Much of life doesn't involve seeking perfection, but rather avoiding two opposite and equally bad errors. Much like while driving down the road you want to avoid driving off of it into either the ditch on the left or the ditch on the right. I think the current copyright "debate/issues" fall into this category.
flickr credit:
ritchielee
I remember being absolutely disgusted to learn that the song "Happy Birthday" was copyrighted and that any time a movie chose to use the song, had to pay a royalty of $20,000. (I believe that is the figure I heard in the documentary "The Corporation"). To me that is a song I learned from my family during my childhood. We didn't get "Happy Birthday to you" on a CD in shrink wrap from a store, we didn't get sheet music from the book store and sit there reading it. We have passed that song on from parent to child for several generations. It is a part of our culture, a part of our history. So I'm not sure my family should have to pay to sing that song. Or to sing that song in a video, or to pay to sing that song on a tape or CD that we record for each other, or to pay to sing that song in a video or on a CD that we sell to raise money for a charity, or pay to sing that song in a video or on a CD that we are selling for money.
It isn't one size fits all
OK, so there is a big difference between singing the "happy birthday song" with your friends and family and downloading movies, burning them to DVD and selling them on craigslist. I want to be clear that while some copying and sharing and repeating or borrowing music and other content seems reasonable and fair, clearly some forms of copying are not appropriate. It isn't all or nothing, there has to be room for reasonable interpretation and fair use.
Artists should benefit from their work
I think it makes sense for an artist who writes music (or a movie) to be paid for their work. I also think that the musicians,
producers, (and if they are necessary) manufacturers and distributors should be paid for the work that they do. But I don't think that a song or a movie or any other piece of art should remain locked up forever. If an artist owns a song and receives royalties for 50 years and then dies, I think the song should then be free. The idea of the "rights" to a song living on in the hands of some faceless corporation after the death of that artist mocks the idea of an artist benefiting from their work. At this point it isn't at all about fairness to that artist. In our culture, for the most part we believe that people should benefit from their work and that they should be able to use the proceeds of their work for their own benefit. Our society violates this principle on occasion such as in situations of underemployment where "the system" underpays people out of greed and traps them in low paying jobs. The issue gets much greyer when most artists make some money and others make $Millions. Is the quality of Madonna's music really that much better than Jack Johnson or Chris Janzen or Kevin Prosch? Should a pop star make Millions? Some say yes, some say thats unreasonable. Whatever just so long as I can establish that our society as a whole hasn't come to a single understanding.
The changing landscape of music distribution
Now there are crazy things going on out there. Times are changing and the rules and realities of music distribution are very different today than they were 15-10 or even 5 years ago. Today software loaded onto your computer is crippled to only play the music certain organizations say you have a license for (Windows Media Player / itunes). Many of these schemes do not recognize legitimate license or legitimate use. (try ripping your CD and storing the MP3s on your hard-drive...) So without your consent all these restrictions get put in place, which limit how you can use what you legitimately have a right to. Lets say your CD gets scratched... You have a license, but lack the physical media. How do you get that back? Or stolen CDs, or crashed hard drives. There are lots of cases where something that you legitimately aquired is easily lost to you. (Or you are using a different computer today and your software hasn't decided it is alright for you to "authorize" your computer to use that media...) There are even plans to prevent your computer and stereo speakers from playing music that doesn't have licensing keys embedded in the file. Now is that too much control or what? There is an alternative, and it is one that many people are choosing.
Opting out of the current music distribution scheme.
Rather than traveling in a car to a brick and mortar store to buy a shrink wrapped plastic disk with music. Many are choosing to purchase their music online, effectively bypassing the entire manufacturing and distribution piece of the music industry. THAT is a disruptive behaviour but a good one. The cost of Selling, Stocking, Shipping, Printing, Manufacturing... all evaporates. So that $17 CD which costs only $1 to "press" now costs the music companies substantially less. And they can pass the savings on to their electronic customers.... OR they can be greedy and insist that a $17 CD on the shelf is the same cost as an online album which costs mere pennies to transmit to your computer.
