Klarinet Archive - Posting 000205.txt from 2009/11

From: Michael Nichols <mrn.clarinet@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Musicians Protest use of canned music...by Texas Ballet
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:01:59 -0500

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 4:58 PM, Forest Aten <forestaten@-----.com> wrote:
> Fred....
>
> The point is....the work the musicians do....has value.

That's right. It's intellectual property--a capital asset.

If you think about it, musicians, like a lot of creative
professionals, are really paid more for what they create (a
performance, a new composition, etc.), and not so much for the amount
of work they put in. They don't pay you more if you have to spend
more time at home practicing, for instance. If you're in a
pay-per-service orchestra, though, they'll pay you for the number of
concert performances you produce.

So what happens if you're in a full-time salaried orchestra and you're
producing intellectual property above and beyond what were your normal
duties when your salary was negotiated (such as a videotaped
performance, which has lasting value as a capital asset)? Well, if
you're being paid for what you produce, the fair thing is for the
people you work for to pay you extra for having produced more.

For instance, engineers who work as salaried employees of companies
and who develop patentable inventions for the company are (at least at
most big companies) typically paid a bonus for the intellectual
property rights they create and hand over to the company. A lot of
those ideas that turn into patents start out as solutions to design
problems the engineers were already tasked with solving as part of
their normal duties. But a patent is more valuable than a mere
design, because it means you can collect royalties from competitors
(or sue them and get damages--a major source of revenue for some
patent owners).

So from that standpoint, it would make sense that musicians who create
enduring intellectual property for their employers in the form of
recordings/videos should be similarly rewarded. I realize the analogy
between musicians and engineers is not perfect (the incentives are a
little different, for one thing), but I think the basic principle at
work here is essentially the same. You create new intellectual
property that represents another untapped source of income for the
employer, so you get rewarded for it.

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