it. Then it is an authoritative copy by which a reasonable person could authenticate its identity.
The problem is NOT the instance. The techHeads can tell you: if it is digital, it can be tracked.
So disputes of ownership come down to a name and a record of authority. Btw, a name is a link and a link is a URL and a URL is the identifier and can be resolved to the record of authority.
Any DB can do it.
Registration and identity are not the problem. The problem is a set of rules for participation where possession of access rights to the URL is one right of participation.
The trick is enforcement.
If the artists form their own coalitions and set the rights over that, then artists control that namespace.
The namespace controls the domain. Nothing about that is technically difficult as long as you accept pilferage past point of subscription and reasonably, there isn’t a good answer for that which doesn’t require social force, but at least if you own the right of access to subscription, you control the amount of force.
Reuse and derivative works: stop as a community and ask yourselves if midis really hurt or help. MIDIs are musician’s open source. They are the seed by which your licks as realized in an easy to be learned form.
Then when you hear covers, you have at least an approimation of your intentions. Software scales because of View Source. Adopt it. MIDIs are your open source.
I think the room size for public performances is a non-issue. We have places here that have live music that hold all of fifteen people. Songwriters do perform their work. No problem.
One thing that’s being tried and that I’d have put money into a few years ago is doing live recordings at concerts, duplicating them on-site on high speed CD duplicators, printing a label then and there and selling the CDs of that evening’s performance after the gig. In the clubs I frequent, I’d bet that a good act could sell at least 50 in an evening and bring in a nice chunk of change. Autograph them, have copy and paste song information; even do photos from the night of the gig. Then the artist and the club have that master to sell on the web as a real item or as a download. A lot of folks would do the impulse buy…”Tonight’s gig in your hands tonight.” I’ll bet a lot of artists could sell hundreds of copies a week and just split the dough with the venue and whoever is doing the actual labor. So instead of a single album selling tens of thousands of copies in order to be successful, you’d be selling hundreds of copies of tens of albums to be successful. Get to a big gig like, for instance, Telluride or MerleFest or Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and each act could put out it’s own CD right there. “Board tapes”…now, of course, not tapes but digital recordings…are pretty damned good these days, and besides, live recordings are mostly loved for the music, not obsessive studio tweaking. This could be a fourth stream of income for touring musicians. The technology is all in place, and some bands have been doing this. You could set this up in any club or concert venue.
Oh, Len, I realize that a digital watermark is faster, but it’s hackable. Pattern recognition software would not be so hackable. You might not catch each and every play and download, but neither do ASCAP or BMI now. It’s all in sampling and statistical analysis. And no, it won’t catch everything. If you write a tune and it gets played ten times in five years on the entire Internet, you may not see a dime. But it could apply a current concept for compensation to new technology.
Len, please, take it from me. I run a company that makes enterprise software for movie and music distribution, and until last year I ran a division of one of the four largest companies in that space. Digital Watermarks are not the answer. Neither is tracking file formats at the ISP level, because the easy solution to that is encryption of pirate works.
I’m afraid, Rick, that pattern recognition is also easy to defeat, because you’ll constantly be needing to upgrade your recognition algorithms to take account of the new scrambling algorithms that are rolled out to defeat it.
Nothing any of you can propose as a technological solution to this problem is viable. Nothing. Anything you can build, can be defeated, and will be defeated. Heck, there are thousands of geeks out there with access to supercomputers (or even just networked playstations) who do nothing else but break security codes, because they can. It’s part of the process of training better geeks.
Forget about solving the problem of piracy with technology. It’s a losing game. Jon is right to focus on a low-friction, low technology method of compensation. It’s about the business model, not the technology.
I understand. The way that works though is pattern analysis only works on a sample. Register the URL to point to the sample that is the ROA. The analysis is verfication. You treat that as a service to subscriber.
IOW, it’s how you sell the service of analysis and ensure that the pointer system of the Internet has a name for the instance, the analysis service, the results and so on. Registration is documentation. URLs are what the web uses to reference instances and these are registered.
That is what the copyright office does now. You still have to enforce it.
The question is still how much energy will you devote to chasing down pilferage. What the URL plus instance does is enable you to work the service that can disciminate between your sample and the disputed sample. That’s how pattern analysis is integrated into the service model: verification. First, there has to be an assertion or request for verifcation.
Use URLs wisely and often.
You can’t stop pilferage. You can make it cheaper and easier to test assertions of ownership because the URL enables you to pair the assertion and the instance and provide those as input/values to the analysis service.
The URL is the aleph in the mouth of the golem.
Watermarks: a feature of the service the artist subscribes to. The artist decides if that is in there. Past that, any business/consortia/IP agreement the artist is subscribed to.
If you write a tune and it gets played ten times, you may not see a dime but you see that it was played ten times. That’s transparency. It doesn’t decide the ‘natch; it just let’s you find out if it is natural.
I know all of these means can be defeated.
So?
Copyright is not a copying problem; it is an enforcement problem. One isn’t trying to beat everyone; only the ones big enough to pay.
Pattern recognition, registration, watermarks but ultimately semantic web URL associations do not have to enforce copyright. They just have to be able to test ROA assertions.
Those are services. They have a QoS number and over time, if managed well, it is acceptable in terms of performance. It won’t kill piracy. Nothing ever has. It will track the honest.
What iTunes proved is enough people will buy it. Enough is enough. Selling isn’t the problem either.
How about mashups? As pointed out, the reuse. That is where mechanicals live. This isn’t just about how we fight pirates. It IS as you say, about the business model.
Artists keep being dogs working for cats when they should be cats working with each other.
If there is to be a change, it won’t be a change with our audience. It will be with each other.
Whether an online service member, or a consortia of artists who set up the services to their own benefit (Sorry Mr. M!), it will be because communities subscribe.
As Alex said, there is a door. And behind it is a “twisty maze of URLs”.
It is interesting that the big freak out about all this didn’t happen when the “record business” started to go sour. Remember all the nay-sayers proclaiming that file sharing wouldn’t hurt the record companies at all? Yeah, sure…
The freak out started when the movie studios belatedly realized that it was only a matter of time before what was happening to the record companies applied to them, too. The only difference between audio recordings and movies or videos is memory and processor speed required, and that has become a non-issue for all intents and purposes.
Having seen first hand what Luddites and tech ignoramuses the old guard of recording company and publishing execs are, I’m not surprised at how this has all gone down. In 1982 or ’83 my pal Lowell Levinger (aka “Banana”, ex of the Youngbloods) and I tried to get financing for a venture called “Dream Sequences.” We wanted to sell MIDI sequences of accurate transcriptions of arrangements of popular tunes of the day. Nobody had done this yet. You could put a floppy into a drive connected via MIDI to a synthesizer and there was the backing track for Pet Shop Boys or whomever. We had suggested synth patches that would emulate the recordings, and you could play as many virtual tracks or not so if you wanted to play the horn or keyboard parts yourself, no problem, if you wanted to just sing karaoke style over it and play guitar, no problem. It was perfect for Holiday Inn top 40 duos or trios. You could also print out the sheet music on your good old dot matrix printer…remember those?
When we got to some of the Hollywood music industry biz types they absolutely freaked out. They had no idea that the genie was that far out of the bottle. They were outraged at the idea that you could print a score from a floppy…or play it and sound very much like the original recording. I mean we’re talking seriously red faces and near heart attacks. And here in front of them are these two ex-hippies bringing them the good news about technology!
Well, we just wanted everyone to get paid. Sell a sequence, pay the composer. Hell, pay the arranger and the band for their sound, too. No way, Jose… Talk about Luddites and Saboteurs. These guys were ready to go out and buy wooden shoes just to beat us to death with…
And then we decided to do cryogenically treated guitar strings, and I should have patented that, but that’s another story…
I’m not sure what bringing my wife and sex into this has to do with the argument– seems a bit juvenile to me. Maybe you couldn’t come up with anything to say in response to my points, so that was the best you could do. *sigh*
I don’t really get the comment about Microsoft “suing a cracker”, either. Microsoft’s business model, with respect to selling software as though it’s a physical good, is just as brain-damaged as any other business model that attributes physical characteristics to intangible information-based services. With Ray Ozzie, Microsoft appears to be learning that they are, in fact, a service company (and not a merchandising company), but it will take time for them to adapt (or die).
I’m really amused by the pseudo-technical hand-waving going on here. I particularly like the talk about URLs– as though the whole of communications between computers via the Internet is HTTP. “Make x-y-z criminal”, etc. Copyright infringement is already illegal, but it still happens. Making laws that cite specific technologies, networking protocols, etc, would be a blindingly stupid use of legislative resources. Making everyone a criminal isn’t the answer. You can’t lock everyone up. (“War on drugs…” *smile*) You can’t legislate the genie back into the bottle.
(I particularly find amusement in the naive thinking that URLs somehow represent physical things. Never you mind that an URL can reference the output of an application program which might change over time. Bookmark a Google search and come back to it 6 months later. Maybe Google should have to file for an “URL change permit” or some such every time they update their database.)
How would it benefit society to completely tear down and rebuild the Internet to serve copyright holders? It seems more beneficial to society, to me, to just tell the copyright holders to deal with the world as it is now, and keep on with the innovation that the Internet is providing. (“Think of the poor blacksmiths…” *sigh*)
Intellectual property law is outdated with respect to today’s technology and social attitudes. Those who have entrenched interests in keeping things “business as usual” will try to exert their will, but the tide will inevitably turn– of this I have no doubt. The reality of today is just how it is. You can tilt against windmills all you want, and make up fantasies about how we would rebuild the Internet to be a copyright enforcement machine, but it’s not going to happen. The public doesn’t want that, and in the end (at least in the US), the public grants copyright to creators– not the other way around.
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
I don’t see anything in there about propping up outdated business models, or enriching creators.
Cry if you want about how changing social attitudes are killing off noble “professions”, but it won’t make it stop. It’s creative destruction, and it’s happened before and will happen again. I’m happy to live in a world without big-budget Hollywood blockbusters and label-hyped recording “artists”. Maybe I am a bit mean spirited, if only because I work for a living, and I think it’s high time others do, too.
Whew, the high and mighty!
“I work for a living, and I think it’s high time others do, too.” Wow! So what do you do for a living that’s so precious?
