Disallowing taping & trading is financial suicide

[JSngry]

Fuck ownership of ideas.

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Now THAT'S the kind of thinking that killed Woody Shaw!

Dude, you are so full of shit. You're waiting for a Utopia that ain't never coming. Ever. Not on this planet.

Next best thing is to keep the ledgers, moral and economic, even. If you take, give. If you give, take appropriate to waht you gave. If you buy, sell, and if you sell, buy. When you get, pass it on. When you see a need, meet it. It ain't brain surgery.

See, the thing is, I want people I respect to have a comfortable life, to not be trapped into depending on the kindness of "fans" to have a little somethinsomthin they can call their own. That means they gotta get something from me besides, love, namely money. So they gotta sell me something, and it's gonna be their ideas.

Now, if the concept of them owning their ideas is bullshit, so is the notion of them selling them to me. Ideas belong to the universe? Fine. But electricity belongs to the power company, and the universe don't set a sack of groceries on your doorstep every morning. Let my fans pay for my next oil change, ok?

This "everything should be free" shit is worthy of a teenager or a stoner, but not anybody else. Not seriously.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

The above post brought to you through the courtesy of money.

[JSngry]

Yeah, my fans don't pay my Internet bill every month, at least not directly. The bill still comes to my house and it's still got my name on it.

Seriously, a good discussion could and should be had about how artists can use the technology of the Internet and the proclivity of many fans to tape and trade, but basing it on the juvenile notion that "Fuck ownership of ideas" is a real insight or some such is just bullshit. "Product" is what you sell, and in this type of music, "product stems directly from ideas. So it easily follows that fucking the ownership of ideas ends up as fucking the ownership of prodcut. Fuck THAT!

If the issue is one of building a new paradigm of artist/audience relationship, then hey, I'm good with that. But if it's going to be based on a muddleheaded set of hopelessly naive (to call then "idealistic" is giving them a validity that they do not deserve and can never earn) concepts and slogans, then, yeah - fuck that.

[Guy Berger]

Fuck ownership of ideas.  The universe owns the ideas.  A million minds before led to what is now.  What right do I or you or any man have to claim ownership of what was built upon a billion thoughts before?

It takes work to create ideas. Maybe giving people ownership of their ideas for some period of time is the best way to make sure that people put in that work.

Guy

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Or maybe not. I don't think Einstein ever owned the idea of relativity theory, yet he created it anyway. Maybe it's also a good thing that he didn't have to first write a check to each 'owner' of the previous ideas he used before he could create it, or maybe he wouldn't have bothered.

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I'm not sure what academic publishing norms were like in the early 20th century, but I'm guessing that somebody (his publisher, I assume) did "own" his published papers for a time, and that anyone who used his work in their research had to cite them.

Guy

[king ubu]

Want proof about Miles?

First he embraced this:

But less than a decade later he embraced this, and that was *almost* nouvelle vague, I guarantee:

ample proof I say, that Miles would allow taping!

in my last seance, he said, whispering, "fuck owner rights, yo mf!"

[JSngry]

Yeah, Miles didn't believe in owning a DAMN thing!

[catesta]

in my last seance, he said, whispering, "fuck owner rights, yo mf!" 

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What kind/style of clothes is he wearing these days?

[Guest]

See, the thing is, I want people I respect to have a comfortable life, to not be trapped into depending on the kindness of "fans" to have a little somethinsomthin they can call their own. That means they gotta get something from me besides, love, namely money. So they gotta sell me something, and it's gonna be their ideas.

Most people make livings without owning/selling "ideas", and everyone did a few hundred years ago. For musicians, it can be performances, services, recordings..etc. None of these require the ownership of ideas or the selling of them.

Now, if the concept of them owning their ideas is bullshit, so is the notion of them selling them to me.

Yep. You can already use the ideas. If you want to buy what you already have just because you want someone else to have a more "comfortable life", good for you, but that doesn't mean you should make everyone else do it.

The ability to sell ideas only comes about by getting cops to attack other people for commiting thoughtcrime. Unlike a piece of physical property, you can use their ideas while they're using them, and so can everyone else. Ownership doesn't need to take place, and selling doesn't need to take place.

