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

[phantomfive]

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.

I'd love to hear your evidence of this, because as far as I can tell, there are a lot of benefits of copyright and patents. Certainly the number of inventions and works of art has increased since they were introduced, and certainly they have induced authors and artists to produce more (Winston Churchill, for example), and they have certainly rewarded the creators for the works, and they have made things like the GPL possible. This guy makes a strong argument that the patent system helped drive invention forward: for example, the steam engine was invented over a thousand years ago, but it wasn't until patents made it profitable to invent things that people began applying them to application they could think of. Maybe he's wrong, but it's an argument that needs to be addressed. I would love to hear your arguments.

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.

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

[FoboldFKY]

"Hot water, good dentistry and soft lavatory paper."

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

[spyder-implee]

Yeah, totally agree. This makes me wonder if the Music industry has finally realised we are the ones holding all of the cards, not vice versa. I also love the other Conan movies, and to a lesser extent the cartoon series. "Woman: A pittance to protect you from evil?" "Subotai: I am evil..." "Conan: You're all whores."

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

[davester666]

Hilarious article

[referring to their 3-strikes law] 'This had helped restore the equilibrium between creativity and technology that had, said Sharkey, been out of kilter. It was but a single "stepping stone" toward the music industry's goal of having people "remunerated for their talent time, effort and ability".'

I'm pretty sure 'people' have been remunerated for their talent time, effort and ability before the internet existed, and continued to be up to the present day. I note they make no mention of how the music labels have in the past and continue to systematically rape their 'talent' in every possible way.

'Our future is now totally dependent, totally entwined, totally symbiotic'

Hmm, I'm not sure how exactly ISP's and/or the internet is in any respect dependent on any part of the music industry. If the music industry completely died tomorrow, the internet and ISP's would continue to function just as well if not be slightly faster. Now, the music industry executives coke and whore habits may live or die depending on how many people they can threaten with having their internet connection being disconnected.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[phantomfive]

There seems to be damned little effort to fix the problems.

This is true, but it is because most people don't care about copyright. The people who care about it primarily are content creators, and people who deal with that industry. Many more people are worried about whether Obama is a muslim than the subtleties of copyright.

Even people here on Slashdot, who rage about copyright, often only are aware of a small subset of the copyright law. You may be one of those people. There is a centuries long history of fighting over royalties between song-writers, performers, and publishers. They approach copyright from a point of view that benefits them, just as you approach it from a point of view that benefits yourself. But you aren't willing to put your money on the line in campaign contributions, or by starting a PAC. Those people are, which is why the legislation ends up being slanted towards them.

Meanwhile most people don't care as long as they are able to listen to music or watch movies or whatever. And that's why the system is how it is.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[gmuslera]

Won't be as far as totally abolishing copyrights and patents. Is ok that you have some rights over your creation. But have claims that have a meaning in actual reality, specially the technological one, they can be positive for you and for the rest of the humanity. If digital media of any is freely transfered over the net, then let it be that way and take advantage that it is happening, not just declare that the eath must be flat because you say so.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[mwvdlee]

Anticopying laws in contrast haven't been around that long,

Since the 18th century.

and their net benefits to society aren't proven.

What would you consider proof? How would you go about proving or disproving it?

Personally I think the principle of copyright is a good one, but one that has gotten way out of control. About a decade (depending on the object) of protection should be enough.

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

[Runaway1956]

Sharkey says, "In short," he said, "We want to be number one." Well, a single digit salute to you, Mr. Sharkey, you predatory bastard from the deep.

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

[Znork]

there are a lot of benefits of copyright and patents.

Patents and copyrights are essentially taxation systems, and as with all such transfer systems there's some party benefiting and other parties paying the bill. Compared to other taxation systems, the efficiency grade of 5-20% is horrifically low; imagine if that percentage of funding for any other government scheme was all that actually went to the purpose (ie, the payoff/investment in the creators).

Outright having the state pay for the R&D or pay for music/writing/etc on a per-use base or similar would divert 5-20 times as much money towards the purpose at the same cost to the economy today. Or we could have the same level of production as we have today at a fifth to a twentieth of the cost.

