For some time now the web/technology lobby has been arguing that copyright and other forms of intellectual property rights are inhibiting innovation. And if you don’t actually think about it you might agree. I mean it sounds sort of like the argument against government over-regulation. Having to get permission from all those IP owners. And then having to pay them all? what a hassle!
But is this really true?
No and the Evidence is right in front of us.
A few months ago I spoke at the SF Music Tech Summit. My talk was entitled “Meet the new boss, Worse than the old boss?”. As a bit of hyperbole I compared the new digital paradigm to the old record label model. My conclusion was that under the new digital distribution model the artist gets a lower share of recorded music revenue. And many of the profitable players in the new digital paradigm pay artists nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. As part of my presentation I was gonna stream Nyan Cat with the following caption:
“Our Dystopic Future: This is what you get when you don’t pay content creators”
What is Nyan Cat? If you are under 40 I suppose it needs no explanation. But if you’re older? Well Nyan Cat is the Pet Rock™ of the YouTube generation. A nearly static animation of Nyan cat with an endlessly looped theme song. This version is 10 hours long. And it has 457 trillion views or something like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZZ7oFKsKzY
I wouldn’t bother making fun of Nyan Cat except for the fact that some on the Copyleft regard Nyan Cat as a great cultural achievement. I’m not kidding. As detailed in an earlier Trichordist post Fight For The Future gives out Nyan Cat awards to people who do “really awesome things for the Internet” like making sure artists continue to be exploited by for-profit file-sharing sites. ( Right on! Fight for the Power! Way to unstick it to the man!)
Fight for the Future has all the hallmarks of another one of these Astroturf “internet freedom” groups but they have a special twist: a teen idol pop group sort of cuteness. Their “about” page reads more like it was written for a teenzine than a ”foundation”. They got Justin Bieber on their side! How adorable and teen oriented! So it shouldn’t be a surprise that we get Nyan Cat showing up with Fight for the Future for extra special “cuteness”.
But cute or not we are “sharing” that Nyan Cat Award. We’re gonna start giving out our own Nyan Cat awards to deserving Digeridiots.
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I got in a really tired and boring argument with someone recently about what the founding fathers intended when they decided 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.
It’s totally clear. There are no subtle distinctions. The founding fathers believed that people would “innovate” if they knew they would be rewarded for their innovations. That’s the purpose of copyrights.
Right now some dumb ass is about to email me a particular Jefferson quote concerning patents. First of all Jefferson would say anything after a glass or four of wine. But more importantly quoting Jefferson instead of Madison on copyright is like asking Ringo instead of John about Strawberry Fields Forever. Wait it’s worse. Quoting Jefferson instead of Madison on copyright is like asking Charlie Watts about Strawberry Fields forever. Again Jefferson was the Patent guy! But I digress.
The point is this. Copyright and intellectual property have been wildly successful. And here are some easy quantitative ways to measure it:
Ask people how much they are willing to pay to watch Nyan Cat or any other user generated youtube phenomenon. Compare that to how much people are willing to pay to watch The Avengers or some other Mega blockbuster for–profit and studio–funded movie. Do this over and over again. Unpaid content will lose.
Compare the sales of state funded movies with sales of privately funded movies. (quantity)
Compare critical acclaim. Are there any not–for–profit movies in the AFI top 100 movies? (quality)
This seems obvious to everyone right? I mean it’s stupid in this day to have to defend the right of creators to profit from their work? It’s stupid to have to explain that people will innovate if they are rewarded? That this intelligent system benefits everyone. right? Did I wake up this morning in Soviet Virginia? Why is a moderately successful rock musician having to argue the basic tenets of capitalism with the tech industry?
And why is the very pro capitalist tech industry arguing against private property rights, one of the basic tenets of modern capitalism? You know, like the right to sell and own shares of stock?
Especially since within the Tech sphere you see many current examples of very very strict IP protection encouraging innovation not inhibiting it.
The Apple App store as a closed and protected system ensures software developers will be rewarded for their efforts. There is virtually no piracy in the apple app world. Innovation has blossomed. Developers, Consumers and the platform creators have all been richly rewarded.
