Edison to Hillary Rosen - Parts 3, 4 and 5

An anonymous reader writes "MP3newswire.net has the follow up to the first two chapters of its series "Thomas Edison, Intellectual Property and the Recording Industry". These articles show that the controllers of the media bullied folk back then as they do now - and it didn't work. The last installments of the 5 part series include; Chapter 3 -- The Industry Evolves, Chapter 4 -- Copyright and the Grand Illusion, and closes with Chapter 5 -- Bringing the Past Into the Present"

Comments

hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Well when you think about it if your company can bribe politicians into making laws favorable to you isn't that just the free market in action?

If you put a restriction on the sale of laws and/or politicians you are just hampering the market in action.

Re:Can't RTFA

[bobbozzo]

Looks like Google has most of them cached

When was the media more diverse?

[dirvish]

I have a question. Which time period had more diverse media? Today we have huge corporations that own parts of many types of media and have overwhelming control because of all their money and their corporate privilages that the US government has so graciously granted since Edison's time. But back then the media was much more limited. There was no TVs or Internet so people had fewer mediums to through which to be bullied. If someone controlled one or two of these mediums they could probably do a decent job of bullying. So, it might not have worked back then, but is it more or less likely to work today?

If at first you don't succeed...

[curtlewis]

try, try again. It would seem the record industry gets that.

So they keep trying and keep leeching more and more off the fans of music. Less and less of the growing profits actually goes to the artists whose art is what is purchased while some fat excecutive skyrockets his cholesterol level in his exotic wood panelled office while having his knob polished by some babe banking brownie points.

I can make a longer sentence if I really put my mind to it. But... nah. That one paints the ugly picture of the current state of affairs well enough.

Enjoy while you can, parasitical record exec! The winds are changing. If the cholesterol level or some unspeakable STT doesn't get you first, maybe actually doing some REAL work once you can't make a living leeching off the creativity of others.

I suppose if you were a fan of record execs you could consider this a flame, but let's face it, are the descriptions above really THAT far from reality?

Author doesn't understand economics

[geekee]

The author of this piece spends a lot of time ranting about how copyright helps publishers, but doesn't do anything for artists. What he fails to understand is that by helping publishers, copyrights ARE helping artists. An artist is not necessarily a businessman, nor does he necessarily have any capital. Therefore, in order to make money on his work, he may need someone else to take a risk that his work is good and can be sold. Without copyright, the reward is negligible for the risk, and therefore, no one will invest in the author's work. That means only a few of the author's friends will read the work. In this case no one profits and the artist's work remains obscure. Everyone loses. Slashdot readers forget that although the artist creates the work, without someone taking a risk on it, the work may as well not have been created, as far as the public is concerned. That is the job of publishers and record labels. They take the risk, and therefore they deserve the reward. The artist gets whatever he is willing to agree to in order to let the publisher take the risk. He enters into this contract freely, and shouldn't complain he got screwed after the fact, if he's successful.

Re:Author doesn't understand economics

[Slyder]

I'd disagree. There have been many examples of how selling small amount directly is more profitable for an artist than selling large amounts through a publisher. Given a more reasonable (ie shorter IMHO) copyright limit, it could then spread to benefit others outside the smaller, more localized group sooner rather then later (assuming of course people find the [music/novel/etc] worth the hassle). Everyone wins. It's just not instant gratification.

Re:Author doesn't understand economics

[Jade E. 2]

An artist is not necessarily a businessman, nor does he necessarily have any capital

So, you're saying that "An artist is not necessarily a businessman" yet an artist needs to be an expert in contract law to ensure he's getting a good deal. Of course, he could just hire a lawyer to do it, except, oops, "nor does he necessarily have any capital".

The real problem isn't with the publishing system. It's necessary, as you pointed out. The problem, as I see it, is the fact that the majoriy of record labels seem to use contracts that can be broken down, in plain english, as 'You get x% of the profit, which is the total sales minus our costs, which we will calculate ourselves.' Then they calculate their 'costs' as 'total sales + $1'.

