July 24, 2012 Why Copyright Is Evil
Copyright is dying – that is obvious to everyone. What isn’t obvious to everyone, especially in the music industry, is what a glorious and just outcome this is.
International copyright only came into being in 1891 – very recent considering the long history of music and the arts. And it was publishers – not artists – who convinced governments to foist the system on us. Prior to that, during monarchical times “copyright” was permission granted to writers by the king to print what was politically correct. It was government that introduced the entire concept of “idea ownership” – the basis of copyrights and patents – precisely so it could crush the ideas it didn’t like. Copyright has rotten origins.
So Why is it Evil?
We must first understand what property is, since copyright is based on the notion that ideas are property.
Property begins with one’s ownership of one’s body, and extends to all the resources one acquires through
- Trade (i.e. buying and selling)
- Manual labor (i.e. creation)
- Homesteading (aka “squatting” on a resource no one had yet claimed)
This can mean simply the clothes on your back, or a small ranch house in the suburbs on a quarter acre or, like Bill Gates, a 40% share in a $70 billion company. They’re all property.
The one thing all physical property has in common is scarcity. Dirt, houses, livestock animals, software companies – they’re all made up of physical matter that is in limited supply. How limited is relative – obviously a pound of dirt is much less scarce than a huge software company. That’s why their market prices are so different. But there’s a reason that, for example, air and light are free: they are not scarce at all and require no human labor to produce.
Scarcity is not some esoteric concept – it’s at the core of most economic theories. Economists and law philosophers write about it and its role in prices, competition, entrepreneurship and a host of other areas. Scarcity is a basic reality of existence in human society.
Ideas as “Property”
Now consider ideas and artistic works. A CD recording of a performance is obviously a scarce physical commodity – it takes resource and labor to record and manufacture. But that’s not why CDs used to cost $20+ back in the 1990s. They cost that much because of the copyrighted sounds – that is, ideas – imprinted on the discs. This is also why most CDs these days cost around $10 – because copyright is in the latter stages of decay, due to competition from other media. The cost of a CD is falling back toward the actual cost (plus markup) of the scarce, plastic piece of physical property that it is.
But the law still says that the CD contents – the ideas imprinted on it – are copyrighted. This essentially means that the CD is not wholly your property, like a pound of dirt, or a painting, or a company is if you own these things. Copyright puts the CD owner in a bizarre circumstance where the original publisher retains some ownership of your CD even after you’ve paid your $10-20 for it.
But the musical ideas on the CD are not scarce. If I share the ideas with my friends by playing them the CD, the original owner hasn’t lost his own copy of them. I haven’t “stolen” anything from him. Like air and water molecules, the sound waves that make up a musical performance are in such great supply that no one is made poorer if they are replicated ad infinitum.
Therefore, musical ideas in their raw form of pure sound – fail the test of true property. They therefore cannot be “owned”, and sharing them or even re-selling copies of them in different media cannot be considered theft or fraud. It may still be illegal to do so, but that only makes copyright one of the thousands of illegitimate sausage laws that clog the statutes and unjustly limit our liberty. And as we’ve seen in the last 15 years, the only way to sustain copyright enforcement in an era of disruptive technology is to erect a large and oppressive government apparatus.
This is why the institution of copyright is evil – it thwarts true law (property and ownership), and requires jackboot tactics to enforce.
So What’s a Musician To Do?
So if modern copyright is only 121 years old, how on earth did Bach, Beethoven & Brahms survive and thrive without it?
It’s easy to understand – just look around you now.
The music industry today is going back to the future – like Beethoven, artists are now surviving by hustling the old fashioned way: boot-strapping public performances and touring. Or, like Bach, they’re subsidizing their song-writing passion by taking side-jobs at the local church or school. Of course, they’re also getting creative and using today’s amazing technology to implement the business models like Connect-With-Fans+Reason-To-Buy.