Now, you can just purchase the GOOD SONGS and leave the fluffy filler crap there on the Internet. THAT is a disruptive behaviour because suddenly you only bought 4 tracks from i-tunes and not the 12 tracks you would have been obligated to take home from the brick and mortar store.
Things are changing and the music industry is largely losing control, so they had better pay attention and adapt to serve the customer, or the customer will go elsewhere. (when was the last time the music industry made you think of "customer service"?) In a restaurant if the food is horrible you send it back to the kitchen. If you buy a CD and don't like it, too bad you broke the shrink wrap. Now there is an industry that is overdue for an attitude adjustment.
There are other methods as well. Many artists distribute directly on the Internet intentionally, allowing fans to listen and "try out" their music. For example, I heard "MOBY" first on a streaming radio station on the net, and decided I really liked his music and as I read more, many of the things he stood for. I purchased Moby's album "Play" because I liked the sounds and wanted to legitimately own some of his music and support him in his work. If artists attract a following online, they can sell direct to the public, without all the lawyers and other unnecessary machinery of the big corporate music machine. For over 20 years now, software distribution has legitimized this method of selling through shareware, limited versions, completely open versions etc. But there is something even more revolutionary on the horizon, and that is perhaps the first glimmers of what truly may become a "gift economy".
Open source,
creative commons and
copyLeft have become household terms when discussing software. These legitimate models of doing business and licensing digital media have themselves been a very disruptive force for good. Giving people free high quality software they would in many cases never be possible otherwise, but I digress, we are talking about bad copyright law and focusing on music.
Litigation and the insanity of greedy music corporations
Even more recently these music corporations (paralleling this with the movie industry is left as a mental exercise for the reader) have taken to the unprecedented act of suing their customers for making copies of copyrighted music that is.
(ok I confess I'm having trouble with versions of the word copyright, copywritten, copywrited) Ridiculous fines like $80,000 USD per CD copied are being levied at folks who don't have the means to pay those fines. (recently a woman was fined something like $640,000 for 8 copied CDs in the US). The article went on to explain that this was intended to "send a message". So clearly fear control and greed are on the agenda of the corporate music giants and the self appointed policing agencies like MPAA that claim to represent the artists ("artists really means greedy corporations"). That they would bankrupt a woman over 8 CDs is satire when you listen to them speak about justice. In the Old Testament of the Bible there is a rule that was meant to stop this kind of escalating evil. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". That rule limits retaliation and evil to equal pain. That lady should have had to pay for her CDs. If they were $20 and she "stole/copied" 8 of them, then she should have paid $160 with interest to make it right. Don't be fooled by the talk about justice and "upholding the law". Any law that allows a $160 theft to be brought to justice with a $640,000 fine is not a just law. That is 4000 times the value of the CDs. It may be that these companies in their intense greed have decided that suing their customers is more profitable than selling to them.
Copyright is restricted by country
Copyright law is based on property law, and is different in every country. For example in the United States of America, I understand that it would be against the law to copy a music CD you had purchased and give that copy to a friend. While in Canada, the same act is legal. I can share the music I have purchased with friends in Canada without any fear of the RIAA or the DMCA or the FBI or the MPAA or any other 4 letter accronym knocking on my door. In Canada, sharing is good. Now I could not SELL that copied music. Selling the music is reserved for the artist or other rights holders. Additionally in Canada, I pay a levy on all blank media that I purchase. Every blank CD, Every blank tape. I pay a tax that has been earmarked for the artists. Even if I use that CD for non-copyright music. Even if I burn my own photos to that CD, I pay a levy that goes to musicians and other artists. So lets understand together that what is illegal in the USA may be legal in Italy, Canada, France or any other country. It is also clear that the sovereign nation of France has no right to tell "Americans" what they can and can't do in the privacy of their own houses, so lets not be ignorant and pretend that "American" organizations can do the same to individuals in other countries. For "American" companies, it would be nice to have the whole world play by the rules with which they are familiar, so there is pressure on the US government to pressure other nations to adopt the rules of the USA.
Currently I understand that "American" corporations and their Canadian subsidiaries are trying to force a corporate USA version of copyright on Canadians. The corporate giants are insisting that their version is good and any other (Canadian) version of copyright is evil.
