The article by one of our contributors yesterday about Russian on-line music business allofmp3.com raises all manner of fascinating issue that I think should be pondered.
It has been argued by some of the commentariat that “whether you approve of the morality of the western music business or not, the goods belong to them and the artists” and thus as “one of the driving principles of this site [Samizdata.net] is respect for property rights, not glorifying those who steal, whether it be the state or someone else”, presumably we should be more critical of this. These are reasonable positions to take and certainly I would not want anyone to think Samizdata has anything less than complete enthusiasm for private property rights. However I also think with regard to this (which is to say the sale of music on-line in a manner which is against the wishes of the businesses who own/created the music) the view that property rights are being violated is not correct.
In fact I would say that notion is exactly the wrong way around. Like it or not, music is now a commodity that is traded by weight in an international market and therefore the creator has only residual rights to how that commodity is subsequently resold. The model allofmp3 uses does indeed pay something to the creators of the music and refusing to acknowledge that things have changed and that recorded music is no long a physical good is pointless.
It may not be the business model originally envisaged by the music creators but that is the only viable one that remains to them. The market price for their product is now about 12¢ a track and if that (or their cut of that) is not enough for the music’s creators, well I guess they should stop producing music and go find something else more profitable to do, just as if the price of diamonds falls too low, De Beers should feel free to stop digging them up in Namibia. What they (and De Beers) should not feel free to do is demand governments force the price of music (or diamonds) up by insisting they can only be sold a certain way via approved technologies at higher prices. One of the driving principles behind Samizdata.net is trying to develop theories about the world that reflect reality. I am willing to hear other theories but it seems to me that the market has spoken (loudly) and using the state to prop up a business model that technology has made nonsensical is not really serving the cause of liberty.
Another issue raised by the commentariat is that companies like allofmp3.com are all involved with the ‘Russian Mafia’. As no evidence has been offered, clearly that is baseless supposition. However it does raise some other interesting issues: I would say even if it was true that allofmp3 is paying ‘protection’ to the Russian Mafia and/or using their political influence to shield their business model, the Russian Mafia fulfils certain roles that in other countries are filled by governments and lobbyists to much the same effect, thus I am not sure it makes a company like allofmp3 any different to a company (say Sony) using the force of the state to enforce its business model.
There is really not that much difference and if you do not believe me, I suggest you try telling the state you no longer wish to follow their regulations and wish to make your own arrangements for ‘protection’ and therefore intend to withhold a portion of your taxes… and then see what happens to you.
I don’t know if Perry’s view is correct.
What matters is the consent, or contractual agreement of the creators (artists). If they chose to distribute their music via CDs – then so be it. It may be an obsolete technology, doomed to fail, but they made their choice, and it is not right to ignore it, and distribute the music by some other methods.
I don’t know how allofmp3 operates, if it pays anything to creators or if it has their consent or not. But it should have the consent of the creators or the rights holders.
Maybe some artists made some bad choices in handing over their rights to record companies. Maybe record companies are dumb in not licesing the rights to allofmp3-like distributors. But this is no reason to justify – basically – piracy. ( Again, I don’t know if that (piracy) is the case, I only suspect so).
An argument can be made, maybe, for free file sharing, but surely – distributing music for a price (12c or whatever) should be governed by normal contracts and rights protection procedures.
Well when the music industry is tired of not selling ANYTHING maybe they will wise up.
Their “product” is just not worth the money they charge.
The difference is Perry’s approach has reality on its side because the market realy has spoken.
The allofmp3 model at least gives the creators something. The real choise is not between the music business’ prefered model and alofmp3’s prefered model, it is between allofmp3’s model and the nothing model.
I agree with Perry on this one. The music business has changed, or rather, the market has changed and the companies producing music have to catch up. Much like digital cameras have changed the photographic business. Film sales have fallen with some companies heading towards bankruptcy (Agfa I think). The clever ones started making digital cameras and memory cards early on. The music business hasn’t been so clever it seems. Their high margins have clouded their vision. Downloading music is the way things have gone whether it is legal or illegal. If an album can be downloaded for far less than the Sony et al charge for a CD then it will result in more music purchased, I think. The old model is crumbling. Perry, your point about the “russian mafia” and the comparison to lobbyists and the state made me laugh out loud. I only laughed because you are so right. This posting has given me an enhanced understanding of what samizdatistas believe in. I concur.
“The old model is crumbling.”
It surely looks so.
So maybe we must conclude that there is no practical way to protect intellectual property, because of new technology.
Maybe we must concede that the idea of intellectual property protected by a legal framework (copyright) is no more viable, and must be discarded.
It applies to everything – music, books, articles, ridiculous NYTimes op-eds.
Can somebody think of some substitute ? Should artists and authors be helped by a legal framework, to get money for their published products ? Should people be forced to pay for the music or articles they enjoy ? How ?
Perry:
“What they (and De Beers) should not feel free to do is demand governments [protect them. It] seems to me that the market has spoken (loudly) and using the state to prop up a business model that technology has made nonsensical is not really serving the cause of liberty.”
I’d go further. As I mentioned a moment ago under the original posting, the particular variety of Law being advocated by the big content owners (who are not, generally, artists) is in fact opposed to both property rights as embodied in physical property and liberty as a concept.
I refer, of course, to attempts to make the circumvention of DRM illegal, per se, even if the resulting acts of e.g. reproduction, are perfectly legal. Moves in this direction result in an arms-race scenario that ends with the core of a computer being protected using crypto keys that you do not own, but are available to content owners or to the state (e.g. to the FBI, under one proposal). The end game for intellectual property owners is therefore complete control over the physical property that threatens them.
