Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Joe Escalante ·
Sep 7, 2010 at 11:48pm
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of those organizations like the ACLU where sometimes you think, "wow, I guess somebody has to take on these kinds of causes." And then over time, they just lose you with their consistently blind agenda.
Currently they're pushing a movement to raise money to create "world class" recordings of all the great classical masters and insert them into the public domain so that no one will ever have to pay musicians, or anyone else to exploit these kinds of recordings. In the words of my late Uncle Frank, "That's just plain old fashioned communism!" I wrote a longer rant about it on my legal blog, if you are fired up and want one more thing you can walk around griping to yourself about.
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Aug '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
I'm sure it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers you -- my parents were very careful to steer me away from the career of professional musician once they realized I showed talent, so I don't have the same interest in the industry that you have.
Nonetheless, it annoys me.
But I do wonder how good those free "world class" recordings are going to be. If they're anything like some of the "world class" classical music recordings I've heard, they may not pose much of a threat.
Will the better-quality artists even want to record for this series if they know they can't get royalties? (There's no way to collect royalties on free recordings, right?) Though I suppose there's plenty of rising talent that'd jump at even this opportunity to be recognized...
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 8:09amMay '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
This reminds me of the open-source software movement, or the pro-music piracy people. They seem not to believe in intellectual property, only universal forced charity. In this case I guess they think it's unfair that supremely talented individuals who devote their lives to playing musical instruments as a career should be able to make money doing it.
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
I am always baffled by all the thirty-somethings I work with who believe they have a right to free music and movies. It never seems to occur to them that artists have a right to be compensated for their investment of time and money. What is the principle at the root of this social attitude? I guess I would chalk it up as the infantlization of America wrought by liberal ideas and policies.
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Honestly, Joe, this doesn't bother me.
As they say, the songs they're hoping to record are already in the public domain. They're songs written by composers long dead, like Beethoven. While performers have a right to be paid, they also have a right to offer their labors for free. Charitable actions sometimes have adverse consequences, but this doesn't strike me as wrong, overall.
Yes, assuming that the orchestra Museopen hires produces quality recordings, many consumers will bypass other professional recordings, resulting in musicians losing potential profits. That's unfortunate for those musicians, but not unjust. Nobody's stealing anything from them... not even their livelihoods. Orchestras will continue to be paid for live performances. If classical musicans are like most professional players of modern music, the majority of their money comes from concerts anyway.
And I'm sure consumers will continue to pay for recorded versions they prefer. A lot of classical music junkies are very particular about how they like to hear a song played. I listened to half-a-dozen versions of "Moonlight Sonata" before I found one I liked.
If I'm wrong, well, no industry has a right to exist beyond demand.
Jul '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
This is a typical socialist move, "giving" away something one did not create, in this case classical music, to the "public." How noble, given that copyright laws do not apply. I would be impressed if the people behind the Electronic Frontier Foundation composed their own stuff, recorded it on their dime and then magnanimously "gave" it away. Oh, wait, it takes a genius to compose great music.
Jul '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
My take on piracy has always been that the music and now movie industries have overpriced their products given a new technological medium. Apple has shown that more consumers will flock to reasonably priced pay options for music, if they are made available. Netflix has done the same for movies and Hulu is doing something similar for TV.
But this is not piracy; it is competition. Yes, people will lose their jobs and music will not be as good, but is this not the market doing its job? Will this not create efficiencies, thus making it easier for those who use these compositions as inputs in their products (independent film directors, for example) to profit from their own endeavors? And will it not create a classical music market where only those musicians who are a cut above the standard-issue public domain recording can succeed?
The negative effects of this are lamentable, I agree. I would rather that hard-working musicians not lose their ways of life because their services are being priced out of the market. But what is happening is the market working at its most fundamental level, and that is for the greater good.
Jun '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
I have to agree with Aaron Miller on this. If something, anything, is ever free that must mean someone, somewhere, is missing out on a buck or two. That's life. I listen to "free" music on the radio. Someone's making money there but I'm not paying for it directly. Frankly, I won't buy music at all unless I hear it for "free" first. My money is too hard to come by. I WILL pay for music that I like even if free versions are available.
No one is guaranteed a profit. If I like something enough, if something is good enough, I'll pay for it, even if a free version is available. On the other hand, if the free version is better, that's what I'll use. I run Ubuntu linux on one of my laptops because I think it is better than either Microsoft or Apple. If Microsoft or Apple want my money they'll have to come up with a better product than what I can get for free.
Jul '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Here, here! I'm on an Ubuntu box right now, and on top of the operating system being very, very well designed, I get a kick out of knowing that I am getting a better product for a better price (free!). Once again, it's the market at work.
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Mr. Escalante - You're post raises many questions about intellectual property that need to be addressed. Who is exploiting whom? Are the musicians paying the estates of Beethoven, Brahms or Bach rights fees? Hardly. They charge you to listen to scores that they get for free.
What are reasonable terms for copyright? In my lifetime American copyright has soared from 28 years (with a 28 year one time renewal) to soaring 70 years beyond an author's death. As a result, huge portions of our nation's cultural history is currently locked away in either corporate or government vaults and remains unattainable to the public. Its commercial value is deemed too small to issue copies, but hoarded nonetheless. It doesn't make any sense.
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 6:23amMay '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Gotta vote no too Joe. To me this is no more offensive than a free concert in the park. Copyrights protect authorship for a time and performers -- get paid to perform, as I assume these artists will at the time the recordings are made -- equity scale.
