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...

[Apreche]

I agree that the person who makes the music should be the one to hold the copyright. And that the corporation should not make more money than the artist does. However, the reason the corporation can do this is not because of flaws in copyright laws (although these laws are flawed). It is because the artist signed a contract with the record company. The problem is that signing a contract with a major record company is the only way to "make it big" as a musician. That's what needs to be fixed. The internet helps that, but not enough.

Re:He is pretty much spot on...

[cpt kangarooski]

That's not enough. It's not even the right discussion.

Above all else, any enlargement of copyright beyond none at all has to be justified in terms of an even greater benefit secured to the public than they would've enjoyed had the enlargement not occured. Benefits to the public must take the form of BOTH: the creation of more works, either original or derivative or some combination, and the ability to freely enjoy works in any sense, ranging from freely obtaining them, to being able to use them, modify them, copy them, republish them, etc.

Thus the mere act of creation of a work isn't sufficient to justify their 'owning' it.

Re:He is pretty much spot on...

[cpt kangarooski]

Actually, until I decided to go back to school last year, I had been a self-supporting artist for years. So I have in fact created many many original things over the years, although I would like to point out that there are varying levels of originality. Something 100% original would probably be entirely alien and incomprehensible to people. Understanding requires a certain degree of reuse of pre-existing elements.

(e.g. if I wrote a book that didn't borrow anything, the language, grammar, letters, words, etc. would all have to be original; numerous other people created English as we presently know it, after all)

At any rate, your attempt to sum up my position succinctly has failed.

I am saying that if you create something, the only reason that the vast majority of people who stand to gain from freely using your creation have to sacrifice their ability to do so is an even greater benefit.

Thus, if I write a book, the mere fact that I have written it is not enough to convince the legions of people who want to read it, change it, copy it, etc. to refrain from doing so. My unaltered book isn't worth trading the ability to alter it.

However, it _may_ be worth trading that ability for a brief span of time, since, after all, the readers do want the book. Whether it definately is or not will depend on a lot of specific factors.

This is how copyright works, and it is why people can do certain things to a work (anything not forbidden by law, in fact)regardless of the feelings of the author, merely because those things benefit the public.

Many authors do not like having their books sold used, since they will not see any extra money from this transaction. Nevertheless, it is more important that we be able to do so than that authors profit. Likewise many authors do not like parodies being written of their works, but doing so promotes the public good, and is allowed anyway.

And of course, ultimately, the copyright expires, and the public regains legal exercise of their innate ability to do literally ANYTHING with the work that they please.

If you don't believe me, I suggest that you look up some Supreme Court decisions on the subject. They frequently reiterate that the whole purpose of copyright is to promote the arts, not to benefit authors.

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.

Re:He is pretty much spot on...

[sheldon]

The artists sign contracts, so they put themselves into that position.

But music authors have very different contracts than book authors. The rules for books are quite different, and a publishing company generally does not take ownership of the music. They simply have exclusive publishing rights for some period of time.

This is up to the music artists to correct. They need to come together and fight to have the laws changed so that the contracts are more favorable.

Anyway this issue has very little to do with copyright law other than how the work for hire clause differs between music and books. What I always find amazing is how people bring up this disparity as an excuse to justify things like Napster.

Bowie

[crumbz]

Was ahead of his time by packaging and selling the rights to his current/future music back in the early 90s. If I remeber correctly, he picked up along the line of US$ 53 million from his stock sale. He has little to fear from copyright violations from a personal standpoint.

For those without NYTimes accounts...

[Froobly]

Here's the text

David Bowie, 21st-Century Entrepreneur
By JON PARELES

IN a Manhattan rehearsal studio, Gerry Leonard seemed to be noodling on his guitar as the rest of David Bowie's band waited. He played some sustained notes and a bit of minor-key arpeggio; he worked his effects pedals, adding echoes. A digital stutter entered the pattern, and suddenly the music gelled into "Sunday," the song that opens Mr. Bowie's new album, "Heathen," which will be released on Tuesday.

