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Eric Baptiste Weighs In On Copyright Summit Issues
With the upcoming biennial summit of authors and composers in Washington DC, The Register has an interview with Eric Baptiste, head of the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC), that touches on some of the hot issues. "There's no one-stop shopping anymore. We were working to put that in place in the Santiago Agreement [2000] which got struck down by the European Commission [in 2004]. It would put together all the world's repertory and enable one society to grant a worldwide license. That was a very bold move. It's a pity it was not appreciated at the time by the European Commission."
We can bring together music, text, video, news, everything, to one agency, simplify things, save the economy a billion a year probably! I want 10%.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
"Put together all the world's repertory and enable one society to grant a worldwide license..."
He's talking about torrents, right? ;)
No, you don't know how to make your world spin with those rules. They seem to be working fine for software developers, for instance. And last I checked, Trent Reznor wasn't exactly living in grinding poverty.
Translation: "If you just want to stream content (notice it's about listen or watch one piece of media, not own a copy of) from some centralized repository that's maintained of your control, don't worry your pretty little head about whether the artist is getting anything, because it's all going to a 'society' or 'agency' with a bunch of letters in its name. We need to obfuscate it so nobody sees it. If it's B2B, then we can finally nip that Artist-to-Consumer thing in the bud."
Again, the perspective whereby neither the people creating the music, nor the people listening to the music, are customers. They're the products. The user or customer is always some form of middleman, distributor, or licencing society.
"I don't like arbitrage. Arbitrage makes it very difficult for us middlemen to maintain the value of 'our' rights. All those users would buy it somewhere else, for cheaper. That's an irrational business for middlemen -- middlemen aren't supposed to compete against each other for customer dollars or artists' contracts. We're supposed to be a cartel, all of us working together, competing only insofar as to the degree as to which we can rip off the artists and listeners within our individual fiefdoms."
Fuck that noise, Eric.
Now it's like physics - value is never destroyed, it goes somewhere else.
Unfortunately, the rest of his comments came across as clueless. He seems to waffle on any direction to take, and instead provides half-hearted statements about possibily, maybe, some-day, exploring something different. IMO, there's nothing else new here, but a general feeling that he wishes the copyright situation would just return to "normal."
Fuck that noise, Eric.
Here, here! Fuck that noise indeed, Eric! Fuck it indeed.
And once you do, I'll be the first to call you a "noise fucker". Why? BECAUSE YOU'RE A SCOTT!
Oh, how I love this Slashdot ribaldry!
What is it with these 'copyright holders' that makes them think they're supposed to live forever of one weeks work.
Wouldn't it be better for the community if they worked their entire life producing new stuff for whoever wants new media.
Eric would like you to believe that, "there is no business if everything is for free.", which is not simply true, and not really the issue. In fact, there were a lot of successful artists and art long before copyright ever came along. Copyright is a good thing, but not when it's been corrupted and misused by corporations and non-contributing freeloaders. The real truth is that an artist could do quite well with the seven years of being the sole legal owner of the right of reproduction of their art. The founding fathers were smart enough to limit the term to a reasonable number of years, why can't we respect their original intentions? Furthermore, aren't we risking the very usefulness, and relevance, of an up to date public domain?
No, you don't know how to make your world spin with those rules.
Correct. What the Internet has wrought is extremely simple copying and distribution. What this does is make the RIAA and all their middlemen completely irrelevant. Hello, record companies: We don't need you. We don't want you. Go away.. Yes, there is room for promoters, but there is no reason why need record companies. We don't need records, hence we don't need record companies. It's just that simple. Record companies provide zero value add.
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This content is worth nothing without an audience, and our intention is to make it widely available - but at the right price, a price that rewards the labour of people who are producing those great works.
I like this line, because it sort of encapsulates the paradox of trying to force your audience to pay for content when they are pretty clearly demonstrating a willingness to either "steal" it or jump to other content that is provided for free if you make it at all expensive or inconvenient for them. Your content has no value without them, but you want to be able to screw them over at the same time, essentially. Seems like a pretty clear case of trying to have your cake and eat it too.
