Why copyright is bad for music (apparently)
Is copyright good for music? We know that it's good for Paul McCartney, Elton John and Bono. They have all become filthy rich from music. But is it good for the wider world of music, including people who enjoy listening to music, and people who make music simply for fun?
Since we don't have the opportunity to look into a parallel universe where there is no copyright in music, we can't do anything but speculate about what would happen if there were suddenly no copyright in music. But we can look at a similar artistic industry where there is officially no copyright, and that is fashion.
In the USA at least, there is no copyright in the new range of evening wear you have spent the last six months creating. Clothing is considered utilitarian, and legally there can be no copyright in utilitarian items. So you spend six months creating and making your new range and show it on the runway. Photographs are taken, which speed to knock-off shops all around the world where your creations are copied and manufactured in bulk. Within days of your collection being shown, copies of your work are available to buy - legally - at a fraction of the price of an original.
Time for the video. Trust me - this is an interesting video all the way through and could have implications for the future of the music industry.
I could comment myself, but I don't want to pre-empt the discussion. I'll come back to this issue in another article in a couple of days.
However, I would point you to around 12.22 in the video. If you think that copyright in music is a good thing, there's something interesting that might change your mind. Or not.
Over to you... enjoy the video!
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You can comment on this video at YouTube
David Mellor
David Mellor is CEO and Course Director of Audio Masterclass. David has designed courses in audio education and training since 1986 and is the publisher and principal writer of Adventures In Audio.
@iRaps1: She made a big fool out of herself when she compared the sales. Mass consumption is about clothing and cars, not about books or good music. That's a societal issue we have, not anything commendable or a fault of copyright law. Lost the plot there.
@devongolo2353: COMMIES! DIRTY COMMIES
@lavenderrblx2549: love you I decided to subscribe
@blotcho84: Super fascinating talk!
@juliannevillecorrea: thank you !
@gustavoatorresg: I absolutely agree! Let's make a more efficient world by abolishing copyright laws =D Let's learn from fashion industry practices (y)
@iRaps1 replies to @gustavoatorresg: worst idea possible. Maybe try and think beyond this biased talk.
@kasiaorlowska6910 replies to @gustavoatorresg: great idea, let people steal and sell someone else's work without any profit for the creator who put his time and effort into it
@baumwollaugenjohannes6770: I feel like the argument was pushed into a direction. Example: Automobile is considered low IP, where movies are considered high IP. I don't think that's true. You have tons of patents in the automotive industry. On the other hand, you can argue just as well that you cannot patent a story, a setting or camera work.
Also, linking food in there.
@tomme261: this really opened my eyes...
@andy4an: The most exciting creativity is that which takes the lessons from one industry into another.
@josevarela8887: The music and movie industry would love to have perpetual copyright on their "content." How much longer before they push to expand it further?
@vadim0x60: There is a huge difference between copying a piece of music digitally and playing it with your own musical instrument. The same goes for software: cracking a program and sharing it is illegal while you are free to write your own that has the same functionality. That's why projecting fashion industry's experience on music, video and software is wrong. If you buy a Chinese copy of Givenchy boots your boots are anything but Givenchy. If you torrent a movie it is identical to the original one.
@Archus88: And most of us don't like the idea of someone controling the way we are supposed to use some piece of knowledge we have in our possession
@Pednuno: It wasn't a very serious comparison. She was just trying to show people how big the industry without copyright protection is compared. Just a little visual for people to have an idea. She doesn't base anything on it.
@fabioyabu: Cool lecture, very enlightening and fun. However, you just can't compare the gross sales of food and clothing with movies and literature, simply because every single human being needs to eat and dress, regardless of copyright protection! Can you imagine what it would be like? ;)
@kev3d: She is also wrong in saying that things like Cars and Furniture are "Low I.P." What she should be saying is that they are "Low Copyright" but they are high in Patent and Trademark protection. Furniture manufacturer Herman Miller claims to hold over 160 patents for example. The sales figures are also misleading because everyone needs to eat and wear clothes and cars are comparatively expensive to movies and books and music.
