Into the Creative Commons?
Well, then according to Bill Gates you’re a pinko commie. The latest edition of Wired reports that Gates believes that copyright reformers are “modern day communists.”
The kerfuffle started when Gates was asked in a News.com interview if intellectual property laws should be reformed. He replied:
“No, I’d say that of the world’s economies, there’s more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist,” he told News.com.
The comments show just how out-of-touch Gates is with a large and growing community of people who have embraced the ideas of open source and building on one another’s creative works, proponents of copyright reform say.
He was also a late adopter of the internet…
I don’t think his statement is too far off. The view of abandoning the legal concept of “intellectual property” is a “sort of” communistic concept; except it replaces the people’s right to freely share a country’s wealth, with the people’s right to share all information and creativity. I would say that people opposed to “intellectual property” are advocates for a communist state of creativity. Of course, this is an over simplification. That geek just didn’t put it as clearly and intelligently as I did. That’s his real problem.
Gates’ comments don’t illustrate that he is out of touch. He just disagrees with the “proponents of copyright reform”. Having checked out the online license(s) that Creative Commons offers, I have to ask – where’s the enforcement? It’s nonexistent.
Randy, in the past you’ve cited the term “tax relief” as a right wing euphemism designed to make tax cuts for the rich seem more palatable. After all, who can argue with relieving someone of a burden??
Well, here’s another one – “file sharing”. What kind of ogre would have a problem with “sharing”? How about the person or people who wrote, arranged, performed, recorded, mastered, presented, and promoted the music? I have a theory that those who try to justify file-sharing do so out of guilt. The technology is there to allow the theft of music in such a convenient way that people just can’t resist and then they have to convince themselves that somehow what they’re doing is part of some revolution in thought. If these people truly believe in the people’s right to share all information and creativity, they SHOULD, following the same logic, refuse to pay money to get into a concert. However, don’t some people claim that a benefit of file sharing is to cultivate a fan base that would hopefully turn out to live performances thereby helping to support the artist in question? That’s a bunch of conscience-soothing B.S. You know another way to support an artist, folks – pay for their records.
Now I know that some bands actually do benefit from file sharing in some way. But plenty of bands had plenty of success before the internet even existed, so the bottom line is that file sharing exists mainly so that people can steal someone else’s property – the bands don’t need it to be successful.
I just thought of an analogy that I think works. It probably took and equal amount of work to build your stereo as it did to make the records you play on it, so if you believe you have the right to download music for free, do you also believe you should have the right to take a stereo from Best Buy without paying for it?
p.s. I’m not directing this at anyone in particular here…just ranting.
Creative Commons is a voluntary system. RIAA artists don’t even have a choice BUT to stay out of it.
Tony, file-sharing isn’t that simple. When recordable cassette tapes first hit the market the Majors freaked, remember? It was the downfall of the industry. Look at it this way, many people don’t want to steal the music but just prefer it in a format outside of CD and/or vinyl, cassette, and prefer the community aspects of P2P (peer to peer)… The trouble is that the RIAA moves like a dinosaur and can’t see the writing on the wall. Hard copy formats may not be a thing of the past but they sure don’t allow potential listeners the freedom of P2P. As far as compensating the artist is concerned I think the answer is within VCL (Voluntary Collective Licensing). But it’s early, maybe someone will think of an even better way.
I’m a huge proponent of file-sharing, not stealing. The reason being, what other option does a listener have in experimenting with new music? And don’t tell me iTunes or Napster is the answer. A 30 sec’ non-downloadable clip is no way to find new artists. Neither is going to a record store (which many people in the world don’t have the convenience of). I worked at Record Time and trust me when I say distributors make it real tough on store owners. If a CD is opened and doesn’t sell, the store must absorb the cost. No returns, no refunds, no exchanges. If the product doesn’t sell the store is out $8-$11. You may mention used CDs, my rebuttal would be, who can really tell whether they like a CD on the first listen? I for one can’t.
P2P is the single-handed BEST way to discover new music. Yes, right now there’s no way to compensate the artist but in all honesty throwing a 5 spot in an envelope and mailing it to the band would be better than what their major gives ‘em. The system is already broken and P2P is not the reason but may be a possible solution.
More on VCL
More on P2P
The cassette example doesn’t hold up for a couple reasons. Firstly, the quality of the sound diminishes significantly each time a cassette is copied, unlike with digital technology. Three or four “generations” of copying down the line, and your cassette is unlistenable. Secondly, cassettes are far more cumbersome than the latest technology. An ipod can store AND play an large record collection’s worth of music, is portable, and can fit in your pocket. Just try to put your whole record collection onto cassettes and carry all of them along with your player in your back pocket.