[paul secor]

Bottom line for me:

If a musician allows audience members to tape a concert, that's fine.

If a musician doesn't want a performance taped, that's his/her right and people should respect that. I would no more feel that I'd have the right to tape a concert without permission than I'd feel I'd have the right to borrow a musician's car without asking. Musicians have worked to create the music, and it belongs to them. It doesn't belong to me, "the audience", or "the people", unless we purchase it or unless musicians give it to us.

There are a lot of people these days who feel that because they want something they have a right to it. That's probably always been the case, but the internet has provided a new and easier excuse for that sort of thinking.

[Guy Berger]

in my last seance, he said, whispering, "fuck owner rights, yo mf!" 

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He whispered something similar in my last seance, but it was more like "fuck owner rights, Teo".

Guy

[Guy Berger]

See, the thing is, I want people I respect to have a comfortable life, to not be trapped into depending on the kindness of "fans" to have a little somethinsomthin they can call their own. That means they gotta get something from me besides, love, namely money. So they gotta sell me something, and it's gonna be their ideas.

Most people make livings without owning/selling "ideas", and everyone did a few hundred years ago. For musicians, it can be performances, services, recordings..etc. None of these require the ownership of ideas or the selling of them.

Now, if the concept of them owning their ideas is bullshit, so is the notion of them selling them to me.

Yep. You can already use the ideas. If you want to buy what you already have just because you want someone else to have a more "comfortable life", good for you, but that doesn't mean you should make everyone else do it.

The ability to sell ideas only comes about by getting cops to attack other people for commiting thoughtcrime. Unlike a piece of physical property, you can use their ideas while they're using them, and so can everyone else. Ownership doesn't need to take place, and selling doesn't need to take place.

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Are you arguing that composers shouldn't get royalties?

Guy

[Guest]

Bottom line for me:

If a musician allows audience members to tape a concert, that's fine.

If a musician doesn't want a performance taped, that's his/her right and people should respect that.  I would no more feel that I'd have the right to tape a concert without permission than I'd feel I'd have the right to borrow a musician's car without asking.

But why do you feel these things are meaningfully similar? If you take the musician's car he doesn't have the car anymore. He can't use it and he can't give others permission to use it. If you tape the concert he can still play the concert, and others can still listen to the concert.

Wouldn't a more apt analogy be taking a picture of his car, rather than taking the car itself?

Musicians have worked to create the music, and it belongs to them. It doesn't belong to me, "the audience", or "the people", unless we purchase it or unless musicians give it to us.

I think "the music" is sounds in the air. It doesn't "belong" to anyone. The venue can belong to someone though, and the artist and/or venue owner could reasonably argue for a right to forbid taping on the basis of their rights of association, the right to exclude certain people or activity from their physical property. No need here for an appeal to privately "owning" abstract ideas in the air.

If a musician wants to have absolute exclusive "ownership" of "the music", he or she should not put it out in front of the public, where then everyone who hears them effectively "owns" them. Play away in your house. Once you're going out into the public to perform music it seems to me that you're giving away some exclusivity and you have to accept that other people will use what you're putting out there in ways that they find worthwhile and fulfilling, and which you sometimes might not like.

There are a lot of people these days who feel that because they want something they have a right to it. That's probably always been the case, but the internet has provided a new and easier excuse for that sort of thinking.

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I think this sort of thinking is called the "pursuit of happiness", to peacefully acquire and use things in our surroundings that we want, and some people seem to think it's a right.

[Guy Berger]

Bottom line for me:

If a musician allows audience members to tape a concert, that's fine.

If a musician doesn't want a performance taped, that's his/her right and people should respect that.  I would no more feel that I'd have the right to tape a concert without permission than I'd feel I'd have the right to borrow a musician's car without asking.

But why do you feel these things are meaningfully similar? If you take the musician's car he doesn't have the car anymore. He can't use it and he can't give others permission to use it. If you tape the concert he can still play the concert, and others can still listen to the concert.