Now, what are the implications for the increasingly electronic economy and liberty generally if that level of external influence is actually acheived? Will society see the light and give up computers in order to be free? I doubt it.
“…the market realy has spoken.”
Let me explain something to you:
Reification of parts as the complete whole is what’s known as “infatuation”.
“Reification of parts as the complete whole is what’s known as “infatuation”.”
Perry is infatuated with the consumers? Shock horror! What about the poor producers!
SJG
Respecting property rights does not require that I admire the manner in which they are enforced in any particular situation.
In fact I think I agree with Perry, with one proviso – property rights are being violated by the grey online distribution systems and/or the users. Even if allofmp3.com is acting legally in Russia, where copyright laws are very weak, it is questionable whether those people in the USA, or Australia or Great Britain (he nods in Verities direction) who download the files are acting within the law.
allofmp3.com is just another example of where modern information technology is undermining traditional distribution techniques, and the expensive infrastructure supporting them. In the words of Pournelle and Niven, “think of it as evolution in action”. The end result will not cut out the middleman completely, but will reduce his role enormously. I see no reason to weep at the thought that Sony Music and HMV et al join J & H Smith, Buggy Whip Suppliers to the Gentry, in historical obscurity. It is simply the operation of the market, something which we all support.
However, this whole thing puts us in an interesting position. Just what are property rights and do we cheer on, or disapprove of, those who are undermining the current definition?
Are property rights that which the law of any particular country says they are? In which case, in Russia, allofmp3 is not violating any, and we support it. But in GB? An identical operation almost certainly would be illegal, contravening UK property law, and thus deserving our disapprobation.
Which set of property rights do we support?
Hell, the US constitution mandates the setting up of a patent office, but this provision almost wasn’t there; this was a bone of contention as many delegates to the convention felt that intellectual property, therefore patents, were an infringement of personal freedom and therefore shouldn’t exist at all.
What are the property rights we support? Those mandated by common and statute law? In which case do we acknowledge the right of the state to expropriate what its controllers want, or is there some sort of Natural Law property right which we should recognise but which has not yet been enunciated?
I support property rights, but this really does raise the issue, what the fuck are they?
Surely, as libertarians, or at least sharing libertarian values, contributors to this site must agree that the rule of law, encompassing contractual obligations and copyright rules should be observed.
I am getting strong indications of, “Stealing music is OK because I can get away with it. I’ll twist and wriggle around and chose words carefully to justify my theft.”
A better libertarian stance might be, “Yes, I’m breaking the law, and the music companies therefore have the right to pursue me through the courts.” Of course, other than a few high profile prosecutions to scare the masses, the music companies have generally refrained from prosecutions realising that this approach would be counter productive. Therefore, if the industry does not chose to enforce their rights, then go ahead and download.
I would agree that my argument isn’t very elegant, but it’s better than trying to argue that theft isn’t theft.
Gibbs — try it this way, sonny:
It might be proper to say that “a market has spoken”, if, indeed, what’s going on in Russia can righteously be included in the concept. That’s still an open question to me. It is manifestly obvious, however, that it will not do to call it “the” market. Taking again my Mariah Carey example: almost five million people have bought her latest album in the traditional way, in the traditional format. Guess what: that’s a market, too.
“Whether you approve” or not.
Re. the Mafia,
There is a definition of the state which runs – “The state is that body which arrogates to itself a monopoly on the use of violence”; a definition which I find quite satisfactory.
If in any geographical region there are two or more bodies which which use, or threaten, violence to achieve their ends then they are in competition and eventually there will be a confrontation. Any supposed cooperation between these two bodies (cops and hoodlums paying off one another) will be naught but a temporary expeniency.
When it is strong, either side will protect you from other crooks as long as you pay protection.
Oh.
When others are quoted on the front page they are named. I, on the other hand am “some of the commentariat”
Ok,
I know when I am being snubbed.
Sigh.
Moan,
Sniff.
I’ll just go back to my hole then I suppose. Pull it in after me too.
Here is a simple question for Perry (and ilk):
Do you recognize your moral duty to pay royalties to the artists that produce the music you love ? (I.e. – you download).
Are you willing to trust allofmp3.com to do the correct and just payment of royalties for you (out of those 12c) ?
But allofmp3 *IS* paying royalties, just not as much as the music biz elsewhere would like. And to which I say, tough… the market price for their music just ain’t what they thought it was. The price of other things goes down once it becomes commoditized so why should this be any different?
My prediction is that in 5 years, when pretty much everyone has broadband and the cost of downloads to phones drops drastically, people will begin to stop releasing music on physical media like CDs altogether.
I have no reason to trust allofmp3.com any less than, say, companies like Sony or BMG.
John East writes:
“I would agree that my argument isn’t very elegant, but it’s better than trying to argue that theft isn’t theft.”
I don’t think people are arguing that theft isn’t theft – certainly, I’m not. Nor are they arguing that there is no such thing as intellectual property and that the rights of the owners should not be upheld.
The sensible argument is that, for historical reasons, a situation has arisen whereby record and movie companies (and in particular music publishers – usually completely overlooked by commentators who know nothing about the entertainment industry, yet one of the greatest sets of villains) have far too much power and influence both over the market and the artists whose work they exploit (and I don’t use that word in the juvenile, Marxist sense).
Moreover (and, again, for historical reasons) there exists a wide range of government-backed special privileges and protection accorded entertainment companies which, in many instances, behave little better than brigands. I can think if almost no other industries, with the exceptions of the medical and legal trades, which are so cosseted.