In other words, the reason we are seeing unprecedented theft of music nowadays is because the technology allows for unprecedented ease and convenience. I would love to own an ipod. It’s an amazing piece of equipment. Please don’t think I don’t understand the attraction of the format when compared to CDs, vinyl, cassettes, etc. But if, as you wrote, “there’s no way to compensate the artist”, how can one justify downloading the music?
After reading the VCL article, I have a couple concerns. Let’s say a person pays $5 for a one month subscription and downloads one album per day, which is pretty reasonable. That comes to less than 17 cents per album. After administrative overhead, which would admittedly be minimal but would still exist, how much would the artist receive? A few pennies? Now, if the person is a music fanatic and downloads five albums per day. That’s five and a half cents an album. If a person were really smart, they would keep a list of records they wanted and pay the $5 once or twice a year and download all the records on their list in that month or two, resulting in a cost of a couple cents per album. Can an artist making a living earing two cents for every record sold? VCL seems like a noble idea, but someone must come up with something better.
You might say, “Some bands have such lousy contracts that they don’t make much more than pennies per ablum sold from their record companies.” That doesn’t mean the saavier bands who negotiated more favorable, back-loaded deals should suffer at the expense of those who signed bad deals. If an artist is so foolish or so blinded by their dreams of fame and fortune that they sign any piece of paper a record label puts in front of them, I think they deserve whatever they get. We can’t criticize corporate record label fatcats for being greedy but not blame the artists who sell their souls to the labels out of the same desire for fortune and glory.
Yes, there remains the difficulty of finding new music out there. And no one likes when they buy record because they like a particular song only to find out the rest of the album sucks. But these problems have always existed. The problem as I see it is that there aren’t enough radio stations that play diverse and obscure music anymore. If I could turn on the radio anytime and hear one or even several songs in a row from an unknown band or a few “deep cuts” from bands I did know, it would be easier to decide which albums I wanted to go out and pay for. We can’t all stay up ‘til 3 am every night listening to Liz Copeland.
I simply don’t believe that I have the right to download music for free, despite all of the problems with the record/radio industries. The system might be bad, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
Oh, yeah – one more thing.
When recordable cassette were introduced, there was no way to unite the community of “sharers” on a grand scale. The internet facilitates the mass “sharing” of music in a way that makes any previous example totally incomprable. Like I said, unprecedented ease and convenience has led to never-before-seen circumstances.
COMMENT:
“The cassette example doesn’t hold up for a couple reasons. Firstly, the quality of the sound diminishes significantly each time a cassette is copied, unlike with digital technology.”
ANSWER:
I was using it as an example of the music industry attacking format change. Not a comparison to P2P. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough, sorry.
QUESTION:
“After reading the VCL article, I have a couple concerns. Let’s say a person pays $5 for a one month subscription and downloads one album per day, which is pretty reasonable. That comes to less than 17 cents per album. After administrative overhead, which would admittedly be minimal but would still exist, how much would the artist receive? A few pennies?”
ANSWER (from the VCL article):
“A collective licensing regime for file-sharing can promise $3 billion in annual profits to the record labels—more than they’ve ever made.”
That figure came from industry leaders and EFF lawyers.
COMMENT:
“If a person were really smart, they would keep a list of records they wanted and pay the $5 once or twice a year and download all the records on their list in that month or two, resulting in a cost of a couple cents per album.”
ANSWER:
Yes, there would be a risk of “leechers” but I truly believe if an honest system was there a lot of people would buy into it permanently and not just jump in and out.
In addition, it’s quite a hassle to call up Comcast everytime you wish to download something. Plus, some ISPs might not even give that option. It may be too much of a hassle for restricting their users download capabilities. It’s like allowing customers to surf the ‘net but not view images. My guess is ISPs will just raise their monthly billing and include file-sharing in all their internet packages.
COMMENT:
“VCL seems like a noble idea, but someone must come up with something better.”
ANSWER:
If something better comes along great but all VCL needs is to be refined and get major label buy-in, but the system would/will work.
The main argument I have is people place P2P users into one thieving group. I firmly believe P2P is here to stay and services such as BitTorrent have major advantages over competition. People will pay if you give them the option but right now the labels aren’t doing that.
In other words, for simply not adapting the labels should be blamed for “the stealing”, not the customers.
Yes, the record industry has some history of resisting format change. My point, which I feel I established well enough, was that the NATURE of this particular format change makes it very different from anything that has happened before. A global network of sharing that requires no more effort on the part of the user than a click of the mouse is a lot more threatening than a few friends exchanging dubbed cassettes. Therefore, the resistance to the new format is proportionately greater.