Wouldn't a more apt analogy be taking a picture of his car, rather than taking the car itself?

Josh -- that is a poor analogy as well. (Though I agree with you on the fundamental difference between intellectual and physical property.) When someone "creates" intellectual property, surely they have the right to control the fruits of their labor? And if that right includes the right to sell those fruits, surely we need some concept of intellectual property protection?

I think this sort of thinking is called the "pursuit of happiness", to peacefully acquire and use things in our surroundings that we want, and some people seem to think it's a right.

Yeah, but presumably I can't go and (peacefully) grab stuff from my neighbor's house without permission in my "pursuit of happiness".

Guy

[Guest]

See, the thing is, I want people I respect to have a comfortable life, to not be trapped into depending on the kindness of "fans" to have a little somethinsomthin they can call their own. That means they gotta get something from me besides, love, namely money. So they gotta sell me something, and it's gonna be their ideas.

Most people make livings without owning/selling "ideas", and everyone did a few hundred years ago. For musicians, it can be performances, services, recordings..etc. None of these require the ownership of ideas or the selling of them.

Now, if the concept of them owning their ideas is bullshit, so is the notion of them selling them to me.

Yep. You can already use the ideas. If you want to buy what you already have just because you want someone else to have a more "comfortable life", good for you, but that doesn't mean you should make everyone else do it.

The ability to sell ideas only comes about by getting cops to attack other people for commiting thoughtcrime. Unlike a piece of physical property, you can use their ideas while they're using them, and so can everyone else. Ownership doesn't need to take place, and selling doesn't need to take place.

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Are you arguing that composers shouldn't get royalties?

Guy

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It would depend on the circumstance I guess. If you're talking about royalties from a record company to an artist, then they should get whatever they agreed to in their contract I guess. That's their business. It has nothing to do with me.

Most great composers of the past never got 'royalties' you know. The wrote a piece and got paid for writing it and/or performing it, and then that was it. They moved on to write the next thing. And others played it or not, when they wanted.

[Guest]

Bottom line for me:

If a musician allows audience members to tape a concert, that's fine.

If a musician doesn't want a performance taped, that's his/her right and people should respect that.  I would no more feel that I'd have the right to tape a concert without permission than I'd feel I'd have the right to borrow a musician's car without asking.

But why do you feel these things are meaningfully similar? If you take the musician's car he doesn't have the car anymore. He can't use it and he can't give others permission to use it. If you tape the concert he can still play the concert, and others can still listen to the concert.

Wouldn't a more apt analogy be taking a picture of his car, rather than taking the car itself?

Josh -- that is a poor analogy as well. (Though I agree with you on the fundamental difference between intellectual and physical property.) When someone "creates" intellectual property, surely they have the right to control the fruits of their labor? And if that right includes the right to sell those fruits, surely we need some concept of intellectual property protection?

Fine, so to correct my analogy let's say he built the car that you're taking the picture of. The analogy seems fine then.

When someone says that they have the "right to control the fruits of their labor" in relation to "intellectual property", this usually means "I have the right to control your life and your thoughts".

I think people have the right to control objects that they labor to create. I don't think they have a right to control how others interact with things in the world around them.

I think this sort of thinking is called the "pursuit of happiness", to peacefully acquire and use things in our surroundings that we want, and some people seem to think it's a right.

Yeah, but presumably I can't go and (peacefully) grab stuff from my neighbor's house without permission in my "pursuit of happiness".

      Guy

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Yes, but that gets back to my analogy. If I go grab stuff from my neighbor's house, my neighbor doesn't have the stuff anymore. It's not the same thing.

Edited October 10, 2005 by joshd

[Mr. Gone]

I think "the music" is sounds in the air.  It doesn't "belong" to anyone.  The venue can belong to someone though, and the artist and/or venue owner could reasonably argue for a right to forbid taping on the basis of their rights of association, the right to exclude certain people or activity from their physical property.  No need here for an appeal to privately "owning" abstract ideas in the air.

What's abstract about sound waves captured on media? Why attend come togethers where abstract ideas are presented? Why sell stuff [edit] that can bring abstract ideas in [edit] people's living room.