@kev3d: She is wrong, OF COURSE there is Patent Protection. Nylon, Gore-Tex, zippers, velcro, kevlar, various kinds of clasps and fasteners have all been patented at one time or another. Yes, those patents are not the artistic designs in and of themselves, but those patents are still constituent parts of those designs. So it is totally false to say there is no patent protection in fashion.
@wendygould7382: That was cool. What a clever lady. And even though she was really nervous I think she won her audience -they were with her all the way… I was only going to listen to a little but found myself compelled to continue to the end.Love her
@VictoriaSobocki: never thought of it like that!
@LibertyorDeath86: yeah exactly, music is nothing like the fashion industry, that's what she is pointing out. The music industry has doubled/tripled but due to copyright restrictions it's stunted in growth compared to other industries like fashion. People break copyright law all the time with movies and music anyways, why does it need to be illegal in the first place?
@hughtub: In the short term, yes it harms start up designers... but remember, the new designers could also copy and improve upon existing popular designers.
@JamesTheFox: Imagine introducing copyright and patents into the fashion industry. Companies would collapse, people would be out of jobs, there would be a culture of fear and confusion as to what type of clothes has been done before, nobody would be able to innovate since most things that can be innovated already has been, copyright holders would be immune from competition, and a company could control the worth of the clothes by having the key to the copy machine resulting in the powerlessness of resale.Ha.
@commentleaver replies to @JamesTheFox: Add that it would make a very small group of rent-seekers extremely wealthy, and in capitalist society, that alone makes it a noble system. If challenged, they would take time out from enjoying the hookers & blow just long enough to justify their monopoly by pointing to the scheme's fragility, the large number of people they directly and indirectly employ, and the better-than-living-wage royalties they dole out to a handful of top-tier designers.
@aikanae1: ... and people NEED music, movies, software? Reciepies are not copyrighted, furniture is not. What is your point?
@aikanae1: No it's not. The independent music growth has been double and triple digits within the last 10 years. One of the fastest growth industries. Why? Because independants WANT to be heard. They are much more open to people trading and sharing music. Instead of a handful of bands making millions, there are millions making some money doing music. The music industry is not hurting. The monopolistic legacy industries have lost their appeal. If copyrights are enforced, the industry will die.
@aikanae1: This is excellent and an arguement missing from the headlines.
@TaiFerret: Perhaps trademark protection should be made more accessible to young designers.
@rosalind24: Anyone can file a lawsuit. Can you win? Diane von Furstenberg probably settled because she knows she won't be able to win in court. If she could win, she would have no reason to settle as the pay out will be larger.
@aikanae1: No one in the entertainment industry or the administration (either party) will watch this.
@Kalamazootra: Even if I say I "need" music/films or books, it´s not true in the existential meaning of the word. So even if I would be able to copy or sample anything or any idea of something l wanna have to allow myself to live a life of pleasure and entertainment, the (re)sellers of those things would never ever come close to the sales of such elementary things, they have to sell in the food/furniture/fashion-industry. so I guess that statistics are a bit populist. how was this statistics in the 1980ies?
@Kalamazootra: When she came up with the sales analysis, she didn´t even mention the fact, that people NEED to eat, NEED to dress (in any way), NEED to sit/lie/store their things somewhere, just to live or even to survive. -->
@charfashion91: so is this the same for jewellery and stuff then?
@purpleghost106: Can't help but think about the ... for lack of a better term 'patent troll companies'. The sort that farm for patents, and make their revenue by sitting on a patent waiting for someone to sue, without using it.(Apparently a patent is owned for a highly effective anti-mosquito lazer that's cheap to make. Sounds silly, until you remember west-nile virus, and malaria. This idea that could save numerous lives, is just being sat on for money. I think they are awful people for that.)
@harrykinomoto: The only reason this works for the industries mentioned is because they can afford to organise high-publicity stunts to make sure THEIR idea is released as THEIR idea first. In niche industries like music where struggling artists can release a work of perfection but not achieve any stardom due to a lack of publicity, shouldn't they be protected from the faceless corporate giants who'd steal their genius, claim it as their own, and not given them credit??
