The Purpose of Copyright

Subject: RE: 'The Purpose of Copyright'
From: toadfrog
Date: 11 Aug 01 - 11:13 PM

Yeah, Kytrad, I agree this is all a bit odd.

This is not by any means his first thread on this, it has been going on a long time. The gentleman purports to be a retired naval officer, disclaims being a lawyer or giving legal advice (which he does) or forming attorney-client relationships with the recipients of said advice. That sure sounds like lawyer-talk to me. He seems to aspire to the status of copyright expert-in residence, and he definitely does not like copyrights. Does seem to like NAPSTER>, though. I would speculate that he is a former in pro per litigant; they can get very intense.

Subject: RE: 'The Purpose of Copyright'
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 14 Feb 02 - 07:29 PM

kytrad, your question is insultingly worded.

toadfrog, I have never claimed to be "a retired naval officer." I would be very interested in any post to this forum that you can cite in support of that statement, since it would mean that someone else has been using the same name. Your statement that I "do not like copyrights" is also unsupported. Your statement that I "seem to like Napster" is unsupported by the post you cite in support of it, in which I stated merely that I would not shed too many tears for the record labels.

T.

Subject: RE: 'The Purpose of Copyright'
From: Jacob B
Date: 15 Feb 02 - 10:35 AM

I'll let T answer for himself about why he cares about this subject, but I'll say why I care about it, and why I think we all should.

As someone who loves traditional music, I appreciate the fact that it belongs to all of us, that we can make it our own. We can sing the version we learned as children, we can make up new verses for this week's special family occasion, or turn it into a protest song for this year's pressing issue. We can come up with new tunes based on the old tunes, without needing to get permission from a company which "owns the rights" to the old tune.

If there were not music which was owned in common ("in the public domain") then every new piece of music would be seen as being a variant of an older piece of music, and therefore owing royalties to it. This would have a chilling effect on the creation of new music.

I'm all in favor of musicians (and other artists) having monopoly rights to their work for their lifetimes. I'm also in favor of these rights continuing after their deaths (after all, we don't want to give anyone a financial incentive to kill the artist!) The question is, how long after death should these rights continue? And in the case of a work created for hire which belongs to a corporation, how long should the corporation have monopoly rights to it?

If the monopoly goes on for too long, it stops being a way to give an incentive for the production of new art, and becomes a way of giving income to those who had nothing to do with the creation of the art, by stealing from the public domain. And that steals from all of us.

Jean, you've made a career of singing the traditional music of the Appalachians. You may want to give some thought to how much you would have to pay if someone was able to come to you and say, "All of the songs you recorded are variants of songs which were registered with the Lord Stationer's Office in London between the years of 1535 and 1685, and therefore you owe royalties to my client. In addition, you must submit all future recordings to us before release, and will not be allowed to release them if my client does not approve of the differences between your version and the version which they own."

It's a frightening thought. And yet, if we allow monopoly rights to art to become eternal, that's what will happen. We've already seen a 75 year period extended to a 95 year period. We can be sure that, before the 95 year period starts running out, the companies that have large holdings in monopoly rights to artwork will be back to the legislature, campaigning to have the term of copyrights extended again. After all, they have a vested interest in extending their monopolies.

We need to understand that we have a vested interest in preserving the the public domain. While we need to provide for artists, and we want to make sure we provide well for them, at some point music needs to revert to all of us.

Jacob

Subject: RE: 'The Purpose of Copyright'
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 15 Feb 02 - 11:29 PM

T certainly has a passionate concern about copyright issues and I appreciate his posts. I agree with Jacob and T that there are certain dangers in an unlimited copyright. The loss of a public domain is but one of the concerns. The extension of the copyright benefits the publishing industry far more than composers and their families and unless copyright laws are rewritten only the writers of the so-called top forty music will continue to benefit. I have been associated with an organization that presents strictly traditional music, most of which is in the public domain. We have received notices and threats by BMI and ASCAP who demanded payments for the use of their music. We explained our purpose and asked if there was some type of arrangement or contract for organizations such as ours in which copyrighted music would only be performed on occasion and at best comprised only a small percentage of our total performance. Their response was that if we did one copyrighted song or a hundred the price was the same. The irony is that the heirs of the writers of songs we performed would never receive a penny of the royalties since none of the songs are on any top forty radio playlist. The copyright is certainly a good thing. My concern is what is a reasonable length for an effective copyright. I read an article a short time ago quoting an author who fretted each time he saw a his book leaving a library because he was not receiving payment for the use of work. I am hoping that was a bit of satire, but one never knows.

