The Real Enemies of Art

As someone who has googled himself and found his work being sold by a variety of “media” companies through the years without permission or recompense (and in violation of original contracts), let me put the abusive RIAA lawsuit business in some modest real and legal perspective.

Here’s a quick and typical writer’s tale. In other words, how things really work for most “artists.” A piece you wrote years ago, before the present media company contracts (more on that later), shows up for sale on a search service. You still own the rights, but you do not get any of the money. You contact them and they say, basically, go sue us or the guys we bought it from. This is over maybe a couple of hundred bucks.

So you do nothing. The writing life pays bad enough without spending extra time in court. ( Although Jonathan Tasini did just that, taking the NY Times to court and winning, to little avail. (The Tasini v. New York Times Co. ruling)

Bottom line? The noble protectors of creativity at the Times just changed their contract and threw any archived material they would have to pay royalties for off their website. This hurt both readers and writers. To see what they did, just check out the contract used at the Boston Globe, which is owned by, and run the same as, the Times.)

It’s too typical to be a big deal. The Globe contract is now the industry standard.

That said, I also say big deal to media companies getting ripped off by file swappers. Here’s why. If you look at those contracts “artists” are forced to sign, they are already getting ripped off so badly by their media moguls that the copiers are doing them little, if any, harm. If anything, swapping may be doing them a favor by increasing their marketing at a bargain price. Typical “artists” might get 15 percent, about $1.20 per CD sold at 18 bucks. Getting wider play via swapping builds their popularity and they easily make back the lost money when they go on tour… and when more of their CDs sell.

Heck, the pressure of the swappers might even force record companies to rethink their relationship with musicians as swapping will continue to create an easier and growing alternative distribution model for independent artists. The early adopters are already swapping garage band cuts around the country and the world, effectively bypassing the music monopolies. This brings money in to independent artists due to larger audiences for their live shows and greater CD sales.

Beyond just the music swapping controversy, ask anyone you know who is a writer or other creative type about the decade long war over copyrights and contracts now thoroughly lost by the “content providers” (that’s what they call us these days). Simply put, if you want to work in media (magazines, newspapers, videonews, etc.), you will wind up signing a so-called “all rights” or “work for hire” contract that forces you to give up all the rights in any media for all time to the company you work for in return for a one-time flat fee.

Point is, don’t cry for the artists. The people you rip off when you steal content with file swapping are mostly the real owners of the copyright…that’s right, the big monopolies who control production, distribution and airplay (like Time Warner and Clear Channel).

It’s illegal and they will hunt you down like a dog and sue 12-year-olds to force everyone to stop it. (Actually, it is unclear that swapping is actually illegal. The courts have long held that copying for personal use is OK. But no one has gotten far enough in the legal process just yet to sort through that issue.)

But these media firms, such stalwart protectors of artists’ rights and free speech, aren’t doing it to protect “speech”, “artists” or anything lofty at all.

You will notice with all the hemming and hawing about the morality of it in such notably anti-rights organizations as the New York Times the actually rip-off relationship they maintain with their own freelancers is not brought up. The closest they come to even touching on the simple fact that copying is, in fact, legal for personal use, comes in the 20th graph of today’s sycophantic puff piece in support of the media giants: “At the root of the resistance for many — besides a perhaps decisive fondness for getting things free — is a complaint that the record industry is trying to take away the ability to make copies of music to use personally and to share with friends — a practice that Americans have long enjoyed.”

That bit of hand wringing certainly obscured the legality of copying under current law (making the RIAA suits basically “frivolous,” which is a very bad thing in legal circles).

The big media companies are doing their damnedest to protect the stranglehold they have over distribution and marketing of information. And they do it so that the suits who rip off the artists, claiming vastly inflated expenses to promote and distribute their work, can continue to make 85 percent of every dollar spent on creative content. (This is called Hollywood financing in some circles, referring to the fact that no movie ever makes a profit on the books.)

It’s an old story, cloaked in the imaginary threat of a new technology. The promoters make the money. They make it off the creators, most of whom make a few bucks and then fade away.

I’ve no problem with promoters profiting, even quite handsomely. I believe in the free market.

But like Dick Grasso’s salary, it ain’t so much the principle of it. For me, we’ve established that the business side is a bunch of usurers. Now we’re just discussing the excessiveness of their vigorish. And the strong arm tactics they use to keep access to the market far from free. ¶ 7:46 AM