UK Music Industry Calls For Truce With Technology

Stoobalou writes "The British music industry has called for a truce with the technology firms with whom it has till now fought a bitter battle over rights, royalties and file sharing. Feargal Sharkey, CEO of lobby group UK Music, told a conference in London this week that it was time for the music and technology industries to set aside their differences and strive instead toward a common goal: nothing less than the total global domination of British music."

Comments

Your capitulation is insufficient

[symbolset]

What is the best in life?

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Nothing less than to abolish copyright will do. Copyrights and patents prevent progress in the sciences and the useful arts. They were an experiment that utterly failed.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[LikwidCirkel]

That kind of strikes a nerve with me actually, because, in the world of stealing other people's shit, the only real golden rule is not to pretend you made someone else's shit, and at least give credit where it's due.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[black3d]

Precisely. Which is what GP is advocating - The right of attribution is one of 7 rights which make up "copyrights". My post was tongue-in-cheek. GP opposes copyright, thus, attribution.

Unless he's suggesting he likes all the parts of copyright which don't happen to coincidentally conflict with his morals, but the other aspects can go to hell - in which case that's just all maneuvering fluff.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[MightyMartian]

Certainly there are abuses, like the one-click patent, and artist abuses by record companies, and the term for copyrights is probably too long, but these are things that can be fixed, they don't require an entire revocation of the system.

There seems to be damned little effort to fix the problems. Quite the opposite, legislators and the media industry are going out of their way to make the problems even worse. The system is broken because it no longer serves its purpose, to protect creators, but rather to protect large-scale media conglomerates who would just as happily, and do just as happily fuck over the artist.

The system needs to be replaced. I'll agree that some core principals should be ported over to the new system, but there should permanent and unalterable aspects that sharply limit copyright terms, that set up a regime of severe and economically devestating punishments for chronic abusers. There need to be guarantees that artists have absolute command of their products and sharply limit media companies ability to pretty much write legislation.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[TheLink]

There's a difference between copying and plagiarizing.

Passing off someone's work as yours involves lying or misrepresentation. And "thou shalt not bear false witness" has been around for thousands of years.

Copying someone's stuff doesn't necessarily involve lying.

Anticopying laws in contrast haven't been around that long, and their net benefits to society aren't proven.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, are you really that stupid or just pretending to be?

1) Passing off someone else's work as yours is dishonest. Dishonesty is bad. Didn't your mama tell you that?
2) You can copy someone else's work without making it look like it is yours. When someone P2Ps some music at no point of time is anyone pretending to be the original artist. No dishonesty needs to be involved.

Can you understand that? Read the above slowly a few times if necessary, move your lips if you have to.

If you post all his journal entries, and say they are his work, not yours, and still make money from the ads, that's fine in the absence of copyright laws.

However if you claim to be him, you are doing something wrong, and there are plenty of other laws that would still apply even in the absence of copyright laws.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[black3d]

While there's a difference between copying and plagiarizing - breaching copyright, which was the subject being discussed - and plagiarizing, can often be the same thing.

Interestingly (to some, I'm sure), the right of attribution is the only aspect of copyright which can't be breached on its own. It always must be in conjunction with another breach (most commonly, the rights concerning reproduction and less commonly, concerning derivative works).

So indeed, on it's own, the act of copying and the act of plagiarism are two quite different things (the latter, I agree with LikwidCirckel, is far worse), but fall under the same doctrines in the realm of copyright.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[vadim_t]

Disagree with you on the steam engine.

First, I don't think patents were the issue with getting the steam engine started, as much as the lack of need for it, and the lack of infrastructure. The first engines pumped water out of mines, you don't need such a thing if you don't have a deep mine. Manufacturing a good steam engine was probably beyond Greece's capabilities at the time as well.