That is fairly concisely summarized as an abject failure. And that doesn't even start to go into the really damaging parts of the system that create problems for derivative or combined works, which are the foundation of creativity. Imagine the number of works we wouldn't have today if Shakespeare or HC Andersen had had permanent copyright...

but it wasn't until patents made it profitable to invent things that people began applying them...

It's always profitable to invent improvements to your production. Saving money means more profit. Whether or not it's profitable to spin off a separate business around that improvement and/or publish it may vary.

But it's more likely that the spread of information is the main driver behind the accelerating pace of invention and creation; more inspiration, more access to necessary knowledge, more improvements by example, etc. Patents used to have a mitigating factor there, as they worked to disseminate knowledge in the previous century. Today, the chance that any invention for which there is an actual application would stay unknown and not get invented half a dozen more times for the duration of a patent is unlikely. Far below the chance that your average invention will be torpedoed by a half-dozen other patents that will prevent it from actually being monetized.

Personally I tend to advocate a system which removes the damaging aspects of copyrights and patents, ie, the exclusivity, and moving over the monetary incentives to something akin to a per-use automatic payout system/mandatory licensing scheme. Instead of getting the right to sue someone who uses your invention you'd get a check from the patent office if someone used your invention, and instead of getting screwed by the media corps you'd automatically get a set percentage of the revenue from anyone selling/profiting from the work. Such funds should further be managed within the government budget (so they can be audited and analysed for cost efficiency and tuned to maximize benefit (do people write more after they're getting $500k per year? or would a payout ceiling pushing the incentive further down the chain create more value for the economy?)) like any other tax/benefit scheme and not hidden away like the current ones are.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[vadim_t]

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,

I am not sure if the situation back then, and the situation we have now work in the same way.

For one there were a lot fewer patents, so it was a lot easier to do something without running into one. These days there are enough that it's near impossible to figure out if you're infringing or not on something. That on its own creates a chilling effect, because you need a patent lawyer if you want to get into that business.

And even that is not new, as your paper mentions:

Foreshadowing the Sewing Machine War that was right around the corner, Wilson also
had the unfortunate distinction of being the first sewing machine patentee threatened with
litigation for infringing another sewing machine patent. After Wilson invented a double-pointed
shuttle in 1848, A.P. Kline and Edward Lee, the owners of the Bradshaw patent,82 threatened
Wilson with a lawsuit for infringing their patent. Lacking the funds to defend himself, Wilson
sold his patent rights to this particular invention to Kline and Lee to settle the dispute.

So there you go, even back then moving into an area where there were any patents was dangerous business, and having a patent yourself did you no good if you didn't have money for the lawyers.

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.

I lack the time right now to read that paper fully, but scanning it a bit I see mentions of: lots and lots of litigation, people being forced to let go their patent due to not having money for lawyers (quoted above), patent trolling, the troll (Howe) making lots of money from the litigation though it wasn't he who solved the final problems (it was Singer), and he wasn't manufacturing anything, a patent pool and a resulting cartel, and I'm probably missing something because I've not read the entire thing.

Overall I don't see absolutely anything good in any of that. It's full of everything that's wrong with the entire patent system, and shows it's been wrong since pretty much from the start. An enormous amount of money goes into litigation, then a patent pool is created resulting in a cartel able to keep competitors out, none of which serves the original goal of encouraging innovation. Instead of being busy competing all those people spent enormous amounts of time and money on arguments, politics and lawyers, and created a system that could effectively stop further competition.

The patent pool isn't a positive outcome of the whole ordeal, it's a perversion and sign that things reached a breaking point. It's more or less a sign of people agreeing "this isn't going anywhere, so let's stop caring about each other's patents", except lots of money had to be spent there, and now they form a large entity that can exclude further competition.

I'll read it in more detail later, but so far I fail to see anything there that convinces me that patents are a good thing.

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

[sjames]

Maybe he's wrong, but it's an argument that needs to be addressed. I would love to hear your arguments.

He's wrong. The "Steam engine" of 1000 years ago was a curiosity, unable to perform useful work. It wasn't for lack of patents, it was for lack of materials and knowledge.

