So would creativity really dry up without copyright & artists not making money?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by head_unit, Nov 23, 2014.

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  1. Imagine70

    Imagine70 Forum Resident

    This is a common misconception over life expectancy. A society with an average life expectancy of 35 may actually have very few people dying at around that age. The high infant mortality rate skews the average figure. For those surviving childhood and young adulthood a life expectancy of sixty or seventy would not be uncommon at that time. Indeed many composers of that era (and earlier) lived into their seventies and beyond including Handel, Haydn, Monteverdi, Salieri, Rossini, Albinoni, and Telemann to name a few. Copyright was never intended to provide 'lifetime protection'.
     
  2. Sneaky Pete

    Sneaky Pete Flat the 5 and That’s No Jive

    Location:
    NYC USA
    I understand how high infant mortality influences life expectancy statistics. Nonetheless the average age of death in 1776 was around 50. So the early copyrights provided for a lengthy protection well into old age for most authors, and after death for some. There is nothing written regarding the intention of copyright term as related to the life of the authors. It is merely provided monopoly for a limited period of time, to encourage the creative arts and sciences. Publishing was the only mass media, the Founding Fathers provided a term that would cover the viable commercial life of all books except those that became adopted as classics.

    My point is the market place has changed, the forms of mass communication have changed, and the market potential of works has changed and even life expectancy has changed. The copyright laws have adapted in response to those changes. In my opinion the present term is not unreasonable.
     
  3. kozy814

    kozy814 Forum Resident

    First off – Very cool track! I really like your sound! Your story is a lot like mine. I record in a home studio and in a studio run by a friend of mine. The work we do is as good as any indie releases out there. And we have full control to do what we want when we want. I think the business of music has reverted back to being something that is organic and very homegrown – the unvarnished material we are hearing here is the real new music of America. I wish the industry purveyors that sit in the captain’s seats would spend a few minutes a week listening to this kind of music.

    I also have a full-time job outside of music that pays my bills and funds my equipment and projects. You really can’t do it any other way and expect to live well. The full-time indie musician is either living an extremely lean existence or he has devised other methods to earn income in music that does not tie back to album sales or live performances.

    In either regard the “career” of the indie musician is tied to a set of thin linkages that provide earning potential. For those of us that get lucky enough sell something to anyone for whatever purpose, those $$$ of income are like golden nuggets and well worth guarding. The sheer number of artists that are now earning more than they spend on making music is at its lowest % ever. We are minstrels with a laptop and a traveling recording studio. The difference is that our productions sound like a lot of stuff on the radio today and most people will not notice a difference.
     
    Rockinrob likes this.
  4. Abbey Road

    Abbey Road Well-Known Member

    At the end of the day, creative people create and nothing would or could stop that. I think very few creative people start out by creating for the money.
     
    Imagine70 likes this.
  5. Helmut

    Helmut Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Germany
    Without copyright music will not die, but it will get "smaller". You will still have singer/songwriters playing in clubs to a handfull of people. But you will no longer have bands creating ambitious studio recordings that lead to huge stage shows, live recordings and DVDs. No one would finance that anymore if there is no chance of getting the money back. While anyone can make use of your ideas.

    Also this discussion is far from reality. We only think of those rich pop stars shown on MTV presenting their 20 cars, six houses and so on. But this is only a very very small minority, barely measurable.
    Most musicians earn nothing from copyright at all. I recently met a musician who showed me "proudly" his royalty check he received from GEMA, it was about 1 cent !!! He is performing his own songs just in small clubs, that pay copyright to the GEMA. And what finds it's way back to him is nothing but a joke. And that's the situation for the majority of musicians - all over the world.
     
  6. Ctiger2

    Ctiger2 Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    Pretty soon there will be a reset where all these people are starving artists again as peoples value system gets realigned back to natural sanity. We're currently in a state of disneyland for all these "artists".
     
  7. kozy814

    kozy814 Forum Resident

    I encourage everybody to take a look at the http://www.copyright.gov/ site. This website lays out the set of guidelines for what copyright means in the United States. Pure and simple, it contains the policy and regulations for governance over this topic in this country. Everything else you will read on line are case files, determinations, and legal decisions, debates and discussions based on the information contained here on how the law is applied. No legal decision for any one case "rewrites" the rules. Therefore when a question exists, this source will help the artist makes an informed business decision on how best to handle his or her own IP.
     
  8. Raylinds

    Raylinds Resident Lake Surfer

    Yeah that concept has worked out well for so many.
     
    ShawnX likes this.
  9. Public (taxpayer) support of art, combined with lack of a means for private financial gain by artists, results in government control of artists. Art under the control of government committees is not pretty.
     
