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The death of copyright and intellectual property

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A story in The Chronicle of Higher Education caught my eye the other day about copyright.  It discusses lessons from the history of book publishing, the evolution of copyright and what might happen in the future.  It has some fascinating history – a few excerpts:
 
Nothing is sacred about intellectual property:
But he believes that today’s information revolution may be even more disruptive than the one Gutenberg set off with his printing press. If we listen to those pirates of old, we’ll learn that there is nothing sacred or natural about our basic ideas of intellectual property, he argues, characterizing those notions as imperfect conventions formed in and by the Industrial Revolution. In fact, he suggests, it may be time to cast our models of patents and copyright overboard.
Someone call the “Pirate King” was heavily involved in music publishing:
The pirate king’s argument: The country was experiencing a piano boom at the time, so a lot more families needed sheet music. But the major publishers catered to clientele who could pay 18 pence per song, while Willetts charged just two pence. Because the rightful owners had no hope of selling to the new audiences at those prices, Willetts testified, he did no harm to their businesses with his efforts—while bringing high culture and educational benefits to all. “Indeed, piracy might even increase the sales of the legitimate publishers, since it amounted to free advertising,” Johns writes, summarizing the pirate’s logic.
 A projection of where we go next:
“There’s a deepening realization that the conceptual framework of intellectual property, which was defined in the Industrial Revolution, no longer fits with how we go around with our daily lives,” he says. “The system of authorship that’s existed in knowledge creation, in the sciences at least, seems to be in the process of being replaced by something that’s much more like a system of flow than one of stasis.”

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  1. I am thoroughly in agreement with my friend and colleague Dan Gawthrop on this issue of intellectual property rights.  Though I have only a few of my own works actually in print, I certainly feel that my little ideas are worth the price of admission (so to speak), and no self-respecting composer/arranger that I know feels too differently on the subject.
     
       As to the history of intellectual piracy in the publishing business, I can hardly wait to get my hands on Adrian Johns’s book.  Sounds like a great read, actually.  I wonder if he cites another “pirate king” example from the music world; I am referring of course to the famous case of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance,” an absolute sendup of the theatrical pirates who had performed (stolen) their earlier “HMS Pinafore” here in the States.  There is even a specific reference to the former operetta in one of the arias.
     
      If in fact I’d like to “give away” my own intellectual property, there are many ways in which to accomplish this ultimate altruism; CPDL is only one way!  On the other hand, the newer generations of digital natives will most certainly be changing the way we do business, though the actual business model should continue to reward the composer and whatever company takes on the responsibility of publishing music (in whatever form of media).  These are prickly problems!
     
        Perhaps we should propose a summit conference.  Hot on the heels of the recent healthcare summit, let’s take a lesson … perhaps ChoralNet and ACDA could broadcast a multi-site simul-conference on these very issues, live over the Web and then available as a podcast.  Can we get publishers, performers, composers and the like in the same “electronic room” and explore these ideas and issues? 
     
       I’m interested in hearing from more composers, publishers, and performers on this most important issue.  Thanks for bringing it to the fore.
     
    Tim Banks
     

  2. It’s just a title, Dan. 
     
    Perhaps the “death” of copyright is a little dramatic but I wanted people to read the article.  The book is entitled:  Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars From Gutenberg to Gates (University of Chicago Press).
     
    Death, war, fight, battle . . . descriptive words for the engagement of ideas.
     
    I’m not putting forth the idea that intellectual property has no value, I’m bringing to light this particular article and this particular idea that I found somewhere else.  I am not advocating the theft of intellectual property, nor am I promoting the theft, looting, murder, rape and pillaging of society.

  3. As you say, Dan, the title is somewhat exaggerated. The author cited doesn’t really seem to be advocating abolition of copyright. But he’s probably right that something needs to be changed. 
     