A “promise” of $3,000,000,000 in profit per year. eh? At $5 bucks a pop that’s going to require 600,000,000 monthly subscriptions per year. Or fifty million per month, assuming that the overhead is zero, which of course is not the case. Sounds a little far-fetched to me.
You say you believe that people won’t jump in and out and leech off the system, but I disagree. People will take advantage of whatever the system allows them to do. Isn’t that what they’re doing now by downloading for free, knowing full well that the artists aren’t geting paid?
Furthermore, I think we’re forgetting a major point. Record-buying isn’t like going to an amusement park, where you pay a flat fee to get in and then you can ride the rides all day long. Paying a flat fee for unlimited access to music means that the individual artist could very easily get gypped. Do you think we should be able to pay $50 a month and be able to use as much gasoline as we like for that month? No, because gas is a commodity with a certain price. Just like music.
Think about it this way: If VCL were the primary means of acquiring music, very few people would buy records at all. You couldn’t give ‘em away. And depending on how people use the online system, the individual artist could “sell” a million records and hardly see any profit for their work. So what about those whose albums were downloaded much less. They’d barely make a dime. It would be impossible for many artists to make a living.
100 M homes have broadband in 2004
Far-fetched? 60 million x 5 = 300 million. 300 million x 12 = 3.6 billion. That means with only 60% of broadband users buying into VCL there’s 600 million left for overhead. My company runs on FAR less than that.
“…depending on how people use the online system, the individual artist could “sell” a million records and hardly see any profit for their work.”
From VCL:
“The money collected would then be divided between artists and rights-holders based on the relative popularity of their music.”
It’s proportionally divided. Artists would (in theory) get more money than they’re currently getting because as I stated above, the labels would get more money.
“…gas is a commodity with a certain price. Just like music.”
And VCL would fill that price.
There’s a lot of things we pay flat rates for. Look at trash pickup. Every household pays the same yet some homes throw away more. How about road repair or leaf pickup? I have a hell-of-a-lot more leaves than my neighbor. Should I be paying more? Or how about the current broadband system? I might use a lot more bandwidth than my neighbor, should I be paying more?
The logic is sound Tony. I don’t understand why you’re so resistant to the idea. It’s better for everyone!
Music isn’t a service. It’s a good. I don’t see how, as a musician, you can compare making music to trash pickup or road repair. And don’t taxes go up as the costs of these municipal services increase?
“And VCL would fill that price.”
Yes, but the price will be way too low and way to subject to the behavior of the user. Again, an artist could very likely sell a million records and make only a couple cents per unit. Divide THAT by the number of people in your group. You can’t make a living that way. I guess you could supplement your income by touring year round, but if you did so, the demand to see your show would diminish since you’d be performing so often, if you could even book that many gigs, which you couldn’t. And forget about selling records at your shows – everyone there already got one online for three cents! You’d better sell a lot of t-shirts.
Lastly, you’re assuming that the 100 million figure is accurate. The link is to a projection from 2003. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I’d like the accurate and updated numbers. Then you assume that 60% of the users would subscribe every month, which I believe is doubtful if one can get all the music they want by just paying for one month – people aren’t going to pay if they don’t have to. And that’s if they pay at all – not every one cares that much about music. For all these reasons, I still the the $3 billion is far-fetched. My guess is that something like one-third of the users would pay 1-3 months per year, which would yield about $330 million minus overhead. Not quite the 3 billion promised, but my guess could be way off I suppose.
I guess the logic is more sound to you than me. I’m just not convinced that this would be better for everyone.
“I don’t see how, as a musician, you can compare making music to trash pickup or road repair. And don’t taxes go up as the costs of these municipal services increase?”
Just a few sentences ago you compared it to gasoline! And yes they increase, just like inflation or market flux may change the $5 dollar amount over time.
“Forget about selling records at your shows – everyone there already got one online for three cents!”
No they didn’t get it for ONLY 3 cents!! The five dollar a month fee would be a flat rate that is applied to EVERYONE with broadband. I seriously doubt Comcast (or any other ISP) would give users a choice (it’s too cumbersome). You buy into it as soon as you sign up for broadband. Binge downloading could only last so long before that user either ran out of harddrive space or got everything they could possibly want. Therefore the intial price of that album keeps increasing as the users downloading habits go down. Not to mention the amount of broadband users is increasing every day so the system will only get better and more profitable as time goes on.
