Imagine an amazing new invention that allowed anyone to duplicate any existing building, using no resources. However, the law requires you to pay for such instant buildings, at about the price of those made the old-fashioned way, on the grounds that allowing everyone to live in their ideal home for free would make it hard for architects to make a living. Relatively little of the money paid for the new houses, though, goes to architects–or even to their great-grandchildren, many of the actual architects being long dead; most of it, rather, goes to builders and real estate agents, even though these people are no longer necessary to either build or find a home.
Would you be surprised to hear that many people simply ignore the law, living for free in their dream home without paying the architect anything?
That is pretty much the situation we’re in with regards to copyright. You have a system of laws designed to encourage production of art and information in an era when these were distributed through physical copies, whose production and distribution was more or less costly. The introduction of digital technology means, effectively, that everyone with access to a computer and phone lines could have free access to all the music, literature and cinema ever created–were it not for copyright laws.
David Lowery, of the band Camper van Beethoven, takes NPR intern Emily White to task for admitting that she has 11,000 songs on her computer and has only bought 15 CDs in her life. She is, in effect, living for free in a palace without giving much thought to the needs of the architects.
Lowery finds this reprehensible. He goes through a mathematical exercise to calculate that White has taken $2,139.50 in royalties away from musicians–and that this works out to only $18 a month (going back to fifth grade). And $18 isn’t so much to ask, is it?
But Lowery’s calculation is based on artists getting about 19 cents from every song–which means that about 80 cents from every song goes to record labels and retailers who are essentially parasitical. Eighty cents times 11,000 is $8,800, or $73 a month–which is a lot of money to pay to deliver $18 to an artist (especially for a fifth grader).
One might say that it doesn’t matter if that seems like a good deal or not–the artist has an absolute right to be paid for his or her work. At one point Lowery describes this as a “constitutional right.” Presumably he’s referring to the Copyright Clause, which gives Congress the power “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.” But–what’s that “limited Times” phrase doing there? If artists have an inherent right to keep people from copying their work, why is this right supposed to go away after a while?
Elsewhere in his piece, Lowery notes parenthetically that “the duration of the copyright term is pretty much irrelevant for an ethical discussion.” Actually, I think the continual extension of copyrights by Congress raises a some quite significant ethical issues. But perhaps more importantly, the fact that copyright lengths can be as short or as long as Congress wants them to be underlines the fact that having copyright at all is a social choice: It’s a decision to restrict the speech rights of people in general as a means to an end, which is the promotion of art and information.
So you really do have to ask: Is copyright a good deal–not just for creators, but for everyone? I don’t think it’s obvious that we’d be better off without any copyright at all. But given the way the culture industry works at present, it’s not at all surprising that a lot of people don’t think it’s worth giving up a free palace for.
Well, all property, physical as well as intellectual is just a system of laws. If I want to take your car, hey, why not. You only “own” it because you participate in a system that says you own it. Copyright is no different. If you want to steal my images or my music then you will.
Do artists typically get something like 20% of retail for music?
I think most people (at least those whose last name isn’t Disney) would agree that copyright should expire eventually, but that’s not the same as saying that copying 11,000 songs is ethical or harmless.
Let’s take an example closer to home: Articles in Extra! are posted for free eventually, because you want everyone to have their “free palaces” and by then there’s little cost to placing them outside the paywall. But I still don’t think you’d be too happy if Emily White started scanning all the articles the moment the issue came out and posting them to her blog.
I’m a big fan of FAIR, but in this case I’d wish it would stick with the media analysis, as opposed to a minor scuffle that’s been making the rounds in blog-land.
These issues with copyright are quite interesting, but much more nuanced than this article can get to.
Please stick to analyzing fairness and accuracy in reporting.
I thought the whole point of creating art was to reach as wide an audience as possible with one’s work.
Certainly an artist should be able to make a decent living from that effort.
Something tells me David Lowery and most others who kvetch about copyright violations are in no danger on that score.
I’d venture to say he might well live in one of those palaces, at least compared to what the vast majority of other folks inhabit.
Of course, in a economic system not based on profit, this wouldn’t be an issue, would it?
Copying 11,000 songs is harmless, and barely on the radar of ethical questions to be determined in this society. Yet “most people” have a kind of commonsensical notion of copyright/IP issues which has nothing to do with common sense and has been heavily molded by rights-holders (our typical notions would have shocked people at any other time in history). So I do think any treatment of ‘fairness and accuracy’ being brought to mind on the subject is worthwhile. Based on more in depth work by the likes of Lessig, Hyde, Benkler, etc., I wouldn’t say this article is too far off the mark as a basic reality check (and a provoking new metaphor).
