Search Engine Strategies ChicagoLawrence Lessig and the “Copy Wrong” Laws
I have been attending the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago this week as I am wont to do this time of year. Things got off to a rousing start with a very interesting keynote address from Lawrence Lessig, legendary Internet rights proponent and Stanford professor. He basically extended some of the themes from his book Remix and exhorted us all to activate with our elected officials on behalf of change to copyright laws.
I am a Lessig fan from back in the day and can remember reading his columns in Wired. His presentation was very smooth—in particular, his slide show was very dynamic and sync’d closely with his speech. I imagine he has presented it more than a few times. However, I came away vaguely dissatisfied.
In general I agree with the need for copyright reform as a central part of resolving the hubbub surrounding the music industry. Music companies cannot realistically enforce their interpretation of copyright laws in the digital age; still, it is arguably immoral for people to take and pass along somebody’s creative output without some sort of compensation for the artist. There has to be some common ground, and Professor Lessig paints an evocative picture of modern mash-up artists and children alike being branded as criminals in the heat of an outdated legal structure that is no longer applicable. His solution, broadly speaking, is to evolve the law to allow more explicit, and more enforceable, categorization of use (i.e. professional vs. amateur) and intent (art vs. commerce).
I guess that I feel he underestimates some aspects of the issue and overestimates others. I’ll start with the latter first.
He made a pretty big deal about “remix” artists, those who use existing copyrighted material to create something new. From obvious musical examples, like sample king Girl Talk or legendary remixes like the Grey Album from Danger Mouse, to more obscure You Tube darlings who pair up political footage with a clever soundtrack, he argues persuasively that these artists deserve to be allowed to make their art. These are the artists that must be protected by copyright revision because that is the wave of the future.
I think he oversells this concept and undervalues the “original” artist (to coin a phrase) who creates his or her own, original art. In the future, there are still going to be people who compose their own music and lyrics, and record their original art without using sampling or remixing. Even in the future, there are going to be talented artists who do it the old school way—inventing new music rather than piecing together snippets of old. I’ll go so far as to say that they will remain the dominant type, even at the amateur level. For every user of Garage Band remix software, there will be 10 users of Pro Tools and their own mic or Final Cut and their own camera.
I think he underestimates the power of money in this equation, too. He seems to imply that change will come in ready fashion if we can just update the laws. The fact that record companies literally can’t prosecute every single violator (there are just too many) leads to the conclusion that, if presented with a reasonable alternative, they will readily accept it. I tend to think that both the industry behemoths AND current popular artists are going to continue to fight the sampling/mash-up/digital download trends because of the money involved. For some artists (does Metallica still fit this bill?) they will never agree that they have to relinquish their notions of fair pay for their work. Songwriters will fight for residual rights and ASCAP payments, no matter if the forced payment of such will bankrupt many interactive music providers. They would rather, it seems, kill the golden goose than allow it to change and become a series of golden sparrows with smaller, although more numerous, golden eggs.
To me, that’s what the new technology represents: the true democratization of music as a commercial medium. The barriers to entry, which have been smacked down lower and lower ever since the punk DIY movement, are now essentially eliminated not only for the high-quality recording of music but its marketing as well. Now it is easy and cheap for artists to get their music to fans and be compensated for it. My italics are meant to underscore that in previous eras, distribution of music was a complicated and logistically expensive business that required proper financial resources and industry expertise. Now, however, it is easy for an artist to get a web site and post mp3’s and even to get their music into a 99 cent download compensation model. Thus they are able to reach everybody in the world, although most will not. The point is that they control their own avenues of promotion and distribution and thus will reap an exponentially higher margin of return on revenues, especially compared to their major-label contemporaries who are still being exploited by the suits.
There will still be stars in the future, popular artists who sell significant units, despite the explosion of niche artists or smaller average levels of sales. They will still sign with established music companies because that is an easier way than doing it all yourself, and they’ll make a lot of money (but not as much as their record company, and at a lower percentage of revenue than their independent cousins). Their reach and the sheer numbers of what they do will be lower, on average, than previous stars—there will be no more Elvis, Beatles, or Sinatra. Still, in comparison to their peers, they will sell the most. They may not make themselves as much money, though, as will those who control production, creation, distribution of their own product.
How do we make money? Provide artists tools and services to enable them to make and sell their music. Or perhaps figure out a way to help consumers filter through the exploded universe of content to find what they like and what speaks to them. Or maybe develop and market a “Rock Star—Manage the Tour” version, because that will be a key way artists will make money in the future—touring.
