Bob Dylan has a pretty long history of appropriating works from others, but then going after anyone who has built on his works. He's also been held up by copyright maximalists as someone whose career just wouldn't be the same without strong copyright. So it's somewhat amusing to discover, once again, that he's been caught outright copying others. Emily Goodhand points us to the news that Dylan has a new painting exhibit, and people have started noticing that some of the paintings appear to be clearly copied from old photographs. Take these two comparisons from the NY Times:
The images on the left are from Dylan's exhibit (photographs taken by the NY Times' Marcus Yam). The top photo on the right is by Henri Cartier-Bresson, and the lower photo is by Leon Busy. It would be difficult for anyone to argue that the paintings were not based on these photos. Dylan had claimed that the paintings were all based on scenes he had seen in his travels. I guess he may have seen those photographs during his travels, but that's certainly not the implied origin of the paintings.
Now, to be clear, I actually don't see anything wrong with Dylan making such paintings. Painting from a source photograph is a good way for many to learn how to paint. On top of that, the paintings don't take away anything from the photos, and may actually create more attention for the photos. It does feel sleazy, though, to not credit the source. But the bigger issue is the hypocrisy of it all -- of arguing that others can't appropriate his works, while regularly and directly appropriating the works of others... and then refusing to admit to it.
jupiterkansas was the first of a few of you to send over this article about a Kansas City Star article praising fair use and talking up how important it is to culture.
Watch tonight’s “Daily Show” and count the number of TV, movie and music clips you see or hear during the episode. Ten? Twenty?
While you’re doing that, note how often Stewart makes fun of the subject of the clip. (If he’s talking about CNN or Fox News Channel, this part will be easy.) Do the same for companion show “The Colbert Report.”
Now, guess how often Stewart and Colbert ask their attorneys to clear the rights to all those copyrighted clips.
America’s most acclaimed satirists turn out to also be our most powerful exploiters of “fair use,” the legal loophole that permits use of copyrighted works without the onerous and often expensive process of rights clearance.
The article is pretty long and detailed (and quotes some of my favorite experts, including Nancy Baym and Patricia Aufderheide -- whose new book, written with Peter Jaszi, called Reclaiming Fair Use is sitting on my desk -- though I haven't had a chance to read it yet). It does note that fair use is still sometimes a bit hit or miss in the courts, but overall this is a really comprehensive article on the subject. It's just kind of surprising to see it in a big newspaper. Even though fair use is increasingly important to people, it's just not the sort of thing most in the media seemed interested in writing about -- even if they're covering copyright related stories.
Nearly two years ago, while at a conference in Norway, I sat down with some folks putting together a documentary called PressPausePlay, which is all about the democratization of culture, and the views many people have -- positive, negative, indifferent, weird, etc. -- on that changing landscape. It's taken a couple years, but the movie is finally out (I got to see a version earlier this year at SXSW), and with it, the filmmakers are releasing longer versions of all of the interviews they did on YouTube -- including mine, which you can see below:
Even if it's two years old, and slightly out of date, I still think the discussion is pretty relevant -- though, the whole section on Jill Sobule may seem a bit quaint with the success of platforms like Kickstarter. Anyway, there are a ton of other videos worth checking out as well, and I'm embedding a few of them after the jump (i.e., if you're in RSS or on the front page, you'll need to click through to see them).
The Public Domain may not be growing (thanks to endless retroactive copyright term extensions) but it still contains a "whopping plentitude." The biggest challenge to users is simply discovering PD works in the first place. Fortunately the Open Knowledge Foundation (one of the best Free Culture organizations anywhere) has just given everyone a leg up with its new web site, the Public Domain Review. From their About page:
The Public Domain Review aspires to become a bounteous gateway into the whopping plenitude that is the public domain, helping our readers to explore this rich terrain by surfacing unusual and obscure works, and offering fresh reflections and unfamiliar angles on material which is more well known.