And it’s really something that you don’t think that writing or composing is real work. What a fucking attitude! What a crock of shit…
T-Bone- I’d be up for organizing ameeting in a physical (as opposed to virtual space) on this subject.
Just to get back to Jon’s initial suggestion. A broadband fee. Is there any way of setting the level of that fee, that would give
citizens fair value (and not preserve the entertainment-industrial complex at its current bloated size)?
And how would we secure that the money doesn’t get sucked up in the legacy institutions of entertainment-industrial complex (big four, mega-movie studios)?
And is there any method of distributing the money that artists will support? Are Big Champagne numbers reliable (I doubt it?)
-Anders
Evan- Maybe you could help us sort this out. In the meantime, if working for a living makes you mean spirited, maybe you should look for something else to do. Len doesn’t deserve derision. He is a smart guy and your senior. I don’t understand your contempt toward artists. I read that you are an independent IT consultant by profession and an amateur musician. Perhaps you should try switching things up and become an amateur IT consultant and a professional musician. (I should say that having never been either of those I have no idea if it would help you with your copyright rants, as you call them, but I understand that kind of thing can sometimes snap one out of a morbid spell.)
Artists aren’t that bad. I think they are a hell of a lot of fun, in fact. And I have to tell you that artists work twenty-four hours a day. They work when they sleep. (Here I am talking about actual artists and not hyped commodities.)
Art is not about benefit to society, although that is sometimes a result. And everything that is illegal still happens. That is the reason it is illegal.
If intellectual property had no rights associated with it, there would be no IT consultants, by the way. Not the way we do it.
Anyway, best of luck to you. And, it is no easy ride being a free lance poet.
First, Evan, please do some reading on the W3C Architecture list and its recommendations. All of the issues you cite with respect to URLs are covered there as part of the Semantic Web and Best Practices threads. As to the changing nature of the resource (what the URL identifies), that is covered as part of the discussion of systems that return weather reports. I’ve been at this awhile and am fully aware of the limitations but also the practices that make it work as well as it can work and that will never be as good as people want and some deserve.
Microsoft is just an example of companies in the software industry that pursue crackers with a vengeance and use every trick known to comp-sci to register and check the registrations of their products. Actually, with respect to the artists, they’ve tried to do the right thing. Faced with lawsuits, so is Google now. That trend is getting some results as the business models are reorganized to cope.
<rant>
DRM isn’t working not because it won’t technically catch the criminal in the act. It isn’t working because of a zeitgeist of theft. The piracy has been going on since the industry started, and in some cases, within the industry. Look up the phrase “cleans”.
But the culture of stealing in society is disturbing. It’s ok to rip the CD and make a few copies. It isn’t ok to set up a business based on ripping it and profiting by that. It is no different than breaking into your house to take your silverware and roll your partner. If we really were a society of bonobos, you would accept that and with respect to intellectual property, that is what we’ve become. As above so below. The culture that rips the CDs for profit is the same one that just defrauded the 401ks. No difference except in the victims..</rant>
Understand clearly what is going to come about. When the geeks began to crack each other’s code, they took two paths: consortia to create new rules and models, to form the participation agreements that controlled their own destiny, and open source under the same kinds of umbrella organizations. That is what I am talking about here. It isn’t perfect but it does provide better results than just wringing our hands and giving up. The best way to win using network effect is to ensure the classes by types cohere. That means the artists are going to have to look out for each other with regards to the contracts, the services and how the natch gets shredded. For that to work, the most powerful will have to look out for the least. To do that, they need a plan.
Part of this discussion is what would a plan like that need to consider. Jon has an idea for collecting broadband mechanicals. It is a good one. What I am on about is how that should be audited and how participation can be organized. IOW, at the end of this, we are talking about the business model as Rachel says. My difference with her is that just because the tracking system isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. This is about where the power will reside in those new models. And that is what the participation agreements have to spell out.
I don’t think we will unhorse ASCAP or BMI. We may want to consider if a new deal is needed and speculate on some changes to the current system that will be healthier for the business environment which if it doesn’t sustain art at the egg stage, will degrade the product itself.
And why not use the existing business models of ASCAP and BMI for this? Why aren’t they in the forefront of all this?
One of the main issues here is ethics. Evan, to my way of thinking, represents the unethical side who think they have a right to rip off composers, writers, and artists because he has a “real job” and they are all a bunch of leeches sucking the blood of honest working folks. Unfortunately, I see too many computer geeks using their secret decoder rings to get revenge on the school mates who rejected them for being too dorky in high school. This is the revenge of the nerds at work. Why is it that so many IT consultants and experts have this smug, “gotcha” attitude when it comes to dealing with us mere mortals? Maybe it’s that the musicians on one side and the jocks on the other were getting laid and the dorks weren’t, and now that the world needs computer geeks, they get to call the shots…
Anyway, I’m all for a broadband mechanical license arrangement, and I have no doubt that it could be made to work at least as well as the current ASCAP/BMI models do outside of the computer world. I suspect it could actually work better for lower level artists, too, if implemented decently. But then I’m not an IT guy. I don’t have the secret decoder ring.
Rick:
I think the one thing you haven’t factored in is that the “geek” is a greaseless tinkerer. Like a classic motorhead, programmer/developer types like to tear things apart, reverse engineer and look for the weak points in things. Not unlike the guy that’s constantly trying to get enough compression to blow out the stacks on his ’69 Camaro.
It’s all a matter of approach. Some geeks are like the guy that just wants to be out on the track on Saturday, wailing down the white line and shooting the shit with his friends on how upped the mix in the firing chamber and then there’s the other kind, that could give a shit about improving engine engineering – just win today.
Anywho, the point is, a good geek is constantly looking for the flaw, the weak point – not so much to point out that everyone else’s thinking is off base, but to create a better outcome.
The nascent idea you guys are all kicking around isn’t a bad one and you’d be remiss not to include the tech types into the discussion, as they ARE going to be looking for the weak point, the flaw in the system.
All systems are breakable – the goal, I think is to come up with something that serves the LARGER need to the best of it’s abilities.
The way I see it, when it comes to protecting digital distribution you have three primary goals:
1) An easy, affordable market for the consumer
2) Fair accounting and return for the artist
3) Not compromising the quality of the product.
None of these goals seem unreasonable to me and I doubt if they’ll seem unreasonable to reasonable people.
I would like to think that Evan and Mr. Asante wouldn’t find these unreasonable goals either – of course, what do I know?
Tom, I understand your point, but Evan has come on so strongly against any kind of royalties being due to creative people that I am offended for the sake of my many friends who depend on royalties to make a half-way decent living. There is a streak of amorality that has spread from the geek hackers into the general public that I find disturbing. The geeks seem to have their own ways to protect their own livelihoods while they tear down others’ means of self-support.
Meanwhile, all that promised computer interconnectivity, compatibility, ease of use and upgrades, etc. that we mere civilian mortals were promised a good 20 years ago when we were getting used to our Macs and IBM desk top computers has not come to pass. So the geeks maintain their secret decoder ring strangle holds on the rest of us who are sick to death of needing to upgrade and who don’t need a better spreadsheet or word processor.
The computer crowd may have their issues with musicians and writers, but we have our issues with the tech genius crowd as well.
Another thing to look at is in discussions of the DRM-free iPod elsewhere, the discussions are focused completely on the advantages to Apple of the sliding prices scales and DRM-lessness on the sales of the hardware. IOW, the music is just a way to sell iron just as software once was in the days of the mainframe.
And that means that some of that iron-revenue should be picking up some of the loss of revenue for the content. An adjustment of the business model has to look for scalars elsewhere or we replicate the bad old music business where the artist pays for everything and everyone else collects points.
Rick:
I understand your point as well. I tend not to point the finger at the tech crowd, per se, since there has been a general collapse of societal thinking across the board for 20+ years. Too many people, whether it’s a Madoff or a friend of the cousin of an accountant for Jackson Browne’s pool guy, are too self-focused to understand that their sense of self-entitlement to see how their actions impact other people.
This is a larger sociological question that probably needs to be addressed elsewhere.
For myself, I’ve never had issues with royalties – it’s the business model that portions of the entertainment industry runs off of, and that’s fine. Like a lot of folks on this board, I spend a chunk of my youth unsuccessfully pursuing a music career and for the large percentage of people, it’s a hard, hard road.
I think that’s one factor that people resentful of royalties and recurring payment structures forget – for every Bob Dylan there’s 100 Pat Murphys who support their family by working as a woodsmith and support their soul by gigging and home recording and jamming whenever they have an opportunity.
In regards to the lack of perfect interconnectivity in the tech world, well – again, we’re dealing with a certain level of “oneupsmanship” that poisons the well in so many endeavors. As we move closer and closer to an absolute global community, as the computer becomes more and more the primary tool of communication, entertainment delivery, financial management and information delivery, the more industry leaders will HAVE to come to common cause on how to get this done. The days are competition between Unix/Linux, Apple and Windows are limited – in order to meet the needs of the future, there will have to be an industry standard – the companies that feel they can “win” the fight will lose, as self-interest usually does.
You know – people are the craziest critters.
Re. i-Pods…I wonder what the actual margins are on “iron” like this. I doubt that there are big numbers in the hardware game these days. That’s why the software portion of the Apple business model…the songs…is so important. Sony didn’t buy Columbia for the back lots, they bought the company for the back catalog of both music and film. Polaroid didn’t sell cameras, they sold film back in the day. Loading recording equipment with a surcharge for software royalties has been tried and found unworkable, too. That’s what the studios wanted with home VHS and Beta recorders, and they really freaked when some companies came out with dual decks made specifically for copying from one transport onto the other conveniently.
Look, the tech side is always going to be one or two steps ahead of the business side in this particular world. But we can see into the future, and we could have a reasonable system for compensating authorship of software and content.
The apple is off the tree, and it’s been baked into a delicious pie that’s too scrumptious for most people not to take a bite. The waitress is in front of everyone beaming and everyone is looking at her cleavage and she’s whispering, “It’s free, it’s free…” The temptation to steal intellectual property is just too strong for most people to resist, so they make major shifts in their moral compass and tell themselves that it’s OK to steal because information wants to be free. It’s bullshit, of course, and the waitress will give you an interesting disease if you go too far, but that’s how it goes in the brave new world.