  10. joethomas1

    joethomas1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Yorkshire, UK
    Definitely think you are right regarding live music being the "end-game". Since music is becoming more unbalanced in terms of the amount of money that can be made from recordings (I.e. a band or artist with a good live following can in theory make a good living from gigs but not make a huge amount through downloads etc, if their marketing and promotion is successful. On another front a band or artist can have a huge fan base which has been achieved through an earlier music market situation, (I think Coldplay are an example of this as they became successful when MP3's were becoming more popular and CD' sales were starting to fall.) Obviously now the market has changed. There is more scope for success in the live arena both artistically and financially.

    Bit of a ramble but hey..
     
  11. ShawnX

    ShawnX Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    With all due respect, creative people need money just like everyone else and they deserve...no, they have the right to earn a living from their talent.

    Nothing romantic about an artist unable to pay for a home or food or a car.

    I find it unbelievable that others think they somehow have the right to take an artists property just because they enjoy it.

    I recently bought a house. Using money I earned from my "talent". Must I now share it with...everyone/anyone?

    Because, well...I won't. It's mine. Get off my lawn! :)

    With all due respect.
     
  12. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Sure, but the truth is, in 3,000 years of recorded human history, there have been millions and millions of artists who created their work and continued to create it out of a aesthetic urge to create, most of whom -- including some of the those that we now think of as being among the greatest of all time like Van Gogh who sold one painting in his lifetime -- did not make a living from their creative art work, some of whom we now consider among the greatest, like Emily Dickenson, didn't even try to make a living from her work. Human history clearly shows that people are driven to create art by something other than a financial incentive.
     
    Imagine70 likes this.
  13. ShawnX

    ShawnX Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    People, particularly artist, are amazing.

    Most of human history is the story of tyranny and dictatorship but the human spirit overcomes.

    But that doesn't mean it right that artists should live this way. Maybe they deserve to make a decent living. Have a home. Maybe they deserve to own their property. They created it...now they should enjoy the fruits of their talent.
     
  14. Abbey Road

    Abbey Road Well-Known Member

    Who said they didn't need money? I was simply answering the question in the OP.
     
  15. ShawnX

    ShawnX Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    OK. Sorry.

    Just engaging. I mean no harm. Home for a long weekend. It's this or Mind Craft with my son. :)
     
  16. Fafner88

    Fafner88 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Haifa, Israel
    If the government is truly democratic, then it's not a problem (i.e. people have a say). Many orchestras and composers are publicly funded (or at least used to be), is it, by itself, a serious problem in Europe or the US?
     
    Imagine70 likes this.
  17. Fafner88

    Fafner88 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Haifa, Israel
    What concept? You mean you are not using public roads and parks?
     
  18. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Perhaps -- though I dunno what tyranny and dictatorship has to do with why Emily Dickinson didn't publish or Van Gogh kept painting even though he couldn't sell and paintings. But to the OP's question of would creativity dry up without money and copyright law, human history has already provided the obvious answer -- no. People still become poets even though there's no way to make a living as a poet, there are more painters painting who not only will never become Thomas Kinkade but don't want to, etc. People make art, it's part of human nature way more fundamental than markets.

    Human beings create artistic works -- the write poems, tell stories, write music, make pictures -- and participate in them because it fulfills some basic human need -- makes us feel like there's some order to the world, or connects us to one another at a kind of spiritual scale, or helps us cope with the transient nature of life. They've always done it whether or not there's a financial incentive, and they always will whether any kind of market exists for it or not. It's as essential to human civilization as food preparation and language.
     
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  19. jay.dee

    jay.dee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    It is a myth. Vincent Van Gogh was subsidized by his younger brother Theo, who was an art dealer actively trying to find customers for Vincent's paintings. Here is an excerpt from a letter that the painter wrote to Theo, which clearly depicts the hopes and intentions of the artist:
    http://vangoghletters.org/vg/context_3.html

    Let's get real here: without money nobody would have a chance to hone his talent. Theo convinced Vincent to paint and covered his expenses, because he expected that it would pay off one day. Vincent expected to earn money from his paintings too. If there is no one paying, directly or indirectly, there is no art.

    We can discuss how the money issue can/should be addressed: either through clients/audience, patrons, funds, state or family, but I would not count on any high level creativity from hobbyists, who could dedicate only a fraction of time and effort to their artistic vocation.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2014
    eddiel likes this.
  20. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    He wanted sell paintings, he hoped to make a living selling paints and he was subsidized by his brother to sell those paintings, but in the end there was no market for his paintings in his lifetime; but he kept making them anyway. That's what artist do who can't make a living from selling their art -- find a patron, work a day job, marry a rich spouse, whatever. And history is littered with great artists who, for one reason or another, didn't make a living from their art. Some because they choose not to and didn't have to -- like Emily Dickinson -- some because they made a living from something else: Charles Ives owned his own successful insurance business and worked full time in the insurance business all his life. William Carlos Williams worked full time as a family doctor all.

