Bazaar Blanket - Blanket Licenses done right

Bazaar Blanket, a term I've just invented, is my intention to (re)define blanket licenses in a way that they might in fact work. For that matter I'm going to try to explain the concept of blanket licenses, what are the flaws of that licenses, and how could they work.

We're, fortunately, starting to hear about "Blanket Licenses" more and more, specially related to the music world. This is a concept that appeared as a way to redifine copyright and its issues. As you surelly know piracy is growing more and more, and while we're allways listining that "piracy is bad", "piracy is wrong", there are two statistics that should not be ignored: for one people are listening to more and more varied music, and seem to be more interested in music and art in general; on the other hand most people who practice any form of that so-called "piracy" don't consider or feel that they are doing something wrong, even if they know that they're doing something that society says it is wrong. So, copyright might be outdated (I believe it is, and I may talk about that later, but that's not the point of this article). But do we really need copyright? Some people thought that, while the concepts behind copyright might be good (I say might because you have to believe that copyright is aimed to give financial and moral retribution to artists) they also think that the actual scenario is wrong, with big corporations get the big stake of the profits and the control of the art without being really involved in the process, while artists win nothing but exposure with the deal, and consumers are treated as criminals (and these are really the two parts related to the art itself). So, they think that all this mess could be solved with a "blanket license": people pay a fair fixed price per month and have the right to have access to any form of copyright material they want to (legalizing the big bulk of p2p traffic that entities like RIAA or MPAA want to anihilate). Those same people usually point out uniquely one downside of this: its implementation would have to allow the perfect calculation of what content and how many times is being transfered, as a way to pay for the copyright holders for it, and that's difficult.

Now my part: I've allways said that I don't agree with blanket licenses, which amazes many people. Here's why: I don't believe you could implement a fair blanket license.

First, you would have to force people to pay, or they wouldn't. See, I pay my water bill, but if I don't I'll stop having water at home. Now, if you would have water in the pipes anyway, do you really think that people would pay for the water? Notice that we're talking about the same people that many times can buy the music they're downloading in an online shop, but they don't. Of course that you can avoid that and do what some countries, including Portugal, do with physical media: every CD, DVD, hard drive, pen disk or other physical media they remembered of pays a "copyright tax", so everytime you buy a CD-R you're paying a copyright fee, and every time you're buying a CD burner you're also paying a "copyright tax". The problem here is quite obvious: I never burnt on my CD/DVD burner any CD-R or DVD-R with copyrighted material without permission, but still I payed that tax, and I don't like it. So, if you force people to adhere for that blanket license and pay for it, is it really good?

Then, the question of retribution: how can you see which copyright holder gets 100 and which ones gets 10? Thinking that you can implement such scheme is completely ridiculous: that doesn't even work (nor is fair) in radio station licenses, where there's a similar scheme implemented, with the particularity that it is a closed environment (one entity to pay to, one list per month to report to that entity, each licensee needs to give that list). But let's look wider: if RIAA can't stop (and is avidly trying to) piracy, do you think they could do the tracking necessary (basicly the same) to make blanket licenses fair, specially when they're getting their money anyway (so they don't really get any monetary benefict in doing such an effort)?

So, how to fix "blanket licenses" and turn them into something praticable? Welcome to the "Bazaar Blanket". First of all, this is almost a request for comments, this ideas I'm writting aren't really well defined. This is something that must evolve until reaches a state of "full praticability", meaning that it must be in a way that it turns out to being the obvious way to lid with this matter. Also, I know quite well that this is almost "radical", utopic, and I know that the actual copyright industry would never let such thing to be implemented.

Abolish the concept of copyright. Copyright is outdated. Copyright doesn't work. Plus, copyright isn't needed, at all. I'm starting with this so you understand from the start why I say that the copyright industry would never accept this: without copyright there's no copyright industry. But that's exactly the particularity of abolishing copyright that makes that abolition necessary. See, to get the most of art, you need artists that are free to be artists, and you want that anyone, in any case, can get access to art. Societies without art do not evolve (I really should put a reference here, but if you fuss a little you'll find thousands of resarch papers telling you this). Copyright could be defined as the process of putting barriers between the artists and the general public, so, as we don't want barriers, we don't really want copyright. Oh, BTW, abolishing copyright is what I'm really calling "Bazaar blanket", since it solves everything.

