Discussion boards will be targeted. Many online news sites, like Slashdot, have these forums. If everybody posts DeCSS links every time there's a story on the MPAA... Pretty soon they'll be trying to hold moderators accountable for postings.
Also, this is a pretty obvious example of where they'll use Carnivore... and if they give Carnivore the ability to intercept and block links and emails... Well, even though hackers will be able to go around it, most of the public won't.
In a way, programming is building. So a virus that could blow up somebody's computer is like building a bomb. Posting such a virus would be like distributing bombs.
I can understand why people would feel justified in banning people's ability to post to such a virus.
Judge Kaplin wrote: "In an era in which the transmission of computer viruses--which, like DeCSS, are simply computer code and thus to some degree expressive--can disable systems upon which the nation depends and in which other computer code also is capable of inflicting other harm, society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances. The Constitution, after all, is a framework for building a just and democratic society. It is not a suicide pact."
This sounds like the same language the Chinese government uses when they justify their own human rights violations. They go, "these students, in their attempts to blah-blah, are threatening the stability of China, and are therefore a threat to China's Billion citizens..."
Also, when he says, "on which the nation depends...," what is he referring to? Is he referring to how we depend on computers to make money? How we depend on computers to keep the trans-national corporations rich (the ones that give all that money to Democrats and Republicans), or how we use computers as a medium for free speech?
Is he therefore saying that our use of computers to generate capital is more important than our use of computers for the free exchange of information?
If we have to choose between the loss of intellectual property rights and the loss of freedom of speech, the former is obviously the one to go.
In your example, cocaine is the illegal thing. In the case we're discussing, it's the *telling* that is illegal. The proper analogy is that your neighbour can supply information on how you can get, or make, cocaine. The sign would say, "the guy next door will tell you how to make your own cocaine."
Their are laws banning the possession of cocaine. Fine. However, not only have they made it illegal for me to tell people how to make it, they've made it illegal for me to direct people to where they can get information on how to make it.
The problem is that if this continues, it will effectively make it incredibly hard to use the internet to fight laws that we perceive as injust. We won't be able to tell each other about sites that are involved with a given movement. Information about what's happening (there's a guy on the corner of such-and-such who thinks magic mushrooms should be legal because they grow naturally and he'll tell you where to pick them) will become illegal.
In British ruled India it was illegal to make your own salt. The British had a monopoly. This would be like the British also making it illegal to tell anybody that they can make their own salt simply by going to the ocean to collect it... which is exactly what they did, which is how they eventually overthrew the monopoly, and kicked the British out of India.
If Britain had been able to stop people from explaining how to get their own salt (I know, I know, they already knew. Bear with me), it's possible the movement wouldn't have happened. Britain would still be ruling India. Everybody would have forgotten that they can make their own salt... buying it from the monopoly, who had erased freedom from their minds with their control of information.
Do you know of any other good sites and organizations that are doing something about this? I've got some posted on my website (http://www.thevenue.org)... which I'll have to update soon...
This is only happening because of a popular mystique surrounding compuer language. The motion picture industry wants to control how people watch DVDs.
Say the way to watch DVDs on your Linux box had a regular language solution. You just had to type, "pretty please play this DVD." This would piss the industry players off, but they wouldn't be able to ban people from tellling each other how to watch DVDs on their computers.
If the motion picture industry doesn't want people watching DVDs, they should come up with a way to prevent it that can't be bypassed with information that is simple to explain in an email. It would be like Ford making a car that can be stolen by saying "please open and start." If they're dumb enough to make a car like that, they can't whine about people telling each other how to steal them, and expect the gov't to launch a brigade of mind police to make sure nobody is spreading the news.
The same thing is happening with the music debate. The music industry won't be able to solve the problem of music sharing through technology, so they'll try to use legislation and enforcement. The problem is that the draconian nature of that enforcement will have far more devastating consequences to society than any degree of "copyright infringement."
This brings up a central and serious problem. The single most influential force acting on our democratic and legislative processes is lawyers and lobbyists employed by big business. This is a problem!