The bigger problem in your argument is that patents ensured for a time that improvements to the steam engine (condender and use of high pressure) would not be combined until the patents expired, thus actually retarding progress.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[phantomfive]

I don't know enough about steam engines and manufacturing to comment on your first point, but the guy who wrote the book I referenced seemed to think patents helped drive innovation. As to your second point,

The bigger problem in your argument is that patents ensured for a time that improvements to the steam engine (condender and use of high pressure) would not be combined until the patents expired, thus actually retarding progress.

assuming you are serious about learning about this issue, and your post wasn't merely written to make yourself feel good, you should check out this paper. It is clear that improvements can be made even though an item is under patent, it happens all the time today. In any case there is a lot of discussion (among those who care about such things) about what happens when an area of invention becomes too encumbered by patents. That paper examines some related historical evidence.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[TheLink]

> Since the 18th century.

Only for a very short period have creators in general really been making money their copyrighted work. Copyrights have mostly just benefited the distributors and the monopolists, not the actual creators.

Just look at how much most musicians get from their labels after those infamous accounting methods (similar to Hollywood accounting). In the past distribution and marketing was expensive, so perhaps some of it was justified, but nowadays with technology distribution of music is cheap (and marketing just needs someone clever to make it "viral"). The distributors now provide very little value add to the creators and are more parasites than symbiotes.

If the markets have grown and the cost of marketing and distribution has gone down why has copyright protection kept getting longer and longer and more and more extensive?

Same for the movie, book and software industries. Avatar made 1 billion in about a month. Does it need 120 years? Similar for all the other blockbusters. I cannot believe the costs Hollywood and the Music Industry cite for producing stuff. There's plenty of evidence they are lying.

So nowadays the main benefit copyright provides to a creator is you don't have to compete against your old stuff as much. Once you stop supplying your old stuff, your fans/users will have to do with your new slightly crappier stuff. How does that encourage people do to better?

Supposedly copyright is so that people would be creating more works. But you can see for yourself, great musicians, artists, programmers, etc will create stuff whether or not they are paid for it. They will create stuff for fun, or even because they feel internally driven to do it.

> > and their net benefits to society aren't proven.
> What would you consider proof? How would you go about proving or disproving it?

Copyrights won't scale well and would put a greater cost on us when we have artificial memories and virtual telepathy. This is not far off given that neural interfaces are improving. We are already in the prelim stage with smartphones and other tech. Monopolists will try to charge us more than a penny for "their" thoughts, whenever we try to recall or share something. They will try to DRM our brain and body augmenters, but for what benefit and whose benefit? You would be paying more for less functionality and freedom. Compare email vs SMS.

Is it worth taxing or even crippling more and more people for the benefit of a few? I say no.

In theory copyright can benefit society, in practice does it? And in the future I claim it will cost society more than it benefits it. Hosts can certainly survive with parasites sucking their blood. But just because they can doesn't mean the parasite is providing a benefit to the host, and doesn't meant things can't be better.

If you are a creator and want to make money from your stuff:
1) make it easy for people to find out about you - obscurity is your enemy
2) make stuff many people will like
3) make it easy for people to pay you

The Monopolists don't really help with 1) - often their interests are not aligned with yours, and they want too much for their "help". They want you to be their slave.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[Joce640k]

I found it completely vacuous. What on earth is he on about?

It was but a single "stepping stone" toward the music industry's goal of having people "remunerated for their talent time, effort and ability".

You could start by paying them the royalties you promised them...

PS: Who chose a barely-remembered 1980s singer to redesign the Internets for us?

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[Crypto Gnome]

Certainly the number of inventions and works of art has increased since they were introduced

Yes, but not necessarily as a RESULT of copyrights.

Corelation does not prove causation.

Seriously folks - WORLD POPULATION HAS MORE THAN DOUBLED SINCE THE INTRODUCTION OF CHEAP AND EASILY AVAILABLE CONTRACEPTIVES. .... but that DOES NOT imply that (A) was caused by (b).

