Posts by George Darroch
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Ah, yes, I forgot about TRIPS.
We could have a reasonable discussion about copyright in NZ... but that's not going to happen since we signed TRIPS in 1994 (WTO, Wikipedia). TRIPS is an agreement that makes it very difficult to have a copyright regime that is significantly different from the US and the EU. It establishes life of the author plus 50 as a requirement in international law. It's why we rewrote the Copyright Act in 1994.
I remember going to meetings in the 1990s with Jane Kelsey telling us how we were about to, and then had, given up our sovereignty on this issue. Reading through it, I can see just how much we have.
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Russell, copyright terms should be shorter, particularly the 50 years from death of the author applied for literary, dramatic and artistic works - 40 years from publication or 20 from death (whichever is shorter) would be a much more reasonable regime.
As for sanctions? Appropriate to the crime. Small fines issued in the same way as parking fines, for the most part.
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That's thanks to the Sono Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the term of copyright to the author's life plus 70 years. There are people who would like to see that further extended.
Oh, long copyright terms are awful. I work largely in history at the moment, it is incredibly difficult to locate copyright holders of historic works. If you want something distributed in the US you have to assume that everything created after 1895 is in copyright.
New Zealand's copyright laws are much more sane, and to get back to the seed of this discussion, it would terrible to lose them in favour of a Mickey Mouse Perpetual Copyright Act.
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last year a musician told me that he was approached in the street and given $10 by someone who said he'd downloaded an album and loved it. That truly touched me.
I've done the same. I ripped a CD and gave $20 to a band member after I found out that he was being royally screwed over in royalties by other band members. I'm not defending current structures, they need to change.
I really am convinced however that a large number of people think that the value of any piece of intellectual property is $0 or near $0. And that their devaluing of intellectual property is taking revenue away from those creative industries. Once you're used to getting things for free it becomes much harder to pay for things.
Yes, the music aficionados tend to download more, and buy more. But the person who bought ten albums a year is the person I'm more interested in.
Track downloads may sell more in time, but if they do it will be because the value of recorded music is still regarded by the population as significantly more than zero.
I have seen graphs showing a significant decline in sales revenues (both physical and online) since 2000. No doubt they are produced by the industry (who else could make them?), and are skewed for their purposes, but in the absence of other evidence I can't conclude otherwise.
Live music revenues are up, but anecdotally these accrue largely to major acts. For the rest things are no better or no worse than they have ever been, or so I've been led to believe by such artists.
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I was there for that one, and loved it! I propped myself against the stage and let the sheer volume rip through my body; the noise becoming physical sensation and vice versa. One of my favourite live music experiences, ever.
I totally agree, actually. I love Bailter Space and Jakob, and all manner of very noisy bands. Having earplugs allows me to simultaneously hear and feel the music, at great volume, without incurring the pain.
Russell, I just buy them from the pharmacy. I get about 4 pairs for $12, in a little plastic box.
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All the more so when being called a thief implies criminal behaviour, which downloading is not
I disagree with you there.
People are taking the files for free because they would rather not pay for them.
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Matthew, if I take something that does not belong to me without the permission of the person who owns it, that is theft. In moral, legal, and in common usage.
We can argue all day whether that theft is actually harming the artists, but that doesn't change it.
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I wish people would stop treating pro-copyright/anti-filestealing advocates as idiots. We understand your arguments, we just don't agree with them.
The way Lily Allen was treated for saying that filestealing hurts new artists was just awful.
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And the ugly elephant in the room, widely ignored, is that unit sales of music are actually up in the digital era, not down as we are repeatedly told. Album sales, and hence dollar value have dropped dramatically.
As people's perceptions of the price of content falls towards zero, it becomes harder to make money from it.
Pirates/thieves may be buying, but they are simultaneously pushing relentlessly at people's understanding of the price of music. Ultimately, even if the price of producing music becomes zero, as the cost of buying music also approaches zero producers will have to sell an infinite amount of it. And that is simply not possible.
I actually think that having a price on music is a good thing. People value things more when they have paid for them.
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And I should note that PAS is about the least aggravating and damaging environment for these conversations that I've ever run across.
That makes me very happy.