Digital Productions

Creator's Rights? · 6 hours ago by Crosbie Fitch

Jim Killock of the ‘Open’ ‘Rights’ Group (ORG) falls into the trap set by publishers in terming their 18th century privilege of a reproduction monopoly as a ‘right’ (omitting ‘legally granted’ to insinuate ‘natural’).

In his comment of March 10, 2010, 11:57:57, Jim Killock appears to believe copyright is a creator’s right and should revert to that individual artist rather than the record company that they signed with.

On the other hand, I can think of several instances where we’ve backed creator’s rights. In the term extension debate, we strongly argued that rights should revert to artists, not record companies, even within the existing term of sound copyright.

We also argue very strongly for a parody exception in copyright, which to our mind is a ‘creator’s right’, and much of the highly valuable comedy sector would benefit from legal certainty.

In our response to the P2P consultation, we argued that license deals were being blocked by the major rights holders (not the artists themselves), and this is depriving artists of the income they deserve.

I suppose Jim therefore believes that a ‘creator’ could sell their right to make a parody?

It is the right to make a parody that in some jurisdictions is suspended by the privilege of copyright. However, you can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to call copyright a creator’s right then obviously it already includes the ‘right’ to make a parody. So, why make an exception in copyright if copyright is already a creator’s right?

If copyright is a creator’s right then making an exception for parody because that really is a creator’s right seems to be redundant.

Jim is going to be very confused (as is ORG and its members) if it keeps on using the term ‘rights’ for both privileges and rights.

Here are a couple of clues to tell the difference between a ‘right’ and a right.

If it can be sold, transferred and/or held then it is a privilege or ‘right’ as some confusingly prefer to term it (qv Rightsholder).
If it is something that the individual is born with, that all individuals have equally, that like a shadow no individual can sell or otherwise be alienated from, then it is a (natural) right, e.g. the right to life.

Unscrupulous legislatures can of course still make laws to suspend an individual’s rights (derogation) in order to grant privileges, such as the granting of copyright and patent in the 18th century, and as ACTA requires to be granted in the 21st. Incrimination upon accusation?

I posted an explanatory follow up comment to Jim’s, but at the time of writing it has not yet passed moderation:

Jim, copyright is not a creator’s ‘right’ in the same sense as ‘right’ in ‘human right’. If it was a natural right instead of a legally granted right it would be inalienable and the individual wouldn’t be able to sell it to a record company. There wouldn’t therefore be any conception of it reverting.

Legally granted rights, or privileges, necessarily involve the state’s suspension of the individual’s respective natural right. So copyright (granted for the exploitation of the press) involves the state’s suspension of all individuals’ natural right to copy (even the musician has lost their right to copy their own music – they may choose to retain the privilege to do so of course, instead of selling it).

This is why ORG cannot claim to be about protecting the individual’s rights if it also attempts to protect privileges granted for the purposes of exploitation by manufacturers of copies such as record labels and other publishing corporations.

The right to make copies does not belong to the creator, but to the people – they are the one’s who’ve had their right suspended, and it is to them the right should revert, to be restored. That’s why a lot of people have the idea that copyright should only last a couple of decades – a commercially lucrative monopoly, at the end of which the public’s suspended liberty to make copies would be restored.

You’ve got to recognise the difference between protecting and restoring the individual’s rights, and protecting and reverting privileges attaching to original intellectual works.

Are you the Open Rights & Privileges Group, or the Open Rights Group?

And as Rob suggests, the ‘Open’ bit may need some attention too.

Comment

Printerlectual Poppetry · 1 day ago by Crosbie Fitch

There is both matter and energy in the universe and we work them into useful objects, i.e. art and technology. In everything there is both a material and informational component. The material aspect of objects that we produce we call material works, and the informational aspect we call intellectual works. We apprehend matter with our bodies and information with our senses. We also control the movement of, and access to, material and intellectual works through physical means (as opposed to supernatural means such as ’spooky action at a distance’). It is from the individual’s natural ability to physically possess themselves and other objects that we derive the right to privacy and consequently the notion of property (objects possessed within our private domain).

In the 18th century the privileges of copyright and patent were granted to authors and inventors (registrants of novel designs). These are monopolies applying to intellectual works and augment people’s natural intellectual property rights with unnatural ones – also known as ‘legally granted rights’ or ‘legal rights’ or these days, simply ‘rights’.

Thus those who would retain their 18th century monopolies like to call them ‘rights’ rather than privileges, precisely to conflate them with natural rights.

You have a natural right to prevent a burglar stealing your bread as much as your diary or a copy of it, but only a privilege to prevent people printing copies of the carol you wrote for them that they sung at xmas.

Thus, the monopolists prefer ‘intellectual property right’ to ‘intellectual work privilege’, and simply contract the former to ‘intellectual property’ – so you don’t question whether the missing ‘right’ is a natural right or an unnatural, legally granted right (estd. by Queen Anne in 1710).

Unfortunately, instead of simply being against state granted monopolies, some people also use the corrupt term ‘intellectual property’ in place of ’state granted monopolies’ and so declare themselves to be against ‘intellectual property’. This then means they are also against the natural right people have to their intellectual property, i.e. against its removal or copying by burglars.

Comment

Dear Illiberal Undemocrats · 5 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

A vendor selling a copy or imitation that is misrepresented as the genuine article is committing a falsehood, a deceit. This has been recognised as something that should be prohibited since time immemorial.

However, a vendor selling a copy or imitation that is honestly represented as a copy, derivative, or imitation of another work is committing no falsehood or deceit. This has also been recognised as something perfectly natural and to be embraced since time immemorial. Man has progressed precisely through a process of sharing knowledge, copying songs, stories, tools and techniques and improving them.

