The Fan Plan
1/19/05 Update: Hatch, while removed as Chair of the Judiciary Committee is now chair of a subcommittee on Intellectual Property... do we have to offer this guy an indie label? Doesn't Michael Moore have a film he could score or something?
It occurs to me, particularly after the previous post and some conversations I've had lately that focused on the positive things copyright protection offers, that I need to do more here than complain. It's time to offer up some kind of direction, some kind of vision or plan. Basically, we need to have the top 2% of our music in the public domain and the rest subject to compulsory licensing for use over the internet in order to recoup music's previous prominence. But first we need to raise the profile of this issue to insure fairness.
I think all certified gold records should go into the public domain. In England, once you get to a certain level, you're taxed at 90%, so Elton & Paul don't end up owning the place. U2 outgrosses Ireland, they could run the place, instead they support it. The point is, it's not that unusual to take a steep increment at the far side of income.
Gold records got that way because the public loved the record, bought it, paid money, we have a stake. We made these hits into what they are today by listening, learning, singing and adopting them into our hearts. People who make gold records will still have a lot going for them, people will still want to make records great so they'll have a chance of going gold.
The original artist can still sell records, perform, whatever, it's just that now others can sample, mashup, add their own stuff to the original whole or bits, play it in bars, record their own versions which might be better or worse, go ahead and try... all for free, without having to ask anyone. Regular folks and aspiring artists of all levels can also burn their own playlists, or the original album playlists, and sell them on streetcorners, not just in NY. We can give a grace period of 5, 10, 15 years before they become public, or at least come under some type of Creative Commons license. Another possibility is to just take all songs written before 1960, or '65 or '70.
The point is to identify good quality songs, the ones that are really integral to our culture, that have already returned substantially to their creators, and free them up completely. It should be a badge of honor to be accepted into the public domain. Making it completely open is the key because of the tendency of those closest to ownership, and thus with the power, to complicate & exploit whatever restrictions are in place in order to skim off more profit. The superior knowledge always gets used against those trying to enter. In this case we are trying to free music up for the public, which has almost no knowledge of complex copyright law. Freeing the music (remember my slogan?... still need to make those T-shirts) would be a huge, exciting, newsworthy event that would invigorate the dying music fanbase.
Those with the master tape can still advertise that fact and charge a premium for it. Quality does degenerate with each copy, so the knockoffs never sound the same and for truly good music, people will pay a few bucks for fidelity. A few thousand of our most basic, classic popular riffs & songs would be like a treasure trove for all these burgeoning new tech savvy artists. You do a complete bye on royalties for the biggest cash infusions to the least productive, leechy aspects of the music business, decimating the most unsavory players, and still preserving rights for people writing songs and recording music.
Artists putting out good music will be unaffected unless they go gold (some 1% of the time), in which case, they can still make lots of money, possibly, if they were smart vis a vis their label. At least that issue will have to be addressed between bands and labels more directly. They still get visibility and leverage which they can use to establish themselves as a brand, an entity. They can parlay that status somehow, if they are smart. The oppotunities are certainly there. As long as they produce good work, they will continue to thrive. Isn't that how it usually goes... work, earn, build something.
Most gold records are by established artists who have absolutely no sympathy from me once their net worth goes into the millions. They have to cough up some of their lucre in taxes anyway, just make the take at the song level, where it can enhance our culture. Not only won't it inhibit them, it will encourage them to write new stuff instead of living endlessly off their first hit.
We live in a fast-paced society here, let's look to the future instead of petrifying the past. After 50 years of modern, post Les Paul music, there is not the base of fundamental riffs and melodies that was untapped in the 50's. We have to build from a much different clay pit here. We need to build up some of these basic tunes into more complex entities and that is exactly what is happening, illegally, with mashups. It should be legal, and encouraged.
Hillary Rosen makes the point that if people can pass property to their kids, why not copyrighted intellectual property? Land is very different from intellectual property. First of all it's much more finite and has intrinsic value. More importantly society does not have the same type of interest in freeing land for the public. While we do seek to preserve open space, at least in CA, land is not integral to our culture the way music is and it can not be dispersed productively into society, the way music can. Passing money from one generation to the next is also different. One is a fungible lingua franca, the other has unique value.
