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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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 was responding to some of the comments on my review of the copyright panel discussion on TVO, and got onto a thought tangent that I decided to develop into a full post instead.

My understanding is that, under current copyright law, when I sell one of my sculptures I am only selling the sculpture–not the right to reproduce it or images of it (unless I have also licenced the buyer to make such reproductions). Naturally, I’m not going to sue my patrons if my sculptures end up in an album of family pictures, but would want to strike a licensing deal if they wanted to use images of the sculpture to help promote their business.

Luckily for me, the distribution of images of my sculptures doesn’t (in my mind) negatively impact the sale of my sculptures, because anyone who wants to own the sculpture will not be satisfied by a picture of it. In fact, the distribution of pictures of my sculptures may possibly increase interest in my work and the chance of a sale.

However, the duplication of the sculpture into another sculpture would be something that I would be concerned about because it would have high potential for decreasing my sales (and also infringes my moral rights… but that’s a whole other topic) and influencing the value of my work (because all my work is unique; I am not in the practise of creating series or limited editions of my sculptures).

How does this translate to creative works which can be faithfully recreated digitally? Not merely music, but literature, software, movies and various forms of visual art (e.g. photography) can be digitally reproduced almost perfectly. We have seen for music that recorded songs can be rethought to be not the product but the advertising, and the live concerts to be the products. We have also seen for software that the software can be rethought to be not the product, and have the product be consulting and support for software.

But what about movies and visual art? Do we saturate movies with product placement? Do we rely solely on governmental and corporate sponsorship for visual art? Do we simply levy the heck out of everything to pay the creators? I’d like to hear any suggestions. Honestly.

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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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