A few years back, Eric Garland of BigChampagne said something eye-opening. That is, if your music is not getting traded and stolen online, you've got a serious problem. And thatproblem is obscurity, a far greater evil for musicians.
But once out of obscurity, fans are almost guaranteed to pass your music around for free. Sure, you might get a little check from iTunes, but chances are that a totally disproportionate amount of acquisition will be gratis. And it's going to happen whether you give it away or not.
Most are working in that reality, yet the amount of music getting created is totally unaffected. In fact, there is more music being written and recorded than ever before in history. And why is that? The answer is critical for copyright policymaking direction, including current debates over the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) in the US.
Of course, the rewards of music creation go far beyond the dollar. And, recordings are only one way to make money. But the proliferation of music in the face of a near collapse in copyright control raises some serious questions about that copyright control in the first place. Music fans are obviously not complaining, but if artists have such a problem, why not just put down the pen, guitar, or close GarageBand right now?
This boils down to incentive. “Copyright exists to encourage innovation and the creation of new works; in other words to promote social welfare," Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee wrote last year. “The question to ask is thus whether the new technology has undermined the incentives to create, market, and distribute entertainment."
Looks like it hasn't one bit.
Paul Resnikoff, Publisher.
But once out of obscurity, fans are almost guaranteed to pass your music around for free. Sure, you might get a little check from iTunes, but chances are that a totally disproportionate amount of acquisition will be gratis. And it's going to happen whether you give it away or not.
Most are working in that reality, yet the amount of music getting created is totally unaffected. In fact, there is more music being written and recorded than ever before in history. And why is that? The answer is critical for copyright policymaking direction, including current debates over the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) in the US.
Of course, the rewards of music creation go far beyond the dollar. And, recordings are only one way to make money. But the proliferation of music in the face of a near collapse in copyright control raises some serious questions about that copyright control in the first place. Music fans are obviously not complaining, but if artists have such a problem, why not just put down the pen, guitar, or close GarageBand right now?
This boils down to incentive. “Copyright exists to encourage innovation and the creation of new works; in other words to promote social welfare," Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee wrote last year. “The question to ask is thus whether the new technology has undermined the incentives to create, market, and distribute entertainment."
Looks like it hasn't one bit.
Paul Resnikoff, Publisher.