Let me explain. The first issue I pointed out to blanket licenses is that people would be force to aquire such licenses. Well, without copyright they don't, no copyright means no need to have a license that lets you have access to the content. The second issue is that artists should get money fairly. Well, paying for the art is a astonishing concept that we're forcing to accept, but I defy someone to really understand and deffend it. See, I understand that artists should get money - I really do, and I want that they can get that money with this Bazaar Blanket, but if you can reproduce something tending to the infinite with a cost tending to none, then the price of the thing you're reproducing tends to none. Damn, I'm listening to an awsome music that I didn't pay nothing for, and I'm not taking nothing to no one while doing so: this CD was bought by a friend that lended it to me, but since there's nothing like "while you're listening to it I can't" (remember, the reproducing cost is virtually none) I'm not priving anyone of anything. So, should music be free? YES! That doesn't mean that artist shouldn't make money. See, there are physical costs with being an artist. For instance, I'm listening to a CD, and while the music in it does not have costs, the CD itself has. As going to a concert has. As a DVD has, as a book has. You don't need copyright to be able to sell stuff if you abolish stuff. Plus, you stop having to worry to who deserves more money. Pick Don and Joe. Don has a musical project, makes some gigs and people dig him, he records some CD's at home and do some nice DIY packaging for them, with some photos and an autograph, he goes to the next retail store with 50 CD's and sells them to the store so the store sells those CD's. He's making money. No copyright - no rules - no laws - he makes money and all this is legal. Jon though "hey, that's easy money!" so he decided to make something simillar but since he doesn't know nothing of music he skips the concerts part, and just into recording a CD. He makes 50 CD's full of, er, grunts and burps and tries to sell them. No one buys, of course. This is the Bazaar Blanket.

Bazaar Blanket - a concept disruptive and caustic, but fair and praticable, more than Copyright. Just so far from the actual reality that most people won't get it. What are your thoughts?

UK rejects copyright extension

Remember about that awful lobbyist act I told you about in UK, where the music industry wanted that UK extended (even more) the number of years that artists (or the copyright owners) can ask for royalties? That one that had a campaign with thousands of artists asking for the extension, including lots of already dead ones... Fortunately, it seems that the extension purposal was rejected.

Artists vs. Labels

A small but interesting reading here.

Two quotes:

That said, Dan Sheeran of Real Networks believes it’s no longer a matter of “if” DRM will die, but when. The industry itself is most definitely divided, ironically with the major labels standing to gain the most with the death of DRM.

and

today’s label monopoly has sliced the music industry into two competing entertainment sectors: real musicians and pop. Real musicians, undeniably, maintain high economic inelasticity while the realm of pop yields the bomb-like future of an ADD-prone toddler fed a breakfast of Krispy Kremes and Pixie Stix before church.

The Social Web of Music

For those who read this blog for a while now, you've probably noticed that I write a lot about music and technology, sometimes both. A pair of posts I did on the issue may be already somewhat outdated: one about finding music on the web, and other about the web for music artists and lovers.

While there's some discussion around the web on wether Web 2.0 is better or worse than P2P for this kind of stuff, an issue I would love to talk about in a future post, today I'm going to talk about "The Social Web of Music", impelled by the fact that Techcrunch made a Social Music Review that, IMHO, doesn't really reflect the great web apps out there in the field.

They chose eight products: FineTune, Pandora, Last.fm, Mog, Radio.Blog.Club, MyStrands, iLike and iJigg.

My first comment about the chosen applications is that FineTune, Pandora, Last.fm, Mog, and Radio.Blog.Club aim exactly for the same, so they're concurrents themselves.

FineTune lets you create playlists of music you want to hear, which is great if you want to be listening to some music instead of knowing new music.

On the other hand Pandora (here are some posts where I talked about it) has the easiest user interface of all, and has the best algorithm of finding out music that you'll probably like. On the other hand, it has two major problems: it almost only has mainstream music (almost everything comes out from the major labels) and it's only legal to use it in USA (so, no Pandora for us European guys).