Can musicians sit back and collect royalties and a share of the huge monopoly profits of yesteryear? Nope. But, those were the days of the golden handcuffs and the chosen few. The only artists who whine and complain now about those “good old” days are either
- Old artists who came up in the old days and are wistful of the time when they only had to record an album every three years to earn 5 times what they earn now, or
- Young artists who are too lazy to boot-strap things themselves and wish success was handed to them
But as Seth Godin has proved, these days you have to choose yourself to make your own success.
I encourage musicians to read up more on this topic – all you need to do is google “against copyright” and similar terms to begin the journey to a more common-sense philosophy on this subject that is so close to musicians’ hearts and wallets.
Ben Sommer is a composer and performer making edgy, political prog-rock. His music has been described as an original blend of Frank Zappa, Iron Maiden, XTC & Public Image Limited - with the bitter lyrical worldview of Warren Zevon and Donald Fagen.
Hear his music here, and read his other writings on his blog.
Reader Comments (77)
Let me cut right to the heart of the matter; when money is made from the expression of an idea, who deserves it? Most fair-minded folks would say that, in regard to a piece of music, the author, the performers, the studio, the label that arranges the sessions and pays off the media outlets, the media outlets, and to a lesser degree, those who advertise on those media outlets should be getting something out of the deal, and in more or less that order.
Sadly, this has never been the case. For as long as there's been a media industry, the author has always been paid last, and now you want to take away his only means of protection from rapacious publishers, labels, competitors and their lawyers, leaving him starving, naked and alone. In fact, you seem to prefer that he never be paid at all.
Shame on you.
Although I, too, take a dim view of the way copyright is, arguably, abused to the detriment of society, I have to agree with those who criticize this article as poorly argued and based on too broad a premise—that copyright itself is harmful.
As a member of the public, I do support the concept of public domain; I'm not morally entitled to keep my creation on lockdown for as long as current copyright law enables, as I should be encouraged to keep creating rather than resting on laurels, and because it's human nature to share, and because creativity involves building on past creativity, so society should have unfettered access to my work relatively quickly.
But as a small-time artist, I support copyright's most basic tenet: helping to ensure, for a limited time, that others don't disproportionately reap whatever reward (if any) is yielded by my creation. It's not that I'm in it for the money, it's just that it feels wrong, and I think the general public agrees on this, when someone else (say, a large record company, or YouTube) is much better at exploiting your creations than the artist is...the artist deserves a cut, and there needs to be a legal basis for requiring those would-be exploiters to provide one, or to discourage them from exploiting the work at all, at least for commercial advantage.
Like the artificial scarcity trope, I find the "you just need to tour more" argument far from compelling. It's not that I disagree with it—it's good advice for musicians who can perform, at least—it's just that it's a relatively weak argument that the average artist doesn't find relevant. For most, "I deserve a cut" far outweighs philosophical arguments about contrived scarcity and the pragmatism demanded by people's increasing ability to share content among themselves. Besides, although many musicians like to believe piracy is the only thing preventing them from needing to find other sources of income, and although the industry wants the public, the legislatures, and international trade policymakers to believe the same when considering how to respond to piracy and the technologies that make it easy, the reality is that all but the luckiest handful of musicians have always relied on multiple sources of income, not just royalties from the type of sales allegedly displaced by piracy. So while it's likely that shifting consumer behavior has prompted some artists to go from living off royalties to relying on multiple sources of income, it's unlikely this class of musicians was more than a slim percentage of an already-slim percentage of musicians in general.Has it occurred to this guy that copyright is not only (or even mainly) about music? If 'copyright is evil', does that apply to novelists, poets, playwrights, historians, and biographers? And without copyright, how does he expect them to get any reward for their effort, which in the case of a major biography, for example, may take many years of research? The idea of selling records to promote live concerts may be vaguely plausible for music (if a little hard on women with young children etc), but it is totally implausible for most authors. Except for Cory Doctorow, who seems to make a fat living by charging people to tell them that everything should be free.
Seriously, is this just a joke? Meant to be satire maybe? Because I can't believe that a DIY Musician site like Hypebot would be putting something like this out there.
This is just performance art, right?
