David Bowie on Music, Copyrights, Distribution

EddydaSquige writes "In this New York Times article David Bowie talks about his new album, distribution deal with Sony, and how he's "fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing." Do you think the Bowie machine has the power to make the music industry see the light?"

Comments

He is pretty much spot on...

[-douggy]

Sure the artist should be credited for the creation of a song but why should a corporation I dont care about make 5 times the money the writer does. IP and copywrite needs a complete overhaul. Fair use people

It is about time the bigger well established artists started acting like this. They make far more money personing than via RIAA cds

Re:He is pretty much spot on...

[Waffle Iron]

so if we create something, we should not own it?

Ok, if you create something, you should own it.

However, that doesn't address the more interesting question: Why should owning something mean that nobody else can make a copy of it? After all, you still have it after it's been copied.

The answer, of course, is that copyright is intended to create an artificial scarcity of the work, inducing members of society to create more works via a convoluted economic process. The implementation of copyright is very complex, arbitrary and flawed, but unfortunately, nobody has come up with a better alternative.

So, copyright attempts to fill a worthwhile macroeconomic goal, but it's not a sufficient reason to cast the same moral indignation on those who violate copyright laws as if they had stolen your car. The idea is not to give every creator new inalienable rights, but rather to create an overall system where creators can generally make a living off of their works. Violating copyrights should be thought of as an infraction against the system as a whole more than as an infraction against the individual author.

Too many people forget people and corporations were granted artificial property rights over thoughts and ideas as a means to an end, not as an end in itself.

It's all about the branding. Bowie gets it.

[Hawthorne01]

Does anyone out there buy a record because it's on Island vs. Maverick vs. Sony? (Okay, Maverick is owned by Madonna, which may make me think twice...). Through the selling of bonds, his ISP, and now these comments, it's obvious he's making himself a brand that people know and trust, and therefore are willing to pay for. When music is a commodity in the post-copyright world (which is coming, whether the RIAA likes it on not), the people who have a distinctive style that engenders brand loyalty will have the following willing to pay for music instead of getting it for free. An example of this from the last two decades was The Grateful Dead.

Ironic

[XorNand]

It's kinda ironic that you violated the NY Time's copyright to cut and paste and article about copyright issues isn't it?

I don't like the required registration BS either, but you know what I do about it? I haven't registered and therefore don't read the Times (or their advertisers)... voting with my eyeballs.

I would be wise if people stop doing stupid stuff like this. I would be interesting (in a bad way) to have the Time's come after /. with the DCMA in it's fist.

No

[A nonymous Coward]

Copyright is necessary as incentive for the creation of new works

Tell that to Bach, Shakespeare or any one else before probably 1900.

It may in a few instances encourage people to produce new works, but I bet in more cases it discourages people from using established works as the basis for new works. I bet it's a wash whether copyright helps or hinders in the grand picture.

All it really does is enable a few to get filthy rich while not helping the other 99.99% at all. Especially considering the few plagiarism cases that come to trial, where some rich artist (or corporation) is sued by some nobody for stealing his idea. The big guys can afford to steal and violate copyright because they have the lawyers to beat down the poor guys.

bowie's pretty much always ahead of trends

[discogravy]

and he's very much a good businessman and artist. he was ahead of the herd with musical styles and fashions and he's very likely right on this one as well. of course, he's in a position to not care that much, since he's got control of his back catalogue, a huge fanbase, other businesses (bowienet, etc) and lots of unreleased stuff in the can just waiting for a boxset release.

This is a myth...

[Sunnan]

If copyright did not exist:

1. Everyone could distribute copies of software and run all software for all purposes (freedoms zero and two of FSF fame) and
2. there would be no economic incentive for not distributing source with your binary - since your binaries can be copied anyway, why lose the advantages that distributing source will give you? (Cross-platform compability, people looking for bugs, a more trustworthy image, happier customers)
3. and disassemblers would not be illegal.

In a world without copyright, I still think that RMS and FSF would be happy.

Still, totally abolishing copyright is not a stated goal of the FSF. They just want more rights for the users of published software.