Fortunately, seeing that our governments have refused to take any action to dismantle the archaic rights given to the entertainment industry, technology has come to our rescue and threatens to cut the ground from beneath their feet.
We might not like the way this has happened and it is true that some artists have suffered as a consequence. But in the absence of governments shouldering their proper responsibility to stop aiding and abetting thieves, that is a price worth paying. And even if it isn’t – it is a price that is going to be paid anyway. You can’t uninvent the Internet.
Rights that cannot be protected and enforced mean nothing. Artists have to come to terms with the reality that they need to make sure they get adequate compensation for their performance at the “point of sale”. It’s irrational and futile for creators to be insisting on payment forever for what they did once, no matter what some countries’ laws say. They should just look at allofmp3.com and its ilk as free advertising.
CH asks what are property rights.
Property rights are the way in which humans express their need to enjoy the fruits of their time, labour and entrepreneurial skill. It is at root based on our need for security and predictability. If I have no idea whether my work in growing corn or producing a CD will make me any return or not, I’ll be less inclined to do it. I need some way of garnering a return. That usually means having exclusive use and control over something for a period of time.
Now this is all very theoretical but that is basically what property rights are for. Even if you don’t buy the idea of natural rights, it is possible to see how rights emerge from Man’s need to survive and thrive through production and exchange. The tricky bit is nailing this all down in law and realising that in areas such as music and arts, the boundaries get very fuzzy.
Which is why we have lawyers.
Samizdata Illuminatus writes:
“I have no reason to trust allofmp3.com any less than, say, companies like Sony or BMG.”
In fact, you have far more reason to trust allofmp3.com. As fas as I am aware, allofmp3.com hasn’t been busted for payola scams or smuggling spyware onto its customers computers: Washington Post story
“I hear they’re replacing laboratory rats with lawyers.”
“Oh yes, why?”
“Well, first, there are more of them; second, the lab assistants don’t get attached to them and third, there are some things that a rat simply won’t do.”
Johnathan,
What you have done here is provide a justification for property rights, of some sort. You have not defined what they are, which was the basis of my question.
Earlier I said “It is simply the operation of the market, something which we all support.”, which is complete nonsense of course. What we do, or I do anyway, is recognise the the existence of markets; we don’t try to deny them or advocate the nonsense of legislating them out of existence just because we don’t like their effects.
What we have here is a case where the market is acting, very strongly, against property rights as they are defined in Western juristictions.
We are in favour of property rights, but which ones? Are we all of a sudden against particular property rights just because markets are working against them? Or, in this case, should we bemoan the effects of the market on one of our core totems?
This is a case where markets and property rights are in open, and blazing, conflict.
In this case, supporting the markets against all comers means supporting theft. Supporting property rights, in this case, means trying to buck the market.
Or we can just accept the reality that markets are in conflict with one of our core beliefs. It simply is not necessary to approve of the situation, just because it is markets in operation.
Johnathan,
Your comment:
“If I have no idea whether my work in growing corn or producing a CD will make me any return or not, I’ll be less inclined to do it.”
is a good free market sentiment. It looks as if musicians and singers will have the choice in the near future whether to persevere with their art or do something else.
I would like to think that the Chas and Dave’s, Tony Christie’s, and Daniel O’Donell’s of this world will be discouraged first, whereas those performers in it for “Arts sake” might continue.
I do not think that is clear at all. The devil, as so often, is in the detail. I just do not happen to agree with the way the right to benefit from their work that Sony or BMG or Fred The Fiddler are currently understood to have are actually a clear example of property rights at all. They are really the product of wierd and baroque laws that are neither commonsensical nor enforcable (and that is a killer combination),
Just as I think ‘process patents’ are an absurdity, I think the idea that an artist has such extended rights to a reproducable product is also absurd. As someone who has done consultancy work myself, I might like the idea of what I say giving me perpetual rights every time it gets passed on but that is really not a realistic expectation.
Chris H, with respect, I think you give the impression that property rights are like the search for the Holy Grail. Laws, like language, evolve. We need to recognise the need for trial and error across time. That is the beauty of the English Common Law heritage.
Markets and property rights have a sort of dialectical relationship (now that is not something you will normally see me write). They influence one another. New ideas and products can change how we view what is owneable and identifiable. The property rights suitable to early 18th century England are very different to what will work in say, 22nd Century America. And there is nothing very odd about that.
If a musician wants my money he can:
1. Busk and ask for a donation.
2. Get me to come to his gig.
3. Put his MP3s on his website and ask for a donation (which is the 21st Century version of 1).
He could try to sell me something with DRM in it, but I would probably decline.
If he wants to extract money with menaces or get the state to do it for him, he can get lost.
In 1977 in Britain, a revolution happened in the music business.
The little people discovered they could do it for themselves.
Sick of gatefold concept prog rock triple albums (one track a side) Punk happened and blew the old music industry away (for a while anyway).
Kids found that they could record and press their own records and sell them at a profit without having an EMI or Capitol recording contract that would lock you into a position of being paid a pittance for your talents.
Music proliferated and independent labels proliferated.
People had found a new way of doing it, and the “industry” was flummoxed.
Ah but not for long. The Industry started buying up the best acts and the successful indies.
The perfect market is the touchstone of economics, unfortunately capitalism always veers towards monopoly, given a chance.
The smartest band of that era were the Police. All except Sting had been in successful bands before and knew the ropes. They recorded the first album from which Roxanne etc comes on their own money.
Then they held an auction for the tape amongst the big Record Co’s.
They signed to A&M with the largest royalty rate ever negotiated.
