ContentSphere - Music & Media in an Online Culture

[Deutsche Version] I guess I won’t have to comment much on this one. Just imagine this scenario: Warner Music on YouTube finds a presentation Lawrence Lessig did. Warner Music demands Lawrence Lessig to take down the video of his own presentation.

No April fool’s joke, no misinformation, no fiction. They have done so. And of course, Lessig stands up against.

There is no better way to put it than Michael Masnick did on TechDirt...








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After publishing the most recent article on Dubber's pitch for Popkomm, I once more browsed Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture" (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 1.0 Generic License). Actually, I happened to find a metaphor he used that perfectly fits my comment on ContentSphere which I'd like you to think about (see "Free Culture", p. 211-212 (both Penguin paperback and PDF editions):






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[Deutsche Version] Andrew Dubber just recently pitched a topic to Popkomm - "Music As Culture". If you read the outline of this hopefully upcoming speech at New Music Strategies, you might recognise a bit of Lawrence Lessig's "Free Culture".

Dubber is absolutely right in labeling it "important" and "urgent".

We've seen the USA extending copyright terms, and European countries suggesting to do so. Just yesterday, the European parliament in a first reading voted in favour of a prolongation by extending the copyright term from 50 to 70 years. I mentioned it before - this definitely does harm to culture. Strict legislation and overly harsh fines result in a "permission culture", as Lessig puts it.

Internet Means Creativity

Point is, we must embrace the very fact that culture lives within the internet. The web advances culture. These are the new tools. As often, lobbyism for the old paradigm tries to build shrines for technologies while understanding and sensibly implementing the new would yield better results and stimulate the market. Actually, the market, which means culture, right now is strangled. And it's not The Pirate Bay that does. It is the collective understanding of today's society of terms as "intellectual property", "piracy", and "lost sales".

Continue reading "Popkomm's arising: Dubber - Music, Culture, and..." »

On another note, Michael Masnick had me checking out Richard Smith’s article on the issue of extending copyright. Richard Smith from London’s Guardian features the book "Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind" (free download under CreativeCommons license) by James Boyle, professor of law at Duke Law School, North Carolina. The books’ core statement is that "the world has made a colossal cultural mistake that shames our generation". No question you wonder which mistake Boyle is talking about. It is the USA’s recent decision to extend copyright "to life plus 70 years". Many artists may be puzzled about this… why moan? Hey, that’s great! Our property finally gets protected. Cost is: Our culture gets locked. By backdating the law to 1923 "virtually all 20th century cultural objects are locked up".

Culture needs to develop upon the culture before. It is the same point Lawrence Lessig made when writing "Free Culture" (free download under CreativeCommons license). Now, Europe is about to decide the same way.

Jamendo is the world's first B2C music download service offering all tunes under the Creative Commons license. At least that is Jamendo's claim. Also, I do not know about any other one either. If there are small ones or large ones out there handling their business that way – please contact me. I really would be interested in your experience.

The Land of Digital Milk & Honey

Most importantly, any music offered on Jamendo is legally free for download. This is rather surprising to say the least. Yet all of us should have been prepared since OpenSource software like Linux is something we take for granted. But music? It feels like the Holy Grail being one-way used in a fast food restaurant and thrown into the litter box right afterwards.

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