The problem is it's very hard to fix something like that in legislation. Unless you make some specific law dealing with accounting practices for "all contracts involving a percentage of an as-of-yet uncertain number" or something like that.

Or maybe a required basic course on 'everyday laws' in school. There are quite a few things that would be better if teens were exposed to a well-taught (yes that could be difficult in public schools) primer on contracts (read them carefully, require accountability), criminal law (what will happen if you're arrested), and generally what rights you are and are not granted by law, and probably more that I'm not thinking of.

And if it won't fit in the schedule, eliminate a PE course :D

Re:Author doesn't understand economics

[franimal]

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you. In my opinion, it is not the record label that takes the risk but the artist. Many (if not all) of the artists signed to record deals already have a number of songs -- songs that they created at their own risk -- with their own money. So when a record label signs an artist they are not just signing an artist that has no portfolio. Instead they sign the artists with the strongest portfolios and thus incur the least risk for themselves.

Furthermore, in a standard record label deal the artist agrees to pay all the costs of recording, promotion, production, transportation, food, etc out of their royalties. What is the record label going to pay for? Honestly, it seems to me that the only risk the record label assumes is the fact that the artist may bomb and owe the label millions. In that case, which seems to be very rare, the artist is bankrupt and the label has taken a profit hit.

Are you still entirely sure that it is the labels that assume the risk? Personally, I think that, unless my sources are very wrong, the artist takes the greatest risk -- by far.

Buggy Whips...

[Dinosaur Neil]

"Progress, far from consisting on change, depends on retentiveness.... Those who cannot remember the past are condemmed to repeat it." George Santayana, The Life of Reason

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidible outcry in defence of custom." Thomas Paine, Common Sense

...and finally;

"Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil." Eric Hoffler, The True Believer

I realize I'm gonna be stating the obvious here on a number of points, but I'm building to something... Even as recently a ten years ago, stamping out a new CD of new music took large chunks of money. Large enough that only Big Names were worth the investment (though there was a thriving community of Not So Big Names and even Very Small Names survivng by producing cassette tapes). Now, a "professional" quality recording studio and CD burning setup costs less than a new car and anyone can record and sell CDs, and thanks to the web, these people can get attention without repetitive and redundant radio saturation or MTV airplay. Extrordinairily talented people who don't fit the recording industry's concept of Things They Can Sell now have a way to get their stuff out; maybe they won't sell a million CDs, but they might actually see some money for what they do sell (or, failing that, they may get a chance to do what they enjoy without someone in a suit telling them about "target demographics"). On some level, the recording industry realizes that they are selling buggy whips to an increasingly motorized society and they're starting to panic. The "devil" they point to is the "pirates" (who, according to the first chapter of this series, have been with us for over a century). The same pattern is showing up in movies; remember the shockwaves from Clerks and The Blair Witch Project? Low budgets, big returns, who knew?

So we know that "piracy" is not nearly the issue that the RIAA has made it out to be. We know that copyright laws are seriously gronked (though the intriguing points raised by Mr. Ziemann in chapter 4 about why had not occurred to me). We know that the lawmakers are either ignorant of the damage they're doing, or unconcerned (nothing like a few thousand bucks to soothe one's aching conscience). We know these things because we choose to investigate (even if it's only reading YRO posts on /.). But what about the millions of people who don't read slashdot and/or have never given the matter any thought? How can they be reached?

For myself, I try to spread the proverbial word. I've hooked my little sister on a number of indy bands and I'm working on my nephew. I expose my friends and classmates to college radio and small label bands. I buy my music, for the most part, directly from small labels or places like CDbaby. I'm always experimenting and encouraging others to do so. I try to inform people I know about the damage being done by the DMCA without sermonizing (well, I try anyway). Is it doing any good? I dunno. Probably not much. But maybe it's enough; a couple lines after the above quote, Thomas Paine also said, "Time makes more converts than reason."

Philosophy

[Esion Modnar]

people had fewer mediums to through which to be bullied

Consider this: do the Amish care about the RIAA?

Our possessions and desires imprison us as much as we will let them.

You can trap a monkey very easily with a jar and some peanuts...

