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Post by timfarney on Feb 11, 2007 12:59:51 GMT -5
Roll over, Beethoven.
Tim
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 11, 2007 13:10:43 GMT -5
In some cases, yes, the implications are sad. But in others, it's simply a matter of creating in the studio what cannot be practically created live. I don't know if that's sad or a new art form. Even with crude 4-track technology, The Beatles couldn't have performed huge chunks of Sgt. Pepper, Revolver, etc. live without tape loops, an orchestra, an R&B horn section, an Indian music ensemble... That didn't diminish their ability to make music live on the roof of Abbey Road Studios a few years later. I get your point and agree to a point. Music is not literature. It exists outside of it's recorded, distributed format. But for a long time now, the recorded form has been an art form in and of itself. And I'm not talking about Pro Tools digitally perfecting solos and taking the flat spots out of Faith Hill's voice. I'm talking about great albums that are concieved and executed as albums - the medium is the art. I like those albums, myself, probably because I'm really more interested in the songwriting than I am in the performance anyway. But I love a good show or a good live recording too. I'm easy. Tim And I too concede your point. There is a recording art. Funny thing about it though, is the Beatle's seemed to have pretty much run the table with that. I'm sure it's just my warped perspective as a core musician without any talent for or interest in songwriting, but another phenomena that goes along with this is the ideal of cover musician as the highest form of musical competence. But that's a rant for another time.
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 11, 2007 13:33:32 GMT -5
I guarantee you wouldn't even know his name if his stuff had remained little black dots on paper.
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Post by timfarney on Feb 11, 2007 14:01:53 GMT -5
I guarantee you wouldn't even know his name if his stuff had remained little black dots on paper. You mean if it had never been performed? Of course not. "Finnegan's Wake" would be pretty meaningless if it was a handwritten manuscript in a trunk somewhere, never printed, never read. But that doesn't make either the printing press or the reader the creator of the art, or the art itself. The art is the idea. And the idea, down to the individual words, still belongs to Joyce. In the case of Beethoven, the idea is in those little black dots, and it does not belong to whatever orhchestra plays or conductor conducts. Bad musicians can turn a great symphony or song into crap. Great ones can make it soar. What did Beethoven hear in his head? I doubt it was the crap, but we'll never know for sure, because he couldn't pick the players, conduct the performance, record it and leave it for us to hear the way he heard it in his head when he scribbled those little black dots. So in a sense, the original art still is little black dots on paper. I don't mean that to diminish the importance of performance. Unlike printing or reading, that is an art form of its own. But what the composer creates is much more than a "framework" for a performance. It is the original, primary act of creation, without which there would be nothing to perform. Tim
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 11, 2007 14:04:37 GMT -5
All interesting perspectives, but I still contend that the duration of a copyright should be EXACTLY the same as the duration of a patent. While I don't necessarily think that copyright material should be nailed down like a patent disclosure, I do believe the duration of their unique protections should be the same. I find it difficult to fault an attitude whereby if the law won't make copyright durations fair and reasonable, don't expect the public to abide by them.
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Post by timfarney on Feb 11, 2007 14:12:55 GMT -5
I can relate. I haven't written much in years. I can also relate to the competence of a good cover band, having been in many bands that were interpretive because we lacked the competence to really nail it like it was recorded! But I gotta say, I've also always found competence to be much less interesting than interpretation and always enjoyed hearing someone make a song "his own," even if a bit crudely, more than covering it perfectly.
Tim
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 11, 2007 14:44:54 GMT -5
You mean if it had never been performed? Of course not. "Finnegan's Wake" would be pretty meaningless if it was a handwritten manuscript in a trunk somewhere, never printed, never read. But that doesn't make either the printing press or the reader the creator of the art, or the art itself. The art is the idea. And the idea, down to the individual words, still belongs to Joyce. In the case of Beethoven, the idea is in those little black dots, and it does not belong to whatever orhchestra plays or conductor conducts. Bad musicians can turn a great symphony or song into crap. Great ones can make it soar. What did Beethoven hear in his head? I doubt it was the crap, but we'll never know for sure, because he couldn't pick the players, conduct the performance, record it and leave it for us to hear the way he heard it in his head when he scribbled those little black dots. So in a sense, the original art still is little black dots on paper. I don't mean that to diminish the importance of performance. Unlike printing or reading, that is an art form of its own. But what the composer creates is much more than a "framework" for a performance. It is the original, primary act of creation, without which there would be nothing to perform. Tim Have to disagree there, bud. Finnegen's Wake exists as a complete work the minute the author completes the last sentence. Is it meaningless to hide it in a trunk? Yes, but the work exists. It's the parallel with patents. You don't patent the idea, you patent the implementation. Finnegan's Wake exists as an entire literary implementation, even in the trunk. Beethoven's written stuff exists as a literary implementation, really a tool for communicating an idea, but it's an abstract musical idea and not really a musical implementation until it's played. And it really doesn't matter if it's ever recorded or distributed. That's a commercail enhancement and a recorded implementation, but it becomes music the moment it's played.