The computer gaming world? The best talent, the most popular games and virtually all the money is in the DRM (digital rights management) protected ecosystems like Xbox or Playstation. Microsoft even goes so far as “banning” individual xbox’s from their servers if they detect “cracked” or pirated games. If in fact copyrights inhibiting innovation why isn’t it hurting the console gaming companies with their hyper strict DRM? Shouldn’t their sales an innovation be lower?
Valve software which operates the Steam™ platform and is usually seen by gamers to be less restrictive than the console gaming companies, is ultimately just a digital rights management system. A system for protecting the creators rights to profit from their copyrights. And once again a highly innovative ecosystem of independent game makers has developed around this platform.
Sometimes the Digeridiots throw Steam into the anti-copyright pro “remix” camp because Steam has a lot of “free” user generated content. While it is true that Valve allows users to “mod” their games, make custom maps and host independent servers–Valve decides to let them because they have that choice. The notion that the creators of this user generated content don’t treat it as their IP and attempt to exploit it as their own is belied by a black market of kids buying and selling “admin” privileges for their custom maps and servers. What are they selling? Property rights in admin privileges.
The anti-copyright crowd can’t seem to bring themselves to admit that there is something natural and fair to the notion that idea creators and authors should have the right to control and exploit their own creations. In order to support their position that copyright laws need to be weakened or eliminated they have to make a non-reality based argument that somehow “the public” is suffering. First the public is not suffering. Second as my libertarian friends rightly point out, whenever someone is advocating violating individual rights in favor of “group rights” you are usually in a danger zone. The copyleft is advocating a digital maoism. A forced collectivization of intellectual property. The “copyright is harming innovation” putsch in academia is the first step.
Why are we always picking on Google?
They started it.
On the web today there exists an army of foundations, charities, bloggers, fake studies, fake musician advocacy groups, DC lobbyists and manchurian candidates that advocate the weakening or elimination of all copyright and intellectual property protections. What do many of them have in common? (My hunch is all of them.) Direct or indirect funding from Google. “Indirect” could include foundations funded by Google, or foundations that black box contributions from Google that get washed through a 501(c)(3).
Many people misunderstand something about Google. “Don’t be evil” is not their corporate slogan. It’s their corporate reminder.
In part 4 I’ll look at the Web 2.0 proponents claim that there is a great store of innovation in “remixing” but copyright is blocking that innovation. We’ll also talk about an obscure style of music that most web 2.0 proponents have apparently never heard of. it’s called Hip Hop. See where i’m going with this?
The Trichordist 
Cool. I’m still trying to find a job so i can support musicians.
Perhaps the same market forces that deprive you of gainful employment are the same ones that are failing to support musicians?
It’s interesting that you Madison’s thoughts on copyright – and he’s absolutely right. But why is it then, that we have extended the length of copyright? The Copyright Act of 1790 made copyright 14 years with the possible of another 14 year extension – a total of a 28 year term. Current copyright law makes it over 100 years.
As I’ve commented here before – we need copyright, but within limits. Is anyone actually claiming that The Beatles are still being incentivised to write pop songs? Or in fact, do you believe that if copyright was just 28 years, The Beatles would not have bothered writing pop songs and being the most famous men on the planet?
To be perfectly honest, 14 years would be fine, but even 50 would be ok. Patents only last 20 years and companies exploit them just fine, why does a pop song get so much longer?
(Please don’t delete because an alias was used to log in. The FB log in wasn’t connecting, so I used my WordPress blog log-in. My real name and town is at bottom of post.)
I’m just starting to follow the writing here – it’s excellent, though I have a couple of questions.
What should be the limit of copyright term? I support copyright, but think there’s a point at which it needs to fall back into the public domain. Otherwise, the ‘seed corn’ of culture gets used up and not replaced.
Secondly, what’s your view on artists being able to control what other folks do with their released product? My first thought has been that once it’s out in the open, an artist gives up his or her right to control how it is reused, as long as royalties are paid and some sort of credit that points back to the original is given.
