Yes, a lot of ridiculous action is taken in the name of “ownership”, but there are two salient points that should govern your outrage.

First, people who create something like a piece of music or a work of fiction are entitled to do whatever they please with their work, including selling it to a company who will tie it down in a business model that prevents others from viewing it if they are unwilling to pay.

Second, media companies like the Big Four come from an old model. Expecting them to meaningfully change is unreasonable. Their model will die, they will die with it, and in its place will be new companies/models that make sense in the changed, “disrupted” landscape. But it’s facile to point to Radiohead’s or Trent Reznor’s counter-label activities and suggest that they contain evidence that the music labels are “doing it wrong”. These isolated examples do not extrapolate to the multi-billions of dollars music industry (or film, or television, or other media).

These media companies have smart people working for them, and they know that in the short term they lose less if they cling to their existing model for as long as possible (trust me, they’ve looked into it). Most of these companies are public, or at least have short-term gains as a primary motivation.

In our system (and in most western economic systems) the law of the land is that it’s the owner’s prerogative to dispose of their assets however they choose, and if that means making their assets unavailable to students because students don’t have enough money, well that’s one of the down-sides of being in an open market, capitalistic society. (The new Best Buy ads on BOL is another).

Speaking as an unsigned, amateur musician who does sell the occasional MP3 online, my world would be better if the labels disappeared /with/ their marketing dollars. But I still don’t want my music to be traded at will by people who have no intention of paying me for the work. And I should choose my rate… there’s no inherent right for John Q. Public to hear my work and choose how much (or IF) he’d like to pay.

Let’s be sure to keep our outrage focused on the manufacturing of ridiculous new categories of IP, because I think there’s just as much “culture of ownership” on the parts of those who just don’t think it matters if they pay for the media they consumer. And lets be honest: there are far more of these than there are people who are being prosecuted by the BBC for creating Dr. Who knitting patterns.

It’s all about greed I tell you. Corporations, celebrities, sports figures, politicians, and the like can never be rich enough. They have more money than they could ever spend but it’s not good enough. They have to find more creative ways of taking money from the public. I’m not against captialism by any means, but the means to which the money is earned must be ethically undertaken. They see all the virtual money they can steal through copyrights and lawsuits. That said it doesn’t mean it’s ok to steal IP and make a profit but the definition of IP is getting so loose it’s ridiculous.

I’ve been a fan of yours for some time, but I just found a whole new reason to pay attention to what Molly has to say!

You rock!!

I’ll let Cory Doctorow and the other legal “experts” argue the small points…all I care about is this:

I want to artist/content creator to get paid for his/her creation. That’s all…end of story.

So here’s the problem, for years the record labels have not paid the artist what he/she is worth and now artists have to contend with pirates who wish to steal and deprive them of some livelihood. So in the end, the artist gets screwed by both the record company and the pirate.
What is the artist to do to protect his/her insterests?

Perhaps the business model of Trent Reznor and Radiohead’s latest distribution ideas can help the artist…
or I suppose there’s always the love of the music to get by and pay the bills…

I also am interested in questions of ownership and their adverse effects — as you can see by this comment I left for a fellow blogger: (on making a painting from a photo)

http://redpen.vox.com/library/post/a-question-of-ethics.html#comment-6a00c2252ab767f21900e398db857c0002

I’ve been following Lessig for years now, and I’ve learned enough to know the current mess is certainly unprecedented and definitely bad for the people and the culture. Other than that, everything is up for debate.

Remember, sound recordings were going to ruin songwriting (sheet music). VCRs were going to ruin TV. Cable TV was a pirate operation initially. Referencing established master works was once the norm. The first printing press owners did not pay or get permission from
authors.

Copyright and patent law was meant to protect the creator’s financial interest for a few (15?) years only. Mickey Mouse was derivative of Steamboat Willie. All but Disney himself are work-for-hire. Now, it is the Mouse who is in control.

Musicians who do “covers”, DJs who make mixes should be “work for hire” too. Points (royalty) can be awarded for big success, or in lieu of cash.

But, punitive damages, the courts, and the behavior of the Media Megalopolies has turned the entire thing on it’s head, and made greed and fear the primary motivators in the creative arts.

A sorry state of affairs, indeed.

(Hey I’m going to re-post this on my blog and point to yours Ok? ok)

-Richard

But the interesting thing about music specificity is that most bands make most of their money from touring and merchandise, not record sales. Most bands only get maybe a dollar or two. Why do you think more bands don’t speak out about p2p? P2p just gets their product out more. It is the suits who lose money, on an old style business model.

But there is a shift in this new digital world. This shift is the places people are going for their entertainment. The entertainment industry is scared. If you look at TV ratings the younger demographic is shrinking, it is this demographic that they need to keep their business model viable. These executives are my Dads age or more. My Dad is 53. He is an executive and he has no idea how this whole digital world works, it is a foreign world to him, and I know he is not alone. This is the problem, these people do not know how to control a digital world, which is what it’s all about.

@amanda french: Interesting idea. I think perhaps it’s useful to think in terms of Marx’s distinction between use value and exchange value (where use value is a item’s actual practical value to you and exchange value is its worth as a cultural item). You’re right that musicians will probably make money from merchandise and touring – the cultural shift engendered by p2p etc. has reduced the exchange value of music while doing nothing to reduce the same value of t-shirts etc. Software and OS’s, for most people, still retain some sense of both use and exchange value, so people continue to pay for them. Just a theory though… and usually I have no idea what I’m talking about