Copyright falling into the generation gap
On Thursday, David Pogue wrote about The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality. This was picked up by my fellow copyright bloggers:
- The Op-Ed Editor on the Creators’ Copyright Coalition blog
- Russell McOrmond - The Generational Divide in copyright morality or creativity experience?
- John Degen - Kids these days
Russell argues that people are using file sharing because they are revolting against DRM. Although I think that some of them are, I think most of them just don’t feel they should be paying for music. In blog comments and social networking sites, the many kids these days are trying to rationalize their p2p activities not with DRM, but with the fact that they feel music is overpriced. Even on Fair Copyright for Canada, the Facebook group created by Michael Geist, I’m often distressed by the disgruntle music fan advocating against copyright because the money is going to The Man and The Man is charging too much.
As one of the younger copyright bloggers out there, I can tell you that when I was a frosh living on campus seven (eight? I’m losing track of time…) years ago, Napster, iMesh and sister applications were the buzz for music sharing. It wasn’t a matter of DRM, nor was it a matter of “discovering” music. It was a question of why someone would buy music if they could get it for free online. Granted, stores like iTunes and Puretracks weren’t around at that time for people to legally acquire music in digital formats, but mp3 players were horribly chunky and the mp3 format was only starting to take flight.
The impact of DRM on consumer choice is a real issue, and I’m concerned about it. But I’m more concerned about the fact that people are increasingly seeing creative works as being in the public domain as soon as it’s published.
Tags: copyright, music, youthRelated posts
By Julianna Yau
On December 22, 2007
At 5:32 pm
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My article didn’t put the blame on DRM, but different experiences which included but was in no way limited to discussions around DRM.
I haven’t read it entirely yet, but the underlying theme I was making is also a theme within “Canadian Copyright: A Citizen’s Guide” http://www.faircopyright.ca
Copyright is having a crisis of legitimacy. We can take two paths as a society: make it worse by making Copyright more complex and disconnected from what the average citizen thinks it should be, or make it better by coming to a compromise which involves making copyright more reasonable as well as massive public education.
The reality is that in the music business it is the composers and performers who add nearly all the creative value, and yet it is the increasingly redundant recording labels that extract the largest chunk of revenue. That is a practice that must change if there is to be a future music industry at all.
You can pass all the blame to music fans, but I don’t think this will prove or solve anything. We can experiment with alternatives to find out what people actually want, with this requiring legitimate statistics and not the industry sponsored statistics which have been proven to be without merit.
While musicians can be said to be stuck in the middle between labels and music fans, they are also the people in the best position to change the situation — and they are by moving away from those labels and the harmful business practices which I believe are at the root of the crisis of legitimacy for copyright in that area. I find that every month there is a growing amount of music on eMusic.com that is available to me in a manner I am willing to pay for (And BTW, just not accessing the music at all has been my alternative since 2000 — not infringement or perfectly legal private copying).
As a sculptress you should be very concerned about this trend as the reputation of the law that you are relying on is being harmed by entirely different sectors. While many sectors are dependent on copyright, it is really how people feel about the entertainment and so-called “proprietary” software industries that are setting the tone for this lack of respect.
Merry Christmas!
I never attended to assign blame, but to did intend to find the route causes for “crisis of legitimacy” copyright is having. For me, blame and route cause are very different things and I never work on any problem solving with any intent to blame because it’s never been productive.
It’s not a matter of “blaming” the music fans for their activities, but understanding that they are often doing it because, for whatever reason, they don’t want to pay for the music. And they often don’t want to pay for the music because they feel it is overpriced — which is a result of the way the industry is currently functioning, not necessarily because of either DRM or copyright itself. That then brings us to the need to change the way music is being sold, or the way musicians need to be financially supported from their music.
I have been concerned for some time about how the copyright for “everything except music and software” is being impacted by music and software. The problem, as I have mentioned before, is that the different creative forms work very differently in the markets and forms like visual art aren’t really conducive to mass consumption. This means that not only do these creative forms have different concerns and are differently impacted by copyright, but the general public has little vested interest in them.
I guess I worry that there is a presumption that people don’t want to pay for creativity, when we simiply don’t know that. Offer people something they want at a price they can afford, and then we can start to evaluate whether this is a case of people wanting something for nothing.
People don’t want CD bundles any more — the major labels killed the CD single, and have been fighting against the ability to download single songs. Part of their bubble was based on people paying for a full album of songs when they only wanted 1 or two of them.
Did you subject yourself to reading the Section 92 report? This put “clarifying and simplifying the act” as the last item on the lowest priority, when in fact it needs to be the top. The excessive complexity of the copyright act is, I believe, a larger source of the crisis of legitimacy than pricing issues. That said, composers and performers getting pennies on the dollar for their creativity while the largely redundant labels extract the majority of wealth is itself a crisis.
Maybe I’m too cynical for my own good. I agree that there are people who will choose to pay for something if it’s “reasonably priced” in their minds… but I know there are some people who simply feel that free is better. I don’t know what percentage of each group is, but I would guess that there are enough people willing to pay for things to keep things moving along.
I haven’t read the Section 92 report yet. I guess prioritization depends on whether the interest is in band-aid solutions or long-term, root-cause solutions…