lack of ethics | glut | tiny freedoms - from sotise

Note from serviceton: - the below text was left as a comment by SOTISE on the post "Some Issues" - A Shortlist" .  By way of a resumption of discussion , and for its own merits, I have copied sotise's text here.  He responds to earlier comments (see posts preceding) from Igor and JC
I have made some tiny edits for the sake of clarity - for full text see the original comment.
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SOTISE says
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I Dont Know about you guys but Evidence of Personal Ethics is scant in the world we now inhabit ,The Political Classes, the Technocracy, the financial establishment, the Military industrial complex, and that includes the Leading dominant,Orthodox cultural political establishment Brands and Labels... all Demonstrate a remarkable lack of ethics, and since the Power elites are Role models in our society , (ever more so as schools and universities have increasingly subservient ties to the military industrial political nexus ,and given they no longer teach independent thinking rather priming people as drones in the established producer/consumer order ..

Is it Therefore Reasonable to expect people to rise above the Pervasive Moral Order and , take into consideration the Rights, and need to make a Living of struggling artists? .

there is another Issue , generally unmentioned among Music lovers floating uneasily beneath the surface of all such discussions , and that is one of Glut , (quite apart from the artifact, ie,Lp, Cd , which has been devalued with the explosion of online Musical delicatessens,and rampant digital dissemination in varied forms) there is a case that marginal musics , free jazz, improvised and so called Avant Guard musics , have themselves been devalued , since one of their central (the Very thing that makes them antithetical to the establishments, entertainment as pure consumption aesthetic) has been undermined and gradually eroded if not entirely subverted , by the ease of free push button consumption , many fans of even relatively ethical blogs , have amassed enormous caches of un listened to music , this music we love is deep listening music , which but slowly reveals itself accretionally through successive listens.... Everything about electronic download culture undermines its very core aesthetic , its raison d'etre as a meaningful cultural experience ..

this gluttonous , Hording Mentality (almost indistinguishable from pure consumer instinct as corporately purveyed) , the electronic Vulgarization-Fetishization and ultimately commodification of rare free jazz lps, for example must ultimately impact on the music itself significantly eroding its cultural significance

one small example is the way downloading has changed my relationship to the CD'S and Records i already own , forcibly diminishing their accessibility for one thing , changing noticeably i think the way i hear or experience the music.... or certainly in the process of doing so...

that is one way that we are destroying if not the thing we love , then our relationship to it , its cultural significance ..

as i alluded to in my first comment , months ago , i believe this tendency towards electronic consumer glut is in some way a form of revolt , against the corporatisation of everything , kicking against the pricks of constraints on personal freedoms , where the only freedom seems to be confined to the arena of personal consumption , ironically the revolt replicates and mirrors the soul destroying systemic notion central to the consumer ethic , which perpetuates the illusion that accumulation , ownership etcetera confer Identity , stability and personal Happiness.

--- End of sotise's comments --

those who buy the laws | ethics | piracy.. - from JC

Note from serviceton: - the below text was left as a comment response by blogger JC on the post "Some Issues" - A Shortlist" .  JC is responding to the comments of Igor (see previous post). - his views are worth a separate post I think.

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JC says


Movement is slow around here but I seem to be subscribed...

On the first part of your thoughts the evidence is clear:

Mega-corporations continue to ply their double standards. Those with the piratical, rapacious "content delivery" systems are emphatic about strong patent/copyright protection for their software/ad sales systems (and are continually suing each other about those elements) while simultaneously striving to abolish any copyright protections for the artistic/creative content they want to deliver (or appropriate). Nothing new there... Those who buy the laws bend them to their benefit.

I might agree personal ethics are the best solution, but the state of the world and nearly any circumstance in it shows us the result of relying on personal ethical compasses. Ethics is one foundation of (or lens for viewing) social relations but that foundation is in general (though perhaps not universally) quite corrupt - and in most cases imminently corruptible. Flawed laws are marginally better than none, bad laws may be worse than none, but the relativism induced by which side of any table one is seated on colors each person's views of "good" and "bad".

Onxi's idea of essentially accruing royalties is in some ways a form of volunteering to submit to the existing framework, but the administrative burden of getting money due to the particular individual producers is monumental. Even ASCAP/BMI work on an estimated basis rather than real accounting. Doing something for the producers may be better than nothing, but it couldn't really do enough for anyone to notice (not that the cultural shift and karma wouldn't have value though).

The issue is not really OOP blogs or ROIO networks, unless the participants decide they don't need to buy *any* music anymore, which gets back to that very slippery - and unenforceable - personal ethics issue. The problem is more outright piracy (online or otherwise) and the "legitimate" businesses (Google, advertising agencies, etc.) that do deal with real money generated by outright thievery. The cultural attitudes are not insignificant, but outside an enforcement framework.

--- End of JC's comments --

Copyright | Ethics | Crisis of the Concept - from Igor

Note from serviceton: - the below text was left as a comment by blogger Igor on the post "Some Issues" - A Shortlist" .  By way of a resumption of discussion , and for its own merits, I have copied Igor's text here.  I have made some tiny edits for the sake of clarity - for full text see original comment.
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Igor says
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I look forward to the discussion on the issue of copyright protection and related topics, because last year we witnessed a series of coordinated protests occurred against two proposed laws in the United States Congress - the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA ). After the whole thing somewhat subsided, it is clear that the theory and practice underlying the copyright protection and intellectual property is fundamentally shaken.

The question that is the focus of interest here - how to enable musician / author to capitalize their deserved income in the form of royalties, I see as part of a larger problem that concerns us all. It is the robbery of the common good and traditional knowledge by mega corporations. I'm referring to the practice of illegal appropriation of international funds of seeds and spread of genetically modified crops by companies such as Monsanto, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Svngenta, Cargill, ADM. I also have in mind the patenting of the human genome sequence in order to achieve a monopoly on genetic modification and the profits derived from such patents. I'm referring to Google's plan to digitize all the books in which the copyright protection deadline expired, which, otherwise, are free to use and reproduce. Their plan is not to stop there ...