The unnatural law that was introduced in 1710 by Queen Anne was the privilege of a reproduction monopoly granted to printers of literary works, and this at a stroke suspended the public’s right to make copies – a natural right that they had enjoyed as part of their natural liberty since time immemorial.

So, what happens when the public find themselves in possession of ever more powerful reproduction technology?

The people are in fundamental conflict with those in possession of the privilege that suspends their liberty.

To say, because the 18th century privilege is still law three centuries later, that it is therefore the law that is right and the people who are in the wrong is to blind yourself to the reality of the conflict, to refuse to recognise the nature of people and information.

The Digital Economy Bill is simply yet another attempt to provide the privileged with additional legal sanctions, to effectively give King Canute yet more extreme powers to hold back the incorrigibly disobedient tide.

The Internet is essentially a system for instantaneously diffusing (distributing & reproducing) digital, intellectual works. A transferable 18th century privilege that requires that no-one distributes or reproduces an intellectual work without permission from the holder of that privilege is at best an anachronism, and at worst an unethical statute that should never have been enacted.

This writing is on the wall. If you hesitate to copy it and freely distribute it among your peers you are not dutifully respecting the privilege and law that suspends your liberty to do so, but committing yourself into ignorance and cultural suicide.

Comment

The Need to Exchange · 13 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

On one side we have artists apparently giving their work away, and on the other we have their fans apparently wanting to give their money away, to donate it to them.

The mistake on the part of FairTunes, TipJoy, Kachingle, Flattr, etc. is to perceive the fans’ wish to give as a demand for a donation facility – to match the Internet’s facility in helping artists give away their work. It’s a mistake in the same way that someone might think people jumping from a ship need a diving board instead of a liferaft.

There is a more fundamental need that developers of donation facilities are failing to recognise. This is the need for an exchange.

As has been demonstrated in mankind’s long history there is a far more efficient and productive means by which people exchange their work for the money of those who want it.

It’s known as a market. A place where people with work offer it in exchange for money, and people with money offer it in exchange for work. Neither adopts the approach of ‘give it away and pray’.

We are finally recognising that the market for copies has ended, that the monopoly of copyright can no longer protect the sale of that which everyone can illicitly produce themselves for nothing. The role of the intermediating publisher to convert their purchase of art from the artist into the sale of mass produced copies to a mass market is coming to an end. Artists must now look to the arrival (or return) of a disintermediated marketplace, one where the artist and their fans directly exchange art for money, money for art.

I’m working on such a market. I call it the Contingency Market. It enables deals such as “If you publish a new article, I’ll pay you $x”/“If you all pay me $X, I’ll publish a new article”.

Comment

Steve R. said 11 days ago :

Could you clarify: “developers of donation facilities”?

The internet has theoretically put the middleman out of business. Artists can now market directly to the fans.

Of course there may still be room, in a limited context, for middlemen who can provide a degree of value added. Artists, I doubt, would want a manufacturing facility. The middlemen might have a manufacturing facility that can generate the customized merchandise what the fans want from a variety of artists.

Comment #000373 at 2010-02-28 04:36 by Steve R.

Crosbie Fitch said 10 days ago :

Donation facilities are things that make it easier for people to donate money to artists or other organisations that those people feel deserve their support, a monetary token of their appreciation, a reward for the good work they’ve done and are likely to keep doing.

‘Developers of donation facilities’ are people or organisations who develop such easy-to-use online payment mechanisms, e.g. those who developed FairTunes, TipJoy, Kachingle, and Flattr.

The Internet is an extremely efficient communications and publication facility, greatly assisted by such things as Google’s search facility. One no longer needs the use of a ‘manufacturing facility’, printing press or CD duplication plant to publish, reproduce and distribute one’s intellectual works.

Perversely, it remains very difficult to pay the producers of such works to produce further work. It is difficult even to donate money to such producers by way of reward. This is why we keep seeing people develop donation facilities. However, exchange facilities are even thinner on the ground, with very few people developing them or even recognising a need for them.

One can easily dispense with a middleman or publishing agent who’ll take a 99% cut, if all you want to do is publish-for-free. However, if you want to get paid for your work, the 1% revenue share begins to look attractive. But then the 99% share looks very attractive to those traditional publishers who also now no longer need expensive plant to manufacture and distribute copies to retailers. There’s a bit of a gap in the market for a means of getting 100% of customer revenue to producers. However, that’s customer revenue, not donor revenue. A customer is someone who agrees with a vendor to exchange an agreed amount of money for an agreed amount of work. A donor is simply someone who throws an arbitrary number of coins into a street performer’s violin case.

There are indeed people who want a facility to throw coins into a violin case (and have 100% of them actually arrive in it). However, there are also people who want to commission a professional violinist to record a studio performance of a classical work and have 100% of that commission (instead of 1%) reach the violinist (the violinist is quite keen about this too).

Comment #000374 at 2010-02-28 14:09 by Crosbie Fitch

Reviewing the Situation · 29 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Ten years on I think it’s about time I reviewed the situation, especially progress with respect to my latest projects: The Contingency Market and 1p2U.

Digital Productions

Digital Productions is the umbrella name of my projects researching and developing non-copyright based business models.

I entered this field at the beginning of the new millennium having realised that when digital copies are free, it is the production of the original work that is valuable, and the work rather than copies of it that should be exchanged for money. It was while writing an article on cyberspace, how to engineer massive multiplayer games using p2p technology, that I realised I had eliminated the impossible and should pursue the solution (no matter how improbable).

The Digital Art Auction is the title of the essay I wrote that described such a possible exchange mechanism – between an artist and those interested in exchanging their money for the artist’s work.

