Re: [LAU] ASCAP Assails Free-Culture, Digital-Rights Groups

I don't think artists care so much for copyright. Who care for copyright are those publishing companies and then they try to speak for "artists" whom they don't give a sh.. about. To me all of this is turning things upside down. Saying that copyright is an incentive to create is revealing complete lack of understanding what creativity is all about. It is something that only a person who has no idea what music is or what art is can say - and indeed, that view is backed up mostly by businessmen most of who really know how to sell things and make a profit but are ignorant about the rest and they believe that all other people in the world too have set making money their life goal. Another common view that for some reason people owe me money if they are using my work somewhere, especially if they are getting money for it. I do not understand why this is bad and why should anyone owe money for what they are doing, even if it is based on my work. Seriously. I mean, it is always a case by case basis, of course and gratitude, normal human gratitude is one thing, the law is quite another. To me this law is jealousy that has been made lawful. You do something and than someone sets up a process by which he, say, sells your work. How come should I now take part in those profits? Did I set up that shop? Did I invest time into making my own shop? No, obviously. But this is not the only reasoning, in fact, it is not reasoning that makes me believe that, but rather my views in general, that one person should not have so many control over freedom of others. If someone wants to use my music in their film, they do not have to ask me - this is why I write music and put it out for everybody to listen to in the first place: so that it'd be used. If they do want to thank me and give me part of the profit - that's great, but that shouldn't be an obligation enforced by law. In fact, it should be common sense and based on human relationships. If those are my friends doing the movie, obviously it would be good of them to somehow thank me - these are normal relationships. But if those people do not know me, they should be free to use my work. Additionally, I do not see why a person should get money for work done once. I composed music for someone and got one time pay. Why should I then keep getting money for someone using my work? Because theoretically I could've gotten more if I would've sold it to several people? But I didn't sell it to several people. Why should I get the money? I would say that royalties for writers are somewhat justified since selling books in general and especially today is not as profitable, more difficult to get big one time pay. And in general, the solution to the copyright problem even without changing the law a lot is simple in my opinion - just say that copyright law is no longer by default. You want your work copyrighted? You think you need to put that kind of a restriction on the usage of your work? Okay, go register it. What this will do is make lots and lots of material effectively free since in reality not so many authors really need copyright. Thanks for hearing me out ;) -- Louigi Verona http://www.louigiverona.ru/