Philosophical b.s.

Edited October 10, 2005 by Mr. Gone

[Quincy]

Most people make livings without owning/selling "ideas", and everyone did a few hundred years ago. 

Yes, and it was the ripping off of ideas by the lazy and unscrupulous is why intellectual property was thunk up.

(Some) drugs, furniture, speakers, amplifiers, books, songs, planes trains automobiles and on & on & on all have intellectual property rights components to them. The difference unlike music it's too damn hard to make a dozen planes with your computer in a couple of hours.

[Guy Berger]

Most people make livings without owning/selling "ideas", and everyone did a few hundred years ago. 

Yes, and it was the ripping off of ideas by the lazy and unscrupulous is why intellectual property was thunk up.

Also, the growing importance of intellectual property, along with rapidly falling costs of disseminating ideas, have made intellectual property rights increasingly necessary in our society over the past X years.

Guy

[Guy Berger]

I think this sort of thinking is called the "pursuit of happiness", to peacefully acquire and use things in our surroundings that we want, and some people seem to think it's a right.

Yeah, but presumably I can't go and (peacefully) grab stuff from my neighbor's house without permission in my "pursuit of happiness".

      Guy

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Yes, but that gets back to my analogy. If I go grab stuff from my neighbor's house, my neighbor doesn't have the stuff anymore. It's not the same thing.

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What if I go and (peacefully) grab stuff from my neighbor's house which I know with absolute certainty he won't need for the next X hours, and which I'll return when I'm done, and which he's told me explicitly he doesn't want me to use?

FWIW, the conception of physical property rights that we are using as a benchmark isn't universal across time or geography.

Guy

Guy

[Quincy]

Also, the growing importance of intellectual property, along with rapidly falling costs of disseminating ideas, have made intellectual property rights increasingly necessary in our society over the past X years.

    Guy

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Dude, if you mean 10 years, just say 10! What are you, a Roman or do you work for Apple?

[JSngry]

Philosophical b.s.

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Yep.

[JSngry]

Wouldn't a more apt analogy be taking a picture of his car, rather than taking the car itself?

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Yeah, ok, tell you what - let me stand outside your bedroom window and take some pictures of you and your wife fucking. Hell, you might even have a little group action going on. Why don't I just take some pictures of that?

Even better - y'all got an orgy going on and I'm involved. Why don't I just go on ahead and surreptitiously take pictures of everybody doing their thing and pass them around to anybody and everybody anywhere and everywhere in the world who wants to see them - that picture of your wife getting six guys' wads on her face simultaneously will stimulate a lot of interest in y'all's next orgy, I guarantee!

Now, if you say that that's not a fair comparison, well, you may be right. But it also goes to show that the concepts of "open" and "sharing" are not open-ended ones, and that people do not automatically sacrifice all rights to "ownership" simply by participating in a certain type of activity in a certain type of arena. Sex belongs to the universe, and people having sex belongs to the universe, but pictures of people having sex do not.

That's the key right there - all this talk about "ideas belonging to the universe" is cool, and totally true, but - once you capture it, be it on camera, film, tape, DAT, mini-disc, whatever, you're capturing it and therefore removing it from the universal sphere and bringing it into another realm altogether. And this new realm is not that of "the universe".

Hell, if something really, truly, belongs to the universe, what right does anybody have to capture it, be it for profit or not? When you get right down to it, a tape of a live show traded for no monetary gain is just as much a diminuation of the grandness of the original source as is a commercial recording. Remember what Eric Dolphy said? He knew. But he took the money anyway!

Technology breaks down barriers, sure. But it also creates the illusion of a "boundary free" world that is ultimately as false as it is seductive. Every technological advance, from the printing press to television to the birth-control pill, promises an end to all traditional boundaries. It's a lie. We redraw them, we redifine them, we even blur them, but we can never eliminate them entirely.

Why? It's simple really. The boundaries do not exist becaue of the technology. The boundaries exist because that's the way humans are. And no tecnology, no drug, no brainwashing, no nothing outside of a fundamental change of everybody - not some, but everybody, from the dirtiest, rottenest, most corrupt stinking soul to the purest, kindest, most altruistic angel- from deep within is going to change that. Nothing.