Well that was the smart way to millions, use the old industry to your own ends.
Others like Crass, though thinking themselves “Vivian” anarchists were , in fact, model capitalists. Getting their message accross, using their own money and taking what profit accrues.
Well now the ball game of technology and distribution has changed once again.
If I were a musician, I would look at ways to go direct to the punter, because today you can.
The idea of being a star though, in a Shirley Bassey sort of way, must be fading.
The whole worth ranking is crumbling.
Let me draw an analogy based on Perry’s specious reasoning.
I am going to set up a book club in which any book costs 25 cents. On certain days, book club members will get together at the bookstore of my choosing. They will locate their books and at the selected time, they will all race from the store at once with their loot. I will remain behind to confound the dazed cashiers by handing them the payment that my “market” has decided is just.
Property rights really must be dead, when even their most principled defenders start coming up with rationalizations for theft.
Samizdata Illuminatus writes:
“I have no reason to trust allofmp3.com any less than, say, companies like Sony or BMG.”
It seems Sony or BMG had signed a contract with the artists. That makes a difference.
“But allofmp3 *IS* paying royalties, just not as much as the music biz elsewhere would like.”
You can’t decide unilaterally what royalties you wish to pay. You need to have the consent of the owners – i.e. a contract.
“[the artists] … that they need to make sure they get adequate compensation for their performance at the “point of sale”.”
That’s your opinion. Fine. But one must respect the rights and opinions of the artists. The law must award them protection for whatever contractual arranegements they make.
John East writes:
Surely, as libertarians, or at least sharing libertarian values, contributors to this site must agree that … copyright rules should be observed.
I too used to believe in copyright. But you don’t have to believe in copyright (or patents, or trademarks) to be a libertarian. I tried to argue against Stephen Kinsella’s ideas on the abandonment of IP rights, but found his case unarguable and had to abandon my previous position; which as anyone who has ever had to abandon a previously cherished position will know, is a total and complete bummer. You might want to check him out:
http://www.stephankinsella.com/ip/
The key document is the following PDF file:
Against Intellectual Property
Give it a read. See what you think.
Kinsella’s anti-IP position is based on a rather ancient libertarian position, as outlined by Murray Rothbard in Man, Economy, and State, that:
The tune, for instance, of ‘Stairway to Heaven’, is abundant to all, so according to Kinsella cannot therefore be property. Yes, a CD of Led Zep IV can be property, because it is made of scarce metal and plastic, and a performance of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by the surviving member of Led Zep (assisted by Phil Collins) is property you have to buy a ticket to witness, because the members of the band are also scarce. But the actual tune belongs to everybody, like the air that we breathe.
Led Zep created a recipe for combining different notes in a particular way, and just like all other recipes, such as those used to turn moss into fire, and wood into wheels, is a meme which spreads abundantly through the world, and which therefore benefits the general welfare of all mankind.
You have to read Kinsella to get the full gist, but try a thought experiment. Hum the tune to ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Do this somewhere private. Now who owns the tune that you just made from that memory in your head? I think you do. Who owns those air vibrations you just made? Again, you. If you recorded yourself humming ‘Stairway to Heaven’, who would own the resulting recording? Of course you would. If you wrote down the notes to ‘Stairway to Heaven’, on a piece of blank music notation paper, who would own the piece of paper, and the blobs of ink upon it? You would.
Would any member of Led Zep in any way notice any direct tangible loss of property, because you now have a piece of music notation with ‘Stairway to Heaven’ upon it? Of course they wouldn’t. If some radio station assaulted your body, on your own property, with radio waves, without obtaining your permission beforehand, and you then recorded these radio waves in such a way that you could play them back as ‘Stairway to Heaven’, would Led Zep notice any loss of tangible property as a result? Of course not.
If you spent the rest of your life listening to that recorded tune on your iPod, would anybody else notice any loss of their property? Clearly the answer is no.
But would Robert Plant notice if you took one of his CDs? Yes, perhaps.
That is why the CD is property. It is tangible and it is scarce. That is why the song ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is not property, because it is intangible and it is abundant. It is ubiquitious, it fills the airwaves on a regular basis, and it is in the memory banks of a few billion heads.
Music companies should concentrate on producing great shows and quality DVD and CD products at prices to compete with iTune downloads, and other much cheaper MP3 outlets.
Personally I still buy CDs, but only because I’m a fool, and I like having a quality hard backup. I have no moral problem downloading MP3 files for free, from wherever I can get them, especially if I can’t find the CD easily for sale. But the ease with which I can buy CDs from Impulse, at Euston Station, is worth the few quid I occasionally expend in that direction. Plus, I’m happy for Natalie Imbruglia et al to receive a few extra bits of fiat paper for her trouble. And I get the printed song lyrics and some nice pictures of Natalie to go along with the hard backup.
Don’t weep for the music companies. They’ve been cleaning up for years. And now whether they like it or not, they’re going to have to shape up or die in the marketplace. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Now I could bore you to death about how the state has rewarded intellectuals for decades, with copyright protection, because intellectuals generally produce so little of real tangible value, but I think that’s enough for now.
Just read Kinsella.
Mark Lindholm: Reproducible data is different to physical things and need to be treated differently. How differently is a matter for debate, certainly, but just mindlessly intoning “property rights” is not very helpful. Sure, I am all for them (to put it mildly), but how to best define and defend them for vastly different classes of things is something that needs flexible thinking so that theories have some relation on the real world. As a ‘knowledge worker’, I do not think I should still ‘own’ the delivered knowledge in the way musicians seem to want to. Nor should I get a major say in who gets to pass that knowledge on others for decades afterwards.
