Steal This Column
Greetings! Nice to be back here at NewMusicBox for my first post of 2008—the Year of the Mouse (or in my case, trackpad). Looks like my travel schedule will not abate at all in the year to come, so watch out for reports filed from Thailand, Italy, France, and Texas, as well as the usual postings from Tokyo and LA.
Toward the end of last year, I got pointed to an interesting and provocative lecture given by Lawrence Lessig. Lawyer, Stanford professor, authority on copyright issues, and the CEO of Creative Commons, Lessig tells a number of stories that touch on historical issues of ownership and license, and then brings these into a contemporary digital context and makes some provocative arguments about content and ownership in the digital age. I think these arguments, whether you agree with them or not, whether you work in a digital medium or not, need careful consideration. Please take a look.
Lessig celebrates “amateur culture,” where people produce for the love of what they are doing and not for the money. Is this the whole story? Where does that leave professionals, those of us who seek to be in the happy position of actually making a living doing what we love? I for one found it interesting that Lessig seems to think that the whole notion of appropriation has been enabled (not just furthered) by digitalism. As a composer whose work often uses found and even appropriated materials, I and others (e.g. Christian Marclay, John Oswald, Otomo Yoshihide, Nic Collins) had been dealing with these issues in a markedly analog world more than twenty years ago—and that’s not to mention historical pioneers like James Tenney.
As so many of you are working in music professionally, I am keen to know your reactions to Lessig’s talk and the issues he raises. He makes an oblique and sly reference to his own organization, Creative Commons, which has been working diligently to responsibly establish new ground rules for re-use of intellectual property in a digital world. Lots of good information about that at creativecommons.org. Is Creative Commons the best solution?
Your thoughts, as always, are invited.