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 06:29 PM

Here is an article which contains a brief discussion of some of the issues Lawrence Lessig deals with in his book The Future of Ideas. Professor Lessig examines some recent developments in copyright law and makes some recommendations for how the law might be modified to run in more public-spirited channels. Specifically, he proposes that a complsory license be added to the law to allow for peer-to-peer file sharing.

Prof. Lessig also proposes a 5-year copyright term, renewable 15 times for a maximum term of 75 years for published works. I think this wouldn't be practical. The maximum period is a little too long, and the fifteen 5-year terms are too short. I'd propose a 60-year term constructed from three 20-year periods, or a 50-year term built from two 25-year periods. If I had everything my own way, the term of copyright would be about 40 years (with automatic termination of all transfers and licences at 20 years) but I don't think I'd get enough people to go along. Fifty-to-sixty years, though a bit too long, is at least politically achievable. A term of 20 years is probably a little too short - not by much, but a little - for everything except computer software. For most software even 20 years is a little too long.

T.

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: hesperis
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 10:33 PM

Just a note about the mp3 problem - because it is proprietory, software developers are being asked to pay for liscensing the technology that gives mp3. This is discouraging to the small software developers, and some of the costs may be passed on to end users.

So... we have heard a *lot* about why copyright isn't fulfilling the need it was designed for. Let's hear a little about what we can do to help.

First, there is the open source software movement. (And remember that open source can cost money!) Because of open source, musicians who use computers have alternatives, and alternatives that are actually better than the proprietary ones! Use ogg instead of mp3, midi ain't copyrighted yet, and mod was always an open format.

The other thing is, if we can take some pointers from the open source movement, and apply them to our needs as musicians and creators, and to the needs of the public domain, we can create a legal copyright license that will NOT let people rip us off.

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 02 - 02:22 PM

http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-080502B

This is an article called "Copy Fighting" by Tom W. Bell of the Chapman University School of Law. Bell argues against "natural rights" justifications of copyright and patent: "I conclude that copyrights and patents represent notable exceptions to the default rule that a free people, respecting common law rights and engaging in market transactions, can copy original expressions and novel inventions at will." He argues that copyright and patent are forms of state welfare: "We might call copyright and patent protection 'ACPE,' for 'Aid for Creators with Positive Externalities.'" He concludes that, because of the imbalance between the special interests' ability to influence the legislature, and ordinary individuals' much smaller ability, "the best options for effectuating reform of copyright and patent law remain the standbys of reformers everywhere: long-shot legal claims, the diffuse effects of popular opinion, and long-term academic debates."

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 14 Dec 02 - 03:19 PM

Here is a report entitled "'The Progress of Science and Useful Arts': Why Copyright Today Threatens Intellectual Freedom" which discusses some of the issues raised by Professor Loren's article (linked from the first post)

http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/copyright.html

Here is an article by Lawrence Lessig, titled "Racing against time" which discusses how the needs of the elecronic age argue for shorter copyright terms:

http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,3959,762935,00.asp

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: Richie
Date: 14 Dec 02 - 11:44 PM

T in Oklahoma,

Thanks for the post.

As an author, songwriter and composer I strongly believe the copyright law in the US should be changed to 50 years.

I guess I view the copyright laws as the same damn thing as income tax laws.

-Richie

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 09:23 AM

The Purpose of Copyright:

1. Screwing Money out of peoples pocket to feed human greed.

2. To limit the folk process as much as possible.

3. To help "musicians" avoid serious employment

If you cant do music and hold an ordinary job too perhaps you had better give up music. Its part of life or it is nothing and not worth funding or hearing for that matter.

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: Alice
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 10:20 AM

So, Conrad and T, then all the artists and musicians should go be greeters at Wal Mart because without copyright law they can't derive a livable income from their creative works. Copyright has an important purpose and I think your fears are extreme and irrational.

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 12:54 PM

Why not!
What have you against greeters at Wall Mart!
They are fine friendly old folks.
But what makes you think someone needs to derive a complete income from songs anyway?
I think that is an absurd proposal and would suggest that all musicians should have day jobs and real careers. There is nothing keeping them from music is there?