That is why I am largely indifferent to most patents (and willing to be talked out of my attachment to the rest) and as a previous commenter said, I think process patents are preposterous.
The big record labels, let’s call them Big Music, made the possible mistake of not realizing what their product was.
Big Music (and many people here) was under the impression that its product was music, but in Big Music’s heyday the real product (that only they could deliver) was packaging. People would buy albums as much for the cover and lyrics and neat art and extras as they did for the music. In Europe (and sometimes the states) even singles had catchy attractive covers.
As early as the mid 70’s, it was possible on a wide scale to make good quality tape recordings from either broadcasts or from records (one person buys the album and records it for all their friends). But most people didn’t do that because they didn’t want just the music they wanted the whole album experience.
What we’ve seen since the late 70’s has been the shrinkage and ultimate elimination of said packaging. Cassettes and CD’s just plain couldn’t compete with the opulance of 12″ records. I remember the joy of slitting the cellophane and the new album smell and reading the lyrics when listening to albums for the first time. That model is dead, dead, dead. I’ve never had that same feeling with cassettes or CD’s. And now, computer technology has rendered packaging obsolete and Big Music has yet to come up with another product that only they can provide and so they’re hectoring about downloading when the music was never their most valuable asset in the first place.
That’s my take at any rate.
“Hum the tune to ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Do this somewhere private. Now who owns the tune that you just made from that memory in your head?
This is ridiculous. I am currently instructing a fourteen year-old kid on guitar, and the very first thing he’s wanted to start playing is that song. Bless his heart: he’s working hard at it. But I’m pretty sure that he will never in his life approach what Page (of of whom I am not the greatest fan, by a long shot) threw down on his original recording — which, I hasten to add, “fills the airwaves on a regular basis” because people are paying for it in order to attract listeners within range of their adverts.
When I bought that record, I was paying to hear Page do what he did with his Telecaster. And he’s the one — along with anyone else with whom he contracted in order to deliver the product, which was his call, as a matter of the right of disposition, together with the rest of his band — who deserves the money.
I’m going to assume that the “daft” comment is directed at me, though it doesn’t really address my post other than with insults.
You say you are largely indifferent to patents, but in your remarks you are illustrating an indifference to copyright, which is the issue at hand. Do you believe in copyright?
Let me rewrite my analogy.
I am going to start a book club in which I scan books that I have bought into PDF or E-book form and sell copies of them online for 25 cents, and send what I consider to be the proper royalties to the book publishers. Perfectly legitimate, right? Won’t it be nice, in the emerging age of the E-reader, to have all the books you want at the price “the market” demands?
Agree with everything but the last “mafia” bit:
I’m not ure such a parralel exists. What I would not the state to do as the reaction to my “own arrangement” is too shoot my family and brake my backbone…
Try resisting arrest then when the boys-in-blue come to drag you off to jail for refusing to pay your protection money, I mean, taxes.
Yes, when e-books become convenient enough, that too will go the way of music.
So, in other words, you do not believe in copyright. Or, you believe in it as long as the publication and distribution of a song or book requires a physical medium, but when technology advances enough to easily publish and distribute intellectual property digitally, then its time to do away with it.
Certainly, the digital age means that intellectual property will become cheaper. But that doesn’t mean that the consumer should be able to arbitrarily decide how much he wants to pay for someone else’s creation, or if he wants to pay at all.
The real problem, as I see it, is that now that people can steal intellectual property without any linked theft of physical media (or any threat of consequences), they pretend that no theft at all is occurring. But it is the intellectual property that copyright is designed to protect, not the printing press.
Apparently, the “complete enthusiasm for property rights” here only exists until someone else steals that property and begins to use and redistribute it as they see fit. At which point, “[l]ike it or not”, the original owner has lost all property rights and should stop crying about trying to get them back. (And apparently anyone who shares in these violations of property rights by helping themselves to the stolen goods should be above criticism too.)
Quick query – does this attitude apply to stealing property from everyone, or only to the sinister corporations who have a product you desire but don’t want to pay their asking price for, and whose wholly legal and consensual business model and methods you don’t like? For example, would you exhibit this “like it or not that’s simply the way it is now, just lie back and think of England” attitude toward people who have their private property seized by force and without compensation by a government for the purpose nationalization or redistribution to government cronies?
It amazes me how quickly and easily people betray their ideals when doing so profits them in the real world. It’s both amusing and disappointing to see the libertarians here selling their principles — in this case literally for a song.
It simply comes down to this – music is generally distributed with contractual stipulations to not reproduce. Ne’er-do-wells ignore the stipulations and release easily reproducable copies into the digital whirlpool, and voila, protecting rights is near impossible without draconian use of force.
Options to release products that aren’t so easily extracted could work for a while, but anything that can be made in the digital world can typically be undone by anyone with the leisure time figure it out. Technologies of the last few decades seem to be redefining property rights and seems to be evolving a notion that property rights are directly connected with the ease by which maintaining possession by force by the individual, or a low level of State, can be accomplished.
Just as the US, in its infancy, didn’t feel the need to protect traders transporting on the high seas as a necessary function of State, at least to a point of using heavy force, protecting traders who choose to use a medium of distribution so open and accessable, then they should not get the benefit of a scheme of protection that stamps out liberty in the process.
Shad writes:
“Quick query – does this attitude apply to stealing property from everyone, or only to the sinister corporations who have a product you desire but don’t want to pay their asking price for, and whose wholly legal and consensual business model and methods you don’t like?”