@crudhousefull: This girl is SO intelligent it's not even funny
@Gamecubesupreme: If I were to steal her ideas from this video and use it for my class presentation without giving her credit, would she be for or against it? *Note: This is a hypothetical, I'm not actually doing it*
@commentleaver replies to @Gamecubesupreme: Copying mere thoughts/ideas/themes is an essential part of human communication and expression; it is how ideas spread. "New" ideas are never wholly original; they're developed by combining and building on existing ones. Ideas are not and never will be subject to legal protection. Whether she is for or against people copying her ideas does not matter. But if you played a recording of her speaking, or you performed or copied a substantial portion of her exact words, for purposes other than example/criticism/parody, then she or TEDx or whoever have the legal right to choose whether to grant you a license (permission, perhaps in exchange for something) or to sue you for infringement (depending on who owns the copyright, whether it was properly registered, and whether there was a license granted in advance—many TEDx talks are openly licensed).
@xgreciandelightx: The only thing IP law would be able to motivate would be for an unconventional collar that were unprofitable with respect to conventional collars. If those were copyrighted, though, then a designer would be forced to come up with something else. You're right there. That does not mean, however, that the unconventional collar will be better or even profitable, though. A profitable unconventional collar is just as likely to come about without IP law as it would if there were IP law.
@xgreciandelightx: @Microbius88 If people thought they could profit more by creating a new type of collar, then they would. You're making it sound like a new collar would be so successful that it would be more profitable than conventional collars. If that is the case, then there is still motivation to do that without IP law. Clearly if someone came up with a better idea, then they'd come out with that idea and compete with the other collars to try and make some money on it before anyone else did.
@xgreciandelightx: @Microbius88 Are you saying that a designer can't simply copy someone else's design completely without altering it at all? That's basically the same thing.
@ElleAri94: I. Love. This. SO MUCH!
@TineIskaffe: Why are people laughing so much in the second half? "Fireworks". Is that funny? It's food for thought, not funny. Kind of gives me the feeling that the audience is hand-picked.
@rvjr: steve jobs and every Apple fanboy out there ought to watch this video.
@kevinz1985: Nice video.
@ssanders6: As neat as this was, it equivocates two very different things. In many ways, this video is dishonest to the real arguments surrounding Intellectual Property. Copyright, with consumer goods, can largely protect the consumer as well as the creator.
@GeoffBosco: For more in depth arguments look up Stephen Kinsella, Against Intellectual Property.
@ChelseaxXxForever: Bravo Bravo!Wonderful Presentation
@saurabhbasu86new: is it actually so easy.. a lot of bands work for a year or 2 and come up with 9 songs that represents their style... with fashion, it might be different.. there are hundreds of designs which people can buy; there is really one design for everyone... but with music, its also a question of quality.. the bands want all their songs to be good... furthermore, people need clothes to cover their naked bodies, people may not need music to survive...
@Zoomatik: She completely misses the most obvious point: Fashion, furniture, auto-mobiles etc have copy-protection built in! You can't put a Prada shoe on a photocopier and produce a new identical Prada shoe. You can't take a picture of a sports car and have a laser printer print you a new car. Legal copy-protection in other creative industries is to deal with the fact you can make perfect identical copies of CDs, DVDs, (PDF) books etc at no (or close to no) cost.
@Aracuru: But fashion is gay.....
@Aracuru: You can't copyright clothing...but you can copyright SEEDS.
@amouramarie: Copyright is utterly broken, as evidenced by the fact that fashion innovation flourishes while "protected" art forms struggle to maintain their place in new spaces. And the supporters of copyright as it stands sure as hell don't have an interest in your right to remix, revisualize, reinvent, collaborate, borrow, be inspired by, improve upon, artistically respond to, or otherwise share in the participatory culture of art that SHOULD belong to all.
@nublex: @Composer1992 spot on :) am a graffiti artist / painter and the colab work with others in the field will always spawn new, more complex and radical work than what one can do alone in a basement
@reivilo: freakin best argument made at ted yet!!!
