The author's "screwdriver" example fairly clearly shows that he's still a little foggy on the distinction between physical property and "intellectual property". He goes on to cement that notion with examples about a show and a book. All of which argue from a base of scarcity which doesn't exist in the venue he's suddenly found himself. Its easy to see how the girl could continually miss his point.
This is likely his first encounter with a gift economy, its logic and its denizens (who are mostly, but not exclusively) teenagers. It would seem that the qualities he wants to attribute to the "teenage mind" are really traits of the gift economy that sprung up around trading digital sheet music.
Its easy to sympathize with him however. It may turn out that only a handful of generations found themselves in the peculiar circumstances that allowed them to cast elements of culture into items of physical property that could be mass produced but were not easily duplicated. It must be quite disorienting to find oneself at either edge of that transition.
> All of which argue from a base of scarcity which doesn't exist in the venue he's suddenly found himself.
Sure, his analogies fail at some point, just like most analogies. But that doesn't make his point invalid. Or yours valid, for that matter.
The problem still remains that his time is scarce -- no matter how easy it is to copy the media he uses to distribute his work. And that's what copyright is about: Not the scarcity of the media, but the scarcity of the time needed to create the master.
Or can you snap your fingers and have beautifully designed, perfectly written, and bug free software appear on your hard drive?
As I understood his argument, it had nothing to do with ease of duplication. Instead, it was about ownership. His contention that the creators (who are by implication the owners) of intangible things have rights too is not invalidated by technology.
Could one draw the link between the printing press, the availability of printed Bibles rather than the laboriously hand-written copies, the subsequent larger availability of Bibles in the vernacular, and several Reformation ideals, particularly the German Protestantism notion of a direct connection with God rather than one that had to pass through the Pope?
there's nothing foggy about the distinction between getting paid for your work versus not getting paid. worrying about your ability to pay bills each month has a wonderful de-fogging effect.
You know if we all stopped pirating stuff and obeyed the very letter of copyright law, open source and free entertainment, software, etc would have a huge renaissance.
You know those bands that make their money from touring that are always put forward as the future? Their mp3s compete for mindshare with pirated Lady Gaga stuff.
Maybe if we all obeyed copyright then Elanor would have looked around for some other composer who gives their stuff away for free. Win-win. Composers who want money get money, composers who want fame get it instead.
The biggest competitor to Gimp is pirated Photoshop.
That's why some entrepreneurs in the "free entertainment and open source business" are just begging for the copyright people to do what they wanted in secret, while trying to convince everyone that a post-copyright world is a good idea.
Some of us are just convinced that it's good money, but some of us can't help but trying to tell people about the truth while being happy that they don't believe it. It's a weird situation.
It's a good exchange, and worth reading particularly if you are one of those "extraordinarily hostile young men" who are likely disagree to with him. I left the article feeling that Eleanor (the defiant teenager) was particularly well-spoken, and that Jason Robert Brown would love for me to get off his lawn. I don't know him, but now I'm prejudiced against him and his works. But he does a great job of explaining his thought process, whether one agrees with it or not. And better understanding those with whom one disagrees is a good thing.
I thought the weakest part was his attempt to make it a clear-cut case of right and wrong, and then go on to give some very muddy examples that really haven't been clearly decided: "I then ripped that CD on to my hard drive so I can listen to it on my iPod in my car. Well, that's not FAIR, right? I should have to buy two copies? No. There is in fact a part of the copyright law that allows exactly this; it's called the doctrine of fair use."
Logical, I'd agree, but he might want to discuss this with the RIAA, who argue that it's not fair-use, and merely an example of their forbearance not to sue for such petty infringement: 'there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns...'
(http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=pira...)
But his moral argument seems almost reasonable: I created this music, so I get to control who uses it. He trades fair-use under copyright for exclusive rights to distribution. Inevitability aside, 'hostile young men' of HN, what's the flaw with this reasoning? Does one need to resort to the fairly weak position that 'sharing' with strangers falls under fair-use, or is there something stronger that can be said?
i couldn't believe you sided with the girl and not Jason!