True, Rick. Something to consider: originally, start-ups like mp3.com tried to deal fairly with the artists and directly. They couldn’t get the top drawer crowd interested. iTunes made the deals with the majors and have the product the people want, but at the same time, are recreating the old middle-man-takes-the-big-bite system, meaning it has to come from a major label or at least through one of their recommended middle men.
The only hope I see for a change is if the artists with enough draw to do it form artist-owned labels. Some of that is happening. It isn’t perfect but we’ve gone for so long believing the only way an artist could succeed is with major promotion and in some ways it is true and always will be. On the other hand, as you point out, some bands and artists are taking advantage of the tech and selling off the board. As I recall, The Dead pioneered a lot of that thinking by encouraging the audience to record and selling off the board. The Dead took a community approach from the beginning, or so the legend goes, and it worked for them, or so the appearance goes.
The irony is, the ‘information wants to be free’ meme was popularized by a Dead lyricist, John Perry Barlow, although Stewart Brand is credited with the original quotation. And here is where cultures trip over their shoelaces: the origin of the thinking that makes it easy to rip the CD starts in the very community you and Jon helped create. Irony, I guess. So I am fascinated to read from the pros such as yourselves how that has worked out and where and if some of that was mistaken and what lessons were learned. It’s one of the angles that makes this blog fascinating for someone like me who sat on the other end of the country envious of your success and freedom, not schadenfreude, but the real possibility that what you’ve learned once influenced the world, and still can. That is, a change that can make this equitable will not come from the tech community. It will come from the relationships of the tech community with the art community and it will only come when the artists find and use their power to make it happen.
That means your tribe, Rick. Mine in the sense that I am a geek, has already fought this fight and we learned that we had to make those participation agreements, sign up, pay the dues and live with the fact that the big software companies tried to muscle us out of existence at every turn. We survive by staying within our means, protecting our assets, and most of all, holding on to the values that brought us together: open enough to evolve, closed enough to survive, and happy with what we have because it is ours. Then contentment is knowing when we have enough and not want what others have.
If thee and thine are the culture mavens, it falls to you to change the culture.
I’ve read some of Barlow’s ramblings over the past few years, and I absolutely disagree with him. He’s the perfect example of someone who made his royalties the old way and now wants to deny that to the next generation. He’s bathing in privilege and telling us to do as he says, not as he did. Brand is another one who has figured out how to parlay his fame and notoriety into a way to make a living with foundation money, speaking money, and yes, writing for dough.
As for the Dead…the idea of the tapers was NOT to sell tapes of live shows but to enjoy them and trade them. And once again, you have a band that made their money the old way. I wouldn’t mind taking a peek at Robert Hunter’s quarterly royalty statements…
BTW, I’m not against work for hire, either. I’ve written tens of thousands of words that have appeared in at least a couple of hundred magazine features and columns as work for hire. I write quickly, and I make decent money when I do get published. With a couple of major music biz publishers, I retain copyrights on unedited articles, with another it’s theirs. Either way I get my hourly pay. Writing this way wouldn’t earn me a living, but it’s been a damned good supplement. But the point is that I DO get paid for my work…the information isn’t free except that which I choose to disseminate here on the Internet. That is choice. I can give it away or I can get paid, but I don’t have people stealing from me.
I am a second generation work-for-hire writer. My mother worked for magazines when I was a wee one as a copy writer. It’s in the blood. She got paid; I get paid…
Thanks for the insights as only one is was there can.
“That is choice. I can give it away or I can get paid, but I don’t have people stealing from me.”
And that is precisely what has to be the case. On the other hand, if you are a BMI/ASCAP writer or a label writer, the options for what you do are restricted a bit more. I almost had to tear down a gig one night when the boys showed up in the middle of the day to tell the manager of a good club he wasn’t paying his fair share to them, and they sure weren’t paying me even though I was a BMI writer. That’s the part of it that sorta sucks. I lose my gig so Dylan can collect. Otherwise, you know what I’m doing with my songs because there isn’t that much choice as an amateur. I’ve sold albums from the stage and in the stores. Without the company support, that doesn’t work and I don’t have the contacts or age to change my status. I wish I did but otherwise, I like the life I have. I just wish I knew the songs wouldn’t die when I do unlike your guitars that will go on for hundreds of years. Maybe that’s something we all wish for. Call it ego. We love our work like our children.
The idea of the consortia is a little different. Imagine having an art consortia where the people with the names who get the most from the services pay one amount, say just for the example, 15k a year. For that price they get to sit on the consortium board and dictate policy. At the bottom are the so-called student or entry-level memberships, say $100 a year. That won’t even pay to process the application but it’s enough to keep it serious.
There might be more levels, but that’s the general idea. The consortium offers some services, but mainly it keeps the IP for works in common and ensures that any works created by the consortium operate under the rules of the participation agreement. IOW, fees are regular, any member can use certain contributions, etc. It promotes and enables collaborations. It provides lists of material available say to the movie industry or deals for samples. It acts as a communications vehicle and keeps private that which has to be, but otherwise also gets new blood in. It is not a label but a label can join. T&Cs can be worked out.
Variations of this are being tried now but they tend to be companies and not artist consortia.
It’s just a suggestion to throw into the pot in case y’all have that meeting T asked Jon about.
Read up on the history of United Artists, the company formed by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, WD Griffith, and Charlie Chaplin to gain control over distribution of their films. Yeah, it all changed and got screwed up, but that original idea is kind of what we’re talking about, but for the digital age.
Precisely. I was thinking about UA. In Hoffstede’s Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, he talks about the onion of Symbols, Heroes, Rituals and Values where the symbols are understood within the culture, the heroes exemplify the values to be sought, the rituals serve to help the culture cohere, but at the core are the values, the outcomes that the culture wants to prevail in certain situations. The Founders and the values they set make all the difference in what follows.
I’m sitting here working and listening to T-Bone’s NPR DJ interview sampling his values. Other than your work as a luthier, something you said in an interview caught my attention. It was the bit about running the sound through a piano soundboard just to see how it would sound. I liked that enormously because you aren’t locked into formula; you are still arrow loaded, on the hunt. Values.
I don’t mean to be obsequious, but your values mean something at a distance and that is the most powerful magick there is.
I got deeply involved conceptually in the idea and technology of digital audio modeling…being able to make complex digital filters that work in both the frequency domain and the time domain. My particular application has been to be able to develop algorithms that define the sound imparted to guitar strings by the wood and air of the instrument. It took me about 12 years to find the right partners, but we did it, and it works. In that interview I was imagining what it would be like to do a grand piano algorithm…capture the signature sonic overlay…and the play a guitar through it…or plug in a mic and sing through it, or whatever. Start with a concept, and then hack it and throw away the rule book. What would a violin sound like playing through the resonances of a trumpet? It’s not synthesis, it’s understanding that instruments are sound modifiers and then making digital versions. It’s an interesting field, to say the least. I also learned a hell of a lot about real acoustic guitars doing the R&D and doing the recordings to be turned into the models.
I’m not a programmer by any means, but I do understand the underlying concepts that rule both the physical and virtual worlds with this stuff.
As for the IP on that project (yes, it comes back to that…), we chose NOT to patent the device or our methodology preferring to stick with trade secrets. That has worked for us. There’s really only one competing product on the market, and ours still is unique in how we’re able to use any instrument without having to sample it with a pickup mounted in it. Thus I was able to work with about $250,000.00 worth of guitars in the recording sessions, borrowing examples from as early as the 1850s, “golden era” Martins from the 1930s, Loar signed Gibsons, etc. Lots o’ fun!
Wow. I didn’t know. You constantly surprise me. Are you saying there is a modeling package of yours that is marketed somewhere? I liked it because it is a wicked idea: it just might make magic sounds and that is the ultimate goal.
I’m very simple oriented in my home studio because the more stuff I have the less I get done. I have the Roland for synth, the computer, the Adobe Audition 2.0, a fair mic, the axes (and I use about 2.7 of those), the MOTU and that’s about it. Oh yeah… an old voice. Plugins make all the difference but I get lost in those and have to rely on my ear. It is second rate but no one starves when I fail so it works for me. It’s ok. It keeps me focused on the song and as Terry Woodford told me many years ago in Muscle Shoals, “Remember to be a songwriter, not a sound engineer.”
T-Bone makes some interesting remarks about digital, attack and low-end, and the frame of the piece. The last bit I understand as a writer and drama student, but he gave some good pointers to think about when recording about how to get the sound to be rounder in digital. When we went digital, it opened up a world of composition possibilities and it cleaned up the noise floor, but dang, as clear and transparent as the sound it, it is colder than Dick Cheney’s knees. I respond to that by upping the number of acoustics I use, mellowing out the voice and so on. He had great pointers about Roy Orbison’s singing technique. I vaguely remember some of this from my college days, but as he describes it, it makes a lot of sense.
I’m glad the election is past us. I thought I’d go to Morgan exile and never get out of the doghouse. Thanks for the natch.
BTW; proper attribution. Shreddin’ the natch: a Doonesburyism. In the strip, Jimmy Thudpucker comes to record his comeback album only to be faced with a producer on the board and no one else in the studio. When he asks about it, he is told it is all on disk (‘got strings that’ll give you diabetes’) because hiring live musicians is “too many ways to shred the natch”.
The digital modeler I’m involved with is called Mama Bear and it’s made by D-TAR…Duncan-Turner Acoustic Research, a company comprised of some of the main people at Seymour Duncan Pickups and myself. Think of it as being a three dimensional equalizer. It’s not a sampler; it’s not a synth; it won’t make six strings sound like 12 or steel strings sound like nylon. But it will take a guitar with a bridge piezo pickup and make it sound pretty damned good and then some. And if you play to the models, it’s amazing. Check out the demo that John Jorgenson did for us; it’s on the D-TAR site. I really pissed off some luthiers at one of the Healdsburg Guitar Festivals…2003…when I demoed the prototype and made an Ovation sound like a J-200. Yeah, Ludditism is alive and well in my field, too. Me, I like real wood, I like good digits. All my guitars eventually have digital tone controls…the fingers on the players’ hands…
@TBone
This discussion has progressed quite a bit since I last visited, but I’ll try to pick up where I left off:
Copyright does not deal with attribution in such a case. It would only deal with monetary compensation for infringement.
