Especially in light of the fact that copyright is not fulfilling it's intended promise. Specifically that the government protects the work for a time, and in return the work goes into the public domain after a reasonable amount of time in order to enrich society as a whole.
Why indeed? We don't pay for food each time we reap the benefits of the nutrition it provided down the line. Weightlifters don't pay royalties to protein powder companies. It could be argued that artists could also be expected to not be paid beyond the initial creation of a work. It would be a very different world to be sure, but it's not a given that it would be a worse world.
"I can't think of any good reason why music should even be copyrightable."
This particular argument is about whether music should be copyrightable.
We often don't know which songs are worth millions and which are worth tens until years later.
If we believe that people who write songs should be compensated roughly proportionally to how valuable their songs are, it is hard to think of a way to actually do that which does not involve compensation long after the song is written.
I’m pretty sure the notion would sound ridiculous in a world without copyright. Such a world would look very different from ours.
But even if “fair compensation” was the goal. Why then not stipulate that in the law? Whay grant exclusive control of copying to anyone.
Just in the copy providing department I still consistently run in to the situation where there is no legal means for me to enjoy certain albums, tv-series, movies, games or software.
But that’s just the problem with the actually legal copies. I find it even more distressing that some of the best works I want to enjoy are illigal to begin with due to the authors infringig of the exclusive right of some longe abandoned work.
And that’s just my experience. Considering the resources and suffering that goes into maintaining this state of affairs just boggles the mind.
Not really (at least, not in addressing lucasmullens' point). I'm making a movie or an ad. I think your song would be just perfect for it. You won't let me use it on terms that I consider reasonable. Well, there's more than one song that would be (approximately) perfect there. I'll see if their copyright holders are more reasonable.
If you absolutely have to have Song X in your movie, then your point is correct. But I assert that, most of the time, that isn't the case. And behold, now there's a market.
Perhaps I found the new Star Wars movie crap, a few cuts and edits. And it’s much better. Only can only dream of getting the rights of releasing it.
Perhaps the mastering of a Metallica album was just bad. With a little skills applied to the problem and there you go, a much nicer edition of the album. Cant really add it to Spotify though.
Most of the value in the music industry has gone to Apple and Spotify shareholders the last 20 years, not labels. There is at least $100-$150 billion in cumulative shareholder value sitting there from just that. Spotify is worth more than all the major labels combined.
The iPod doesn't exist without the music from the artists. Apple didn't share their hardware profits with artists, and they're not sharing any follow on value from the iPhone either (which was entirely made possible by the iPod).
People hate labels, they mostly love Apple and Spotify, so they largely get a pass on this. The real money in the music industry during the iPod era, was in the hardware.
As much as people may speak of art reflecting its creator, once it gets into the outside world, it becomes an interaction with everyone it contacts. There are a million new perspectives formed, and plenty that could be done to extend the work.
I could imagine taking software principles and applying them to art in many ways:
* Bugfixes-- from simple grammar flaws, to finishing dangled story threads, why aren't we patching and re-releasing novels?
* Technical improvements-- I could imagine, for example, a speaker manufacturer remixing songs so they sounded better on their hardware.
* Customization -- if you've made an attractive image or song, and it hasn't been repurposed to sell Diet Pepsi, you haven't really arrived.
The limit to these visions is that they run headlong both into the literal principles of copyright law, and the philosophy that art is somehow sacred as-is, rather than being a baseline for better and better things. Shorter copyrights and mandatory licensing can make it happen.
This is pretty similar to what’s happened with Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo. He’s repeatedly reworked it, tweaking the production and verses and in one case adding a whole new song.
> Customization -- if you've made an attractive image or song, and it hasn't been repurposed to sell Diet Pepsi, you haven't really arrived.
https://youtu.be/zxyTk3ligAc – a band playing a very close copy of their hit song Winchester Cathedral as a coke ad.
"He" being the operative word. Third parties aren't doing their own custom distributions. This becomes a big deal if you can't convince the original creator that something needs fixed.
If you've got a big enough vision that you lock horns with Linus Torvalds on the Linux kernel, you fork it and release anyway. If you have a different vision than Kanye West for the album, good luck getting your version through the courts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene
The code in demoscene productions is not just a means to make art, but in and of itself can be considered a work of art to a savvy viewer.
A choice between the two, like choosing to be blind or deaf, I'd choose music, I'd choose blindness.
Music is much more fundamental to the human condition than, <laugh out loud>... software <more laughing>
Gather round the keyboard family, let's code together, you do the functions, I'll write main!
(This is intentionally harshly written, in response to the obvious hyperbole of this "Not to mention there's enough music already made to cover everyone's need" - whatever that is).
I'm aware it's all subjective, but I'll still write this: Music is life, Software is lifestyle.
moetech, find some music that elicits a response from a part of your lizard brain you didn't know existed, that makes you cry with connection. That's just the beginning of the journey.
Of course not. There is an enormous glut of cultural works, and people's quality of life would not be meaningfully harmed if all commercial production stopped. See:
Instrument practice, sound engineering are a crazy amount of work in order to get to a professional level. It's so bizarre to hear people say things like that, they have 0 consideration for the amount of effort put into the former, just because they can download 1 millions tracks on the internet in one click...
Professional production is very hard, but it’s also kind of a moving target. A lot of production is trying to hit trends set by other producers so that your music sounds professional itself. It’s largely competitive rather than artistically significant, and there’s some great production that doesn’t sound professional but still works.
Sure, why not?
> And besides, I don't think the bulk of music is being created by people being compensated for it.
Most of the money goes to the few at the top, it's true. How does that change things?