Hey! Get Off My Copyright!

All That Hard Work, Need To Get Paid.

I remember the first day I downloaded a song from Napster. It was quick and free. As a matter of fact, I still have that Linkin Park song in my iTunes. Today, music costs me 0.99 cents, or 1.29 per track depending on how popular the song is. This is mostly because record labels earn most of their revenue from CDs and band recordings. Surprisingly, the bands themselves make very little off their CD sales, and get most of their revenue from touring and public appearances. So the popular argument is if artists’ revenues come from concerts and cameos, then why can't we download their music for free since when we buy music, we are just paying the big label, which did minimal creative work. Copyright advocates, that is the record label and RIAA, promote the point that without copyrights artists have no incentive to create new music since they will not be reimbursed for time working before they make it big. Before expounding the problem with the advocates' argument, a simple understanding of copyright law needs to be reached. Next, an analysis of what the internet has done for artists in the past ten years and what this means for a new artist needs to be described. These two factors, together, will provide a better understanding for why the copyright advocates argument for strict copyright law and DRM (Digital Rights Management) with regards to home usage holds no water, and what this means for copyright law moving further

Traditional Copyright Understanding

In the US, copyright law grants the artist/creator rights over their creation for their life plus seventy years. This was granted to maximize the incentive towards artists to create new music, and if they did, to be compensated for the time put into creating the music. The advocates state that by removing copyright law, artists will lose incentive to create because of the inability to be compensated for their work and effort. Assuming one of the primary reasons why an artist makes music is for money, then this would be true. If copyright protection is not available, music would be free because it would be available for download, and record labels would not recoup profits from their artists, due to lack of CD sales. If record labels are not making money, they will not sign artists. Artists would not be signed and unable to produce music since recording alone would be too expensive. Yet, the evolution of the internet and progress in recording technology now allows artists to get around problems of recording and producing music, and should change the underlying reasons for copyright laws.

The Internet and Progress in Recording Technology

Remember 56K modems and that annoying dial tone when you used to try and sign onto AOL? Now, high speed internet is everywhere and allows us to do miraculous things that were not thought possible in the age of the floppy disc. Not only can we surf at incredible speeds,

Not really. Unless you're a student on a university campus, as an American you mostly cannot get decent broadband at an affordable price. Far from being able to use the net at incredible speed, you get lousy asymmetric service, and you pay way too much for it.

we can do it almost anywhere and at anytime. We can upload, download, stream, and view content around the globe. The internet has become an integral part of our society, but along with it, the quality of recording programs and software for the average home user has grown exponentially. Youtube allows viewers to record anything and upload it. Software like Garageband, while not necessarily professional grade, allows artists to individually record instruments and possibly self-produce whole albums at very low cost. Artists Justin Beiber and Ronald Jenkees got their start by uploading some of their music to Youtube, or mixing their own tracks, and then being found by a talent agent. The current technological capabilities of the internet and recording software allows for artist to produce and distribute their music to millions of people for a minimal cost, and because of this we need to rethink copyright law if the incentive is based on recuperation of time and money.

Recuperation and recoupment are different words with different etymologies.

The technical discussion here sounds sophisticated but isn't. A knowledgeable reader will conclude that she is reading someone who is not fully clued in. That may not be an impression you want to send.

Rethinking Copyright Law in the Music Industry

If it costs little to produce and distribute music as an artist, what role does copyright play now? The argument that copyright promotes artist incentives no longer makes sense because of the relatively low cost to produce music, and subsequent ease to recuperate production costs. All that copyright is doing now is inhibiting the growth of music. Taking one idea and tweaking it to create something that reaches a new audience. The proposed solution would be to change usage rights altogether when it comes to copyright law. We already have specific laws governing the usage of copyrighted material as parody, why not have separate copyright laws governing private home usage?

You don't seem to be aware of the Audio Home Recording Act. You don't seem to understand the industry's concept of the "analog hole."

Allow home users unrestricted, free access to music for private enjoyment. The laws should still govern restricted usage in a type of public setting, such as commercials and radio, but with respect to privately enjoying songs while working, just allow free enjoyment. Downloading songs has a minimal deterrence effect on music artists’ creativity, which is proven by many new and established artists allowing free downloads of their music. Even with people downloading music, artists are still coming out with music due in part to a growth in technology.

Where Do We Go From Here?

We are already moving towards a world with free music. For example, Grooveshark, Lastfm, and Pandora offer free online streaming music. What comes next is free downloadable music that allows artists to work with other artist's music (such as Girl Talk) without having to go through licensing red tape. With the increasing ability to produce, reproduce, and distribute copyrightable material, copyright laws need to be revamped for the new technological era. With the increased entrenchment of the internet and quality of home recording studios, copyrights, with regards to home usage, should be changed to reflect the lower costs faced by new artists looking to break onto the scene.

This is an adequate first draft. It misses most of the issues, to one extent or another, but it's a good place to start.

What you have can be reduced to this: costs of production have declined, and listener expectations and capacities have increased. These points are relevant, of course, but they're not the whole story for anybody, no matter which side you're on. That they completely eliminate the case for copyright is plainly wrong.

You proceed as though the only copyright in recorded music were the secondary copyright on the recording, rather than the primary copyrights on the music and lyrics. That alone makes the legal analysis seriously incomplete. You don't consider the collecting societies any more than you consider the people they collect for, and you don't differentiate between gratis and free, as a result of which the Creative Commons idea and its relation to the pre-recording history of music goes undiscussed.

The industry analysis here is also under-developed. The music companies don't make or distribute music, primarily: they promote celebrity. Music is then one among many ancillary products that the central synthetic interpersonal relationship is used to sell. Analysis of the political economy actually developed in such a context would be useful.

Now, of course, the ownership-based industry is on the point of collapse, and is seeking an immense global legal subsidy for coercive distribution models. How DRM nearly worked to deliver the industry into the pocket of Mr Jobs should be described; that irony is a portal to the more complex second-order analysis this essay needs.