I’ll bite anyway:
In a world devoid of copyright (I don’t think we’ll ever see one – but I’ve yet to be convinced we shouldn’t at least strive for one) anyone would be allowed to use my name and pieces of my performance in their art.
I don’t have a problem with that.
If he made money from my performance – I could copy HIS film with MY performance in it and sell it too.
So could anyone else.
As for what I do – I’m an animator and concept artist. Most of my work though, is 3d for TV ads. I also used to do comic strips and might go back to that one day. I also paint.
As for the difference between what should and shouldn’t be regarded as property there’s a very simple rule of thumb: if by taking it I deprive someone else of it – it’s property.
If by taking it (or copying it) – the original owner still keeps his copy – it’s shouldn’t be regarded as property.
Simple.
Since there is no law prohibiting the later – I fail to see how this works as an argument for prohibiting the former.
Quite the opposite – this would be a good example of copyright laws stifling free enterprise.
Also in the later example, once my friend buys that land – I can no longer use it myself.
While if he makes a movie, I can still make my own movie.
On a personal note I must say that’s a really horrible metaphor – I’m amazed you didn’t see it yourself.
But really, the issue is just so much simpler to understand without the hyperbole.
Also, some friend…
The issue, Armand, is whether you or anyone gets paid and what the deal is. I believe that we have the right to make the deal. If it’s work for hire, fine. If it’s royalties, fine. If you do work for hire, then whomever you worked for may own the copyrights. Those are literally the rights to make copies. I don’t see why one should not own intellectual property for some defined length of time…generally considered long enough to get a decent return on the time invested. Are there abuses? In every direction. But artists and creators should have the right to control how they get paid, and others should not steal from them.
BTW, patents are only good for 17 years so what smart inventors do is not to patent until they think that they have a good marketing plan. That is if they don’t sniff the air and smell competition.
I looked up D-TAR, read some reviews and then went to the page and watched the video. Freakin’ awesome. I need a Mama Bear and at that price, next time the tooth fairy is kind, I’ll get one.
Thanks for the pointer, Rick. That is very very cool. I’ll mention it to some friends. You really are an acoustic player’s guru.
We now return the thread to it’s dreary topic….
The things I wrote are neither metaphor nor hyperbole. They are not even hypothetical. They have all actually happened in real time to real people.
Your story of the land bought is a metaphor for the movie made.
That, at least, is unambiguously so.
As I’ve explained it is also an incorrect metaphor – one that obfuscates the issue.
Therefore I’ve labeled it hyperbole.
But if that word offends or insults then that also obscures the issue.
I humbly retract it.
There is no law prohibiting one from buying land I’ve shown interest in.
There is also no reason for a law prohibiting one from making a movie similar to one I’ve shown interest in making.
There is however ample reason to NOT allow people to monopolize ideas. Once an idea has been communicated – it belongs to all who are privy to it.
And all should be allowed to explore that idea and do with it as they will.
Copyright is legislation governing ideas and as such there is no reason we should let it stand.
Ideas should be free.
If you don’t want your friend to steal your idea – don’t tell him your idea.
If you don’t want your friend to buy the land from under you – don’t tell him you intend to buy it.
Simple.
Armand, your ideas and work should be free, too, then. What do you do for a living?
That ideas are intellectual property has been true for hundreds of years. The writers, inventors, composers, artists have the right to control the destiny of those ideas, at least for some limited time. These folks put good honest work into it all…and they need to get paid for the work. Unauthorized file sharing is no different that shop lifting CDs, etc.
The obstinate refusal to understand that IP is actually property is just an indicator to me of how we as a society have allowed amoral behaviour to slip in on the heels of technological innovation.
The land was bought by Michael Ovitz out from under his best friend, Ron Meyer.
@Rick Turner
You’ve lived your entire life in a world where creativity is submissive to commercial interests – as have all of us.
So your reply stems from some notions that are ingrained in our way of thinking.
In your example someone must hold the copyright – whether it’s the creator or not is irrelevant to my point.
I’m suggesting enabling a society in which no one holds the copyright.
Once an idea has been communicated it belongs to all those who are privy to it.
If they wish to copy or emulate it they would be free to do so. If they think they can capitalize on it – more power to them.
In a world without copyright, capitalizing on an idea (be it your own or someone else’s) does not preclude anyone else from capitalizing on the very same idea.
And I’ll end with my usual caveat – I don’t really believe that my idea will come to pass. Copyright is one form or another will stay – there’s too many financial interests involved.
But I strongly believe a copyright-free world is in our best interest as a society.
It is a cause worth fighting for.
“I don’t really believe that my idea will come to pass.”
Your idea?!
Armand, I do not agree. Simple as that. And it ain’t gonna happen, either. You might just as well decide that everybody gets $25.00 an hour whether they are a bus boy or a doctor, an assembly line worker or an engineer. Your concept is at the heart of what is wrong with communism…the total lack of incentive for anyone to excel.
“Copyright is legislation governing ideas ”
Umm, no. IANAL but… copyright law pertains to the right to copy a fixed form, not an idea. If that is all you got, this is easy: ideas are free. Fixed forms aren’t. It is not a subtle distinction.
This is about copies made of fixed work where a fixed work is in a medium appropos of a work of that expression type. The protection for such is copyright.
This is an easy question for forms that are fixed such as audio.
It’s a tougher problems for dynamic forms (versioned) because again, the distinction goes fuzzy in a mathematical sense. Copyrights applied to software, it turns out, is a bad idea because software by its nature as a medium is copied AND modified. Code not under construction is dead code. Again, the distinction is not subtle.
@AA,
For nomadic tribes, the notion of extending property rights to land in anathema. Wives and livestock, maybe. But the very earth we all came from? Outrageous – even blasphemous.
I know we struggle to consider IP in the same way we consider ‘real’ property. And because there are very real differences between tangible and intangible goods, there’s probably some merit to this disconnect.
But when you step back one step further, and realize that the concept of property itself is also an abstraction, then the way forward becomes a bit more clear.
Though we may envy the freedom of movement enjoyed by, say, Mongolian shepherds, it’s not clear that we’d exchange everything else we’ve developed for this one bit of upside – not when nomadic tribalism is also characterized by primitive and awkward social arrangements, suffocating superstition, and deep vulnerability to a host of horrors that agriculturally oriented civilizations managed to transcend. Though clearly not without problems, the assignment of property rights to physical terrain has, on the whole, produced an astonishing amount of development for the species.
In a similar vein, copyright is something we choose to create. It may have an arbitrary aspect to it. But once that aspect has been accepted, its existence allows for some truly wonderful things.
The real issue is that the law that once served us so well has become conspicuously outdated. The problem is that certain groups have tried to exploit this disconnect, corrupting the legislative process to hold back the clock while menacing anyone who stands in their way.
The naked brutality of this assault has, sadly, turned a significant number of people against the concept of copyright itself. And given the conduct of those who have profited the most from the established order, this recoil is not entirely unwarranted.
This is why Lessig has called for an end to the extreme, hard-line positions of groups like the RIAA and the MPAA. He rightly sees their attempts to dominate and control every aspect of the audience’s engagement with a work as a moral outrage. And he understands that a pattern of sustained abuse will lead to a state of such pronounced polarization that people will be unwilling to support copyright of any kind – not when Big Content systematically abuses whatever rights they’re granted.
I’m a big fan of Lessig’s ‘Change Congress’ movement, because it promises to strip these organizations of their undue influence in Congress. This is the first step in restoring civility not only to the debate, but the law itself.
While they’re at it, how about examining how the Cuban immigrants to Florida got so much power over Congress! What do they have over Washington to have kept this ridiculous embargo situation up? Castro and bro may be dick head commies, but Batista was even worse. Ahh, but that’s a thread changer…
@alex:
Copyright is fixed forms. It is an identity and fixing-media issue. The question of a direct copy of a fixed form as the basis of copyright is settled. The problem is as you say, the inappropriateness of the conditions for the technology. Open doors invite theft and a digital form is by design, an open form. It can be designed otherwise, but being digital, anyone can change that. The form by nature is malleable.
Copyright controls distribution of fixed forms and this is the basic conflict. The property right and the medium are incompatible given human behavior.
However, by enabling copyright as a given right once a fixed form is created, the government removes itself from the consideration of ownership unless asked, and then, the Copyright Office is simply a witness of a registration form.
It leaves it to lawyers to prove assertions of fixed form. That is the damping function over the issue of what a fixed form is and how one can determine if a fixed form is a duplicate of a distributable record of authority. This is right of publication.
IOW: copyright is backed by registration and courts. That’s all.
On derivative works: someone brought up reuse of other artist’s work. That should be left to the artists to work out. Sharing IP progresses the state of the art. The web is built on the menu item, View Source in your browser. Common open languages with view source created a multi-billion dollar market where once there was only islands of operability. Sharing ideas really works.
Fixed forms? By consent. It is property.
Zow… so many points to reply to.
I don’t think that composing or writing isn’t work. I think that earning royalties for work performed one time isn’t work. I am morally opposed to royalty-based payment for work. I think it’s dishonest. That’s my opinion.
Yeah– I am an amateur musician and photographer. I usually don’t bring that into these arguments, because someone will inevitably make some statement like “Yeah– but you’re just an amateur. Your stuff is no good / You don’t try and make a living off of it / You don’t have the same dedication as a professional, so you don’t understand..,” Since it’s been brought in, though, I’ll say this about it: I love the songs that I’ve written and co-written, and they were all released with copyright waived because I think that’s the only morally right thing to do. There is as much love, heartbreak, happiness and sorrow in the songs I wrote as those written by anyone else. They’re not “my songs”– they’re just songs I happened to write. Once I played them for somebody else they weren’t “mine” anymore. I rather like that about them. They needed to come out of me. No one owns them– they’ll “live” forever on their own, provided someone out there likes them. It hurts me when someone claims to “own” a song, an idea, a story, or an image. To my mind, you can “own” it as long as you keep it in your head– after it’s out, it’s not yours anymore.