I believe that most musicians could do much better than the Greeter jobs you seem to think they might be limited to.
Folk music needs to be a part of everyday life and not exist only as a career.
Conrad

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: GUEST,perplexed
Date: 15 Dec 02 - 09:25 PM

Can someone please define a "real career"?

perplexed

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: GUEST,Dublin Ireland
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 12:26 PM

Forgive me for putting this in very simple terms, but I think the whole issue in many of the postings, has gone away from what exactly copyright is. I think professor Loren herself amazingly seems to misunderstand some important and basic facts.

For songwriters, the vast majority of whom earn very little or nothing at all from their works, copyright is their protection. It by law protects their ownership of that work and rightly so. It's as simple as that, and for a long period of time after the death of the composer, monies earned from that work rightly go to the next of kin. Remember that there have been many cases where a work only became successful long after the death of the composer so it's only right that the family should benefit.

If someone composes a song, a piece of music, a lyric, a poem or whatever, they and only they, or the company to whom they sign over certain rights own it. It is their property. Anyone who wants to take it from them, or is not willing to pay for the pleasure it, or who makes changes to it without the author's permission, or puts their own name to it is abusing the rights of the one who created it.

There may well be other areas of copyright that could be looked at, but as far as the works of songwriters and composers are concerned, and that is the area in which I have an interest in, their rights should always continue to be protected.

Ger

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: GUEST,Dublin Ireland
Date: 16 Dec 02 - 05:10 PM

I forgot to add - Excellent contributions from you, Alice, getting straight to the point. With respect Conrad, you don't know what you're talking about.

Ger.

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 12:31 PM

Copyright is death to the folk tradition and process.
This can not be disputed.
There is life and then there is work.
Work is that which is not ordinairly done as life.
Music should always be done as part of the lifeway.

Today there are far too many "professional" musicians. Human juke boxes who work only when paid and demand control over the process.

When you put a song into my head It is mine.
If you did not want the song to go into my head give me ear plugs
or go away.

No human being is able to exactly copy anything. So copyright is an inaccurate term.

If you dont understand the folk transmission process or folk experience you will continue to feel that copyright has any place in it.

Conrad-Peasant

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: GutBucketeer
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 01:22 PM

Here is another resource site that I just found. It summarizes why the Copyright extension should be opposed, and the legal briefs given to the Supreme Court in October. BTW, Disney is even now attempting to extend copyright for another 50 years!

JAB

Opposing Copyright Extension

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 01:37 PM

Once again, you still don't understand the issues that have been so well put by Alice and Ger.

Your 'Folk' argument, I for one do in fact understand the process you refer to, but you seem unable to seperate the two issues.

Folk music is that which has developed and changed over time, something that very often no one knows where the original melody or idea originated or who exactly composed it and even if it were known, as has already been stated, copyright does not last forever, it is then in 'Public Domain'.
This is 'Folk' music, this is what even the great classical composers built there wonderful symphonies around, to give but one example, not to mention traditional Irish songs.

You mean to tell me that if you sir were to write a song or songs that were recorded by many a famous artist or ended up in a movie soundtrack for example, that you would expect no royalties, that you would claim no ownership, that you would happily throw it out to the world to do with as they wish and that you sir would not even want it known that it was yourself that composed it? I don't think so. I speak with personal experience but you would probably put me down for that too.

Gerard Farrelly - Professional musician, composer.

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: Richie
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 09:51 PM

The problem is a few large corporations get control over vast amounts of printed (sheet music) songs. They won't let anyone use the songs even if they pay for them! You can't get permission.

This is not right. The same rule doesn't not apply to the recording industry where you can get a mechanical license and pay a fee.

There are lots of problems with the copyright laws as well as ASCAP, BMI and the whole recording aspect.

Richie

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 09:58 PM

Exactly!
And its many a song I have tossed out onto the wind which at least one other has played again....

We need to make public domain start immediately thus increassing the range of folk music available for everyone.

Either its folk music or toss it back....who needs it anyway!

One writes songs to have music and not to have fortune and fame.

One need not be a composer to write music. Anyone will do.

If snyone wanted to use a song of mine for a film I would stop them as most film music is crap anyway!

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 10:05 PM

Alice's remarks don't seem to have any connection to anything I have posted to this thread.

Our guest who claims to be from Dublin is mistaken in stating that "[copyright] by law protects [an author's] ownership of [his] work....If someone composes a song, a piece of music, a lyric, a poem or whatever, they and only they, or the company to whom they sign over certain rights own it. It is their property."