You’re breaking the system too far down. Do you know that BitTorrent comprises of 45% of ALL internet traffic. That doesn’t necessarily mean that 45% of broadband users use BitTorrent but it’s definitely not a number to laugh at! My estimates on usage of VCL are built off of reading SlashDot, EFF, DownHillBattle, K10k.net, other “geek” sources, and being a web programmer for the past 7 years. I’ve gotten to know trends of the web. I’m a professional in a field that does analysis of browser specs’, how often users change their systems, how fast new technology gets adopted. Here’s a question for you. What are your estimates based on?
If it’s just a matter of experiencing new music, which I’m sure it is, you guys should try using musicmobs.com.
sorry, I meant to say “which I’m sure it isn’t”
I compared it to another good, not a taxpayer-supported service. Not the same thing.
“Therefore the intial price of that album keeps increasing as the users downloading habits go down.”
So if download 100 albums one month, each group gets a nickel. If I download one album the next month, that band gets five bucks. Would I want to volunteer my product to be sold in a market where the price can fluctuate that much without my consent? No way. But that’s what would happen – people would download like mad at first until their collections were filled out and then buy more sparingly based on new releases that they wanted. And that’s if they were forced to subscribe on a long-term basis by providers. I still think it would be an optional charge.
And check out the “dividing up the money” section of the VCL article. A Nielsen-esque system is absurd. Are they just going to guess who gets what? How is Racebannon going to get paid for the nine records of theirs that were downloaded in a given month? “Recruiting volunteers” to “figure out what is popular” is going to be the system of distributing funds! What about the albums that sell a few copies, but which aren’t popular? Are they serious?
Couldn’t users simply download their songs onto some piece of external equipment, like an ipod, and then clear their harddrive to allow for more songs?
Randy, you know I’m not exactly an expert on computer technology, nor would I pretend to be. That’s why I freely admitted that my guess could be wrong. Here’s a question in return: If the estimate of $3 billion proves to be way too high and if this system is a total failure, would it be the first business venture to crash and burn, failing to live up to expectations? I think not. So don’t be so sure that it will succeed. And even if it does, the artists still might not benefit. But anytime someone “promises” an immediate and annual $3 billion dollar profit on an unproven business model, I tend to be skeptical.
An iPod requires syncing with another hard drive to really be useful. But in actuality storage space is pretty cheap and keeps getting cheaper. Soon 1 gig will be the current price of 1 meg and so on and so forth. I’m sure in the near future a terabyte (1000 Gigs) will be considered a small amount of data. So in all honesty my argument wasn’t really that great.
“‘Recruiting volunteers’ to ‘figure out what is popular’ is going to be the system of distributing funds!”
I realize that statement is fairly vague but here’s what I take out of it. The Majors already pay services to watch P2P trends (check out AudioScrobbler.com). In BitTorrent trackers have extremely accurate counts. But I would assume the ISPs would install tracking software instead of a third party. That way the counting would be centralized.
“If the estimate of $3 billion proves to be way too high and if this system is a total failure, would it be the first business venture to crash and burn, failing to live up to expectations? I think not. So don’t be so sure that it will succeed. And even if it does, the artists still might not benefit.”
The sad thing is I don’t think it will ever be tested because it’s one step closer to artists seeing that they don’t need major labels. Instead there’s bastardized versions already hitting (i.e. SnoCap.com) Recording is cheaper than ever, promotions can be done entirely on the ‘net also cheaper than ever, there’s no need for packaging, etc… Who needs a major when DIY could navigate you to more money? Bright Eyes is a perfect example of this already occurring. They were on the Billboard charts for Christ’s sake!
“And even if it does, the artists still might not benefit.”
Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. The only way to find out is to try.
Chris, it is about discovering new music. The first time I heard Troubled Hubble, The Shins, Ted Leo, and a ton of other bands was online through BitTorrent. Not to mention the advance releases, gotta love those!
Just to let everyone know (anyone who’s been to my house already knows) I do buy records! Downloading is a tool for discovery not permanent ownership.
My whole point in posting the creative commons article (and i’m glad it’s generated so much discussion) was the ridiculous accusation that creative commoners are communists. let’s not forget that libraries are places in which citizens have ‘free’ access to goods like music and books–would Gates accuse library users and librarians of being commies??? Forgetting about the whole file sharing thing, let’s remember that this is a question of what is worth putting in the public as a common good? this whole notion of reforming intellectual property laws comes about because large corporations are using this law in a manner much different than how it was intended when originally drafted. Intellectual property laws are stifling creativity and giving power to large corporations. is this what we as a society, a community, really want??? for more about the IP issue visit read Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity.”