When I shoot pictures for other people, I work in a strictly work-for-hire arrangement. I don’t try and “make a living” at it because it would be financially suicidal to try that. (And, of course, I end up giving a lot of no cost no-rights-reserved licenses to people when I take a good picture of their kids or their pets out in public, just because I think it’s friendly to share a good picture of someone when you take it.) I don’t whine, as some photographers do, for some kind of legislative restrictions on work-for-hire to protect a failing business model. I make the financially prudent choice of just not betting my income on it. If work-for-hire, the ubiquity of cheap photographic gear, and interested people who don’t care about earning royalties kills the “traditional” photography market I won’t be particularly sad, and I don’t think society will lose anything for it.
I do all my IT consulting work as work-for-hire. I could have kept the copyright on various pieces of software that I’ve written and tried to re-sell it, but I won’t do that. That kind of business is not morally right to me, and I won’t succumb to that temptation. Re-selling labor that I’ve performed once over and over again is as audacious as asking my Customers to give me a cut of their future revenue for use of a system that I’ve installed for them. That’s not an arrangement that the market has deemed viable (for the most part), and it’s not something I’m comfortable with, morally.
I guess the fundamental disconnect that I’m having with you guys is that I do see art, science, and technology as being about benefiting society. If they happen to benefit their creators then so be it, but to my mind the primary beneficiary should be humanity as a whole. I also have a fundamental problem with anyone feeling entitled to being compensated again and again for work they’ve done one time. It doesn’t sit right with me, morally, and I speak out against it. My position is as moral to me as Rick’s position is to him (and probably as repugnant to Rick as his position is to me). I don’t buy that physical items (subject to scarcity) and intangible informational items are the same thing, and I’ll never be convinced of it. (I can’t wait until “3D printers” and, eventually, from the molecule-up fabrication become a reality– that will really turn this argument into something interesting!)
It’s hard for me to not be militant and reactionary when the lobbyists for the industries that benefit from business-as-usual have tried to get legislation enacted to ban things like general purpose computing, and throw regulator hurdles up for creating simple devices like digital-to-analog converters. I approach this from an extremist position because these business and legal interests approach their side from an equally extremist position. It almost feels like kill-or-be-killed. Stallman’s “Right to Read” seems like it’s getting closer and closer to coming true each day, and that scares the heck out of me.
I certainly don’t want to be mean-spirited with you guys. I rather enjoy the conversation here, Jon’s blog, and the comments that all of you right. I get all “high and mighty” and preachy because it strikes a moral nerve with me. I’m sure that I come off so “mean spirited”, in part, because I really do want to see royalty-based business models destroyed. I can understand how that would piss someone off. (I can imagine how I would feel listening to someone preaching about stopping the “gays” from getting married, or bringing prayer back into schools… *shudder*) When Len says that Microsoft does the “right thing” with respect to artists, he’s making as much a moral statement as I am. It just happens that my position is unpopular with this particular crowd.
I don’t particularly want to pay a “broadband mechanicals license”– I don’t download copyrighted materials over the Internet illegally, and I don’t plan on ever starting. I also have a lot of questions about how it would be made to work economically for companies who need lots of high-bandwidth Internet connectivity but aren’t using the connections to do things like “download music”. I don’t want to see the whole Internet re-tooled to support some “war on copyright infringement”, especially since it would serve mainly to create another underground economy (think the “war on drugs”).
T-Bone: I’d beg to differ w/ the point you made re: that there wouldn’t be IT consultants if not for copyright and patent law. There was an IT industry in the years before patents and copyright applied to things like program code. There will always be a need for custom software that has no commercial market outside the end-user it’s being written for. Commercial-off-the-shelf software may rely on our copyright and patent regime to keep it going, but the really fun stuff– learning about the things that make individual businesses unique and coding software / building systems to support that will always exist.
Len: I’ve written the semantic web off as a bunch of academic mental masturbation. I’m part of the camp that is very skeptical of the whole idea. There’s undoubtedly the potential for a network effect there, but I just don’t see it taking off unless it *does* something– and right now, that’s a hard sell.
The idea of legislating how communications protocols work seems like both a major hindrance to innovation and something akin to herding cats. If some well-laid plan to encumber the Internet with legal roadblocks does come to pass, it still doesn’t “put the genie back in the bottle” when non-watermarked or encrypted copies of works inevitably do leak out. You’re talking about turning the Internet into a giant “AOL”, and taking away the right of “free assembly” in the digital world. Presumably, even something like setting up an ad hoc network with a few friends in a room would be something that would need to be subject to monitoring and enforcement (no doubt being facilitated by things like legally-manded “trusted computing” devices in our computers and communications gear– making our devices actively work against the wishes of their owners). Ewww… no thanks!
Rick: While I want to see royalty-based business models go the way of the dodo, I don’t agree with breaking the current laws. I bend over backwards to avoid copyright infringement in my personal and professional lives. Infringing copyright law isn’t “civil disobedience”– it’s just wrong. I want to see the law changed, but I’m not going to be a criminal in the meantime, and I don’t agree with others being criminals either.
To my mind, those would would expect the recurring compensation of royalty streams are the “high and mighty” dictating to the rest of us “mere mortals” (the people who granted them copyright in the first place) how things are “supposed” to me. Society gave copyright, and society can take it away or renegotiate the terms. If that means that the “professionals” end up taking their ball and going home, so be it. I think we’ll get by.
I also can’t speak to the raging BS that is the IT industry, with respect to the “geek stranglehold” you spoke of. I think I have a very “machines of loving grace” type attitude. I want computers and IT to do things that make life easier for people, and decrease needless human toil. I’m looking for the HAL 9000, the flying car, and all the other promises of the past, too.
Evan,
Provided all parties enter freely, what makes one payment arrangement more any moral than the other? Isn’t the real concern settling on something that works for everybody involved?
I can understand reservations about selling the same work over and over again, assuming that the first party you sold it to expected some sort of exclusivity. Otherwise, where do you get the idea that it’s wrong to distribute the costs of production among a broad range of users who only agree to pay at the time of actual use?
My concern with the system is in the abusive nature of collection agencies operating as though the social norms in which their practices developed are still in force today – even though we’re living through the biggest communications revolution since movable type.
But these are practical concerns. You’ve lost me when it comes to ethical violations inherent to royalties themselves.
I almost hate to say this, but Evan has outed himself as someone I do not even care to engage with in debate. He’s that completely outside of what I consider to be an ethical norm. I can only hope that he gets hit in his profession with the same quality of disruption that has hit many of my friends who are professional musicians and songwriters. It’s about whose ox is gored, I think. It’s really easy to get all political about someone else’s livelihood. When the chickens come home to roost, it’s another thing. Just wait ’til your job is outsourced to Mumbai, Evan…IT is going the way of call centers and leaf blower wielders…
BTW, I have nothing against amateur musicianship or composing music to give away. I do it myself. I play for free in public. But that is my right to choose…not your right to demand.
Alex: I don’t think parties are entering into these arrangements freely today. At the very least, the term of copyright has spiraled out of control. The legal interests of those who would keep things “business as usual” wield far more power than a disinterested public.
It’s purely a moral issue with me. It’s not honest, to me, to expect compensation repeatedly for work I’ve done once. If the “production cost” is so high that it needs to be amortized like that, it’s probably not something I should be “producing” in the first place. Cal me eccentric, insane, stupid, or whatever, but I don’t think a good person operates that way– and that’s all it comes down to. (What can I say? I’m a biological entity– I can’t be rational all the time.)
Rick: Well, I am what I am. I don’t mind agreeing that we can’t rationally discuss the issue. You have your take on it, I have mine. I enjoy reading your posts, and we certainly don’t disagree on every issue (or even, I daresay, the majority of issues).
*I’m* not demanding “free” anything from anybody. The way that technology has changed the world is just making things be that way. I don’t buy the “information wants to be free” argument, but I would accept “bits are really easy to copy”.
Heh heh… If my “job” gets outsourced, I did a pretty poor job keeping up with my market. I’m fairly certain that, so long as there’s small to medium-sized businesses, I’ll have some sort of job. I’m not too worried about the face-to-face relationships I have with my Customers getting outsourced away. If they do, I’ll find something else to do. My job is something I do, not something I am.
Evan- For a musician to get to the one performance, as you call it, that is reproduced takes years of practice. Unpaid. It often takes hundreds of hours simply to record. I would suggest you do some actual research before you write any more of this stuff. You might start with The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin.
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/modern/The-Work-of-Art-in-the-Age-of-Mechanical-Reproduction.html
There would not have been an IT industry without intellectual property. There would not have been washing machines. Or air conditioners. Or blenders. There would not have been any of these machines that move in a circle.
@Alex
One thing about copyright that weigh on my moral scales is that it is a law about *exclusion*.
It is a law about denying someone access to something, that they could have had at no cost or inconvenience to anyone else.
It is a sub-zero sum game. It is about make a lot of people loose opportunities so few people can have more.
Whereas if there is only pay for the initial copy everyone win. Artists will work if they can secure enough money for the initial copy. Otherwise they wont.
And this has nothing to do with communism; patent-law, copyrights are massive government interventions in free society. The 20 year plans of patents, and life + 95 year plans of some copyright makes the communist 5 year plans pale in shame.
Anders, go into a store and take whatever you want and walk out the door without paying. It’s no inconvenience to you, and it’s actually a convenience to the store owner because he or she doesn’t have to deal with a cash register. Capiche?
You’re ignoring the fact that to take music from a musician without paying is an “inconvenience” to the musician whom you and Armand so thoroughly wish to dismiss as irrelevancies.
“Len: semantic web -skeptical of the whole idea”
It’s is a very relatable indexing system, Evan. If copyright is weak to enforce, registration is easy to manage.
Copyright is not massive government intervention. The government is only a witness of registration. Courts are arbiters of asserted disputes. The copyright can only be enforced to the cost of enforcement.
As to the “Sonny Bono” to-the-end-of-time-+1 formula, I agree with you.
Fixed forms degrade by time of initial copy in the right of the claim. That is essentially the function some want. The question is the rate. That is a rule. That is negotiable.
As to defense of the right: those who benefit do. That’s life.
No inconvenience to anyone else. Convenience is hardly a criterion on which to discuss these matters. Many things are convenient which are illegal. And wrong.
Art is not information.
By the way, in a purely technological age, if someone were to hand you a book, you would view it as an incredible advance.
Evan:
One thing I’m noticing in the constant back and forth between the pro-copyright camp and the anti-copyright camp is that getting and enforcing copyright is a matter of choice.
