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Re: Downloading Classical Music

Author: EEBaum
Date: 2007-08-29 00:39

David:

Whomever wrote that - I'll be over to cook my dinner in your microwave, use your paper plates, and take your TV for a while, maybe forever, afterall - it is all of ours yes?

No. Those items are property. Similarly, the original piece of art would not be free for anyone to take. However, a work of art becomes a piece of the society's culture, and it is my opinion that, after the author has had a significant run at taking advantage of his works, it is of benefit to society at large for outstanding copies of it to be freely duplicable.

Ski:

I have to ask the obvious --- how old is "old enough"? Darn good question... Personally I'd offer this: "the lifetime of the composer plus 50 years". Having said that, I feel that the notion that when something is (of sufficient age) it loses commercial value and should then "belong to society" is a bit Utopian.

A recent study suggests 14 years as the optimal term...

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070712-research-optimal-copyright-term-is-14-years.html

With copyrights lasting as long as they do now, many, MANY works go completely out of print and are lost forever, because people are forbidden by copyright law from making copies of very, very old works. Heck, the storage media (especially now with CDs) deteriorates LONG before life+50. Many less popular and less carefully preserved items end up lost forever.

I find life + 50 to be an obscenely long term for copyright, and can think of no justification for making it that long. Would any self-respecting creator of any creative work conduct business any differently if their work would be released say, 30 years from its creation date? The only rational argument I can even fathom for making it much longer is to provide a financial legacy for one's family years down the road, and, really, you can do that already with the money you make off the work NOW. The only conceivable benefit to the author him/herself of extending it long after their death is that a publisher might throw a few extra bucks at them for the rights to ride the gravy train for a handful more decades.

If this was all about the artist, I'd be more sympathetic. However, copyright term extension is all about Mickey Mouse. And since it was done little by little, over time, we've just gotten used to it.

But those books (for one) don't appear from a vacuum. They have to be printed, published, and marketed. All the people involved in that chain of production would understandably be compensated for their work. Why should the content be omitted from that chain of profiteering?

If the complaint is that things should remain under copyright in order to keep the production chain in business: People are still printing and distributing the Bible, Dickens and Shakespeare. It's profitable enough to keep doing, even though it's public domain.

If the complaint is that free digital distribution eliminates the need for printers and publishers: Printing, publishing, and marketing exist in order to get creative works from the creator to the reader/listener/looker/etc. If your business model is downsized or rendered obsolete by technology, it's hardly the general public's job to keep you employed out of habit. Blacksmithing has also been hit hard over past centuries.

-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com

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Downloading Classical Music new

Caco185

2007-08-18 00:02