http://www.100dimensions.com/intl/en/ch/ch3300/ch.html

I have only come across this “Who’s Owns Culture?”, video recently. I was keen to download the Bit Torrent version of the video but the Torrent Tracker at http://www.prodigem.com were Mr. Lessig had his Torrent stored is now gone. As is the tracker listed at http://wilcoworld.net/wired/. Does anybody still have the original Bit Torrent video file that could be upload to the Azureus Vuze http://www.vuze.com ,they host and track video torrents for free.

I would appreciate if someone would do this and make this video file available again.

Steve

Rick Wakeman could only dream of today’s synths when he was journeying to the center of the earth. And Robert Fripp’s “Frippatronics” was only a primitive precursor to – a faint, shadowy glimpse – of todays acidic garage band. Software now can separate many distinct properties of speech and encode them each individually – the vocal cord vibrations amount to little more than a carrier wave for speech, and a very good formant synthesis engine can make Frank Sinatra scat like Ella Fitzgerald or Madonna sing with the inflection of Louis Armstrong. And even these marvelous inventions are but shadowy glimpses of what lies just around the next corner.

And an exclusively DRM solution might not be the answer to that particular case of vanilla ice and his skirt tail ride to the top – but then again, maybe it would. If a DRM technology existed that encoded usage rights into the file itself – say, you may sample this track at a rate of one tenth penny per second published – then the fact the sample was “looped” would have no bearing on final costs… three minutes would still cost the remixer 18 cents for each track sold, thus ensuring a quite fair royalty to the surviving members of Queen – enough, in fact, to perhaps have encouraged “Ice” to find a more affordable track to sample, or perhaps even (shudder) hire musicians to create a new loop track for him.

I think we both well agree on the principle of providing attribution (even monetary, if they so desire) to the originators of a work. But it gets shadowy very, very quickly – and thus far, neither of us have actually commented on THE alleged topic of this panel: the professor’s presentation. I am interested in your thoughts on that; here are mine…

I love this presentation more than any other I have seen here. My ego tells me the good professor has actually heard my voice here, though modesty presumes it was not my voice, but perhaps many other voices out there whom I have never heard, who actually share my views. This gives me encouragement.

But I think the prof is still being a bit too diplomatic, or perhaps just politically correct. I hear him encouraging artists of the “free” mindset to actually produce something and contribute it to the truly free commons, but this is still wrapped in politeness and indirection to the point I fear that message may be lost on all but those who actually do think like myself.

There are scads of “free” creative works out there – the series welcome to the scene being one of my favorites thus far. It’s a fantastic show, produced about a slow budget as one can imagine, built entirely upon this “new media,” but the license permits only sharing of the show as a whole and forbids any “remixing.” This sort of licensing does not give back to the creative community in any more substantial fashion than Vanilla Ice or Madonna – it only permits me, as a “fan,” to help spread the word about a show I happen to enjoy.

What is needed is more truly free work; a show that might become populat enough to become part of the language of our culture, but providing free use of those language elements in the same way as I can “remix” Mozilla or VirtualDub (which has spawned at least three very good competitors). I would like to see the prof make even more direct pleas to this community to step up and put their creativity where their mouth is, so to speak. This presentation is the single best beginning to that dialogue I have heard yet, and I definitely look forward to the next. More importantly, I look forward to seeing results from this beckoning.

for at least 30 years we have. the only difference now is that you don’t need to be frank zappa or rick wakeman or robert fripp to own one.

poptones you make some good points and have certainly given us mices pause to think.

our position is that there ARE lines to be drawn in copyright, but we do agree with you that the dividing line is fuzzy. as it should be.

it seems to us that the rip mix and burn “culture” wants a right of trespass over any line however drawn. their answer to “who owns culture?” is that no one owns it – otherwise artistic expression must concern itself with and be constrained by trespass. this view is congruent with people like Peter Rock who claims the right to copy and distribute “his” purchased property however he sees fit. this is, in our humble opinion, the extremeist view.

both are very good examples of previous precedents being set regarding “mimicking” of existing works.

and both are very good examples that copyright is not an electrified fence that incurs an immediate and painful penalty everytime you brush up against it. properly drawn, copyright borders more resemble shoreline than barbed wire.