Chords from a phantom chorus wafted from a keyboard, and Mr. Bowie intoned: "It's the beginning of an end, and nothing has changed. Everything has changed."

Mr. Bowie sang somberly about searching for signs of life, about fear and hope. At the end of the song, he shivered like someone coming out of a trance. "Ahhh," he said and grinned. "Good morning!" It was just after 11 a.m. and Mr. Bowie, 55, had already worked out at the gym and given an extended interview before starting the day's rehearsal for his summer tour.

Lean and affable, he was wearing a skintight gray T-shirt and stylishly understated gray pants. His gaze, with different-colored eyes because of a childhood accident that paralyzed his left pupil, has grown less disconcerting; he laughs easily. When asked what he considered the central point of his work, he said, "I write about misery" and chuckled.

Visions of cataclysm and professional aplomb: that's Mr. Bowie's life in his fourth decade as a rock star. One of rock's most astute conceptualists since the 1960's, he has toyed with the possibilities of his star persona, turned concerts into theater and fashion spectacles, and periodically recharged his songs with punk, electronics and dance rhythms. Now he has emerged as one of rock's smartest entrepreneurs.

"Heathen" is the first album from Mr. Bowie's own recording company, Iso, which has major-label distribution through Sony. In 1997, he sold $55 million of Bowie Bonds backed by his song royalties; the next year, he founded the technology company Ultrastar and his own Internet service provider-cum-fan club, Bowienet (davidbowie.com). In a nod to his art-school background, his bowieart.com sells promising students' work without the high commissions of terrestrial galleries.

His deal with Sony is a short-term one while he gets his label started and watches the Internet's effect on careers. "I don't even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years, because I don't think it's going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way," he said. "The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing."

"Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity," he added. "So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left. It's terribly exciting. But on the other hand it doesn't matter if you think it's exciting or not; it's what's going to happen."

With his wife, Iman, he has a 22-month-old daughter, Alexandria, for whom he's keeping to a minimum his time away from home in Manhattan. When Mr. Bowie signed on as a headliner for Moby's Area:Two tour this summer, he made sure the schedule allowed him to return home between each of the six East Coast dates. He is also organizing, and performing at, Meltdown, a contemporary music, film and visual arts festival in London. (One songwriter he booked is Norman Carl Odam, known as the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, from whom he took Ziggy Stardust's last name in the 1970's; on "Heathen," he sings the Cowboy's "Gemini Spacecraft," about an astronaut obsessed with a girl he left behind.)

Mr. Bowie no longer expects to compete with performers in their 20's. "I'm well past the age where I'm acceptable," he said. "You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you're not going to get played on radio and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth."

HIS fans among musicians, including Moby and Nine Inch Nails, have toured with Mr. Bowie, introducing him to a younger generation.

Back in 1990, Mr. Bowie tried to jettison his past. He billed an arena tour as the last time he would play his old hits. "I really did think I meant that," he said. "I got quite a way into the 90's before I started thinking, `Well, if you want an audience, David, you may want to consider putting some songs into your sets that they've actually heard.' Yes, I know, I went back on my word completely and absolutely."

He's now more comfortable riffling through his huge body of work. This week, the Museum of Television and Radio, in New York and Los Angeles, opened "Sound + Vision," a retrospective of Mr. Bowie on video that continues through Sept. 15. A restored version of "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars," the D. A. Pennebaker documentary of the 1972 tour that defined glam-rock, will be released on July 10.