@Paulginz: @InfectedDaemon In countries without public healthcare like the US, even after patents expire and a drug becomes generic, brand name drugs will keep selling at a premium price compared to the new generic versions.You overestimate people's capacity to compare value. Is Kellog's any different from supermarket-brand corn flakes? Lots of people think more expensive=better.For the rest of the world though government bureaucracies will act less stupid than people and will buy the cheaper drug.
@Paulginz: @dingoperson She did mention trademark protection. In fact IMHO she explained it clearly.You might not be able to fly from china to paris with 100 Gucci bags, but you can do ti with nearly identical Guccy bags.Trademark protection is about protecting consumers from people who would otherwise con them by coasting on the good name of a competing company. There's a pretty big difference with IP which protects creator's control over the CONTENT of their creation, rather than the labelling.
@Paulginz: @Cradle2Venus I thought we were comparing piracy of hollywood movies with the situation in the fashion industry.When someone puts out a torrent of a hollywood production signed "l33thaxor release", they aren't implying that the film was directed by l33thaxor, and I doubt that anyone misconstrues them as saying so. Also the movie contains credits.The same applies to a Nikhe shoe.The problem is that clothes don't come with a reference list, even if the plagiarist is well-intentioned.
@PramathMalik: I like the presentation, but the graph on 12:32 is misleading.Since when are patents not a part of IP ?? I don't understand what is the basis for Ms Blakely's classification of Low IP and High IPI will give some figures instead: Automobile:Volvo - 8365 HitsFord - 51402 HittsGeneral Motors - 24328 HittsAudi - 12745 Hits Food: Coca Cola - 3495 Hits(These are the number of hits, MICROPAT, a patent search engine, gives, now I haven't standardised my search by adding subsidiaries)
@Cradle2Venus: @Paulginz the issue is not about being harmed or not. It is about giving credit where credit is due. Consider it like this: Let's say each person in a neighborhood does their own landscaping in their front yards. There is no "harm" if someone decides to distribute small lawn ad signs saying, "Landscaping by ACME Landscaping". It would be false but those who respond to the ad are not aware of that. Plagiarism is either mental lethargy or dishonesty. "oops can't find my source" or "mine now".
@bubba1234e: copying is the highest form of flattery
@Paulginz: @serpico33 There is a solution to the dilemma which is to say all nations of the world should set up a progressive tax and pitch in to offer 1 trillion +1 dollars a year to the drug company in exchange for the right to produce and distribute the drug. That way everyone wins.In a sense, this is the solution that has been applied multiple times before with taxes on recordable media (cassettes, VHS, CDs...) called private copying levys.
@Paulginz: @serpico33 Consider this moral dilemma:IG Farben spends a large sum of money developing a miracle drug which cures everything (Cancer, AIDS, old age...). Production costs are ~0.However, they determine that due to the unequal distribution of wealth in the world, the best strategy to maximise profit is to sell only 10 doses a year for 10 billion $ each.Bill Gates buys a dose, reverse-engineers the formula, and gives away free drugs ridding the world of disease for ever. Is this immoral?
@Paulginz: @serpico33 Google is a classical example of why practice overrides theory in this discussion. Search engines do not have the manpower to screen every web page for illegal content and they are a vital component of the web. The same applies to the hosting of user generated content.IMHO, an uncensored internet (not just the web), provides a protection against authoritarianism and disinformation which is humanly, economically and morally more important than Hollywood.
@Paulginz: @serpico33 To recap, you are claiming that if Joe pirates a movie that he would not have seen otherwise (and hence by doing so does not influence the producer's revenue in any way), then his (victimless) actions are immoral. (it's not clear if this is because it's "unfair" towards those who pay or you simply believe producers should have full control.). Correct?However you see no problem if TopShop makes a (100% legal) copy of a Zac Posen bag (minus the logo) and sells it on the high street?
@serpico33: @Paulginz but the unspoken problem is that google and other search engines become facilitators of theft by providing this stolen content. i'm sure as soon as google, like comcast, starts generating its own content, they'll be less inclined to provide it for free.