Now, granted, I'm only an amateur artist/writer/composer, but I am pretty content just to have the audience. As a thousand other small content creators have said on Slashdot in a thousand similar comments before, this notion that people are going to stop creating stuff just because they aren't getting paid for it is demonstrably false. A lot of us do it because it's fun, like fixing motorcycles or watching television is to other people. You can make some sort of argument that the existing system provides "valuable" gatekeeping and quality control if you want, but then you are getting into the murky waters of subjective tastes and preferences, not to mention the vested interest in not having to compete that the "established" artists and composers who are the membership of these societies possess.
The short of it is that the old business models just won't work anymore and these guys are kicking and screaming on the "artists'" side in the same way that the various publishing/distribution associations are. This guy points out himself that concerts and live broadcasts are still doing pretty well. These are clues about the sort of thing that have actual monetary value now; it will take more experimenting and time before new models are worked out and clear paths are found to monetizing content that does not require some sort of physical presence to experience.
I don't think anyone actually has all the answers yet. I have some friends who are semi-professional content creators (musicians, mostly) who are grappling with this more directly, and even they don't have all the answers, but they seem to be doing okay performing locally and giving away their recordings essentially as advertising to fill seats at gigs. For my part, I'll just keep making stuff and throwing it online. I figure if the audience gets big enough, I might be able to eventually do it full time, which is enough of a dream for me.
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No, you don't know how to make your world spin with those rules. They seem to be working fine for software developers, for instance. And last I checked, Trent Reznor wasn't exactly living in grinding poverty.
I understand why you picked him, but he isn't exactly the poster child for that business model. As in, it is easy to give your music away for free and make money with concerts/merchandise/etc when you are already famous. It is harder to rationalize doing that when you are a poor artist trying to get a break.
There was a /. discussion of the free Radiohead album release that went along these lines.
Manages to contradict himself!
"It happened with YouTube here in the UK.
We have a dialog with them to try and understand what they need - because they are very relevant. But based on what I know, when they decided to pull all the UK premium content - despite the PRS not requesting that - that was not helpful. It gives the impression that rights societies are difficult to work with and willing to withdraw works from the public. But nothing could be further from the truth. This content is worth nothing without an audience, and our intention is to make it widely available - but at the right price, a price that rewards the labour of people who are producing those great works."
and a little further...
"We need to rely on a mix of understanding licensing terms, and being able to experiment, and if the business has no turnover the rights owners should not subsidize the business by giving the content away for free. If you don't pay your electricity bill you'll get cut off."
I guess that HE wants the power to turn it off, but doesn't want to let others make the decision. But I just love the direct contradiction.
And I just love this -- in reference to ISPs and the pricing of broadband:
"That's another aspect of the destruction of value. If you wanted to price them at fair value you would at least need to be an order of magnitude higher than it is now."
So, I guess my broadband should be $400 a month, and $360 of that should go to him?
Wow, just... wow... Unbelievable.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
How do performers become famous? I really don't know any who DON'T give away their music. Now, that music MAY become valuable, in which case there would be an "economy" surrounding that exact product.
Honestly, it doesn't happen a lot.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
The radiohead album sucked and now they're crying about it?
In the name of most EU Internet users: Fuck off!
We will pay for a proper service, not stop wanking and deliver something worth buying. When P2P service is easier and faster to use then yours system, you got a problem.
I can cry with you if you want, but since the dawn of Internet, piracy was never easier and there is absolutely no reason for this to change, ever. Cry, pray, scream, it ain't gonna work.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
And it should be transparent. If you're a member of the public and you just want watch a movie or listen to a song, you shouldn't need to be a copyright expert.
Then why not let people use the media they bought how they wish?
You shouldn't need to worry how much is going to the society, and how much is going to the real people behind those entities.
So he wants the content industries to be able to screw the artists without anyone ever finding out?
It would put together all the world's repertory and enable one society to grant a worldwide license.
And who gets to set how much does a license costs? Eric? Governments? The UN? The content industries? Whoever does end up setting the costs, it wont be the artists themselves or impartial members of the public.
If they want to have a global society then do it properly and with realistic limits.
