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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Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Copyright projects like Musopen are not the "market working" at all. They are efforts to destroy the market. I can move into Houston and go out of pocket to supply milk at 5 cents a gallon to drive out all competitors. In this scenario, I just want a monopoly on cow juice so eventually I can raise the price to $10.00 per gallon and create self-serving entry barriers to the market. The Sherman Act prevents this kind of market manipulation because it harms people.
The Musopen people are trying to do something similar. They don't like the free market at all. They are offended by it. I agree their stuff isn't going to be that threatening considering the task at hand, but it is their attitude toward copyrights that's bothersome to me. The copyright laws, which effect private property and investment, aren't perfect, but the question is do these laws need reform, or should we hand them over to people offended by the free market? We did that to this country in 2008 and I don't like where it's going.
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 10:26amMay '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
There's something I'm sure I'm not quite getting here.
Private individuals are raising money from private individuals to pay other private individuals to play and record music and release it into the public domain, and that's... Communism? ("Public" domain might sound commie-like, but it's in the Constitution.)
I think it's a great initiative! Making some recordings, ideally great ones, of great works of classical music, in the public domain so that there are no rights attached to them as there are no rights attached to the work, is a great philanthropic -- ie, private -- endeavor.
The idea that it would kill the "market" (which is already mostly philanthropic) for new performances and recordings of classical music is ridiculous. People don't pay for Karajan's direction of Beethoven's Fifth because they can't find a free recording of it. They pay for it because it's Karajan's.
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 10:22amMay '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
I would prefer a "use-it-or-lose-it" provision. Take early television shows for example. The 1957 Edsel Special starred Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney. It was wall-to-wall with some of the greatest talent ever to grace the screen but it is unavailable to the public because of copyright. The owner doesn't believe it worth the cost to offer it commercially yet deems it of too great of value to release into the public domain. But what worth is it if it just sits on a shelf deteriorating?
If copyright is to protect the commercial value of something, shouldn't the owner be asked to offer it to the market place?
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
EJHill
I would prefer a "use-it-or-lose-it" provision. Take early television shows for example. The 1957 Edsel Special starred Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney. It was wall-to-wall with some of the greatest talent ever to grace the screen but it is unavailable to the public because of copyright. The owner doesn't believe it worth the cost to offer it commercially yet deems it of too great of value to release into the public domain. But what worth is it if it just sits on a shelf deteriorating?
If copyright is to protect the commercial value of something, shouldn't the owner be asked to offer it to the market place? · Sep 8 at 10:37am
I sympathize with your argument, but there is no way to predict if or when something will become profitable, because of a resurgence in demand due to any number of factors.
Aug '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
this post reads like nothing so much as Bastiat's Petition from the Candlemakers.
freedom and property rights are not about protecting the business models or livelihoods of incumbents. if somebody new wants to come in and give away property for free then that's their business and if it undercuts those who wish to provide a comparable service for a fee, tough.
whether or not these philanthropists use pro- or anti-property rhetoric is besides the point. likewise, there is a huge conceptual gap between me giving away my own property for free and me giving away your property for free. the former is me exercising my right to dispose of my property as I see fit, the latter is theft/piracy. This is the important distinction, not whether or not there is a price to the end consumer.
btw, Ricochet costs to comment on but is free to read. do you feel guilty about posting here and undercutting the business model of paid subscription opinion journalism and the livelihoods of professional pundits?
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 11:42amRe: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
anon_academic: this post reads like nothing so much as Bastiat's Petition from the Candlemakers.
freedom and property rights are not about protecting the business models or livelihoods of incumbents. if somebody new wants to come in and give away property for free then that's their business and if it undercuts those who wish to provide a comparable service for a fee, tough.
I guess we should then repeal all our laws regulating anti-competitive business practices that create monopolies. If bread costs $100.00 per loaf in your town, tough!
EJHill
I would prefer a "use-it-or-lose-it" provision.
