Copyright is dead? Well… guess I’ll have to return the royalty payments I just got.
i appreciate the time and effort you put into your reply.
you comment history here is public record and speaks for itself as to your stance on Copyright, DRM, the RIAA, etc, so your positions on these subjects are quite clear and yes i already saw the post where you state that you work in the music industry, which answered my question.
We do disagree about most of these core issues, and I agree we do see quite a different future.
I’m all for valuing and supporting artists/musicians/creators, I go to live shows all the time, i own lots of original art. Many of my friends support themselves as musicians, none of them from labels. I paint, sculpt, write, program software, and make all sorts of stuff myself, and am quite familiar with profit models that don’t lock others out. There have been various ways artists and musicians have been supported throughout history and even today, but the current copyright system is intentionally created and designed to benefit a completely different set of people/entities then the creators and is the furthest thing possible from a clvi right in its current incarnation. In fact it removes many actual human rights, and only protects a single right, the right to profit, unfortunately most often not for the original creator who seldom is the holder of this single right. The rights we trade are actual freedoms, freedom of action, freedom of though, freedom of creation, freedom of innovation, etc. we give up and limit numerous rights that are much more valuable then the right to profit. I’ll also add that I fundamentally do not believe in the idea of intellectual property or that ideas can be owned and think that is an insidious precedent that will one day be considered dark age thinking and it is an entirely different thing then protecting a specific creative work. I’m not opposed to offering artists/musicians/creators some sort of protection for their specific works, and that those should remain tied to the original artists/musicians/creator and be licensable or leasable but not transferable, and not at the expense of fair use or other more important rights.
Under the current system there are musicians who cannot perform their own music, that is crazy.
3 Likes
If its dead i’m pretty sure it won’t be needing them back! 
I LOVE his recordings for other people. I hate the recordings he does for himself. It is almost as if the bands he plays in – to me – are really bands that are first and foremost live types of bands. That recording you posted…doesn’t do me anything. However, having seen bands he’s played in…live? Soooooooo much better.
Personally, I’ve played in and have written for bands that sound far better on recordings. Our performances are there to be as similar to the recordings as possible. Its just the style of music I played (i.e., no one goes to a classical performance expecting improvisation or variations on a song). And our audience kinda wanted this. Might be longer cuts, but still VERY close to the original. Beyond that, I rarely play any more and focus on writing or editing because of arthritis and an autoimmune disease. Getting rid of copyright means that folks that write are dumped for those that perform.
As for the public domain argument? I agree. I personally think that copyright needs reformed. I’ve worked in and around the industry most of my life (these days, I’m actually using my degree for something close to what I went to school for! But I’m still a consultant to both my former label and an instrument company)…But once you say something is dead, you aren’t arguing for reform, you are arguing for abolition.
Yup. There are a few songs that are popular right now that I hear whenever I’m subjected to the inside of a corporate store or even a bank, and it is just demoralizing to have to hear them again. I walked out of a car dealership yesterday (where I was by necessity, not choice) to avoid listening to one of these songs. I don’t know who the “artist” is, but it’s apparently very popular, insanely repetitive, and musically insipid. I look forward to Steve Albini’s brave new world where music like that (I hope!) can’t prosper.
Bach is sufficiently complex that you can ignore it if you don’t comprehend it (or don’t want to). Pop music is deliberately simple so that it can infect as many victims as possible. But yeah, I think the fairest thing would be to let people choose their own soundscapes and not play any music at all on the PA system.
Valuations are not a good indication of the quality of innovation. What they are a good indication of is the quality of the tools that the company with the high valuation is able to bring to bear in protecting their market from competition. Apple’s high valuation at the moment is the result of precisely that, as are Google’s and Facebook’s.