The 17th century (when patents existed) saw some very limited use of steam power but hardly an industrial revolution. Steam power in the late 17th century was quite dangerous since the boilers weren't up to containing the pressure. It wasn't until the 18th century that steam power was finally usefully harnessed. Note that Newcomen (the inventor of the first really useful steam engine) had to contend with the issue of patent infringement as well, even though the holder of those patents had made only incremental improvements to a decades older unpatented design.

It still took until the late 18th century to advance to engines capable of significant power output and even approaching anything we might call efficiency. It wasn't until then that they did anything but pump water.

It looks like even there patents didn't really help much and also did some harm.

There may be some value to IP, but not without a great deal of reform. That reform in the U.S. would almost certainly have to include complete dissolution of the patent office and creation of a new one.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[TheRaven64]

Since someone will no doubt reply asking for a citation, here is an article which describes in some detail how patents on early steam engines delayed the industrial revolution in Britain until after they had expired. It also describes how the James Watt attempted to get patent terms extended several times. He did get the original patent term extended to over 30 years, and tried to get them extended even longer. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?

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

[elronxenu]

'Our future is now totally dependent, totally entwined, totally symbiotic'

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

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[delinear]

Yeah, totally agree. This makes me wonder if the Music industry has finally realised we are the ones holding all of the cards, not vice versa.

No, what this is is that the music industry have basically pushed for and got ridiculous laws that unfairly give all the power to them, and now they're playing the "hey let's stop fighting" card in the hopes that people will make the same assumption as you, that we've somehow "won" and stop fighting. They'd be more than happy with the current status quo, massively biased in their favour as it is.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[Webcommando]

Since someone will no doubt reply asking for a citation, here is an article which describes in some detail how patents on early steam engines delayed the industrial revolution in Britain until after they had expired.

Replying to you not from disagreement but as an opportunity to bring up another source with a bit of a different point of view.

Others have suggested that the very existence of patents is what allowed artisans to start making money on ideas instead of property (which was owned by the aristocrats). Patents, in this scenario, actually allowed for the Industrial Revolution to happen. The history of how the concepts of patents and the legal language around them is interesting indeed and even in the early years had characters who also tried to abuse the system.

Personally, I believe they are necessary to reward inventors. Many of the problems are related to how you define an invention, not patents on their own (IMHO). Of course, nothing is without problems, but for constructed "things" patents work quite well and seam a good balanced of time of ownership with publication for the common good.

Sorry no link, but "The Most Powerful Idea in the World" by William Rosen discusses how patents are one of many parts that enabled the Industrial Revolution as he also explores the history of the steam engine.

Re:Your capitulation is insufficient

[coastwalker]

Who knows. All I know is that I'm sick of the so called music business churning out the same recycled rubbish measured in its merit by the amount of TV exposure time the so called talent has been able to achieve (See the X-Factor entertainment business). The whole business model depends on the business being able to pay for marketing and exclude the opposition, the price of music is the price of that marketing and the talents don't get much of it and do get disposed off after a couple of years. This has been going on for nearly twenty years now and hardly anything has changed. Personally I would like to see the music business completely bankrupted overnight so that something new could come along and replace it. I lived through the UK Punk era and think it high time we saw something similar to sweep away the tedious complacent rubbish that passes for popular music these days. (Oh of course there are always amazing musicians struggling to make fantastic music but a good two thirds of what makes it, is recycled rubbish).

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

[AnnoyaMooseCowherd]

I think you misunderstand. A copyright belongs to the artist, to be used however they wish. If artists are having trouble with their labels, it is between them and the label, no-one else. They don't need pirates telling them what is best for them, or stripping of their copyrights over some nanny-state paternalistic bullcrap. If they don't want to be signed, they won't sign. Conversely, if they are signed, it means they wanted to be signed (or perhaps are indifferent either way). Maybe the figures floating around the internet don't tell us the whole story? A lot of people want the labels to fail, so a misinformation campaign wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

I think the misunderstanding might be yours.

Often once the artist (who is neither an experienced contract lawyer nor someone who has access to, or the money to pay for such expertise), has signed an extremely one-sided contract with the record company (that has both the access and the money) a copyright no longer belongs to the artist. In a lot of cases, neither does control over their artistic careers.

