Is this a suit I see before me? Come, let me grasp it.
For this week's forum, Robert Chalmers, self confessed worker of the dark side (lawyer) presented A (very) quick intro to Music Copyright Stuff.1
He was clear, entertaining, funny, articulate and gave the impression of knowing a lot.
Thanks Robert and whoever organised for you to come.
It was interesting to see how there were more questions than time - an indicator of the interest and relevance of this field for us.
Three thoughts regarding copyright:
1. It's difficult to understand what's going on. Copyright, unlike Seb's movement to sound device, is not for the home hobbyist.
2. "It is ultimately all about the money".1 I got the impression this means, if one party (tech student or independent tech ex student say) doesn't have the money, while another party (scary big multinational record company) does have the money, the first party is unlikely to be in a good position in litigious negotiations.
3. Some of the laws are both crazy and impractical to enforce. For example, it's currently illegal to copy music from a legitimately purchased CD to an ipod for personal use. It's even illegal (but not for much longer) to copy a TV show onto a VCR. 1 Saints preserve us.
Two bonus thoughts
1. Robert had some sobering thoughts about how it's not necessary to be making money with copyright infringement to come to the attention of the copyright owners.
2. Robert said that Warner had recently cut a deal with Bit torrent. Interesting times for the record companies. Are they out of a job, and will being painful and tightening their hold really save them? Interesting to see what happens here, and good on Warner for being so 21st century.
One more thought
Here's a spectacular book Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Lawrence Lessig which discusses the current state of IP and copyright. It's dismaying stuff.
Very very last thought
I've been pondering Robert's comment that no one likes copyright until they have something to protect. So far no one has shown the least interest in ripping me off - maybe it would be quite reassuring if someone actually wanted to claim my work as their own!!! Anyone? No takers? No? oh well...
1. Robert Chalmers. A (very) quick intro to Music Copyright Stuff Lecture at University of Adelaide 18 May 2006
He was clear, entertaining, funny, articulate and gave the impression of knowing a lot.
Thanks Robert and whoever organised for you to come.
It was interesting to see how there were more questions than time - an indicator of the interest and relevance of this field for us.
Three thoughts regarding copyright:
1. It's difficult to understand what's going on. Copyright, unlike Seb's movement to sound device, is not for the home hobbyist.
2. "It is ultimately all about the money".1 I got the impression this means, if one party (tech student or independent tech ex student say) doesn't have the money, while another party (scary big multinational record company) does have the money, the first party is unlikely to be in a good position in litigious negotiations.
3. Some of the laws are both crazy and impractical to enforce. For example, it's currently illegal to copy music from a legitimately purchased CD to an ipod for personal use. It's even illegal (but not for much longer) to copy a TV show onto a VCR. 1 Saints preserve us.
Two bonus thoughts
1. Robert had some sobering thoughts about how it's not necessary to be making money with copyright infringement to come to the attention of the copyright owners.
2. Robert said that Warner had recently cut a deal with Bit torrent. Interesting times for the record companies. Are they out of a job, and will being painful and tightening their hold really save them? Interesting to see what happens here, and good on Warner for being so 21st century.
One more thought
Here's a spectacular book Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Lawrence Lessig which discusses the current state of IP and copyright. It's dismaying stuff.
Very very last thought
I've been pondering Robert's comment that no one likes copyright until they have something to protect. So far no one has shown the least interest in ripping me off - maybe it would be quite reassuring if someone actually wanted to claim my work as their own!!! Anyone? No takers? No? oh well...
1. Robert Chalmers. A (very) quick intro to Music Copyright Stuff Lecture at University of Adelaide 18 May 2006
posted by aajodie at 1:15 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home