Innovation is not just “making new things that can be marketed.” Innovation is making new things that are genuinely useful and revolutionary, and making existing things better. Copyright and patent law always stifle innovation, because they prevent a new innovator from building on previous innovations. That’s a tradeoff we make in order to fund innovations, but at the moment both copyright and patent terms are so long that they simply prevent innovation by interlopers into existing markets, which means that we get a lot of new things but not a lot of better things. Refinements on existing inventions are a really good thing; we need copyright and patent law to be balanced in a way that fosters that kind of innovation, not just an ever-expanding field of near-prototype-quality gadgets of dubious value.
2 Likes
I’m sure we have a great deal of commonality. The difference is that we see two different futures. I wish you could see my upcoming Keynote at MIDEM this Saturday where I’ll be talking about AI, robots, and further disruption of the creative industries through centralized/decentralized networks.
In all my years of tech, including writing about it, I’ve got a pretty good record as far as predicting where things are going. In my future I’m looking 5-10-15 years out…and I see more and more consolidation of technology and information. The issues of scale and the complexities involved with distribution of intellectual property are going to continue. But I also see that ideas are things of value and if they weren’t there wouldn’t be any reason for copyright. I’m building a scalable technology right now that will have to handle billions to trillions of requests in the future and work in centralized walled cities of major tech platforms and with decentralized systems. So I’ve been thinking deeply about how that works in the future. I also think all our ideas as citizens have value and in fact that there is a future where we are paid for these ideas and I’m not the only one who thinks that way. The noted futurist Jaron Lanier (who coined Virtual Reality) has similar ideas.
Right now tech companies make billions off our ideas. So they must have value. In return we get systems that collect more of our ideas and our personal information so they can create more billions for themselves. Is this the future we want? Copyright, for its faults, is an idea that can be formatted to fit the future, but needs systems that can work with it. If we have no protections at all, then tech companies will simply take EULA’s as far as they can and that means we all lose. Copyright can be fashioned as a tool for the future that protects us…and our ideas aren’t simply something you have to condense down to a song or a story. It is everything you express.
What I’m working on is reducing all of the friction around copyright so that media companies and citizens find themselves as allies and partners and so tech companies can eliminate the hassles they also find themselves facing. To me this is also an issue as citizens of self respect for one another. Creative Commons, which you likely support, works with copyright, but is a licensing solution that is also about respecting one another and our creations. And we work with it…I’d actually argue we make it better.
My job is to look down the road and predict things so I can design something that resists becoming dated and is flexible and can evolve. It is why our company is structured as a for profit/not for profit so that we can place the tech into a lockbox for the betterment of society…I want it to go on and for others to build upon it. It is already in private beta and will have a public beta later this year. There’s no DRM and from inception, unlike other tech companies, we designed it so that we do not know your identity and cannot breech your privacy. You’ll be able to take your favorite song, pair it with your favorite clips and your own stuff, mashup anything you like and it is all allowed and 100% legal and no bullshit.
As for artists and rights, I can’t help if someone signed a bad contract. I have no control over deals that were made or bad advice given. I do know with our tech you’ll be able to work directly without any label or corporation. You’ll set your own rates and terms. But we have to work with everyone and be able to clear rights across every form of media so people can create derivative works, and we’re the first solution to make that possible.
So keep an eye out…it’s not long now.
I don’t see how we are in disagreement. I’ve said from the beginning that copyright should see some reform. I simply said from the beginning it isn’t dead and shouldn’t be. What we need is technology that works with copyright so that frictions are removed that allow greater innovation and simplify the processes of working with copyright.
My one and only argument is that it is, however, a civil right and that right needs to be protected. Saying copyright is dead is like saying we can’t figure out how to modernize it or make it work with tech or tech work with it. I’ve actually proven this wrong so I know it is possible.
‘Disclaimer: The value of investments can go down as well as up. Past profits are no indicator of future performance’.
Not sure I’d bet on Spotify, like. Plus, they’re not reknowned for remunerating artists particularly generously, as I recall.
