dhbailey wrote, in part:
I ...<snippage>... am intrigued by the way that many people seem to think that additional exposure to a potential wider buying audience is what we musicians want,
I blame the model of the commercial radio stations for this. Years before there was an "all-talk, all the time" format, there was music on the radio, and one did not have to pay for it to enjoy it. You turned it on for free, and there was music. You only had to pay if you didn't want to hear what everyone else apparently did, in which case you went out and bought the record, or if you had the skillset to play it yourself, the music. Then you were like your grandparents, who had to purchase the music they wanted to play or hear. Sure the advertisers paid the stations, who played the music, so the music wasn't necessarily "free", but it certainly looked that way to the listeners.
It seems to me that
The same attitude goes for people wanting to download copyrighted music without the copyright owners' permission, as if we have an inherent right as Americans (or maybe even as human beings) to be able to listen to or perform any and all music ever written and never have to help the composers earn a living so they can write more great music.
is a natural consequence of the advertiser paid radio.
The whole intellectual property issue needs to be addressed more specifically and certainly more clearly by the U.S. copyright law, where "fair use" is more clearly defined so that it isn't one incomprehensible gray area which keeps lawyers in business.
For some, it's not just "fair use" that is an in issue with US copyright law, it's the demonstrated recent willingness of the US congress to increase the term of copyright. The consitution specifies that the purpose of copyright is,
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
and I would suggest that while there might be benefit to the people to provide a statutory definition of "fair use", it would be much more useful to provide a statutory definition of "limited times".
And other controversies abound in the area of copyright, too. What about music which was published, and duly copyrighted in 1952, so that it autmatically renewed, even though the copyright owner went out of business in 1958. That music is automatically in copyright, by virtue of the automatic renewal, but the copyright has no owner, either to grant permission to copy, or to enforce copyright. And how about music which is under copyright, where there is a chain of ownership of the copyright, but where the owner denies owning the copyright? And should a copyright holder of a work be permitted to take the attitude "We hold the copyright but cannot supply a copy, but if you find one, you'll have to pay us to make copies for yourself."?
ns _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