Go there to find all kinds of delicious images, texts, sounds, and other treasures that, thanks to our collective cultural amnesia, are as fresh and exciting as anything Big Media tries to force down our throats today.
Back in July, when the Fox Network announced plans to block or delay many of its popular shows from going online, we predicted this would increase the number of unauthorized downloads. This just seemed stupid. People want to access it online and they will access it online. Why not offer it to them in an easy and convenient manner that can be monetized. Of course, when others pointed out the same thing, the geniuses at the MPAA threw a hissy fit about how even admitting that Fox's stupid business decision might increase unauthorized file sharing was the equivalent of praising "stealing."
So, um, I wonder how the MPAA's brilliant strategists will respond to the news that, in the first week of Fox's delays alone, unauthorized downloads of some of its most popular shows increased massive amounts, doubling or tripling what they were before. In fact, that article notes that many of the people viewing it through unauthorized means left comments about how they tried to watch via legal channels, but couldn't.
So I'm wondering how the folks at the MPAA might explain this. Are they going to throw another tantrum and blame "reality" for supporting file sharing? Or will someone there finally buy a clue and recognize that not providing consumers what they want is a bad business decision. I guess that would require someone at the MPAA to actually have experience in business -- but they all seem to be lawyers or political flunkies.
Music Matters has just released the latest in its string of anti-piracy PSAs, most of which feature recording artists explaining how music has affected their lives. This one features some excellent animation, along with a nice selection of tracks, and it details one person's lifelong relationship with the Beatles' music. It closes by stating that loving a band is a shared experience that brings many people together. All in all, it's a well done tribute that John Lennon certainly would have approved.
Of course, it's tough to watch this promo, which celebrates "sharing" music, without feeling a bit like you're being beaten over the head with an extremely heavy irony stick wielded by someone who has no idea how hard they're swinging it. For starters, Unnamed Protagonist states that he first heard the Beatles' music when it "floated through his window." As picturesque as this scenario may be, the end result will most likely be dismayed gasps from the BMIs and the ASCAPs of the world, who hate to see a public performance go unpunished.
In fact, the video seems to be making the opposite point of the one it's intended to make. It shows just how important sharing is to make culture culture. You've got really mixed messages here. The Beatles are a shared experience, but sharing it with others outside of the way they want you to share it is bad -- even as the (nameless) person profiled clearly enjoys the Beatles in his own way. Like hearing it through the window. Or out in the street with his evicted belongings. Or surrounded by friends in an unlicensed open air venue.
On top of that, the Beatles seem like a really odd choice for such a PSA.
Whatever level a person's love for the Beatles might be, it's pretty tough to find much reciprocation from the band itself, which spent most of the last decade making sure that the only digital copies of their music available were illegal copies. The band also spent a fair amount of time shooting down licensing requests and otherwise making their catalog about as approachable as a badger covered in live hand grenades.
Between the Beatles' "yes, we love you, too but only through very selective channels" and Music Matters' "music is a good thing but only through selective channels," the whole idea of music being a communal experience, one that relies on sharing, kind of gets lost. Even worse, because this is a Music Matters promo aimed at reducing piracy, the message shifts from "Music matters because it's shared," to "Don't share music because, together, we can keep music from mattering."
Blenster points us to this fascinating post by Jonathan Akwue, in which he discusses how a piece of artwork he created a few decades ago actually became "famous," because of a bootleg poster maker who made a ton of unauthorized posters that got around quickly. Here's the image, which you may have seen (I definitely recall seeing it in the past, but had no idea of its background):
Akwue talks about the process that resulted in the creation of the poster (that's him in front of it with his son above), and how he was even worried about the potential for bootleg copies of the poster. And, not surprisingly, he was upset when it first was bootlegged. But in retrospect he realizes that the bootlegger was much more efficient at getting his poster distributed and that helped him:
But something else happened. Among a certain set of people I became (almost) famous – or at least my picture did. Stan’s distribution network was far more extensive than I could have imagined. As a result the image cropped up in all sorts of places, from inner-city street corners to suburban offices. A friend spotted it on TV hanging on the wall of an architect’s home in New York. My brother found a reproduction in a street market in Switzerland.