So, RIAA can influence us as long as our desire to possess and experience recorded sounds outweighs our desire to strip them of their powers.

Misinformed

[poptones]

Everything you know about the music business is wrong... AOL gives its 30-hour employees better benefits than Warner Music gives Don Henley. Because Don doesn't own his songs, either.

There are lots of little inaccuracies in this "article" that, together, make it classify only, at best, as "a fairly well constructed rant." The above is only one of these inaccuracies.

"The song" is not simply the words and notes. It's highly unlikely Don's old labels could prevent him from releasing live recordings of his greatest hits under any label he now chose - including just giving the damn things away over the internet, if that were what he wanted to do.

What the old labels own are the recordings they contracted him to perform. This is the deal most artists have, in fact. When Avril Lavigne signed away her rights to "Complicated" it's highly unlikely she signed away all rights to the song; what she signed to the label was the recordings the labels paid for in the contract. There may be a barrier to her recording those songs for any other label for a period of X months, but that does NOT mean the label "owns the songs." Songwriters own "the words" and or "the music." Artists own whatever performance rights their contract allows them to keep; labels own their recordings. That's it.

For a fantastic example of this follow the recordings of "Ol' Blue Eyes." Sinatra was with Capitol for a large part of his career (The Capitol records tower in Hollywood was draped in black when he died.), but with every comeback he would renegotiate his deal; if that meant moving to a new label, he was always ready to do so (and did, several times). And each time he moved he'd re-record all those "classics" (most of which were written by someone else) for the new label, taking his (now greatly improved) cut of the sales.

For another example look at Prince (or whatever he calls himself now). He vowed long ago to re-record his entire catalog for his NPG label; last I looked he was too busy with new stuff, but he has, in fact, re-recorded many of them. And there's little anyone can do to stop him. They are, after all, his songs.

Re:Misinformed

[Crashmarik]

Oh theres alot of Jazz musicians that would debate the point.

If you get into older music youll find that the copyrights the record companies want indefinitely extended were acquired by means little better than theft.

Look at leadbelly or many of the other seminal roots of American music. Willie Nelson is a more current example. Youll see artists that were treated worse than I treat toilet paper. Youll also see record companies that are still selling their music and paying their heirs nothing. Whats worse Their are whole swaths of music that are locked up in vaults and may never be released.

Now lets look a hundred years into the future. DRM has been in place for nearly a century. For the sake of argument it actually works. The collected works of artist X are due to come into the public domain. Guess what it doesn't matter anymore. They can't. The DRM is protecting them the record companies don't want someone contributing to the culture that they aren't making a profit on, so the recordings are just left to die. Even if you could bypass the "Strong DRM" it doesn't matter because thats illegal.

Record companies aren't about creating or expanding a market for music, they are about controlling an existing market. If you don't believe that look at what they do to used record and CD dealers.

As long as the means of distribution are thoroughly under the thumbs of the large labels they will be able to pressure artists to sign whatever kind of garbage passes for a contract with them. The fact that their are counterexamples just means that occasionally a few lucy or gifted can win at a rigged game. The game is still rigged.

Obviously...

[PS-SCUD]

Rosen and the RIAA haven't learned much from Edison, since they're still in the dark...

Getting Tired of All This

[reallocate]

I continue to be amazed that people seem to be surprised and offended that other people do everything within their power to profit from their work and their creations. It was as natural for Edison to try to control the market in products he made possible as it is for someone who punches a time clock to try to control the only thing he can sell: his labor.

Get over it. No one is going to change the world or human nature just so a few people can get free music.

pattern?

[sniggly]

Isn't it the medium? Media companies could charge for content because the content had to be sold on a carrier medium, clay tablets, paper, vinyl, plastic.. The internet changes all that. The internet will cause content-creator and end user to contract directly and the middle men will be out of luck. DRM won't ever work because total control is a political illusion with no real footing in reality.

It's not just MS and Oracle that have to be afraid of the `commoditization' that linux/mysql/open source cause. Everything moves towards it.

Back to the days of greek theater....