Utter nonsense articles like this are a good reason to stop subscribing to Music Think Tank. It's also a good reason to stat writing Hypebot and tell them to stop linking to them.
This is so far off it does make one wonder why it was not filtered. Music Think Tank?
Yeah, I have to agree with with Dale Morgan.....Music Think Tank: Do you filter this stuff before you read it? There has to be more intelligent stuff to publish this this.
There is one argument that is hardly ever put forward, and that is the one of the receptor, rather than the creator. It is inevitable in this modern world NOT to be confronted with an idea, expressed through music, imagery, writing, etc. But it seems that I, as the receptor of the idea, must give up any impulse to take this input and transform and adapt it to suit my very own context. First, say the copyright holders, I must pay dues. Now, there is something very wrong with this picture, when the creative materials become the shackles of my very own creativity.
The so called 'creators' are so far up their asses that they believe human beings are divided between those that create and those that exist only to perceive (yes, we all create). Copyright is evil alright, because the comments above show the kind of 'creativity' afforded by such a backward system. If doing away copyright law will mean the death of creativity as we know it today, then by all means let's do it!
I pinacle of human interaction is the free exchange of ALL ideas. True creativity will be perceived as these ideas come together in space and time; creativity cannot be manufactured. The morons trying to 'tag' ideas with their names are precisely that.
As everyone has pointed out, Ben has not really thought this through at all. But his ideas are indicative of the erosion of copyright in the general public's mind. And our collectively inability to enforce copyrights, and gain a fair price for them is the slow death of the music business as we knew it.
That said, there are some influential and better reasoned (if perhaps misguided) thinkers positing that copyright has outlived its usefulness in the current internet space. You can hear one of the most articulate critics of copyright here: Lawrence Lessig.
In any case, I think that the cat is out of the bag, and the heyday of the copyright owner has passed.
@Lucrecio: Put down the bong, man.
"But it seems that I, as the receptor of the idea, must give up any impulse to take this input and transform and adapt it to suit my very own context. "
What does that mean exactly? Are you talking about sampling? Otherwise, you are more than free to reinterpret any ideas as you see fit. If you hear a particular interval in a song that you'd like to use in one of your own compositions, you can do that. If you see a color combination that you like in a painting, you are free to use that same combination in one of your works. You're not disallowed from using ideas, ever. But if you appropriate another person's art for your own use, which honestly no one is going to stop you from doing, you need permission from the source if you want to stay legal. That's all. Sounds really evil doesn't it?
It seems to me that a lot of "receptors" want to deny the individual achievement that underlies true creativity. "Culture" doesn't create anything, nor does "society," these are sociological abstractions with no tangible reality. Individuals, alone or together, achieve things. Art is about communication with, and the celebration of, the individual (or individuals). Anybody who tells you otherwise is probably pimping some sort of tech stock.
"I pinacle of human interaction is the free exchange of ALL ideas."
[citation needed]
"ALL ideas?!" Even the bad ones? The truly evil ones? Eugenics was an "idea." What about the free exchange of ideas in the form of atom bombs?
"True creativity will be perceived as these ideas come together in space and time; creativity cannot be manufactured."
Again, put down the bong, dude.
But do you see what I was saying earlier about denying the individual? Your entire comment reeks of newspeak lingo that disaffects itself from human interaction. To wit, you un-ironically use the phrase "human beings!" You speak of humanity as if we're a science project in a laboratory.
You describe creativity as ideas coming together in space and time, yet you conveniently omit that the "space and time" where it happens is inevitably in the mind of an individual.
"The morons trying to 'tag' ideas with their names are precisely that."
So you don't think people should get credit for the work they do? Got it. Might I ask how old you are and what you do for a living?
@Bruce Kaplan
The "erosion of copyright in the general public's mind" is because of the rhetoric spewed forth by Lawrence Lessig and other pundits who are firmly entrenched in the pockets of Google et al. What he says is not reflective of the upcoming generation's view of copyright, he is shaping their view.
This is not conspiracy. There's an actual playbook for this stuff. Look up "Winning the Web."
