Not far from my computer desk is a boring little book on copyright law as it applies to musicians. I've never read it, and I don't intend to read this heap of positivism. My hope is that within my lifetime most of it will become irrelevant, as intellectual property laws often hurt creators rather than help them.Now, as you can see, Michael Lawrence is not going to pay solicitors to send me a silly letter demanding that I remove this on the grounds of copyright infringement. In fact, because of my posting it here, a number of people will see the text who might not have read NLM. Some of those will click on the links I have given and so NLM will get a little more traffic.
We are making progress. One need look no further than the Choral Public Domain Library. But there is more. Many artists themselves are catching on to the reality that if they offer something for free, the sales of that item and the general benefit to them increases sharply, most famously the band Radio Head, which released its most recent album online in a pay-what-you-wish format.
Following in Radio Head's footsteps is Dr. James Kibbie of the University of Michigan, who is in the midst of recording the complete organ works of J.S. Bach and posting them online for free.
Bravo to the professor for taking this step. I hope many more follow after him.
Contrast this with those publishers who ask you to register at their site and perhaps pay a fee in order to view their words of wisdom. The savage copyright notice at the bottom of the page will inhibit many people from giving the material free publicity.
Another spurious concern is that material may be altered. The Church has for many years had the device of issuing a concordat cum originali ("it agrees with the original") for liturgical texts. Presumably someone has to read slavishly through the text and compare it with a reliable source to certify this. With electronic texts, this process can be automated. In addition, anyone attempting to post a faulty text on the internet will be picked up very quickly by interested parties from anywhere on the globe.
My copy of this week's Catholic Herald is waiting to be read. But already this evening, I have seen two enthusiastic notices about James MacMillan's article, one of which quotes the piece in full. Technically this is a copyright violation, I suppose. But in fact, it is likely to drive sales of the paper. If I were not already a reader, I might be inclined to buy a copy next time a see it. If the paper were available free online (only some of it is at the moment), I would be inclined to bookmark the website or collect the RSS feed, thereby perhaps also contributing to revenue from advertising.
In the Faith Movement, I tend to have a reputation for pushing the use of ICT - I devised the first Faith website and can proudly boast writing a notice announcing the launch of the Vatican website. I have always pushed hard for the policy of making all our material available free online and I am happy to say that people generally agree with this.
There is the question of an author being identified as the author of his own work. Again, I think that the internet will generally take care of this. As far as legal niceties go, I like the idea of the Creative Commons idea. One day I will get around to reading up on it and posting an appropriate licence on this blog.
6 comments:
Hmmm! The law is the law, like it or lump it. I don't take such a hip view of intellectual property law myself. An artist ought to have the right not to have his creation violated or purloined - though I don't quite see how this can apply to making copies of it. Something doesn't have to be physical for someone to steal it. (By slander and detraction one can steal a man's reputation, for example: they can be sins against the Seventh Commandment just as much as the Eighth.)
On the other hand, anyone who's had to deal with these people will know how odd the Law can be.
I think the point is that the internet and electronic storage help to prevent the violation of a man's reputation and the purloining of his work. Free distribution helps his work to get known.
The CC people do go to some lengths to make their licenses make use of existing laws - that's one reason I like them.
freeware v intellectual property rights: a lively debate in the World of computing!
Microsoft for example, are effectivley giving windows away free nowadays so that they can sell other products and make their profits that way. That seems to be the business model most are adopting.
One last point - where can we obtain a filmed record of the Pope's visit to England back in 1982? This site was set up by the Bishops and it is appalling:
http://www.popejohnpaulii.org.uk/
Contains nothing of any interest at all. I can download, for free, Italy's memorable quarter final against Brazil from the World Cup of that year but nothing from the papal visit to the UK! Even on this "tribute" website there is nothing worth looking at. They haven't even bothered to reproduce anything he preached and simply link to EWTN or the BBC!
It's not about an artist having a right to have 'his creation violate or purloined', it's actually about artists saying "Hang on, this isn't just about money" - it's about the musicians regaining some sense of what they're there for - and that is to perform music, not to line the pockets of corporations. Good on those who take a stand and may more persuade music companies to charge a fair price for recordings and give a fair slice to performers.
@ Oliver McCarthy
Current UK recording copyright laws are doing most musicians more harm than good. A couple of years ago there was a news story about stars like Cliff Richard campaigning for recording copyright to be extended from 50 to 75 years. He has an obvious interest here, as many of his early recordings of the 1950s are now becoming royalty-free. But when EMI signed him in 1955 (IIRC), the corporation couldn't rely on the smash hits of 1905 to make it money. The reason the classical recording industry is currently in such a dire state has little to do with illicit copying - classical listeners are not so much the internet/CD burner generation - and more to do with the endless re-issuing of old recordings, thanks to the advent of cheap digital remastering (Maria Callas, anyone?). Some orchestras such as the Royal Phil are now so fed up the the unfavourable terms of the big labels that they are now producing their CDs in-house. Extending the copyright period, as has been suggested, would give the big labels even less incentive to sign new talent, and would be bad news for today's performers.
And yes, I have had to deal with the Performing Rights Society, who administer composer copyright (which lasts for70 years) was well as recording copyright. They tried to charge me £100+VAT to post a recording on a website of a concert that included a work by Ravel - even though the actual piece I wanted to post wasn't written by Ravel! Fortunately Ravel died on.....28th December 1937, so I only had to wait a few months before I could ignore them.
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