Wholly legal? I’d say you were on questionable intellectual ground if you described some of them as ‘occassionally legal’.
And, yes, that does matter. A great deal. There is simply no point banging on about intellectual property rights if the companies exploiting those rights are really no better than the miscreants who are abusing them.
The business of music both requires, and is evolving, a new method of distribution. Mercifully, it seems this will be without the rapacious intervention of music publishers or record companies. This will, ultimately, be of benefit to all parties – with the exception of lawyers and music business executives, of course.
“There is simply no point banging on about intellectual property rights if the companies exploiting those rights are really no better than the miscreants who are abusing them.”
I Felt for a moment there that I had fallen in to the Daily Koz, or some other lefty site.
Are property rights to be granted only to those whom we morally approve of? Who decides what is morally correct, and who therefore get these property rights?
There is an attitude here similar to the moans about Big Pharma elsewhere. “They have something I want. They won’t sell it to me at the price I think it is my right to pay. Therefore I have a right to rip them off as I see fit”
Sorry guys. Just because the market model for the distribution of music is falling over does not mean that we are justified in abandoning principle for the sake of expediency.
Thanks for the response, GCooper.
Anyone else want to commit to record whether they think it’s okay to ignore the contract and property rights of people and entities they don’t like?
By the way, I noticed the Samizdata blog legal notice on the front page:
If I disagree with this license (on moral, ethical, legal, artistic, religious, political, or any other grounds) or if I decide I don’t like the way that Samizdata behaves, will everyone here support my ignoring its terms and using the (easily-reproduced) content from this website in any way I see fit, including making a profit off of the work without compensating the original contributors, or passing off the work as my own?
The company is compensating them in Russia and the technological facts make that the global price for their product.
And all creative commons for Samizdata says is you have to attribute them. I have seen them quoted in various books and I am willing to bet they are fine with that too.
Perry writes:
“Yes, when e-books become convenient enough, that too will go the way of music.”
Why wait for e-books ? If you don’t recognize the validity of copyright then you can just copy any book, republish it and sell for profit. Or you can traduce it and sell in a foreign market.
If you feel magnanimous, you might even send the author a few pennies out of your profits as you see fit!
Now, musicians can earn a living by giving performances, but how is an author going to survive without copyrights ? And there is no difference in principle between hardcopy and e-books.
“And all creative commons for Samizdata says is you have to attribute them. ”
If there is no copyright – why are we bound to respect the Creative Common License ?
I think you misunderstand me… I am all for authors getting a market price for their product, I just think there needs to be some realism that if the prices do not reflect the low cost of distribution, it just invites piracy, and attempts to add extra layers of laws to keep prices up cannot work in the long run.
My delight at the new methods are that the cost are low enough to makes zero cost systems like the old Napster less attractive. Sony et al may not have as much control but that does not cause me sleepless nights.
Chris Harper writes:
“Are property rights to be granted only to those whom we morally approve of? Who decides what is morally correct, and who therefore get these property rights?”
Music publishers and record companies have been afforded extraordinary rights and powers to enforce those rights which extend way beyond those granted to almost any other kind of enterprise.
It is not unreasonable for the validity of those rights to be examined in the light of changing techonlogy (something music publishers have successfuly managed to do since the virtual death of sheet music). Nor is it unreasonable to question wheher these companies and organsations have behaved in such a way that they no longer deseve the privileges they have been granted.
If you simply do not care how companies behave ethically, that is up to you. I, however, do and I’m particularly keen that they are not allowed the privileges of a policeman when they have the morals of a burglar.
This is ridiculous. I am currently instructing a fourteen year-old kid on guitar, and the very first thing he’s wanted to start playing is that song.
I hope you’re making him pay ten pence into a swear box every time he practices it, and I hope you’ll be sending the swear box off the Atlantic records when it’s full.
Bless his heart: he’s working hard at it. But I’m pretty sure that he will never in his life approach what Page (of of whom I am not the greatest fan, by a long shot) threw down on his original recording
Such negativity. I assume that when I teach children things, that they will go way beyond anything that’s ever been done before, by anyone. To me it’s the joy of teaching, the hope that you could be a minor stepping stone on some future genius’s road to greatness. You may want to be a bit less negative. If you assume that a child will never be as good as Jimmy Page, you’re going to be absolutely right. If you assume that one day they might be better than Jimmy Page, then one day you could just be right.
— which, I hasten to add, “fills the airwaves on a regular basis” because people are paying for it in order to attract listeners within range of their adverts.
It’s dead simple, Billy. Radio stations may be paying Atlantic records for the privilege of broadcasting songs, that’s up to them, but when these radio stations invade my property with radio waves, which I did not invite in, anything which those radio waves change within the bounds of my property, including hard disks in my MP3 players, or iron crystals on my tapes, belongs to me. Not to the Radio station and not to Atlantic records.
When I bought that record, I was paying to hear Page do what he did with his Telecaster.
Well, good for you Billy. I hope Jimmy appreciates it.
And he’s the one — along with anyone else with whom he contracted in order to deliver the product, which was his call, as a matter of the right of disposition, together with the rest of his band — who deserves the money.
He never contracted with me Billy, when I heard his song on the radio for the first time, and then recorded it, and then started working out how to play it. Yes, many years later I did actually buy the album in CD form, to have something nice and shiny in my collection which reminded me of my childhood. But that first time round, taping off some late night rock show, I never signed any real contracts or even any implicit contracts. In some ways you could even say I was assaulted by the radio company, through its infliction of radio waves against my bodily person. Do you think I should sue?
Just read Kinsella. He makes a lot more sense than me.
