Two interesting documentaries on copyright and the contemporary music culture. 1) Rip! A Remix Manifesto, and 2) CopyrightCriminals.
Both deal directly with the issue of musical borrowings. The music in question is hip-hop but it might as well apply to any period of music in any age. Renaissance sacred music was rooted in chant, baroque masters all borrowed from each other as tributes, classical musicians used themes and variations on each other’s work, and 19th century composers quoted each other to enhance associational meanings of the symphonic pieces and chamber works. It is the very core of historical musicology to find these borrowings and account for them. It was not a controversy; it was a delight. There would be no progress in culture, ideas, or technology without it.
Then the state got involved. Now it is a controversy. 20th century laws have devastated classical music composition and merchandizing by sucking out the source of life from the medium. But the effects haven’t been as awful on rock and jazz which thrive an a kind of outlaw culture that conservatories eschew.
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I didn’t watch the video you posted and haven’t read the book you’re talking about, but I wonder if they cover the case of the “Amen Break.”
The “Amen Break” is an approximentally 30 second part of a song from 1969 that has become the basis for literally hundreds of songs in multiple musical genres.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
The narrator of the youtube video I reference seems to be coming from the perspective that the Winstons, the originators of the sample, should have been paid for copyright. The narrator also mentions that the originators don’t seem to care, either. I don’t agree that anybody should have been paid for copyright for this reason: I don’t see how the people that created mutiple rap, R & B, techno, trip hop, jungle, etc songs from the sample would have been able to pay as the majority of them were dirt poor at the time of the sampling.
Some of these people were able were to lift themselves out of poverty by using the sample. If they would have had to pay a royalty fee, would they have been able to become rich by creating something new from it? They wouldn’t have, as most of them never had the money to begin with.
It is part of musical reality that people will emulate and copy. It’s why certain eras of popular music tend to sound similar. Why does all rock music from the 1970′s have a similar flavor? Or all jazz from 1940? One person or group will take an existing idea and then run with it. At some point, somebody else will then expand on what came previous. Whether you like the music or not, notice over time, how some styles of music have gotten more specialized and extreme within their own genres. Robert Johnson lead to Muddy Waters leading to the Rolling Stones leading to Guns N Roses leading to etc. You can trace musical family trees that link 1950′s rock n roll Chuck Berry to 1990′s death metal Cannibal Corpse or 1960′s funk singer James Brown to 2000′s rapper Eminem.
In the US, in the 1920′s, there were maybe a half dozen major musical styles. Fast forward to today where there is literally a hundred of different styles catering to any number of people. It is both an example of the division of labor and innovation. Cultural issues aside (you might hate rap or rock or jazz) the facts show this to be true.
Where does this leave the originators? Still at the top, most of the time. I remember being in high school when Nirvana was the band of the day. Within two years, a handful of similar bands appeared. They tried copy them and had varying degrees of success. Some people bought into this, but the majority of people, myself included, didn’t. We stuck with the originals.
just think of all the times classical composers ‘quoted’ other composers….
these people are trying to –undo the very fabric of society and culture– by preventing the very process by which we learn anything…
a baby’s trying to say it’s first word and the lawyers there ‘a a aahh little man, i wouldnt say that if i were you’, ur liable.
THE thought police.
ps: check out my annie lennox remix, im sooooo liable. lol. come get me i say.
I played middle C on my piano – don’t you dare play that note again! it’s now copyrighted. Oh! did someone else play it already? Sorry…
WARNING:The above comment is copyrighted. Any use of the sentences, words, or letters in the words is a direct and blatant infringement of copyright. You may not take the individual letters and rearrange or re-combine them in any way nor may you utter them either audibly or inaudibly nor print them without infringing on copyright.
I am certain that libqzy thinks that he has somehow won the argument by reductio ad absurdum, but let me dispell that sad misconception.
The musical scale in common use happens to be in the public domain since antiquity. There are an infinite number of musical scales, some of which have been used in the past and still are used currently.
In an intellectual property rights respecting society, a musical scale would be something that could be protected, controlled and licensed by its originator. You could be prohibited from publishing or performing music using that musical scale. Of course, there are plenty more scales to choose from and there would be an issue of deciding how close is too close a match (which is the same issue of how would we divide up the frequency spectrum, by the way).
If the owner of a musical scale was too draconian with terms and conditions, then other scales with more liberal terms would be used. That might result in less sonorous music available to enjoy, but such is the pro and con of rights. You might like a house with a view, but if the price is too high, you are stuck in a house facing a factory.