Just as Professor Loren states in her essay, in the U.S., the purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science". That's all. The temporary monopoly to authors is a means, not an end in itself.

I know of nothing in the U.S. copyright statute that states that an author "owns" the work in itself. The statute discusses the ownership of the copyright, not of the work. The court cases, as I read them, tend the same way. When the judges choose their words carefully--they don't always do so--it is the copyright, not the work, that is someone's "property". And the existence of termination rights, which allow an author to recapture the copyright after 30 years, makes a copyright less like a piece of property than most other forms of personal property, which can't be recaptured in this way.

I recognize one way that the work (as distinguished from the copyright) can be considered analogous to "property": if it is considered analogous to public property. The author, in a manner of speaking, trades the work to the public in exchange for the copyright. James Madison used this analogy in his posthumous essay on monopolies:

The Constitution ofthe United States has limited [monopolies] to two cases--the authors of books, and of useful inventions, in both which they are considered as a compensation for a benefit actually gained to the community as a purchase of property which the owner might otherwise withhold from public use. There can be no just objection to a temporary monopoly in these cases...

In this analogy the public has "purchased" the work; the temporary monopoly is the "compensation", the payment.

T.

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 10:07 PM

Oops. The termination period is 35 years, not 30 years as stated above.

T.

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: Barry Finn
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 10:33 PM

Do these laws help the artists/creators to collect royalities & to benifit in a way that they can continue to create without having to give up creating to seek their bread & butter elsewhere, maybe when hell freezes over? I tend to believe that more artists covering copyrighted material are willing to pay directly to the original creator the royalities due them than the giant firms unless the creator has the ability & finiances (2 Live Crew, example above) to demand of these companies what's due them. Example a Boston Irish group back in the 70's, the Battering Ram, cut an LP, great band, great music. Rounder Records recently rereleased their LP on CD. Yet no one has make any attempt to contact the group of even tell them of their rerelease & they don't have the ability to demand what was by law due them, not a cent (If any Rounder people are reading this the contact for the now disbanded Battering Ram would be Seamus Walker, listed in the Boston telephone directory). In theory if this group were recieving royalities it might be the incentive for them to regroup & maybe once more try to earn a living by creating. It also seems to me that the more an artist can aggressively promote their material & themselves the better off they are which in some cases may mean they may need to have more bussiness savy which again may deminish there creativity. This could lead to less creative material or those of lesser talent taking the lion's share of the market & robbing the public of the creations that these laws were originally meant to foster. It also means that those of great talent & no bussiness savy should not quit their day jobs in pursuit of a fruitless & fading career choice. It also might tend to bring out the gravy hunters & navel gazers & cause an onslaught of mediocre material for profit instead of profit for creativity & flood the markets with inferior & substandard art while at the same time killing off creations or the potential of higher quality creating in the name of commericialism on the creators part & greed on the industry's part. Artists usually create, that's what they do, if they were great bussiness people or bloodsuckers they wouldn't be wasting their time & energy being taken by those that create nothing yet live off the backs & minds of them that do what they do for love & hope to be able to survive while doing it. Not a great case for the arts & the artists. Barry

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: Richie
Date: 17 Dec 02 - 11:11 PM

What happens to an authors work (music book, composition etc.) when a music company does not reprint the book after the initial printing?

The author receives a minimal amount of royalties but the book is not reprinted and the publisher owns the right to the book, not the author, composer or arranger.

The publisher owns the right to these works which means since they will not reprint, the works can no longer be used by the public.

I write books- for people to use them, I want some compensation but
I'd rather have people using the books.

Richie

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Dec 02 - 10:09 AM

Dear Conrad,

If you read what I actually wrote you will see that I never did say or even hint at (one writes music to have fortune and fame), neither did I say that (one needs to be a composer to write music).

You also add another of your wonderful, irrelevant and small minded remarks, (most film music is crap anyway)! Must be another area you have no understanding of. Might there be a chip on the shoulder?

I have nothing further to add on this issue.

Gerard Farrelly

Subject: RE: The Purpose of Copyright
From: *#1 PEASANT*
Date: 18 Dec 02 - 11:56 PM

Same with me Richie!
I publish books for people to use!
and the best damm books on the topics too!
If I wanted money I would go flip burgers somewhere. I might just do that once the books get written.......
Of course while flipping burgers I would probably play the whistle and tell stories for free of course!

As with watermellon the sweetest song is the one thats free!

Conrad