As to whether allowing a dedicated 3rd party to redistribute Extra! free of charge would be a net positive or negative for FAIR, I’d actually be pretty interested in that. Personally I subscribe & donate primarily to support them how I can. More exposure of high quality work to any wider audience usually turns out well, especially if you’re vocal about your lack of corporate funding and reliance on the public’s support.
“Allowing a dedicated 3rd party to redistribute Extra! free of charge” would actually be trivially easy to implement: Just put the whole thing online for free the minute it’s published. FAIR doesn’t do that currently, and I think there are good reasons not to.
I guess you could put everything online and include an appeal to readers to “please donate in order to keep our content free.” That’s the nagware model, and plenty of software designers and public radio stations have been barely making ends meet by it for years. But without copyright control, that wouldn’t work either, because there would be no way to stop someone from reproducing your software or rebroadcasting your radio show without the appeal for funds (or worse, with an appeal for funds for *them*) and redistributing it that way.
I guess you could put everything online and include an appeal to readers to “please donate in order to keep our content free.”
Which what we call a subscription, and regardless of how much they publish on line, I like to have a nice a little package that sums up a lot of the stuff that was already published, with little notes and sidebars for updates. I have been contributing to fair for sometime now, I recall starting back in the early 90’s while driving to work for “Ford”.
If freeware is so bad, (the only thing a real ‘patent’ or ‘copyright’ should protect is the ‘original idea, so that someone else can’t make a simple name change and call it theirs) then Linux should be ‘dead and long gone’ because MS predicted that ‘no freeware can survive or make a profit’.
The news that comes here is never “the latest and greatest” because someone actually reads it over and makes the points, not just ‘them people there did this’ with specifics. This is the only blog that I even bother to go regular, where I don’t just walk out due to the Budgies of Despair Peeping the Party line.
What’s so valuable about this analysis is its no-nonsense explanation that intellectual property is a social contract. Seeing it this way allows us to ask what it’s worth, and what it costs. I see some commenters who think this is too partisan, but in its essence it’s just a description of how a certain thing works–demystifying! That’s what FAIR’s all about, I think.
I have to agree with Woody that this is getting a little far-afield, at least for what I have historically come to the FAIR website and subscribed/read Extra! for. There are so many more pressing moral & social issues that we can apply our energies to rather than trying to envision a whole different system for funding of musical/literary artists (the vast majority [percentage-wise] of whom – – – as other glamor professions like professional athletes or theatre – – – never make any major $$, or even significant income). Yeah, MAYBE we could get by without copyright laws IF we somehow funded the arts through government programs, but whether or not you agree with that (I do), it’s a virtual anathema in today’s political culture thanks to the conservatives/right-wingers all-too successful propaganda, so lets focus on policies of that nature for now rather than entertaining whimsical thought experiments.
Well, were SOPA & PIPA whimsical thought experiments? This is a real daily issue, and becoming increasingly more contentious as the digital age progresses. Basic “intellectual property” literacy seems like a crucial aspect for society now, as the legislative struggle over all types of content is going on whether the public is aware or not.
One startling (to me) example from Lewis Hyde’s ‘Common as Air’ is the way elementary school curricula are now being stuffed with corporate IP propaganda:
“One such campaign, produced by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), has now reached hundreds of thousands of children in classrooms from New York to Los Angeles. .. In California, a 2006 law mandates that all public schools must develop an “education technology” plan in which, for example, “the implications of illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing” must be taught. (The law never mentions teaching the more interesting and revolutionary implications of legal file sharing.) The year 2006 was also when the industry persuaded the Boy Scouts in Los Angeles to offer a “Respect Copyright” merit badge; the MPAA wrote the curriculum for that, too.
…
Moreover, the lessons meant to inform these roles teach a series of simplifications, even falsehoods, when it comes to the ownership of art and ideas. Teachers are told and children are taught:
-If you haven’t paid for it, you’ve stolen it.
-Intellectual property is no different than physical property.
-As the creator of your work, you should have the right to control what people can and cannot do with your work.
-Never copy someone else’s creative work without permission from the copyright holder.
-Students who have learned to strictly respect the intellectual work of others in order to avoid plagiarism already have a solid foundation for the understanding the laws of copyright.
Every one of these assertions is either false or misleading.”