Negativeland has an incredible resource on copyright and related issues. Fairtunes is becoming a great place to get involved with these issues. Lots of stuff happening!
I don't think promising tax cuts is currently how votes are purchased. I think it's that a) Parties can raise huge amounts of campaign financing by supporting agendas benifitial to entities and individuals with lots of money and b) having huge amounts of money gives you a rather huge advantage in running for office.
They have elections in Cuba, but Fidel Castro always wins. Perhaps it's because his government owns the media, and it's impossible for anybody else to get any public attention.
I live in Canada, which has a similar system to the States, and I feel very fortunate that I have as much personal freedom as I do. On the other hand, I think it's too bad there is so little public dialog about how we can make the system better. Why are we still using a system we invented in horse-and-buggy days when we could obviously move on?
Why is everybody heralding Napster as the good guys? How was/is Napster looking out for artists? How are they looking out for anybody?
I've got as much issues with the big labels as the next guy, but I don't think we should run off cheering for another company just because that company is bad for the labels. I'm holding out for a company that I think honestly has everyone's best interests at heart... or I'm going to keep trying to push Napster towards launching the kind of services that are going to be good for artists as well as fans (ie. ways for artists to get involved).
Obviously the old music industry is going down. We've all got an opportunity to help mold the new one. Can we PLEASE try to keep artists in mind before we get too caught up in how great "free stuff" is!!!:-)
As an artist, I think I'd be wanting to have my cake and eat it to if I wanted my art to become popular culture, AND expected to stay in complete control of it. Once it's part of the cultural makeover of a society, people in that society have a right to access it. (this is all personal opinion, I admit.)
Not only do I email my book to people for free if they're a little too poor to pay for it, I often GIVE it to people (the actual book, which cost me money to produce) when I think they would enjoy reading it. Fortunately, there are people who still buy my books.
Hmmm. I would like to point out that the costs of making, say, music videos, and getting them to millions of people are a fraction of what they were a few years ago. The one thing keeping small artists from going head to head with big companies is the ability to get people's attention.
That's why I'm into the idea of collaborative filtering (http://www.thevenue.org/ase.html) which works like this: You rate music on how much you like it (or have a built in system that assumes how much you like it based on how much you listen to it). A server compares users tastes, and finds people who *tend* to share your tastes. If a small, unknown band starts becoming popular with people who *tend* to like the same music as you, that band shows up in your music-I've-never-heard-of-but-will-probably-like box. Check out http://www.moviecritic.com as an example.
Speaking of which, I'm putting "Emails from (Over?) the Edge" up on my web site for free asap (in the meantime I'm emailing it to everyone who asks). Since I wrote it, I've been emailing it to people for free if they don't have the money to buy a copy, but now I figure I'll make it even easier.
Mind you, I'll also be setting up a tipjar, so that people who like reading it can give me a buck, which is the amount I would get if a big publisher were publishing it, and they paid $15 for it.
That's a bit like the argument that the companies using child labour in third world contries are doing something good because they're employing people who would otherwise die... I think they're taking advantage of people. I also think it's up to us to decide if we want to support that. Artists sign with labels because they often don't have alternative means of getting their work out. We're now creating an alternative.
Lets take publishing books as an example. It costs about a buck a book to produce books in volume. Books sell for about $15 in the stores. The artist is making about $1.50/book. Where does all the money go?
First off: 40% goes to the bookstores, and it's HARD for bookstores to make a living. That's why they're all going out of business.
Another 20% goes into distribution. Distribution is tough! Shipping, re-shipping, inventory, etc.
A bunch more money goes into publicity. It take a lot of work to get word of a book or album out to the world. Somebody's gotta write press releases, design posters and ads... it adds up.
The music industry and the publishing industry are different, but they have a lot in common (i'm a publisher). However, I can tell you this: Most of the costs of distributing and publicizing music ARE DISAPEARING! No stores = no more paying 40% for stores. Distribution can obviously be done for practically zero, so there goes another 20%, We can set up networks and collaborative filtering systems to take care of publicity (http://www.thevenue.org/ase.html)... suddenly we're at 10-20% of the costs we had before.
