Dale wrote:
Ok, books. The majority of people who write books don't make their living at it.
Where am I going wrong in my thinking here?
Speaking as someone who doesn't make a living writing books, I wish to point out that neither "teaching at universities" nor "whatever" actually pays people to write books: they both pay to do other things, and from experience get downright shirty if you, instead, spend your time there writing books. In consequence, every minute I spend doing "whatever" is a minute I'm not writing a book.
For the most part, American colleges and universities certainly tend to reward faculty that publish and certainly encourage that they spend time on payroll working on the research that can lead to publication.
This is true. At most universities you have three jobs:
teaching, research and service (the latter being serving on
committees that help run the university).
If you don't do research and publish it you don't get
tenure--you lose your job. After tenure they can't fire
you but if you don't do research and publish it you
don't get raises and promotions.
Dale wrote:
For the most part, American colleges and universities certainly tend to reward faculty that publish and certainly encourage that they spend time on payroll working on the research that can lead to publication.
This activity is largely focussed on academic journals, not books. Publication in peer-reviewed journals is where the score is being kept, in any case. Only a small fraction of academic papers ever see trade publication, and usually for good reason: academic writing is a different skillset.
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')
I would like to see someone with a vested interest in music copyright make a statement about this. It's easy to take a slice out of someone else's pie.
e.g. What about the cost of education? Wouldn't education be so much more available to everyone if we stopped paying all those who work for a school board?
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
My band recently released a CD. Our modest goal is to have this musical hobby of ours pay for itself; i.e., we'd like to break even. There are a number of costs associated with making a CD. Even though we recorded at our banjo player's in-home studio, there are equipment costs, and the cost of having the CD professionally mastered and printed, and booklets with pictures and lyrics printed. If everyone burned copies of CDs and gave to their friends rather than buying a CD, the little guys like us would never recover the costs of making the CD, and we wouldn't be able to afford to make another one in a few years. Just because we aren't ever going to make our living off of music doesn't mean that we're independently wealthy and can afford to lose a lot of money on it. That's one good reason to respect copyright.
I only wrote one tune on the CD, but I do feel that it is my intellectual property. If you and your buddies want to play my tune, great -- I'd be thrilled if other people liked it enough to want to play it. But if you take my tune and make tons of money on it, I expect a cut. I don't think anyone should have the right to sell my creation without giving me a share of the profit.
My first reaction is to agree with Dale and Walden and say stuff copyright.
Actually, that is my second reaction as well.
My third reaction is to say that I could live with a more reasonable, less corporate form of copyright than that often encountered.
OK, so someone has put a lot of time, creative steam and maybe (if we're lucky) soul into creating a piece of music or a story. I think it is reasonable for them to expect to be credited with the creation of the work. I think it is reasonable for them to want to make sure that no one makes money by pretending they (the crook, not the author) created the work. I think it is reasonable to ask for payment for physical copies of the work. I do not think it is wrong to write or compose for a living.
Without some of the professionally created works I have enjoyed, I think my life would be the poorer. No Tom Waits albums, no Kurt Vonnegut books. Bummer.
However, I do not think that copyright should be transferable, nor do I think it should last beyond the death of the author, nor be renewable. Copyright, if there at all, should be to help the author to benefit from the works he has created - not for parasitic corporate exploitation.
On the whole, if people were to want to play my songs, record them, whatever, I would not be bothered about making money. I would be pleased to have my songs work their way into whatever musical tradition might still be evolving. I would still like to be remembered as the songwriter, however.
(Sadly, few of my songs are good enough for even me to want to play them, let alone other people...)
I feel a little differently about creative writing and copyright. I write semi-professionally, and in my experience, writing a short story often entails more and harder work than writing a song. Writing a novel takes a year or more and is the hardest work I can think of that doesn't involve whips and pyramids or salt mines.
Literature is created and enjoyed in a very different way to music. The two media are as different as they are similar.
I think copyright for literary works should, again, be non-transferable and should expire with no possibility of renewal, on the death of the author.
Of course, one is then left with having to tolerate one of the following scenarios:
a) If copyright disappears or passes into the public domain after the author's death, then publishers are free to make money by publishing new editions of the work without paying any royalties - and corporations end up leeching of the creativity of others.
b) If publishers are prevented from exploiting the work, then new editions will not appear, and eventually the work will be lost forever.
c) Some magic solution thing wot I haven't thought up yet.
And whether the blood be highland, lowland or no.
And whether the skin be black or white as the snow.
Of kith and of kin we are one, be it right, be it wrong.
As long as our hearts beat true to the lilt of a song.
Tell us something.: I used to be a regular then I took up the bassoon. Bassoons don't have a lot of chiff. Not really, I have always been a drummer, and my C&F years were when I was a little tired of the drums. Now I'm back playing drums. I mist the C&F years, though.
