Law demonstrates itself to be Ass (again)

You may have read about this court case. Now go and read this excellent post about why the judgement is so wrong-headed.

This sort of thing is what happens when a stupidly narrow view of what constitutes originality, a technology (recording) that means pretty much every bit of music ever created is available for ever and none forgotten (as would be natural otherwise), and avarice collide.

Those thieving bastards The Beatles nicked the tune for "Seargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Cklub Band" from medievel song "L'homme armé". Mahler ran off with huge chunks of his friend Hans Rott's symphony and used them for his own First (and used them to vastly better efect by the way). Then there's that bit in Brahms's Third Symphony which is totally a rip-off of Dvořák's Seventh (or possibly Sixth, can't remember offhand) - or is it the other way around? Bastards, the lot of them.

Of course they didn't steal. Musical ideas crop up again and again, sometimes deliberately (Mahler, probably), sometimes by chance (Beatles, almost certainly). The idea that a combination of a few notes from a finite resource (a scale) is something to be set in stone and the basis to sue someone's arse off and get money off them is quite simply damaging to all music. I'm not arguing against creator rights here - of course musicians should have a right to protect their creations and make a living from them - for a limited time. But the reductionist view that copyright law takes of what constitutes originality, coupled with the ludicrous lengths of copyright terms, is an active obstacle to the natural growth and evolution of music as an artform.

The ties that bind

Well, damn. I come back from Glasgow with exciting tales of the Proclaimers, but I see the EU is on the verge of extending sound copyright to an eye-watering 95 years. I've discussed why this is a bad thing before, and will doubtless do so again, but fortunately rather than read my half-arsed rambling and ranting you can go and find out from the Rambler why this is a Bad Thing. To which I shall append my usual aesthetic argument that dialogue with the recent past is a vital part of the development of any art, and enormously long copyright terms hinder that. Think of J.S. Bach rewriting Vivaldi, or young Mozart rejigging J.C. Bach. Both acts of what we would now consider copyright infringement, but both essential to the development of each composer.

My precioussss!

Just when you thought we'd seen off this sort of thing, I see on Coolfer that the record companies are up to it again.

I can see why the EU is concerned about artists' income, but it really isn't about starving singers, it's about big corporate companies clinging onto their cash cows.

95 years? 95?? Just how long do you need to recoup an investment? Forever, I'm sure they think.

I'm not at all convinced by the get-out clause, either. It reminds me of the sort of contractual thing that DC used to screw Alan Moore.

If the record companies put half as much effort into nurturing new talent as they do in clinging onto their old warhorses, the music industry would be in a hell of a rosy state.

Access all areas*

The Internet Music Score Library Project is back online.

Attention, publishers: This sort of thing could be good for you, if you work with it rather than against it.

*Well, except the ones you can't access, of course.

golden geese on life support

You can never take anything for granted in this world, and to prove it, the European Union is looking at extending sound copyright terms, against the conclusions of the Gowers Review. Read more here, and sign the petition. Copyright is an important way of protecting the livelihoods of creative artists, but for cultural activity to thrive, it's also important that works be allowed to pass into the public domain, so that we can use the achievements of the past to build the future sound.

Photo taken from Racefan's Picassa album.

Access no areas

Missed Mark Ronson's critically acclaimed Electric Proms gig? Never mind, you can still catch it online at... oh, er, you can't, apparently.

"Music rights restrictions" suggests either a record company or a publisher's hand at work. Either way, it's another piece of heavy-handed idiocy. Who benefits from this gig being made unavailable? One more example of the way the music industry dinosaurs would rather go out of their way to stop their music being heard than attempt to engage in any way with the possibilities music has online. In a way, this is a good thing, because every clodding act like this brings the day when these vile organisations are consigned to history.

In Rainbows

So, how much did you fork out for the new Radiohead album? Me, being the nerd I am, I forked out the forty quid for the big exciting box with books and pictures and extra music and lovely vinyl. So I have a posh bit of product to look forward to in 6 weeks or so. In the meantime, there's the download version, which I was emailed the link for this morning.

And hurrah! It's absolutely brilliant! What immediately strikes me at the first listen is that they've managed to combine their experimentalism with their undoubted knack for a good pop song in the killer way they've been threatening to for a while. So you've got twisted dance beats, weird retro-futurist sounds, but also big guitars and tunes. So it sounds more than anything like a band.

I ummed and ah-ed for a while about whether to have the big box, or whether to go for the pay-what-you-want download only option. I wonder what I'd have paid if I'd done the latter? Of course it's tempting to pay nothing, but that just seems wrong to me. I vaguely wondered about getting the download and then if I liked it going the whole hog, but in the end I decided to put my faith in them to deliver, and they've come through for me.

I think the way they've released "In Rainbows" is a fascinating experiment (apparently there'll be a conventional CD release next year), and I hope they give us an idea of how many people downloaded and what most people paid. They're lucky enough to be in a position where they can take a risk like this, and if it works, it'll have huge consequences for the record business and bands' relations with record labels.

One in the eye for The Man

The Gowers Review of Intellectual Property has been published (if you can't face wading through the whole thing there's a good precis here), and it's good to see that it rejects the recording industry's argument for extending copyright on recordings, as well as making some other recommendations that nudge copyright law in a more enlightened direction. There's still a long way to go - I believe that the whole concept of intellectual rights needs to be radically re-thought - but, assuming the government follows the report's recommendations, this is a significant victory for creative freedom against corporate greed. And of course Mick Hucknall.

On an altogether less worthy note, here's a splendid tribute to Paris, Britney and Lindsay.

release the music

Copyright's a subject I've long had mixed feelings about, and indeed it was partly thoughts about it that prompted me to start this blog. The pieces I post here are intended to be free for anyone to use as they will for any non-profit making purpose, in the spirit of the creative commons principle, and I've long thought that current copyright law is not only inadequate to cope with a world in which sampling exists and the presence of the internet is making national differences in the laws governing creative activity unsustainable, but actively harms composers' (and any creative artist's) ability and freedom to create. Think of J.S. Bach's arrangements of Vivaldi or Mozart's rewriting of J.C. Bach, and you'll have an idea of the kind of thing I'm thinking of as work which is vital to a composer's development, but which is rendered illegal by current law.

Now the recording industry seeks further to limit artists' ability to react with the culture around them by campaigning to have the duration of copyright on recordings from 50 to 70 years. They claim this is in the interests of the artists, but the truth is that all they are really interested is maintaining their grip on a cash cow. I believe that to change the law in the way they propose would be not just capitulating to corporate greed, but an act that would actively damage the cultural life of this country.

I won't bore you with facts and figures, you can find all the information you need here. What I will do is implore you to go to the Release the Music website and add your name to their petition.

Of course it's important to protect artists' livelihoods, and record companies are entitled to profit from their business like any other. But it's also important that creative work be allowed to pass into the public domain, where it can become the seed for new work. because if we can't do that, what on earth's the point?