We can extend the argument to music in general. It may be that sampling or using other people’s music results in a greater body of higher quality music for all of us to enjoy. Does that mean that no one deserves property rights in the music they write? Does it matter how many songs never get written or that the whole of musicology stagnates? Does that determine whether we allow people to have property rights, or do we look for basic principles to guide our sense of justice?
What if intellectual property rights actually led to better music, art, and literature? Would we change our tune and fight for intellectual property rights? Would we redefine those who sample or copy from entrepreneurial heros to denizens of the dark simply because the balance of benefit has changed? That would be moral relativism at its finest–defining good as what benefits us personally.
I don’t believe that endless examples of the perceived value of communal lack of intellectual property rights proves anything about whether such rights should exist. I want to see sound logical arguments about how such rights do or do not follow from axiomatic assertions.
The reason I took up the banner defending IP is because I perceive that the opponents of IP are promoting personal self-interest and social good arguments (and maybe books sales) rather than sound intellectual expositions. I am more concerned with the quality of arguments and underlying motivations than the conclusions.
And I am particularly annoyed by reductio ad absurdum arguments and ad hominem attacks. Mises and Rothbard spent their whole careers fighting these kinds of things, and I would hope their intellectual heirs could do better.
David Spellman said: What if intellectual property rights actually led to better music, art, and literature?
Boldrin and Levine’s book shows empirically it does not.
Re: Musical scales. Beethoven’s music wouldn’t have existed without specific types of structures and patterns. The same thing with Jimi Hendrix, whose music couldn’t exist without pentatonic blues structures.
Imagine a world where certain sentence structures and phrases would be subject to fines, fees and legal action via the police and courts. Obviously, language would suffer for it. But consider that an educated english language user will use something like 15000 words. In a 12 note musical system, copyrighting and locking up certain phrases, chords, melodies and rhythms would effectively ruin the artform.
In addition to great works that change the field, there are many smaller ideas and variants that push things along. Many of these ideas are intuitive because they are the logical progression. Something like the Amazon 1-click shopping patent is not an amazing invention nobody else invented. Amazon was just the first to patent it and then sue people over it.
If you have a copyright/patent system that creates and enforces monopolies, you will get the behavior that comes with monopolies. You get unreasonable prices, shortages, shoddy products and also get something that was unexpected. You get people that, instead of working on new ideas and new products, look at the system to figure out a way to game it. And that’s the state of things today, where everybody uses copyright/patent to grab anything and everything and then sue ad infinitum.
Why would that be preferable, a world where everybody wastes time looking for loopholes and suing each other over ideas instead of creating?
The current system is bad. And it’s not just the US, the world also has this plague. Consider the case of the wheel, which was approved by the patent board in Australia in 2001. John Keogh, an engineer that wanted to prove a point about how bad the system was, introduced a patent for a “circular transportation facilitation device.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn965-wheel-patented-in-australia.html
I’m sure you’ve seen that Jeff Tucker has been blogging about the book by Boldrin and Levine. I’ve been telling everybody I know about this book. It’s great, it changed my view completely. Buy it. Or, if you want read it for free at the address below.
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
to david spellman:
nothing wrong with reductios, they crystallize a truth that might otherwise be lost in more subtle, less extreme examples. how far away from parody is libqzy’s-one-note-monopoly to the current regime, which subjects seven (?) consecutive notes to copyright?
who’s to judge what constitutes better art, music, anyway? your rachmaninov is my schooly d; my caravaggio is your jeff koons.
andy warhol’s estate owes campbell’s soup big-time!
the state’s regulatory framework in em spectrum is cited by some ip supporters as a case where intervention pays off.
bk marcus does a good job debunking this myth.
http://mises.org/journals/essays/marcus.pdf
Hah, Qbert and Mixmaster Mike on Mises.org fantastic. A meeting of two of my favorite hobbies.
For anyone who questions the art and skill of these guys, check out Mixmaster Mike’s Anti-Theft Device or Dj Qbert’s Wavetwisters. Great albums.
Spellman: “The reason I took up the banner defending IP is because I perceive that the opponents of IP are promoting personal self-interest and social good arguments (and maybe books sales) rather than sound intellectual expositions”
Yes, Spellman, it’s so helpful to my patent-law career to take the positions I do. It must be self-interest.
rip: a remix manifesto
excellent movie, with just a hint of dodgy left-wing environmentalism/mercantilism.
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