With a little audience/public enthusiasm, we can come up with a service oriented business model that will allow the businesses to be profitable even if they're only making 10-50 cents per album... I think;-)
A buck a song seems like a lot. I figure the internet is going to nix 90% of what used to be the costs of publicising and distributing music, so if we're paying 10% of what we used to pay for a CD, the artists should be getting the same they used to get.
You know, I think you summed that all up fairly well:-)
I'm hoping to see a couple of centralized systems of finding and downloading music come into play, where it's easy to plug different payment schemes into them. Keep it open to experimentation, I say.
I like the idea of a cultural this-is-how-artists-are-making-money model based on trust and goodwill, rather than the notion that most people are too greedy or stupid to support artists they like. Some people are, but many have more integrity.
I think the structures we set up and support have quite an effect on new generations. Kids who grow up learning that art and music they like exists thanks to people who know well enough to support artists will be more inclined to SUPPORT ARTISTS!
If a Pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
"The principle that the work you created belongs to you and should be controlled by you is as timeless as it is global... "
There's another side to your story: Many artists (including some big names like Shakespeare) see themselves as conduits, receivers and transmitters, of art, not "creators." I'm one of them. I think my poems, songs, and my book were "given" to me from the world around me. I therefore think there's a limit to how much I should control people's ability to share it with each other.
That said, I think you're right that we're better off if artists can make a living from their work. If I can make a living, I can spend more time "sending and receiving":-)
This has to be weighed by other considerations about what's good for society. For instance: I think the ability to explore culture can enrich people tremendously. I don't think financial limitations should restrict people's ability to explore music and expression. I think the importance of the concepts expressed in art are often of great value. Most social change of the 20th century had a musical movement associated to it. Our ability to participate in social change is connected to our ability to understand social change. Once something has become part of contemporary culture, people have a right to be exposed to it.
The internet has been changing a lot of things. It makes it easy for us to share music and other forms of expression without giving money to the artists, but it also puts us in a position to look out for the artists. We can participate in the creation of the next cultural distribution paradigm! There are obviously many of us who want artists to be able to make a living. Lets make sure they can make a living!
If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
(ps. I just realized I've been using bolds instead of breaks in my last few posts. I feel silly.)
Well, obviously it's good to start something new by looking at all the consequences of the old, and yeah, I think we should look at what is GOOD about the current industry as well as what is bad. For instance, having a group of companies that were making money meant they could back artists. I know a lot of artists who don't have the funds to self produce. If there hadn't been a business model behind the distribution of music... well, the blues, jazz, and 60s music movements might not have happened (along with the social change that accompanied them.) So how SHOULD things work? I, for one (of many), support the idea of a pay-what-you-can system: If we make it easy and affordable enough to give small donations to the artists we support... enough of us will support them to make it a plausible way to make a living. (Buskers make a living, right?.) (If you haven't, check out http://futureofmusic.com) So the question is: If you just listened to an album that you really liked, and you think the band is great, and you could give em a buck as easy as you could give a buck to a busker on the street... would you give them a buck? As an artist, I don't think I should have the kind of control over my work that the RIAA thinks they/I should have. If I don't want people to share my work with each other, I should keep it to myself. I certainly think copyright should entitle me to recognition. People shouldn't be able to alter my work, or pass it along without the contact information that goes with it. A lot of artists (myself included) don't see themselves as creators so much as conduits of art. My inspiration comes freely from the world around me, so I think it should go freely back to it. I have ideas of how I can make a living, but "control" isn't high on that list. I also think the system we support will have a powerful effect on our thinking. I'm suspicious that a culture system based on the concept that people are all theives and have no social conscience encourages people to feel justified going through life stealing and having no social conscience. "Why do I have to pay a dime everytime I want to listen to my favorite song, dad?" "Well, it's because all people are thieves at heart, and will always steal when they can, son." "Oh, so it's natural for me to want to steal, and so I should steal whenever I think I can get away with it..." I'm getting carried away... If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
It's not just that. Copyright laws were origionally created to protect artists and the creators of original works. Over the years, organizations like those represented by the RIAA have put a lot of money towards paying lawyers to slowly move the laws towards favouring industry over artists. I'm not judging them, but I think society's losing out. I'm hoping we'll find ways to put the control of culture into the hands of it's creators and those who enjoy it. If a Pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
I have a minidisk recorder, and it has the best of both worlds, plus it's more portable than either! I can also use it to do interviews and other high quality recordings (that's actually why I got it. The ability to take music around with me is just a bonus.) If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
Remember that mp3s and related hardware are a very new technology. In a couple of years I'm sure we'll have portable mp3 players that can record hundreds of hours of music, all with a handy digital interface and "beaming" technology to share your music with friends. This is very, very new! If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets...
