Text 19121, 200 rader
Skriven 2011-05-19 13:35:31 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
Kommentar till text 19070 av Bjoern Felten (2:203/2)
Ärende: The so called intellectual property
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HI there,
On Thu 2039-May-19 07:53, Bjoern Felten (2:203/2) wrote to Richard Webb:
RW> Are you telling the creators of the works you enjoy the
RW> most that their work is worth nothing? That song you really like, that
RW> book you read which helped shape your ideas on
RW> how life works, that software you use.
BF> Absolutely not; on the contrary! I want to strengthen the
BF> creator's rights.
INdeed, the abuses are well documented.
BF> But first let's clarify one thing. There are two completely
BF> different sides of the copyright issue.
BF> First -- and most important -- part is the moral side. The right
BF> to be credited to your creation. This is something that you don't
BF> even have to put in the law book, everyone agrees on this. Try
BF> claiming that you painted the Mona Lisa, composed Fuer Elise or wrote
BF> Hamlet and you'll only make a fool of yourself.
BF> If you look in any book, you'll see that the author almost always
BF> has the (C). If you look at any record you may have, the creator
BF> never has the (C), it's always the record company.
INdeed, and a lot of this is because of the costs of
producing that work in a form the listener can enjoy. I'm
not talking about cost per disk for replication, that's a
small part of the cost involved. IT's the front end costs
that get you, as a creator. Yeah yeah, I know, supposedly
these costs can all be shunted aside as you do everything in your back bedroom,
but good mastering doesn't happen in the
back bedroom. AGain, remember you're talking to a man with
decades of experience in this area.
But, so far we're in agreement.
BF> Second part is the real copyright, the exclusive right to make
BF> copies. This is no right per se, it's a time limited monopoly
BF> granted by the society to encourage creators.
BF> The copyright MAFIAA (RIAA, MPAA, BSA, IFPI, etc.) has always
BF> managed to get those two rights lumped together in the law. This is
BF> of course so they can be able to push the creators in front of them
BF> when they keep demanding longer and longer monopoly time.
THat book often is outdated as new information comes along.
What's a text on electronics from 1930 worth today? YEs,
some of the principles of vacuum tubes will be valid, but
many assumptions made won't be. ITs "shelf life" is quite
limited.
BF> When you patent an invention you get a 20 year monopoly, and
BF> that's it. When you write music you get a monopoly of life time plus
BF> 75 years (soon to be extended to 95)! Logical?
I can see the point to that argument, but, if one of the
songs I've created actually hit the big time I'd be glad to
know that as long as my grandson or his agents filled out
the forms and sent it in to renew he'd have a little bit
coming in in perpetuity <g>. But, often one of those checks won't even by you
and your lady dinner out.
BF> So how do I want to strengthen the creator's rights? Well, for
BF> starters you should never be able to sell your copyright to anyone.
BF> It should be yours for eternity. You can license it but then only
BF> for a short, limited time with options to renew. Just the way you
BF> suggested.
Which is what I did with that client, I licensed the work to him. Another
client I sold my work to outright. dIfferent jingle of
course <g>.
But then we have the man who writes a song. He wants to
record that song, get it out there, get folks to hear it.
even if he records it in his back bedroom he's not going to
be able to reach performers who might actually put his song
before the audience. IN either case, there's either money
needed to produce the work in a form pallatable to the
public, or to get it out there. Why can't I sell my
creative work if I choose? IT's mine. IF you want to use
it, as did the car dealer, you can either license it for a
period of time as he did, or you can buy it outright from
me. He chose to license it, with a two year exclusive.
AFter two years, it showed up on music on hold for an office supply chain in
the midwest as theirs as well. MR. car
dealer still had eight years remaining on his license, but
had lost his exclusive. IF he happened to dial up a store
which was part of that office supply chain, he'd have heard
his jingle when they put him on hold. NOthing he could do
about it, unless he'd paid me $2k up front, then it was
*his* to do as he wished.