IN Fact *many* (many many many) people would argue that BITCH-FIGHTING OVER COPYRIGHTS has caused more harm than good, has ruined many a good creative opportunity, and destroyed what little goodwill a once thriving industry had.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[blackraven14250]

I would have said more parasitic than symbiotic, actually ...

Parasitism is a form of symbiosis. So are commensalism, and mutualism.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[silentcoder]

Does more than 40 GPL'd software projects and Help|About listed contributions to another 200-odd work for you over a period of more than 12 years work for you ?

The only reason they are GPL'd and not public domain is to make sure they STAY available. I would rather prefer NOT to put them in the public domain just so $CORPORATION can change them a bit, copyright it and take away the rights I wanted you to have.

So actually - most of us arguing for a change in copyright law is DEPENDENT for our incomes right now on works that are traditionally covered by copyright. We also believe that we can make a living WITHOUT exploiting our customers rights. The fact that the music-mafia doesn't want to lose their position of privilege isn't much of a counterargument to us.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[vadim_t]

Ok, now I've read the paper entirely.

Now I'm even more convinced that patents are harmful and unnecessary. Even more, I think the paper proves so.

Let's see the timeline:

In 1846, Howe patents his sewing machine. However it doesn't work very well, so nobody wants it. Later that year he sets off to England to try to sell it, and fails miserably. Meanwhile, other inventors keep banging on the problem and gradually fix the problems.

In 1850, Wilson, who had invented and patented some useful stuff has to sell his patents, because he can't afford the litigation, proving that just owning a patent does little good unless you have money for the lawyers. In that year, Singer perfects his machine. Around that time, Howe returns and starts suing everybody in the business. There's much fighting in the courts, and by 1854 Howe wins big against Singer.

After that, for some reason everybody starts suing everybody else, and the mess escalates with huge amounts of resources being devoted to litigation, to the point it has a very negative effect on the whole industry. Howe is the only one who is happy, because everybody owes him royalties, but he's the one not making anything.

In 1856, a lawyer comes up with the solution: let's do a patent pool (the Combination). Howe's cooperation is mandatory, so he's given a guaranteed cash supply for just sitting on his butt. The patent pool includes everything that goes into an useful sewing machine, so anybody wanting to make their own must reach an agreement with the patent pool.

Now, that's wrong with this? Several things:

First, the solution to a patent war was effectively to let go the patents. Everybody in the Combination licenses from everybody else, so the overall situation for them is as if there were no patents. They only need to contend with other people, which gives them a privileged position. My conclusion: patents == bad, since the solution to all the trouble was to agree to ignore the patents.

Second, the members of the pool still can compete with each other, and Singer has the most market share. How does he manage to do that? Not with patents! He pretty much invents marketing, then goes further with selling on an installment plan to compensate for the expense of his product, and giving discounts for competitors' old machines which prevents a second hand market of competitors' hardware. My conclusion: patents == unnecessary, since Singer gets an advantage just fine without them.

Third, Howe sits on his butt and collects royalties from people actually making a product, without manufacturing anything himself. My conclusion: patents == bad, since they're rewarding the wrong person.

Now, where in this do you see that the patents did any good? In this story, the mess with the patents escalates until it reaches the point where nobody but Howe can get anything done. They solve the problem by basically doing as if there weren't patents in the first place. And then Singer gets the most market share, not through proprietary technology, but through his superior business sense. During all of this the happiest one is Howe, who after his initial failed attempt just manages to collect money from everybody else, without doing anything himself.

Overall, without patents this probably would have worked out a lot smoother. People wouldn't have had to waste tons of money and time on lawsuits, the end result would have been about the same, Singer would still win through his good business sense. One difference is that Howe would still be poor, but IMO that's entirely how it should be.