Although I developed a prototype website for the Digital Art Auction (now offline), I figured I needed to keep things far simpler. I then developed QuidMusic – still semi-operational. While indeed simpler, this helped me realise that for exchanges to occur there needs to be a sizeable marketplace of buyers and sellers, and it’s more important to build up the market with small, even trivial transactions than it is to focus on enabling lucrative transactions. QuidMusic satisfied me that the idea was worth pursuing, but also persuaded me that I needed an application that required a far lower priced transaction.

I therefore concluded I needed a general purpose back-end to support this third project (that would also support the previous two as well as umpteen others I or anyone else might think up). So, I have the Contingency Market as a robust and application independent back-end, and 1p2U as a demonstration of how it can be used to enable readers to exchange their pennies for the words of the bloggers they would thus encourage to write.

In parallel with these software engineering projects, I’ve also researched the law that underlies the traditional business model concerning intellectual work, i.e. copyright. In the process I’ve discovered that it is the law that is an unethical, 18th century privilege, and that far from being incorrigibly immoral the file-sharers who infringe it are simply enjoying their natural liberty (qv natural rights ). In other words, the prospect is not that infringers can be ‘reformed’ to abide by an immoral law, but that the law is an inhumane and ineffective anachronism destined for abolition, and the business of intellectual work must migrate to a non-monopoly based model, i.e. a free market.

So, not only is there a need for business models that do not rely on a inherently unviable monopoly, there is also a need for such business models to demonstrate that there is no need to resort to ever more draconian measures to persuade the public to respect the publishers’ anachronistic privilege of copyright. It would also counter claims that a compulsory license fee (aka Internet/ISP tax) is the only alternative in the event that the publishers’ monopoly of copyright is recognised to be unviable. A tax may well keep publishers going, but if publishers are made redundant by the Internet, then state support via taxation simply funds a dead weight. The need is for artists and their customers to exchange their work and money, not to preserve archaic agencies that promote, manufacture, distribute, and retail copies of the artists’ work.

Alongside the process of producing websites, and researching law applying to intellectual work, I’ve also been blogging about it (since 2006). Indeed, Digital Productions the website is primarily a blogging platform (TextPattern).

The unfunded and non-trading UK limited company ‘Digital Productions’ was registered in March 2001, and the domain digitalproductions.co.uk in November 2003.

But, that’s Digital Productions, what about me, the person behind it?

Crosbie Fitch

I have always been into computers (from mechanical reckoners and programmable calculators onwards). My earliest explorations began with with 2D graphics on the Commodore Pet, BBC Micro, and Archimedes (music score editing), and then graphs and diagramming software on the PC. Between 1995 and 2003 I have been a R&D software engineer in the field of 3D modelling (computer games, film special effects, animation, networking). Since that time, in which C/C++ was my tool of choice for over a dozen years, I’ve been more focussed on C#, PHP and data driven web based systems (on MSSQL and MySQL).

I’m far more oriented toward the solution of problems that intrigue and fascinate me, researching and developing any knowledge or skills necessary, than simply seeking well paid work that matches my experience and skill set.

Problems I have been fascinated by, and feel I have an insight into the solutions thereof, include: artificial intelligence, distributed large scale virtual environments, and non-copyright based business models. I’m currently focussed on the latter, but would love to return to either of the former two interests of mine.

Like any self-employed entrepreneur I have to balance the need to pay the bills (doing occasional freelance work), further eroding savings, and the need to continue unpaid development of the Contingency Market and 1p2U.

Where have I got so far on the Contingency Market?

The Contingency Market

What it is

The Contingency Market is an online exchange that enables deals to be made between pairs of agents who agree amounts of funds to be transferred between them depending upon the outcome of future public events (encouraged by the deals contingent upon them).

Thus a thousand users of a software package can make a thousand deals with the developer that they’ll pay them a dollar in the event a particular feature is implemented and published.

The Contingency Market is thus far more appropriate for the sale of digital work than conventional online payment mechanisms intended for the sale of material goods. This is because it exchanges money for the publication of the work rather than a discrete, material good or copy (protected from further copying by copyright). If the copy is worthless (copyright being ineffective) then you have to sell the work instead.

How it works

The Contingency Market is not expected to be used by people directly, but is a web service to be used by websites such as 1p2U or QuidMusic that use it on their behalf.

An agent (user, artist, fan, website) is registered with the site and has an account that keeps track of payments: money deposited and withdrawn, and that paid to, or received from, other agents via deals.

A deal is a match between two agents’ compatible offers that both agents agree to – a ‘microcontract’ if you like.

Each agent’s offer specifies a contingency and funds to be transferred depending upon its outcome.

A contingency typically specifies a single public event. However, it could specify a complex combination of events that must occur or not, possibly in a particular order.

An event specifies something that may be publicly observed in the world, e.g. the publication of a blog article. Events can either be observed by agents, administrators, or by the Contingency Market’s automatic monitoring system, e.g. as used to monitor RSS feeds for the publication of articles.

So, if you’re producing a website that needs to enable an arbitrary number of people to deal with one or more others, such that money is exchanged in the event of a publication (or other public act), you ensure the people are registered (and are informed as to how to pay their dues, or collect their receipts) as agents, specify the event of publication, and register the appropriate offers and deals on everyone’s behalf. When the event is observed, the contingency market will execute the necessary transactions.

Stage of Development

The core code of the Contingency Market currently comprises about 100 C# source files in 600Kb interacting with an MSSQL database (of 22 tables and a similar number of stored procedures). There are two continuously running modules (monitoring of the web and updating the contingency market), and a web based administration facility. There’s also a separate system for handling online payments, which has its own database and updating service.

There is a PHP API to the contingency market for PHP based web apps. This is used by 1p2U.

