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> On the other hand, society really should be looking at non-exclusive ways to incentivize creation. Maybe a real copyright could be part of the mix too, but th

> On the other hand, society really should be looking at non-exclusive ways to incentivize creation. Maybe a real copyright could be part of the mix too, but the current model rewards trying to own shared history that is largely valuable because it is shared and previously experienced, and not for the artistic contribution itself. Woah, hang on there buddy. Without the artistic contribution you wouldn’t have the shared experience or history. So which is more valuable? The chicken or the egg? (Hint: it’s the egg). > I think a system with a much shorter exlusivity periode - more like 1 year - and then a longer period of e.g. mandatory fixed-price licensing (pick a price per human end user, but you cannot say no to remixes or alter the price for anyone); or citation-based subsidy, or mandatory auctioning (e.g. the copyright owner sets a price, pays X% of that price as a tax, but must sell to the highest bidder over that price, potentially annually at increasing scale?) Music is not the same as online adverts, so I’m not entirely sure why you think a similar model should be applied. Also, who defines what constitutes as a “remix”? Does me changing one second of audio count as a remix? I’ve altered the work, I’ve changed it. But it’s 99% the same. Is that a remix or copyright infringement? Also, this type of model assumes EVERYTHING can be measured online. What about vinyl record sales? Cassette sales? How do you get every shop across the entire world to adhere to your model for physical products. Also, what about live gigs? How do you license for x number of end listeners if you can’t count how many end listeners there are? And before you mention ticket sales, what about cover bands that play in pubs and bars where there are no ticket sales? > Don't forget that the aim is to help society, not to reward artists. Errrrrrr. What? No. Copyright law is designed to protect the rightsholders first of all. If I don’t want someone remixing my track, why should society get a say above what I think? It’s my work. Why do they get to choose? > I get that 20 years would be nice for artists, but I doubt that "just" 5 would be too little to incentivize creation - let's be honest, humans have been creative since well before the dawn of copyright. Again, we should be looking at incentives with less harmful downsides. It's not just too long; it's incentivizing the wrong stuff; I’ve been making music for 10 years. In that time I’ve worked jobs to pay the bills and buy music gear. I’ve spent much of my free time on making music. I’ve invested my money and my time over the last 10 years. If I were to “make it big” tomorrow, do you think I’d be happy about half of my investment being thrown to the wolves? Music (and art generally) is not a linear earning process. The majority of people don’t suddenly become big overnight. There’s years (sometimes decades in the case of Gigi Masin) of toil and hardship until you finally get to the point where you actually make some money.

combatentropy 7y ago
> I’ve been making music for 10 years. Then I wonder what you think of Kirby Ferguson's video series, Everything Is a Remix (https://vimeo.com/139094998 https://vimeo.com/139094998).
- dijksterhuis 7y ago
  WRT artists and creativity... It's ridiculously reductive and misses swathes of nuance. Apparently anyone who uses an A minor chord is derivative by that logic. Anyone using an ABCDCAECCF song structure is derivative. Anyone using drums is derivative! Using its logic, one could argue that your own comment is derivative - it uses the English language, you used the HN comments system rather than making your own, you included a vimeo link like so many other people on HN, you used the block quote symbol instead of coming up with your own. When I record noise in a coffee shop, I'm using a technique that many other people have used, yes. However, I'm the only one sitting in that exact position, using that exact microphone, with those exact people around me talking about those specific things at that specific moment in time. So the sound I record is not derivative. It's special. It's unique. No-one else has recorded that sound. No-one else accidentally spilled his coffee halfway through the recording and mumbled "ah sh" in my voice. If you want to be black and white, yes all art is derivative. No-one has ever created anything purely original ever. In the whole world and the entirety of time. But that misses the point. My personality, wide ranging influences, strange thoughts, ideas and mistakes are in that recording. Also, good artists copy, great artists steal. Every time I show new tracks to my friends I try to ask who they think the influences were. It's a really fun game because 90% of the time it shows me more about their taste in music than mine. ------ WRT Copyright law. I can only speak for the UK here, but we are one of the biggest exporters of music in the world. We export more of our music than most other nations. That's not evidence of a system that is stifling creativity. Far from it! PRS For Music pays out around £700 million to UK rights holders annually. And that's just one part of the music industry! This stuff about exclusive licenses also isn't really a problem. All those Beastie Boys, Eminem and Will Smith tracks will have cleared the Led Zeppelin sample (mentioned in Part 1), negotiating a share of the royalty with the original rightsholders. I know this because I used to look at these royalty shares every day in PRS systems (used to work there). Sure, if you want to use a sample from a popular song in your work, you have to do a bit of extra work and maybe sacrifice a bit of cash. Hell, maybe you can't actually clear it and need to replace that sample. But you're trying to use someone else's work directly, and without modification, so they should be fairly paid for that. You could have created your own element to fit in that space, but you didn't. Sampling actually has an interesting loophole BTW. If the sample is modified beyond recognition, it is considered a new work and doesn't need to be cleared/attributed. Finally, just for the sake of clarity, the stuff he was talking about wrt Led Zeppelin stealing from other artists actually sits in the area known as Arrangements. These are a whole weird grey area, which is why people go through through lengthy court battles.