Thirdly, what about the non-commercial circulation of an artist’s live and unreleased work?
best,
Scott Atkinson
Watertown NY
The copyright term is what it is as a practical matter, Lessig et al tend to take a very US-centric view of how easily it could be changed. Makes a great and rather meaningless rallying cry, like “I care so much about issue X, I want a constitutional amendment banning/protecting X!”. How many times have we heard this compared to how many times it actually happened. It was a great fund raising tool for the pol involved, but did nothing for the issue, the public or the law.
Regardless of which of the smorgasbord of proposed changes to copyright duration that attracts you, the vast majority of theft online is in the head of the tail because that’s where the torrents are. You will not, for example, find titles like the Pablo Jazz releases from the 1950s on the torrents. You will find Justin Bieber and 50 Cent because someone spent a lot of money to tell fans about Justin Bieber and 50 Cent, and they love the artist so much they want to steal them.
The implication of this for copyright term is that even at 14 years, the shortest term for copyright I’ve seen suggested by Professor Lessig, although he may have gone lower, would cover pop music which has pretty much done what it’s going to do in 2 years from release, particularly in the current environment. If the copyright term was 14 years or 14000 years that issue alone would not stop theft because no one cares. So I see no reason to care about the copyright term until such time as the copyright term is enforceable at a market clearling price like other property rights.
Scott – Your second question relates to the right to create derivative works, which, under copyright, is reserved to the copyright holder. Off the top of my head, here are some reasons why “once it’s out in the open”, an artist should not have to give up his right to control how the work, or elements of the work, are reused:
1) Economic – If you own a piece of property, you have the right to control the benefits of that property. If you own and nurture a fruit tree, you also own the fruit of that tree in the future, regardless of whether you distributed that fruit to other people or not. If, for example, Arthur Conan Doyle had lost the right to control the character of Sherlock Holmes after publication of A Study in Scarlet, the market would have been flooded with Sherlock Holmes stories not written by him (and for which he would not be compensated), and the economic value of any stories which he later released would be diminished by the non-Doyle output, in part because of market confusion as to what was a “good” Holmes story but also because of sheer dilution. Likewise, why should a large corporation, e.g., Disney, be able to make a movie of A Study in Scarlet, using Doyle’s plot and characters, without compensating Doyle or without his permission?
Similarly, in other areas of property, if anyone were able to make a substantially similar product after the product’s initial release, the value of the investment sunk into that product would be greatly diminished or eliminated by the subsequent competing products copying the original. Apple would not make iPads if, immediately after release of the initial product, anyone else could legally market their own knockoff product.
2) Moral – If you have spent any time thinking about and creating something which you consider valuable, you do not want someone else coming along and distorting or desecrating what you made. (This is hard to describe to people who do not have a creative impulse.) Even if credit to the original creator is properly attributed, the subsequent unauthorized work is out there and linked in the mind of the public with the original. Before there was any copyright protection in Spain, people were writing sequels to the first book of Don Quixote, which drove Cervantes bonkers, not just because they were capitalizing on his work but because these sequels were bad (and which prompted him to write his own sequel
addressing their badness.)
3) Productive – Reusing someone else’s work is lazy. Creating anything takes an investment of time, thought, and labor. To the extent you “remix” someone else’s work, you are by-passing that time, thought, and labor. Why not create something new?
This is not to say that truly creative works cannot be created from reusing older elements. But the right to control how that is done should be in the control of the creator.
pj –
First, thanks for the serious replies. The debate from both sides can degenerate pretty quickly – and it’s good to read subtle, measured arguments.
Second, for whatever reason, I didn’t see these yesterday, which is why reply is belated.
Let me start with this from your notes:
“If you have spent any time thinking about and creating something which you consider valuable, you do not want someone else coming along and distorting or desecrating what you made.”
I’m the long time news director of a small town tv station. We’re ridiculously popular by 2012 standards, but we also have our critics. Speaking only for myself and not for my company, why shouldn’t those critics have the right to take apart what we do, critique it at length and post all of it? It might be a reasonable discussion of where we went off the rails or it might be a rant called ‘Channel X suux!,” and it almost certainly wouldn’t make me happy, but it might make us better or produce an interesting discussion.
To step back a little, my immediate commercial interests might not be served – maybe the critics make a good case and the ratings drop – but the greater public good almost certainly would be, because another voice entered the arena.