You’ll especially like the bit about another huge creative talent, Einstein, and how he couldn’t copyright E=mc squared, when he threw it down in ink, in that Swiss library after a creative session, which even today (some) young fourteen year olds are learning directly as a result of his genius.
Yes, at first I thought it was ridiculous that copyright is merely an anti-libertarian construct of the state, and it took me a while to come round to sharing that view. But Rothbard was right. If something is ubiquitious, it cannot be property.
BTW, when exactly do you think Mr Page and his estate should stop receiving copyright fees for ‘Stairway to Heaven’? When he dies? Fifty years after his death? Ten years after the song’s release? Never? Pick one, or pick one of your own, and let me know. Then we can have some fun deconstructing your answer.
Copyright is totally artificial, it is in the Constitution because there is no common law protection.
Exactly why if you make vibrations in the sir and someone else captures them do you think the maker ownes the performance and copying rights to the vibrations? Ever since computers, every person who owned and used a computer violated traditional copyright law. Why can a store have a household stero playing copyrighted music but if the stero is a gome type install no fees to the artists are required, but itf it is a professional setup a contract with BMG is required. Copyright is pragmatic accomidation to the interaction of intellect and physical. There is little principle in it.
There does need to be some way to give producers of digital goods a way to sell their works but the trouble is that the ways which suited the pre-digital age do not work well. I kind of agree with the article that things like allofmp3 are the way forward but just acting as if the technology has not changed everything is the approach of the ostrich rather than a principled man. I have re-read the article twise and I cannot see where he is doing anything except pointing out the obvious fact that things are different now and attempts by the old companies to turn the clock back are futile.
Jack you say
But you did, you chose to turn on your radio, tuned to a particular station, that would probably play music you enjoy listening too. You then chose to copy that music to a tape, or a player. You chose not to go and pay for the music, in the format it was offered for sale in, from the people who owned the rights to publish that music.
I did it too, it was theft, still is.
Later
Gengee
Maturin — There is very little to say to you.
1) I started playing guitar in 1969. That’s nearly thirty-seven years, now. I’ve seen a lot and I’ve taught a few. I know who’s got it and who doesn’t. (For instance: it’s how I know that I don’t.) The kid I’m talking about will have a good time with his guitar, but he’s never going to approach the sublimity of someone like Page. You can call it “negativity”, it’s just fact.
2) Nobody who talks about “invasion” with radio waves is sensible. At all.
“I am all for authors getting a market price for their product.”
Fine, so that is agreed.
Now it only remains to work out the details. You need to have a legal framework to enable authors to get the market price for their work. This legal framework is called “copyright”. Maybe the current legal framework is outdated and needs to be modified. It’s ok to ponder how best to update the laws.
It is wrong to just ignore them, or to claim that copyright is a wrong concept and all laws need to be abolished.
Which is what I am doing.
The music industry had their chance to work towards a ‘better way’ and they elected to just fight for the old way. It may be that the ways things are now developing is not the ‘best’ way (I really do not know) but it was inevitable that in the absence of a viable industry led way which reflected technological reality, something like allofmp3 was going to happen.
Frankly I suspect by the time ‘Big Music’ bows to the inevitable, they will not be ‘Big Music’ anymore (no one will be) but clearly the paradigm has shifted and expectations of what sort of control/return musicians can expect need to shift with it. It is not just a legal or property rights issue as a technology and reality issue.
I do not think copyright is the ‘wrong’ issue (though I do personally prefer creative commons) but rather what expectations can be reasonably expected from a copyright… that is the issue. That is what has changed.
That has been assumed by all the pro-allofmp3.com commentariat but I do not believed it. I’ve never alleged mafia involvement, but Russia ranks #122 on the WSJ?Heratige Freedom Index and is not celebrated for its attention to rule of law.
Billy, it would have been nice if you could have picked a point where copyright no longer applies to any piece of recorded work, but as you obviously wished to avoid this, perhaps quite sensibly as any answer you could have given would have shown copyright law up for the nonsense that it is, let’s talk about your second point:
2) Nobody who talks about “invasion” with radio waves is sensible. At all.
So it would be Ok if I, say as the chief executive of a power company, ran an electric power cable over close to your house, on my land, and then put a mobile phone transmitter near your house too, on my land, just for luck (with full planning permission from the Secretary of State)? If I did this, would you deride those who lived in your area who complained about my action as insensible, for complaining about such electomagnetic ‘invasion’? Radio waves are obviously a lot less powerful than the two electromagnetic sources above, but it’s only a matter of degree. All three cases (radio waves, power cables, mobile mast transmitters) do cause electromagnetic invasion, right through the property and right through the bodies of everyone within range. To deny this, in order to avoid answering my question about when copyright should end, tells its own story.
BTW, just for the record, so to speak, could you confirm that you have never recorded a song off a radio and then played it back without paying its copyright owner a fee? If you can confirm this, then in advance I will take my hat off to you for living the life of a copyright saint. At my guess, about 99.99% of the rest of us living in Britain would also have to take our hats off to you.
But you did, you chose to turn on your radio, tuned to a particular station, that would probably play music you enjoy listening too. You then chose to copy that music to a tape, or a player.
