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Shocked and amazed by copyright history
By Eliot Van Buskirk 
Author of Burning Down the House
Senior editor, CNET Reviews
April 7, 2004

"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.


Eliot Van Buskirk is a senior editor for CNET Reviews and the author of Burning Down the House: Ripping, Recording, Remixing, and More!


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 2004
Senior 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 cord
Wireless 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.



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