5 ms·

>We’re in real danger of cultural death with these rules restricting our expression.< Isn't it sort of the opposite? Without these rules we'd be stuck drowning

>We’re in real danger of cultural death with these rules restricting our expression.< Isn't it sort of the opposite? Without these rules we'd be stuck drowning in an even larger and blander sea of retellings and reimaginings. The only time I see this considered noble or akin to staving off death is when the culture being preserved is already stagnating anyway.

joshspankit 4y ago
Right in this very moment there are hundreds if not thousands of musicians making music absolutely terrified that they will accidentally use prior works they can’t get permission for (or can’t afford). Some are terrified they’ll use “the wrong sample” (is there a list of wrong samples? no), some are even terrified they’ll accidentally “create” a chord progression that someone else already has the rights to. In these cases, that artist can end up getting a little popularity and maybe even a little income, then end up in debt with the song pulled from the internet, never to be played by them again.
- fyfirhffuug 4y ago
  Right but in these scenarios the similarities to a prior work are the cause of the problem they might face. It's stifling to the musician sure but not in a way that's preventing anything actually unheard before.
  - Jochim 4y ago
    Where's the limit? Perhaps we should award copyright over specific notes. After all we've all heard them before. Music has so many variables that even direct covers often end up conveying something entirely original or unique. The chilling effect of Copyright results in humanity missing out on a huge number of valuable cultural contributions.
- dahart 4y ago
  Speaking as a part-time musician that knows a lot of musicians, I don’t know anyone who’s worried about accidentally using prior works… that sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless you’re talking about DJs & sampling & remixing specifically? In that case all samples are infringing, there doesn’t need to be a list of wrong samples, because all creative authors automatically have copy rights of their works, in the US. Sampling and remixing is somewhat tolerated as long as you steer completely clear of copying the whole song, and I’ve heard precedent tends to favor cases where people sample from multiple source and not just one other song. Can you share some example cases of the debt you’re talking about? I’m not aware of any major problem along the lines you’re describing for people who are creating new music and not intentionally infringing a little bit.
  - joshspankit 4y ago
    I apologize because this will come off as dismissive, but I don’t mean it that way: I’m specifically talking about musicians who make their living through music and who have enough exposure (say, through album sales) to have the attention of the rival record companies. I say that because in the case of musicians who are “off the radar” the rules don’t really apply. Heck, it’s rare for a musician to get in trouble for playing an exact copy of a popular song at a small venue, but even then I think they all know that they could never release that song on Spotify or YouTube or anywhere else that’s “official” and that’s a demonstration of the kind of fear I’m talking about.
    - dahart 4y ago
      Can you share some specific examples? Which musicians? The ‘rival record companies’ comment hints that you’re talking about something different than copyright problems. But you’re also bringing up many vague fears and not citing examples. People can be scared of a lot of things, that doesn’t mean it’s reality. I’m trying to get a sense of what exactly you’re referring to because it sounds like you are tip-toeing around cases where people are actually infringing and trying to get away with it. Sampling is tolerated sometimes, but not legal. If you go down that road, you can’t necessarily expect to not be challenged.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    The George Harrison suit was the first big one to hit the news: https://performingsongwriter.com/george-harrison-my-sweet-lord/ https://performingsongwriter.com/george-harrison-my-sweet-lo... Then there was sampling in the 80s which built the market for doing it on purpose. Of course your music has to be noticed and be making money before it really matters. Probably why most pop music today is devoid of melody and is just beats and sound effects.