Here's a good question: Do we have a right to explore our own culture? I support copyright to the degree that artists should be recognized for their work, and should be able to gain compensation for their work. However, once their work becomes part of contemporary culture I think we all have a right to access it. An artist doesn't become popular all on their own. Their popularity comes about through a relationship between them and their fans. Should the fans be "compensated" for telling other people about music they like? For singing their favorite tunes around the campfire? For inviting friends to concerts? Remember when Bob Dylan sold the rights to "The Times Are A' Changing" to a bank? A friend of mine commented, "He's got no right. That song belongs to all of us now." I think he had a point. If Bob Dylan didn't want that song to become an integral part of our culture, our history, and our social consciousness... well, he should have kept it to himself. I think we have a right to explore our own culture. At $16/CD, most people can't. Suggestion: Combine a pay-what-you-can type site with a good, user driven, collaborative filtering (http://www.thevenue.org/ase.html) system. Then artists will become popular, and gain popularity, based entirely on audience response.
Just in case you pop back to read replies to your post... Many artists aren't doing what they do for money and fame. They're trying to express something they think needs to be expressed, or they're trying to offer people something as a gift. Culture is an important part of people's lives. It helps give people shared symbols and experiences, which allow them to communicate in meaning ways. Maybe you're listening to the wrong kind of music;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Discussion boards will be targeted. Many online news sites, like Slashdot, have these forums. If everybody posts DeCSS links every time there's a story on the MPAA... Pretty soon they'll be trying to hold moderators accountable for postings. Also, this is a pretty obvious example of where they'll use Carnivore... and if they give Carnivore the ability to intercept and block links and emails... Well, even though hackers will be able to go around it, most of the public won't.
In a way, programming is building. So a virus that could blow up somebody's computer is like building a bomb. Posting such a virus would be like distributing bombs.
I can understand why people would feel justified in banning people's ability to post to such a virus.
Judge Kaplin wrote: "In an era in which the transmission of computer viruses--which, like DeCSS, are simply computer code and thus to some degree expressive--can disable systems upon which the nation depends and in which other computer code also is capable of inflicting other harm, society must be able to regulate the use and dissemination of code in appropriate circumstances. The Constitution, after all, is a framework for building a just and democratic society. It is not a suicide pact."
This sounds like the same language the Chinese government uses when they justify their own human rights violations. They go, "these students, in their attempts to blah-blah, are threatening the stability of China, and are therefore a threat to China's Billion citizens..."
Also, when he says, "on which the nation depends...," what is he referring to? Is he referring to how we depend on computers to make money? How we depend on computers to keep the trans-national corporations rich (the ones that give all that money to Democrats and Republicans), or how we use computers as a medium for free speech?
Is he therefore saying that our use of computers to generate capital is more important than our use of computers for the free exchange of information?
If we have to choose between the loss of intellectual property rights and the loss of freedom of speech, the former is obviously the one to go.
Well he's obviously going to re-iterate by saying it's illegal to post the URL. I assume that's what he meant.
A couple thoughts:
In your example, cocaine is the illegal thing. In the case we're discussing, it's the *telling* that is illegal. The proper analogy is that your neighbour can supply information on how you can get, or make, cocaine. The sign would say, "the guy next door will tell you how to make your own cocaine."
Their are laws banning the possession of cocaine. Fine. However, not only have they made it illegal for me to tell people how to make it, they've made it illegal for me to direct people to where they can get information on how to make it.