"Heathen" was produced by Tony Visconti, who last collaborated with Mr. Bowie on his 1980 album, "Scary Monsters." He worked on most of Mr. Bowie's 1970's albums, including the celebrated Berlin trilogy of "Low," " `

On "Heathen," Mr. Bowie knowingly hints at his past. He echoes the song " `Heroes' " in "Slow Burn," which wonders, "Who are we in times such as these?" He revives analog keyboard sounds like that of the Stylophone, a miniature electric organ played with a stylus that was heard on "Space Oddity" in 1969 and reappears in the new "Slip Away." When Mr. Bowie starts his tour with a show for fan-club members at Roseland on Tuesday, he plans to play all 12 songs on "Heathen," followed by all of "Low." Hearing the music 25 years later "makes the hairs on my arm stand up," he said.

To make "Low," Mr. Bowie recalled: "I had brought the idea of having fundamentally an R & B rhythm section working against this new zeitgeist of electronic ambience that was happening in Germany. It was terribly exciting to know that one had stumbled across something which was truly innovative.

"At that time, I was vacillating badly between euphoria and incredible depression. Berlin was at that time not the most beautiful city of the world, and my mental condition certainly matched it. I was abusing myself so badly. My subtext to the whole thing is that I'm so desperately unhappy, but I've got to pull through because I can't keep living like this. There's actually a real optimism about the music. In its poignancy there is, shining through under there somewhere, the feeling that it will be all right."

Drug problems are long behind him, Mr. Bowie said. He now hesitates to take even an Advil because. "I have such an addictive personality," he said.

Making "Heathen," he and Mr. Visconti were leery of nostalgia. "One thing we haven't tried to be is cutting edge," Mr. Bowie said. "The other thing we've tried not to do is to delve too far into the past and rely on our known strengths, our known previous work. We do know, between us, how to landscape a song and give it a real place, an identity and a character. I guess that's the vestiges of the more theatrical things."

The album starts with "Sunday" and ends with its title song, both hushed and haunted by mortality. In "Heathen," Mr. Bowie sings, "Still on the skyline, sky made of glass/ Made for a real world, all things must pass." The album was written before Sept. 11, however, and the songs join a long line of Mr. Bowie's apocalyptic scenarios.

"I hope that a writer does have these antennae that pick up on low-level anxiety and all those Don DeLillo resonances within our culture," he said. "But I don't want to say that it was in any way trying to suggest that it was going to happen. It's not like it's something new to me. These are all personal crises, I'm sure, that I manifest in a song format and project into physical situations. You make little stories up about how you feel. It's as simple as that."

Between his own ruminations, he borrows "Gemini Spacecraft," the Pixies' "Cactus" and Neil Young's "I've Been Waiting for You"; in songs like "Afraid" and "I Would Be Your Slave," he sings about love, insecurity and transience.

"I tried to make a checklist of what exactly the album is about and abandonment was in there, isolation," he said. "And I thought, well, nothing's changed much. At 55, I don't really think it's going to change very much. As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I've got left?

"When it's taken that nakedly, these are my subjects. And it's like, well, how many times can you do this? And I tell myself, actually, over and over again. The problem would be if I was too self-confident and actually came up with resolutions for these questions. But I think they're such huge unanswerable questions that it's just me posing them, again and again."

Random NYTimes registration generator

[BurpingWeezer]

http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html might come in handy for some

Bowie always had vision.

[Groucho]

I'd love to hear more of what he has to say about media decentralization and the gargantuan shift from megastars to niche artists. Can we try and do one of those "ask Bowie 20 questions" thingies?

I still think there's room for artists to sell music in a physical medium, with disks, nice cover art, books, perhaps a box set. I've downloaded just about everything by Tommy Guerrero but I'm collecting the CDs anyways... better sound quality, more permanent, nice cover art, and the pleasure of owning them and knowing I've contributed something to the artist. (TG does amazing grooving downtempo Cali-Latin style funky jazzy ambient blues, kinda like Booker T meets Tortoise with a bottle of wine on Carlos Santana's back porch.).

G

Bowie and Don DeLillo

[mensan98th]

I recommend DeLillo's book "White Noise" for insights into Bowie's mindset. It's very much in keeping with the comments in the NYT piece about Bowie's emotional space. And an easy read for a postmodern novel.