If you choose to operate under the principle that “information deserves to be free” you can release all your work without any sort of IP constraint on it. It’s been done in the past and it will be done in the future.
Back in 1979, when Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston came up with VisCalc, the initial spreadsheet program, programs were thought to be mere mathematical algorithms, and mathematical algorithms, as laws of nature, were not patentable. 3 years later, the Supreme court ruled otherwise in Diamond vs. Dierh. Both authors have stated that if their algorithm WAS patentable, they would have pursued that, but the fact that they couldn’t protect it didn’t stop them from releasing it. The advent of IP protection actually ramped UP technology, rather than bottlenecking it. There was a profit motive available to justify large expenditures in R&D.
Like it or not, economics are part and parcel of human existence. Communal structure works to a certain extent, but there is always the issue of a fair trade. Equitable recompense always comes into play on some level or another. Patents, copyrights, distribution and license agreements are merely the equitable agreement between the creator of thing A and the purchaser.
In work-for-hire, it’s no different. You, as the supplier of the service or creation, either set a rate or fee or accept a rate or fee. The entity desiring your service or creation is willing to pay that fee (in theory). The work is done and you are paid (in theory).
If you are a freelancer, I have no doubt that you have encountered the client that balks at paying. Suddenly, you are handed the fuzzy end of the lollipop and either you figure it’s not worth the hassle trying to keep going after the client for your dough, or you do the whole legal thing for recompense.
DMR was just a really lousy model of collection.
Now, on the issue of copyright stifling the flow on innovation, again, I’d respectfully disagree. As an illustrator, I can tell you there are caveats in copyright law that understand that in the visual arts, a certain amount of dipping into the “image bank” is recognized and understood. As long as an image that has been “sourced” is altered 50%, courts have ruled that it may be regarded as an “original work”.
The notion that the mere existence of copyright is some sort of draconian bottleneck doesn’t stand up to the facts. Human history is a long story of things being built upon things being built upon things. No one is prepared to go so overboard on intellectual property protectiont aht they’re going to attempt to draft legislation that would outlaw anything that even vaguely resembles anything. Talk to a patent attorney, they’ll tell you that interpretation leans further on to the side that certain simultaneous replications are inevitable.
We all agree that extending copyrights to the end of time was not what Thomas Jefferson had in mind. However, as long as a reasonable term lenght is kept, we will inevitably have to move to a mechanical collection system. The best place to charge this is at the ISP level where the routers can detect watermarks for sampling puposes.
ISP : Is this the customer’s ISP or the vendors? What is being sampled? If an instance to be compared to a record of authority, where in path of file copying? Sampling only services registered ROAs. Sampling at the ISP does nothing for the CD unless the CD is sampled first. However, for the sake of copyright law enforcement, those are equal cases.
It is hard and expensive to get protection by forcing other commericial entities such as the public ISPs to provide these services.
A service organization provided by some entity including artist/owner formed consortia can do that. Essentially, that is what ASCAP/BMI/SESAC do. The model is good, but the practical means no longer work for the distribution model and have toxic effects on the ground of the work.
Two services:
o Assertion of copyright by means affixed to the fixed work
o Artist/customer side verification of authentic identity. Whether watermark or user entered registration, the assertion has to be testable.
How rates are applied and collected is the issue that is always negotiable. No systems for collection are perfect and negotiations fail. What is of value (least-conflict value) is enable means to make that negotiation or transaction so easy that it is preferred to other means of persuasion when negotiating or collecting.
IOW: you don’t have to make it 100% impregable to the offenders if you make it 75% easier for the customers.
Jon and Len, if there were a fee collected from ISPs and distributed fairly, then nobody would bother to hack the digital watermarks tracking plays and downloads. The money would be collected no matter what. All that would be required is an equitable means of distributing the money collected. ASCAP and BMI aren’t perfect by any means, but they represent a business model that works. If consumers don’t feel the pinch other than a fee added to their access, then what the hell…
It is a lower-force function, yes. It is a tax on broadband collected at point of sale. The question is still,
What is being tracked
Where is the tracking function situated
How are tracking functions related to ROAs (how do publishers register and audit plays over asserted copyrights?)
Are plays at the same rate as copies given the means of transmission means a copy function may as well be impossible to block? A stream is a stream.
A goal of high priority should be *standard* means of auditing, the book keeping so the relationship to fees is clear and transparently audited to any subscribed entity (may be a person; may be a bot; so it is best described as a service). See Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).
The customer’s ISP.
@Jon,
Effective watermarks at the ISP level won’t fly, because the proposal assumes that users don’t have the ability to encrypted shared files, exchange files offline, or via standalone networks, and that that the internet itself can remain useful without the ability establish secure connections.
It also assumes that the filters can’t be spoofed, and that the general audience for a service will tolerate the performance hit that such filters are certain to impose. In short, they’d be a lot like the security theater we now enjoy at airports.
A better approach may be via services like Tineye, which help owners find out the one bit of information that really matters – where their stuff ends up.
The value of this service is still quite limited, as it’s still on the steep part of the indexing curve for all the sites on the internet (a key requirement). But this will change over time. And when it does, it (and services like it) can change the terms of this debate dramatically.
From there, they can asses the determine for themselves whether the use is a helpful promotion, or a harmful misappropriation.
Oh damn, copy paste errors strike again.
The last like was supposed to be further up. It should have read “from there, they can determine for themselves whether the use is a helpful promotion, or a harmful misappropriation, and respond accordingly.”
That, it seems, is the basis for civil law in general, and the right place to keep this issue in general. Treating it like a criminal matter (i.e. active, and independent policing) seems like a dangerous opening for other, completely unrelated groups with more nefarious intents, who could use the same infrastructure to very damaging effect.
likeline.More coffee, please.
Len, once again I think if a fair fee is collected, you’ll see people not bothering to hack digital water marks, etc. And then there could be some monitoring of traffic based on “automatic tune recognition” software. I understand your point about it being more cumbersome than digital watermarks, but it’s a hell of a lot less cumbersome than the old humans with earphones system that worked for many decades. It’s also easy enough to keep an eye on sites that might want to get around the fee based system, besides which everything goes through an ISP sooner or later other than literal hand to hand copying.
I guess the only issue might be how it would work with “free” public access broadband. But the current system works with “free” radio transmission of music. There are ads all over public access broadband, so that might take care of the issue.
I just don’t see why this is such a big deal or why it wasn’t addressed at the very beginning when it first became possible to upload and download and stream music files and now video files. It’s not like nobody knew that all this would be possible. Well, I guess the dinosaurs in the music and film businesses couldn’t see this. They hate change and are always frightened of new opportunities to make money. Weird…
Rick – I think a larger point is that the dinosaurs did see certain possibilities, and pursued those to the hilt.
Specifically, they saw the potential to control and / or limit every aspect of the audience’s engagement with digital content. By exploiting this aspect to the absolute hilt (or trying to, anyway) they finally revealed a profound contempt for the audience that was long suspected, but never so clearly demonstrated.
Sony, for example, did terrible things to their reputation with the whole root-kit debacle. While it’s become clear that the the executives involved didn’t really understand what – exactly – the third party vendor they hired was doing, the lack of oversight also indicated that they didn’t really care. Nor, it seems, did they care all that much about the very laws they were using to prosecute members of their audience.
The message received was: ‘Breaking your stuff is okay when we do it / breaking our business model is not okay, period.’
Add a penchant for lawlessness to general contempt, and it’s no wonder they dropped to ball so completely. The truth is, managing a revolution calls for talents of the very highest caliber. As it was, fate handed the job to people famous for being on the low end of the scale – most of whom are now history. The rest of us are struggling to pick up the pieces.
So, onward through the fog it is.
“I just don’t see why this is such a big deal or why it wasn’t addressed at the very beginning when it first became possible to upload and download and stream music files and now video files.”
It will work to the extent that it will enable honest people to do the right thing. It won’t get you Marines to raid a warehouse or shut down a server. All of that requires the usual legal mojo and we can make that faster, easier and more transparent, but at the end of the day, unless you want to launch your own DNS attacks on offending servers, all you can do is call the lawyers.
Why wasn’t something done? Well, Sherman, that’s a Wayback Machine trip.
It was noticed. Some other place or time I’ll describe the conversations . It always started with, “Can’t stop it and infomation wants to…” and ended with “You are soooo paranoid.” Never mind the cliche. In the beginning of the Web, the highest good was to promote, sell and expand it. We all knew it was the medium of the new generation and almost everyone was in a fever to get money back. What followed was predictable: the Internet bubble. Now we are in a second generation trying to figure out the policy implications we should have to begin with. What I can say is the original hypertext pioneers were very concerned. The kids ran over them/us like road kill. If the silent zeitgeist is miffed, it is a miff of their own making.
Mainly we agree. All I’m saying is it isn’t the cumbersomeness of analysis that I am talking about. It’s just a service. The question is where that is in the architecture. There are options and some interesting business models for that.
There is a difference between monitoring samples and requesting tests. Both are useful.
I realize it is the way radio is sampled, but radio is not a packet-based system where to watch one bit or type of data, you have to watch them all, and radio is not public/personal communications. It’s a one way broadcast.
Many would object to full-up monitoring or audio internet radar guns at random. Isn’t that what we complaining about when the TLAs put the full-up packet monitoring and analysis in the West Coast trunk facilities?
There has to be a transparent policy.
OFFTOPIC: @rick: I blogged Mama Bear at lamammals and 3DonTheWebCheap. Hope you don’t mind. It’s something the heads who record on low budgets can make heavy use of. I’ve been promoting the concept of virtual reality albums (a navigable, animated form of a non-linear audio album), so I get some traffic from the VR wonks. That would another fun topic but not in this thread.
Interesting, Len, and agreed. And thanks.
haahahahah
Yeah, I’m a genius…
Look, if you got nothing to say then you got nothing to say.
And I thought this was a place for intelligent discussion…forgive me for that mistake.
You know what – it’s not a mistake.
I don’t believe in legislating ideas.
I DO believe that once an idea has been communicated to someone else – it is theirs to do with as they wish (I even wrote this in a previous post – how prescient of me).
So it IS my idea. It might not have originated with me but it’s definitely mine now.
And I give it freely to anyone who wants to listen.