Moreover, cognizant of loopholes here, the law does in fact seek a huge chunk of property upon death through estate tax and what I am proposing here is very analogous to that. When we allow individuals too many rights, for too long, at the expense of the public, it needs to be addressed. And we know who the owners are here, we're not protecting these black artists in the 50's who contributed so much to our culture and got nothing in return.... we're protecting those who exploited them unconscionably.
Websites, TV shows, movies, mashups, podcasts,.. whatever it is you're making, the music can be much less of a headache. If freed up, these great songs will be everywhere and I guarantee you it will invigorate us like Napster did. People will sign on to new free music channels coming through cable, into their computers, start doing garage band, ringtones, karaoke, playlists, getting creative in small individual but consumeristic ways. While folks are getting the music they'll still be taking in ads, there is a huge economy there. If you don't believe me, ask Google.
Songs that haven't made it to gold status should make money selling CD's the old fashioned way to the fidelity oriented, or those without internet, still many folks. But we should have some sort of compulsory licensing system like the one I discussed in my EFF post (12/27/04) for those who can and want to download music from the internet. The thing is, compared to the limited public domain I describe, compulsory licensing can be a logistical nightmare. The music industry is already so bogged down by the complex system of ownership rights and payment modes that creativity is stifled.
Music is already free on TV & radio, but now it would be interactive and controllable, portable...much more fun. We already have the clip art type loops on Garage Band and others but this would increase the fun and creativity exponentially. The few thousand songs we're talking about here will soon become so overplayed it will make you long for muzak, making us hungrier than ever for fresh sounding artists, and new ways to combine the old standards. So, that's the big change I would propose for copyright law. The other changes are already occuring as the internet hooks us up musically.
The future is in sites like Soundclick, link above, which will get more geographically relevant and more a part of the fabric of people's lives. Artists should be able to upload original patchwork quilt music as easily as I'm now blogging, put it on a site where others can find it. On Flickr, where I keep my photos, someone, somewhere, liked my art and said so, right on the site. Well, in the future my local friends and far off strangers should be able to hear what I'm doing, comment, put up their own stuff, add to mine, email it, use it to audition for bands, get exposure & gigs for your band or video or recording projects... all online... where it can not only be heard and seen, but purchased or hired. Let's get the language of music out there on the internet and enjoy it.
Let's hope with bought off fucking Orrin Hatch out of his chair we can get some kind of rationality here. Yes, RIAA bought the senior Senator off by getting his music into the Oceans 12 movie. He turned his back on his "principles", which were apparently to become known as a songwriter instead of a fair and decent legislator. I've never seen such egregious governing and the fact that he could get away with something like that really says a lot about how far this issue is under the radar here. We need leadership and logic on this issue and this is what we've got... a righteous Mormon selling out our culture for his own personal gain and a bunch of paid lobbyists. It's outrageous.
The proponents are so busy in the courtrooms and backrooms, they barely bother to reach out to the public. We need an Abbie Hoffman, or some type of popularizer, for this movement. So far, Hank Barry is the closest we've seen. He sure tops sell-out Shawn, but Abbie was a committed revolutionary, and at that time we were talking about drafting kids, not rock & roll. All we have now is some businessmen, industries and politicians plus some movement in the universities and legal & political groups but we still need a unifier and publicizer. This could be a positive, creative revolution, a renaissance. We shouldn't lose this opportunity.
Lessig, Steele, Stoller, Pavlosky...all have done great things, making inroads on the campuses, courts & Congress. I hope one of them, or someone on the horizon, is media savvy and charismatic like Hoffman & Rubin were. Many of the artists. like Bowie, Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews & David Byrne make statements but won't really assert to a full-on role. It's a huge role and sacrifice and a long fucking way to go, but think about how long the Vietnam War might have dragged on had middle-class Americans not had to watch American children beaten by cops and shot by Guardsmen on our streets. I'm not at all saying we need to go to those levels. I'm a pacifist.
But Abbie & Jerry knew exactly how to work the media & we need to get control of the message here. I'm a closet "pirate" no more, that's for sure. Was Robin Hood a thief? Yeah, a pretty sympathetic one. I've had people basically call me a thief to my face, in Silicon Valley no less, where we make the stuff that beats DRM. So, I think we need a little education here, people. Now, if folks seem misinformed, I direct them to Intervision.
Americans spend a huge amount of time consuming not only food and crap but tons of entertainment and news. Music competes with cable, software, video games, TV, film, magazines, books, sports, not to mention actual real life, if there still is such a thing. Those of us who are on this issue all love music, so let's unite and elevate here. Let's get people excited about music again. We will all benefit if this great unifier were to gain prominence.