Bowie Bonds

[bckspc]

In 1997, David Bowie issued bonds to pay interest from his old song royalties. Prudential Insurance Co. of America bought them all. Read about it, and David Pullman, the guy who helped him do it. The offering "allowed Bowie to collect $55 million up front, using some of the money to buy out a former manager and keep control of his music."

CopyRight

[cameronk]

In the great debate over fair use versus profits we seem to continuously forget the purpose of such laws. With out some way to compensate folks who create intellectual property-be they recording artists, writers, professors or management consultants-the incentives to produce quality content disappears. When Bowie says, "I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing." I believe that he means that our current form of copyright, something that for all purposes is woefully dated.

The problem is that our current distribution model for intellectual property, especially music, does not work given the nominal distribution costs of internet-based music distribution. No digital form of distribution provides an equivalent level of moderation provided by the music industry, it is almost impossible to find the best quality content out of the giant databases like IUMA or MP3.com. We still need some way to sort the good stuff from the banal. It probably makes sense to use Gnutella to download pop music today, but from a long term perspective, we need to create an entirely new paradigm for music proliferation.

Re:CopyRight

[MoneyT]

You may not realize it, but you just described the current trend of the US economy. We are moving very quickly away from a manufacturing economy (which is where patents, copywrites, and other IP protections come in handy) to a service economy, where payment on a commision is going to become more prevelant. Hence Bowie's statement that performance and touring will be the way to make money on music in the future.

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.

I seriously doubt copyright will die

[squarooticus]

Copyright is necessary as incentive for the creation of new works. I and others are happy creating GPL'ed software, but we are a very small minority of people producing creative works. So, I don't see copyright going away anytime soon.

What will have to change, however, is our perception of copyright. At this point, copyright is considered (however incorrectly) an inalienable right that often trumps even the first amendment. This situation is untenable. What I already see happening is the start of a movement to put the teeth back in the public side of the copyright bargain.

In the best case, I see copyright terms decreasing significantly and fair use rights being enforced by law. The first increases the incentive to produce by shortening the term of the artificial monopoly we the People grant to authors and artists.

The second means that the People's right to use works protected under copyright in any reasonable way they choose will be formally encoded, perhaps even to the point of outlawing fair use prevention technologies (what is usually called "copy protection") on works protected by copyright: this would restore the same balance that used to exist for patents before the DMCA.

I'll leave the worst case to others. =)

Re:I seriously doubt copyright will die

[dangermouse]

Actually, this is the free software movement's aim. You're just missing an important piece of the puzzle: all software would be in the public domain.

The GPL does not allow the copyright holder to insist on usage, it only allows him to insist that distributed changes be distributed in source form.

I forget where I read it, but someone from the FSF (maybe it was Stallman) has basically said that the GPL is a hack and necessary because of copyright law... that you have to work within the system to bring an end to it. His contention was that just throwing your code out into the public domain is not effective so long as copyright exists. You have to admit, it makes a lot of sense, if that's your end goal.

Personally, I'm down with copyright. I just think someone needs to put it back in check.

Re:I seriously doubt copyright will die

[shepd]

>What I already see happening is the start of a movement to put the teeth back in the public side of the copyright bargain.

Here's a little "proof" that the people are (finally) starting to wake up and fight back. In a nutshell: A long time politician loses because his party sits with their thumbs up their asses while the supreme court takes away a long standing Canadian right: The right to watch American television. Its not directly copyright, but it sure does smack of the same style of a lot of today's copyright laws.

If this party loses their majority government in the upcoming Federal election due to this law I think it would bring tears to my eyes to finally see Canada wake up and tell this government we won't take US-style save-the-company-before-the-people politics lying down.

