DRM technology and policy

[Ben Cox]

On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 14:58, Carsten Kuckuk wrote:
> As far as I can tell, it's not the musicians, writers or artists in
> general who demand DRM technology but it is the companies whose
> business model is solely based on reproduction and distribution of
> works. It's their business model that is threatened and they don't
> bother finding another.

FWIW, groups like BMI and ASCAP may try to claim that musicians are
demanding DRM technology (and copyright extensions), but I can vouch
that they didn't (at least, BMI didn't) poll their membership to back up
that claim.  As far as I can see, such claims from organizations like
these that purport to speak for musicians are thinly-veiled mouthpieces
of the RIAA.

In an informal discussion among 10 local independent musicians that I
participated in on Tuesday night, the subject of copyright and royalties
came up, and it was virtually unanimously agreed that we care more about
getting our music heard by a wide audience than about making money off
it.

With that said, there is still an important function for copyright even
in the current day in which artists are happy to allow free copying of
our works.

While copyright protection is used by large corporations to protect
their economic interests, it is also (and more importantly, IMHO) used
by independent musicians to try to keep the large corporations from
screwing us: It gives us a tool with which to (attempt to) stop other
people from making money off our works without giving us a cut.

It seems we have come full circle: see
http://www.copyrighthistory.com/anne.html, posted here recently;
apparently before 1710 it was common practice for those who owned
printing presses to print and sell books without giving the authors
anything.  This was thought to be a Bad Thing (and I happen to agree). 
So copyright was granted, to make sure the authors didn't get cheated by
the publishers.

Even in the age of free and perfect copying, there WILL BE businesses
that will use artists' works to make money, even if only by acting as a
search engine or nexus of connections.  If there were no copyright
protection, artists would have no lever with which to attempt to get
their due cut.

Example: suppose there were a web site that allowed free downloads of
MP3 music files, supported by advertising revenue.  (Sound familiar?) 
Shouldn't the musicians whose music is placed on that web site get a cut
of that revenue?  After all, people don't go to the site just to look at
the ads.  (In the absence of copyright protection, note that the music
could be placed on that website without the musician's consent.)  (See
http://www.creativesynth.com/opinion/119-MP3Bad/119_mp3com.html for a
more direct criticism of this business model.)

Example: suppose, in a world of no-copyright, I write a really good
song, and some large corporation that I don't even like uses it so
prominently/frequently/ubiquitously in their advertising that the song
and the corporate brand identity are one; such that even if people hear
the song in other contexts, they think of the company.  The song is so
insanely great that the advertising campaign is an immense success and
the company makes billions.  In a no-copyright world, there's no
obligation for the company to pay me a dime for turning them into such a
success; I can't even block them from using my song without permission. 
In today's world, with copyright laws, they have to pay me to use my
song, and depending on the circumstances, I may even be able to keep
them from using my song at all, if I don't like the company.

We musicians the other night all agreed that we were happy to allow
people to copy our music FOR FREE -- but if anyone was going to charge
money for copying it, or make money from it in some other way, we also
all agreed that we should get some of that.

Anyway, my point is that while a lot of bad things have been done in the
name of copyright protection, I think some more thinking needs to be
done before we decide it would be a good idea to chuck it altogether.

-- Ben



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