Saying that, the concept of copyright makes little sense in a world where copies can be instantly and freely made and distributed. And it also doesn’t really fit the way creativity happens. Your new song was written not only by you, but also by the rest of the band who workshopped it with you, and was composed out of a grain-thin layer of your new ideas sprinkled on top of a massive and ancient cultural product written by thousands of people over thousands of years. Which ones “catch” and which ones don’t is more to do with luck than anything else. It’s not fair that Eric Clapton got all the money when his art was build out of blues standards evolved by generations of African Americans.
This is exacerbated by the fact that throughout the whole of human history people have wanted art more than they have been willing to pay for it. People nowadays don’t see why they should pay for popular music; apart from a brief window from 1960-1995, they never have. Until it as taken from us by the music industry, music was a normal human behaviour like speaking. The idea that every copy of an idea must be paid for is not inherent or inevitable. Given that ideas are freely copied between our minds, it’s actually inherently unnatural.
The early Jamaican music industry had a better economic model, based on dubplate. In dubplate, records were recorded direct to a vinyl master, which was never reproduced. The original was owned by the sound system which had commissioned it. If a different sound system wanted to play the same record they had to pay the band to record it again. This meant that musicians were basically paid a fair rate up front for a day’s work, no banking it all on hopes of millions of people buying the record, so no being cheated out of your royalties.
You agree a fee up front that you’re happy with. You get the money, and don’t owe anyone the repayment of an advance. If your work does well, next time you can negotiate a higher fee. You’re not on the hook for a five album deal; you’re not constrained to do what the label tell you; more music gets recorded; there is a more direct connection between artists, audiences, technicians and industry; more plurality, and as we can see from the case of Jamaican music, a massive acceleration in development, both aesthetic and technological; and you cannot be defrauded.
Creates fewer million- or billionaires; supports a much wider industry.
I think it’s time to ditch copyright. It is breaking anyway. Get paid for your day’s work, then release your product into the world.
Thanks for taking the time to pen such a thoughtful answer Amos, much appreciated. My slightly briefer reply is that, first, you are right, 'the idea that every copy of an idea must be paid for is not inherent or inevitable' but the same can be said of just about every system upon which civilization is built. I'm not an advocate for tearing everything down just because it didn't exist in pre-history. Artists have built their lives on copyright and they don't deserve to have that stolen out from under them.
Second, individuals taking in influences, funneling them through their unique experience and creating something new out of them as a cottage industry is not an apples-to-apples comparison with giant corporations doing this at scale not with the intention to create but to exploit.
Third, the early Jamaican model you mentioned - which I found really interesting so thanks for bringing that to my attention - is essentially how creative freelancers are paid, including me, but the only people who could afford to pay a band for an entire day to keep a copy of a song are millionaires and corporations, which would deny regular folks access to music.
Wu Tang Clan took this to extreme when they produced one, single copy of their album and sold it directly to a single buyer for $5million - great for them (yay!), terrible for the music industry (yay!!), but disastrous for fans (boo!!!).
Altman: "AI will generate enough wealth to pay each adult $13,500 a year." This bullshit claim implies that AI will produce some kind of universal basic income for "each adult," which is of course nonsense. The windfall will go directly into tech bro pockets.
100%. And even is it didn't, you think they're going to distribute UBI for you to spend as you please? No, it will come down as vouchers that MUST be spent on Amazon, Apple, Spotify etc...
The content that’s available online has already been ingested by all major AI models, I think this is more about legalising that and avoiding future action by creators.
In other news, if you liked Zero Day (loved it), also try Paradise on Disney+ (UK).
Thanks for the recommendation, allow me to share a quote by someone far, far smarter than me: "Style used to be an interaction between the human soul and tools that were limiting. In the digital era, it will have to come from the soul alone." Jaron Lanier
Saying that, the concept of copyright makes little sense in a world where copies can be instantly and freely made and distributed. And it also doesn’t really fit the way creativity happens. Your new song was written not only by you, but also by the rest of the band who workshopped it with you, and was composed out of a grain-thin layer of your new ideas sprinkled on top of a massive and ancient cultural product written by thousands of people over thousands of years. Which ones “catch” and which ones don’t is more to do with luck than anything else. It’s not fair that Eric Clapton got all the money when his art was build out of blues standards evolved by generations of African Americans.
This is exacerbated by the fact that throughout the whole of human history people have wanted art more than they have been willing to pay for it. People nowadays don’t see why they should pay for popular music; apart from a brief window from 1960-1995, they never have. Until it as taken from us by the music industry, music was a normal human behaviour like speaking. The idea that every copy of an idea must be paid for is not inherent or inevitable. Given that ideas are freely copied between our minds, it’s actually inherently unnatural.
The early Jamaican music industry had a better economic model, based on dubplate. In dubplate, records were recorded direct to a vinyl master, which was never reproduced. The original was owned by the sound system which had commissioned it. If a different sound system wanted to play the same record they had to pay the band to record it again. This meant that musicians were basically paid a fair rate up front for a day’s work, no banking it all on hopes of millions of people buying the record, so no being cheated out of your royalties.
You agree a fee up front that you’re happy with. You get the money, and don’t owe anyone the repayment of an advance. If your work does well, next time you can negotiate a higher fee. You’re not on the hook for a five album deal; you’re not constrained to do what the label tell you; more music gets recorded; there is a more direct connection between artists, audiences, technicians and industry; more plurality, and as we can see from the case of Jamaican music, a massive acceleration in development, both aesthetic and technological; and you cannot be defrauded.
Creates fewer million- or billionaires; supports a much wider industry.
I think it’s time to ditch copyright. It is breaking anyway. Get paid for your day’s work, then release your product into the world.
Thanks for taking the time to pen such a thoughtful answer Amos, much appreciated. My slightly briefer reply is that, first, you are right, 'the idea that every copy of an idea must be paid for is not inherent or inevitable' but the same can be said of just about every system upon which civilization is built. I'm not an advocate for tearing everything down just because it didn't exist in pre-history. Artists have built their lives on copyright and they don't deserve to have that stolen out from under them.
Second, individuals taking in influences, funneling them through their unique experience and creating something new out of them as a cottage industry is not an apples-to-apples comparison with giant corporations doing this at scale not with the intention to create but to exploit.
Third, the early Jamaican model you mentioned - which I found really interesting so thanks for bringing that to my attention - is essentially how creative freelancers are paid, including me, but the only people who could afford to pay a band for an entire day to keep a copy of a song are millionaires and corporations, which would deny regular folks access to music.
Wu Tang Clan took this to extreme when they produced one, single copy of their album and sold it directly to a single buyer for $5million - great for them (yay!), terrible for the music industry (yay!!), but disastrous for fans (boo!!!).
Cheers man, N
Altman: "AI will generate enough wealth to pay each adult $13,500 a year." This bullshit claim implies that AI will produce some kind of universal basic income for "each adult," which is of course nonsense. The windfall will go directly into tech bro pockets.
100%. And even is it didn't, you think they're going to distribute UBI for you to spend as you please? No, it will come down as vouchers that MUST be spent on Amazon, Apple, Spotify etc...
The content that’s available online has already been ingested by all major AI models, I think this is more about legalising that and avoiding future action by creators.
In other news, if you liked Zero Day (loved it), also try Paradise on Disney+ (UK).
Thanks for the recommendation, allow me to share a quote by someone far, far smarter than me: "Style used to be an interaction between the human soul and tools that were limiting. In the digital era, it will have to come from the soul alone." Jaron Lanier