Not 10 years

[namespan]

Not in 10 years. This is going to take a legislative policy change... there could be some changes in the courts, but as we all know, court decisions will probably come down on the side of those with the most money (large corps/very rich individuals with a lot of IP to lose). Most of the public is simply not aware enough of IP issues, and most legislators probably beleive in a conservative view of IP.

I think it'll have to get worse before it gets better in order for the public to start examining it. But I also think in about 20 years, we'll start to get a crop of legislators that are not quite so corporate. I think it's partly a demographic thing.

Of course, it will help if the average slashdot guy becomes a little more activist. Should you run for congress?

Bowie - Hits and Misses

[great throwdini]

Was ahead of his time by packaging and selling the rights to his current/future music back in the early 90s.

Unfortunately, BowieBanc didn't fare as well ("Bowie bank leaves the stage") -

Bank officials didn't return our calls, but BowieBanc has, reportedly, been folded into USABancShares, which is being investigated by the FDIC for alleged violations of banking regulations.

On the other hand, it seems the Thin White Duke had a way with words back almost two years, with respect to digital piracy -

"Where are the major artists on the Web?", he asks. "Most MP3s are from unknown artists and most of the songs are crap!"

Visionary, or just outspoken?

Re:Bowie - Hits and Misses

[kootch]

Wow. I didn't think anyone actually remembered that. I was one of 5 people in the internet division of USABancShares (formerly vBank, USABanc.com, People's Trust, and Norristown Savings i believe).

If you're curious, this was the deal with BowieBanc:

Ken Tepper, CEO of USABancShares.com, would go to some large organizations that were not connected to financial institutions. He would then pitch the idea of a "private label" bank where all of the money would actually be handled by vBank, the parent of USABancShares.com, but that the private label bank could issue credit cards, bank cards, checks, etc. with the name of the private label bank and all of the decorations. Other possible private label banks were YankeeBanc (new york yankees) and TrumpBanc (donald).

With BowieNet and the corporation Bowie owns, BowieBanc seemed like a good fit. His ISP clients, who were all huge fans, could easily open an online bank account, get a david bowie credit card (some of the designs were amazing), and a bunch of other perks.

The whole idea crashed down when USABancShares.com took on a host of bad loans (as banks often will do) and I believe they're still trying to track down the culprit. But the loans degraded their credit rating which is imperative for a bank to maintain.

It's a shame tho. We built the second online back with 5 ppl working 8 days straight (we slept in the bank). And the flash bank is still pretty neat all these years later.

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.

Re:No

[smallpaul]

Great authors eat because they have to eat. With no income, they have no food.

Who said they would have no income? There are a variety of ways they could get income that may or may not be directly related to their writing.

Why is this ALWAYS an argument? What are these people supposed to do for a paycheck? Work at the Arco Station on the corner?

You're pretty unimaginative. First, they could actually have day jobs. Robert Burns was a farmer and excise collector. Who knows what Lewis Carroll's day job was? Second, they could use strategies like the street performer protocol or individual or corporate grants. Third, there are a variety of ways to turn intellectual works into "performances" which can be paid for: plays, interviews, signings, etc.

From one of your posts in another thread

Ok, tell you what. You go spend two years of full-time days (and nights and weekends) to write a novel and then give it all away. You have
absolutely no idea how much work is involved in writing or developing "cool stuff."

Actually, I did write a book and I did take about a year (not two) off of work for it (across several editions). If there was no copyright law I would have approached it very differently but I still would likely have done it. First, I would have seen it as a calling card, not something that would make me money directly. Second, I would have taken longer to do it, working on nights and weekends. Third, I would wait until the area of technology (it was a tech book) calmed down rather than expecting people to buy multiple editions as technology changed.

Overall, I would have radically changed my business model for the project. And in the end, that's my point. There is no one true business model for writing books or making widgets or anything else. The way the market works is to find ways to connect people who want something with those who can provide something. If a particular way of making that connection is blocked (copyright) then other ways will be found. That's why we had creativity before there was copyright and will have creativity after copyright disappears.