[Guest]

Wouldn't a more apt analogy be taking a picture of his car, rather than taking the car itself?

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Yeah, ok, tell you what - let me stand outside your bedroom window and take some pictures of you and your wife fucking. Hell, you might even have a little group action going on. Why don't I just take some pictures of that?

Even better - y'all got an orgy going on and I'm involved. Why don't I just go on ahead and surreptitiously take pictures of everybody doing their thing and pass them around to anybody and everybody anywhere and everywhere in the world who wants to see them - that picture of your wife getting six guys' wads on her face simultaneously will stimulate a lot of interest in y'all's next orgy, I guarantee!

Now, if you say that that's not a fair comparison, well, you may be right.

Uh, yeah. I think it's fair for me to assume that I have a certain degree of privacy in my house. If I was doing the fucking on a stage somewhere open to the public I should expect less privacy. If I was distributing films and pictures I should expect still less.

But it also goes to show that the concepts of "open" and "sharing" are not open-ended ones, and that people do not automatically sacrifice all rights to "ownership" simply by participating in a certain type of activity in a certain type of arena. Sex belongs to the universe, and people having sex belongs to the universe, but pictures of people having sex do not.

That's the key right there - all this talk about "ideas belonging to the universe" is cool, and totally true, but - once you capture it, be it on camera, film, tape, DAT, mini-disc,  whatever, you're capturing it and therefore removing it from the universal sphere and bringing it into another realm altogether. And this new realm is not that of "the universe".

Hell, if something really, truly, belongs to the universe, what right does anybody have to capture it, be it for profit or not?

The terminology of "belonging to the universe" is not mine.  But people have a right to capture it because they can and it makes them happy, and it doesn't remove it from the "universe".  It just recreates it in the new place.  And as far as I'm concerned, what people "own" exclusively is the physical photo, DAT or whatever else.  The don't own "ideas".

When you get right down to it, a tape of a live show traded for no monetary gain is just as much a diminuation of the grandness of the original source as is a commercial recording. Remember what Eric Dolphy said? He knew. But he took the money anyway!

Technology breaks down barriers, sure. But it also creates the illusion of a "boundary free" world that is ultimately as false as it is seductive. Every technological advance, from the printing press to television to the birth-control pill, promises an end to all traditional boundaries. It's a lie. We redraw them, we redifine them, we even blur them, but we can never eliminate them entirely.

Why? It's simple really. The boundaries do not exist becaue of the technology. The boundaries exist because that's the way humans are. And no tecnology, no drug, no brainwashing, no nothing outside of a fundamental change of everybody - not some, but everybody, from the dirtiest, rottenest, most corrupt stinking soul to the purest, kindest, most altruistic angel- from deep within is going to change that. Nothing.

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That sounds like a lot of philosophical bs to me. ;-)

[Chuck Nessa]

I fear for our future. Looks mighty bleak to me.

[Guest]

I think this sort of thinking is called the "pursuit of happiness", to peacefully acquire and use things in our surroundings that we want, and some people seem to think it's a right.

Yeah, but presumably I can't go and (peacefully) grab stuff from my neighbor's house without permission in my "pursuit of happiness".

       Guy

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Yes, but that gets back to my analogy. If I go grab stuff from my neighbor's house, my neighbor doesn't have the stuff anymore. It's not the same thing.

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What if I go and (peacefully) grab stuff from my neighbor's house which I know with absolute certainty he won't need for the next X hours, and which I'll return when I'm done, and which he's told me explicitly he doesn't want me to use?

You're still invading your neighbor's home and handling his physical property when he didn't want you to. Assuming it wasn't for some emergency or other compelling reason, that's not what I would call peaceful.

OTOH, if you could snap your fingers and make an exact duplicate of the item appear in your house, without ever toucing the item or invading his physical space in any way, then that would be peaceful imo.

FWIW, the conception of physical property rights that we are using as a benchmark isn't universal across time or geography.

Yeah.