Monopoly capital always presents markets disruptions caused by technological advances as inevitable when the end result is greater profit for the owners of the new technology; but not if profits to owners would be reduced by new technology.
For example AT&T in the USA charges $30 for 1.5 Mbit/sec internet speed, while in Taiwan, for that same $30, the speed is 30 Mbit/sec, soon to be increased to 100 Mbit/sec by mid-year of 2012, according to Charles Ferguson in his book Predator Nation. Internet speeds as high as this would eliminate the need for separate cable television connection fees. Better for internet providers to collude and keep profits high through their selectively Luddite and monopolist behavior.
When recorded music became available to the masses, few tears were shed for the musicians who made their living through live performances. The few who would record their performances made much more money than the many who found that the recording industry reduced their available work as live performance musicians.
The consolidation of broadcast and recording industries has deprived music of its local flavor: tone deaf corporate heads inflict their tastes on those who would appreciate a less homogenized, more localized and creative live music scene. In what way will these corporations make repayments to the people who have had their local culture removed and commodified for the profit of these predatory owners?
The issue of more concern should be their theft from us, rather than of our theft from them.
from the npr piece
I’ve only bought 15 CDs in my lifetime. Yet, my entire iTunes library exceeds 11,000 songs. ….But I didn’t illegally download (most) of my songs.
intellectually challenged article… absurd from it’s base assumptions, through to it’s naive proclaiming… let me put it to you this way, Dick Head… or whatever your name was… if you want to listen to music, read good writing etc etc… then people who produce the things you are wanting, must be able to make a LIVING… it is very hard to keep a civil tongue in my responce, as the snide tone of this … uh… fellow’s writing exacerbates the absurdities in his ‘arguments’. Paganini used to hand out his scores minutes before a performance, as it was the only way to protect his intellectual property at that time.. as a result, the astonishing genius of the man was not as realized as it could have been, if he had felt comfortable to write without fear of his music/ideas being stolen by lesser minds. He wrote very simple scores as a result, as the orchestra had no reshearsal…. and STILL his themes were stolen.
“Instead of sticking it to the man, let’s stick it to a bunch of weirdo freak musicians”…that’s the best quote I’ve heard in a really long time. Camper Van Beethoven (and then Cracker) have been playing music a really long time. It’s about time someone called the new generation out for never spending a cent on music.
The music industry is filled with sharks who want to own a piece of what comes from the musicians mind ,mouth,and hands.Now in a sense the public wants to own the rest.Musicians still perform in person to make their daily bread.But it is true that the minute they record something- the leak begins.Technology is the genie in the bottle.Not sure how to get it back.Fans like mr 11,000 downloads above- celebrate the artist.They do not support him/her.Imagine if I record a tune that everyone in America has.Yet not one person paid for it.That is the way those who “steal’ this product want it.
I would point to artists like Radiohead, Trent Reznor, David Bowie and David Byrne to illustrate how artists can bypass the fossilized “music” industry and directly market their works to the public.
No, Dave, artists don’t get 20%, or anywhere near that, unless they fully control the distribution of their work.
The sooner that we shun the major labels – and their cohorts in commercial radio – the faster we can get to innovative, and interesting music.
Paganini was a violin virtuoso who composed a handful of things to show off his ability. He was really not a composer. But your point is well taken.
After the invention of the music printing machine in the 15th century, printed music became more and more available to the ever growing middle class in Europe. By early nineteenth century, composers could finally be free of stifling patronage from the Church and aristocracy (as with Mozart suffering) partly thanks to the sales of their “sheet” music!
It can be argued that we would not be able to enjoy Beethoven’s 9th symphony were it not for the sales of his printed music.
Creators should be compensated for their work as long as they are alive. Publisher should be paid commensurate to their effort. The middlemen are making far too much.
The Internet has finally given the artist the ability to sell directly to the public. This freedom from capitalist vultures is analogous to the freedom from the Church and aristocracy in Mozart’s time. Although corporate music will go on, I sense a resurgeance of good music.
Jim wrote: The difference, of course, is that if I steal your car you no longer have your car.
And if you steal a copy of a performance of a song I wrote? I suppose I might still be able to sell you a live performance of the same song, but your motivation to pay for a legit copy seems to me to be pretty low. True, I still have the ability to perform the song, and I can still (try to) sell copies to other people, but your theft means I no longer have part of my market: you. For artists with less-than-mass appeal, this loss may be the difference between making a living and having a hobby.