This strikes me as compelling – no one should have to get my permission to ‘remix’ a newscast, as long as you’re substantially adding to my original content.
(Obviously, you shouldn’t be allowed to take my news whole, remove the commercials and substitute your own without substantially compensating me. But that’s not my point here – I’m addressing ‘value added.’
Criticism is expressly allowed under the “fair use” exception to copyright, including select portions of the original work. How much the critic can use is always a question, as there are no hard and fast rules to fair use, but in general it’s a “you know it when you see it” argument when it comes to legitimate criticism.
I have no problem when value is genuinely being added by taking a small portion of a work (see my comment on collage below), but when it’s a significant portion of a work (say, a riff or melody in pop music) that’s “remixed” – used as the hook to a new pop song – without any compensation or permission, I don’t think it’s ok (and it’s definitely not ok under copyright.)
Note: I hate WordPress because I can’t see what I’ve typed in the comment box.
With regard to your third point, many musicians, including David Lowery, allow non-commercial circulation of their live recordings. But why should this consent be taken away from the artist? If an artist wants to be compensated for their performance, or recordings of their performances, whether they are “live” or not, why should the public unilaterally be able to decide otherwise?
In addition to destruction of the economic value of the work, non-commercial circulation of unreleased work is also a moral violation. These works are unreleased because the artist did not want them released; perhaps, they were never finished, or the artist intends to finish them in the future, or they might hurt or embarrass the artist or someone else, or they simply aren’t up to the artist’s standards for releasable work. Why should the public be able to unilaterally decide to circulate this work over the creator’s own wishes?
As for economics, you wrote:
“If you own and nurture a fruit tree, you also own the fruit of that tree in the future, regardless of whether you distributed that fruit to other people or not.”
I suspect you don’t like the formulation, but the simple fact is intellectual property is not the same as real property, which is why it wasn’t extended the same protections from the git-go. I think there was an understanding that culture is a somewhat fragile thing, and needed to be watered regularly with ideas. I think balance is the key, and the problem with very strong copyright is that it always seems to tip the scale in favor large corporations. you mention Disney: the studio essentially made itself on the back of works that were either in the public domain or were poorly secured, but has locked up its works for generations.
It would be one thing if corporations could be relied upon to respect the efforts of authors, musicians, filmmakers, etc. But they won’t, and with their lawyers and influence, are less likely to see the downside of strong copyright.
To me, this is the most troubling of your remarks:
“Reusing someone else’s work is lazy. Creating anything takes an investment of time, thought, and labor. To the extent you “remix” someone else’s work, you are by-passing that time, thought, and labor. Why not create something new?”
First, everyone reuses other peoples’ work. Listening to Coltrane on my way home from the office tonight, I caught little licks and turns of phrase that – while I couldn’t quite put my finger on them – I knew belonged to someone else to start.
Second, it doesn’t strike me as inherently lazy, or creatively inferior, to cut up, rearrange, mash things together. Joseph Cornell’s boxes, for instance, worked from existing objects – and the art lies largely in how they work with each other. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a serious critic who thinks Cornell’s work is somehow not as creative as, say, a painter’s.
(Yes, yes, you can also find lots of inferior mashups of this or that. It’s the age we’re in, just like in 1973, you could find album after album of bland blues rock that was ‘original’ work. One should not mistake the moment for the clock.)
More as it comes to me…
Scott – First, I think genuine collage is protected under fair use – if the taking is small enough, and is only one aspect of a larger new work (as in what I’ve seen by Cornell), I think it should be allowed. Second, what Coltrane was probably doing was citation – throwing in a lick from somewhere else to create a relationship between the song he is playing and the earlier composition. Again, as long as that isn’t the major part of Coltrane’s own song, in which case it would be plagiarism as well as a copyright violation, I think it’s fine. I’ve never heard of a musician being sued for citation (though I’m sure somebody has done it.) Coltrane, by the way, always attributed the original compositions to the authors, even when he greatly stretched the material from its original boundaries.