anyway, getting back to vanilla ice… it seems clear to us that that cracker should not have been able to rip, mix, and burn queen’s riff without the permission of queen. free culture says he should be able to – once released into the “culture” queen could no longer claim any right in the riff from under pressure. we view this as insane fantasy.

on the other hand, some of the “language” examples you describe above do not so clearly derive from easily recognized prior works as the previous examle. here, yes, it is a little less clear if this is, or should be, considered as a fair use, or even as a copyright infringement at all. the line is fuzzy, but this does not mean that there is not a line!

this is one of the problems with DRM solutions: DRM draws hard lines where fuzzy ones exist.

I’m not – I’m saying copyright needs to keep up with the language. Right now it’s divorced from it. We never before had instruments that could do what instruments today can do.

we all agree individual letters, words, and notes – the basics of language – can not be the subject of copyright ….no doubt miles davis played many of the same note as others, but when he did it, it sounded like they were being played for the first time – expression poptones – not content. that is what copyright protects.

Oh, really? Have you seen the Clint Eastwood produced film about Charlie Parker, Bird? It won an oscar for music (or sound production, I can never keep that straight) as it featured many compelling “live” performances where bird and diz and baker all shared the stage performing works that never actually existed- they were created, “virtually,” combining existing works and new works performed by a certain well known contemporary who is, shall we say, better known for his technical virtuosity than his innate creativity and “soul.” In other words, the works were mimicked so as to convey bird and diz and baker.

Helen kane, the “boop boop be doop” girl actually sued fleischer studios on the grounds they had stolen her fans. She lost the suit, and fleischer claimed in court any similarity was unintentional, but it’s been acknowledged by others involved in the creation of betty boop that kane was in fact an “inspiration” for the character.

Does this prove anything? Not really, but both are very good examples of previous precedents being set regarding “mimicking” of existing works. And what are recording devices, but very good mimicks? They are certainly not capturing the person’s actual voice – and hey, what if they are? if I can record Bob Goulet and be sued for infringement when I sell without his permission, what if I record him, use those “samples” to create a formant synthesis engine that can reproduce his voice at will saying anything I wan him to say with any inflection I can invent… does he still have rights to it?

This is exactly how many audio codecs ALREADY work: they don’t just chop the speech up into discrete bands or samples and blast it out the other end – they actually “sample” characteristics of the speaker’s speech, encode them, then recreate those characteristics on the other end – the sound is synthesized as much as it is “sampled.” So now does the choice of codec I use to sample an artist affect copyright? What if I alter it? How much do I have to alter it? Consider this humorous example of bush parodying himself at the mercy of a clever sound engineer – how much do I have to change it before it’s no longer the same? What if I sample two artists and combine the formant characteristics of both? The line is far from black and white, and copyright as it exists does not resolve the issue.

c’mon poptones. you can’t argue language in the context of copyright. we all agree individual letters, words, and notes – the basics of language – can not be the subject of copyright.

in the context of copyright, the only subject under discussion are specific original unique expressions of language; not the language itself.

no doubt miles davis played many of the same note as others, but when he did it, it sounded like they were being played for the first time – expression poptones – not content. that is what copyright protects.

vanilla ice riding on the success of queen’s “under pressure” is not language, nor is it mr. ice’s “freedom of speech” to express himself using brian may’s recognizeable riff.

and as this example shows, copyright is no hinder to making bad music. you just have to pay for the priviledge.

Classical music has a language, and understanding this language deepens one’s understanding of the music – certain combinations of brass and percussion, woodwind and tringle, etc: these are all “patches” employed over and over by every composer. They had to be, because they were part of the language. This same fact applies to old school jazz, whether it was Charlie Parker interjecting “happy birthday” or Myles interjecting a line from “Rhapsody in Blue,” these quotations add meaning – humor; mourning; joy.

In synthesis the same truth applies: Keith Emerson might have been the first to add a new synthetic verb with his “Minotaur” patch – the swooshing, mournful durge that became the “hook” for the song Lucky Man.. There is not a synthesist worth her salt who does not know how to reproduce this patch, and it has been reused over and over in the decades since its invention. Techno and hip-hop again share this – there are certain patches and even instruments (TB303, Minimoog, the unmistakable and steroetypical screech of a Korg filter sweep that makes a piece instantly recognizable as “techno”) whose applications in various contexts have specific meanings – just like Dizzie adding a riff from “happy birthday” in the middle of “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

It’s language. And criticizing a language simply because you don’t understand or speak it, I say to you with all respect, is not emblematic of an informed or open mind.