If there are authors who absolutely refuse to change their business model to adjust to changes in technology and society, then that is their problem, not society's. There will be other authors who will choose to adjust and they will thrive.

Re:No

[The Cat]

There are a variety of ways they could get income that may or may not be directly related to their writing.

But writing becomes a valueless profession? Great. Add all the other jobs that rely on copyright and that should put about 20 million people out of work and into the market to compete for the last half-dozen grocery-bagger jobs.

Actually, I did write a book and I did take about a year (not two) off of work for it (across several editions). If there was no copyright law I would have approached it very differently but I still would likely have done it.

Gratis? A whole year of work for nothing? Fine. Sounds great. Maybe when I can buy a house and food for nothing that kind of business model will work.

There is no one true business model for writing books or making widgets or anything else.

Well, there is in this case. If you want a copy of the book, PAY FOR IT. This entire argument is ridiculous.

There will be other authors who will choose to adjust and they will thrive.

Thrive on their paycheck from Wal-Mart while they work nights for years to produce valueless works of great literature? Nobody can seriously expect someone else to do that.

Re:No

[The Cat]

The important thing to understand is that it is in society's best interest to fund creative work which is why society has always done so, whether copyright was the law or not. That will never change. We're talking about creative works. THINK ABOUT THEIR FUNDING CREATIVELY!

Why can't people just buy the book? About the most creative thing I think will come from electronic publishing and distribution is lower prices. Sure, there may be some further creative ways of making revenue, but at the end of the day, someone has to ring a sale and make change, or the product has no economic value.

It's not exactly unheard of for an author to find they can't get published or they can and sell their rights to a publishing house that doesn't promote their book.

That's the publisher talking, not the author. Abolishing copyright is not going to make this any easier. In fact, it will make it even *more* difficult, since it will remove the only authority an author has with regard to their own work. Think publishers and distributors aren't playing fair now? lol

It is just silly to presume that these other jobs will be low-paying, as if a person who has the capability to create great art is going to be completely talent-less otherwise.

They'll be low paying. No doubt about it. I can't think of three high-paying jobs for which a professional writer would even be considered, much less hired.

Talent has nothing to do with getting a job.

Does society owe this minority a living? Does society owe anyone a job doing what they want?

While ignoring the fact that this is a red herring which neatly reframes the argument in terms sympathetic to your conclusion, I'll reply by saying yes, *our* society promises the "pursuit of happiness." That usually means a career of something other than dull, pointless, joyless drudgery for low or no pay.

People should be encouraged to pursue that which makes them happy, because it is in those fields of endeavor where they will contribute the most to our society. Forcing people to work two jobs: one of suffering for a paycheck and another of uncompensated joy, is patently unfair, pun intended.

Copyright has exceeded its original purpose, and it is because of this fact that I support modifying the law so that it helps authors, musicians and artists do what they do best. I do NOT support abolishing copyright along with the livelihoods of millions of people so that the warezzzzzz d00dz can have everything for free.

Abolishing copyright will eviscerate the entirety of most authors and artists' ability to produce anything of value. This is a fact. Without copyright, artists would have absolutely no standing whatsoever across the table from Big Music Inc. Authors would have no ability to negotiate with Big Publisher Inc. And so on.

I think lower prices and a lesser term for copyright should be the net result of the influence of electronic publishing. Beyond that, the balance will have swung too far in the other direction, and that is unfair to the authors, artists and musicians for whose benefit this *entire argument* is being discussed.

special edition...

[Anonymous Coward]

All off his new CD's will be autographed on the outer rim with a sharpie :)

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.

What's done-for is scheduled viewing/listening

[blair1q]

PVRs and computerized audio recording are going to eliminate any need for "Prime Time", or for any sort of scheduled broadcast entertainment.

Time shifting will give control of life-scheduling back to the public.