At the moment the Contingency Market is largely operational except for the handling of deposits and withdrawals, and the fulfilment of any due payments from deposits. Dues are already raised upon the completion of deals, but those dues are as yet unfulfilled by movement of funds.

The general purpose payment system, to handle online/automated deposits from money handlers (PayPal, etc.), also needs some further testing.

Further work

Once the Contingency Market is properly tested in all respects apart from handling actual money, then I will consider it ready to proceed to start handling it (testing with sandbox/private funds prior to launch). I will write the code necessary to fulfil due payments from each agent’s available funds.

There are some enhancements I’ve already planned to make, but these can wait until such time as applications need them.

1p2U

What it is

1p2U is a website that enables a blogger’s readers to encourage the blogger to write, by letting them subscribe to the blogger (via RSS feed) at the rate of a penny (1p sterling) per article published thereafter. 1p2U is also a demonstration application of the Contingency Market.

1p2U is a MediaWiki website (PHP+MySQL) with an extension that provides a Contingency Market API and a second extension that uses it to create deals on the Contingency Market between readers of a blog who want to be subscribers and the author of that blog (who invites readers to become subscribers).

The Contingency Market API is 36 PHP files totalling 180Kb (plus MediaWiki glue in 20 files in 100Kb). The 1p2U extension is about 40 PHP files in 250Kb.

How it works

The blogger registers themselves and their blog, and places a ‘subscribe’ button on their blog site. Some of their readers click this button to register as subscribers. When a new article is published in the blog’s RSS feed this is recognised by the web monitoring service of the Contingency Market, and the contingent deals made by 1p2U on behalf of each subscriber (specifying the payment of a penny in such an event) are then processed.

Ultimately, the subscribers end up with accumulated dues that being significant are then economically paid with a single deposit of funds as and when each subscriber finds convenient. As those deposits are paid, the recipients are able to make withdrawals.

A blogger who published 10 articles a week who had 1,000 1p2U subscribers would thus earn £100 per week from each subscriber paying 10p per week. Obviously, it’s not every blogger whose output is so good they can attract the demand of a thousand subscribers, but 1p2U at least enables that demand however large it is to be monetarily expressed and exchanged with the blogger’s supply. And let’s not forget, readers who aren’t particularly interested in encouraging the blogger to write can read or copy the articles they publish without paying anything (and without breaking the law as a consequence).

The blogger is paid to write by those who want them to write. The blogger doesn’t charge their readers to read.

Stage of Development

1p2U certainly isn’t complete, but it is just about able to demonstrate the process of registering a blog, providing HTML for a button to put on the blog, the button enabling readers to subcribe, keeping track of who’s subscribing to what, what articles have been published, and who owes who what amount of money.

Settlement of ones dues, and withdrawal of ones earnings would be achieved via the Contingency Market (transparently linked to by 1p2U), so the remaining work in enabling that isn’t incurred in the development of 1p2U.

1p2U had started off with the objective of being extremely simple. Unfortunately, that objective isn’t so easy to achieve if performance is also to be maintained. 1p2U has undergone considerable upheaval in terms of cacheing and computing all statistics and details for web pages as a background process, i.e. not part of the production of a web page. This is not only necessary to reduce processing delays, but also to avoid the latency involved in communications with the Contingency Market via the SOAP channel.

Further work

There is still a small amount of further work in streamlining the background processes, and ensuring dependencies are fully traced.

There is also much work on the user interface and ergonomics of the 1p2U website, providing far more controls, as well as further explanation.

Next Steps

I feel my skills are best suited to developing the Contingency Market, possibly demonstrating it further by developing other sites such as QuidMusic and The Digital Art Auction. It would also be great to help other people use it in their own projects.

Therefore I would be interested in 1p2U.com ending up in more capable and dedicated hands. So if you or any one you know fancies developing 1p2U further, so I can focus on the Contingency Market, then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

I appreciate 1p2U will be more attractive the more it is used, and the finer a polish it has in terms of usability. I will thus continue developing 1p2U to that end in the interim.

I have also been considering the idea of splitting this Digital Productions website into two. A spin-off site to focus on Natural IP, leaving the main site only to document the project work.

Remaining Questions

If there is anything you feel I’ve omitted or wish I’d covered in more detail in this review please let me know (by e-mail or comment) and I will append further detail in response.

Comment

Scott Carpenter said 29 days ago :

Thanks for the recap, Crosbie.

I’m surprised to learn you’re using MSSQL (and to a lesser extent, C#).

Comment #000367 at 2010-02-09 20:59 by Scott Carpenter

Crosbie Fitch said 29 days ago :

I’m not fussy about databases (yet). MSSQL integrates well with C#/.NET.

Funnily enough I’ve just been working on catering for your redirection of your RSS feed as registered with 1p2U. Not quite there yet. :-)

Comment #000368 at 2010-02-09 21:13 by Crosbie Fitch

Maniquí said 26 days ago :

It was really interesting and inspiring to read about your background, your projects, your future plans and you.

I’m learning a lot here (although when I try to explain to people what I’ve learnt about copyright and the future of publishing industry, and the new opportunities and new business models for artists, I find myself that I cannot explain it clearly, and at the same time, people is already indoctrinated to the “copyright way of thinking”).

I’ll stay tunned, as I would like to get involved someday into the Contingency Market.

Best wishes for the upcoming future!

Comment #000369 at 2010-02-12 19:18 by Maniquí

Music/Recording/Copy · 33 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

There are three words that the record labels love people to conflate: Music, Recording, and Copy. These are glued together by corruption, by the labels’ 18th century privilege of copyright. They’re happy for you to believe that when you buy a CD you’re buying the music.

However, once you dissolve the despicable glue that creates that illusion, you can properly separate those three concepts and realise that the recording is not the music, and the copy is not the recording. You can also realise that the copy is not the music.

