Everything is Free now
Everything is free now, That's what they say. Everything I ever done, Gotta give it away. Someone hit the big score. They figured it out, That we're gonna do it anyway, Even if doesn't pay...
Gillian Welch: "Everything is free".
Normally I don't like posting on the same topic twice in a row. However; I checked back across the links on the internet radio post from the other day and saw WFMU had some further comments up on the blog
WFMU's Beware of the Blog: Hope on the Hill for Internet Radio. Station Manager Ken describes use of waivers and use licenses. This is where you organize one to one fee, or free use deals between labels and particular broadcasters hope_on_the_hil #comment-67854212">
April 27, 2007. Networks of such are one way out of this situation for independent and progressive minded radio stations. He furthers notes, that another listener is correct, in that the RIAA can collect on behalf of artists and labels that do not even belong to it, and then (apparently) do not even pass that money on to the labels. There is little to be gained by trying to regard copyright law as anything but madness. The best course seems to be to make independent arrangements yourself.
In other news. The implementation date for the new fees is pushed back to 15 Jul 07 from 15 May 07
Internet radio royalty hike delayed; last chance to petition Congress. Rep, Inslee's (D. WA-1) H.R. 2060 is looking for co-sponsers. The folks from SavenetRadio got to speak to people on the Hill over the last day as reported in the in
RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter .
There was a post up on MetaFilter over the weekend. A statement by Ian MacKaye was the title
"I like people to support the label, but as a musician, when I write a song I want it to be heard." Ian Mackaye | MetaFilter. Somebodies YouTube dump of Fugazi concert footage was the subject. I would have probably finished the previous post a day earlier if I hadn't seen that. It set me to thinking; though, about property rights. Property rights are sometimes charaterized by the bundle of sticks metaphor. Not all property rights will be identical because every bundle contains differing types and amounts of sticks. The right to dispose or transfer property being merely one of those sticks or rather a chord of sticks within the bundle. But, I'm not sure the public has the right to interpret an ambiguous comment by a right holder to make that disposition. I can get a tip jar, Gas up the car, And try to make a little change Down at the bar. Or I can get a straight job, I've done it before. I never minded working hard, It's who I'm working for...
Intellectual property rights, the right to profit from an idea, are conceived to act like a meal ticket. To provide for the benefit of an individual. An act of creation, an original idea, invention, story that people will pay you for. To protect that for the individual to use, to sell for a period perhaps approximating a lifetime was the object. I tend to recall one of Joseph Mitchell's characters Commodore Dutch here: "let the racket be your meal ticket." This is from Mitchell's story in the 1942 book McSorley's wonderful saloon, about a Manhatten bar scrounger who was given a franchise to sell tickets to a annual ball by a Tammany Hall Boss, providing him a low impact livehood of sorts. "I haven't got a whole lot of sense, Mitchell quotes him as saying, "but I got too much sense to work." [ Mitchell, Joseph. 2001. "A Sporting Man" McSorley's wonderful saloon McSorley's wonderful saloon. New York: Pantheon Books. (also in Mitchell, Joseph. 1992. Up in the old hotel and other stories Up in the old hotel and other stories. New York: Pantheon Books.) ] Conflating the concept of property rights to one where all rights of differing origins and intents become equalized, normalized and absolute rights so that such an individual benefit can be passed to a corporate entity, to become a managed profit stream for it, for as long as money can buy law escapes its intent. Why should corporate bodies get meal tickets? What value are they adding and what are they adding it to? For a certain period they can reasonably claim they are manageing money and rights for people who created something, but it is becoming clearer that the rights will continue to be owned and profited from long after the meals of these individuals are no longer the issue. So I will close out this post with the remainder of Gillian Welch's "Everything is free" from the record Time the Revelator. A wistfull little song about the alienation of the artist from the value of art, if not the meaning . Every day I wake up, Hummin' a song. But I don't need to run around, I just stay home. And sing a little love song, My love, to myself. If there's something that you want to hear, You can sing it yourself. 'Cause everything is free now, That what I say. No one's got to listen to The words in my head. Someone hit the big score, And I figured it out, That we're gonna do it anyway, Even if doesn't pay.
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