June 23, 2009 at 12:55 Copyright and Music
Copyright in the “music” * industry is increasingly becoming the subject of discussion, both on the Internet and in the media (* the word “music” is not in quotation marks here, there is negligible amount of music left in this industry). Some are trying to show us mothers with many children, whose record companies are fined millions of dollars. Others allegedly want to protect the unfortunate, hungry musicians who, allegedly, through the fault of users of p2p and torrent networks, are losing the last piece of bread. Still others are accustomed to buying TOP 200 EUROHIT discs for 100 rubles from the metro and believe that copyright issues are only overseas, and only for very wealthy people. Fourth (and their absolute minority) buy licensed CDs for 300 - 900 rubles (a completely inadequate price compared to the cost, even overseas).
Perhaps many will disagree with me now. I’ll clarify again that this is only about music. So: copyright in music can be treated differently, but this copyright itself must in any case belong to the author. Otherwise, the author of a musical work is already, as it were, not quite the author, or this is the copyright itself, which does not belong to him, already, as it were, not quite copyright. Otherwise, it doesn’t work out. Otherwise illogical. Why did it happen?
The vast majority of musical works now do not belong to the authors who invented, composed, performed and recorded them. "Copyright" * (* again not by accident in quotation marks) on them belong to various record companies, their associations, controlling organizations, committees and media corporations. Why does no one dare to ask themselves the simplest question of all possible? The question that immediately puts everything in its place. Is this fair?
Back to the past. For example, in the sixties of the last century. Then the musicians had absolutely no opportunity to record their works in at least some decent quality, because even the simplest equipment cost just space money. They also had no opportunity to make themselves known to the world, because no one had heard anything about any global communications then. All they could do was sing in go-go bars, restaurants and discos (I mean the sixties, oh, there was time).
At the same time, in the USA, a player appeared in almost every house. At the same time, there was simply a crazy demand for audio recordings. Summer hippies, rock wave, Beatlemania ... the world went crazy. Many of the musicians, who were insanely popular then, are now no longer remembered even by people well versed in the music of that time. Because then there were a lot of these groups. People wanted to listen to them, and you could make money on it. There are people who are ready to invest money in this business. They concluded contracts with musicians, gave the studio, equipment, instruments, advertising - all that was needed, and for this they received their share from the sale of records. This was quite true, because everything that they did for the musicians really required huge material and labor costs.
But since then the world has changed. This “crazy” demand has disappeared, technology has stepped forward, many new communication channels have appeared. Now anyone can arrange at home, albeit a budget, but still a studio, record whatever they want, and put it somewhere on my space or on last.fm. Then distribute links to friends and ask them to write something about themselves (about the author) on blogs and social networks. You can buy some contextual advertising, you can send demos to Internet radio stations, and so on and so forth. Then get a WMZ-wallet, put its number in the most prominent place on your page and wait for the money. Provided that you make good (or at least not very bad) music, if you effectively use all available communications, you can easily recoup your creativity.
Modern musicians do not need record companies (this was clearly shown to everyone by radiohead), and even more so, bureaucrats like RIAA, who are mad with greed, do not need it. But record companies need musicians, they really need them. Because otherwise they will have nothing to sell. There is such an expression as “specific greed ratio”. So, for record companies, he has already gone off scale for a long time. Of the money that we pay for music, those who write it get a negligible amount. But in the pockets of "copyright holders" settles most.
Payment mechanisms for online purchases already exist and are fairly reliable. Is it time for authors and listeners to begin to use them more actively. There are not so many musicians selling their works for “voluntary donations”, but they are. There is a tendency. In the future, in any case, we should expect a complete collapse of the entire music industry. Instead of the model “musician> recording studio> listener” there will be a simpler, more open and fair model “musician - listener”. This is the only logical and correct direction for the development of the industry. But how can a business adjust to this direction? The question is very complicated. While they only stick sticks in the wheels of a locomotive and waste their time and others' time. We hope that the situation will change soon.
Perhaps many will disagree with me now. I’ll clarify again that this is only about music. So: copyright in music can be treated differently, but this copyright itself must in any case belong to the author. Otherwise, the author of a musical work is already, as it were, not quite the author, or this is the copyright itself, which does not belong to him, already, as it were, not quite copyright. Otherwise, it doesn’t work out. Otherwise illogical. Why did it happen?
The vast majority of musical works now do not belong to the authors who invented, composed, performed and recorded them. "Copyright" * (* again not by accident in quotation marks) on them belong to various record companies, their associations, controlling organizations, committees and media corporations. Why does no one dare to ask themselves the simplest question of all possible? The question that immediately puts everything in its place. Is this fair?
Back to the past. For example, in the sixties of the last century. Then the musicians had absolutely no opportunity to record their works in at least some decent quality, because even the simplest equipment cost just space money. They also had no opportunity to make themselves known to the world, because no one had heard anything about any global communications then. All they could do was sing in go-go bars, restaurants and discos (I mean the sixties, oh, there was time).
At the same time, in the USA, a player appeared in almost every house. At the same time, there was simply a crazy demand for audio recordings. Summer hippies, rock wave, Beatlemania ... the world went crazy. Many of the musicians, who were insanely popular then, are now no longer remembered even by people well versed in the music of that time. Because then there were a lot of these groups. People wanted to listen to them, and you could make money on it. There are people who are ready to invest money in this business. They concluded contracts with musicians, gave the studio, equipment, instruments, advertising - all that was needed, and for this they received their share from the sale of records. This was quite true, because everything that they did for the musicians really required huge material and labor costs.
But since then the world has changed. This “crazy” demand has disappeared, technology has stepped forward, many new communication channels have appeared. Now anyone can arrange at home, albeit a budget, but still a studio, record whatever they want, and put it somewhere on my space or on last.fm. Then distribute links to friends and ask them to write something about themselves (about the author) on blogs and social networks. You can buy some contextual advertising, you can send demos to Internet radio stations, and so on and so forth. Then get a WMZ-wallet, put its number in the most prominent place on your page and wait for the money. Provided that you make good (or at least not very bad) music, if you effectively use all available communications, you can easily recoup your creativity.
Modern musicians do not need record companies (this was clearly shown to everyone by radiohead), and even more so, bureaucrats like RIAA, who are mad with greed, do not need it. But record companies need musicians, they really need them. Because otherwise they will have nothing to sell. There is such an expression as “specific greed ratio”. So, for record companies, he has already gone off scale for a long time. Of the money that we pay for music, those who write it get a negligible amount. But in the pockets of "copyright holders" settles most.
Payment mechanisms for online purchases already exist and are fairly reliable. Is it time for authors and listeners to begin to use them more actively. There are not so many musicians selling their works for “voluntary donations”, but they are. There is a tendency. In the future, in any case, we should expect a complete collapse of the entire music industry. Instead of the model “musician> recording studio> listener” there will be a simpler, more open and fair model “musician - listener”. This is the only logical and correct direction for the development of the industry. But how can a business adjust to this direction? The question is very complicated. While they only stick sticks in the wheels of a locomotive and waste their time and others' time. We hope that the situation will change soon.