Copyright this

02008-02-27 | Copyright, Music

From the Opinion section of the L.A. Times

Copyright this – Los Angeles Times
A solution to determining which works are in the “Mickey Mouse” category of copyrights and which are in the more socially valuable “oral rehydration therapy” class of work is not feasible for a government bureaucracy. However, if all copyrights were taxed at a fixed (but significant) amount per year to maintain the copyright (all registered through the copyright office and searchable), there would be a significant carrying cost and most of the copyrighted material would revert to “public domain” and become available to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” As intellectual property and copyrights become an even more significant part of our economy, and as copyright holders (not necessarily the creators) make claims of “stealing” as though it is real property, it should be taxed. Relative to copyrights’ significance in our economy, the amount of revenue from this source should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
(Via Slashdot)

Interesting. On the other hand, copyright was originally a contract between the government and the creator of the work according to which the government offered to protect the work for the duration of the copyright in exchange for the work to become public domain afterwards. It is in the interest of the public to have the copyright period as short as possible – so that the work enters the public domain sooner – whereas the creators (or their representatives) would like to have the copyright as long as possible in order to make more money from their work. But the crucial element was the government offering laws and courts and public force, i.e. the police, to defend the copyright for its duration.

At present copyrights are too long and therefore of less interest to the public. For anything to take 75-100 years to enter the public domain is too long, especially when culture has sped up. Copyright-terms were extended several times in the recent past, while we all know that our culture is moving much faster than say, 50 years ago. Since the essence of copyright IS a contract offering protection of creative work for a certain amount of time, we have gone in exactly the wrong direction. That much is clear. At this point musical copyright can basically not be enforced, however hard some organizations may try, and the public has no interest in really enforcing anything because it takes nearly forever for the work to become public domain… A new deal must be made. A sensible copyright duration (10-20 years? I believe the original term offered in the U.S. was 14 years) in return for measures to either guard copyright better or create an ISP tax (speaking for music). The current situation reminds me of the tale about the Emperor’s new clothes… the deal isn’t working and isn’t right for the times and I think it is obvious.

The problem with the above suggestion in the L.A. TImes, that creators or their representatives should have to pay an annual “copyright property tax” is that this would first and foremost hurt the indies, whereas Disney would be happy to pay the copyright tax on Mickey Mouse for the next 1,000 years! Interesting approach, but a bad idea nonetheless.

Copyright and Use It Or Lose It!

02008-02-15 | Copyright, Music

Extend performers’ copyright to 95 years, says EU commissioner | News | guardian.co.uk Music
Performing artists, such as Cliff Richard, and session musicians would get copyright protection on their recordings for 95 years instead of the current 50, under plans put forward yesterday by Charlie McCreevy, the EU’s internal market commissioner.

But read on and you shall find this little gem:

McCreevy’s scheme includes a “use it or lose it” provision under which record labels refusing to re-release recordings would be forced to allow performers to move to another company.

Now that is a beautiful idea! A lot of great recordings are no longer available because the big labels do not think that can make enough money from them. It would indeed be great if the artist/performer can get them back in that case.

Silence

02008-02-07 | Copyright, Music

I am working on “Silence”, editing and refining an already beautiful piece. This is ecstatic music, building and building, and then building on top of that… like climbing the circular staircase of a tall tower and finally stepping off and… flying. I have to stop myself from listening to it too much, and listening at too high of a volume because I notice that I want to crawl inside the music, be moved and taken away by it.

Why am I taking so long with this album? I started work on it in the Summer of 2005, I believe. Well, since CD sales don’t amount to much these days, what is left for the musician is to enjoy and deepen the process. And because I am really allowing myself to experience and live the process it is taking a long time. At some point the ecstasy I have at times experienced while creating this music will be replaced by the knowledge that the album will be sold for less than a dollar on sites like this one and shared for free via BitTorrents. So what’s the rush… let me enjoy the process. The reality will follow soon enough. :)