Comment by cturner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cturner | Hacker News Reader

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    > What he's talking about is the fact that it might
    > take an artist over a month to create a two-and-
    > a-half-minute song.

I covered that music innovation happens without requiring us to relinquish our rights in my original post.

But let's expand, because I can raise Jade Ewen now.

The only musicians who benefit from copyright in a significant way are a few that get hand-picked as front-men by the gansters who run the music industry. These are the ones they can point to.

Consider Ms Ewen. Successful artist, national treasure who performed well in Eurovision for the UK, one of the handful of music artists from the billion around the world who probably makes something a sliver over minimum wage from leveraging copyright. Her record label (who make the real money) tell her to move her life to Los Angeles without telling her what she'll be doing there. http://www.eurovision.tv/page/news?id=4373&_t=jade_had_n...

Her company would have had a choice of twenty girls with excellent looks and high quality vocals when they decided to pick her as their next star. They have some brand invested in her, but they can replace her when they like. They already started the process when they pushed her into the sugarbabes.

She is cattle to them.

But she puts a smile on it in the end, because she has no options.

All those kids who sign on to those talent shows are. They have to sign away their rights to the sponsoring organisations just to get in.

I'm on the lookout for a news story to demonstrate a culture of mates agreements between studios and compliant "managers". It will reveal itself in time.

Copyright law creates structures suitable for a ganster class of copyright interests. It does not serve artists.

The claim in the article isn't that nobody would write and perform music without copyright, but that there would be less of it, and that it would be of lower quality. My claim is that labels, publishers, and music producers will exploit artists if copyright does not exist. I'm not trying to defend the business model of big music labels, so the example of Jade Ewen is neither here nor there. I'm defending the idea of limited intellectual property rights, because without them artists would be at an even greater disadvantage.

It's easier to see the problem in publishing or the game industry than in music, since musicians can make money from performances. Taking your example of Mendelssohn, he made his money from holding concerts and getting stipends from German monarchs. Authors and game designers can't hold performances, so the only way they can make money is by actually selling copies of their work, which requires intellectual property rights, or by hoping to attract a rich sponsor. If Amazon could sell books without having to give any royalties to the copyright holders, they would.

The idea that copyright only benefits the select few in the music industry isn't true, either. Labels often get caught plagiarizing songs that were written by small artists and handing them to big-name artists that they have under contract. With copyright, the smaller artists have an uphill battle. Without copyright, they have no weapons whatsoever.

    > The claim in the article isn't that nobody would
    > write and perform music without copyright, but that
    > there would be less of it, and that it would be of
    > lower quality.

That's an arbitrary claim. There's no evidence of it. You can't produce evidence because we don't know what the opportunity cost of all this enforcement is.

    > Authors and game designers

There's plenty of opportunities for them too. Read _Against Intellectual Monopoly_ by Boldrin/Levine from page 22. The section ends, "SO we can realistically conclude that if J K Rowling were forced to publish her book without the benefit of copyright, she might reasonably expect to sell the book to a publishiing house for several million dollars - or more. This is certainly quite a bit less money than she earns under the current copyright regime. But it seems likely, given her previous occupation as a part-time French teacher, that it would still give her adequate incentive to produce her great works of literature".

    > so the only way they can make money is by
    > actually selling copies of their work, which
    > requires intellectual property rights

That's not correct, and the above chapter covers this too. Cliff's notes: where there is no IP, there's a rush when something is released to it into print and on the market. Creators can sell the rights to first release for a fortune. The US government made a fortune on the official 9-11 report by auctioning off first-access rights along these lines.

People can also make money by publishing something, and then getting a job teaching (or some other expert capacity) in the field.

    > The idea that copyright only benefits the
    > select few in the music industry isn't true,
    > either. Labels often get caught plagiarizing songs
    > that were written by small artists and handing them
    > to big-name artists that they have under contract.
    > With copyright, the smaller artists have an uphill
    > battle. Without copyright, they have no weapons
    > whatsoever.

All discussions about the merits of copyright need to consider the opportunity cost of copyright as well as the advantages.

Given the absolute absence of evidence, the default needs to be no copyright, because copyright intrudes on our freedom. To be enforced, it's necessary to reach further and further into the privacy of people's lives and homes, and that is incompatible with the spirit of live-and-let live that is the foundation of free society.

I've just thought of a new counterclaim to the idea that we need to find a way to protect certain kinds of jobs. What about dancers? I've seen people make all these claims about protecting musicians, but what about dancers? Dancers don't make much money, and copyright doesn't provide for them. Not that copyright protects musicians either - it doesn't - but that's the claim so let's role with it for the purpose of pointing out this new inconsistency. Should the state also then be required to invent new and arbitrary business systems so that dancers should be able to make a living?

Don't leave out where, in the end, Ms Ewen ends up owing money to the record labels.

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