Provide better samples

[Sirusjr]

I really wish the music industry would realize how important it is to users to have an idea what they are getting before they buy it. I buy tons of music from small film music labels who put out limited edition soundtracks and they are by far the best when it comes to providing samples of their new releases. Film Score Monthly posts 1 minute clips for each track on their new release, in low bitrate but at least it usually gives me a good idea what I am getting into. Labels should provide moderate bitrate (192kbps) streams of the music online (or at least half of a new album) and offer lossless downloads for a reasonable price and users wouldn't need to download as much. As it is, most of the time I find the only way to discover a new group is to download an unknown album and give it a listen. I've purchased a number of debut albums and albums from independent artists after downloading their music if I find that it is impressive. There is way too much music out there to do otherwise and still have the finances to support quality music. If labels provided better samples, I would be able to discover the same groups without resorting to downloads.

In other news...

[gearloos]

RIAA sues everyone...

Re:It seems...

[jrumney]

Who needs a good heart when you can pick up another girl in the neighbourhood and get your teenage kicks right through the night?

Ah.

[Black Parrot]

told a conference in London this week that it was time for the music and technology industries to set aside their differences and strive instead toward a common goal: nothing less than the total global domination of British music.

The old "if you can't beat them, ask them to join you" strategy.

If you can't beat 'em, join them?

[cheros]

I see that the call is not to end the war on consumers, then? I note with interest the semantic twist when they talk about "sustainable business models" - it's the music industry that got it wrong (yet again, and again) when it comes to new technology, so there is a mild lack of credibility if they want to tell ISPs and service providers how to make money.

If they would have spent the money that have waisted on unwarranted prosecution, no, pERsecution of their potential customers on researching collaboration from the start we would not have a whole generation of their customers who have seen their friend's lives wrecked by taking the money they needed for school away on frankly spurious arguments, methods evidence and calculations that have now been shown to be so far off the mark it ought to trigger automatic retrial. It sure is a novel way to engender people to your products, but there too I would forego their advice.

Ditto for the film industry. As a legitimate buyer I am getting exceptionally fed up by DVDs taking control of my player so I cannot skip the "you should not steal" bit every time I play a DVD (anything from Disney is worse as it goes straight into marketing afterwards). I bought the real thing with real money, so f*ck off. If I ever have to present to such organisations I swear I will lock the doors and spend 10 minutes droning in the worst possible way about why they should not copy and distribute my material. Every time. Oh, and that they won't be authorised to read it in any other country..

I do not copy music, but I am fed up with being treated and lectured to as a potential criminal regardless.

Oh, and Sharkey? I don't think he really needs to worry about anyone copying *his* music, I can see why he changed jobs..

Re: Be afraid.

[Black Parrot]

In Call-Me-Dave's brand new Britain there is no longer any such thing as quality, integrity, creativity or honesty - just the naked and unashamed lust for cash coupled with a sneering contempt for pretty much everyone.

Sound's like they've finally caught up to the Reagan era.

Translated

[SmallFurryCreature]

We want a truce, if you do absolutely everything we want and obey us without thinking, then we won't be trying to make you do absolutely everything we want and make you obey without thinking. Ain't we nice.

The music industry suffers from the broken window fallacy. Roughly, the kid who broke a window benefited society since money flowed because the window had to be replaced. The fallacy is that the money would have flowed anyway, but NOT in the replacement of something but in investment or the improving of ones life.

If the music industry goes bankrupt, the economy doesn't suffer because it will simply have meant a shift of money.

The record shop has become the mobile phone shop. I don't have a newspaper subscription, I have an Internet subscription. My money flows into the economy. The smart parts of the economy have moved on, the rest is trying to legislate against the car, the electric light, chance itself. Good luck. They might put a man with a red flag on the internet for a few years, but progress moves on. I will simply pirate over a prepaid 3G connection. I will NOT buy CD's. Time has moved on. Move with it or die.

Re:Be afraid.

[funkatron]

FFS, he just a fucking politician. He has no influence on anything.

Re:I hate to break it to you, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that you post your anti-British technology comment using a forum on the World Wide Web...