. Set copyright to 20 years on ALL works.
. Stop requiring massive licenses for every 15 second piece of media played in a video/movie.
Maybe something like a standard rate of x% then for each additional piece its 50% more.
. If the copyright holder is not the person who created it then the copyright ends when they die.
. If you're going to have a single global society then content companies cant restrict where you buy your media.
No region codes & no country specific limitations.
So let's pick a niche band that is utterly dependent on piracy (their own words). It works for all types of artists, if you do it right. The trick is that you actually have to work and keep writing new songs and doing shows and such instead of writing one hit and sitting on your ass collecting a toll every time someone listens to it somewhere.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
He's actually right. There is no business if everything is for free. But nobody is suggesting that everything be free. Only the things that make sense to be free. When the incremental cost of duplication is nothing, then the price should logically be free. Assuming that you understand supply and demand economics. So what you do is you use your free content to entice people to pay for something. Hell... look at all those free flyers in the supermarket... and they cost money to print! This talking about letting everyone else do the work of copying stuff for you, you don't have to lift a finger. You get people listening, you can find fans who will pay for exclusive access, for tickets, for shows, for new music, for all kinds of things. The problem here is that Eric doesn't want to lost his position of gatekeeper and tollbooth operator between artists and the public. He doesn't want to see his middleman, leech-like business model go by the wayside. Right now, he doesn't have to provide any value to artists or fans because he just controls access due to legal blockades. He contributes nothing to society, to culture, to anything, and he gets paid very well for it.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Before there was copyright the primary way an artist was "successful" was to have a wealthy patron. Often a king or other noble. The problem was, as Mozart found out, if you do not deliver what your patron wants you stave pennyless and die a tragic, early death. Clearly, art was the domain of the nobel class and no others.
Sure, there were various minstrels and the odd performing troupe here and there, but I wouldn't call them successful unless you count "not starving to death" as being a success. I'm sure there were plenty that did starve to death, but you will note that as few as a couple hundred years later nobody knows about them. The only artists that are known are those that had wealthy and powerful patrons. And no, I don't think we are looking at the absolute top 1% of the talent that existed. We are looking at the ones that were (a) adequate and (b) had a patron.
Everyone else, talented or not, is forgotten.
I'd say the "new business model" that keeps getting touted is exactly where we were 400 years ago.
Yes it should be shared for free. So please post your Credit Card number for all of us to see. Show those record companies. Put up or shut up.
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That's a fallacious argument, to be sure, that because the cost of duplication is zero, then the price should be free. The way that equation works is that the number of copies approaches infinity, the price of each individual copy approaches zero. But each individual copy is never free, because there is always a) an incidental cost per copy, and b) a cost to create the first copy.
For your postulate to hold, the incidental cost must be zero, and the original copy must cost nothing to produce. What is really happening, however, is that as the number of copies increases, the original cost is distributed across all extant copies so that each copy costs a+b/(n) where a and b are as above and n is the number of copies. If the incidental cost is trivial ($0.0001, for example), you can get very close to free indeed but you can never reach it.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Your argument seems self-defeating. The primary goal of the record companies and their primary reason for existence is promotion; getting CDs to stores, in iTunes, on Amazon, etc; getting them played on the radio; making music videos and getthing those played, etc, etc. I imagine that actually pressing CDs is probably a trivial part of their business.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
The patron system had some advantages, to be sure, but as you point out, it really depended on your patron. If your patron was wealthy and willing to wait, you got some marvelous things, like the Sistine Chapel. The problem is, there are relatively few of those; copyright attempts to extend at least some measure of protection to the entire populace to ensure a much wider spectrum of creators.
Which is, as I think we agree, why that system went out of style 400 years ago..
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
You gotta get signed by a big label, else you'll get nowhere.
You gotta get on the radio or you'll get nowhere.
And if they don't want to produce your work any more, you'll get nowhere.
It used to be The Earl Of Dorchester. Now it's BMG. Or Sony/EMI.
Net difference? Fuck all.
PS what's happened to the people in Bucks Fizz? One is running a fish-and-chip van. Those being pushed by the label are there. Everyone else is lost and forgotten.