Randy, right…file sharing, ideally, is used as a means of temporary possession. I would find it a pain to use a share-ware program as my primary mean of obtaining music. Most share-ware programs I have encountered, I have found too slow. Whether or not file-sharing is right still remains a huge debate. However, if it were utilized the way it was originally intended, which I believe is what you are saying Randy, to be used only as a tool to discovering new music, than there wouldn’t be much of an issue of whether or not it’s wrong or right. The problem with share-ware programs is that most people don’t understand what it is there for. Therefore, you get the abuse. I bet most people don’t even understand the repercussions of downloading songs without paying for them. I remember hearing a story of a bust in, I believe, New York, where people who had downloaded songs had to pay $100 per song, which resulted in thousands of dollars for the consistent user. Now, it’s stories, or rumors like that that prevent me from using share-ware programs as my primary mean of obtaining new music. Nonetheless, I do believe, used in it’s proper manner, that programs such as Lime Wire, Kaaza, etc., should be viewed as valuable tools for obtaining any new piece of media information. It’s just a matter of policing those programs to prevent the abuse they recieve. Unfortunately, we are not at able to do so other than little police stings where songs you download are put out there just for that reason of entrapment?.
The reason why I mentioned Music Mobs is because I have found it to be a safer way in discovering music. However, the only drawback is that it is synced with iTunes and you are limited to the 30 second preview that you spoke of earlier Randy. Nonetheless, I have found some good music using that website.
Is that you, Sesta??
I agree with the temporary possession angle. Like when you call a radio station to request a song. You hear it and it’s gone (of course you could record it to cassette but that’s no fun for a number of reasons). Then you have to go out and buy the record. The obvious and major advantage of file sharing is that it’s easy to hear what you want when you want to, unlike with requesting songs on the radio. I know attempts have been made to create files that can’t be copied to a disc, but that was quickly circumvented I believe.
Ideally, the files would “destroy” themselves after a certain amount of time, a few days maybe, and would not be able to be transferred to disc or to an ipod-type device. Even with my lack of knowledge on the subject, I’m guessing such files cannot be created or this would have happened already. But if you were restricted to “sampling” a song for a limited time the market for records would remain and it would be far easier to discover new music that the radio never plays.
Unfortunately, as long as the opportunity exists to permanently download and/or copy a recording at a high level of quality with little effort without paying, people will continue to do so.
Lest anyone thinks I love the current state of the record business, let me say that I haven’t bought a new CD in many months because I can’t afford it. Nor am I a record label executive. So I’m totally in favor of a revolution in the way music is sold so long as the artists still get FAIRLY and ADEQUATELY paid for their work. I’m not aware of any proposal yet that would accomplish this.
Chris, I just wanted to expand on what you were saying. For one, downloading is NOT ILLEGAL. Uploading however is illegal. Therefore BitTorrent is always illegal according to US law. But tools like Kaaza are legal to use if you simply turn off sharing.
As far as speed restraints you really need to check out BitTorrent. Azureaus is my favorite client and indietorrents.com is my favorite community. Not only can you download entire higher quality (192 kbps mp3s) albums quickly (less than 15-20 minutes on an average cable connection) but the forums, comments, and ratings wiki give you a chance to tailor your downloads to things you think you might like.
And yes; Kaaza, Limewire, Acquisition, BitTorrent, etc.. Are wonderful tools for spreading media it’s a shame that the RIAA and MPAA have sided so harshly against the developers of these tools when in essence they’ve done a lot of the ground work that can assist them in a better and cheaper distribution model.
Tony, I would love to burn you a copy of some Wilco but that is just as bad as what we have been speaking of, right? Ha ha.
“So I’m totally in favor of a revolution in the way music is sold so long as the artists still get FAIRLY and ADEQUATELY paid for their work. I’m not aware of any proposal yet that would accomplish this.”
You’re such a hater.
I’m the hater? I agree with what you are saying…Now, I do think that iTunes synced with mobster aka music mobs is an effective way of discovering new music…you should check it out. By the way, know of any good music forums?
Frontline featured an interesting episode on the state of the music industry: The Way The Music Died. According to their online poll, the number one way people get their music is through P2P software such as KaZaa and Limewire…
No, not you Chris. Tony’s the hater. See, I quoted him above the hater call out.
Devon, my co-worker told me about that episode. Isn’t it covered with Velvet Revolver interviews?
YOU’RE the hater, Randy! GOSH!
Chris, if you try to hand me a disc of music you’ve copied, Wilco or otherwise, I’m calling the police.
Tony, give me one of yer tots.