Eric Baptiste Weighs In On Copyright Summit Issues 75
With the upcoming biennial summit of authors and composers in Washington DC, The Register has an interview with Eric Baptiste, head of the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC), that touches on some of the hot issues. "There's no one-stop shopping anymore. We were working to put that in place in the Santiago Agreement [2000] which got struck down by the European Commission [in 2004]. It would put together all the world's repertory and enable one society to grant a worldwide license. That was a very bold move. It's a pity it was not appreciated at the time by the European Commission."
One Gem But Otherwise Nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
Now it's like physics - value is never destroyed, it goes somewhere else.
Unfortunately, the rest of his comments came across as clueless. He seems to waffle on any direction to take, and instead provides half-hearted statements about possibily, maybe, some-day, exploring something different. IMO, there's nothing else new here, but a general feeling that he wishes the copyright situation would just return to "normal."
Paradox (Score:5, Interesting)
This content is worth nothing without an audience, and our intention is to make it widely available - but at the right price, a price that rewards the labour of people who are producing those great works.
I like this line, because it sort of encapsulates the paradox of trying to force your audience to pay for content when they are pretty clearly demonstrating a willingness to either "steal" it or jump to other content that is provided for free if you make it at all expensive or inconvenient for them. Your content has no value without them, but you want to be able to screw them over at the same time, essentially. Seems like a pretty clear case of trying to have your cake and eat it too.
Now, granted, I'm only an amateur artist/writer/composer, but I am pretty content just to have the audience. As a thousand other small content creators have said on Slashdot in a thousand similar comments before, this notion that people are going to stop creating stuff just because they aren't getting paid for it is demonstrably false. A lot of us do it because it's fun, like fixing motorcycles or watching television is to other people. You can make some sort of argument that the existing system provides "valuable" gatekeeping and quality control if you want, but then you are getting into the murky waters of subjective tastes and preferences, not to mention the vested interest in not having to compete that the "established" artists and composers who are the membership of these societies possess.
The short of it is that the old business models just won't work anymore and these guys are kicking and screaming on the "artists'" side in the same way that the various publishing/distribution associations are. This guy points out himself that concerts and live broadcasts are still doing pretty well. These are clues about the sort of thing that have actual monetary value now; it will take more experimenting and time before new models are worked out and clear paths are found to monetizing content that does not require some sort of physical presence to experience.
I don't think anyone actually has all the answers yet. I have some friends who are semi-professional content creators (musicians, mostly) who are grappling with this more directly, and even they don't have all the answers, but they seem to be doing okay performing locally and giving away their recordings essentially as advertising to fill seats at gigs. For my part, I'll just keep making stuff and throwing it online. I figure if the audience gets big enough, I might be able to eventually do it full time, which is enough of a dream for me.
Re:Transparency. You keep using that word. (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. His cluelessness (or dishonesty) is deep.
there is no business if everything is free
Free? No. Far less expensive than in the recent past, thanks to technological advances, but not free. Storage space and bandwidth costs money. But content monopolists seem unwilling to share any of this bounty, this technology dividend. They also are unwilling to allow the technology to be used to its full potential, for fear of losing control they have already lost anyway. This severely limits its value to all of us. He can't see it. He'd rather rake in 90% or more of a small pie than 1% of a pie 1000 times the size, all the while whining that they deserve 90% of the big pie.
in many new countries the courts don't understand copyright.
He talks as if toll booths are the only way to make money. All this babbling about rights and value and licensing. And then this insulting talking down as if 3rd world countries don't understand copyright. As if he does. They understand it alright, far better than he. They know very well that intellectual property is a tool that rich nations used to wring even more from poor nations.