The entire scam that is "Web 2.0" was summed up perfectly by Lessig himself in an interview on The Colbert Report:
There you have it. Straight from the horse's mouth.
If there's one thing every musician should be doing, it's educating themselves about who is screwing who in the "new industry." Hint: it's us, the musicians. Same as it ever was.
Let's not go back to a time when artists were poorer. With examples like Beethoven and Bach you've picked out a handful of world class composers and forgotten the pain and penury most other musicians operated under. The system we have now has been hard fought for over many decades.
In fact, with the internet, copyright has never been more important. many, many artists are self funded and self releasing. Copyright directly protects their income (often just recouping costs) as opposed to the late 20th century where third parties tended to own the copyright (major labels etc)
Hey all - still working on that followup article...
Just thought I'd share an amusing post on my side of the topic. I assume this approach would've gone down smoother with ya'll:
The Music Industry
An over-simplification of a complex subject by someone who understandss little or nothing about Copyright and Intellectual Property law.
Ask the families of the South African originator(s) of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" or Little Richard or even James Brown (all he wanted was to be acknowledged), what stealing anothers' efforts means.... hmmm; very flawed reasoning and rational!
And for those who don't create or have yet to learn what it means to reap financial rewards of their efforts—look at it this way: just because the digital age allows for an easier way to steal doesn't meant laws should be done away with! Just because you can drive your car with your feet doesn't make it a good idea to do so!
In other words—think of it like creative identity theft and wait 'till it happens to you, if your so lucky.
Wow, interesting to see all the heat this article is creating.
I think there are a few things going on with the premise of "copyright is evil" that aren't really being addressed.
(1) Copyright being evil insinuates that creation of intellectual property is not work &/or that working in the digital world is not work. Which is something that some people are willing to state, but which also means essentially anyone with an office job doesn't actually work & that means we need to let 50% of western culture starve to death. Maybe we do, but I think it should just be clearly stated that someone is taking their ideas of a copyright free society to a natural extreme.
(2) Copyright being evil insinuates art is destroyed by commerce. Sure, I understand that idea, but when art takes actual long amounts of time to create financial backing/reward is necessary for it to happen. So your choice is copyright of some sort or labor intensive art as a hobby for the priviliged.
(3) There is something wrong with copyright laws as they stand & this doesn't address it at all. The question is if the public domain is important & when copyright should expire. Should a copyright essentially last forever or should it be something more like a patent? At what point does something shift from copyright to patent? That's a question which might be more important in software development than music, but as I personally see there being a flowing between software/music/movies in the future I think it is important. Where does something become a derivative work & where does it become infringement & should the answer always be "it's infringement when there's enough money changing hands." So yeah, the article I'd like to see would be more about why the expansion of the public domain would be a good thing which is a lot harder to explain.
Ben I don't agree with everything you said to argue against copyright, but I am very much anti-copyright. I am a musician, and an author of two novels. I do not pay taxes, I download many things illegally, I steal, I dumpster dive, I train hop. I visit public libraries and such. I wholeheartedly believe that copyright is one of the worst things to happen to creativity. People actually believe that they should have a right to money for their non-labor work. Then they get mad when people take their work. I downloaded 1200 albums last year. I also bought just over 460 albums. I pay by money order after downloading, or via services like bandcamp when available. Many commenters here would call me a "creator" as well as a "pirate". I spend more money on music than I do on food. I buy more music than anyone I know, because I want 'them' to continue to have incentive to make more music. I know how the system works right now, but I also know that I can be different. It can be different because I've seen it. Freight trips from Akron to Salem, through Montana have shown me hundreds of independent musicians, many of whom are far more talented than the bands you can find on Bandcamp. Trips to the socialist kingdom of Europe have revealed a number of thriving music scenes where no one is making any money. The venues hosting it get more money from an increase of patrons, but no one performing is making money. If you brought a CD or a jump drive you could even get a copy of their music for free. I usually gave them money because I felt like it was worth it.
