Back in town, re-reading the Podtech v. Bui thread. I just want to talk a little more about copyright and the "ownership" of art, as I felt compelled to scratch Mr. Rice's mosquito bite about being "trollish" ;) I don't mean to start an argument here, I just need to understand how people feel about the things they are making, and I want you all to understand how I feel.
A friend of mine wrote an essay on music a couple years ago called The History of What My Dog Can't Hear: http://www.geartekcorporation.com/texts/essay2.html The essay is about changing the way we perceive music, and accepting it as something that is not ownable: The ownership or authorship of anything is a deception, surely. But I take > no issue with the ownership of objects in the world, like a broom or a drum > for example. Music however, is a thing not in the world, and the present > deception of its ownability places limits on our consciousness. My > motivation here is not to sell iPods. If this near biblical manifesto-mill > can be accused of having any agenda at all, it is merely to assist an > already rising consciousness. Neither are these paragraphs commandments or a > bugle call to what we need to realize or do. We didn't need to be able to > hear tone in music or need to be aware of its color - it's just the way > music is happening to us, rising on a path like the moon. Some astronomers > can predict the path of the moon, and surely artists are those astronomers. > I understand those who are skeptical or scoff at this as pompous and > irrelevant. After all, when you look at the moon, the moon looks still. He feels the same way about music as I do about my videos, and at the end he says, EXTRA CREDIT: Re-read this entire essay but replace the word "music" with the word "images." Re-reading it I realized that I unconsciously lifted metaphor directly from him. Blatant plagiarism! I've already informed him and a check is in the mail. Because music is a matter of shifting consciousness and not worldly sound, a > person can't claim to own or control music any more than they can claim to > own or control a quadrant of mist over a lake. PS. Here is a free album of amazing midi-synthesizer and home-made electronic instrument music by the author of that essay: http://www.geartekcorporation.com/slowdudes/slowdudes.html And some free lo-fi music by me: http://standards.bullemhead.com/ -- Adam Quirk Wreck & Salvage 551.208.4644 Brooklyn, NY http://wreckandsalvage.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
