I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….

Copyright is dead. Our children’s children won’t even regognise the term.

Excellent interview (and transcript above). I’m so glad to hear someone speaking out on this & am so dismayed (yet unsurprised) that our government has absolutely no hindsight or foresight (yet again).

You are indeed absolutely correct that the future generation’s culture has been sold, but I guess this is just a natural greed driven evolution from when copyright law was introduced (so the problem’s been growing for a while). The idea is sound, but as usual, once greed gets a whiff of money, it gets twisted into a method of imposing control over others (for more money). George Orwell had it right, it’s just become a little more subversive. Ironic that his work suffers the same consequence.

I believe Arthur.C.Clarke said something like “All writers are plagiarists”. He freely admits to borrowing for other writers and states that it’s almost unavoidable. This then, as you say, is part of what creativity is. All artists, all human beings, have those before them to thank for being able to produce anything today. All future works use some past work as a foundation. Control this, and you control creativity (not limit, but sanction more like).

What was the reason for extending copyright from 50 to 125 years then? Take a wild gue$$… and how far does the copyright go?

Your link about Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony absolutely staggered me. I love the song, album & artist(s) but never knew this fact. Knowing this certainly would have affected my purchasing decision ie. I wouldn’t have, in respect for the artist (and I would boycott the Rolling Stones). I think it’s disgusting. The Media Mafia always wins, the artists lose (until they become part of the Media Mafia themselves). Those in power like to keep it that way.

I somehow think Sony did much better out of Bic Runga’s music than she did… for the recent decline in sales, maybe she should remember a famous quote from Andy Warhol, or remember that the monster she’s feeding also plays against her.

I feel the only way for artists to get a fair deal in this world is for them to embrace the openness of the internet, and to cut out the greedy fat middle-man that’s trying to ruin it, for everyone. After all, isn’t music supposed to be heard?

Cheers,
Marcus.

I did gloss over the fact that some copyrights are owned by artists. And that is material to some of the arguments, but it doesn’t change the overall thrust. I’m certainly not arguing that artists should have their copyrights infringed; but I do complain about the concentration of power in the hands of a few companies who don’t actually create anything.

Of course, you don’t have to be a multinational CD giant to behave badly with copyrights, either. Check out the story about the credits for The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony for an example.

Cheers

Colin

2 niggling points:

them record companies don’t have *all* the copyrights…

and copying to ipods/portalbles isn’t/wasn’t illegal if you had the copyright holders ‘permission (which all them indie/non-apple online stores explicitly give when you buy their non-drmed music).

okay, splitting hairs — but i think people get blindsided into thinking Sony / Warner own everything when infact they don’t.