Third, prior to the digital era, businesses were the biggest violators of copyright (and still are, in the pirate DVD area and the fashion knockoff industry). Nowadays, corporations can get individuals to do the violation for them because they are protected under the safe harbor provision of the DCMA, but it seems pretty clear that the biggest financial beneficiaries of this type of violation.
Lastly, yes, IP is different from other types of property, but those other types of property are all different from each other as well. There’s a huge difference between personal property (e.g., a car), real property (e.g., a farm), and business property (e.g., a corporation, partnership, etc., or the securities and other investment vehicles which are used to finance those businesses.) Money is probably the most “intellectual” of all property. Yet the rules which govern these types of property are similar, if not the same. Primarily, “property” is the right to prevent other people from using something (a car, a farm, a business, etc.) and the right of the owner to use that property within the limits of the law (which can often be substantial.) Many people nowadays are vocal about how their lives are suffering due to the current life +70 length of copyright (though I’ve yet to see anybody come up with example of actual harm besides having to pay for something), but I doubt many of these same people would be in favor of limiting ownership of other types of property, or wealth generally, to a particular time period. Yet the purpose behind IP, to create financial incentives for people to create things, exists behind the reason for paying people to do every other job. If ownership of all forms of property ended with death, nobody would stop working because of it. I think that some people (I know this isn’t your argument) are arguing now that there is no such thing as intellectual property because if they were to recognize it as property, they’d have to recognize they were doing something wrong.
I have to point out that the copy/original argument is getting a little long in the tooth and is about to play itself out in the privacy setting. For example, when Google/Facebook/Twitter/NSA grab your personal information, you still have the original right? Why would anyone care about giving up all or part of their personality when they still have the original? Think that will have a different result than copyright? I’m looking forward to watching the squirming.
The right to privacy/personal information is not one on which I’m particularly knowledgeable, but the Google/Facebook defense will be that you agreed to the terms of service which allow us to do whatever we want with your personal info. The NSA response will be to deny they illegally took any info and even if you sue us, you’ll never get any satisfaction (and with the state of the Supreme Ct. today, they’d be right.)
But vis a vis copyright, I’d say it’s akin from the moral angle, that just because information is out there, regardless of how it has been obtained, doesn’t mean a third party has a right to use it.
Yes, they will say the users agree to the TOS, and I’m so looking forward to watching a now-public company squirm around explaining how they justify capturing personal information for tweens. Justice deserves a spectacle.
One last thought (I kind of promise):
Removing control of derivative works from the copyright holder is a recipe for exploitation. If a corporation believes there is money to be made from an existing work without permission of the copyright holder, they will take that opportunity and run with it. If you’ve just self-released the first issue of a comic book that has attained some notoriety, a corporation is going to take your ideas and characters and style and start pumping out their own versions and, with their capital and promotion, they will bury the original.
I knew I shouldn’t have promised anything. Here’s a recent example of an work which is pretty derivative and definitely unauthorized being used by a corporation to sell something: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/arts/music/a-british-volkswagen-ad-sounds-like-beach-house.html?pagewanted=all
To sum up, Beach House was approached by an agency who wanted to use their music in a VW ad. Beach House declined, so VW hired somebody to create a soundalike version of a Beach House song. Now when people see the ad, they think that Beach House is in bed with VW. The legality of this move is very much borderline (Tom Waits won a lawsuit over a similar violation several years ago.) Imagine what would happen if corporations could use a work with impunity merely because it had been published.
Exactly why there was so much opposition to orphan works legislation
I think it’s more likely the corporation will sue me for some spurious reason or the other, knowing I can’t afford the fight, and grind me down until I give it what it wants.
Knock-offs don’t have a great track record: see ‘After Mash,’ the Zune and the legion of Dylan imitators from the 60s.
My point here was more to the moral rights side of things – Beach House is being used to sell VWs even though they expressly declined the opportunity. So they aren’t being paid and they are still associated with VW.
You’re right about corporations, in that the deep pocket often wins by exhausting the other party, but not always, and when the little guy wins, it’s because of the protections that copyright and the right to publicity afford.
