[this is a conflation of a couple of replies I made in a comment thread to Jim Carroll's write-up of the Future of Music symposium at the CMC in Dublin in June.]
Andrew Dubber makes a really nice point about the problems of applying "ownership" models:
The composer’s sacrosanct relationship with their music, and its need for protection in a ‘Wild West World’ overlooks the similarity that intellectual property has with land ownership.
Like… it was here before we were, man.
It would be a rare composition indeed that didn’t draw from the culture that it springs from, that didn’t acknowledge any influences or antecedents, and that contained no phrases, chord structures or genre conventions that had previously existed. The art of songwriting is a unique and creative work, to be sure, but what it uses as its building blocks belong to us all.
Dubber's relating of music to land ownership is precisely not that it is property, but instead that music is like land in that regardless of what rights and laws we attach to it, it is a part of the mass of human culture, ownership is something grafted on top of this as a social law. Across human history, ownership of music has never been the norm, it's only the (relatively) recent rise of the music industry that has popularised this idea of "owning" music but this is by no means the natural state of affairs. This is not to say that composers do not a have a special relationship with what they create, but all works of music (and other arts) are a part of culture, the relationship a composer has with their work is a part of the network of relationships that the work has with everyone who comes in contact with it. In Irish law, the only real* moral right that this relationship gives is the right of attribution, the right to say "I made this" (a cornerstone of the Creative Commons licensing system), the rights to allow copying etc. are economic rights granted for a limited period, they are not "ownership". The only way to keep control of your work is to never let anyone else hear it.
The right to allow copying/performance/etc is defined in copyright law, but the point of copyright law is to give the creator a time-limited right to monopolise the work before the natural state of affairs is re-asserted and it becomes public domain. The point of copyright law is not to lock culture away, it's merely a shield legislation to allow creators the first bite of the pie they have made (so to speak). Although, as lots of people have already noted, the current state of copyright law is horribly distorted, a welfare system for entertainment corporations.
I believe that a lot of the problems we're seeing now (with the possibilities offered by digital networks) are a backlash to the last century's abuse of copyright, the commodification of music, the trying to make music "ownable". Culture doesn't work like that, once something is communicable then it's chemically grafted into the minds of anyone who hears it, culture and property are completely at odds with one another. Sharing and communication are the norms of culture, we share things because we love them: and when we find things that we like then we want to support them and make them grow more.
The digital age is still in its infancy, the waters will settle down after a while, but as Andrew Dubber was saying, we can't approach the digital age with the tools and mindsets of the previous age. I would like to see the laws that govern relationships between creators and society be completely rewritten, to allow creators to live on their work without having to sue their fans, but we also have to allow culture to be culture, allow sharing to be the norm again. I don't think this is an impossible task, I think that creators and the public would largely be onside with this, there are a lot of middlemen who will simply not be needed, but it's often the middlemen who are the problem here: I tip my hat with respect here to the many wonderful middlemen who understand that culture is an ecosystem and needs to be tended, not pillaged, you're a rare breed but hopefully on the increase. What we don't need is a desperate tightening of the legislative grip on culture, apart from the fact that it won't work, it's fighting the wrong fight and asking the wrong questions. The future of music in a digital age is (like the future of everything else in the digital age) is unquestionably bright, as long as we allow the digital age to be do what it's good at, don't let it be the electronic age in a vice grips.
* there's also the moral rights of integrity ("the right to prevent mutilation") and false attribution, but they're not as important in terms of ownership - see here
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[This is from the same thread but was originally a direct reply to Bill Whelan's post, here recontextualised and generalised some more]
In the comment thread about the Future of Music symposium, Bill Whelan sees it as a problem that the debate is lacking the voice of creators:
I am sometimes dismayed that this very important debate is often notable by the absence of the creators themselves. Sure, there are plenty of commentators, cultural gurus, academics and self-styled “futurists” around, but it is remarkable how empty the seats look at the creators side of the house.
I disagree, though that thread may not be the norm (half the commenters in that thread were musicians of some sort), there appears to be plenty of creators discussing these issues. What worries me is the lack of industry participation in the debate. Other than casting edicts from on high, or just pure fear-mongering, the incumbent players appear uninterested in debating with the mere creators; a point that unfortunately mirrors the current ACTA lobbying situation where the recording industry rewrites globally applicable laws without public, or sometimes even political consultation.
Some creators worry that in by supporting the current copyright regime, they sound greedy, and protectionist. I don't think it's fair to characterise this as greedy, though maybe a little bit protectionist. But mainly these are composers/writers/etc who are genuinely concerned, which is fair enough, every one of us is concerned or we wouldn't be here arguing. We have a situation here where rapid change is moving the practice we know into a very different area, the ground beneath us is shifting. Their concern is that it's not yet safe to move because the the way they do business is disappearing and no similar looking alternatives are in place yet; they and many others are on a shrinking island with no other islands in sight. My concern is that the industry is building legal/legislative obstacles that will lock us into the gatekeeper model of music business, obstacles that won't ever allow us to leave the island**, and it's their island so they're making the rules.
Metaphors aside, I agree that practical solutions are thin on the ground at the moment, I know I don't have one yet, and I think we all agree that the whole situation needs to be questioned and analysed. What I'm arguing against is the "shoot first" position that the industry is taking, surely this can't be the best solution they can offer: "those who can't innovate, litigate…"
I do understand their position, they're concerned too, history shows us that in every great technological change there are casualties, mainly industrial ones; those too big, too slow, or too unwilling to change. I'm concerned that in their fear of Schumpeter's "creative destruction" they'll break the internet, lock it down to suit their business model and rob us all of a potentially game-changing environment just to protect themselves. Of course in any change there will always be early adopters, and equally there will be some people who want to stay behind until the new territory has settled down a bit. I'm not condemning those who want to wait a while, but I am condemning those who would destroy the future because it's not the past.
What I'm not concerned about is that the internet is a problem for creators, history shows us that creators keep on creating, and adapt to the new, because creative solutions are what we do and because change is the engine of culture.
We're all philanthropists at heart, we all want to think the best of others and help people where we can, of course we have to stop short when our own survival is threatened. Personally speaking, I'm happy to bet the future on the proposition that a sharing model is one that will allow creators to thrive, because I don't see a threat to what I do and I don't see any actual damage being done (I see some selling-plastic-discs*** industries having a tough time but they're reaping what they've sown). I've not seen any evidence that there's a problem worthy of the sheer hyperbole and panic being spread by certain sections of the industry, while there's an ever-expanding stream of data coming out that says no damage is being done and that the whole thing is net positive for creators.
I am talking utopia, because utopia is an idealised no-place that we strive towards and get better along the way: as Beckett said, we can't go on, we must go on" ****
** with apologies for the "Lost" metaphor, it just came out that way…
**** or even better Luigi Nono's "Hay que caminar" soñando."but we must go on" dreaming: from “Caminantes, no hay caminos, hay que caminar.” — Travelers, there are no roads, but we must go on.
[edited for typos and stupidly large text]
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