    What we’ve seen in the last few decades is a reorientation of intellectual property from the protection of artists like yourself to the protection of industrial monopolies, from computer chips to pharmaceuticals to big media conglomerates. All of the changes to the copyright law in the last 40 years have been to benefit big corporate interests, not composers. The public domain is being squeezed out of existence, and for what?
     
    I agree that you should be fairly compensated for your work, and that copyright protection is the logical way to do it; but are you really only motivated to compose because you know your grandchildren will get royalties 70 years after your death? If that were reduced to 20 years after death (or 20 years total) you wouldn’t bother? Incredibly long copyright terms serve only big media companies, not composers, authors, nor the public. I’m glad Google is bringing this issue to the forefront by trying to make out-of-print books available electronically; no one is benefiting from having these books in limbo for decades. 
     
    Finally, let me note that both sides of this argument are inclined to exaggeration: the record companies have been warning for years that rampant file-sharing would decimate the music business and bands would no longer bother to record songs, as you’ve suggested you wouldn’t bother to compose. But realistically, is there any shortage of new bands recording tracks? There’s more than ever before. So the tendency to over-react isn’t limited to one side or the other.

  4. Allen, the title to which I took exception was the title of Philip’s post, not the title of the book review from which he quoted. Presumably this was Philip’s work (and opinion) not that of the author of the article. I agree that something needs to be done about the archaic system of fair recompense and I said so quite plainly in my response.
     
    I also agree that the recent extensions of copyright protection are unnecessary and indefensible. I derive absolutely no financial incentive to either create or abstain from creating from anything that happens after my death, (I would much rather spend the money myself) but it would be nice to think that, if I woke up dead some morning while I still had family to support, my estate could generate revenues for some finite, reasonable period. Twenty years seems about right, but I would listen to alternate proposals. Surely that’s not an outrage in anyone’s panoply.
     
    Lastly, I agree that exaggeration is an art well practiced on both sides of this question, but then again it has become an art so ubiquitous that it appears on both sides (or all three sides) of virtually every question these days.
     
    Hmmm… It now appears that I have agreed with all three of your points. This is doing absolutely nothing to advance my reputation as a cantakerous reactionary old curmudgeon.
     
    Dan
     
     
     
     
     
     