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Very good point. I would say, too, that there are many ways that the internet has opened up art and culture to the average person (fanfiction, anyone?). I can print out a Monet, copy and paste some Dostoevsky -- everything is out there. The understanding of intellectual property is shifting as copyrighted material is made available and exploited, legally or not. The internet has created more unplanned side effects than is worth thinking about. Of all of them, getting public domain classical music is not the worst.
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
The legal terminology here is "works for hire." When I work on a national sports telecast, I am paid to perform a specific function. If the copyright holder finds another way to exploit that material I am not owed further compensation. Broadcasts that I worked on decades ago occasionally resurface on ESPN Classic or the Big Ten Network but I have no claim to my portion of the telecast.
Jul '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Actually it does not bother me at all.
why?
Because "Won't have to" does not necessarily equate to "Will Not."
Who is to say their recordings will be the best?
When I buy Frankie Carl, or Ferrante & Teicher or even Carlos Del Los Rios I'm buying a style and an interpretation. I'll still pay for Mantovani regardless of what these lamebrains do.
They cannot take away from the Philidelphia Brass Ensemble's unique style nor dismiss Ronnie Aldrich.
I view this the same way I used to view those old late night ads for popular songs recorded by "The Sound Effects" which when you heard them were nothing short of lame. That's why when the same collections were offered by "The Original Artists" on a competing ad, "the sound effects" went away in a hurry.
Simply put, it isn't just the sheet music people buy, it is the artist as well.
Aug '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
OK, suppose they get the scores free. Then why don't you get the scores free and find out how easy it is to be a one-man classical ensemble that doesn't stink up the joint?
My point is that when others perform classical music for you, they add value to it -- it's no longer just a score. In some sense it is a new creation. Try listening to a few different recordings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons or The Messiah and you'll see what I mean. If you've got an ear, you'll love some and hate others, even if all recordings used an identical score.
Also, I'll let you in on a secret: classical sheet music, especially for larger works, is so complicated that the musicians usually pay quite a bit for a well-typeset score. They're probably not getting the music for nothing, either.
Aug '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
I'd like to add that I'm less bothered by the fact that some musicians may want to get together to make a free recording than I am by MusOpen's lofty tone -- that they're liberating music, etc.
Also, if you read what they say, they say that "many modern arrangements and sound recordings of those works are copyrighted". Many is not all, and arrangements are nontrivial.
And I don't quite buy, "The Musopen campaign presents a creative solution that could help ensure that such essential music is preserved and shared for generations to come." Maybe it's just me, but classical music is preserved more in handing down the tradition of making it than it is in just listening to it.
I perform a very small number of pieces at world-class level when I'm in practice and not in lousy health. I also compose in my spare time. Should I ever have the money to make decent recordings of these, I may well post them free -- I'm hardly a professional musician, and who'd listen to them otherwise? But I don't imagine I'd be saving the world in doing so.
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Actually, with computer technology and sound sampling that is not beyond the realm of possibility. But neither is it relevant to the argument.
Ah, a musical VAT! But the proposal Mr. Escalante writes about does not deprive any orchestra from recording these same pieces, it merely provides competition to them. If you listen and find them wanting it doesn't diminish the commercial value of copyrighted recording.
But at what point should the original work be declared in the public domain? Take two songs written in 1935, one by George Gershwin, the other by Irving Berlin. Today the law treats them differently because Berlin lived to the ripe old age of 101 and Gershwin was taken cruelly at 38.
And if copyright is to protect commercial rights, why is stuff protected with no attempts to publish?
Aug '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
OK, EJ, you found me out. I'm extra-cranky today because I'm in the same boat as Peter (his summer cold). Sorry for taking my crank out on you.
Look, as far as I'm concerned, these people have every right to make free recordings if that's what they want to do. I wouldn't lift a finger to stop them. (Notice that in my first comment I'd already pointed out the likelihood of these recordings not doing too much damage.) But I still reserve the right to feel a little annoyed that they apparently think they are saving the musical world in the process.
As for my snide remark towards you not being
I wasn't addressing the larger argument there, just your complaint that classical musicians were exploiting us for making us pay to hear music in the public domain. (Probably you were joking and I was just too vinegary to pick up on that -- I hope -- right?)
Also, adding value to a score by performing it isn't
Where's the tax?
As for copyright law, my head isn't clear enough for it today.
Sorry.
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
There is no VAT in America, yet. I'm just leery of admitting it's a "value-added" situation. It's one more thing for the Democrats to come after.
Jun '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
For a beautifully written book in defense of copyright, read Mark Helprin's Digital Barbarism. Helprin writes beautifully and addresses issues far beyond his immediate subject. It's one of the best things I've read in the last couple of years.
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Frankly, I am not bothered about musicians freely electing to put their performance of PD works into the PD. If people decide that they like that performance better than the same piece by John Williams and the Boston Pops, or Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra, fine. Bad musicians like me play for nothing all the time, and some people even deliberately listen. No accounting for taste.
I see no difference between this and Microsoft getting outraged that some hacker writes a freeware routine and distributes it under a GNU license, or thousands of people blogging stuff out there free when Newsweek had always counted on being able to charge for content. If the performers are not violating the composer's copyright, fine. Just because we had hopes of forestalling unfavorable business models doesn't mean that said models are illegal, immoral, or (non-)fattening.
That said, the DMCA "Mickey Mouse" act, and the Bern Convention copyright provisions we live with are flat-out ridiculous at 70 years plus, and far more (120 years, if I recall correctly) for a WFR project done for Disney. Jefferson would throw up on the current law.