My favourite of the bunch is Last.fm (my cover here): while it wasn't until some time ago, the social features it has are preety good. I'm intending to do a full cover of Last.fm and the way I use it, but for now I'll only say that it has an impressive social component that lets you (only if you want, and that's good) tag, rate, talk, know new stuff, get free tracks, and a lot lot more. It has something that beats those others: it lets bands or labels to create their pages there and promote their music. That makes it preety cool for bands and for those wanting to listen music, mainstream or not. The social component there is strong enough to make a band, by publicising themselves there (upload a music free for stream or even download, and it will surely be heard) to get fans or even sell your music in a much success rate than any other webapp I know of.

Mog also lets artists upload their music, but... well, it quite sucks. It's confusing, it has bad design, and the real use for which I can imaging Mog being the app you're looking for is only if you want to blog about music. And, for that, Last.fm would also be fine...

Radio.Blog.Club was a big surprise: I can't imagine it being relevant in a discussion about the "social web of music". I guess that the only reason why it was referred is that the author thinks that "the interface is good". Sorry, but I do not agree. Call me stupid, but while the website says that artists can upload their music, and while, by the file names, users are obviously submitting (copyrighted stuff, BTW), I walked around for 10 minutes or so and didn't find out how to do it. I don't intend to come back there.

MyStrands might be "social music", but isn't web: it's a desktop application you have to download, and there are only versions for Windows or Mac OS. Since I'm a Linux user, this isn't for me.

iLike is even worse: it's an iTunes plugin. No, I don't use iTunes.

Finaly, iJigg: the music digg. I don't really like digg, so I might be biased on this, but iJigg is just... well, if you want to discover music and you want "anything" (forget finding stuff similar of what you already know and like), or if you want copyrighted stuff that others post there (lot's of it, there), then you might find it interesting. But I doubt that it will be "the music web app you'll get used to use".

So, if these are my oppinions about the choices, what would be mine?

For me, only five stand out:

Pandora - I've talked about it up there, so go back and read it :-) If you're resident in USA and what you want is to get at your job in the morning, open a browser tab and make it play music you like until it's time to go home, this is for you. Easy, fast learning, great interface, preety cool. If you like something enough, you can buy the track or album in iTunes (please, don't - those tracks have DRM) or Amazon.

Last.fm - The music experience and interaction. Put your music player to feed Last,fm, use it to listen what other people recommend you, bands similar to the one you're listening now, other bands from the same music label, leave a comment, take a peek on what other Last.fm users that listen to it like to hear, know new bands, get some free, legal, DRM-free music.

SellABand - I promised a full review of it that I never did (shame on me). To give you an example... I have a musical project and I've used the internet to promote it - and even to get the label that released my last album. Of all those music services my music can be heard, SellABand is the one where I probably have less people listening to it - but in the other hand is the one that possibly granted me more fans. Also, Last.fm and SellABand were direct creators of revenue: I sold at least one CD thanks to each of them. What's SellABand? What makes it so different? No better than this page to explain it, but basicly bands, for free, create their profiles there, with (at their choice) free-to-listen music. "Believers" (the name for listeners) may "believe" in an artist by buying one "part" of the band ($10 per part). Then, "Together Believers have to raise $50,000 to get their Artist of choice in the studio. At any point before your Artist has reached the Goal of $50,000, you can withdraw your Parts and pick a different Artist. You can even get your money back. It's your music. It's your choice." If one band reaches $50,000 (in four months two already did), a CD is released, you get a copy, 50% of the profits go to the band, and the other 50% are distributed to their believers.

Amie.st - I talked about this before, and Mike from Techcrunch is a big fan of this, so my surprise was huge when I noticed that this wasn't on their list. Basicly they consider that every track has a value, but music lovers are the ones who should decide whats its value. So, When a band uploads one music there, it starts costing "0 credits", and if people say that the song should cost more than that, it starts costing something, and more, and more. It's the free market aplied to music - a way better way of knowing and buying digital music - you're basicly paying it's "real value".

MySpace Music - This had to be here. I don't like MySpace (nobody does, right?) but it's the biggest website on the Internet, and that means something. If you ignore all the kiddy social crap and take a look to in only taking into consideration the music aspects, you'll see that this is the most used "music webapp". You have from really big and well-known bands like Björk there, and you have that until the "I don't have or want a band, but I once did this track" stuff. You have music for every kind of tastes, some you can only stream and some you can download. You can see, specialy from the "top friends", what other somewhat simmilar bands you'll possible like, and discover lots of music.

And you? What music web applications do you use?