On 04/21/2012 08:43 PM, Alex Leavitt wrote:
I highly recommend people go to the website and read the details of the
argument and book. The paragraph put into this email glosses over a lot
of it, particularly that Joo's argument relies primarily on analyzing
sampling in the music industry, which (obviously) isn't what the
entirety of free culture encompasses.
Joo's argument is that nothing has changed since the 1980s culturally,
economically or legally.
In order to make this argument he seeks to minimise the impact of
familiar legal cases, even where doing so highlights precisely the
changes in the legal environment that he seeks to deny. e.g. "Newton v.
Diamond" avoided liability on de minimis grounds but "Bridgeport Music,
Inc. v. Dimension Films" didn't.
Despite the fact that Joo also admits that the economic environment may
have changed since the 1980s, economic chilling effects do not exist:
"If clearance fees indeed increased at the end of the 1980s, it was
likely due to changed market conditions[...] The argument that
copyright holders raised clearance prices so high as to prevent the use
of samples defies economic logic."
He comes closest to realising what he's actually saying in this passage:
"It is theoretically possible that a clear requirement of permission for
every sample could make clearing multiple samples extremely expensive.
But such a rule would not necessarily preclude slice-and-dice sampling,
due to a venerable legal principle: it’s only illegal if you get caught."
It's a treasure-trove of references but not of ideas.
- Rob.
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