@serpico33: @Paulginz i'm not saying the pirate can afford to go to the movies. i'm saying the people who watch the stolen film online are foregoing the theater experience in favor of a free download which they should not have access to without compensating the people who make the content. in the same way, you wouldn't want someone using a Zac Posen bag without paying for it.
@Paulginz: @serpico33 Your original argument was about different KINDS of theft. Let's forget about that then and consider relative financial impact.Indeed, as was said in the video, cheap knock-offs and high fashion have different consumer bases. Retail fashion is another story though since it targets the upper middle-class and hence DOES "steal" income from high fashion.If your figures assume that some unemployed pirate could have afforded 50$ to take his family to the cinema, they are useless.
@smouieblog: This video does not present a resonable analysis with regards to IP protection. Copywright is not the only means to protection intellectual property. There's also patent and trademark -- not to mention various licensing arrangements.
@serpico33: @Paulginz if you download a movie instead of going to a cinema, you're taking money away from the creators of the content. multiply that by millions of downloads and the financial damage is tremendous. it's suspected that Iron Man 2 lost anywhere between 20 & 40 million dollars in opening weekend worldwide box office due to illegal downloads. the fashion industry never suffers this kind of loss unless someone burns down the Prada factory.
@Paulginz: @Cradle2Venus If credit is the issue, then the creative commons license standard is enough, and classical copyright is unnecessary.If what's bothering you is that other people are making money off your work; if you would be getting significantly more income/traffic if the plagiarist didn't exist. In this case the problem is clearly that the plagiarist is decreasing the scarcity value of your content, and probably presenting it in a more accessible form. Otherwise, you haven't been harmed.
@Paulginz: @serpico33 I do not understand your analogy.The main difference I see between theft of design and theft of a product is that in the first case there is no direct loss to the creator (they still have their original design) and in the second case there is. Clearly this isn't what you are thinking of.A digitized movie is a set of instructions that allow a combination of hardware and software to decode and display audio and images. So sneaking in to a cinema fits your analogy much better.
@KnightsofEmerald: @idiallin You patented a 19 year old corpse. Good for you. At least I know she's still getting some in heaven. Dipshit.
@KnightsofEmerald: @SuperAtheist lol! no , I'm not sure, that's just what my chemistry prof said.
@princeofexcess: its so strange every time i have a delema there is a hint that comes from somewhere to think about it. I was just wondering how i would deal with copyright if i had my own country and that it really a burden on society most of the time. Still dont have final solution but this video definitely helps me to shape the idea in my head.
@ameera14: she's good,anyone know what typeface she used in her presentation??
@winstable: Or not! You see fashion,they make a good profit every year,just because they have to inovate. I think those people want is their own profit,they don't want other people getting profit,no matter what cost.
@Composer1992: As a musician myself, I am all for people mixing up my music and putting their own brand on it- it would also mean I could take the best elements from other sources and mix them with my own to make great sounds. I think that the model of intellectual property being something that can be 'owned' is too much of a grey area for corporations.
@sunshineinahoneyjar: worth watching
@madcol: Here's my one problem with this talk. The Low IP protection industries are the ones that people need more than High IP protection. I'm not sure if she is skewing this intentionally or not but I don't like the approach she's taking. If you added a need factor to it then you would probably find that they all are similar. Possibly low IP ones will make slightly more.I agree otherwise like this talk and I like the concepts that she promotes.
@serpico33: the comparison to music, movies, and books is glaringly fallible. stealing a design is different than stealing the handbag itself. a free movie online, placed there by well-funded online pirates, is a stolen handbag, not a stolen idea. i'm sure the fashion industry would have a different point of view if stealing their idea or design meant stealing their actual product.
@Cradle2Venus: @hurkle the digital universe is abundant, but lazy people decide not to reference their sources and often plagiarize and claim the work as their own to create money. Copyright isn't about scarcity. It's about getting credit/reward for one's own work. Meanwhile, bloggers copy/paste other people's work so that they get paid from web traffic. Is it fair for someone else to get paid for the work you've done without at least some credit at the end of the quote?