Gengee, whatever I do inside the boundary lines of my own land property, with my own hardware property inside those lines, is entirely up to me. It is absolutely no concern of anybody else, unless it physically aggresses against them. This is known as the libertarian non-aggression principle. You may have heard of it before? In the case you describe above, where I tape the radio waves coming from the outside world (or even from a satellite registered in a state where no copyright laws exist) I never leave my property, and nobody outside knows anything has happened inside my property. So it is impossible for me to have aggressed against anyone, so therefore I have broken no law based upon the libertarian non-aggression principle. A person must know they have been aggressed upon, before any aggression can be claimed. Yes, if I break through the back fence of the Glastonbury rock festival, or steal a CD from Impulse at Euston station, I am aggressing against other people’s physical scarce tangible property, so therefore I am breaking such a law. But in the case of taping radio waves, from some outside origin, no such principle-based law has been broken.
I did it too, it was theft, still is.
No Gengee, it isn’t. I used to agree with you that it was. But I was wrong, at least if you agree with me that the only law system one should believe in is that based upon the libertarian non-aggression principle.
You might find this surprising, but this belief in libertarian law based upon the libertarian non-aggression principle is quite popular amongst libertarians these days. Funny that.
You may not choose to share with me my belief in non-aggression principle based law, and that is your privilege; so in that case we would have to agree to differ. But if you do believe in it, you will have to argue with Kinsella, rather than a mere gadfly such as me, as to why such a natural law system can still hold to a definition of property which includes copyrightable materials.
But please don’t listen to me. Please read Kinsella instead, particularly his PDF article Against Intellectual Property. You’ll find him a lot more persuasive than me.
As Billy has spurned my challenge on when copyright should end, I think that’s enough from me on the subject.
I strongly disagree. Because consumers wish to set their own price does not mean that the producers have to accede. One commenter asserts three different ways he will buy music (attend gigs, donate to buskers, donate on your site where you offer free mp3s) and that’s certainly his right. But it is the right of the music producers to tell him whether that model will be honored for a specific artist.
The comparison to resale does not hold because a music sale is a incense to use. Purchasing one of my CDs does not give you rights to rerecord Hoagy Carmichael tunes or to resell my versions on a Russian Web site.
Lastly, you make a funny point comparing the Russian Mafia to government. Clever, but we still get to vote on our government, flawed though the process may be, and as I recall from Blues Brothers 2000, nobody gets to vote on the Russian Mafia.
By opposing allofmp3.com on property rights grounds, I was lumped in with the RIAA as unwilling to embrace new business models. I have written frequently on this topic on my own blog. I wrote in July of 2003 that “Supporting a legal distribution method might bring Schumpeterian-gales of reform to the big-bad music Industry.”
I’m all for hating “Big Music” and I am all for mp3 models. But they have to have the acceptance of buyer and seller — as many sites do — before I will embrace them
Look, Maturin: your original resort to “invasion” by radio waves was a rationale for exploiting a benefit of the so-called “invasion”, but now you’re changing the subject with the example of an invasion without a benefit to exploit in order to attempt making the same point, but I know the difference, even if you don’t.
And: no; I have never recorded a song off the radio. Never. Ever.
See, I’m not entirely sure I am breaking the law. Yes, the RIAA tells me that I am but should I take their word for it entirely, considering that they have a rather large financial stake in my obeying the “law”?
When it comes to this site, I don’t see any personal moral problems. The company is acting within the laws of its country and apparently a good number of nations seem to have no real problem with it. After all, hasn’t it been widely publicized and even won an award in Europe? I’d think that is the opinion were widely against the site, it wouldn’t be around right now. But it’s clear to me that artists, or at least their record labels, are getting compensated. Now it may not be the amount they feel they should be getting but how many folks right now are toiling away at a job getting paid much less than they think they should get paid? Remember, this compensation level isn’t set by the market or even by the artists themselves but by an alliance of companies that, together, have a virtual monopoly on the recording industry and collude to fix prices. They say I’m breaking the law. I say I’m paying the price the market has set, free from their government arm-twisting.
By the logic vended by Maturin, there should be no intellectual property protection for drugs, either, They are simply chemical equations, and no one has the moral right to hold the LIVES of other people hostage when he can create and distribute these formulas, even without compensation.
The denial of intellectual property rights is the advocacy of socialism for the mind, nothing more or less. Its upshot would be “Atlas Shrugged” coming true by reason of the productive minds of the Earth going “on strike.” You’d have the occasional Salk pull a Dagny, but there would be no incentive for a freedom-loving individual to enslave himself for the benefit of others.
Intellectual property rights is a strange egg when assertions of collectivism can be hurled from both sides and both have a point. People’s labor has a value and shouldn’t be obsconded with, but isn’t it collectivist to use force to assure that rights in reproducible property be adhered to? The collective will intervene to make sure that a minimum wage be paid to creators of musical and literary works (last time I checked people have been making music and telling (and recording) stories before the rise of Statism)? If it is not simply as stark as a minimum wage then those who support copyrights should support collective bargaining just to be on the safe side that labors are fairly rewarded. The right of first possession of physical resources can be just as nebulous a concept as non-physical intellectual rights.
Do we want to live in a world where countries and trademark a name of a cheese or a wine? Will man suddenly become less industrious to build a better mouse trap unless force is used? Are the arts simply another form of wage earning that, while non-physical, has just the same rights as physical production that inherently has limitations while the digital could be literally infinite? Are invasive measures like hauling off servers and harddrives, containing non-infringing private data, to satisfy the preservation of rights where we want to go? Does it make sense to try and preserve the creator’s rights to be shielded from intrepid capitalists who would reproduce without compensation only to have the rights snapped up by Big Interests anyway? And ultimately, as every string of notes has been combined, and the human condition has been examined in every feasible way, who is going to be the arbiter as to what is new enough for protection? We are quickly working our way toward collectivism in the arbitration of intellectual rights, which is quickly overshadowing physical production which is where real wealth is born.