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Future of Music Summit
DotcomScoop writes: "We were provided with a copy of the letter sent by Congressman Rick Boucher to RIAA head Hilary Rosen and IFPI head Jay Berman questioning the legality of copy-protecting CDs. 'I am particularly concerned that some of these technologies may prevent or inhibit consumer home recording using recorders and media covered by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA),' Boucher writes. We've summarized the letter in a story and CNET also has coverage. Monday is the kick-off of the two-day Future Of Music Policy Summit, which includes keynotes or panels from Boucher, Rosen, Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers, Nirvana's Krist Novoselic, Fugazi's Ian MacKaye and the National Writer Union's Jonathan Tasini, among others." We already posted a story about the Boucher letter, but it can't hurt to mention it again.
Keynotes at a Music Summit - how harmonious.
Shouldn't it be overture instead of kick-off though?
The Future of Music Coalition, some of the folks helping to organize this, is one of the few organizations that really "get it". Basically, they've taken the stance that creators of music should be rewarded, and that the practical implications aren't as black and white as "file sharing bad" or "record industry bad". So, what they're trying to do is figure out what technological and social solutions can be used to address the problem of artist compensation. The FOMC Manifesto is recommended reading.
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So we all known the score. The established position is that any "information" product you buy, like a book, video, magazine, LP, CD or whatever, is sold to you on the condition that you do not reproduce it in any way. This wasn't so bad, because reproduction was expensive anyway. Time for a ramble through my thoughts...
If I buy a book, I know what I'm getting; a physical object which I can read (in one place at a time). I can re-read it any number of times without paying any extra money to the author/publisher. I can give it away to someone else, and they can read it too. The people who write and produce books are obviously happy that this does not erode their profits, or they would have tried to outlaw second-hand bookshops and libraries long ago.
So if it's possible to make money on print media in that environment, why is it so hard for those selling music? After all, they have extra revenue channels which have no equivalent in the print world, such as live performances. And that's before you consider the merchandising opportunities, which are just as possible for authors (J.K. Rowling, anyone?), musicians, artists...
More reflections - original works of art are traditionally extremely expensive because a "copy" or reprint is inferior to the master. Studio production of music is very different; the artist can slave for months over one recorded track until it's finally ready... but the perfect copies cost nothing.
Are people used to "getting stuff for free"? Sure they are, they listen to the radio. Who cares what deals happen behind the scenes to ensure airplay? The music is free! In what way is recording something off the radio and listening to it again "offline" any different from re-reading a book, or for that matter, Napster?
So say the music industry collapsed in the face of widespread "piracy", or sharing, or whatever you want to call it. What happens to the creative impulses which were responsible for the great music in the first place? Do they just die off in the absence of money? Hell no. Music and art have existed long before the RIAA, Disney, the Industrial Revolution, Capitalism or even currency.
If all musicians were just in it for the money, then the charts would be full of lowest-common-denominator bland whiney teenage well-groomed all-style-no-substance pap.
Ah.
These sigs are more interesting tha
2. Based upon your knowledge and upon any consumer contact received by your member companies, have any discs entered the U.S. market that may not be copied on a device or on media for which a royalty has been paid under the AHRA?
This is really the point of his question. The AHRA allows the collection of a royalty on recording media, but this comes in exchange for the priviledge of the consumer to make these copies. By making copy protected originals, the priviledge is removed. Congressman Boucher's questions are pulling tight the noose the RIAA has made for itself out of all that rope.
Very funny indeed.
As you know from your personal involvement in its drafting, the AHRA clearly requires content owners to code their material appropriately to implement a basic compromise: in return for the receipt of royalties on compliant recorders and media, copyright owners may not preclude consumers from making a first-generation, digital-to-digital copy of an album on a compliant device using royalty-paid media. Under the AHRA, any deliberate change to a CD by a content owner that makes one generation of digital recording from the CD on covered devices no longer possible would appear to violate the content owner's obligations under the statute.
And how much of a royalty does the RIAA get on the sale of hard drives/MP3 encoders/iPods/Nomads? I'm sure Ms. Rosen will gleefully point out to our well-intentioned friend in Congress that she's more concerned about CD-to-MP3 copying than CD-to-CD, which might, unfortunately, render Rep. Boucher's argument moot.
Every clockwork has its limit, just put it in some sand...
By encouraging Free Art models (such as the EFF proposed model or GNUArt) we may achieve a parallel distribution model which will de facto have to cohabit with the existing industrial model.
For example, GNUArt agrees that, for example, Free Music songs may appear on commercial compilations ("Best Of"), provided there is a notification of its GPL'ed status.
That's why the way to avoid such industrialization of entertainment would be to
Trolling using another account since 2005.
One thing that slays me about all this is the attitude that if I record something to a CD it MUST be material that was created by someone else. The folks pushing this battle and demanding taxes on blank media assume that the common man is not capable of creating his own music, documents, movies, etc.
I got a taste of this during the discussion of Napster at http://www.tednugent.com where they were insisting that if I made my own MP3 file it was copyrighted and illegal for me to offer for free. Never mind if I wrote and performed my own music, recorded it myself, and chose to give it away to the world. The attitude seems to be that even if a moron like myself is capable of such a thing, I'm not as wise as the RIAA and should be protected from myself and not allowed to give it for free.
But of course.....the RIAA wants a chunk of "the action" and if I give it away there isn't any action.
I understand that some places (Canadia?) already have a tax on blank media under the assumption that you are going to use that media to copy copyrighted material. They don't seem to take into account that the same media can be used to save files of any type. Maybe you just wanted to save your family photos to CD, or your letters to your girlfriend. Oh well, you pay the tax anyway.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Before entering the much more stable world of software engineering, I was a member of a band that had attained some local renown. In fact, we were told that there was some industry attention directed our way. We headlined at a gig one night in New York where A&R personnel from Maverick came to see us play.
One of my former band's members thought much the same as you did, as did I--we should shun any major-label deals and keep playing gigs and promoting ourselves through mailings, on-line and selling CDs/T-shirts/etc. at each show. We knew that signing a major-label deal would be, in essence, selling our solus to the devil and that we might never see the rights to our songs (on which we all took co-writer credits) ever again. And this was scary enough to persuade us, after careful consideration, not to sign any deals.
But the stress of promoting ourselves, without major backing or assistance from a label, ended up taking away from the sheer joy that we got making our music, and ended up in the long run causing us to give up the band. If we had sold our souls, we'd have had a lot more support in directing and marketing our music and probably could have concentrated on the songwriting and performance aspects. But despite everything we did--we had a newsletter, Web site, MP3 downloads of sample songs, fans who were willing to sell our merchandise at shows, it just ended up being a lot of work. We had to hustle for our own radio interviews, club dates, write-ups in the paper, etc. It really is frustrating and does take up a lot of time (kinda like the management vs. programming aspect of my job now).
In conclusion, while it may be easy to say 'do it all yourself--shun the labels and promote and market yourselves', it really isn't as easy as all that. I wish it had been.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)