I skipped last week’s post because I needed some time to clean up the (mailbox) mess after my stay in Groningen for Eurosonic.
Fortunately, I heard some interesting things about copyright during Eurosonic. The one thing you should read this week is lawyer Hans Bousie’s speech. It contains some interesting points.
First, he redefines the concept ‘copyright’. ‘The right to copy’ is no longer valid as a definition in a digital era where everything is a copy and copies cost nothing. Bousie offers the alternative definition ‘the right for a creative income’. After all, it’s about the money. As a creative person you want to earn a living.
Then, he draws a picture of the situation for people who try to set up new (digital) music services as an alternative to illegal downloading. This is almost impossible because the margins are too small, collecting societies and publishers take very high commissions and upfront licensing fees (before any money is earned) kill the business. Bousie suggests that new initiatives are allowed a starting-up period. You should be able to ‘play before you pay’. Of course, as artists and copyright holders we must take care that we don’t get screwed by allowing any internet marketeer or coder to ‘play’ with our music (and copyright). Sure, these people want to earn money with our music. But they also want the creatives to earn money! Everybody wants to earn money: the authors, the collecting societies, the labels and publishers, the copyright lawyers… Please give these innovative tech guys the opportunity to earn money for us, before illegal downloading is the definitive normal practice for acquiring music!
I stole the following quote from Niels, who stole it from someone else, who stole it from someone else (this is called: citation): “When the winds of change are blowing, some people build windshields, while others build sailboats”.
When I hear the official statements of politicians, collecting societies like Sabam, the spokesperson of GALM, etc. about the 3-strikes-model, about making ISP’s responsible, I hear them building windshields. I would prefer more efforts in building sailboats.
In Groningen I also heard the delighting news about the Dutch collecting society Buma Stemra, who talked to people in the field and suggested some promising improvements on helping authors to collect their copyright money in a digital context. Apparently, they are far more forward-thinking than the Belgian SABAM. And the Belgian television program Basta didn’t even start yet (although it will probably be finished when you read this).