I’m giving a keynote this Saturday and one of the topics I’ll be addressing is how AI will begin writing music for us. With all the data collected about our likes, the ability to analyze popular music, software robots and their ability to collaborate and use tools like MIDI, vocaloids, Ai that can write poetry, and being able to tap into deep knowledge from platforms like Spotify…we’re about to hear a whole bunch of infectious pop which will be the end of civilization as we know it 
Writing a “hit” is about to become very trivial.
People can debate all day long of whether or not it is any good…who you can’t debate is my 12 year old daughter who’s favorite “artists” are all virtual. She doesn’t care.
And when the bots write it…no copyright, no royalties, no takedowns for infringement.
“Fuck a middle man, I won’t pay anyone else. I’ll bootleg it and sell it to the streets myself.” -Immortal Technique
I made a shitty student video for a student project recently. I remember fretting over a fifteen second sampling of music until I said, “Fuck it.” and went to Jamendo for something CC licensed. I’m not cutting into anyone’s bottom line. I’m making a dumb video for educational purposes, but I didn’t want it to get taken down from YouTube because it was a consequential final project. An economy this insecure is an economy that I don’t think deserves to exist.
3 Likes
No. What we need is copyright that works with technology. One of these two things changes rapidly, and the other one should try to keep up.
2 Likes
You know, this is the worst part about the industry. Most artists I have ever met think so little of themselves that they sign the first thing that is presented to them and act like they have no other choice. In California, you have the right to take these contracts out – take them to a lawyer – and you have (I think…its been a while) 36 hours from the time someone gives you a contract before they can withdraw it. Even worse are the people that accept the Industry’s offer to get them a lawyer to look over it and act on their behalf…I tell people all the time if you get in a car accident, you don’t take the brother / lawyer of the guy that hit you that he conveniently had the card with him for.
Too many artists sign HORRIBLE contracts for no other reason than they sign the first thing in front of them. One of my best friends was the writer / performer behind a number of top charting songs, and I think I still made it out of the industry with more money than he had. All because he signed whatever was in front of his face and I had my lawyer look over things. It is common practice for any business to ask for EVERYTHING and expect the other side to do the same…and come to an agreement that works out for both through negotiations. If you don’t negotiate, you just gave everything away.
2 Likes
So what if I told you a technology and platform existed today that removes that barrier and you could take any song you wanted and any other digital assets and use them for your project and was $.15 cents or less and it was automatic with no forms or credit cards and didn’t invade your privacy and in fact didn’t know who you were? Would that interest you?
Agreed. There are unions/organizations here in the UK where you can get advice on contract issues. The things is with some labels, there is still a great deal of institutional knowledge and resources that is worthwhile, but what is never worthwhile is NOT owning your masters and your publishing rights. Period.
1 Like
It depends on what other strings are attached. Also it has to be worth fifteen cents to me. That’s how I pay for anything. Some prices aren’t low enough for the thing I’m purchasing.
Well…I sorta disagree with you here. To your exact point, copyright cannot shift as easily as technology and it is a global issue, not nation specific. So the only thing that can make that work effectively is technology. I deal with the EU, for example, and while they are trying to work out a single digital economy for IP, there are a lot of regional issues that effect different regions.
There is a solution to this that tech can solve and that’s what we’re working on…and it isn’t a limitation of copyright or tech…it is the will to want to make it happen.
Law changes all the time, and leaves plenty of people in the dust when it does. Copyright is no exception. I honestly have no idea what you mean by that. Technology shifts by economic mechanism. Law shifts too, mainly by economic mechanism in our brave new corporatist world. At times they shift in opposing directions. Will doesn’t enter into the equation unless you’ve got big bucks. The world has grown too complex for mass-movement democracy over every broken little thing.
2 Likes
No strings. What’s worth it to me…considering the shit most of us spend money on…is getting what I want with the least amount of bullshit, no takedowns, not having to jump through any hoops, interoperability across platforms, no DRM, etc.
