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Sunday March 2, 2003
Here's my rant today from the Online Trombone Journal:
Originally posted by Jeff Oien:Jeff,
Do you feel the current copyright laws are wrong? Serious question with no hidden agenda.
This is going to sound like I'm hedging my bets, but it's what I think.
The current copyright laws attempt to fashion coverall intellectual protection for so, so many different types and flavors of the "owners" of intellectual property. The purpose of them, of course, is to attempt to have the original owners of an idea or sound or image retain "ownership" of those ideas, sounds and images.
By almost every count, I think we can all agree that with regard to the specific application of copyright laws to music, it hasn't worked very well.
On the other hand, the protection of images (most specifically corporate names and logos) has worked pretty well.
Back to music. To me the whole issue comes down to the fact that defining recorded music as "property" puts the resulting multi-billion dollar recording industry squarely into the hands and under the control of people who are not musicians. That's the problem.
Everyone here would agree that the music business is controlled by huge corporations, and run by executives that are run by the dollar. While each executive probably has an appreciation and/or a place in their heart for art, the reality of their world is that a good business decision is a good business decision.
So while it is possible for a less-than-scrupulous manager to divert all the money from a band doing live music, by any definition a music business based primarily on live performances would largely put the reins back into the hands of musicians.
Someone mentioned that promotional recordings do nothing to advance the performing careers of great bass 'bonists. My response is twofold:
1) that the market would be fundamentally changed in terms of demand for live performances and it's impossible to tell how much demand there would be for any specific flavor of live music, and
2)that promoting live performing is only one reason to float a promotional recording. Folks that have CDs out there see a variety of non-financial benefits to having CDs available; teaching opportunities, name recognition that results in freelancing and other ensemble performance opportunities, conducting, promoting yourself for future possibilities of starting and leading a band, composition/arranging.
In fact, I venture to say that RIGHT NOW that 99.9% of folks who make a CD would put dollars at the bottom of the list of benefits they got out of it. (And the other .1% all have last names like Gibb, Jackson, Streisand, etc.)
Given all of this, there are some great musicians that make a living from royalties, and it pains me that the inevitable shift will hurt these greats who are past the performing parts of their lives.
So my answer to you, Jeff, is:
- I am not in favor of abruptly repealing copyright law as it applies to intellectual musical property.
- While I can't condone any given individual ripping recordings for friends or downloading music off Kazaa, I do think that it amounts to a "civil misdemeanor".
- I look forward, with great anticipation, to the possibilities offered by a future wherein laws cannot possibly keep up with technology in terms of creating a new reality wherein there will be very little direct financial incentive to record music.
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Incidentally, it occurs to me that the problem record company attorneys are encountering with the phenomena of peer-to-peer music sharing is essentially the opposite of a class-action lawsuit: a single huge corporation attempting to seek damages from millions of defendants. LOL...
©2003, Joe Jackson. All rights reserved.