The bootlegged copies didn’t entirely kill the market for the legitimate ones either. As the unauthorized prints were unsigned, the limited edition of 500 was sold to those who were willing to pay extra for a signed copy.
In the end, he compares this to similar cases in the internet era, such as with Adam Mansbach's Go the F**k to Sleep, and realizes that perhaps the bootlegging wasn't so bad:
I only ever met Stan once, in a council flat in Greenwich that served as a base for his bootlegging operations. I have no idea what happened to him, or if he got his comeuppance in the end. But if I did meet him again I’m not sure what I’d say. Perhaps it should be ‘Thanks’.
Rick Falkvinge takes on the standard claim that file sharing is all about "just getting stuff for free," by arguing that the 'free' part frames the discussion totally incorrectly. Instead, he notes, it's all about sharing, and was never about the money. He explains by analogy:
In a future where the Earth has been poisoned to an extent where the water is a health hazard, cleanup efforts have been ongoing for a long time. For health reasons, there are laws that people may only drink the water from a particular company, Waterisnew, which enjoys a monopoly on water supply — and know to charge for it, too.
Then, one day, nature’s water is announced clean by scientists. But the laws are still in place. People rush out into the forest and drink from rivers, despite the fact that it breaks laws and Waterisnew’s monopoly.
Executives at Waterisnew are furious that people dare break their monopoly. Somebody asks, cautiously, if the price of water may be wrong? Could there be a business failure involved? If they charged less for the water, then maybe people would stop pirate-drinking water from clean rivers and go back to legal alternatives?
As illustrated, the question misses the point entirely. Just as the water had become decommercialized, so has making copies of bitpatterns.
People don’t copy because of a price tag somewhere else, entirely regardless of what that price tag says. People copy because they can, because it is associated with freedom and because it is in human nature to share
In fact, he points to some very interesting research on why people share, and it comes down to a simple point: it's human nature to share content. It doesn't actually cost anything and it builds a relationship and cultural bond with others. If you look at the reasons that people share, it's the reasons why people do all sorts of things: to connect with others, to entertain others, to "define" ourselves, to spread information, etc. Information has become a tool, not a product, and that's difficult for those who are used to selling it as a product to grasp.
A whole bunch of you have been submitting the recent story from Variety, that picks up on the silly takedown of Peanutweeter, and notes that at least some brands have realized that it's good to embrace such parody accounts even if they're technically infringing. The "surprise" company that has really embraced this kind of thing is Hasbro, with its support of the "bronies" -- adult men who (ironically?) use My Little Pony footage to remix it with other content, such as Wu Tang Clan songs. And it's a surprise (though not mentioned in the article), because Hasbro has a pretty well-documented history of going after parodies.
That said, much of the rest of the article isn't particularly encouraging. Yes, Hasbro appears to allow and support some of the brony remixes, but still feels that it can and should step in when it sees what it doesn't like. Other brands still feel the need to stop any of this kind of activity.
Amusingly, the article's discussion on fair use suggests (incorrectly) that YouTube's new "Copyright School" helps explain the nuances of fair use:
YouTube in particular has tried to enlighten its users to the nuances of fair use. The Google-owned site introduced a tutorial on the subject in April, as well as a "copyright school" -- a video series that educates users who have been flagged for copyright violations, followed by a quiz they're required to pass in order to be reinstated.
Except, that's not the case at all. YouTube's copyright school was criticized widely for brushing aside fair use and leaving out the nuance entirely. In fact, that's why there was an entire contest by Public Knowledge to create a second video that explains fair use to go with YouTube's original misleading video.
Either way, while it's nice to see Hasbro realize that not all parodies are evil, and that it's even good to support some cases of parody, it's a bit unfortunate that the overall prevailing view still seems to be that these kinds of things should either be shut down or possibly tolerated, rather than embraced as an important element of culture.