Copyright is about being in control of the expression of an idea. It is not about owning an idea (that would be in the area of patents). Copyright does not prevent you from formulating your own expression of that idea. I notice that Trademark is not usually on the table when one speaks of Intellectual Property, as it is bound with identity – I own the Property of my identity. I think the reality of the matter is that copyright is much closer to Trademark than it is to Patent law. The expression is part of my identity. (e.g., the song Imagine is very much tied to the identity of John Lennon. Anyone who hears that song will automatically identify the person of John Lennon… unless you’ve never heard of the Beatles).
As for the third question, the author personally follows the Grateful Dead’s policy on live performances. But, IIRC, he believes it’s the artists decision to make that call.
I absolutely love Steam, and I know that it’s 100% DRM.
They provide their customers with a great deal of freedom, while still respecting the developers’ wishes. Why is it so difficult to have this same sort of thing with music?
Of course pirates are still finding ways around it, but it will stop the 99% of customers that don’t have the technical knowledge to try it. It should be the same thing with music, really. It should be made harder to do something as simple as right clicking and clicking “copy”.
I guess we do have that in Spotify and other streaming services though…
I found this tidbit of information and didn’t realize that the song, “Happy Birthday” wasn’t in the public domain. Seems that the song should be in public domain considering the time it has been around, and the fact the original creator is no longer profiting from his/her works. Therefore copyright should be limited, and I don’t think this is what Madison had in mind.
The song “Happy Birthday to You” is the best known song in the world and generates over $2 million in royalties each year for its copyright owners.[7] The original author of the words to the song is unknown, however, the current owner is AOL Time Warner, who receives licensing revenues through the ASCAP. The music itself was written in 1893, and due to multiple copyright extensions, will remain so until at least 2030. In 1989, when Time Warner first purchased the piece, movie licenses for the song were going from anywhere between “a few thousand” to $50,000.[8] One reason the owner, Birchtree Ltd., decided to sell the copyright ownership was because they did not have a large enough unit dedicated to monitor its usage in new media. This became key in maximizing financial benefit, because previous owners failed to go after those who used the song without license for over 20 years
source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_licensing
Chris Castle wrote, in part:
“So I see no reason to care about the copyright term until such time as the copyright term is enforceable at a market clearling price like other property rights.”
I care because it goes to the issue of equity and balance in the system.
Arguing from anecdote is always dangerous, but let me use myself as a brief example.
I’m an avid music fan, have a few thousand cds, a few hundred downloads, all of it legally purchased. I support artists over and above the simple purchase of goods – for example, I ‘subscribe’ to Dave Douglas’s web site, and get some practical benefit but mostly get the satisfaction of knowing I’m helping further what he does.
For all of that, I’m not a fan of the record companies, who seem to instinctively over-react and take more than their share. There is no good reason that I can see that, say, Duke Ellington’s seminal recordings from the late 30s and early 40s should stay in copyright forever. My read of intent in the origins of copyright law was to extend a *limited* term of protection. As you note, most of the commercial gain to be had is long since gone.
When cds first came on the scene, the cost of manufacturing was (briefly) about $2 greater than vinyl records – yet cds stayed artificially expensive for many years. We are seeing the same thing with ‘high-res’ downloads now. And record companies were (and are) painfully slow to develop any kind of reasonable deal with their fans. It *still* is almost impossible to buy a cd quality download legally – you’re either purchasing lossy stuff or price-inflated high resolution material.
Plus, the record company response to widespread piracy went beyond, I think, reasonable and deterrence-oriented to simply vindictive.
I have no reason to believe the record companies have learned anything from the last decade other than ‘screw your customers and screw your best customers harder.’
I also think the argument of the original post is subtly off: it seems to lump people like me, who want what we see as fairer copyright laws and a fairly loose regime of rules, with people who want no rules at all and believe everything should be free all the time.
Scott A.
Watertown
I don’t think your gripes with record companies will be solved by limiting the copyright term, to be honest.
The main thing the “public domain” achieves is that anyone can make money publishing PD stuff. It may be The Pirate Bay or someone like Eric Eldred – the whole point being that since the work is no longer under copyright, whoever publishes it will be able to pocket all the profits.