Actually, it doesn’t do that at all – it only ensures the artists who do get sampled get paid for their contribution to the new work. “Ice, Ice baby” would have been absolutely nothing without the hook it was based on, and those original contributors should be well paid – hell, they should have earned more from that remix than vanilla ice!

the african american Jazz and R&B crowd used to be the engine of musical culture, now they are sitting in the caboose.

Wow, that’s a phenomenally ignorant view to be coming from you, TBM. I’m not calling you a bigot, only pointing out that “hip hop” isn’t just about “black music” at all, and remixing definitely not just part of “black music.” Ever heard portishead? They use theremins and loops and all sorts of stuff, they are a PHENOMENAL presence onstage, and they are about as far from “R&B” as you can get. The turntable is every bit a musical instrument and it takes a good dj to really do something with it. I enjoy watching the portishead dj almost as much as the incredible vocalist, both are obviously quite talented.

The Propellorhead’s first album was pehenomenal, a collection of new works employing many jazz classics. It had a an original sound and introduced many who would otherwise have never heard of artists like Shirley Bassey to the “classics.” And techno, though you may not like it, is filled with samples and beats lifted from other artists – just like charlie parker and dizzie gillespie and myles davis lifted riffs from each other.

When they first arrived on the scene, the old school didn’t consider the theremin an instrument either – it was a novelty used for nothing more than eerie effect in bad science fiction and horror movies. Then Clara Rockmore arrived onstage and proved to everyone the theremin was an legitimate instrument that could be mastered with virtuosity. When synthesizers came on the scene the old school again balked, then Wendy Carlos, and later Stevie Wonder and Larry Fast and Joe Zawinul and Return to Forever proved the naysayers wrong yet again.

Have you listened to any Oakenfold? That might appear to be just a dj spinning one disk after another, but in fact there’s a LOT more going on – he’s spinning multiple disks, mixing a bass riff from one song under another, adding choruses and “hooks” from still others, with drum machines and sequencers and synths all being overlayed in real time onstage. It takes just as much virtuosity to do what he does as Keith Emerson displayed decades ago, hammering keyboards and swapping patchcords with the fury of a musical Steve Austin. Another DJ, a local legend from the area where I grew up (and hung out with other now legendary figures of house music) is now engaged in a deal to play his old shows on one of the satellite radio networks! He was known as electrifyin’ mojo, and his late night shows melded kraftwerk and parliment and third world and devo in a way no had ever heard before. Those shows were incredible, and they were “live” – no in an arena, but live and in realtime just the same.

Remixing and sampling very much is a valid art form – the old school of jazz did it all the time as well, just with different instruments. For example, I have a CD here that contains no less than six different versions of Charlie Parker performing his well known classic “Kim,” and in every one of them he at times “samples” himself and many of his contemporaries. I would encourage you to, rather than dismiss it outright, do a bit more research into this culture, and perhaps you might even find something there you enjoy. I dare say, that would certainly help you in discussions like this, as in this area you come across uncharacteristically uninformed – so much so it at times a causes pretty glaring weakness in your argument.

this is a valid criticism poptones – and partially true. we are of the opinion that one purpose copyright should serve is to spare society from the endless loop of hip-hop mediocrisy that has dominated pop “culture” for the past decade. one obvious benefit of copyright’s monopoly on copying and re-use is that if forces other artists to DO SOMETHING ELSE. the african american Jazz and R&B crowd used to be the engine of musical culture, now they are sitting in the caboose. it seems to us that the lax attitude toward re-mixing “a sure thing” is a huge contributor to this catharsis. no one is taking any risks.

poptones surely you (as we) have spent enough time in bars to know that competent bands play covers and good bands write original music. it is original artists with original thoughts and new ideas who advance culture. we are not ready sacrifice originality on the altar of the commons so people with (IOHO) LESS talent can make a living for themselves.