@Dreddsnik: and here where I say “Eventually the RIAA will have to stop being stupid” http://a2f2a.com/2010/01/05/its-time-for-us-to-agree/#comment-1773 I DID NOT say ‘yes, it’s ok to sue people for outrageous amounts of money.

Again, Bennett’s proposal isn’t about a ‘tax’. But, obviously you guys enjoy continually talking about ‘taxes’.

In this thread, I was talking about songwriter’s and their royalties. The RIAA don’t have anything to do with songwriter royalties do they? Aren’t they supposed to be the “Recording Industry”. Songwriter’s are the people who write the songs. They compose the music. It’s the artists, bands and their investors or ‘labels’ who record the songs. Usually, when you do a song for an artist, you do it based upon a percentage (of sales… called a ‘royalty’ and also for a royalty when it’s used commercially like in sync deals for television, etc.) This doesn’t have anything to do with the RIAA. This has to do with the fact that some writers allow societies to collect for them (because the process is time consuming if you try to do it yourself) or they go through a publisher who administers your catalogue for you and helps you get more sync. deals, etc.)

But, aside from that, I was stating that if a songwriter does a direct deal with an artist, it would probably be more practicle for them to simply negotiate a percentage rather than trying to make artists pay them upfront simply because most artists wouldn’t be able to afford to ‘buy’ songs and it would put a songwriter in an awkward position. For example, if I write a tune for an artist who I think has an amazing voice but, I know that he/she doesn’t have much money, I wouldn’t want to ask them to pay for it up front. I would tell him/her to try the song out and do a percentage deal just because that seems more fair (IMO)

She’s already said she’s ok with 2 mil from Jammie, since she was such an ‘obvious infringer’. Conscience is not something she seems to suffer from.

This thread …

http://a2f2a.com/2010/01/05/its-time-for-us-to-agree/#comments

Comments 101 – 106.

It’s important for any fans of hers to understand just how on-board she is with the RIAA folk.

There is already a philosophy, one that has been established and largely forgotten. It is not a dream, but the natural rights philosophy as expounded by Thomas Paine that formed the basis of the US constitution (and was promptly ignored by those industrialists who had the monopolies of copyright and patent enacted in their own commercial interest).

If you want to understand how to do business without the benefit of a monopoly (and license fees, levies, royalties, etc.) then the natural rights philosophy explains how, i.e. by not seeking to suspend the liberty of your audience, nor to seek to tax it for the use they make of your work, only to seek an agreeable and equitable exchange.

If you still believe you can prevent your fans enjoying their cultural liberty by remixing or sharing copies of your published work, or you believe it is a good use of your time to spend the next few years campaigning for the creation of a tax to pay for that sharing, then there are other philosophies that might help you sleep more easily and withstand yourself in mirrors, e.g. when you sanction the bankrupting of families for having the temerity to share music, or make the Internet affordable only to those wealthy enough to pay the tax that exempts them from such persecution.

So, there is a philosophy if you want one. However, that’s not the issue. The issue is how artists and their fans can do business without the unethical and ineffective weapon of copyright. An ethical philosophy simply helps one more easily arrive at ethical solutions, ethical business models.

The artist has art, wants money. The fans have money, want art. What you’re looking for here is agreement, not compulsion. A voluntary exchange, no threats, no coercion, no taxation.

There are already artists stumbling across such more humane ways of doing business. a2f2a can help cast light upon them, to draw ever more artists to more ethical ways of doing business with their fans, to help them steer clear of the rocks (the ever present temptation to threaten use of their copyright).

This is why it’s so crazy to say no progress can occur unless everyone agrees that an Internet tax is the right solution, that no incumbent artists will even think about supporting a2f2a as a lighthouse to new artists unless it adopts as its primary tenet “All artists deserve to be paid from an Internet tax! (especially us oldsters)”, or variations such as “Where money is made by ISPs selling bandwidth to sharers of our music files, we must be paid (oh, and new artists too)”.

