"We
have to establish the belief that music belongs to
everyone." -- Zoltán
Kodály, the great Hungarian champion of music
education At the checkout
counter of the Selectadisc in London, where I was on vacation
last week, I picked up a book called Bootleg:
The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry, by
Clinton Heylin. I've read before about copyright's earliest
days, but Heylin's incisive analysis puts the issue in a new
light. Now, everyone seems to have an opinion on copyright,
from the listeners who access tunes online to the labels that
showed a misleading
ad during this year's Super Bowl halftime. (Reality check: No
one has ever been prosecuted for downloading music.)
Technological advances have dogged content owners ever
since a caveman first got conked on the head for ripping off
the other guy's yawp. We think these issues are new to our
generation, but that's just not the case. Now is a good time
to take a trip down memory lane to keep things in perspective.
1525 |
 |
 |
|
 |
Was the English Bible the
first bootleg? |
|
|
William Tyndale translated the New Testament into
English without permission from the recognized
authorities of the day and was, according to Heylin's
book, "subsequently garroted, then burnt for his
efforts." Even then, controversy surrounded consumers'
right to access published content by their preferred
method.
|
1619 |
|
We're all pirating the Bard's
material. |
|
|
William Shakespeare's plays would have been lost if
not for the audience members who diligently scribbled
down the action in shorthand and copied, edited, and
distributed the transcripts without his permission. In
1619, Thomas Pavier tried to publish Shakespeare's First
Folio, but he was stopped by the Lord Chamberlain. Until
recently, the royal courtier who held that office was in
charge of licensing plays in parts of England. According
to him, Pavier and his ilk were essentially breaking
copyright laws by recording and selling copies of live
performances. But if it hadn't been for those illegal
reproductions, Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy
might have gone something
like this.
|
1886 |
|
The United States resists
copyright. |
|
|
Because an alleged 90 percent of sheet-music piracy
occurred in the United States, it refused to sign the
Berne Convention treaty, the first documented attempt to
establish a worldwide copyright standard. Evidently,
most Americans found the price of sheet music, the day's
primary form of music publishing, far too high.
Countries in which piracy dominates the music market can
be reticent about adopting U.S. copyright laws, but when
we dismiss their concerns, it's somewhat a case of the
pot calling the kettle black.
|
1920 |
|
Was radio the first
file-sharing network? |
|
|
When radio stations began broadcasting music, first
live and later recorded, orchestras went on strike,
protesting people's new ability to hear performances for
free from a remote location. As you know, the radio
technology they feared so much became the industry's
most powerful promotional tool.
|
1969 |
|
Listeners get what they
want. |
|
|
Bob Dylan cut 26 tracks in the Band's basement, and
much to the chagrin of the artist and his label,
Columbia, two guys somehow obtained the recordings and
released them. Their excuse: "Bob Dylan is a heavy
talent, and he's got all those songs nobody's ever
heard. We thought we'd take it upon ourselves to make
this music available."
Condemning the release of
the rough tracks, Columbia said, "The sellers of this
record are crassly depriving a great artist of the
opportunity to perfect his performance to the point
where he believes in [its] integrity and validity." Of
course, when the album became the first popular bootleg
in the Los Angeles area, Columbia's lofty objections
gave way to commercial instincts, and the label released
the songs in 1975 on The
Basement Tapes, now a cornerstone of many Dylan
collections.
|
2004 |
|
The song remains the
same. |
|
Fans copy and share songs through portable recorders
and P2P networks, different countries still have their
own copyright ideas, and content owners still feel
threatened by new distribution
methods. | Technology keeps advancing, but as you can see from
this brief look back, the issues confronting consumers,
artists, and labels haven't changed much. In Billy Joel's
words, we didn't start the fire.
|
 |
 Wilco fans' noble P2P initiative Wilco has
won a following not by baring a breast during the Super Bowl,
having a Las Vegas wedding and a five-minute marriage, or
getting engaged to Ben Affleck but by crafting honest music
that veritably drips with integrity. The band's June 2004
album was leaked onto the Internet, but instead of suing
everyone, Wilco has thrown its support behind a fan-led
initiative requesting that all the downloaders make a donation
to Doctors
Without Borders.