The problem is that if this continues, it will effectively make it incredibly hard to use the internet to fight laws that we perceive as injust. We won't be able to tell each other about sites that are involved with a given movement. Information about what's happening (there's a guy on the corner of such-and-such who thinks magic mushrooms should be legal because they grow naturally and he'll tell you where to pick them) will become illegal.
In British ruled India it was illegal to make your own salt. The British had a monopoly. This would be like the British also making it illegal to tell anybody that they can make their own salt simply by going to the ocean to collect it... which is exactly what they did, which is how they eventually overthrew the monopoly, and kicked the British out of India.
If Britain had been able to stop people from explaining how to get their own salt (I know, I know, they already knew. Bear with me), it's possible the movement wouldn't have happened. Britain would still be ruling India. Everybody would have forgotten that they can make their own salt... buying it from the monopoly, who had erased freedom from their minds with their control of information.
Do you know of any other good sites and organizations that are doing something about this? I've got some posted on my website (http://www.thevenue.org)... which I'll have to update soon...
This is only happening because of a popular mystique surrounding compuer language. The motion picture industry wants to control how people watch DVDs.
Say the way to watch DVDs on your Linux box had a regular language solution. You just had to type, "pretty please play this DVD." This would piss the industry players off, but they wouldn't be able to ban people from tellling each other how to watch DVDs on their computers.
If the motion picture industry doesn't want people watching DVDs, they should come up with a way to prevent it that can't be bypassed with information that is simple to explain in an email. It would be like Ford making a car that can be stolen by saying "please open and start." If they're dumb enough to make a car like that, they can't whine about people telling each other how to steal them, and expect the gov't to launch a brigade of mind police to make sure nobody is spreading the news.
The same thing is happening with the music debate. The music industry won't be able to solve the problem of music sharing through technology, so they'll try to use legislation and enforcement. The problem is that the draconian nature of that enforcement will have far more devastating consequences to society than any degree of "copyright infringement."
This brings up a central and serious problem. The single most influential force acting on our democratic and legislative processes is lawyers and lobbyists employed by big business. This is a problem!
Negativeland has an incredible resource on copyright and related issues. Fairtunes is becoming a great place to get involved with these issues. Lots of stuff happening!
I don't think promising tax cuts is currently how votes are purchased. I think it's that a) Parties can raise huge amounts of campaign financing by supporting agendas benifitial to entities and individuals with lots of money and b) having huge amounts of money gives you a rather huge advantage in running for office. They have elections in Cuba, but Fidel Castro always wins. Perhaps it's because his government owns the media, and it's impossible for anybody else to get any public attention. I live in Canada, which has a similar system to the States, and I feel very fortunate that I have as much personal freedom as I do. On the other hand, I think it's too bad there is so little public dialog about how we can make the system better. Why are we still using a system we invented in horse-and-buggy days when we could obviously move on?
Why is everybody heralding Napster as the good guys? How was/is Napster looking out for artists? How are they looking out for anybody?
:-)
I've got as much issues with the big labels as the next guy, but I don't think we should run off cheering for another company just because that company is bad for the labels. I'm holding out for a company that I think honestly has everyone's best interests at heart... or I'm going to keep trying to push Napster towards launching the kind of services that are going to be good for artists as well as fans (ie. ways for artists to get involved).
Obviously the old music industry is going down. We've all got an opportunity to help mold the new one. Can we PLEASE try to keep artists in mind before we get too caught up in how great "free stuff" is!!!
As an artist, I think I'd be wanting to have my cake and eat it to if I wanted my art to become popular culture, AND expected to stay in complete control of it. Once it's part of the cultural makeover of a society, people in that society have a right to access it. (this is all personal opinion, I admit.)
Not only do I email my book to people for free if they're a little too poor to pay for it, I often GIVE it to people (the actual book, which cost me money to produce) when I think they would enjoy reading it. Fortunately, there are people who still buy my books.
Hmmm. I would like to point out that the costs of making, say, music videos, and getting them to millions of people are a fraction of what they were a few years ago. The one thing keeping small artists from going head to head with big companies is the ability to get people's attention.