Crazy, but not too surprising.

Progress will happen. The choice is whether to shift paradigm and be part of it, or support the establishment trying to hold it back. Copyright will become more draconian. Artists will learn to do business without it. Both these things will happen. The choice is whether to cleave to the cruel methods of history, facilitate a friendly and financially viable future with one’s fans, or do nothing but beg for a bailout tax.

The bottom line would have to be, whatever deals are worked out between any of the participants would have to be realistic to begin with. The idea is to be happy with what you get at the time of the deal, taking your “value”, the purchase, and any other factors (such as royalty conditions) into account.

As to your question of a possible “agenda” in the very design of IP, I would say ABSOLUTELY! The originators may not have envisioned digital information, but they certainly had an idea they intended to get rich on, that was projected beyond the printing press.

As for what Crosbie meant, he’s simply saying that a2f2a, as a collective, should probably make a choice between a mission of fighting the corporate movement, and a mission of cutting out the Middleman. The first is something we quite naturally ended up talking about, but the second was really what we came here to accomplish.

To continue Crosbie’s angle, those in the business of IP are as rich and resourceful as they are determined. Any major concessions to IP laws and privileges will take eons to acquire, while any reinforcements they want for copyright seem to happen overnight. Getting involved in that fight is not going to help artists get a better deal tomorrow, or in this decade, regardless of how much organization and impact we’re capable of.

Copyright will die from its own self-destructive agenda, no matter what draconian laws they push through in the future. It has long been having a negative effect on far too many things outside its legal realm, and, as more and more artists continue to do business without copyright, the bottom will fall right out of it.

Anything they introduce in the near future will just cause a large enough revolt calling for it to be pulled back, as is already happening with 3 Strikes.

This site’s top portion reflects a mission that we thought all along was the point of this whole exercise: “start your own revolution – cut out the middleman!”

Here we go again. ‘Policy’ is being made whether or not we decide to evade and avoid ‘copyright’ or not. It’s partially because people are ‘trading’ other people’s goods without license to do so. It’s now partially because some people find it interesting to create empty policy and exploit.

As far as solutions, on one hand, we have a dream philosophy that will take ages to even begin to establish, on the other hand, we have a more ‘in your face’ and maybe less philosophically pleasing strategy that might lead into the ‘ideal’ direction and stave off the criminals who are trying to sell ‘policy’ and bleed the people at the moment.

With me, I’m not actually thinking copyright. I’m assessing deals. It’s not copyright that efffects me much. (like, on a personal level.) Yet, I do rely on the ‘deals’ and the royalty system is a ‘deal’ in my mind. Do you see where I’m coming from?

Like I’ve said several times, I believe that copyright for the digigtal world needs a good shake. I agree that it doesn’t work. I hope, however, that a system could be put into place that is based upon ‘fair use’. I’m hoping that we’re all trying to find that system.

Having said that, I also have had some experience with the political world and policy makers work within the world of ‘deals’ as well. The whole ‘proposal’ and ‘counter-proposal’ dance still applies and cannot be ignored. So, in some ways, sure, you guys are right. I do believe that the only way to push down an idea or proposal would be to come up with a strategic counter-proposal that does a job (even if it’s only for an interim period) and moves things forward. I didn’t creat 3-strikes (for example) but, it would be cool to work out a way to stave that kind of policy off and work on something that makes those kind of logistic and strategically negative effects disappear forever. We can’t really afford to play inside of the totally ‘ideal’ or ‘utopic’ range because it seems to me that those decisions are being made for us. That’s how I see it. Can you see anything positive coming from three-strikes while we all muddle around and argue? It’s frustrating because there are solutions that could work essentially, but, everyone seems to be headstrong about the fine lines and details. We’ll be here for a millineum. yet, most of us have the same goals. It’s kinda fun to debate. But, we do probably look like a bunch of meandering fools in the meanwhile during which time a foot-hold has been determined and yet again the muso’s aren’t organized enough to speak their peace and demand to be heard. grief.