Who decides when that takes place? The U.S. Department of "We'll Decide When You Have To Give Away Your Property You Think You Own?"
I can't wait for that
May '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Joe Escalante Who decides when that takes place? The U.S. Department of "We'll Decide When You Have To Give Away Your Property You Think You Own?"
I can't wait for that · Sep 8 at 3:09pm
Well, how do we do it now? How is it decided that pharmaceutical companies must license generics? Should we still all be buying our lightbulbs from the estate of Thomas Edison?
The Founding Fathers put a 14-year limit on copyright. Perhaps you would prefer that we return to that? Or are you in favor of a perpetual, never ending copyright? After you admitted the laws weren't perfect, you asked about needed reforms but don't offer anything but snide remarks. What do you propose, Mr. Escalante?
Aug '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Joe Escalante
anon_academic: this post reads like nothing so much as Bastiat's Petition from the Candlemakers.
freedom and property rights are not about protecting the business models or livelihoods of incumbents. if somebody new wants to come in and give away property for free then that's their business and if it undercuts those who wish to provide a comparable service for a fee, tough.
I guess we should then repeal all our laws regulating anti-competitive business practices that create monopolies. If bread costs $100.00 per loaf in your town, tough!
Except that wouldn't happen. Economists debate whether the effects of anti-trust on consumer prices are non-existent or merely small. Even the most pro-FTC economist wouldn't claim that the price of bread would rise thirty-fold (or even double) were we to abolish the FTC. In general, supply curves slope upwards so high prices attract new market entrants unless they are blocked by the state (and not necessarily even then).
In both cases you're basically arguing that the state should enforce the economic status quo. This is not exactly a pro-market perspective but more of a Mediaeval "fair price" thing.
Aug '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
ps, I hadn't read your bio until now and seen that this is kind of close to home (which is funny because, come to think of it, i saw you open for Rancid at the Palladium in the late 90s). Not that I don't sincerely believe in everything I wrote about freedom, property rights, and creative destruction, but I probably would have been a bit more tactful than to say something like "tough" if I realized I were talking to a musician and not, as I assumed, someone with no personal stake in the issue.
Jul '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
Mr. Escalante, you are disregarding the salience of quality and consumer choice. I am no music expert, but I can almost guarantee that the recordings created by Musopen will be nowhere near the highest quality recordings or performances one could find. Those who want high-quality recordings can spend their money to get it.
Price is not the end-all of competition. When South Korean cars first entered the US, they were literally dumped into the market at low prices bolstered by ROK government subsidies. But those first Hyundais were garbage and did not sell well at all. Regardless of price, Hyundai did not pose serious competition to US or Japanese automakers until the quality of the cars they built increased. Likewise, what you label dumping in the music industry will create a situation were consumers will be more aware that if they want good quality, they have to pay for it, and it will keep high-quality musicians from performing for public domain projects to protect their incomes.
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 5:33pmMay '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
The fact that a musician doesn't like Muscopen's plan, and their motivation in effecting it, has exactly zero to do with the legality or the fact that they are letting the market work.
Aug '10
Re: Does This Bother You As Much As It Bothers Me?
When a performer records a version of a public domain song, the only rights they hold are the rights to that particular performance. The performer then has the right to release the performance into the public domain, or to release it under some form of open license like the GPL which allows unlimited reuse so long as certain basic conditions are met.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and it is truly in the spirit of the original intent of copyright. The purpose of copyright law is to encourage the creation of art for the public's consumption. Copyright was originally set to expire after 28 years, allowing a long period of time for the creators of art and literature and music to profit from their creations. They then revert to the public domain to become part of the nation's cultural heritage.
This is not an issue of free markets - for decades, government has added increasing restrictions to the use of copywritten material and has extended copyrights at the behest of powerful lobbyists. The market is anything but free.
If anything, Musopen is acting in the spirit of free markets, thwarting government/lobbyist control of art.