I have no idea why you feel like music needs to be protected like it is today. I have downloaded thousands of unauthorized copies, but I pay when it's worth it. All these people commenting here probably feel like cops are a necessary institution as well, ignoring the fact that we can communicate without armed gunman imposing the threat of violence upon our interactions. I would love to see a world without copyright or money.
Justin said: " I wholeheartedly believe that copyright is one of the worst things to happen to creativity. People actually believe that they should have a right to money for their non-labor work. "
So you believe that you should only be paid for doing something that is "labor"? Meaning, that if you enjoy your job it is not work and you should not be paid?
You seem to get money from somewhere. How do you earn it? And how much support have you gotten from your Mom and Dad in the past year? Because to be honest, you sound like a 17-year-old discussing economics and labor theory.
Justin, here's the thing. I don't believe you. I don't believe you are a musician or a writer or that you do most of the things you claim. I especially don't believe you pay for music and certainly not in the quantities you claim. Nothing you have written sounds even the least bit plausible.
We used to have a world without copyright or money. I don't think you would have liked it. It is generally referred to as the Dark Ages. That is exactly where we would return if copyrights and money were eliminated as you suggest. These things exist for a reason. They were created out of necessity in order to allow society to progress out of feudalism. None of the things you gleefully steal would exist in the world you imagine. We would not be having this exchange because technology would not exist.
I don't know if you are being naive or simply obtuse. The rights of individuals to the fruits of their labors is well known and well documented and recognized in every international declaration of human rights. If you wish to give away your labor and the things you've produced, that is your right. You need to respect the rights of others who disagree with you and choose to protect their rights. Otherwise you will simply continue to be a criminal.*
*Note to moderator: the term "criminal" is not being used here as a pejorative. In his comment, he admits to criminal copyright infringement, so the term is appropriate and accurate.
Justin said: "All these people commenting here probably feel like cops are a necessary institution as well, ignoring the fact that we can communicate without armed gunman imposing the threat of violence upon our interactions."
You mean like Aurora, Colorado a couple of weeks ago? Maybe *you* could have been sitting in that theater when the gunmen opened up with his assault rifle... without the cops that put a stop to the killing.
You could have been the one to stand up and "communicate" with the guy with the assault rifle. I know what your swift answer would have been.
@ Justin
I seriously hope you're joking, but if not, I've got something for you.
You're a musician and an author, yet you feel that creating is "non-labor work" and that we shouldn't get paid for it? I guess that means that your stuff must be crap, if you don't work hard creating it. I'm a musician also, and I spent nearly a year creating an album. Maybe you don't feel that your work is worth anything, but MY work is. I am proud of what I've accomplished, because it required hard work, dedication, and sacrifice to bring it to fruition. This is my job, and it will be the best job in the world if drains on society like you will stop trying to justify taking food out of my mouth!!! And honestly, the stuff you crow about (stealing, train-hopping, illegally downloading, not paying taxes) are going to land you in prison. It sounds to me like you simply want to suck the life out of the hard working people of this planet by taking things you didn't pay for, so of course you'd like to see a world without money and copyright; that way you can't be prosecuted for screwing people over. But it doesnt work that way here in the USA, and I doubt it ever will. Maybe it does in the "socialist kingdom of Europe?" (Just where the hell is that, anyway??) Maybe you should train-hop your freeloading ass over there, because the fall of Kim Dotcom is just the beginning, buddy. Those of us who work to create for a living are rising up against you, and we won't stop until you're whining from inside a prison cell about how unfair it is that you can't steal whatever you want.
To paraphrase Frank Zappa: Copyright isn't dead it just smells funny.
I think that some sort of copyright should exist. To which extend is for the lawmakers and thus debatable. I don't agree with the misuse of copyright, for instance the Verve Bitter Sweet Symphony lawsuit. That I think was evil!
And an example that the original creators had nothing to say over their creation, only the rightsowner.
I don't think Ben Sommer did a good job by the way he argumented against copyright. There are better arguments against copyright to be found on the internet.