It is critical to distinguish between these elements in order to distinguish between the respective amounts of work that goes into their production. It’s then possible to figure out what the heck you as an artist should be selling, e.g. a piece of plastic that costs a penny for a thousand times that amount, or precious hours of your life preparing and performing in a recording studio for a goodly day rate.

I have been having this discussion with Suzanne Lainson on TechDirt.

The artist has traditionally sold their studio recording to the label (in exchange for whatever the contract stipulated), and this has been the case for decades. So, let’s agree that the artist is familiar with the process of selling the recording (of their music, in a studio performance).

Like a label, the artist is also familiar with the process of selling copies of their recording, e.g. CDs via mail order.

However, very few artists are familiar with the process of selling their recording to their fans.

The figure I use of $10,000 is just an example. Obviously the actual amount depends on the artist, the size of their audience, and the number of fans interested in commissioning them to make a recording.

But let’s say the artist did accept $10,000 from 1,000 fans in exchange for a studio performance, a recording thereof, and the (copyleft) release of that recording to those fans.

It becomes the property of all those fans (as well as the artist), and it becomes the property of whoever those fans distribute it to, whether for love or money, e.g. via public file-sharing networks.

The artist gets paid $10,000.
The fans get a new studio recording of the artist that they wanted.
Everyone keeps their liberty (no-one gets prosecuted for file-sharing, playing it in public, or remixing it, etc.).

You may think $10,000 is too low. Sure, perhaps you have a thousand wealthy fans who can afford $100 each, or a million fans $1. The point is not the price, but the exchange of the recording with the fans for their money – and that it’s nothing to do with the sale of copies, or any monopoly.

And no, fans don’t sit in the studio. That would make it a live performance and ticketed event. The fans are only buying the recorded studio performance, and this enables the artist to sell their music via that recording to a global fanbase, without the hassle of everyone having to fly to a large stadium somewhere.

Once the deal has been done, the recording has to be delivered to the fans who commissioned it, e.g. FLAC files via BitTorrent, or even commemorative DVDs (for an additional amount). Those fans can then redistribute it as MP3s and/or remix it as they see fit.

Let’s recap

The copy is a means of communicating a music recording, but the copy is not the music, nor the recording – and the recording isn’t the music.

The music takes talent and is made by talented musicians, whose talent can obtain a high market value.

The recording is not the music. It is a recording OF the music.

The recording takes skill to get ‘just right’. Recording engineers’ skill can be highly valued.

The copy is not the recording. It is a copy OF the recording.

The copy takes zero skill to produce and takes a microsecond. There is no market for the skill or services of people who make digital copies – because everyone and their dog can make millions of them in double-quick time for next to nothing.

So sell what takes talent and skill – the music and the recording of it. Then the copies are as free as nature makes them.

And let’s not forget, so then are the people: Money for art, liberty for people.

Comment

Peter Green said 32 days ago :

That makes so much sense… to every one but the parasitic labels.
Excellent piece!

Comment #000366 at 2010-02-06 14:53 by Peter Green

Maniquí said 21 days ago :

Do you think there is a place in then industry (ie. like a new business model) for music labels in the future?

Probably not a business based on “just selling copies”, but maybe by promoting and patronaging their artists, arranging concerts, selling limited editions, organizing stuff?

Thanks.

Comment #000370 at 2010-02-17 15:35 by Maniquí

Crosbie Fitch said 21 days ago :

Maniquí, I daresay promotional, or more appropriately, discoveral agencies will arise to help fans discover the artists that suit their taste and commission their studio and live performances.

I doubt that the DNA of existing labels permits them to undergo such a paradigm inversion.

Comment #000371 at 2010-02-17 16:08 by Crosbie Fitch

Doing Business Without Copyright · 40 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Here are a couple of articles by Mike Masnick at TechDirt, well worth reading if you were losing hope that artists could do business without suing or taxing their fans:

Artists and fans are already connecting, already doing business without copyright. To institute compulsory license fees as many are now proposing will simply take money from fans with a tiny fraction ending up in the artist’s pocket. There is no point to such Internet taxes except to provide a paltry pension to retired artists, and ‘money for nothing’ to labels and collections societies.

_________________
Hat tip Michael Castello

Comment

Maniquí said 34 days ago :

Both interesting articles that I will eventually have to re-read.

I wonder one thing: which is the most common license (or the ideal one) this musicians are choosing when releasing their music for free? Is it a CC licence? Or tjey release them to public domain?

(Sorry if I’m missing something).

Comment #000362 at 2010-02-04 15:11 by Maniquí

Crosbie Fitch said 34 days ago :

Well, the closest thing to a popular copyleft license for music is CC-ShareAlike. It’s the most ideal (so far), because it neutralises copyright more than any other CC license. There may well be more ideal licenses, but they aren’t so popular. Ideally copyright would be abolished so it didn’t need neutralising.

As to what license musicians are actually choosing, well, that’s a question better answered by Creative Commons, or possibly another organisation likely to be surveying licensing.

There is CC0, but it’s particularly tricky to prevent a work covered by copyright from being covered by copyright.

The ‘public domain’ is ‘all published works’. Some people use the term to describe published works no longer ‘protected’ by copyright, but that definition is unrecognised by copyright law. You can’t ‘release something from copyright protection’, you can only partially neutralise it with a copyleft license, i.e. it still remains covered by copyright.

Copyright contaminates and pollutes culture like radioactive waste. You can’t get rid of it. You can neutralise it to it to make it safer, but otherwise you have to wait at least a couple of centuries for it to expire – probably longer. Fortunately, like tobacco, people should soon recognise how harmful it is and abolish it within the decade.