It occurs to me, particularly after the previous post and some conversations I've had lately that focused on the positive things copyright protection offers, that I need to do more here than complain. It's time to offer up some kind of direction, some kind of vision or plan. Basically, we need to have the top 2% of our music in the public domain and the rest subject to compulsory licensing for use over the internet in order to recoup music's previous prominence. But first we need to raise the profile of this issue to insure fairness.
I think all certified gold records should go into the public domain. In England, once you get to a certain level, you're taxed at 90%, so Elton & Paul don't end up owning the place. U2 outgrosses Ireland, they could run the place, instead they support it. The point is, it's not that unusual to take a steep increment at the far side of income.
Gold records got that way because the public loved the record, bought it, paid money, we have a stake. We made these hits into what they are today by listening, learning, singing and adopting them into our hearts. People who make gold records will still have a lot going for them, people will still want to make records great so they'll have a chance of going gold.
The original artist can still sell records, perform, whatever, it's just that now others can sample, mashup, add their own stuff to the original whole or bits, play it in bars, record their own versions which might be better or worse, go ahead and try... all for free, without having to ask anyone. Regular folks and aspiring artists of all levels can also burn their own playlists, or the original album playlists, and sell them on streetcorners, not just in NY. We can give a grace period of 5, 10, 15 years before they become public, or at least come under some type of Creative Commons license. Another possibility is to just take all songs written before 1960, or '65 or '70.
The point is to identify good quality songs, the ones that are really integral to our culture, that have already returned substantially to their creators, and free them up completely. It should be a badge of honor to be accepted into the public domain. Making it completely open is the key because of the tendency of those closest to ownership, and thus with the power, to complicate & exploit whatever restrictions are in place in order to skim off more profit. The superior knowledge always gets used against those trying to enter. In this case we are trying to free music up for the public, which has almost no knowledge of complex copyright law. Freeing the music (remember my slogan?... still need to make those T-shirts) would be a huge, exciting, newsworthy event that would invigorate the dying music fanbase.
Those with the master tape can still advertise that fact and charge a premium for it. Quality does degenerate with each copy, so the knockoffs never sound the same and for truly good music, people will pay a few bucks for fidelity. A few thousand of our most basic, classic popular riffs & songs would be like a treasure trove for all these burgeoning new tech savvy artists. You do a complete bye on royalties for the biggest cash infusions to the least productive, leechy aspects of the music business, decimating the most unsavory players, and still preserving rights for people writing songs and recording music.
Artists putting out good music will be unaffected unless they go gold (some 1% of the time), in which case, they can still make lots of money, possibly, if they were smart vis a vis their label. At least that issue will have to be addressed between bands and labels more directly. They still get visibility and leverage which they can use to establish themselves as a brand, an entity. They can parlay that status somehow, if they are smart. The oppotunities are certainly there. As long as they produce good work, they will continue to thrive. Isn't that how it usually goes... work, earn, build something.
Most gold records are by established artists who have absolutely no sympathy from me once their net worth goes into the millions. They have to cough up some of their lucre in taxes anyway, just make the take at the song level, where it can enhance our culture. Not only won't it inhibit them, it will encourage them to write new stuff instead of living endlessly off their first hit.
We live in a fast-paced society here, let's look to the future instead of petrifying the past. After 50 years of modern, post Les Paul music, there is not the base of fundamental riffs and melodies that was untapped in the 50's. We have to build from a much different clay pit here. We need to build up some of these basic tunes into more complex entities and that is exactly what is happening, illegally, with mashups. It should be legal, and encouraged.
Hillary Rosen makes the point that if people can pass property to their kids, why not copyrighted intellectual property? Land is very different from intellectual property. First of all it's much more finite and has intrinsic value. More importantly society does not have the same type of interest in freeing land for the public. While we do seek to preserve open space, at least in CA, land is not integral to our culture the way music is and it can not be dispersed productively into society, the way music can. Passing money from one generation to the next is also different. One is a fungible lingua franca, the other has unique value.
Moreover, cognizant of loopholes here, the law does in fact seek a huge chunk of property upon death through estate tax and what I am proposing here is very analogous to that. When we allow individuals too many rights, for too long, at the expense of the public, it needs to be addressed. And we know who the owners are here, we're not protecting these black artists in the 50's who contributed so much to our culture and got nothing in return.... we're protecting those who exploited them unconscionably.
