Julianna Yau’s blog

Close on the heels of Sidorkin’s article on Matthew Barney’s mode of generating income from his art is an article by Glenn Peoples about fan-funded musicians (via Michael Geist). Barney’s model is about selling more than merely the film and distributing the film differently. However, the fan-funded model is essentially turning the traditional model of music production on its head. Rather than getting a record company to cover the costs of production, the musicians are going to their fans for the money. It almost feels like a commissioned process, only with multiple financial sources and great creative freedom. If this can be maintained (and can maintain the financial stability of the creators), it would be an excellent model.

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My mind has been brewing with some of the refocused perspectives I’ve gained in the past few weeks. While those thoughts collect into something substantial, I thought I would take my mind-map of creators and concept of creators’ rights (instead of copyrights) and propose a…

Creators’ Charter of Rights & Freedoms (draft)

1. Right to attribution to works
2. Right to association with works
3. Right to anonymity
4. Right to integrity of work
5. Right to publication of work
6. Right to distribution/dissemination of works
7. Right to duplication of works
8. Right to adaptation of works
9. Right to translations of work
10. Right to freedom of expression
11. Right to creative reuse (PDF warning)/appropriation of others’ works
12. Right to financial renumeration for creation & dissemination of works

And while I’m at it, here’s something to counter-balance creators’ rights:

Readers/Listeners/Viewers‘ Charter of Rights & Freedoms (draft)

1. Right to access public works (to address TPM issues)
2. Right to format-neutrality (to address format-shifting and compatibility issues)
3. Right to privacy
4. Right to cultural appropriation
5. Freedom of choice

I realize the proposed RLV’s charter is much shorter than the creators’. This is not because I feel RLVs should have fewer rights & freedoms, but because I haven’t spent nearly as much time thinking about those rights as the rights of creators’.

What else should be on those charters?

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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.

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I’m a bit late on distributing this press release. I’ve been hoping to read the platform first, but this time of the year is simply too busy!

Here’s the PDF version of the platform in the original French and translated English.

7 professional associations of artists and performers and 5 copyright collective societies take position on the coming reform of the Copyright Act

DAMI© (Droit d’auteur/Multimédia-Internet/Copyright) is a coalition of 12 professional associations of artists and performers and copyright collective societies active in the theatre arts, visual arts, audiovisual (radio, television, movies, and commercials), literature, applied arts, and recording. Together, these twelve associations and collectives represent more than 50,000 artists and copyright holders.

Creators’ associations :

• Association québécoise des auteurs dramatiques (AQAD)
• Conseil des métiers d’art du Québec (CMA)
• Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels (RAAV)
• Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma (SARTEC)
• Société professionnelle des auteurs et des compositeurs du Québec (SPACQ)
• Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ)

Performers’ association:

• Union des artistes (UDA)

Copyright collective societies:

• Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ)
• Société de droits d’auteur en arts visuels (SODART)
• Société du droit de reproduction des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs du Canada (SODRAC)
• Société de gestion collective de l’Union des artistes (ARTISTI)
• Société québécoise de gestion collective des droits de reproduction (COPIBEC)
• Société québécoise des auteurs dramatiques (SoQAD)

DAMI© defends the interests of authors and performers in the process of revision of the Copyright Act of Canada.

The present platform reflects the common positions of the different associations and collective societies in the DAMI© coalition. Each of them, however, remains free to provide details or supplementary information, or to complement the analysis of the issues pertinent to its field of activities

As you will see these positions are articulated around three major concerns for both creators and performers:

1. Reaffirming the importance of protecting creators’ moral rights and affirming the importance of protecting performers’ moral rights

2. Ensuring that creators are associated with the economic life of their works throughout the duration of the protection provided in the Act and that performers be associated with the economic life of their performances

3. Recognizing that only collective management of copyright and neighbouring rights can permit proper circulation of copyright-protected works by facilitating their use and the payment of royalties by users, while ensuring reasonable compensation to holders of copyright and neighbouring rights.

Have a good reading.

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The Canadian Music Creators Coalition also voices their support for the Songwriters Association of Canada’s proposal.

Via Digital Copyright Canada 

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In response to the Songwriters Association of Canada’s proposal for the monetization of file sharing, Mathew Ingram asks “Would you pay an Internet “tax” for music?”. Although Ingram is skeptical of people being open to the idea, and the post’s comments are riddled with the usual indignant grouches, the proposal is a much better solution than the law suits happening in the US. Being, at this point, a proposal, I think it shows SAC has a good understanding of the direction in which we should be headed.

I’m actually a big fan of PlayLouder, an ISP in the UK which caters specifically to users who want to download music freely. PlayLouder tracks the downloads of music through their gateway to calculate the amount of royalties which should be repaid to creators. The royalties are paid by part of the monthly subscription fee a user pays for their internet service. Although the tracking has privacy issues to be resolved, it has great potential as long as everything is handled properly.

Why more ISPs don’t take this approach is a mystery to me.  This allows users to pay one fee and download to their hearts’ content, rather than paying for their internet service plus a subscription to a music download service or a pay-per-download service. The ISP then doesn’t have to worry about the mess of divulging the accounts attached to IP addresses. And, gasp!, the creators get paid for their work!

Rogers, for example, already has different internet packages catering to the different speed requirements of the user. It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to add a Music Lovers package with a monthly fee which includes a levy for the music downloading activity. This would allow users to opt out of the levy if they decide to buy music from another source, but also allows users to have the choice of downloading music without additional costs or having to steal the music.

And, hey, if we want to be really innovative, we could extend the same type of package to movie watchers!

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