Far from the legal foundation that the above paper tries to imply, the US of the early 20th century had relatively lax copyright (28 year span, had to copyright the work or it became public domain) and a host of folk music and musical traditions that existed entirely within the public domain. Artists in Nashville, and much of the south, readily used and adopted these traditions (often in ways that we would consider direct rip offs) to develop new schools and forms of music. Peer and the other industries that started around the music culture, far from creating it, enclosed upon this “musical commons” by bringing what was previously an open culture and bringing it under their own control.

Almost every musical boom (an quite possibly every one) – whether we talk about the creation of Jazz or Rock or Rap or Techno or the Brazillian brega – was born from cultures of music that existed without strong cultures of “copyright”. All new forms of music come about as a product of borrowing riffs, remixing, sampling, and dubbing.

Great music is born from cultures of imitation.

I find it interesting that Mansick accuses DeLong of misrepresenting his position saying “I’ve quite frequently pointed out that [making money from concerts] is not the best solution for many artists”. But is the quote from the earlier post that DeJong posted in response inaccurate? On at least two occassions I’m aware of, Mansick has extolled the value of making money from concerts which are filled with fans because the artist gave away the music. It is so tired to say “it’s great promotion” when justifying the taking of content without permission. Assuming it works (and I don’t know that it does) isn’t the end game of promotion to make the the product you’re promoting profitable, and not potentially promote some ancillary line of work you may or may not be in? It’s like saying “film actors should not be upset by the unpaid mass distribution of their films (which is eroding their potential to get gigs in the future, and might be eating into their take on that film) because this kind of great promotion will increase their appearance fees at mall openings”. It means they have to be in the mall opening business to make money. It also means the people involved in making the film who aren’t on screen get completely stiffed – noone’s going to a mall opening to see the poor gaffer.

You seem to disagree with DeLong. Fine. People disagree about stuff. But I don’t think he’s misconstrued you by saying that you spoke well of the proposal. He was clearly referring to the part of the proposal that you were praising, not the licensing component that you criticized.

“We’ve discussed some interesting things happening down in Brazil when it comes to copyright. First, we’ve looked a few times at how the super popular technobrega music industry has thrived by embracing giving away music and using that to build up fame and business models based on selling scarcities — such as live shows.”

An earlier post said:

“So why are the artists so eager to give away their content for free? Because the bigger your reputation, and the more people know who you are and like your songs, the more money you can make with live shows. Quite similar to the history of Jamaican music in the 1950s and 60s, the technobrega musicians and DJs have built up traveling soundsystems. Another way to make money is in dance classes. Apparently, learning the complicated dance steps is a big business. A researcher, Ronaldo Lemos, who has studied the technobrega business, notes that it’s doing amazingly well by embracing technology and embracing file sharing.”

Equally amusing, of course, is that he misrepresents my position by saying I’ve said that the solution for musicians is “make money from concerts,” when I’ve quite frequently pointed out that I don’t think that’s the best solution for many artists.

And, finally, the most amusing of all is his insistence that concerts can only work for groups with huge audiences, ignoring the fact that it appears to be working just fine for these technobraega artists, as well as numerous other artists that we’ve covered on Techdirt. Reality’s a bitch.

In the meantime, I do wonder why John Henke continues to allow Digital Society and Arts+Labs to post blatantly false information attacking me on a regular basis. It’s sad that he’s stooped to such a level.

Come on, John, I thought you were above that.

Producers and Mixers and publicists all get their cut of the CD business trying to push the art on the public. They are usually the ones to take the first cut and leave the artists with less. If the Artist is able to take more of an active role in publishing themselves, then they usually can get a larger cut. One way to do this is to put the cost into recording the music themselves and then pushing their art out freely. This wouldn’t be any different than someone pushing opensource out as a resume to the public.

Like a lot of people who support robust fair use and a more balanced IP system, Mike is skeptical of compulsory licensing schemes, as he says in the very post you link to.