That's why I'm into the idea of collaborative filtering (http://www.thevenue.org/ase.html) which works like this: You rate music on how much you like it (or have a built in system that assumes how much you like it based on how much you listen to it). A server compares users tastes, and finds people who *tend* to share your tastes. If a small, unknown band starts becoming popular with people who *tend* to like the same music as you, that band shows up in your music-I've-never-heard-of-but-will-probably-like box. Check out http://www.moviecritic.com as an example.
Speaking of which, I'm putting "Emails from (Over?) the Edge" up on my web site for free asap (in the meantime I'm emailing it to everyone who asks). Since I wrote it, I've been emailing it to people for free if they don't have the money to buy a copy, but now I figure I'll make it even easier.
Mind you, I'll also be setting up a tipjar, so that people who like reading it can give me a buck, which is the amount I would get if a big publisher were publishing it, and they paid $15 for it.
That's a bit like the argument that the companies using child labour in third world contries are doing something good because they're employing people who would otherwise die... I think they're taking advantage of people. I also think it's up to us to decide if we want to support that. Artists sign with labels because they often don't have alternative means of getting their work out. We're now creating an alternative.
Lets take publishing books as an example. It costs about a buck a book to produce books in volume. Books sell for about $15 in the stores. The artist is making about $1.50/book. Where does all the money go?
;-)
First off: 40% goes to the bookstores, and it's HARD for bookstores to make a living. That's why they're all going out of business.
Another 20% goes into distribution. Distribution is tough! Shipping, re-shipping, inventory, etc.
A bunch more money goes into publicity. It take a lot of work to get word of a book or album out to the world. Somebody's gotta write press releases, design posters and ads... it adds up.
The music industry and the publishing industry are different, but they have a lot in common (i'm a publisher). However, I can tell you this: Most of the costs of distributing and publicizing music ARE DISAPEARING! No stores = no more paying 40% for stores. Distribution can obviously be done for practically zero, so there goes another 20%, We can set up networks and collaborative filtering systems to take care of publicity (http://www.thevenue.org/ase.html)... suddenly we're at 10-20% of the costs we had before.
With a little audience/public enthusiasm, we can come up with a service oriented business model that will allow the businesses to be profitable even if they're only making 10-50 cents per album... I think
A buck a song seems like a lot. I figure the internet is going to nix 90% of what used to be the costs of publicising and distributing music, so if we're paying 10% of what we used to pay for a CD, the artists should be getting the same they used to get.
You know, I think you summed that all up fairly well :-)
I'm hoping to see a couple of centralized systems of finding and downloading music come into play, where it's easy to plug different payment schemes into them. Keep it open to experimentation, I say.
I like the idea of a cultural this-is-how-artists-are-making-money model based on trust and goodwill, rather than the notion that most people are too greedy or stupid to support artists they like. Some people are, but many have more integrity.
I think the structures we set up and support have quite an effect on new generations. Kids who grow up learning that art and music they like exists thanks to people who know well enough to support artists will be more inclined to SUPPORT ARTISTS!
If a Pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
"The principle that the work you created belongs to you and should be controlled by you is as timeless as it is global... "
:-)
There's another side to your story: Many artists (including some big names like Shakespeare) see themselves as conduits, receivers and transmitters, of art, not "creators." I'm one of them. I think my poems, songs, and my book were "given" to me from the world around me. I therefore think there's a limit to how much I should control people's ability to share it with each other.
That said, I think you're right that we're better off if artists can make a living from their work. If I can make a living, I can spend more time "sending and receiving"
This has to be weighed by other considerations about what's good for society. For instance: I think the ability to explore culture can enrich people tremendously. I don't think financial limitations should restrict people's ability to explore music and expression. I think the importance of the concepts expressed in art are often of great value. Most social change of the 20th century had a musical movement associated to it. Our ability to participate in social change is connected to our ability to understand social change. Once something has become part of contemporary culture, people have a right to be exposed to it.
The internet has been changing a lot of things. It makes it easy for us to share music and other forms of expression without giving money to the artists, but it also puts us in a position to look out for the artists. We can participate in the creation of the next cultural distribution paradigm! There are obviously many of us who want artists to be able to make a living. Lets make sure they can make a living!