If the machines skip commercials, then broadcast entertainment may be doomed, unless something like the British television-licensing model comes into play. Cable rates would have to jump by a hundred dollars per month to keep the same revenues going into the system.

P2P won't make so great a dent as to obviate copyright. Mass-market bandwidth is too low, and it's too easy to recognize the traffic signature of illegal file traders. The Xerox machine didn't kill publishing, and Napster didn't kill the RIAA.

--Blair

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.

Almost

[WinPimp2K]

He sold BONDS which were to be paid back from the royalties earned by his music.

I f he really believes copyright will be dead in the near future, then he will probably be on the receiving end of a pretty darn hefty fraud investigaion.

It would be like oh Donald Trump selling Bonds to finance a new casino in Atlantic City, with the casino revenues to repay the bonds all the while expecting the state of New Jersey to outlaw all casino gambling 5 years after the casino opens.

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:Not copyrights, contracts

[JoeWalsh]

What we need is an overhaul of the music distribution chain.

Until something better comes along, I've found that CD Baby is an acceptable way to find new artists. Every CD they sell is by an independent artist, and between $6 and $12 goes to the artist for each CD purchased. Plus, their servers run OpenBSD, they don't share your info with anyone, and they don't keep your credit card number on file.

And their search methods and browse options are really great for helping you find music you'll like among the huge number of bands offering their music through CD Baby.

real rock musicians...

[MarvinGardens]

According to Bowie, rock musicians better get used to a lot of touring. Well, that's the ONLY way most rock musicians make money. Even if you get signed by a major label, they are under no obligation to promote your band. YOU have to promote YOUR OWN music BY TOURING. And you had better get on it, because you have to pay back that big advance the record company floated you to buy new equipment, which you needed for all the TOURING you're going to be doing! Also, I've been in three rock bands, and made lots of IMHO excellent original music, and never turned a significant profit. So I guess people will make music for reasons other than insatiable greed.

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?

Don't doubt the power of David Bowie....

[darkwiz]

Do you think the Bowie machine has the power to make the music industry see the light?"

Do not doubt the power of David Bowie's Area

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.

Re:Only rebels left are old!

[DarkGamer]

There is a certain amount of truth to this... I heard somewhere that youth culture is cyclical... perhaps the 2010's will yield more activism. I blame "cool" apathy. That detached generation X-ish look that has been promoted in all media for the last decade.

I blame the uber-PC view: "Be accepting of everyone and everything that is different." We have been trained not to care. No wonder everyone is so detached no one cares, everyone accepts. It's a mandate enforced and reinforced through 12--16 years of societal-normalization camp, err... I mean school... It's fallout from the 60's, and it doesn't taste as good 4 decades later.

Then there's all the messages being broadcast directly into our frontal lobes by large corporate sponsors. "Good consumer... good boy! sit, stay, be happy, buy stuff." Almost all of the urgent messages that bombard us are of no real importance. The real important stuff is mysteriously absent from the news... unless it somehow has to do with 9/11. You have to blow up a building or no one cares. What a sad world.

I wish I could make everyone read No Logo and Fast food nation. At least peruse Adbusters. *sigh*

I'm glad Slashdot exists.

Re:Only rebels left are old!

[Chris Johnson]

Do you actually mean, 'nobody young who expresses their dissent at stupid things gets on the news that I watch, makes the CDs I buy, writes the books I read'?

For that matter, what the heck are you doing excluding yourself? You don't count, you're gonna give up because you can only trust old hippies to be enlightened? News flash, they are now the ones doing this stuff.

In a culture that devours itself as violently and avidly as ours does, that turns even the most personal statements into soundtracks for commercials, where exactly are you looking for your sincerity? I think you're just as hosed as the rest of us but haven't figured out it's your fight yet. And it is, so quit looking for inspirations and figure out what matters to you...