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Post by dickt on Feb 11, 2007 14:54:35 GMT -5
Where, exactly, is the benefit to society of society granting a corporation a very long copyright term? Even if you made the term of a copyright the lifetime of the original writer or author, would there still be copyright on Mickey Mouse? The copyright term extension was just pandering to a corporation at everyone else's expense. Actually the copyright term is life of the author plus fifty years.
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Post by Supertramp78 on Feb 11, 2007 15:29:44 GMT -5
So if I write a song I can't perform, then I should not be able to copyright it?
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 11, 2007 15:46:38 GMT -5
So if I write a song I can't perform, then I should not be able to copyright it? Sure, copyright it. As a song and as a literary work, you're entitled to those rights. If someone wants to perform it, they should get your permission. Charge $2000 a throw for those rights and it'll never become music.
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Post by timfarney on Feb 11, 2007 16:11:35 GMT -5
OK, so that metaphor ran a bit thin. Let's make it Hamlet. A play. Every bit as much a guide to performance as a score. Yeah, it's probably a better read than the little black dots that make up Beethoven's 5th, being in the same language we speak and all, but bear with me for a moment...which art is an act of creation and which is an act of interpretation: Shakespeare's writing or the performance of the local theatre company that puts on the tights? Which one will be forgotten relatively quickly (quick -- name a great Shakespearian actor from the 19th century) and which one has lasted 500 years?
I dunno. This is probably my predjudices showing, but somehow I just don't think of the performance as being as important as the creation, so I just can't accept the notion of the creation as just a blueprint for the performance. I see it from the other way around - the blueprint is the greater art, unchanging and sometimes immortal, the performance is an interpretation - sometimes good, sometimes not, always gone in an instant.
Tim
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 11, 2007 16:14:23 GMT -5
Paul K's point is entirely a logical, legal, and political one--though of course politics (that is, the way monkeys divide up power and resources) and logic are uneasy companions, and the law is a not-always-successful attempt to make the two play nice together.
The question of how technology and the arts (loosely considered) interact with the economy (broadly considered) is certainly worth considering: if all innovation is absolutely equal in its effects on the polity, then it's apples and apples. If, however, technological innovation behaves differently from artistic production (there being no real "progress" in art, only reshuffling of a well-defined deck), then there is some basis on which to treat the two kinds of production differently. If techological change and economic activity benefit from a relatively short period of monopoly, then there is a reason to set things up that way. And I'm not sure how one would demonstrate it, but my gut says that artistic production doesn't work in quite the same way, or at least it didn't before corporations started to treat books and characters as properties or brands to be exploited in multitudinous ways.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 11, 2007 16:20:30 GMT -5
Tim: On the matter of interpretation, let me show you two or three different productions of Hamlet and I guarantee the significance of performance will rise up and bite you on whatever part of your anatomy is closest. One of my wife's standard classroom bits is to show three versions of the the same scene from Twelfth Night precisely to make this point. I'm generally a fundamentalist when it comes to the primacy of the text (or score), but there remains enormous scope for performers--I've walked out of shitty productions of very great plays, which is about as direct a critique as one could ask for.
As for remembering actors: Booth (not the trigger-happy one) was a big noise in the mid-19th century, and we know the names of many of the prominent Hamlets from Burbage onward.
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 11, 2007 16:57:58 GMT -5
Tim,
Yes, the Shakespeare metaphor is more appropriate to music. Again, Shakespeare's work exists as great literature. I loved reading it in college. Still have my books on it.
But it's not drama until it's performed any more than Beethoven's score is music until it's performed, although Skakespeare is easier on the eyes and brain in its written form.
And I guarantee that Tuesday night's production of Mid Summer Nights Dream that's recorded for PBS is different than Wednesday nights performance. The PBS tape is but a historical record of the drama.
But, regardless, the point is really about the recording industry and its imminent collapse. Rights, in any form, are only as valuable as what you're willing to do to defend them. Wantonly suing the bejesus out of granny because her 15 year old grandson used her computer is done.
The recording industry has gotten fat and dumb from years of restricted product access, both on the musician side and the public side. CDs are still freakin' $18 fer Chrissake. Don't these boneheads ever learn?
The fact is that there will always be a reason for the recording industry. There are always commercial jingles to write and elevators to fill with nonsense.
But its position at the center of musical culture is being ripped apart. There's no real reason for anyone to pony up major bucks for recordings any more. Real musicians should revel in the new found freedom. No, it'll be tougher to be Elvis-like sucessful, but you no longer need to be in order to be able to make some kind of generic living as an artist.
And songwriters need to find a different business model also. There'll be less of a market for feeding insipid lyrics and 6 chords to the commercial machine for your 2 cents a unit. Maybe they've got to do more to be significant artistically. Maybe they've got to learn to perform. Maybe they should learn to arrange and package books like in the old Ellington days. Maybe they just need to get a real job.