I won’t claim propriety over it, nor litigate if someone else uses it…
A troll…
One more thought.
Ingrained attitudes about the audience and control act as blinders. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in regard to the struggles of Blu-Ray.
When asked why it wasn’t included in the new Mac laptops, Jobs replied by saying “it’s a world of hurt”. He was referring to the astonishingly invasive design requirements mandated by Sony for computers that support the technology (all of which is deigned to limit the users ability to control their own media).
And by ‘invasive’, I mean the presence of this stuff degrades the overall performance of the system. In Apple’s estimation, they’d only be able to include Blu-Ray in what amounted to ‘broken’ laptops.
This was exactly the mistake Microsoft made when designing Vista to accommodate similarly onerous requirements tied to the then-living HD-DVD format, as well as studio produced HD material that could have been made available via WMP. Though this was by no means the only development error contributing to the failure of Vista it was, from what I understand, a fairly major factor.
Both companies were presented with the same choice – cater to the studios, or cater to the users. Apple went one way, Microsoft went the other. But the larger question is why did this have to be a zero sum choice in the first place?
The reason is that the studios were dead set against anything that would give HD releases the same rip-ability as conventional DVDs.
One of their biggest problems with the DVD format is that it didn’t originally include much in the way of copy protection, and became wildly popular (and thus, established in people’s living rooms) long before good DVD ripping tools were available. As late as 2005, hacking DVDs was still a seriously geeky thing, in terms of the required skills. But with the inevitable emergence and proliferation of tools like Handbrake, that changed entirely.
Studios can, of course, increase the levels of protection on new DVDs, but not without creating massive computability issues with the majority of existing players. It didn’t take too many returns before they understood that hardware-dependent security measures can’t be imposed retroactively.
That’s why they were dead-set against letting either the HD-DVD or the Blu-Ray formats into the wild before getting assurances that every single player ever made would be subject to complete lock down. What they wanted was a format that was born crippled.
I have no idea how much time was lost dealing with this, but what’s become clear in the meantime is that the window for optical media in general is closing, and that Sony will be lucky to break even on the billions invested in Blu Ray development before it does.
The competition is coming, of course, from streaming media. There’s even been speculation that Microsoft’s involvement in the HD wars, and their support for a competing format, was intended to keep the next generation of optical media solutions sidelined until direct broadband distribution had time to mature (which is exactly what’s come to pass).
But here’s the rub with HD from the internet: the quality sucks.
Seriously, it’s absolute shit. And the reason is that ‘HD’ isn’t a measure of quality at all, even if consumers think it is. It’s simply a technical convention – a universal standard for signal compatibility for every piece of gear with a place in the chain from cameras to screen.
Yes, people assume it’s ‘better’ because it has the potential to deliver a vastly superior experience. However, what distributors actually decide to place within this new and fancy wrapper is entirely up to their discretion. For a variety of reasons, the preference has been ‘provide the absolute minimum’. As a result, customers haven’t been given anything exponentially better than DVD.
Sure, differences are perceptible – especially on higher quality monitors. But for the most part, standard DVD is ‘good enough’. And so it remains in place – getting ripped madly, as people become more used to watching stuff on laptops, and paving the way for direct downloads that will eclipse optical (and Sony’s multi-billion dollar investment) completely.
So what could Sony have done differently? Given that they also own their own studio, they could have gone the opposite direction, and changed the game completely.
Specifically, they could have realized that the biggest limit to rampant piracy is not in legal prohibitions, or technical schemes like DRM. Rather, it’s in bandwidth, and the capacity of the internet itself.
Instead of fighting the future by withholding pixels, they could have overwhelmed it by flooding the market with so much data, optical discs would become the only viable way of dealing with all of it economically.
This was never an option for the music business. Songs were always hard to protect, as very high quality encodes (256 kbps and up) are still small enough to transmit easily. Not-quite DVD quality features films are ticker, but still feasible, and the convenience of streaming content of this grade is what’s making services like Netflix direct, Hulu, and the high-res options on YouTube viable.
But nothing compares to the glory of full-blown 1080p material encoded at 50mbps. (which is the maximum throughput for Blu Ray). And more importantly, nothing short of a multi-million dollar broadcast satellite truck can transmit a stream of data this massive in anything close to real time. And that’s not about to change anytime soon. After all, Moore’s Law applies to microprocessors, not transmission speeds. And while compression algorithms are improving, major gains are still very hard won, and depend on broad changes in standard user infrastructure for success.
In other words, in the face of a congested and easily choked internet, local, hardware-based playback is the only way to handle top-quality HD efficiently. Most people, however, have never seen anything approaching top-grade material, and have no idea what they’re missing.
I got savvy around 2003, when I started doing a lot of work with a post production company in LA called Laser Pacific. At the time, they were one of four companies in the country who had invested in a realtime HD encoder. I was an early entrant to the market, and delivering two hours of fresh broadcast HD content every two weeks.
The interesting thing was to see how they were expanding into digital dallies for feature film production. (Ultimately, they mastered this craft when working with Michael Mann and Bryan Carroll on ‘Collateral’). The salient point is that, for MPEG-2 material, DGA cinematographers wouldn’t accept anything encoded at less than 25 mbps to evaluate footage. At the same time, the absolute maximum that the ATSC broadcast standard allows is MPEG 2 at 19.39 mbps. So there’s a gap between what Hollywood sees, and what everyone else can actually watch.
In reality, most broadcasters don’t even provide this much. Instead, they prefer to transmit signals encoded in the 13-16 mbps range to preserve precious bandwidth for a greater number of channels, and the higher ad revenues that come with increased inventory.
With online distribution – which deals with a similar set of bandwidth constraints – you get an equally compromised picture. Better than SD, to be sure, but not even remotely close to what the filmmakers themselves are seeing, and, by extension, what the studios actually have in their possession.
Basically, there’s a boatload of quality that filmmakers bend over backwards to create, which is then left to rot on the vine as low-grade derivatives are shunted into Walmart, and onto cable TV.
I realize this argument is getting long, but consider one more point before I wrap it up; it’s generally accepted that Betamax offered a better experience than VHS. However, due to Sony’s irrepressible desire to extract maximum value from everything they touch, and the monopoly they tried to create for themselves (by refusing to license the technology), they created an opportunity for everybody else to settle on a (relatively) open, though lower grade standard that, with a bit of clever marketing to go with lower prices, became the hands-on consumer favorite.
Remember, back in the early 80′s, quality was not top-of-mind. The sheer amazement of recording TV and watching studio movies commercial-free on your own schedule and in your own home was enough to engage consumers completly. By the time the initial euphoria wore off, Betamax was ancient history.
Sony is in the exact same position today. Consumers – who have had very limited exposure to the true capacity of the HD format – are making decisions based on every criteria but quality. And Sony, abetted by the natural limits of the ATSC broadcast standard, is letting them.
What they
havehad was a golden window of opportunity to establish a benchmark in the minds of consumers for what HD could – and should – be. They could have done this by introducing a DRM free format, and, via their studio, releasing super-high quality discs (i.e. MPEG-4, H.264, or AVC at 50 mbps, which is roughly equal to MPEG 2 at 75 – 100 mbps) that would make the ‘HD’ dreck available online look like the dreck it really is.In short, they could have changed he game before the competition even made it onto the field. Instead, they got bogged in a format war and content ‘protection’ issues, letting the guys who wanted to eat their lunch quietly sharpen their knives in peace.
So instead of building a firewall for themselves by getting cheap Blu-Ray players into everyone’s living rooms before streaming media could make its play, they’re (once again) in direct competition with a lower-grade, but far more accessible option that the audience – unknowledgeable as they are – is willing to accept.
And the worst part is that the fear that held them back is entirely unfounded. Again, Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to internet speeds. Sure, you could rip an unprotected 50mbps/1080p disc, but what would you do with it? Even if you had terrabytes of storage (which is increasingly common), you’re stuck with the same transmission issues: massive content / tiny pipes.
In other words, you’re in exactly the same spot as commercial broadcasters who have already ‘solved’ the exchange problem by degrading the content to make it fit their pipes. So if you wanted to ‘share’ at remotely acceptable speeds, you’d probably have to degrade the content to – you guessed it – the quality level of a standard DVD.
Meaning your fancy uber HD content would – in a networked environment – become indistinguishable from the SD versions that will, for the reasons noted above, be freely available.
Bottom line is this: the studios have already lost the war when it comes to controlling SD and low-grade HD content. They can still carve out a profitable place for themselves by abandoning DRM for movies, and freely releasing super high-quality Blu-Ray DVDs – which shouldn’t wholesale for more than $10.
But they better do this fast. As everyone who comes near online media discovers, the profit margins are depressingly low when compared to those for physical media. And if people do what they did with VHS, and buy into a delivery infrastructure that sacrifices quality for convenience, the entire ecosystem will arrange itself around this internet-friendly norm. At that point it’s Betamax all over again, with one big difference – Betamax didn’t represent a multi-billion dollar investment.
Had Sony done the savvy thing in 2006, they could have extended the life of optical formats by five years, at least. Instead, they obsessed over DRM, and the problems of maximum value extraction. Now they’re on the wrong side of everything, and screwed three ways from Sunday.
Personally, I’ve always taken offense at astonishing ignorance inherent in the punk rock entitlement idea the producers ‘just need to invent new business models’. Successful operations, like anything else that survives in the natural order of things, enter symbiotic relationships, and evolve accordingly. There’s no ‘just’ about it. Knowing how absurd the demand is, it’s very easy to say ‘fuck you’ to those who make it. You want to squeeze them for every dime. And knowing how hard it is to do something new (dependent, as you are, on the unpredictable choices of others) it’s very easy to fall back on old habits – especially when they worked well, and you’ve got the law on your side.
But this just lands you smack dab in the middle of a copy fight. And it’s with people, who, wrong as they are about so many things, still have history on their side. So if, like Sony, you obsess over enforcing what you once had (or could have had) chances are you’ll end up like Sony.
Alternately, you can simply acknowledge that we’re in a different age, realize that nobody knows what’s coming next, and accept that whatever used to work, great as it may have been, simply won’t continue to fly – not when the engine behind it’s creation was based on a 20th century extract and exploit model that paid little attention, and even less respect to the broader environment.