  5.      The title of this posting, which rather breezily posits the “death” of copyright and intellectual property, encapsulates nicely the view of a substantial portion of folks who are involved in the discussion. That position could be politely expressed as the age-old desire to get something for nothing, but it’s really only a euphemistic code for the even older character flaw known as Greed. All of the trendy justifications for this greed, such as the meaningless “information wants to be free” and the utterly irrelevant observation that nothing is “sacred” about intellectual property, are merely attempts to disguise the rather unpleasant truth which lies at the bottom of the argument. i.e., the only reason for wishing for the “death” of someone else’s right to their property is the desire to have said property for yourself without paying for it.
       In our thoughtless rush to turn “pirates” into folk heroes and romanticize their actions, it’s necessary to overlook the undeniable fact that the original pirates were routinely engaged in theft, looting, murder, rape and pillaging on a scale so large that much of the international trade which allowed economies to thrive had been made nearly impossible. Two things contributed: 1) the inability of then existing forms of law enforcement to contain these despicable activities and, 2) the sociopathic greed of the thieves themselves.
       Post-modern societies are more dependent upon intellectual property than ever before and it should be expected that there would come a desire by some to have the benefits without making the payment. This is a character flaw as old as humanity itself. It strikes me as an attribute of a sick society that, rather than resisting this temptation, we would try to justify it and to exalt its practitioners by rehabilitating pirates (a term which used to convey scorn and disgust) into modern-day progressive pioneers supposedly worthy of our admiration.
       Perhaps the silliest and flimsiest of the excuses offered for the rise of this contemptible behavior is contained in the third quote of the posting, i.e., “There’s deepening realization that the conceptual framework of intellectual property…no longer fits with how we go around with our daily lives.” As a tacit admission that the moral standards of our age have deteriorated to the point where theft is now acceptable, so long as it relieves us of the inconvenience of proper payment for what we take, this would be hard to beat.
       Now, please forgive me for making this a bit more personal, but I hope that doing so will help some to understand the realities of the situation, realities which proponents of stabbing intellectual property rights through the heart would just as soon not consider or believe.
       I have been deeply gratified over the years by the response of hundreds of choral directors to the publication of my short motet called “Sing Me to Heaven” as well as the more than a hundred other choral publications currently in my catalog. The simple truth of the matter is that, absent a workable system of copyright enforcement, Sing Me to Heaven would never have been written. I had (and have) a family to support. The time needed to compose this work and dozens of others like it would not have been found unless I had known that the financial rewards, modest though they are, would be protected by the law.
       Yes, it’s true that many composers do their writing in the limited time available to them after they have provided for the material support of themselves and their families, i.e., outside of their “day gigs” but we need to ask ourselves how much of that activity would be discouraged or completely eliminated if the financial incentive were not present. How many of your favorite works of recent years would you be willing to give up because their composers had decided that they were forced to write less, or not at all, because they simply couldn’t afford the luxury?
       What has really become outdated here is not the concept of intellectual property but the mechanism whereby the owners of such property are reimbursed for its use. Yes, there’s a good deal of inconvenience in applying the old royalty system in the information age. The solution, however, is not to ignore all moral obligation and turn everyone into a de facto thief, but to apply the all-purpose digital tool, the computer, to the task in new and innovative ways. Obviously, the details need to be worked out and agreement reached on the specifics, but computers are actually very good at handling routine detailed chores of this kind and we need not throw out the baby with the bathwater merely to serve convenience, let alone to justify theft.
       In an earlier exchange on the related subject of the future of music publication Philip stated that he wanted to be able to access “all” of my works. While the sentiment is flattering, in the context of this discussion it should be noted that without copyright enforcement, the list of “all” of my works would either be much shorter or completely nonexistent. What’s true for me is surely true for many other composers.
       I therefore propose that what we’re facing is nothing like the “death” of intellectual property or of copyright, but a momentary malaise which can and should be cured by the proper application of readily available technology. The alternative can only lead to the further degradation and coarsening of our society, which is exactly the opposite of what we, as choral artists, are working for each time we practice our art.
       Oh, and one more thought: please spare me the specious and ignorant argument that stealing my work somehow rewards me with “free publicity.” If I wish to spend some portion of my earnings on publicity, then I will choose from among the options available and do so. Trying to persuade your victim that thievery is a blessing goes beyond being merely wrong headed, it’s actually wicked. “Banks should be grateful to be robbed–look at all the free publicity they’re getting!”
     
    Thanks for reading my rant!
     
    Daniel E. Gawthrop
    Composer

  6.  May I add that I feel that the photocopying of copyright music to be the downfall of the otherwise beautiful art of choral directing and singing.  Its illegal in any context, but in the context of a religious institution it appears to be most hypocritical.


    I have spent the past eight years ridding my church choral library of illegal photocopies and have just completed the project.  It’s taken a great deal of time and commitment to go through over 500 tiles and decide whether to replace or discard.  Many renaissance motets have been replaced with personal editions and those taken from CPDL.  Copyright works have been bought new from publishers.  It’s been expensive but worthwhile.


    What continues to appall me is seeing choral binders stuffed with clearly illegal copies and used without much question by the choristers of my colleagues.  It seems that there are two clear decisions made;  one where a director decides to provide illegal copies and secondly, where choristers agree to sing from them without question.  We all know that a proportion of our singers will not question the ‘wisdom’ of the director;  but where are the choir members and board members who sympathize with composers and publishers?


    When Chester Music started inserting little text boxes in their music I was embarrassed for our craft;  now I see that its necessary and perhaps too mild.


    Where do we go from here to support our composers and publishers from our colleagues?

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