..on Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 09:50:33AM +1200, Bronwyn Holloway-Smith wrote: > CFF Media Release on s92A here: > http://creativefreedom.org.nz/story.html?id=349 > > > On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:16 PM, Douglas Bagnall > <[email protected]>wrote: > > > Phil Dadson wrote: > > > > > I propose the > > > > > committee draw up a statement for release that reflects opinions and run > > > it past the list for comment, but lets not get bogged down with it. > > > > The committee is quite happy to be in recess at the moment, after the > > symposium effort, but we will see what we can do. > > > > Just to help things along: is anyone opposed to the CFF position on > > section 92? Poke around http://creativefreedom.org.nz/ to see it. > > > > OK, obviously there are some concerns that it is dull and appeasing, but > > does anyone think that we would be better off with disconnections than > > with fines? (which seems a reasonable enough position, given that fines > > are unpleasant). > >
Disconnections are dumb, as are fines. That said it's not the big bad state that is entirely to blame here, nor media moguls. Artists/programmers/writers that choose to release their non-pro-copy work in a form that is easily translated to another form that can be widely distributed are fighting an uphill battle if they expect to have their rights honoured. Fighting the tide is dumb. Pretending there isn't one is dumber. Nonetheless relying on the state to help enforce those rights is big business in the IP sector and reason enough for the state to consider condemning copyright infringement as vital to their digital culture stimulus plans. Obama proves it's also great for pulling votes, 'protecting' the artist by choosing MPAA/RIAA lawyer Joe Biden as Vice President candidate and RIAA lawyer Perrelli as Associate Attorney General. The broader context of the copyright debate isn't ethical rather than poltical and economic.. (As an aside, Biden was forced out of the 1988 U.S. Presidential race (but remained in the U.S. Senate) when it was discovered that parts of his campaign speeches were plagiarized from speeches by British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock and Robert Kennedy). So, rather than seeing vast sums of public and private money absorb into fighting these abstract battles, artists would do well to learn to re-position themselves within the realities of the economic, technical and cultural context within which they expect to compete and/or thrive. This is a reform that needs to happen at a peer level: artists are as much to blame as corporations in this apparent property war (.. and artists love to play the victim, subsisting on the barren fringe of social order). Productive change begins with moving from an artefact driven cultural economy to a service based one, a lesson I've had to learn myself. By choosing pro-copy copyright licenses my work reaches many more people: if people like what I make I become an expert within the scope of my own innovations and perhaps even my field, inviting third party interest in the form of exhibitions, teaching masters programs and even technical and creative consultancy: nothing is sold so much as shared. I've functioned as a largely self-funded artist and inventor on this basis, never selling a thing, for around 10 years. While it hasn't been without it's knots, it's worked well for me in general. The equivalent from the perspective of a live musician would be an expectation of more live performances and various (potentially awful merchandising trajectories). If that doesn't suit them then they'd need to innovate on the level of their recording and distribution medium (as Damian suggests) such that they can push value into the artefact and/or invest in the losing battle of digital rights management. The reality is however is that there may not be a sustainable solution so much as a series of temporary fixes/adaptations.. For now I believe the best strategy is to encourage our peers to consider the potential benefits of pro-copy licensing models; shifting away from an artefact driven cultural economy into something less expensive and more culturally productive given the increasing fluidity of distribution mechanisms, at least in the West. To our credit we're all getting better at this. We are in this regard 'digitally young'.. Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Madrid, Spain currently: Madrid, Spain about: http://julianoliver.com _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