Websites, TV shows, movies, mashups, podcasts,.. whatever it is you're making, the music can be much less of a headache. If freed up, these great songs will be everywhere and I guarantee you it will invigorate us like Napster did. People will sign on to new free music channels coming through cable, into their computers, start doing garage band, ringtones, karaoke, playlists, getting creative in small individual but consumeristic ways. While folks are getting the music they'll still be taking in ads, there is a huge economy there. If you don't believe me, ask Google.
Songs that haven't made it to gold status should make money selling CD's the old fashioned way to the fidelity oriented, or those without internet, still many folks. But we should have some sort of compulsory licensing system like the one I discussed in my EFF post (12/27/04) for those who can and want to download music from the internet. The thing is, compared to the limited public domain I describe, compulsory licensing can be a logistical nightmare. The music industry is already so bogged down by the complex system of ownership rights and payment modes that creativity is stifled.
Music is already free on TV & radio, but now it would be interactive and controllable, portable...much more fun. We already have the clip art type loops on Garage Band and others but this would increase the fun and creativity exponentially. The few thousand songs we're talking about here will soon become so overplayed it will make you long for muzak, making us hungrier than ever for fresh sounding artists, and new ways to combine the old standards. So, that's the big change I would propose for copyright law. The other changes are already occuring as the internet hooks us up musically.
The future is in sites like Soundclick, link above, which will get more geographically relevant and more a part of the fabric of people's lives. Artists should be able to upload original patchwork quilt music as easily as I'm now blogging, put it on a site where others can find it. On Flickr, where I keep my photos, someone, somewhere, liked my art and said so, right on the site. Well, in the future my local friends and far off strangers should be able to hear what I'm doing, comment, put up their own stuff, add to mine, email it, use it to audition for bands, get exposure & gigs for your band or video or recording projects... all online... where it can not only be heard and seen, but purchased or hired. Let's get the language of music out there on the internet and enjoy it.
Let's hope with bought off fucking Orrin Hatch out of his chair we can get some kind of rationality here. Yes, RIAA bought the senior Senator off by getting his music into the Oceans 12 movie. He turned his back on his "principles", which were apparently to become known as a songwriter instead of a fair and decent legislator. I've never seen such egregious governing and the fact that he could get away with something like that really says a lot about how far this issue is under the radar here. We need leadership and logic on this issue and this is what we've got... a righteous Mormon selling out our culture for his own personal gain and a bunch of paid lobbyists. It's outrageous.
The proponents are so busy in the courtrooms and backrooms, they barely bother to reach out to the public. We need an Abbie Hoffman, or some type of popularizer, for this movement. So far, Hank Barry is the closest we've seen. He sure tops sell-out Shawn, but Abbie was a committed revolutionary, and at that time we were talking about drafting kids, not rock & roll. All we have now is some businessmen, industries and politicians plus some movement in the universities and legal & political groups but we still need a unifier and publicizer. This could be a positive, creative revolution, a renaissance. We shouldn't lose this opportunity.
Lessig, Steele, Stoller, Pavlosky...all have done great things, making inroads on the campuses, courts & Congress. I hope one of them, or someone on the horizon, is media savvy and charismatic like Hoffman & Rubin were. Many of the artists. like Bowie, Don Henley, Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews & David Byrne make statements but won't really assert to a full-on role. It's a huge role and sacrifice and a long fucking way to go, but think about how long the Vietnam War might have dragged on had middle-class Americans not had to watch American children beaten by cops and shot by Guardsmen on our streets. I'm not at all saying we need to go to those levels. I'm a pacifist.
But Abbie & Jerry knew exactly how to work the media & we need to get control of the message here. I'm a closet "pirate" no more, that's for sure. Was Robin Hood a thief? Yeah, a pretty sympathetic one. I've had people basically call me a thief to my face, in Silicon Valley no less, where we make the stuff that beats DRM. So, I think we need a little education here, people. Now, if folks seem misinformed, I direct them to Intervision.
Americans spend a huge amount of time consuming not only food and crap but tons of entertainment and news. Music competes with cable, software, video games, TV, film, magazines, books, sports, not to mention actual real life, if there still is such a thing. Those of us who are on this issue all love music, so let's unite and elevate here. Let's get people excited about music again. We will all benefit if this great unifier were to gain prominence.
posted by Intervision at 8:12 AM
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