Thursday, May 15, 2008

The Winners and Losers of User-Led Content and Music Piracy... continued.

This is a post in response to Scott's insightful comment.

I think this is a good point. The internet and produsage means that lots of people are contributing for little or no financial reward but they are also consuming for little or no cost. It could be argued that what we get out of the internet could be equivalent to what we put in.

In an ideal world I would like to see better recognition for the quality contributors to the internet. I commend people who set up sites that reward people for their contribution by sharing the profits of the website, for example such as Jamendo (music) and Revver (videos).

My argument is that the old way of looking at things does not work. Those who were the power brokers in the old economy are no longer. What's more is that those people need to stop crying poor and get with the times.

In relation to music it's not like the old system always protected the artists either. In their song the Taxman the Beatles publicly aired grievances about their massive tax bill. Despite worldwide fame they were near bankruptcy.

And Paul McCartney has long fought to buy back the rights to their music as most of their catalogue is still currently owned by Michael Jackson. The music industry gossip mill has long surmised that Jackson's record company has deliberately let Jackson become in debt to the company and that, at some stage down the track, they will try to acquire the rights to the Beatles catalogue in return for clearing the debt. Obviously I can't verify this but it is plausible. And as it's plausible it's easy to see how the music industry itself "robs" artist of the fruits of their labour.

On the flipside, copyright in Australia endures for 75 years after the authors death. It's arguable that there are times where it is simply ridiculous that an artist could continue to reap an income for so long. I mean let's be honest does anyone really think that Joe Dolce's contribution to music, the famous "Shaddap Your Face", was so great that his estate should continue to be paid royalties for 75 years after his death? Let's pretend it's a symphony that took him a year to compose, which is unlikely, but for the sake of argument let's say it is. Then do we agree that this is worth a lifetime of income? Should he never have to work to earn a living again?

I'm not saying that I have an answer here. What I am saying is that it's worth considering another point of view on copyright than what the music industry power-brokers have sold us for the past hundred years. Wouldn't an ideal system be one that rewards more creators modest sums for their contributions; rather than one which rewards a few creators (the ones at the top) with huge amounts money.

We now have the technology. We just need to change our attitude. Surely someone smarter than me (and the music industry) can develop a solution to this problem.

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