Returning to the original analogy, architects aren’t really the ones who would suffer if the mythical palace machine existed. Architects would probably be in higher demand, as people would want plans drawn up for their own unique palaces, and it would presumably take some skill to design ones that didn’t fall down. Architects are like software engineers in this analogy. The people who’d be driven out of business would be the construction industry, who are, in this optimistic analogy, equivalent to the recording industry, and that is the power of the analogy, as few people sympathize with the recording industry. But in the real case, it isn’t just the big labels that suffer, because few people commission their own unique music. And people rightly worry more about the fate of the ‘architects’ than Jim seemingly does.
Don’t wait for ObamuUnable to even endorse free (wouldn’t veto the revived Bush tax cuts; then Let ‘Em EXPIRE). For his Fellow AMERICAN Citizens, he’s done Barack shit.
I think it was Crick (one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA) who said patenting his work would be like patenting the sun. The corporations are fighting this issue so hard because they agree and they want the monopoly.
The IPR assault on filesharing is part of a wider assault on common public access: to information (e.g., check out AP´s copyright warnings), water (e.g., Bechtel´s criminalisation of the gathering of rain in Bolivia), even your children and home, which are effectively licensed to you by the state – a license that can be revoked at any time; access to everything from the trivial to the crucial. Enclosure in Scotland killed millions and drove millions more into dependency. Blaire´s first action as PM was to act as lawyer for BigPharma to halt S.Africa´s purchase of generics to treat its AIDS epidemic. IPRs represent a roll-out of the enclosure, partition and licensing of life for which we will need permission that will not be forthcoming.
All I know is that it’s mostly well-off kids who started the whole illegal file-sharing thing because they could afford expensive computers with massive hard-drives and high-speed internet connections. I’ve had very well-off dorm-mates who pay nothing for music, while working class and middle class people bought CDs. Many pop artists who don’t sell a million copies of their album have profits eaten into by such theft. I’m quite sure the woman being discussed could afford buying many of those albums. If she can’t afford it, don’t steal it, either. Excessive illegal file-sharing has made it so record companies take fewer and fewer chances on artists who might not make a ton. Paying for music (especially since well-selling CD prices are at an all-time low) isn’t exploitation. Now, bands can only really make money going on tour; it’s not fair to the artist, even if the record company profits most from the sales.
In any case, as Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood said, Radiohead was only funded so much in its early days by EMI because of the profits it made from selling albums by artists like Queen. So, record company profits can very much help upcoming quality artists.
This isn’t really about the artists at all. SOPA, PIPA, CISPA, etc. were all attempts to keep corporations from losing profits, and nothing more.
First off, If you’re not interested in the topic, skip it. I turn off NPR when they interview a poet, but I still donate to them, and I certainly don’t complain.
Next, Please watch Steal this Movie (unfortunately you can’t steal it because it’s available for free at http://www.stealthismovie.com) another good, (slightly) related one is Pirate Radio.
Glenn: Actually, artists were strongly against recorded media until they realized it was encouraging more people to go to their live performances. I hear The Greatful Dead were successful in large part because the ENCOURAGED free distribution of mix tapes, and even had recording stations set up at concerts where people could make free high quality copies of live concerts to be distributed as you like.
Next, explore the lower end of your local FM radio. There is some great stuff (and terrible) that corporate radio would ignore in favor of playing that new song AGAIN (Has anyone NOT heard “you’re just some one that I used to know” a million times already?) How can you not resent the top down production model of media that stifles our culture?
I just heard on NPR that some huge portion of your cable bill (40% i think) goes towards sports. I hate sports. but then, I didn’t watch TV until netflix started streaming video at a good price. If the netflix model works, I can only conclude that 90% of our cable bill is artificially inflated.
If it wasn’t for pirate BBSs when I was a kid, I simply wouldn’t have played a large list of video games that today make me feel like part of a community of other nerds born around 1980. Can you imagine a nerd from 1992 that hadn’t played Doom? Sorry 11 year old me didn’t have $40, but I would pirate it again in a second. This current generation will have their own larger and easier to pirate list of digital culture that they CANNOT BUY BECAUSE THEY ARE KIDS WITH NO MONEY, but they will be unable to participate in their culture if they don’t get it. There are no loss of profits here, just an old fashioned cave-man-instinct that tells our fish brain “if you have more, I necessarily have less.”