BF> If you want the real copyright -- the monopoly to make copies --
BF> you must register the work just as with an invention (patent). The
BF> originality will of course be investigated just as with patents now.
Okay, how would that process work?
BF> I (and the rest of us in the Pirate Party) have lots of more
BF> ideas, and they all amount to getting more money to the creators and
BF> less to the plastic disk manufacturers, who still haven't realized
BF> that their business model now is hopelessly outdated -- just as the
BF> ice delivery business a century ago.
INdeed, I wish more folks would convert to flak from mp3,
it's truly lossless but results in smaller files than .wav
or other uncompressed materials.
RW> There has to be a middle ground somewhere. OUtright theft
RW> serves nobody's best interests in the long run.
BF> True. Theft however is when I deprive you of a physical object so
BF> that you no longer have it but I do. Making copies is never theft --
BF> at most it's a violation of the legal monopoly explained above, but
BF> as long as you don't do it for commercial reasons it used to be
BF> called fair use and this has a strong acceptance amongst ordinary
BF> people. Remember the cassette tapes you used to make from records
BF> and the radio when you were younger...?
Indeed, I'd often erase them by rerecording other stuff,
because I'd record them to learn a piece of music. IF I did party tapes for
friends I insisted they brought over their
vinyl. Even as a young man I was senstized to intellectual
property issues. We've had to battle with publishers
regarding getting text books easily converted to braille or
audio for blind students. The state of Texas paved the way
toward simplification of that issue years ago by passing a
law which states that any textbook sold for use in Texas
elementary and high schools must be available in a machine
readable form easily transcribed to braille.
THe only part I object to with that is that I should be able to choose. YOu
can go to 14300.net right now and download
my song "hospital blues" from there. A fido friend asked me to send him a cd,
and I need to do that as soon as I get
some more made. But, I've asked him to not make any of the
other cuts available to the public as a free download.
After all, I have to recoup my costs somewhere. YOu listen
to the song, you wanna hear more, buy a disk from me.
ON another note, I operate a remote audio business that
comes to the client to capture the audio either for
broadcast, or for later production. ONe of the ground rules for anybody I hire
is that you don't slap a recorder on the
mixer outputs that wasn't approved by me and the client. If it's for
broadcast, I may run a digital recorder as well,
but that's for critiquing my work later. IT gets listened
to once, then the media gets wiped.
BF> Many artists have already discovered that file sharing is the
BF> best marketing way invented since the smoke signals. Every
BF> independent investigation shows that the artists have only gains to
BF> make from it. The only ones losing are the greedy copyright MAFIAA
BF> with their outdated business...
Them, and the small operators in nonmainstream media.
Britney spears isn't losing anything from file sharing, nore is Jay Z nor other
pop artists. But the folks who operate
an independent production business and produce jazz or other not mainstream
music lose. Even if they put it on the pay
sites where you can put their song in your electronic
shopping cart, a lot of folks who are music buffs find that
mp3 isn't that great sounding, they might buy flak or a
similar format. But then, they can't trust the accounting
any more than that old black guy could trust Capitol
records.
HEre's another one for ya.
The artists perform their music live for audiences, and
depend on the sales of disks from the bandstand to subsidize a major portion of
the cost of performing. But, some guy
who bought their cd at a recent performance drops the whole
thing on a server available to the public for download. Now we have a lady and
her boyfriend who go to the show, enjoy
the cheaper ticket prices which will be suplemented by the
sales of disks from the bandstand. But, they learn from
another audience member who's a fan of the group that the
songs they heard and enjoyed that evening are available on
the net. SO, instead of purchasing a disk as they otherwise would have done,
they go home, and download their favorites.
end result, the folks don't perform as often for the public, because they can't
afford to underwrite the cost of hiring
in proper sound reinforcement, renting the hall, etc. tHeir music doesn't lend
itself to performance in bars and
nightclubs, etc.
SOMe thorny issues to work through, and I expect the debate
to continue for years to come. But, answers must be found.
Regards,
Richard
... 10% of everything isn't crap, watch closely or you'll miss it!
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* Origin: (1:116/901)
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