What matters now is, at the root of any enterprise, a deliberate effort to create more value than you receive, along with a payment plan that customers are happy to support. Not just accept, mind you, but happy about.
If you go the other route, and consume valuable energy trying to get paid for every play because it’s your ‘right’, you’ll get punished. People don’t like being strip-mined. At the same time, if you squander your efforts in arenas where you must fight to get paid at all, you’ll crash and burn. Just walk away.
And if you manage to find a middle path, and deliver more than you consume – but only just – you’ll have your thunder stolen by the more resourceful, and those able to maximize the delta between giving a lot and getting enough for sustainable development. Efficiency and restraint are the watchwords.
It’s a very un-20th century outlook, I know. And that’s exactly the point.
p.s. – Even, I don’t know if you’re still reading, but in case you are does this change you mind? I mean, if somebody establishes a non-onerous royalty stream that enables activity which, in the grand scheme, produces a generous margin of ‘gift’, is it still wrong?
Alex, very interesting, very appreciated…
Sony has been in the forefront of stupid decisions on hardware for decades. The one thing they got right was partnering with Phillips on the old audio cassettes which had a good long run. But remember Elcassettes? And digital audio cassettes? Then minidiscs? And they price their flash audio recorder, the PCM-D-1…a really good one…way out of the market. Oh, well…
Let’s deal with this in the actual. In O Brother, Where Art Thou?, we used (used) the song I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow as the epic song of the epic hero of Ulysses. I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow is a song written (and by written, I mean first copyrighted, no one creates by fiat) by a blind fiddle player from Kentucky named Richard Burnett. That work passed into the public domain (at the time, copyrights only lasted twenty years, if memory serves), and since then there have been fifty versions of that song copyrighted using Richard Burnett’s version as prior art. When we were releasing that song in a commercial venture, a movie, we could have chosen either to copyright the song ourselves, or to license the song from one of the other copyright holders. If we had copyrighted the song ourselves, all fifty of those holders of copyrights could have come claimed ownership of the use and sued us. Since we had all learned the song from The Stanley Brothers version/versions, we decided to obtain a license for the song from them. The end of this story is that Ralph Stanley, one of the great American musicians of all time and a hero world wide, who had gone out and cleared a path for all the rest of us, driving from Washington, D.C. to St. Louis, Missouri to play for two hundred people in a church basement, and who, even after the extraordinarily generous contribution he made to our culture over fifty years was still a man of extremely limited means, made about a million dollars.
Not all record artists are record industry hypes. Few are, in fact. One cannot base reason upon a small and distorted sample, especially when one has not done his homework to begin with- who, in essence, does not know what he is talking about (and I do not mean that to be argumentative, I mean it exactly), who sees the matter only through a very narrow pipe.
Many great things have happened because of the order that resulted from copyright law.
Without copyright law, we would not have had The Carter Family, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Hank Williams, The Beatles, The Clash, U2, Dr. Dre or any of the rest of composers and music artists that contributed to our extraordinary treasury of recorded music. Not that we wouldn’t have heard them. They would not have existed. Or, in another less precise way to say that for those who would take exception to that statement, they would not have happened.
You guys got to get off this tunnel blind idealism. Anarchy is a child’s game. I, for one, would appreciate your help in coming up with something better, if you are up to it.
I would like to say that I enjoy Banksy’s work. Banksy writes that copyrights are for suckers. I am not unsympathetic to that notion. Here is a hypothetical proposal for the people here who oppose copy rights. You are a composer and a musician, a concert guitarist who has been studying the guitar for twenty years. I am a recordist. I come to one of your concerts. Given the extraordinary caliber of your musicianship, I would like to record a performance by you and manufacture and distribute it. It will cost about $500,000 to record, manufacture, and distribute your work best practices. There is no guarantee of return. (You are, of course, free to do this yourself. You are also free to record the same material in your bedroom for nothing and release it for free on the internet, or to forgo recording altogether. You could also simply allow your audience to make whatever kinds of recordings they want and do whatever they want with them, including reproduce and sell them at any price they want or can get, no matter the quality.) At any rate, I am willing to take the risk. What would you consider a fair deal? Should I pay you to allow me to take this risk? Should you get a royalty for your performance? Should you get a royalty for your compositions?
Here is one other actual story for you from the same film. James Carter recorded Po’ Lazarus when he was a prisoner on Parchman Farm in Mississippi in about 1950. Alan Lomax recorded the performance. Fifty years later, after the soundtrack had been selling about a hundred thousand copies a week for several months, the Lomax family hired a private detective to find Mr. Carter. He was found living above a store front church in Chicago where his wife was a minister. He knew nothing of the movie or the album. He also received a great deal of money, more than he had ever seen, for his performance fifty years earlier. The same story (which was, of course, the story of the film- a group of convicts records a song that becomes a hit without their knowing it and leads them to great fortune) could be told of The Fairfield Four, Emmy Lou Harris, and really every one of us who was involved in that adventure. What harm was done by the intellectual property law in the examples I have given you? Who was hurt? In my view, intellectual property is a fairly good way of looking at things. I am certainly open to a better idea.
I’ve always been impressed with Sony’s engineering. It’s their grasp of marketing that I’ve always found so dubious.
If you stuff is truly that great, a healthy and very sustainable portion the market will embrace you happily. Try to squeeze that extra dime from the people who can’t be counted on the participate freely, and you end up queering the entire pitch.
@TBB
Re: your observation that
I first read ‘hypes’ as ‘types’. The moment of confusion was amusing.
For what it’s worth, I find the outright opposition to copyrights depressing, as it usually suggests a failure of imagination, not to mention a willingness to throw babies and bathwater in the same place.
I also think the efforts you noted above represent a gold standard for commercial content producers. My hat’s off to a true mensch.
@T-Bone:
You rightfully site many creators that were able to create within the copyright system and have benefited from it.
This does not tell us how many other creators couldn’t even reach the entry-point of the copyright system – and as such we were all deprived of their creative work.
I don’t like playing what if‘s – but just because the copyright system allowed Bono to flourish (and become ginormous) within it – is not a case for keeping copyright laws. It tells us nothing of the creations we never had – and therefore will never miss.
Your story of a lucky break James Carter got, because someone hired a detective – is more an exception than a rule to how intellectual property affects most artists. If anything, it speaks to the arbitrariness of copyright.
And while copyright might have been a good (or easy) way of looking at things in a past technological era – it does not follow that it should remain so in this new information age.
Simply dismissing the notion as anarchy (and wishful ideology) is doing this discussion a great disservice.
In a past age, the suggestion of abolishing copyright, might have lead to anarchy.
However, in today’s technological climate no anarchy would ensue. We have the technological and social means to keep track of all creations and their creators.
We have a means of self-regulating. We no longer need to rely on a lopsided top-down solution of regulating creativity and ideas.
I understand from your writing that you have worked within the copyright system. So to you it is natural and “a fairly good way of looking at things”. However to most of us artists – it is not. To most of us it is an impediment.
For the first time in human history we have the technology to allow creativity to be free of commercial concerns.
The copyright system you are trying to save (and asking us for advise on how to do this) will still keep creativity subservient to commercial benefits.
I can see why you would want to save this system – you’ve worked in it and to you it appears useful. Fair enough.
The capitalist mindset was the best ideological alternative of the 20th century. The invisible hand was allowed to do its magic even in the realm of creation.
But as Lessig said called it the other day – copyright is a “totally failed war”.
Any remedy you seek is to this dying system is a stopgap measure. At most it will perpetuate the idea of intellectual property for the length of this interregnum.
As long as copyright exists the new cannot yet be born.
Armand- I don’t want to save the system. I have found the system to be onerous, for the most part. You have not understood one thing I have written.
By the way, I think everyone here is open to intelligent discussion. To vehemently assert a thing does not make it true, right, or intelligent. No one here is talking about legislating ideas, other than you. You admit in your last post that you are willing to claim as your own something that someone else originated. That is bad manners at the very least. The story about someone buying a piece of land out from under his friend, was not a metaphor for a movie- now matter how strongly you assert it was. All of the examples I wrote were about an ethical blindness, a blindness you seem to have. Perhaps when do have an original idea, you will feel differently. In the meantime, when you leave a house, your host should count his spoons.
There was, of course, lasting work done in other cultures without copyright law. But this is this culture, a culture in which if you are not careful, people will steal your identity. This is not a gift culture. If artists have to give their work away, will everyone else?
You are offering no enlightenment whatsoever.
Nor are you responding to what I have written. You attempt a one way conversation. Please leave it out.
And don’t claim to speak for most artists. You don’t know what I’m talking about, and you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Alex- I know what you mean about the outright opposition to copy rights, but in the end, I don’t think it is of great import. Art does not depend on distribution. Human beings can work around any system. What many of those who oppose copy rights don’t acknowledge is the democratizing effect that law had on the arts. The only see it the other way around. I understand the frustrations caused by a capitalist system, but in expressing those frustrations, one runs the risk of sounding bitter about his lack of access to capital.
Are you in Los Angeles? Would you be available to get together next month? Tap could arrange it. I would like to talk about a smart way forward, with or without copy rights.
Copies are, after all, by definition, copies.
Bump this over a notch and see how it plays…
Let’s say you’re a visual artist, a good one, a painter… Someone buys one of your paintings for, let’s say $500.00. Then they decide to start selling copies of it by the hundreds or thousands and very quickly make back their initial $500.00 on the artwork and you find out and want a piece of the action. The party making dough says “tough shit”, I bought it, I own it, and I can sell it or give it away or whatever. Should the artist have the right to control copies of his or her work?
Of course it’s a bit different with music or “films” because the copying medium has gotten so cheap and universal. We don’t all have lithography presses or the super high quality ink jet printers used for things like giclee prints. But ownership of the IP is the same…
Rick:
In regards to the reproduction of “one off” artwork that that has been purchased from the originator, there’s a real Gordian knot of laws all over the world, which is exemplary of the problems one can encounter without a logical standard to copyright or IP protection.
I am a work-for-hire visual artist. What I do is designed for reproduction, but I retain ownership of the original work. Kind of the reverse situation in that I sell off the rights but keep the original. I could also limit the rights of reproduction/distribution to a given span of time, or a given market – but very few clients would agree to such a limited use agreemen