combatentropy 7y ago

> I’ve been making music for 10 years. Then I wonder what you think of Kirby Ferguson's video series, Everything Is a Remix (https://vimeo.com/139094998 https://vimeo.com/139094998).

dijksterhuis 7y ago
WRT artists and creativity... It's ridiculously reductive and misses swathes of nuance. Apparently anyone who uses an A minor chord is derivative by that logic. Anyone using an ABCDCAECCF song structure is derivative. Anyone using drums is derivative! Using its logic, one could argue that your own comment is derivative - it uses the English language, you used the HN comments system rather than making your own, you included a vimeo link like so many other people on HN, you used the block quote symbol instead of coming up with your own. When I record noise in a coffee shop, I'm using a technique that many other people have used, yes. However, I'm the only one sitting in that exact position, using that exact microphone, with those exact people around me talking about those specific things at that specific moment in time. So the sound I record is not derivative. It's special. It's unique. No-one else has recorded that sound. No-one else accidentally spilled his coffee halfway through the recording and mumbled "ah sh" in my voice. If you want to be black and white, yes all art is derivative. No-one has ever created anything purely original ever. In the whole world and the entirety of time. But that misses the point. My personality, wide ranging influences, strange thoughts, ideas and mistakes are in that recording. Also, good artists copy, great artists steal. Every time I show new tracks to my friends I try to ask who they think the influences were. It's a really fun game because 90% of the time it shows me more about their taste in music than mine. ------ WRT Copyright law. I can only speak for the UK here, but we are one of the biggest exporters of music in the world. We export more of our music than most other nations. That's not evidence of a system that is stifling creativity. Far from it! PRS For Music pays out around £700 million to UK rights holders annually. And that's just one part of the music industry! This stuff about exclusive licenses also isn't really a problem. All those Beastie Boys, Eminem and Will Smith tracks will have cleared the Led Zeppelin sample (mentioned in Part 1), negotiating a share of the royalty with the original rightsholders. I know this because I used to look at these royalty shares every day in PRS systems (used to work there). Sure, if you want to use a sample from a popular song in your work, you have to do a bit of extra work and maybe sacrifice a bit of cash. Hell, maybe you can't actually clear it and need to replace that sample. But you're trying to use someone else's work directly, and without modification, so they should be fairly paid for that. You could have created your own element to fit in that space, but you didn't. Sampling actually has an interesting loophole BTW. If the sample is modified beyond recognition, it is considered a new work and doesn't need to be cleared/attributed. Finally, just for the sake of clarity, the stuff he was talking about wrt Led Zeppelin stealing from other artists actually sits in the area known as Arrangements. These are a whole weird grey area, which is why people go through through lengthy court battles.