Comment #000363 at 2010-02-04 16:21 by Crosbie Fitch

Natural IP is not Abstract · 54 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Much of the IP nihilist’s argument against recognising intellectual property refers to the straw man that IP is about claims of ownership over universal patterns such as numbers, i.e. abstract concepts. IP is actually about the writer’s or inventor’s natural exclusive right to their intellectual work that they physically realise, but also the unnatural privileges granted for the benefit of mass producers of those copyright protected copies and patented devices.

Into the tedious argument between IP maximalists and nihilists that regularly occurs in the comments to most posts at the Ludwig von Mises Institute blog, I thought I’d post a comment briefly describing the position of the IP naturalist:

Even as a copyright and patent abolitionist, I’d still argue that patterns can be property. You just have to recognise that patterns are only universals in the abstract. When a pattern is actually realised, physically manifest, then each instance has no relationship to any other except that of similarity (and possibly provenance if constructed through copying). Identity can only occur in the abstract. Two instances may be indistinguishable, but they are not a single instance.

I’ve thought of a number. It’s my idea that I own. It has been realised in my mind. If I set it down on paper it becomes my physical property (material and intellectual property). I control access to both the paper and the number written on it (while I keep it exclusive or private to me). NB I do not control the abstract number, thus have no ability to prevent anyone else using or realising this abstract number, which must be by unwitting coincidence since they have no access to the number I’ve realised. I can sell the number on the piece of paper to someone else (and my memory of it may evaporate) or I can make and sell umpteen copies of it. But no-one else can access this number unless they obtain authorisation from any one of those who have become privy to the number. However, neither myself who thought of the number, nor anyone who is privy can naturally prevent anyone else who is privy from making and selling as many copies as they wish. It would take something unnatural like copyright to pretend such power. However, no-one apart from those who are privy are naturally able to make copies, because they have no access. Other people might independently think of a number that by pure coincidence represents the same abstract number (though neither party can know this until someone privy to both recognises the similarity).

So, numbers and thus information can be property when realised, fixed in a physical medium that is separable from the body. What are unnatural abominations are privileges suspending people’s natural liberty to make copies of what they are rightfully privy to, or use/reproduce (patent) registered designs.

This is the position of natural IP, which accords with the US constitution, but is antithetical to the privileges of copyright and patent, as well as the position of IP nihilism (“No such thing as IP”).

Comment

The Copyright Bubble · 58 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Free software engineers have been one of the largest sectors (in the industry of intellectual work) to grok the iniquity of the 18th century privileges of copyright and patent a few decades ago (and contrive a partial remedy), but every day more and more geeks are ‘getting it’. More and more people are realising that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, realising that an unnatural monopoly that criminalises the cultural and technological exchange that has come naturally to people for aeons, indeed has been critical for mankind’s cultural and technological development, cannot be as good as people have been brought up to believe.

Here’s a recent “Copyright is our liberty!” qua ‘Soylent Green is People!’ revelation from a commenter on Slashdot (Hat tip p2pnet):

The Copyright Bubble

by girlintraining on 17:29 09 January 2010 (#30708172)

I’ve posted most of this before on slashdot; This is just a cleanup of previous posts — it has details of why the ACTA is secret.

A Private War

I used to read stuff like this and get upset. But then I realized that my entire generation knows it’s baloney. They can’t explain it intellectually. They have no real understanding of the subtleties of the law, or arguments about artists’ rights or any of that. All they really understand is there is are large corporations charging private citizens tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, for downloading a few songs here and there. And it’s intuitively obvious that it can’t possibly be worth that.

An entire generation has disregarded copyright law. It doesn’t matter whether copyright is useful or not anymore. They could release attack dogs and black helicopters and it wouldn’t really change people’s attitudes. It won’t matter how many websites they shut down or how many lives they ruin, they’ve already lost the culture war because they pushed too hard and alienated people wholesale. The only thing these corporations can do now is shift the costs to the government and other corporations under color of law in a desperate bid for relevance. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.

What does this mean for the average person? It means that we google and float around to an ever-changing landscape of sites. We communicate by word of mouth via e-mail, instant messaging, and social networking sites where the latest fix of free movies, music, and games are. If you don’t make enough money to participate in the artificial marketplace of entertainment goods — you don’t exclude yourself from it, you go to the grey market instead. All the technological, legal, and philosophical barriers in the world amount to nothing. There is a small core of people that understand the implications of what these interests are doing and continually search for ways to liberate their goods and services for “sale” on the grey market. It is (economically and politically) identical to the Prohibition except that instead of smuggling liquor we are smuggling digital files.

Billions have been spent combating a singularily simple idea that was spawned thirty years ago by a bunch of socially-inept disaffected teenagers working out of their garages: Information wants to be free. Except information has no wants — it’s the people who want to be free. And while we can change attitudes about smoking with aggressive media campaigns, or convince them to cast their votes for a certain candidate, selling people on goods and services they don’t really need, what we cannot change is the foundations upon which a generation has built a new society out of.

Culture Connection

Just as we have physical connections to each other, we now have digital connections to one another. These connections actively resist attempts at control because it impedes the development and nature of the relationships we have with one another. People naturally seek the methods which give them the greatest freedom to express themselves to each other. That is a force of nature (ours, specifically) that has evolved out of our interconnectedness. Copyright law has been twisted to serve as a bulwark against the logical result of increasing social interconnectedness between people and computers: Access an ever-increasing amount of humanity’s history, knowledge, and culture. Ultimately, this is a battle they cannot win — they can only delay, building dams and locks to stem the tide, but they will fail. It’s how, when, and where it fails that will decide the fate of economies worldwide.