Donate and read more on the JustAFan
site
Stir-fried Rice If you want to hear firsthand what's
going on with the U.S. government's 9/11 investigation, listen
to the testimony via Audible's site. All you remixers out
there know what to do.
Download
Audible's audio recordings of the 9/11 hearings
Musical
Friendster In a previous
column, I toyed with the idea of a music-based meatspace
Friendster network made up of people with Wi-Fi MP3 players.
TuneCircle created an Internet version, and best of all, it
scans your songs for you, so trying it requires very little
effort.
TuneCircle
Free
Culture--for free Listen to an audio version of
Lawrence Lessig's new book, Free Culture, on the
Turnstyle site. It uses the Andromeda MP3 serving system to
showcase people reading chapters aloud, and you can download
the recordings for free under a Creative
Commons license.
Listen to Larry on Turnstyle
RIAA's
logic debunked by Harvard profs I've read many analyses
of how file sharing affects CD sales, and the results tend to
verify the stance of whoever funded the research. But the
latest study was conducted by Harvard professors using a
fairly scientific method, so I'm inclined to
believe.
The
Register's article
Canada makes us look bad yet again Why are
our northern neighbors so darned levelheaded? As if
nationalized health care and clean air weren't enough, Canada
is now legalizing file sharing. Small tariffs on CD-Rs and
other gear make up for any lost sales; performing-rights
organizations divide the money between the various parties.
News.com's
article
New
lyrics for Kodály My mother, Faith Knowles, recently
published a
book of songs composed by Zoltán Kodály, with new lyrics
by poet Peter S. Thompson. Incidentally, Mom almost named me
Zoltán Van Buskirk. Now that would have been pretty
rough in grade school...
Free MP3s, anyone? With all the online
music stores emerging, it's easy to forget that there are a
lot of free and completely legal MP3 downloads out there. This
is not an ad. I'm just suggesting that if you haven't already
checked out the free MP3 files available on these sites, you
might want to take a look at the songs and see if you're into
any of them.
Vitaminic
Insound
Matador

 3/24/04 Portable
video: predictions for 2004Senior Editor Eliot Van
Buskirk thinks he knows what's in store for portable video
players this year. Read his four predictions, then decide for
yourself whether he's been drinking too much PVP Kool-Aid.
3/10/04 Is
a microdrive MP3 player right for you?New
ultracompact hard drive-based players, such as Apple's iPod
Mini, are making quite a splash, but they're not for everyone.
Find out if they fit your lifestyle. 2/25/04 Portable
music cuts the cordWireless technology and MP3
players will be converging soon, and when they do, they could
turn peer-to-peer networks into a mobile music frontier. Read
the column to find out what could happen when your iPod has
Wi-Fi.

 |
 |
Buzz
Report Molly Wood CNET's index of top tech trends and
terms. |
 |
MP3
Insider Eliot Van
Buskirk An opinionated take on MP3 and
the audio revolution. |
 |
Security
Watch Robert Vamosi Don't get burned by viruses and
hackers. |
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Fully
Equipped David Carnoy The electronics you lust
for. |
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Works
for Me Rafe Needleman The latest technology for your digital
office. |
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Killer
Downloads Jason
Parker All the hottest apps fit to
download. |
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Get
the Picture Aimee
Baldridge Digital imaging notes from
the field. |
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Pixel
Perfect Lori Grunin The digital studio
demystified. |
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The
Real Deal Tom Merritt Helping you fight fear, uncertainty, and
doubt. |
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On
Call Kent German Solutions for your wireless
woes. |
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Driving
It Brian Cooley What's hot and what's not in car
tech. |
|