What's Mine is Yours (for the taking)
I have never worried about paying for music. I pay for the music I listen too. I have bought a lot of vinyl albums in my day, and then reel-to-reel tape came along, then cassette tapes, then CDs, and now MP3s and downloading from iTunes. Beginning with reel-to-reel tape decks I could record music from my vinyl albums. Exchanging MP3’s is no different, only the speed of duplication and reach has changed. I personally have never been concerned about DRM (digital rights management) on music I have purchase from iTunes. I don’t mind paying for the convenience of Apple’s model of buying, downloading, and playing on my iPod because it’s so easy. The selection on iTunes is wonderful and I don’t have to hunt all over the Internet to steal music from blogs. I consider downloading music I didn’t pay for as theft. The same holds true with the software I own. I have paid for it. I’m not a fool, I shop around for the best deals I can find, but I do purchase the software for the same reason I purchase my music. I’m a strong advocate of intellectual property. I wouldn’t want anyone stealing my intellectual property. This week Apple and EMI announced they would offer DRM free music for 30 cents more on iTunes with a little extra value added. The DRM music is fine with me and I’ll save the 30 cents.
I had written and published a software program for the Apple II in 1980 and copyrighted it with the Big C (Aoki, p. 9). I had no idea of how complex copyright law has become since then (Aoki, p. 10-11). Creative Commons is a unique approach to some of the intellectual property rights issues as is Fair Use. I certainly have no faith that our elected officials will resolve any of the problems filmmakers and other producers of intellectual property that incidentally uses others work face that were pointed out in Bound by Law. I only hope that common sense will prevail.
Comments
I think you skipped past the 8-track revolution. I also created master music tapes with a reel to reel years ago. Eventually I dumped the music onto cassettes for ease of listening. I agree with your comment that it isn't any different with mp3's with the exception that the distribution is much wider. When we copied our albums it was for personal use only. Napster's distribution may have been free to the users but the distribution method was wide enough to impact the recording industry. Music is one of the purest forms of intellectual property.
Good post
Mike
Posted by: md2506 | April 4, 2007 08:55 AM
I, too remember having friends make tapes of one or several albums for me. I also remember dire warnings about such copying (the record companies definitely thought this was stealing). These toothless warnings set the stage for the MP3/napster revolution, which, in my opinion caught the recording industry with its pants down. Artists had different views about Napster and free music downloads (Moby and Metallica are examples)--but it was the recording companies that made the true stink-- a bit too late, if you ask me. I do not think it is stealing if the artist has given permission.
If the artist is any good, won't consumers want to purchase the CD eventually anyway? (Not just one or two songs.) I think the copyright topic is a very prickly one for music and musicians/composers espececially considering the popular music culture of the past 40 years. There has been a hippie undercurrent of sharing cool artists with others, free concerts etc. The Grateful Dead tolerated recordings of concerts because they realized that it created a demand for live performances, which became their bread and butter.
What has been happening lately that I have noticed is a lot of industry veterans ar creating their own labels and releasing downloadable songs on websites. I think the recording industry has a lot to answer for in its treatment of many artists, and the MP3 revolution was just a part of that.
Posted by: Ramonac | April 8, 2007 11:17 PM