    - dahart 4y ago
      Oh I agree it has happened, I just don’t believe that having it happen accidentally is a very big problem that musicians are sitting around worrying about, which is what @joshspankit claimed. This doesn’t happen very often, right? I’m ignoring sampling here, that’s copying on purpose, as you say, so far more likely to end in conflict. Thanks for the example! I do wonder if Harrison would have had the same trouble today, those songs are pretty different despite the similarities. It’s not that surprising that among very simple three-chord diatonic major-key pop songs, a few would have a similar structure. The Harrison case might be just as much about opportunist money making as it is about copyright. Is pop music devoid of melody these days? The term to me suggests Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Rihanna, Harry Styles, etc… I mean pop is (more or less) always vocals, which has melody (almost) by definition. I can’t think of much pop that can be summarized as just beats and sound effects… what artists are you thinking of?
TheDong 4y ago
> Without these rules we'd be stuck drowning in an even larger and blander sea of retellings and reimaginings This experiment has been run in the form of open source software. The point of the GPL license, and other open source licenses, is to remove the restrictions of copyright from a work, and encourage people to reuse it, copy it, share it, modify it, etc. Has open source software ended up as a "larger and blander" sea of software "retellings" compared to proprietary software? Was the Xi Editor (RIP https://raphlinus.github.io/xi/2020/06/27/xi-retrospective.html https://raphlinus.github.io/xi/2020/06/27/xi-retrospective.h...) a bland remix of ed? Even moreso than proprietary editors like sublime text? Has there been no progress in Haskell, an open source language, due to the lack of copyright's limitations? Is all non-bland (spicy?) innovation in software done under copyright, and licensed out to other developers so they may enjoy some type system or language? Open source software to me seems like a very clear counter example to your fear.
- 9dev 4y ago
  I think you got this quite wrong. > Has open source software ended up as a "larger and blander" sea of software "retellings" compared to proprietary software? By all means, yes! There are so many open source clones of proprietary software, lots of stuff that is solved, but fun to rewrite, so people do it. How many pointless gnome themes are there? How many web servers, media players, databases? That’s survivor bias. The number of bland, irrelevant forks on GitHub far outnumbers the few relevant projects, it’s just that we, as software developers, have found ways to ignore those as we sift through options.
  - _Algernon_ 4y ago
    So the system adapted and we are all better of due to that. That warrants the question why we should expect anything else with copyright?
  - berniedurfee 4y ago
    It’s survivor bias in the same way humans have survived all of the various failed experiments of evolution. I think it’s a question of progress vs profit. Though, I also think there needs to be a reasonably balance between the two.
_Algernon_ 4y ago
>Without these rules we'd be stuck drowning in an even larger and blander sea of retellings and reimaginings. Imagine saying that statement unironically in a world where the MCU and Disney's Starwars exists.
- fyfirhffuug 4y ago
  Those considerations were precisely why the phrase "even blander" was chosen and it's not clear to me from your post why expanding the number of people who can capitalize on the same storytelling ip would lead to greater variety rather than more homogeneity.