Re:As I read these comments

[Chris Johnson]

And so now he's supporting the destruction of the whole system by which he used to get that income, since he doesn't believe it has a future. Hee! I love it. Kinda sucks to be Prudential though :D

The light?

[crucini]

Do you think the Bowie machine has the power to make the music industry see the light?

The music industry has seen the light with great clarity for quite a while. That's why we got the DMCA and why we're getting the too-long-to-pronounce law. Don't phrase this as a matter of clueless old farts who should "see the light" and join the internet age. It's a matter of an entrenched, wealthy, intelligent elite which will fight to the death to preserve and enhance its privileges and income.

The implication of this "see the light" comment is that the music industry should adapt to changing conditions. But an excellent quote which I can't find right now says, in effect: "Individual organisms do not adapt to changing conditions - the species adapts via the death of ill-adapted organisms".

Give me a break! - 60s was a joke

[alexhmit01]

Gee, 99% of the 60s radicals wanted an excuse to do drugs and have sex. They railled against society and used it as an excuse for permiscuity. They were all then extremely comfortable moving out to the suburbs to live in an all-white community without minorities. From these comfortable homes, they shielded their children from society, voted for tough-on-crime measures, and support the war-on-drugs. They are extremely concerned that their children will be exposed to sex and drugs. In a word, the 60s as a culture has been invented by an entire GENERATION of spoiled brats. The "greatest generation" spoiled their children, and to this day they need to assert their superiority over everyone else. Notice that the same "hippies" that spit on our servicemen returning from Vietnam and protested Vietnam are all flying the USA Flag on their SUVs in suburbia?

I watched the past 6 years, it was amazing. We saw young technologists unleash disruptive technology that turned out understanding of retail and markets upside down. Sure the dumb money caused a boom-and-bust, but such is capitalism. There are numerous people publishing on the web, providing information. Sure most of the "clicks" are with a few major companies, but so what. Most of the time I don't need unusual information, major news sites handle my needs, but the wealth of information available when I am looking is astounding.

Look buddy, I have nothing against 17-22 years old that idolize the 60s and rail against the establishment. Good for you, have fun. Just try to realize when you're sitting in a coffee shop talking about the establishment being pathetic that you are full of shit. I love my lefty friends, but I also know to laugh at them when they talk about the evils of corporate America while sending the credit card bill home to daddy and spending his money.

The thing that makes America work is our willingness to get shit done. The French sit and whine, wanting a 35-hour work week, never to see battle, and a seat at the UN Security Council. Americans understand that when it comes time to do the heavy-lifting, its going to fall on us. While lefties (American and European) seem to have unlimited amounts of energy to bitch and moan about people benefiting from this heavy-lifting, most Americans realize that if the rock is going to move, we're going to move it.

The American people aren't pathetic, you are. Waxing philosophical about the irony of another Cold War ally taking our training and using it against us doesn't help. Facts not in dispute: Hussein (who, along with his sons, is a truly evil individual; which has nothing to do with our hegemonic reasons for fighting Iraq, but his family DOES consist of truly evil people) was dealt with 10 years ago, and may need to be dealt with again. Bin Ladin took our training and build an army for holy war, which is especially ironic given that our friends the Saudis fund it (and they ARE our friends, we back the House of Saud, they keep the oil flowing).

So, we created our nightmares? What's the point? We did what we had to do to win the Cold War, and we did win the Cold War. There are some costs that we are paying now. Most Americans realized that we were going to have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and head off to stop Al Qaeda. Sure most Americans don't understand Islam, have a trivial understanding of why they hate us, but have a terrific understanding of something that you are lacking "They hate us AND our way of life," at least when our way of life involves stationing troops in Arabia to keep the corrupt House of Saud in power (which we explain as keeping Iraq out of Saudi Arabia).

These "old radicals" were absurd in their day, and absurd now. The difference is that they were revered by the suburbanite middle class when they were "hippies" so they get to go on camera and be silly.

Geeze buddy, grow up.

Alex