Technological change always stirs things up. As nice as it is to assume you deserve to make a living at your art, it ain't truth.
I have little sympathy for the dinosaurs any more than they'll have sympathy for me if Volvo goes under. And I'm excited to see the possibilities that can exist for real creativity and sucess in the new era.
Rock on, Wayne!
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Post by Cornflake on Feb 11, 2007 20:03:46 GMT -5
"Rights, in any form, are only as valuable as what you're willing to do to defend them."
Peter, at that point you reminded me of the fundraising letters I get from the ACLU.
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Post by timfarney on Feb 11, 2007 23:47:53 GMT -5
Maybe they should. Maybe they should get jobs in journalism or something and leave the performers with nothing to perform.
I'm not really disagreeing with you or Letson. You're right, the play isn't drama until it's performed. The song isn't music until it is performed, even if that performance was one track at a time into pro tools. And yes, there can be a lot of variation and interpretation from Tuesday to Wednesday night in the Shakespeare company's or the band's performance. The performer is a part of the art, even, I suppose, when he does it badly.
I'm just not ready to forget what came first, and what will still be there, for the next performance, and the one after that. And that would be the composition or the play. It is where it all begins. It is primary. It's why we remember Beethoven, not the guy who sat in the first violin chair the first time the fifth was performed.
Tim
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Post by PaulKay on Feb 12, 2007 10:00:38 GMT -5
And songwriters need to find a different business model also. There'll be less of a market for feeding insipid lyrics and 6 chords to the commercial machine for your 2 cents a unit. Maybe they've got to do more to be significant artistically. Maybe they've got to learn to perform. Maybe they should learn to arrange and package books like in the old Ellington days. Maybe they just need to get a real job.quote] If music was protected the same duration as patents, the business model for songwriters could be lmore ike engineers; they get "hired" by the big music conglomerates for a salary, pension, and health benefits to "produce songs". When copyrights expire on the last batch of songs, there needs to be a new set of songs in the pipeline. Bands and musician's could also be on salary to perform and promote the music. But their ability to draw exclusive income from any song is only limited to the duration of the shorter term copyright. Makes perfect sense to me. Writers/songwriters could also work off a business model of simply selling their songs for a one-time fee, but their value is limited to what those songs could produce for that limited 20 year duration. They need to continue to produce new songs to maintain the income stream. There will still be many who will prefer to hear the Beatles performing their songs rather than someone else's rendition. It would seem that plenty of money could be made from the 20 years copyright duration and even some beyond that. If one were to suggest that it isn't that easy to crank out great songs and therefore justifying the longer copyright durations would also imply that inventing the transistor or a new blockbuster drug is easy. And I'm not sure how one would demonstrate it, but my gut says that artistic production doesn't work in quite the same way, or at least it didn't before corporations started to treat books and characters as properties or brands to be exploited in multitudinous ways. I think this is one of the key points that started this whole thread. The music business model is built on the assumption of the exclusive control they are legally entitled to and they are only trying to protect it. But is it "right" for them to have that exclusive control for such a long duration. If we grant that artistic work is just "reshuffling the deck", then with excessive durations on musical works only makes it more and more difficult to create a "new and unprotected" shuffle. Yet if one were to be able to include 20 consecutive melody notes from a Beatles tune without threat of a lawsuit, the options expand greatly for new artistic works. The idea of a limited set of notes to work from only helps to justify a more reasonable duration, not the opposite.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 12, 2007 11:41:56 GMT -5
I think I'm starting to get a better grip on the kind of technology/art distinction that justifies differential treatment for patents and copyright. Paul's examples--the transistor and new drugs--both require organizations to develop them. Sometimes one person gets the idea or makes the discover (Fleming for penicillin), but more often it's a team working with corporate or university support (Bardeen and Brattain at Bell Labs). Even so, Fleming worked at a hospital lab, and the practical development of the drug took place at Oxford, and the penicillin patent was for the production process. Despite the image of the lone inventor working in his garage, this seems to be the major modern model for innovation. Artistic production, on the other hand, can be completely solo--and in the case of novelists and painters it is nearly always so. Artists can operate as employees (the fiction factories of the early part of the 20th century, songwriting operations, movie and TV production companies), and when they do they tend to get treated the same way that engineers and research scientists do: if they have enough clout, they get better deals when their products are successful, and they still get a paycheck when they are unsuccessful or just so-so. That's the deal, while the solo artist lives or dies by her own skill and luck. To my lefty-wefty way of thinking, the big divide is between natural and corporate persons: if the latter is the owner of the patent or copyright, a shorter term is reasonable and functional; if the former, a life-plus-X term fits the economic realities of being an individual operator. But that would require (or at least imply) a rethinking of our fiction that corporations are legal persons in the same sense that natural persons are, and that's a whole different discussion.
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