So, what it is about when we speak of copyright and intellectual property?
The basic purpose of copyright law is to allow the author to enjoy a monopoly on the exploitation of the works for a limited time. But at the same time, copyright means the request from society to grant exemption from the common property, and demands compensation for the use of private property.

Music copyright protection protects immaterial form of property whose biggest problem is their simple multiplicity. Privacy of private ownership ensures that material goods can only belong to one person. If I own a car, a house or land, their owner can not be someone else at the same time. Copying and sharing music over the Internet removes the very essence of private property, because what was private, has made it common. So, what was originally privately owned, is now becoming more ownership for others. It looks like we are in a situation where individuals are losing control of their private, intangible property, while on the other hand mega-corporations increase the scope of privatization not only of material possessions, but also of knowledge, information and communication - what we know as the common goods.

From the author / musician point of view, who is the focus of interest in this place, desirable situation is one that will allow continuity in generating revenue on the basis of his royalities. Currently the situation is completely different, much worse for the authors. They lost due to Internet piracy, the greedy record industry that does not pay them fairly, and because of fraudulent relationships with various agencies for the protection of music copyrights. (Although there are examples of blogs that raise musical culture, develop the habit of buying music and attending concerts, etc. to their regular visitors. But that's another story). I expect positive developments only after changes in the consumers’ value systems. The changes will result from the behavior of consumers, rather than in legislation. I would not bet on the legislation because it is corrupt and serves the consolidation of the existing order, which means the benefit of it has solely the corporate business.

In our post-modern, neo-liberal, just-about-now-confused world, the solution lies on a different plane, on the ethics. If the question of ethics succeed to assert itself as essential, it will pave the way for solving the most important problems we face today: the environment, energy, hunger...
The question of ethics will be the cutting edge to solve many of problems that humanity is facing today. And that means compel institutions and the private sector to realize that they are part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

As for the free sharing of music via the Internet as I see it, it is a crisis of the concept. The rapid development of communications and global network connectivity has reached a level on which the concept of selling CDs is outdated. One possible solution would be a complete abolition of copyright protection allowing the music and the texts have become free and available to everyone as part of common goods. In this case it would be necessary to find some other mechanisms of authors social compensation. From this standpoint Onxidlib's idea [ serviceton: see comment on "Some Issues" - A Shortlist" (below) ] seems to be very fruitful and worthy of further consideration

--- End of Igor's comments --

He Said "Worldwide Capitalist System" - Say What ? ..

Sotise quite rightly reminds me that my point below "A worldwide capitalist system" does sound pretty odd : -either quite pretentious, or overblown and grandiose.

"Oh no! - Maybe we're in for political theory here, or the pushing of some Marxist agenda ?"

No no - not at all.

I simply couldn't find another phrase that means "In the world we live in , you pay for stuff".
"Paying for stuff is how it all works"
Sure this means paying for boring things like gasoline, rent and food.
But it also means paying for The Products of Cultural Creativity - like albums, paintings, films, plays..
So that creators & producers of those ' Products of Cultural Creativity' - ie The Artists - are able to afford things like gasoline, rent and food.

To make it simpler?

How do our artists - our musicians we're talking about here - earn their living in an enormously changed environment ?

If we care at all about this  - and it may be that we do not, in any way that is functionally meaningful - we need to ask this question.

... I believe

"Some Issues" - A Shortlist

The basic issues involved are to do with

• Valuing the artist
• Expressing that value somehow
• A worldwide capitalist system
• A breakdown of the section of this system that deals with music production & distribution ('the music industry')
• This breakdown precipitated almost totally by technological advances - ie. the internet
• Responses of consumers of music to the above

Sound a bit abstract and quasi-intellectual?  It's not - it's pretty basic really. Money in return for goods, food on the table - that kind of basic.

Prelude

I'm interested in music, the artists who make it , and the people who consume and enjoy it.

The connection between these two endpoints of a single line - the creators and the listeners - has changed massively in the last 10 years.

Almost entirely due to the fact that music - and films as well - can be disseminated intact over the now  ubiquitous and relatively high-speed internet - from anyone willing to copy a commercially issued product or private recording - to anyone in the world that has the time and the bandwidth to click a link and wait a bit - for anything from say a single live concert to the complete released recordings of an artist's career , constituting tens, even hundreds of hours of recordings.


It is foolish to believe that a blog (oh god not another one) - will be any sort of platform for discussion or exchange of ideas or points of view. Nevertheless, that's what this one is being established for the purpose of .
Blogging is pretty much 'over' people say in 2012, and any desire for discussion or interaction should be taken direct to Facebook or somewhere.
But anyway...

Perhaps a main reason to do this - and lets face it starting a free blog takes all of 40 seconds - is simply so I have something to point to that vaguely represents my views and thoughts on a particular topic, in this case the filesharing of music and film.
So I don't have to keep explaining my odd, eccentric, nonsensical, not widely-held views to others - in emails etc etc. .

To save myself some typing in other words.

And because I'm perfectly happy to discuss, debate, and exchange viewpoints on this, out here on a public blog.  As mentioned, I don't really expect anyone to say nothing, but at least the opportunity is there .
If you want to weigh in, think aloud, or come in the room swinging - feel free.

I don't think (right now I mean) - that I would delete any comments made here - even hate-filled, vitriolic, poorly argued ranting. As long as it's mostly on topic. . .

So - let's see what happens. I look forward to being underwhelmed.

But thanks to anyone who's read these few sentences all the same.