The soundrecordings on a CD are scarce in the sence that there is only one original recording. The lyrics/melody of a song are scarce in the sence that there is only one song that has those words/that melody. Otherwise it would be an other song (or plagiat). And if being scarce is the argument then a song or recording can be property and therefore owned.
The fact that there are millions of MP3 copies of a soundrecording on the internet to be downloaded for free has nothing to do with ownership. After downloading you own the mp3 but not the ownership of the original recording.
And therefore not the right to do with it whatever you want.
But on the other hand because it's a digital copy it is so very easy to distibute.
And how will you able to control that? By making it possible to control all internet traffic? I have a problem with that. Because a lot of internet traffic has nothing to do with copyright infringement.
And a lot of filesharing still is offline, same as it was in the 60's, 70's and 80's.
Remember musicassettes made for friends and family? How can you control that? I never saw any wrong in doing that. It was the way to spread the word about the music I liked! And if an artist has a problem with me spreading his word then HCGFH (use your imagination).
But I have some problems with the arguments of some commenters.
"I urge the world and its ethics to not change while people and their attitudes do".
The world changes constantly and so do people and their ethics. If we didn't we would be still in the Middle Ages.
"This is really really dumb". Argument?
"Years from now you will look back on this post and sheepishly say, "Uh, I was just young. What can I say?". Ben Sommer is 38.
"You can't cherry-pick one aspect of life from 200 or 300 years ago and assert it as a workable solution within our 21st-century socio-economic reality".
Amanda Palmer did.
"In a world where copyright is not enforced, and free file-sharing runs rampant, artists will have no choice but to stop creating and work regular jobs in order to survive".
Sorry but this one is really funny!
1. Real artists will never stop creating, making a living or not. They have to create, whatever the consequences. Real artists I mean!
2. Living of your copyrights is only for a few artists. 99% of the music artists (after their career is gone) turn to regular jobs.
"I guess that means that your stuff must be crap, if you don't work hard creating it".
What's this about hard labour? Some of the most beautiful songs were written within 5 minutes. Does that mean they're worth less than a song which took a year to write and record?
Creating something doesn't mean you're entitled to income. Only selling your creation does. Create square tennisballs with hard labour and see where it gets you.
So maybe some commenters should ask themselves why some artists stil make a lot of money even though they get ripped off by filesharers and record companies.
Tonight I was watching the Olympic Games. 100% of these men/women create amusement for the whole world.
What kind of copyright do they have for their performance?
Will they get paid every time that race is shown on TV?
99% of these sportsmen/women earn nothing.
No medals, no money, just honour. And after 2 weeks they are all forgotten.
Don't kid yourself.
Creators create. Only businessmen get paid.
You could be that businessman ;-)
@ Omehar
First let me state that I enjoyed your reading your comment, but I want to point out to everyone reading these that you took my statements out of context. In my first statement, "In a world without copyright..." I was not only talking about music, but also movies, computer games and programs, anything that's presently protected by copyright. Most people who get into these ventures do it with the expectation of being able to make a living at it. Mr. Sommer's post seems to be prejudiced against copyright of music, but if the law were to swing that way, then other works (and eventually patents) could soon find themselves in serious jeopardy. A dangerous precedent would be set, one that could seriously undermine the basis of our free enterprise society, which is to be rewarded for innovation. And no one creates square tennis balls because we all know no one would buy them. But if someone created art out of square tennis balls, maybe lots of people would buy it; but if the work wasn't protected by copyright, then everyone could copy said art and the original creator may not be paid, nor would he have any legal means to fight for payment. How is the guy supposed to eat if he can't make a living at his profession? Perhaps that would weed out those that aren't "real artists," but our culture would lose a lot of innovation in the process. My CD took me a year to create, but it would have taken me much longer if I had to work a regular job in order to pay my bills. This brings me to your next point, regarding my statement "I guess your stuff must be crap, if you don't work hard creating it." You may be correct when you state that some of the most beautiful songs only took five minutes to write. But I was speaking of "creating;" recording individual tracks, arranging, mixing, mastering. And what about the time spent practicing so you can get the sound just right? That should be worth something, if the beautiful song is capable of sales. And most artists (or writers, or programmers, or whatever) usually produce far more unsellable products than sellable. We rely on the hopefully large income produced from that one hit to make up for the loss of time and funds on product that we hoped would sell, but didn't. And finally, I know of no specific timetable for when an artist's career is "gone." There are many who have been around for decades, and show no sign of stopping. Those who work regular jobs "after their career is gone" have simply given up on the business because it's a hard business to survive in. If it was easy, everyone would do it. "Creating something doesn't mean you're entitled to income. Only selling your creation does." That's exactly what we're trying to do, sell our creation. But if copyright is done away with (as Mr. Sommer and others who side with him here seem to want), then we won't own what we create. How can we legally sell what we don't own?