Since it is unlikely that all works you may be interested in acquiring will be available amongst your immediate circle of acquaintances (thus allowing you to obtain them through private copying), there will likely be some manner of middle-man involved – one of the bottom-feeder kind that invests nothing in creating value, but instead tries to squeeze every remaining dollar out of things someone else has created.
While we’re on the subject of commercial value, we really shouldn’t forget that we’re in a time of profound change. If streaming becomes the norm, the time necessary to get a return on investment increases considerably, because the profits are so tiny – you might get 0.8 cents per Spotify play, if you’re lucky. This means that anyone looking to invest in music creation will have to take a much longer view.
Indeed, it is safe to say that the necessary term of exclusivity (in order for investment to make business sense) is inversely proportional to the price being charged to consumer – you can either have cheap music or short copyright terms, but not both.
Krzysztof “Faza” Wiszniewski
TheCynicalMusician.com
Krzystof –
A quick counter-example to this part of your note:
“…there will likely be some manner of middle-man involved – one of the bottom-feeder kind that invests nothing in creating value, but instead tries to squeeze every remaining dollar out of things someone else has created.”
JSP Records out of England has made a label out of public domain materials. It also set the standard for quality in the cd era with its Hot 5 & 7s reissues, its Jelly Roll Morton, its Django Reinhart sets, all of them gloriously re-engineered by John R.T. Davies. They’re very affordable, generally in the low $20 range, have decent liner notes and can open up a whole new world, even if you think you know the music going in.
Scott A.
Given the 35 year termination right that allows artists and their heirs under certain circumstances to regain control of their works in the US, I don’t mind the copyright term at all. I would also point out that we Americans tend to take a very US-centric view of copyright, as do the tech companies and in particular Google (not surprisingly). Outside the US, I think you will find that most jurisdictions have adopted a “moral rights of authors” regime that is consistent with the “human rights of artists” that are included in all of the principal human rights treaties and have been since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So when you think about how you would like to limit the rights of artists to enjoy their works, realize that you are also talking about the rights of artists who are residents of the treaty partners from Albania to Zimbabwe. What you are really proposing is to cut off the rights of all artists in the world, or just the rights of all artists in the United States which will undoubtedly lead to the rights of all artists in the United States being cut off reciprocally in all other countries of the world–who will continue to protect their own artists under the terms of the Berne Convention just like they did before the US acceeded to the Berne Convention on March 1, 1989.
Nothing wrong with your point of view, I respect your right to be in the minority, but I think that those who make this argument have been unsuccessful in persuading the rest of the world to their point of view despite the best lobbying efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation–oh, sorry, they couldn’t have been lobbying, they are a tax exempt charitable organization.
Chris –
Please correct me where I’m wrong, but as I understand it, copyright law is substantially longer than 35 years – if that’s what you meant.
I have no issue with a 35 year copyright.
I do find the following excessive:
“The term of copyright for a particular work depends on several factors, including whether it has been published, and, if so, the date of first publication. As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. For works first published prior to 1978, the term will vary depending on several factors.”
– from the U.S. Copyright office website
Scott A.
The copyright term is pretty much as you describe, but the author has the right to terminate and reclaim transfers after 35 years for the US rights: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/village-people-frontman-wins-court-battle-to-reclaim-song-rights-20120508
The original author then gets to enjoy those terminated rights for the remainder of the term. That’s why the copyright term won’t change as a legal matter.
As a practical matter, the effective copyright term is 5 minutes, which is roughly the amount of time it takes for a recording to be copied into a bit torrent seeder after which the machines were designed to destroy protectable rights.
How innovative.
There needs to be more clarity. Which copyright are we speaking of? The recording and the song each have their own copyright. I believe that most people think of a song as “owned” by an artist, when that is often not the case. “I Love Rock&Roll” is not a Joan Jett song. She didn’t write it. She probably doesn’t own the recording either. She gets a miniscule royalty payment when someone buys her recorded version of it. People don’t want to pay for products to make rich musicians richer? They have no clue who they’re actually robbing.
Thanks for the excellent post. I love the fact that a rocker is having to school the tech industry on capitalism. Many tech entrepreneurs an investors aren’t interested in building something of value. They want to steal content. flip their companies and make a big return. They want to condition society to go along with them.