David Bowie Is Cooler Than We Though!

[Lethyos]

An artist, a rather good one at that, has stepped forward and made a move for the greater good.

Now the question is, will the Slashdot community - a group always bitching about these issues - use its large, unified presence to mirror that good act? I was just discussing with my girlfriend that we ought to go out and purchase the CD as soon as it becomes available.

If there's a huge show of support for Bowie's move here, it will reflect that his ideals are good ones. Others will follow his lead (lots of other artists have - but after seeing his success). So go out and actually buy a disc with confidence that most of the money is going to the artist, instead of some rich old wind-bag's pocket.

Money is the whole point, of course

[mckwant]

If the Bowie model of doing bonds makes more money than the current revenue model, then the record companies might start to listen, but Bowie's catalog is reasonably consistent. Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, Pinups, and The Man Who Sold the World are (presumably) all steady sellers. We're not talking Pink Floyd or The Beatles here, commercially, but still...

Point being, you can't apply this model to an artist that doesn't have that kind of track record. Try floating "Britney Bonds" or "'Nsync Notes" and see how far those fly. They won't, because they don't have any chance of producing the kind of steady cashflow that Bowie's sales produce over time.

Even looking at more relevant bands of this era (choose your own), they are ALL likely to fade within 10 years, and won't provide the sheer volume of Bowie's output. I happen to love the Pixies, but I have trouble thinking that anybody's chasing down "Bossanova" in their local Tower Records.

Neato model, points to Bowie's finance team for developing it, but applicable in a miniscule number of cases. If Bowie, in fact, owns his own IP, it might even be unique.

Not copyrights, contracts

[DragonMagic]

Don't get upset at the copyrights, get upset at the contracts these corporations impose on the artists, and the monopolies they have with major distribution chains.

Try to find your local indie band at any national record chain, and chances are unless they're on MTV or Clear Channel, they'll not be found. This is because the national chains go through publishers or huge distributors, where only the top publishing houses can sell through.

You'd have to go to a local chain or a mom and pop store to find indie artists most of the time, or just to the artists themselves.

What we need is an overhaul of the music distribution chain. Sites like eMusic and MP3.com were set to do that until they were bought out by big publishers. They weren't bought out because they were failing, they were bought because they imposed a threat on the distribution network.

Hell, if you want to be rich, it's not making a religion, it's not winning the lottery, is threatening legally the bottom line of a multi-national conglomerate. Find a better, legal way to do what the publishers do, and they'll find a way to offer you money to go away.

Re:You know something?

[MoneyT]

But why isn't the artist hiring the record company? Does anyone else see the strangeness of a record company hiring the artist? Isn't that sort of like TDK hiring EA to produce a game so that TDK can sell CDs?

Only rebels left are old!

[Dr. Spork]

Am I the only young person who notices that the only people who express their dissent at stupid things in this world today are old? This is a terrible sign! I seriously think that historians will view this decade as the "era of new conformity," sort of like the 50s without the commies.

I'm serious: Take for example the only people you see speaking out in public against the idiotic "War on Terror"--they are old! Even academics who find it just as stupid as I do keep their mouths shut, even if they have tenure.

The same goes for this "Intellectual Property" debate. I would be shocked if there weren't many young artists who agree with every word that Bowie says about the subject. Still, they keep a low profile and don't rock the boat, because we live in a climate where that gets you severely punished. I wasn't there, but I suspect in the 60's and 70's people faced the same dilemmas, but they said "fuck it, I'll say what I think and see what happens." But then again, maybe the government and the corporations have us under a tighter clamp now than any other time in Western history since constitutions started being written.

Sure, we all have a right to free speech, but the system has made it so that speaking freely is severely against our interest. This means that even though we won't go to jail, we will get fired, spied upon, harassed, and vilified as friends of terrorists. (How long will it take before somebody argues that abolishing IP laws would be "caving in to terrorism"? Surely they will find some stupid, tenuous connection.)

Anyway, this era makes me sick. You people suck. I might as well burn my books now to save you the trouble, because when these old-school rebels die, nobody will raise their voice in protest.