In November, I purchased The Elder scrolls V the day it came out, even though I was too busy with work to play it for a couple months. Ironically, When i actually played the game, I D/Led it from a torrent site because there were some community mods that improved game play and a NO-CD hack that meant I didn’t have to keep the cd in my computer all the time. Last week I purchased The Wicher 2, and paid $40 for the updated version, even though the original was $30, and the update was available free online. This is because I WANT to support my artists, I WANT to encourage software companies to continue to support their programs after they are published. But if you can’t afford my favorite video games, I still want you to play them. I want my community to grow.
See http://questioncopyright.org/minute_memes/copying_is_not_theft
and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-versus-community.html
Why this issue is relevant (in addition to being actually very interesting): the issue of copyright length and enforcement, and the type and amount of payment and enforcement of rights accorded to the various players in the production and reproduction of content (the arts, the media, etc) is at the crux of the battle over the nature and extent of permissible speech in the U.S., the nature and extent of control over content on the internet, and the balance between broader societal interests, the interests of powerful corporations, of individual (and collective) creators, and the government. When most of our production and reproduction of all types of content have become primarily non-material, the internet is the primary battlefield over the rights, privileges, and power of all these parties. (In practical terms–such as DMCA takedowns, etc– this also implicates issues of our legitimate privacy expectations, the legality of warrantless search and seizure of purely electronic assets, and whether the same protections apply that should apply to physical property; hardly trivial questions). It may seem like a minor issue to some, (although it’s hardly a discussion limited to some random blogs: this *is* the SOPA/PIPA/CISPA issue) but if you think this is not extraordinarily pertinent to discussions of where the media is going in the age of the internet, you should think again. These battles are where constitutional law gets made, and it will affect how content can legally be created and distributed for decades to come, and what sorts of speech restrictions are legitimized– issues that should be very important to anyone who cares about the media
Well said Kabosh.
you remind me of a recent (current?) court case: http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=first+sale
Apparently there is some question as to whether we can resell anything we purchase over seas with out getting permission from copyright holders… for example, if you bought parts of your house over seas, can you sell it, or do you have to remove the ight fixtures first?
Our online culture is so complicated these days. In high school my friends and I would buy a bunch of records then spend the rest of the day taping each others albums. While that can be viewed as “stealing”, we were supporting our favorite musicians as best we could, and we would go to see them live, too.
So these days it seems that kids can have countless songs for free, and it’s hurt the music industry tremendously. Unfortunately, the industry is still scraping by, but a lot of smaller artists have to find their own way in the world. And that’s probably a good thing. The music industry has been methodically and cynically raping artists for decades, and that business model is why the industry deserves to go down in flames.
Artists deserve to be paid for thier creative output. I know many local musicians who play constantly, self distribute their albums and do everything in their power to carve out a living – and I don’t know any of them that truly support themselves solely by their music.
I don’t know what the answer is. I’m sure that David Lowery, who is very talented, is NOT living in a mansion, and has been struggling to eke out a living for several decades now. And yes, the majority of the $.99 that is paid for a song should go to the artist and writer of the song, not the corporate vultures.
The term “free palace” seems a touch ironic in a country where banks can foreclose on homes they don’t even own.
Sorry, but given the present state of the world, I’m afraid I just can’t muster a great deal of sympathy for a few music company hangers-on who might have to wait another year before upgrading to a Gulfstream G650.
That is a nice theoretical argument, but it changes nothing regarding the reality of being a professional musician living in the world. I just gave a friend of mine — a full-time, well-respected jazz musician — a ride to a city several hours away so that he could stay with family there. He is about 60, has released dozens of recordings, is played on the radio, and is one of the hardest working, dedicated people I have ever met. A professor I had at music school called him “one of the most important living musicians today.” Three months ago he was performing at the Whitney. Now he is homeless. He was evicted from an apartment after the elimination rent control. Many people have his music on their computers. And his life is quite a bit more complicated than theoretical arguments regarding copyrights. In reality, our culture condones taking advantage of any group of people who hasn’t the money or power to mount a real protection of their interests. If you steal music, regardless, you are simply participating in that same cultural mainstream. My friend has serious eyesight problems and other medical conditions, and at age 60, after a lifetime of work, exhaustive touring, recording, rehearsals, and schlepping five different instruments all over the world – is sleeping on people’s couches and floors. I will leave it up to you to decide. Do you believe it is better to disregard other people, take music for free and then make philosophical arguments about it – or attempt to fix this problem in an ethical manner? I have a feeling that heartfelt consideration of human consequences is not in style, nor is having a sense of service toward others. Theoretical arguments simply mask one’s self-interest, laziness, conformity to what other people do, and, of course, lack of concern for consequences. Personally, I do not want to be the kind of person who deludes myself.