    Today many other writers, musicians and visual artists make money doing related work -- teaching for example, or doing commercial art -- while working on their personal, expressive material. We can argue about what "high level creativity" is. But I've seen things like the home of a woman in the Bronx who had tone a lifetime's work of mosaic work on the walls of her home and on various freestanding pieces that were emotional works of profound impact on biblical and environmental themes. Almost no one ever saw or, historical, in some kind of patronage context, much of it purely amateur. And people will continue to do it without any kind of patronage context, because people have to. her work but it was clearly "high level creativity." She made no living at it. But it was great stuff. I've heard great songs written by amateurs who have never tried to sell a song in their lives. I think people all over the world at all times are making "high level" creative work, some of it in a commercial context some of it purely amateur. And they'll continue to do it, whether there's a living to be made from it or not, and those people will find some other way to eat. It's just what humans do. I think history shows us that the idea that no one would hone their talents without a financial motive is not true.
     
    Imagine70 likes this.
  21. jay.dee

    jay.dee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    The question remains whether Vincent had ever got chance to do his art, if his brother would not have supported him. And most probably Theo would not have bothered, if he had not had any expectation for a pay day. The cash was not flowing in, but there was a hope that it would eventually start to flow. Take away this expectation and there are no Van Gogh paintings at all, because Theo would not have even worked as an art dealer and Vincent would have had to find some other job to earn his living.

    I would say that history is littered with the art created by artists paid by their patrons, states, families, investors or clients. Whether they were paid directly for their art (and frequently they were, many quite handsomely) and got subsidized is irrelevant. What in my opinion is relevant is that they could afford spending substantial part of their time on it.

    Still we do not know whether she does not enjoy a support from her family or church to be able to create. When I wrote that money is required for any art activity I did not mean that a financial motive is the primary one behind artistic activity. I only meant there will be hardly any artists without a serious financial support, because apart from daily bread you usually need tools and favourable environment to grow as an artist.

    The vision of future music created mainly by amateurs/hobbyists tinkering alone at home during their short leisure time does not seem to me particularly attractive. Let everyone honestly review his/her music collection to check how many of them he/she has on LPs/CDs/mp3s now.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2014
  22. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    See, to me, a vision of the future of music and art generally created mainly by amateurs or semi-pros kind of crafts people who maybe also teach music, or play in a wedding band, etc, who have some kind of multiple careers, away from the industrial mass production of art-product, sounds extremely appealing, and much more like the way art was been made for much of human history. Human history of course is full of both the amateur and semi-pro sort of art making and the fully supported sort of art making, the kind of full industrial sort of commercial art making that copyright law in part protects and creates a framework for is of course pretty new, but even now there are always more people making art away from the industry than actually in the industry. To the OP's point -- with copyright law and industrial reproduction of music -- all we've done is build up an industrial framework for the production of this kind of work in an industrial capitalist market of vast scale. Take away the industrial trappings or even the market and people will still write lullabies to sing to their kids, the Jane Austins of the world will still write novels to entertain their sisters, the Emily Dickinsons will still be writing poems out of the expressive need to do so, etc. If no one ever produced an other commercial CD or LP or whatever format of recorded music, the composition of new music by human beings would continue. Human creativity wouldn't dry up at all. I mean, I love industrial pop music too, but a world of people entertaining and moving each other, playing instruments for each other to dance to or sing along with, that kind of much more participatory old-fashioned world of folk practice of music, I like that very much and there are things about it that are much more appealing than the other kind of music.
     
  23. jay.dee

    jay.dee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    Well, I would only like to point that in your scenario nobody is going to pay them for a wedding gig, because they will play for free out of the expressive need, won't they? Moreover, nobody is going to need their music lessons, because amateurs generally do not need to be taught, especially by other amateurs and in the situation when they have to learn more useful things to make both ends meet. :)
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2014
  24. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Well amateurs do teach each other how to play music, I mean, that's the folk process in a nutshell.

    People need to eat. People need shelter. People need art. However we decide as individuals or communities to ensure that food, shelter and music and stories continue to exist -- whether it's subsistence farming, homespun clothes and self-made folk art or factory farming and grocery store distribution, high-rise cities and recorded albums for sale -- food, shelter, clothing and art will continue to exist.
     
  25. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    Exactly. See post#3.
     
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