The record company's spin when it comes to online "piracy" is that it is threatening the livelihoods of the artists, whereas it is in fact far more likely that the artists themselves could survive perfectly well in the Internet age, but that the future for the companies is far less certain.

Couple this spin with the fact that the artists' livelihoods are far more under threat from the record companies themselves http://www.gerryhemingway.com/piracy.html, and you will begin to see why people get quite so angry when the record companies insult our intelligence with this sort of BS.

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.

I wonder...

[tacarat]

Will the British porn industry be so daring?

Re:I wonder...

[gmhowell]

Well, anyone who expects people to pay to see Brits fuck IS pretty daring...

It seems...

[Space cowboy]

... that a good heart, these days, is hard to find... Simon.

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?

Maybe it's time

[JoeCommodore]

for Clive Sinclair to come out of retirement and make a new iPod thing or something?

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...

Wow. How arrogant.

[Anonymous Coward]

They should try to find a truce with their customers, right?

No. They prefer to collude with governments, hardware manufacturers, media (when do churches come into play?). We, the customers?

Bah. Just gullets.

It's our fucking responsibility to fight that.

Sharkey

[airfoobar]

I can never make up my mind about Sharkey. There are a few times when he comes off as someone genuinely interested in the wellbeing of British musicians, and there are other times when he comes off as an arrogant prick interested only in the global domination of the BPI. I know one thing for sure: he's not the type who can handle being wrong, and as long as he still stands he will fight for copyright, even if reason and evidence suggest that copyright is a bad thing for musicians and a bad thing for the British people.

In my opinion, his actions have been impulsive, shallow and unpredictable, and I hope he stays out of this debate -- even if he means well at heart. You know what they say about that road paved with good intentions...

Re:Sharkey

[c0lo]

In my opinion, his actions have been impulsive, shallow and unpredictable, and I hope he stays out of this debate -- even if he means well at heart. You know what they say about that road paved with good intentions...

Hmmm.... Good intentions, you say... Let's see TFA:

He appealed for "the ultimate solution", which was a music market place.

Market place... to me, it means: we sell it, you pay for it. Believe me, I don;t mind paying for it, I do mind however who are the sellers.

Market-place: is this the only reason music should be created? Is it the only way music should be distributed?

What about artists earning more from "live music" (touring - like it used to be before the copyright) and a bit less from selling "dead music"?

If the main source of profit comes from distributing the music instead of "living" it, concerts become (already became) only "a channel of promotion for records" (along many others)... perhaps this is why I still enjoy better going to "jam sessions" - at least music just happens then-and-there - I'd hate to see them disappearing because a corporate dick thinks them as "a less efficient way of promoting a record".

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.

Global domination?

[gmuslera]

- Pinky, you are pondering what i'm pondering?
- I think so UK Music... but do i really need to buy?

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..

global domination of British music

[Errol backfiring]

Britannia Rules the .WAV!

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.

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

[hoggy]

...UK Music are not the UK music industry. Sharkey is a lobbyist with a bunch of artists on his side, but he doesn't speak for any of the publishers/labels.

I mean it's a refreshing opinion, but it doesn't represent any grand outbreak of common sense.

Screwed...

[Bert64]

If you look at what the content industry is doing in places like china and russia, they get legitimate music (like the service nokia recently launched) much cheaper than its available in the west, plus its drm free...
Similarly, cinemas are much more pleasant places to be in asia, not the dirty smelly overpriced places you get in europe... And they get DVDs released a lot earlier than other places.

Why is this? because piracy is rampant in these places and its forcing the industry to try and compete, in the west the level of competition is kept artificially low because the content industry has the government in their pocket, and so we get an inferior service at a much higher price.

the steam engine

[oliverthered]

brilliant choice,

You do realise that due to a patent on highly inefficiency low pressure condensing steam engine, a guy who had a much better more efficient one (possibly high pressure I can't remember) the world was stuck with crappy steam engines.

Also Stevenson's rocket benefited from quite a number of inventions that weren't copyrighted (for instance tubes running through the firebox as part of the boiler)

Mathematics has done really well, despite not having patent and computer software would benefit from no parents, so why should other more abstract things be much different?