joshspankit 4y ago

Right in this very moment there are hundreds if not thousands of musicians making music absolutely terrified that they will accidentally use prior works they can’t get permission for (or can’t afford). Some are terrified they’ll use “the wrong sample” (is there a list of wrong samples? no), some are even terrified they’ll accidentally “create” a chord progression that someone else already has the rights to. In these cases, that artist can end up getting a little popularity and maybe even a little income, then end up in debt with the song pulled from the internet, never to be played by them again.

fyfirhffuug 4y ago
Right but in these scenarios the similarities to a prior work are the cause of the problem they might face. It's stifling to the musician sure but not in a way that's preventing anything actually unheard before.
- Jochim 4y ago
  Where's the limit? Perhaps we should award copyright over specific notes. After all we've all heard them before. Music has so many variables that even direct covers often end up conveying something entirely original or unique. The chilling effect of Copyright results in humanity missing out on a huge number of valuable cultural contributions.
dahart 4y ago
Speaking as a part-time musician that knows a lot of musicians, I don’t know anyone who’s worried about accidentally using prior works… that sentence doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless you’re talking about DJs & sampling & remixing specifically? In that case all samples are infringing, there doesn’t need to be a list of wrong samples, because all creative authors automatically have copy rights of their works, in the US. Sampling and remixing is somewhat tolerated as long as you steer completely clear of copying the whole song, and I’ve heard precedent tends to favor cases where people sample from multiple source and not just one other song. Can you share some example cases of the debt you’re talking about? I’m not aware of any major problem along the lines you’re describing for people who are creating new music and not intentionally infringing a little bit.
- joshspankit 4y ago
  I apologize because this will come off as dismissive, but I don’t mean it that way: I’m specifically talking about musicians who make their living through music and who have enough exposure (say, through album sales) to have the attention of the rival record companies. I say that because in the case of musicians who are “off the radar” the rules don’t really apply. Heck, it’s rare for a musician to get in trouble for playing an exact copy of a popular song at a small venue, but even then I think they all know that they could never release that song on Spotify or YouTube or anywhere else that’s “official” and that’s a demonstration of the kind of fear I’m talking about.
  - dahart 4y ago
    Can you share some specific examples? Which musicians? The ‘rival record companies’ comment hints that you’re talking about something different than copyright problems. But you’re also bringing up many vague fears and not citing examples. People can be scared of a lot of things, that doesn’t mean it’s reality. I’m trying to get a sense of what exactly you’re referring to because it sounds like you are tip-toeing around cases where people are actually infringing and trying to get away with it. Sampling is tolerated sometimes, but not legal. If you go down that road, you can’t necessarily expect to not be challenged.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  The George Harrison suit was the first big one to hit the news: https://performingsongwriter.com/george-harrison-my-sweet-lord/ https://performingsongwriter.com/george-harrison-my-sweet-lo... Then there was sampling in the 80s which built the market for doing it on purpose. Of course your music has to be noticed and be making money before it really matters. Probably why most pop music today is devoid of melody and is just beats and sound effects.
  - dahart 4y ago
    Oh I agree it has happened, I just don’t believe that having it happen accidentally is a very big problem that musicians are sitting around worrying about, which is what @joshspankit claimed. This doesn’t happen very often, right? I’m ignoring sampling here, that’s copying on purpose, as you say, so far more likely to end in conflict. Thanks for the example! I do wonder if Harrison would have had the same trouble today, those songs are pretty different despite the similarities. It’s not that surprising that among very simple three-chord diatonic major-key pop songs, a few would have a similar structure. The Harrison case might be just as much about opportunist money making as it is about copyright. Is pop music devoid of melody these days? The term to me suggests Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Rihanna, Harry Styles, etc… I mean pop is (more or less) always vocals, which has melody (almost) by definition. I can’t think of much pop that can be summarized as just beats and sound effects… what artists are you thinking of?

TheDong 4y ago

> Without these rules we'd be stuck drowning in an even larger and blander sea of retellings and reimaginings This experiment has been run in the form of open source software. The point of the GPL license, and other open source licenses, is to remove the restrictions of copyright from a work, and encourage people to reuse it, copy it, share it, modify it, etc. Has open source software ended up as a "larger and blander" sea of software "retellings" compared to proprietary software? Was the Xi Editor (RIP https://raphlinus.github.io/xi/2020/06/27/xi-retrospective.html https://raphlinus.github.io/xi/2020/06/27/xi-retrospective.h...) a bland remix of ed? Even moreso than proprietary editors like sublime text? Has there been no progress in Haskell, an open source language, due to the lack of copyright's limitations? Is all non-bland (spicy?) innovation in software done under copyright, and licensed out to other developers so they may enjoy some type system or language? Open source software to me seems like a very clear counter example to your fear.

9dev 4y ago
I think you got this quite wrong. > Has open source software ended up as a "larger and blander" sea of software "retellings" compared to proprietary software? By all means, yes! There are so many open source clones of proprietary software, lots of stuff that is solved, but fun to rewrite, so people do it. How many pointless gnome themes are there? How many web servers, media players, databases? That’s survivor bias. The number of bland, irrelevant forks on GitHub far outnumbers the few relevant projects, it’s just that we, as software developers, have found ways to ignore those as we sift through options.
- _Algernon_ 4y ago
  So the system adapted and we are all better of due to that. That warrants the question why we should expect anything else with copyright?
- berniedurfee 4y ago
  It’s survivor bias in the same way humans have survived all of the various failed experiments of evolution. I think it’s a question of progress vs profit. Though, I also think there needs to be a reasonably balance between the two.

_Algernon_ 4y ago

>Without these rules we'd be stuck drowning in an even larger and blander sea of retellings and reimaginings. Imagine saying that statement unironically in a world where the MCU and Disney's Starwars exists.

fyfirhffuug 4y ago
Those considerations were precisely why the phrase "even blander" was chosen and it's not clear to me from your post why expanding the number of people who can capitalize on the same storytelling ip would lead to greater variety rather than more homogeneity.