I agree. His cluelessness (or dishonesty) is deep.
there is no business if everything is free
Free? No. Far less expensive than in the recent past, thanks to technological advances, but not free. Storage space and bandwidth costs money. But content monopolists seem unwilling to share any of this bounty, this technology dividend. They also are unwilling to allow the technology to be used to its full potential, for fear of losing control they have already lost anyway. This severely limits its value to all of us. He can't see it. He'd rather rake in 90% or more of a small pie than 1% of a pie 1000 times the size, all the while whining that they deserve 90% of the big pie.
in many new countries the courts don't understand copyright.
He talks as if toll booths are the only way to make money. All this babbling about rights and value and licensing. And then this insulting talking down as if 3rd world countries don't understand copyright. As if he does. They understand it alright, far better than he. They know very well that intellectual property is a tool that rich nations used to wring even more from poor nations.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Masnick's Law strikes again.
No, it's not a fallacious argument. You just don't understand economics. If the cost of duplication is zero, then there is no way to charge for each incremental copy other than by artificially controlling and distorting the market. Note how I NEVER said that because the PRICE was free that the value was zero. Those are two very different things. The incidental cost has no bearing on the duplication cost. It's a sunk cost, and investment, a write-off, if you will. You use it as the basis, the investment, to make your services and the actually scarce goods that you control that much more valuable.
Let's use a different example... oxygen. It's "free", and for all intents and purposes it's infinite, but we all know it really isn't. Yet, somehow, people make money by compressing it into cylinders and selling those, or adding perfumes to it and selling sniffs. Which are scarce products, built on the free one.
The media market should work in the same way. Once a recording is made, it has no price due to free duplication, but it has great value in getting the creator publicity (assuming it's any good). The creator can then charge for scarce goods tied to that free, yet valuable, infinitely copied data. Signed albums, t-shirts, hanging out with fans, whatever. Lots of things that are scarce that people will pay good money for. The thing missing is that there's no RIAA, no A&R man, nobody being the "gatekeeper" as to what's good and bad, as to who succeeds and who doesn't, as to who gets heard and who doesn't. The economics, if they worked naturally instead of through the distortion of asinine laws, would enrich society as a whole. It'd just make fewer "super stars", and it'd make the people who call themselves artist representatives and such actually work rather than simply act as toll-collecting gatekeepers.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Hardly self-defeating. You are aware that getting things on to iTunes or Amazon is incredibly easy if you're independent, correct? Even going through an aggregator isn't that difficult. And the RIAA et al aren't doing much in the way of promotion any more. Most artists don't get music videos unless the song's already popular, since the music video channels don't run many videos any more, unless the artist is popular. Most people don't listen to regular radio, but either speciality stations or internet radio, again, both can have independent music submitted to them. The only time it would be useful is if you're playing large (stadium-type) concerts, and most artists never get that far. Record companies as they currently exist aren't there for the little artist. They're focused on the stuff they *know* can make them money. They don't wanna promote something that might tank.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
The trick is that you actually have to work and keep writing new songs and doing shows and such instead of writing one hit and sitting on your ass collecting a toll every time someone listens to it somewhere.
Wait. Is that supposed to be the downside for the public?
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
You are about 99% wrong. The cost of duplication is effectively zero. Basically the cost of some small percentage of electricity. There is no cost to create the "first copy", the cost is 100% tied up in creating the "original". That is the only significant cost and it has absolutely nothing to do with copying the original.and making subsequent copies. If you want to get really pedantic you can include the percentage of all costs directly associated with the copying (internet service, datacenter electric, heating/cooling, etc...) Even if you add all that up the direct costs for the 10 seconds of download for a song or 10 minutes for a movie comes to less that $0.10. Possibly under a single penny under some circumstances.
Your line of thinking is purely a business abstraction on how to extract value from the original. It has nothing to do with the actual cost of duplication. It just so happens that with the internet the control of duplication has slipped out of the companies hands and the costs are effectively zero. This basically means that your way of thinking for valuing a copy now has fundamental flaws and you should find a smarter way of extracting the value.
Go read up on topics like "artificial scarcity" and "supply and demand".