Every law advantages one group while disadvantaging another. And every engine, be it physical or social, functions because an energy imbalance exists and by moving energy from one potential to another, we can skim some off to do useful work. Laws work the same way — by creating artificial differences between groups of people, society produces goods and services. This is why we will always have new Prohibitions. It’s not a comfortable or politically correct thing to admit, that for societies to function there must necessarily be inequality between people. It is nonetheless true.

This is not a reason to give up hope or be cynical! We are in the middle of a social revolution that has few outward signs. Unlike generations past, the revolution that is happening now exists in fragmentary communications by a collectivistic movement that lacks any real core. It has been created by an unspoken understanding between its participants. That is to say, the participants of the digital community to varying degrees develop the same coping mechanisms to frame their understanding of this environment. These coping mechanisms develop into ideas and beliefs that we then form the basis of our interactions with other members. Put another way, these coping strategies that we interpose between ourselves and our environment form the basis of culture. The interesting part is, this change occurred without any indoctrination or central leadership to accomplish. Mere exposure to the environment alone seems to predispose people to a certain kind of thinking that cuts across barriers of country, culture, sex, and race.

There are no real leaders for the digital culture, yet the culture is there. This is unprecidented. There are very, very few social movements that organize around principals instead of individuals who exemplify those ideals. Whether you live in Iran or America, Africa or Europe, the same values systems are spontaniously developing in reaction to exposure to the digital environment. And while the state of the art has advanced at an incredible rate, our methods of understanding and interacting within the new social spaces created by that aren’t changing that much. It’s a stable environment evolving at rate sufficiently slow to allow culture to form.

That, in and of itself, is amazing. Forget copyright for a moment and consider all the other social advances that are taking place because of our digital interconnectedness — and then realize that there are only a very few friction points in this revolution! That is also unprecidented in modern history.

The Bubble

Copyright won’t end anytime soon, but I’m suggesting we look at the fundamentals here: it is an artificial construct within the digital environment. It’s something we built extraneous to it, and in fact is antagonistic to it. The exchange of information is fundamental to the existance of the internet. Copyright is not. Copyright is an institution, like marriage, the church, the government, etc. Like those things, it has a maintenance cost. It is a coping mechanism. That’s not a judgement on its sustainability nor its justification for existance (or lack thereof).

Copyright is an institution and like all social institutions remain in existance only for as long as its members continue to support it. There is a substantial and growing number of digital identities (people, organizations, projects, etc.) that exist outside of that institution. Why? Because information is very, very cheap to replicate. Production of that information however can vary in cost. Everybody agrees that there must be some compensatory mechanism, however artificial, to reimburse people for the effort invested in the production of the goods and services that copyright protects. If there is no protection at all, many staples of modern life cease to exist. This is the loci of why copyright exists.

The cost to society now outweighs the benefits and we exist within a market bubble right now: A copyright bubble. Large corporations and governments alike have bought into it and driven up its cost. Like any market-driven force however, it will eventually return to equilibrium. We had the dot com bubble, and the housing bubble, but that’s nothing compared to what’s going on right now — we lost billions when that one burst. We stand to lose trillions when this one does. And, ironically, it will be burst by the very forces that businesses are embracing right now — labor capital in the third world.

Which is exactly why, right now, governments around the world are drafting a copyright treaty between themselves in secret. They know that as soon as the lesser-developed countries have come forward a bit more infrastructurally, they’ll be at a point where they can leverage a free flow of history, ideas, and information to dramatically improve their economies. Just as plans for the machinery that powered the industrial revolution was witheld from countries that didn’t have it, so too have the tools to begin the information revolution been witheld.

Let’s face it — less developed countries are not going to pay licensing costs and fork over the money circulating in their economy back to us: They’re going to pour it back into modernization of their own economies. The only way they can do that is by asserting sovereignty and independence from the global copyright framework being developed. That’s why there’s such a push right now to lock them out if they don’t join in the global copyright racket. If this effort fails, the bubble will burst and trillions of dollars will drain out of the economies of the western world like someone pulled the plug out of the bathtub, because the marketplace will be much, much bigger. That’s why if you ask for copies of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the government will tell you it’s unavailable for reasons of national security. But you don’t need to have the text to know what it intends to do.

The chinese are already producing very cheap material goods. What do you think’s going to happen when they start producing very cheap services as well? Nobody’s going to pay $400 for an operating system; Not when the Chinese have their own that sells for $5 each on a DVD. They have more honor students than we have students — and each will work for dollars a day.

Comment

Steve R. said 34 days ago :

Very eloquent narrative.

You wrote on “Against Monopoly” as an illustrative comment that: “The problem with trademark is that holders overreach its purpose to prevent confusion and deceit, and attempt to claim exclusive use of their mark in all contexts.” While the narrative above is not limited to trademark; trademark is only one of many examples were content creators have aggrandized the use so-called intellectual property laws to claim exclusive control even to the point of restricting post-sale use.

Furthermore, the “proof” for infringement seems to increasingly short circuit the legal process itself and the penalty for “infringement” is becoming ever more onerous. A legal system that works only to benefit one segment of society will eventually implode.

Comment #000364 at 2010-02-04 16:23 by Steve R.

Crosbie Fitch said 34 days ago :

What’s more, corporations aren’t even a segment of society, they’re a legally created golem, a charismatic psychopath with the creator’s mission to ‘profit at all costs’. Human directors are actually prosecuted if they deviate from this mission. So, there’s no point looking to any lesser staff to make the organisation more socially considerate or humane. Any appearance of such humanity is simply a PR strategy – and it fools far too many inside and out.

So it’s not surprising that corporations collaborate in common pursuit of ever greater powers to obtain ever greater profits. That includes overreaching trademark, copyright, patent, or anything else that comprises a grant of unnatural power, especially over people. People are cattle (consumers) to be exploited by corporations.