I have yet to hear any viable argument as to why I should sink hundreds of hours (or even five minutes) into creating something, then just allow people to take it for free. One thing you were absolutely correct about; "creators create. Only businessmen get paid." The most successful creators ARE businessmen. That's why it costs money to see a movie, buy a book, buy a device that you can watch movies or read books on THEN buy a movie or a book, buy a car, a pool table, a tennis ball... you get my point. Everything we own was at some point created by someone, and it deserves to be protected by intellectual property laws. Those laws carry the hope of payment; payment stimulates more (and improved) creations, which stimulate more payment. Innovation is key to economic, technological, and intellectual growth. Mankind thrives on the idea that creation=reward. We as a race have much potential for growth, but removing any hope of reward will cripple our creativity, perhaps to the point of stagnation. That's not a world I want to live in.
@Dan,
You're right about copyright also has to do with movies, games, etc. etc.
For the sake of simplicity I only refered to music.
If copyright ceases to exist, then a lot of people will not invest in art anymore because there's less money to be made. In that you're absolutely right.
But I'm sure that most artists (songwriters, painters, sculptors etc) will never stop creating.
Because it's in their blood.
By square tennisballs I mean art that nobody wants or nobody knows of.
A lot of artists create square tennisballs and then whine that they don't make any money, although they put a lot of effort in it.
I don't agree with you on the "recording, arranging, mixing, practicing".
The only thing that counts is the endresult. How much time and money you spent to get that result, nobody cares. On iTunes you just get the $ 0.99 whatever you invested in the song.
And practicing goes with the job.
"I have yet to hear any viable argument as to why I should sink hundreds of hours (or even five minutes) into creating something, then just allow people to take it for free".
I'm not against copyright, so you won't hear that from me.
"Mankind thrives on the idea that creation=reward". I guess that you mean that reward=money. As far as arts are concerned, I don't know about that. See above.
In the end there is allways one product/creation nobody can copy or steal.
YOU are that product, because you are unique in this world.
In the old days the album/painting/movie was the product.
Now the artist is the product believe it or not.
And nobody can steal YOU.
Well actually managers can, but that is an other discussion ;-)
Ben. You are a musician and a politically driven person according to your about-the-author below your article that states you make edgy political music..
And there is always one thing that is always absent from these anti-copyright arguments, and it surprises me when a musician doesn't think of this (and maybe you have and just left it out of this particular article).
If there is no copyright law, then that means McDonalds, Chik-fil-a, Mitt Romney, or any other corporation or political figure could take your entire album and exploit it for their own gain. Even more so, they can exploit it in support of THEIR CAUSE. What should a musician do about that? What if Mitt Romney used your song on a campaign commercial that was aired throughout the country to support his message?
Then what if he took it a step further and put one of your staple lyrics on Mitt Romney campaign shirts, mugs, hats, bags, etc. He sells them like crazy because everyone loved the lyric and it reminded them of that song they heard on his campaign commercials. And it isn't about the money in the above instance. But how would you feel about that? In order to support your argument you will need to say "that is fine with me. I do not own my music or words to it. They are ideas and they should be used by anyone for their particular financial or political gain."
This is something that has happened before multiple times.
