watching expired appliances align

copying myself

I'm a participant in a college radio email group. I got a little long winded today and posted the following comments about copyright law. It all started with someone innocently referencing an article about music bootlegging posted on Salon.com.

Here are some of my disjointed thoughts:

Do you envision the future the author suggests where:

"Bootlegging may even evolve into something of a hobby for tens of thousands of desktop producers who will spend their free time splicing together the latest top 40 hits for kicks, like model-airplane builders. The record industry could even respond by selling its own do-it-yourself bootleg complete with editing software and authorized samples. In a sense bootlegs are music fans' response to the disposability of pop culture."

To me, that all sounds quite fun (I can already see the package of the ‘do-it-yourself bootlegging kits’ in the aisles at Sam Goody). I think recontextualizing music and art is a positive thing – as long as it isn’t the only thing people are doing with music, art, film, etc. Is it too much to suggest that remixing songs and squashing them together is just a fad (ie, model-airplane kits)? Will this sort of thing just become another music subculture five years from now?

I’m sure we’re all sick of reading articles about the music industry falling apart and losing revenue and looking to blame the internet and filesharing. But I agree with the thoughts that we’re just in the lull of a music cycle. Tuesday’s Salon article about the current state of MP3’s is one of the best technology articles they’ve posted in a long time.

The author of today’s article makes a comparison to ‘pop art’ of the last few decades and I think that’s a valid point. The visual arts have been around for thousands of years whereas recorded music hasn’t been with us for nearly that long. I’m not really sure what I’m trying to suggest…but I think it’s an interesting time to watch as copyright issues are discussed and muddled through.

While in college, I was a big proponent of a film I programmed called "Sonic Outlaws." It was about Negativland and culture jamming and copyright law. It played on a Thursday night in April. Less than ten people paid to see the film – and it screened twice that night! As much as I wish the rest of the population cared about copyright law, I just don’t think they do.

Obviously there are more interesting things going on in the world than copyright law conversations and the questions discussed in this article and others are so hard to answer. I’ve given occasional thought to the issue during the past 12 years (from the time I started creating home videos) and have yet to resolve my feelings on the subject.

As an author and creator, I want to be compensated for my work. The copyright system is one that holds the outright theft of work in check. As someone who desperately wants to own a PVR (be it a TIVO or ReplayTV) I don’t want anything standing in the way of trading copyrighted television shows with someone who remembered to record something I didn’t.