If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
(ps. I just realized I've been using bolds instead of breaks in my last few posts. I feel silly.)
Well, obviously it's good to start something new by looking at all the consequences of the old, and yeah, I think we should look at what is GOOD about the current industry as well as what is bad. For instance, having a group of companies that were making money meant they could back artists. I know a lot of artists who don't have the funds to self produce. If there hadn't been a business model behind the distribution of music... well, the blues, jazz, and 60s music movements might not have happened (along with the social change that accompanied them.) So how SHOULD things work? I, for one (of many), support the idea of a pay-what-you-can system: If we make it easy and affordable enough to give small donations to the artists we support... enough of us will support them to make it a plausible way to make a living. (Buskers make a living, right?.) (If you haven't, check out http://futureofmusic.com) So the question is: If you just listened to an album that you really liked, and you think the band is great, and you could give em a buck as easy as you could give a buck to a busker on the street... would you give them a buck? As an artist, I don't think I should have the kind of control over my work that the RIAA thinks they/I should have. If I don't want people to share my work with each other, I should keep it to myself. I certainly think copyright should entitle me to recognition. People shouldn't be able to alter my work, or pass it along without the contact information that goes with it. A lot of artists (myself included) don't see themselves as creators so much as conduits of art. My inspiration comes freely from the world around me, so I think it should go freely back to it. I have ideas of how I can make a living, but "control" isn't high on that list. I also think the system we support will have a powerful effect on our thinking. I'm suspicious that a culture system based on the concept that people are all theives and have no social conscience encourages people to feel justified going through life stealing and having no social conscience. "Why do I have to pay a dime everytime I want to listen to my favorite song, dad?" "Well, it's because all people are thieves at heart, and will always steal when they can, son." "Oh, so it's natural for me to want to steal, and so I should steal whenever I think I can get away with it..." I'm getting carried away... If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
It's not just that. Copyright laws were origionally created to protect artists and the creators of original works. Over the years, organizations like those represented by the RIAA have put a lot of money towards paying lawyers to slowly move the laws towards favouring industry over artists. I'm not judging them, but I think society's losing out. I'm hoping we'll find ways to put the control of culture into the hands of it's creators and those who enjoy it. If a Pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
I have a minidisk recorder, and it has the best of both worlds, plus it's more portable than either! I can also use it to do interviews and other high quality recordings (that's actually why I got it. The ability to take music around with me is just a bonus.) If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
Remember that mp3s and related hardware are a very new technology. In a couple of years I'm sure we'll have portable mp3 players that can record hundreds of hours of music, all with a handy digital interface and "beaming" technology to share your music with friends. This is very, very new! If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets...
Here's a good question: Do we have a right to explore our own culture? I support copyright to the degree that artists should be recognized for their work, and should be able to gain compensation for their work. However, once their work becomes part of contemporary culture I think we all have a right to access it. An artist doesn't become popular all on their own. Their popularity comes about through a relationship between them and their fans. Should the fans be "compensated" for telling other people about music they like? For singing their favorite tunes around the campfire? For inviting friends to concerts? Remember when Bob Dylan sold the rights to "The Times Are A' Changing" to a bank? A friend of mine commented, "He's got no right. That song belongs to all of us now." I think he had a point. If Bob Dylan didn't want that song to become an integral part of our culture, our history, and our social consciousness... well, he should have kept it to himself. I think we have a right to explore our own culture. At $16/CD, most people can't. Suggestion: Combine a pay-what-you-can type site with a good, user driven, collaborative filtering (http://www.thevenue.org/ase.html) system. Then artists will become popular, and gain popularity, based entirely on audience response.
Just in case you pop back to read replies to your post... Many artists aren't doing what they do for money and fame. They're trying to express something they think needs to be expressed, or they're trying to offer people something as a gift. Culture is an important part of people's lives. It helps give people shared symbols and experiences, which allow them to communicate in meaning ways. Maybe you're listening to the wrong kind of music ;-)