Walden wrote:I'm not opposed to private ownership of property, but music and ideas are not property. I do not believe they can morally be said to belong to anyone.
When I create something I would like the ability to determine where it is seen and how it is used. I realize that once I let it 'out there', be it paper or internet, I pretty much lose control, but I'd like at least the platform of legal copyright to stand on if something is used against my wishes.
For example, I had a story published, 'Zygote Love, that takes no stance on abortion, but pro-lifers have shown an interest. I have declined, as I want the story to remain firmly non-political. I believe that story is my property, for I created it. I retain the rights to it under current law and I like having legal recourse if need be.
Morally is it mine? I guess I don't understand, 'morally' in this context.
Last edited by FJohnSharp on Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
I have no problem with intellectual property rights expiring in a reasonable amount of time.
But if intellectual property rights expire, then real property rights and personal property rights should also expire and revert to public domain.
Then ownership of these things for a reasonable period of time could be resold, with the money going into the state treasury.
So then, not only does ownership of the rights to 'Yesterday' revert to public domain, but also so does the corporate assets of Disney, BP and Time-Warner.
Crazy for the blue white and red
Crazy for the blue white and red
And yellow fringe
Crazy for the blue white red and yellow
I have absolutely no problem paying someone for their creative property - we did so when we made our CD. If we didn't know the composer, we used Harry Fox. I wish it was easier to determine if an obscure song is under copyright or not - one song took us over 3 weeks of searching to figure out, and another we finally just gave up and put a disclaimer on the CD that we think it's traditional, but if someone knows differently, please contact us.
I do, however, have a huge problem paying groups such as ASCAP and BMI - and knowing that the "little guy" musician will be lucky to ever see a cut of that money. Paying fees just so a group of lawyers can go around and bust small venues is not my idea of "honoring creative processes".
Tom has been reading the book "Crosley" and among other things, it has a lot about the beginnings of ASCAP. Very enlightening.
gonzo914 wrote:I have no problem with intellectual property rights expiring in a reasonable amount of time.
But if intellectual property rights expire, then real property rights and personal property rights should also expire and revert to public domain.
Then ownership of these things for a reasonable period of time could be resold, with the money going into the state treasury.
So then, not only does ownership of the rights to 'Yesterday' revert to public domain, but also so does the corporate assets of Disney, BP and Time-Warner.
That's an interesting idea. I like that.
The thing is, that the whole copyright idea is archaic, and, arguably vestigial, now that a large number of people have access to means of quick and accurate copying and reproduction. The laws always lag behind. The thing that makes my flesh crawl is the copyrighting of crop strains, which is nothing less than tyranny over subsistence farmers.
Maybe we need a system where a massive public expression is needed before something goes into copyright. And some way of preventing big business from hijacking it.
The year was 1906; the question before Congress was whether to extend copyright protection from 42 years to life plus 50 years.
Mark Twain wrote:I am aware that copyright must have a limit, because that is required by the Constitution of the United States, which sets aside the earlier Constitution, which we call the decalogue. The decalogue says you shall not take away from any man his profit. I don't like to be obliged to use the harsh term. What the decalogue really says is, "Thou shalt not steal," but I am trying to use more polite language.
The laws of England and America do take it away, do select but one class, the people who create the literature of the land. They always talk handsomely about the literature of the land, always what a fine, great, monumental thing a great literature is, and in the midst of their enthusiasm they turn around and do what they can to discourage it.
I know we must have a limit, but forty-two years is too much of a limit. I am quite unable to guess why there should be a limit at all to the possession of the product of a man's labor. There is no limit to real estate.
Doctor Hale has suggested that a man might just as well, after discovering a coal-mine and working it forty-two years, have the Government step in and take it away.
Crazy for the blue white and red
Crazy for the blue white and red
And yellow fringe
Crazy for the blue white red and yellow
And whether the blood be highland, lowland or no.
And whether the skin be black or white as the snow.
Of kith and of kin we are one, be it right, be it wrong.
As long as our hearts beat true to the lilt of a song.
Cranberry wrote:I guess in some ways I am opposed to the private ownership of anything, including intellectual property. In other ways, if you stole the novel I'm writing and published it yourself I might have to kill you.
Funny that in cases such as this, for me communism and capitalism end up looking like a couple of dogs circling each other snout-to-butt. I start losing the point of who's who.
HDSarah wrote:If you and your buddies want to play my tune, great -- I'd be thrilled if other people liked it enough to want to play it. But if you take my tune and make tons of money on it, I expect a cut. I don't think anyone should have the right to sell my creation without giving me a share of the profit.
Am I the only other one for whom this seems reasonable? That said, Sarah: good luck to you. Musicians and odds, and all that...
"If you take music out of this world, you will have nothing but a ball of fire." - Balochi musician