Frito-Lay wanted to use a Tom Waits song in a commercial. Tom Waits did not want it in their commercial. So they said "fuck you, Waits," and they recorded a copycat of his song "Step Right Up" and used that instead. He sued and won. Should Frito-Lay have won and been able to profit off of his musical brand against his will?
If there were no copyright law, they could have said "Hey Tom, you don't want to do it? Ok, well that's cute and all but we're just going to use it anyway. We're also going to reissue your album with a big bag of Doritos on the cover because we want this song to be our official Doritos song. And we're going to get a look alike to tour your whole album with a giant Doritos bag backdrop. Doritos will fall from the sky during the last song. See, Tom, it will just be a giant Doritos advertisement tour. We're gonna make a lot of money and ruin your reputation in the meantime. Sorry, Mr. Waits, but there's nothing you can do about it. Your music is just a bunch of ideas any schmuck could have come up with. It's just an idea. Anyone could have made your music. You're nothing. Thanks for putting all of the investment dollars and sweat into the writing and recording process though. Now we don't have to do anything but make profit off of it." (I put investment dollars as a modern day example, because that's what artists have to put into their work these days since labels just don't develop artists anymore)
Now if this is NOT how things would be without copyright, then that is fine. Explain it to me, and you will start converting me to your side of the argument. And I honestly mean that.
@Randall - short answer is "yes" in a just world there is no injury done when Mitt Romney uses my latest anarchist prog-metal song in his slogan (not likely...I think you and others are mis-reading my politics?). I will elaborate later why this is so.
The core of your rebuttal is about slander and libel - an interesting problem area. You are essentially asking: would I really be OK if people I disliked adopted my music for purposes I disliked. Their actions would redound upon me, and in a copyright world where they must ask permission first - and everyone knows this - I will be taken as a Republican supporter (per your example) unless I take legal action to stop their use of my music. They are in essence committing slander by damaging "my" reputation.
I will summarize the argument against slander and libel as valid crimes in my followup post. To tide you over, here's the gist of it from Walter Block: Defending the Undefendable (Chapter 7: The Slanderer and Libeler)
Thanks for bringing up the great edge case. Send more if you have them.
I agree, you can say well oh then these things will collapse, but really its the whole organization of society that needs to collapse. Right now they serve a purpose, but they are not something we should see as essential. Copyrights are starting to get mallicious especially with software all these companies in competiion is completey against the base idea of producing a product that works. Stuff is made to make money. not to be useful. There needs to be standardization and utility, not marketing and competion, and planned obsoletion. I feel as though the fact that people make stuff to get paid is the worst part of stuff. The most important capital is cultural spiritual and not something to be quantified. Art is weird, I feel as though it should be free and availalable to everyone. like food and water its spiritual food and water it grows your brain. I agree the artists need to be paid and supported and their ideas established as their own, but I don't think that the methodology of how ideas are presented is ethical. Software companies claim the ideas of their employees. Record labels claim ideas of artists. there are companies out there all they do is think of ideas patent them and then sue anybody who copies them, they dont make anything they just sue people. what is wrong here? there is now way for people to produce things on their own you need a salary. There needs to be public domain when it comes to intellectual means of production. That sounds pretty vague I know, I just don't like the way things are in this modern world its all the bottom line. It should be about the un definable line of possiblilities. and economy is not an excuse to defend copyrights copyrights halt progress. there should be rights of ownership like who made it, but everyone should be allowed to use it.
While I am not ENTIRELY against copyrights themselves, I'm a big believer that copyright has gone way too far in the other direction. The laws used to be partly reasonable ("If you make a profit from this within the first 30 years, you can ask for 20 more! " Most people didn't) but then they went all "75 YEARS, COPYRIGHTED AS SOON AS IT PLOPS OUT OF YOUR HEAD, and oh, let's extend that also to the works that should be lapsing soon, just so we can make sure nothing lapses."
For Frank's Sake, today Copyright can last longer than basically more than Half of all of America's existence. We'd still be "licensing" Oliver Twist if copyright had always been this long.
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" guys. That's what the constitution says. That's what the constitution says. If it's not doing that, then it needs to be a-changing.