I mean seriously this has been coming since the invention of the personal tape recorder.
How does that invalidate my comment? They're there to promote what they know will make money. The actual printing of 'records' (CDs) is fairly trivial.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
I can't claim to be an old-schooler, I read /. a lot before I finally gave in and joined. I can honestly say that in all of my years reading this site, this comment may be one of the dumbest. This is quite a feat, and I salute you!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
I think you're distorting the original argument I responded to. You said the cost of copies should be free. I pointed out that regardless of whether or not the cost of distribution is zero, the cost of copies should not be free. You still need to extract your original investment, which necessitates at least some price per copy. Not all these copies need to cost the same, certainly. But if you sink costs with no expectation of return on that cost, economically, you're an idiot.
That's an entirely different argument, though. Essentially you're suggesting that you should make a sunk investment in the music itself in order to reap rewards in the selling of other things. That seems to be a silly argument at best. What if I have no interest in making t-shirts or signing albums or hanging out with fans? The music has value. If it didn't, people wouldn't listen to it. It's only economically sound in that the costs of copying a t-shirt or signed album and selling it are non-trivial and therefore people are not likely to counterfeit them.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
400 years ago? Are you saying that Bach, Mozart & Beethoven weren't dependent on patrons?
I'd say the "new business model" that keeps getting touted is exactly where we were 400 years ago.
Except that the patron of the 21st century is the public at large or, as an economist might put it, the marketplace. The artist can now have a direct, unfiltered feed directly to his customers rather than go through cumbersome expensive middle men. The only reason an artist may not want this unprecendented power is that someone has been feeding him misinformation about it. No prizes for guessing who that someone might be.
sigs are hazardous to your health
Why should there be a downside for the public? Or the artist for the matter, unless they believe their music is worth more than those who listen to it do.. I'm sure there's a word for that somewhere.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, all the world looks like a nail.
Correction: When the only tool you've ever used is a hammer, the whole world looks has to be beaten into the form of a nail.
The copies should be free because the economics work that way. Just like grass should be green. Sure, there are a few exceptions, just like you can sell some copies, but those aren't the rule. You're not an idiot for sinking a cost without expecting a direct return on that product. You're an idiot for sinking a cost with no thought about how you're going to use it to make money. Do you expect to get a return from buying a computer by reselling the parts? Or do you expect a return from the work that the computer enables? Did you go through school expecting to get paid to go to school? Or did you get a degree in order to make money? Same thing with a recording. The free distribution enables you to be popular, it enables you to do other things worth more. Feel free to try charge for copies. But expect to fail because you're spitting into the wind. Don't think the wind is wrong when it changes direction... figure out how to work with it. That's why sailboats can still make headway going into the wind... they just don't attack it directly.
I don't want to do all the parts of my job, either. That doesn't mean I don't get to pick and choose what I do. If you don't want to do the fan service, then you aren't going to be a very successful artist. That's how the real world works. Just because you don't like that a new technology has changed the landscape doesn't mean that the law should limit the technology. It means you should use it to succeed. Or do you think that buggy whip manufacturers should have been legislated into success, and cars should never have been allowed to drive without someone walking in front of them waving a red flag because that protected the way people thought transportation should be done, it protected the horse stables and breeders and street cleaners?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
With apologies to Bill Clinton: It's the business model, stupid! The business model was based on the fact that musicians needed to a cut a record deal to get promoted. THe power of the RIAA was all about the fact that they were the ones that got music distributed.
It's not needed anymore. Promoters should be hired by the artists. And since promotion can be done by the artists themselves, professional promoters should be consultants. And their fees should be comparatively a lot lower.
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Troll. Unsupported nonsense. Try a reasoned response next time.
The legal system actively halts posting identity numbers on websites. It can and will eventually halt posting mp3s, pdfs, mpgs that belong to others.
Put up or shut up. Post your financial numbers. Like an mp3, it is just data, free for anyone.
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I looked, but I can't find mod parent -1 gibberish. Feel free to interpret as you see fit. (But i you find English out of that last sentence, I'm coming back to call you on it.)
The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures (Junius)