@gcarcassi: Another sign that the fashion industry is a lot healthier than the music: if you think about the big fashion designers, they are also the tycoons of the industry. The fashion designers own their industry. If you think about the big labels in the music industry, they are not led by artists. The artists do not own their industry...
@junka22: Wow, I'm a huge jazz fan (don't read that aloud too fast) and love Charlie Parker, didn't see that one coming, interesting talk :)
@daxx2k: @liquidminds I don't know but still here in US people are still wearing blue jeans and tshirt like 50 years ago...
@EricFontaineJazz: Excellent talk! Intellectual Property indeed is not necessary to encourage creativity.
@jeanselina: I wish there wasn't as much copyright police on youtube, if I'm doing a video with a song as background music, I'm not making any money out of it! Why should my video have its music removed? And remember it's not illegal download that kills the industry, it's the prices.
@Trazynn: @shickboy same here, fair enough, it was about the free culture in fashion.
@michalchik: @vurtuality Style patents are also common, but like pattern copyrights they are virtually worthless and unenforceable. Taking a protected piece of material and tweaking it is trivial. Other idea that are more interesting are subscriptions. If you like what an artist has done pay her/him to do more. When enough people pledge to buy to make it worthwhile to the artists, the artist produces or releases what they have created.
@michalchik: This will work anywhere that creating the first of a new object is relatively cheap and creating copies of it are relatively expensive. Movies are very expensive to make currently but are very cheap to copy. While the look of a piece of clothing or a car is relatively cheap to create but has high production costs. Medicine is another example of something that is hard to invent or create the first copy of , but is easy to reproduce.
@mtksbctk: so many bourgeois smugs in the audience blinking while laughing at the same time
@vurtuality: Hmm, my comment was removed or something glitched.Pattern copyright is very, very common.A nice speech but if based on an outright lie...what's the point?'As we all know, grass is black'
@jacobuserasmus: @Panpiper yet the movie industry copy freely. Walt Disney makes money of stories that do not have copyright so why should they have the protection.The other more interesting thing I would like you to look at is how much of this high cost of production is directly related to copyright protection or patents.
@jacobuserasmus: @Tnat1on actually fashion influence exactly what you wear. All the clothes you buy in the store are influenced by high fashion. As she have said in the talk what you wear in the street influences what you see on the walk.
@jacobuserasmus: @dingoperson actually the computer industry do thrive without copyright. If it was not or the lack of copyright enforcement in the 1980's, 1990's the fact is the computer industry would not be where they are today. DOS, Windows (Both NT and 3.1), Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, Media Player to name a few are knock offs of other products. With strong copyright protection and strong patent protection these products would not have existed or alternatively have been 3 times the price.
@liquidminds: @daxx2k fashion is, when you wear, what others tell you to wear. If you don't care about fashion-trends, the whole industry looses its usability. But that's kind of self-inflicted by the industry... when they started to think of people as walls that need to be decorated instead of people who need clothes for their everyday-life, designer-fashion lost it's functionality. applications without function are useless. "looking good" is not a function.
@bestelectronicreview: THERES AN IPAD GIVEAWAY ON MY CHANNEL
@StylinRed: @ksuwildkat yes but if my circuit board is mapped the same as yours or very similar to yours i can get sued or i have to pay you a fee
@Neanderthalcouzin: "Without ownership there is no incentive to innovate" ? That's a very primitive philosophy.
@Th3Wab3: I'm in great support of less IP and greater open-source its a catalyst for innovation and advancement and greater economic equality.. that is freedom but the ego appears to feed the need of people wanting praise and credit for their creations... in spite of the positive implications that said idea may rear in others.. to close this practice will actively support innovation unhindered innovation!
@jefflukka: Can i have my 16:07 minutes back please? fuck you and fashion..
@ekmatteau: @ksuwildkat : You say same with software, but that is untrue. With the current software patents, imitating is a risky business.
@SzymonStas: Sporks, daxx2k, sporks