The solution is obvious. Abolish unnatural privileges and pull the plug on corporate personhood. Change corporations into associations of individuals with collective responsibility for whatever objective they agree to pursue.

Unfortunately, it’s going to require a lot more social depredation on the part of corporations before people are roused into realising such a solution is needed.

Corporate totalitarianism here we come.

Comment #000365 at 2010-02-04 17:01 by Crosbie Fitch

Sell Recordings, Not Copies · 65 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Dear recording artists, please at least consider the possibility of selling your recordings directly to your fans rather than to a record label, or worse, rather than trying to make and sell your own copies.

As yet, very few musicians have sold their recordings directly to their fans. There aren’t many facilities to do so either. You could certainly have a go tomorrow, but given a dearth of facilities and the unfamiliarity you and your fan base will have in purchasing or commissioning your recordings, at this stage you are as much likely to find it a damp squib as a roaring success.

There are two discrete situations in which one could sell a recording:

You have already produced a recording, but have not yet released/published it. You are interested in your fans’ best offer in case it may be better than that of a record label.
You are interested in producing a recording, and invite record labels and your fans to tender their offers of commission.

There is also a continuous process of selling one’s recordings:

You regularly produce and release recordings to your audience by way of ‘priming the pump’. You invite your keenest fans to commission the release of subsequent recordings. The initial releases are thus promotional loss-leaders to build the fan base to a size where their subsequent commissions match and possibly exceed your costs of production.

In all cases 1-3, the purchaser of the recording effectively ends up with the right to make copies. If you sell a recording to a label, they get any copyright (the privilege that suspends everyone else’s liberty to reproduce it). If you sell a recording to your fan base, any copyright is neutralised (your fans’ and everyone else’s liberty to reproduce it is restored). Indeed, when selling recordings to your fans, copyright becomes a redundant nuisance to be disposed of, rather than a privilege to be sold to those unscrupulous labels who’d exploit it in their sale of copies.

At least when an artist sells a recording to their fans, they retain all their (natural) rights. When an artist sells a recording to a label the artist loses their liberty to make copies by transferring away the privilege that suspends it. When an artist sells a recording to their fans they retain their liberty to make copies because this is a consequence of neutralising rather than transferring their privilege of copyright. In other words, the artist is also a fan (their own fan) and so similarly enjoys the restoration of their liberty to share and build upon their own work.

The recording (as deliverable) comprises the digital master and all components thereof as would typically be expected by a record label. If sold to one’s fans, then at the point of exchange this must be supplied or made available to the purchaser (one’s fans), e.g. as FLAC files via BitTorrent. Anyone (including the recording producer) can then sell material copies (media and delivery costs) in instances where such delivery of the recording is preferred, e.g. on DVD-ROM.

In the other direction, the sale price that the artist agrees is equitable in exchange for the recording (say $10,000) is provided from each fan (say $10 from each of 1,000) and delivered to the artist (or the company representing all those involved in the production of the recording). Typically, each fan will pay the same amount, but some schemes may involve variations.

There are umpteen other issues, but I’ll keep things brief.

This is not an investment in the artist, but the sale of a recording. The fans get the recording they want. The artist gets the money they want. Moreover, everyone gets their liberty restored.

In terms of facilities that exist today, one could attempt to shoehorn eBay’s Dutch auction to sell 1,000 ‘shares’ in a recording – if you reckon you’d easily sell out and the minimum bid price was around $10 (if you hoped for at least $10k). This also has to pass eBay’s scrutiny as the sort of auction it’s happy to see (doubtful).

Alternatively you could try Kickstarter. See Pros and Cons of the Kickstarter Model by Kristen Strezo. For background reading see 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly and my article Selling Music Recordings.

Predictably, the more artists that start selling their recordings to their fans, the more facilities will be developed, and the more familiar fans will be with this means of encouraging their favourite artists to produce recordings for them.

However, it is important to note that ‘more facilities’ means ‘less overhead’. The more facilities there are to enable artists to sell their recordings to their fans, the more competition there is to provide artists with more efficient service at ever lower prices. Contrast that with a single taxation and disbursement administration that has every incentive to ratchet up the costs and overheads of its inefficient and uncompetitive service.

As we should learn from history, privileged cartels and government backed central services are the entities to establish ONLY if you want less rather than more of your fans’ money.

So, cut out the middleman! Or at least ensure that there’s a highly competitive environment such that any middlemen have to be extremely fit, lean and cost conscious if they expect you to use them in selling your recordings to your fans. If you create a tax instead, you’re creating one humongous Jabba the Hutt and very little prospect of seeing much more than a tiny trickle of treasure leak from its greedy clutches.

_____________________________________________
This article is based on this comment in my discussion with Indiana Gregg at a2f2a.com

Comment

Making an ethical incentive: money for art, liberty for people

Creator's Rights? · 6 hours ago by Crosbie Fitch

Printerlectual Poppetry · 1 day ago by Crosbie Fitch

Dear Illiberal Undemocrats · 5 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

The Need to Exchange · 13 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Reviewing the Situation · 29 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Digital Productions

Crosbie Fitch

The Contingency Market

What it is

How it works

Stage of Development

Further work

1p2U

What it is

How it works

Stage of Development

Further work

Next Steps

Remaining Questions

Maniquí said 26 days ago :

Music/Recording/Copy · 33 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Let’s recap

Maniquí said 21 days ago :

Doing Business Without Copyright · 40 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Maniquí said 34 days ago :

Natural IP is not Abstract · 54 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

The Copyright Bubble · 58 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

The Copyright Bubble

A Private War

Culture Connection

The Bubble

Sell Recordings, Not Copies · 65 days ago by Crosbie Fitch

Projects

Natural IP

Links

Progeny

Peers

Principles

Pontification

Paragons