[pp.int.general] Protest certain musicians?

[Bernhard Schillo]

Richard Stallman schrieb:
> Some musicians are obnoxiously opposed to sharing.
> I wonder if it might be interesting to protest them;
> for instance, hand out leaflets at their concerts.
>   
In my opinion no good idea. It's not that easy. For musicians the 
situation is different than for software-programmers:

- As a programmer you are able to release something under a free licence 
and then work for a company who uses closed source. As a musician you 
have to decide once (at least in germany, as in most countrys as far as 
i know). If you once decide to use free licences you aren't able to 
participate at the "usual business", for example collecting societies.

- The music business is much older than the software business. And it's 
therefore much more inflexible. There are 4 big major labels who own 
over 80% of the market and who own also distribution channels. And there 
are the indie-labels which fight about the rest of the market. So it's 
nearly impossible to avoid them if you want to earn money from anything 
but giving lessons in guitarplaying or playing on the street.

- Software is needed by nearly every modern business to make the 
business run. Pepole therefore are willing to pay for it. Companies are 
willing to pay for it, even for open source software. They still need 
the work of programmers as a service. But nobody needs music as a 
service except a wedding party.

- There is the justifiable hope that open souce software can replace 
closed source software one day by itself. Linux or gimp can replace 
windows or photoshop once they have developed nearly the same features, 
because there are not very much emotional aspects. But how can i replace 
a musical piece which impressed me when i was young?

- Software can be developed over a span of time by different people. A 
musical composition may be developed in a similar way, but i suppose 
that this is not the usual way. Usually one composer works on a piece.

- In this discussion and in the public opinion in general it's often 
forgotten that the musical interpreter is not always the same person as 
the composer. 

- So there are a lot of people with different skills to make a concert a 
nice experience for the visitor: composer, musicians, technicians etc. . 
For example even the drummer of a band has a fundamental different job 
than the singer. The drummer sits in the background and is really 
important for the "groove", for the rythm. But most people look at the 
singer or the guitarplayer. That's why as a singer/songwriter you have 
to be really famous so you can pay  your musicians and technicians, if 
you want to produce good sounding music. But how become famous without 
good musicians and technicians? A concert is a kind of theater. The 
audience may adore the "superstar" (usually the singer) and focus on 
him, but without a good drummer, composer, sound engineers, a good 
organisation etc. it doesn't work. So the "superstar" is less important 
than we think and in most cases he is "made" by industry and marketing. 
If you convince him, that sharing is good and he has to publish under 
free licences, he will not become famous and there will be others who 
want to play his part.

- The Pop culture with Bands like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones left 
the impression, that a band is a unique thing with members tied together 
in a mythical way. That's bullshit.

- There are lots of good musicians who are forced to play on the street 
because they have no chance to record their music in a professional way. 
Shure, with the computer it has become easier and cheaper to record 
music, but still it's nearly impossible to record a drumset at home in a 
professional way.

When i read your comment, Musicians are "obnoxiously opposed to sharing" 
and you want to protest them, i miss all this differentiations. What 
Musician do you mean? The persons who stand in the spotlight? The 
composer, the singer, the drummer, the sound enigineer? With this 
statement you disregard the fact, that the "superstar"-status of the 
most musicians is artificially made by the industry.

So in my opinion it's not a good idea to protest musicians. We have to 
protest the record companies and the laws and we have to tell the people 
about the advantages of sharing. But demanding only from the musicians 
to abandon their rights is the same as demanding from a software 
programmer not only to work for an open source project but to decide for 
once, that he never again will work for nearly all companies who make 
money in the software business.

Meanwhile a lot of musicians are not "obnoxiously opposed to sharing" 
any more. Even famous ones who are associated with the the major 
business. The discussion has reched the next level, i suppose. Now it's 
no longer about accepting that filesharing is okay and that we have to 
change copyright. It's about _how_ to change copyright.

Some people in the pirate party for example suggest a copyright of 15 
years for commercial exploitation. I strongly oppose this, because it 
would disadvantage the creator instead of the companies who 
commercialise the copyrights. For my part copyrights can be completely 
abolished - but if that is not going to happen, in my opinion it's _not_ 
ok to reduce them to a span below the lifetime of the creator. A 
company, who owns distribution channels is able to make money of a 
composition within 15 years. A musician, who plays on the street, is not.
(I mean copyrights for commercial use - the private use of copyrightet 
material should be free of course).

If the pirate party wants the musicians to be the losers of the system 
while companies can go on making money by copyrights then i will no 
longer support the pirates, what i (as a musician and 
music-/copyright-blogger on http://musikdieb.de ) have done for three 
years now. I was one of 52 founders of the german pirates, former member 
of the national board and am still very active in the pirate party. But 
unfortunately there still are not very much musicians and artists in the 
party. And the computer nerds in the party don't seem to understand 
their concerns, cause they don't realize the complexity of their business.

And because of this reasons the pirate party has not very much success 
in convincing other people. How can i convince a musician, when i want 
to disadvantage him instead of the industry? First we have to understand 
the music business. Then we have to suggest a political solution, which 
does not privilege the music-industry while disadvantaging the 
musicians. Then we can start to convince musicians.

regards
Bernhard Schillo