Did you miss out on the point that making music is how that guy makes a living? And part of that making a living is from the sale of his music, in all it's forms? If he chose to give something away for free, that would be a different matter. But that wasn't the case here. She was really arrogant and showed an unbelievable sense of entitlement and the "perpetrator is victim" mentality. Dude, you think his argument is "almost reasonable"?!?!?! Who made that music?
I also love how she sounds like this modern suburban American teenager with Internet access and she's studying theatre of all things, and yet cannot afford $4 to buy sheet music?! Probably needs it to buy a cool case for her iPhone, or buy the latest clothing fashion, etc. Here's the sound of the world's smallest violin playing a sad song just for her...
I thought his moral argument was "please pay me for the sheet music so my kids won't starve." Which I agree is ridiculous; he'd just quit writing music and find another job before they died of starvation. I mean, hellooo, soup kitchens are free...
I realise I wasn't meant to, and it doesn't say anything about my position on the issue, but from reading the exchange I formed an immediate liking for the girl.
If every teenage girl was this expressive and self-assertive, I personally would feel better about the world.
cough I now return you to your "Illegal downloading bad, m'kay?" programming
> If every teenage girl was this expressive and self-assertive, I personally would feel better about the world.
She's not your usual girl, it seems to me - how many collect and use sheet music? Just following her musical/theatrical passion that far is unusual enough, and I was a little impressed that she understood copyright law enough to think she was getting around it by emailing stuff off-site. (She's wrong, of course; contributory infringement could be used to nail her.)
for the tl;dr crowd- The author writes about an incident in which he discovered a teenager was trading his sheet music, without his permission and approaches her about it, said teenager actually makes several very good points, which get ignored by the author on various occasions in their conversation in lieu of a "lecture" on copyright.
Further tl;dr - the comment section by and large are all pats on the back to the writer. Few worthy of reading, but not many.
While I certainly see the perspective of the author here, wanting to preserve the integrity of his work, invariably he faces the same crisis the mainstream music industry faces: refusal to accept the change in mentality about content distribution and consumption, and an ardent unwillingness to entertain the idea that maybe in order to attract new audiences you have to tickle their senses and find out what they want, and how to give it to them. "Build it and they will come", thing.
He is already selling artists sheet music that they absolutely need for their profession via instant download for the cost of a coffee and the teenager in question still believes it is her right to misappropriate a copy instead because she doesn't want to pay.
The author isn't trying to preserve his work's integrity, whatever that is, he is trying to preserve his income.
He is a song writer. He genre is not a big recording industry item, mechanical royalties will be minimal. There are no concert tee shirts ,to assuage anyone's guilt here.
I'd figured this would be an uncharitable summary, but after reading the article, it's pretty much spot on. He keeps reiterating that he needs to make money, she keeps giving good explanations for why her actions don't impede that goal, and he keeps ignoring everything she says in favor of repeating his thesis.
The question that you are dancing around is: do we care enough about creative works to support their creation, or do we really care so little about the food for our soul that we look forward to consuming only the side-project crumbs that people make in their evenings and on weekends for fun?
Some artists have a "live" performance that people enjoy paying for that un-copyable experience. But do we really want our authors to make their entire living from tips at book-signings?
Copyright hasn't caught up to the reality of unlimited instant effortless copying, but artists still need to eat, and paying them for what they do is probably going to remain the simplest way to make sure they eat at all.
I'm actually genuinely curious how the whole "art industry" will turn out eventually. On the one hand I sympathize with an artists desire to eat and provide for their family. On the other hand I don't quite buy into the idea that intellectual property is entitled to the same protections as physical property.
In some ways the medieval and renaissance periods had a more valid model with patronage for the arts. That limited the market to a much smaller pool of career artists though. I wonder what will replace the current state of affairs since a lot of signs point to it being unsustainable. And I do enjoy the results of having a larger pool of artists.
The reason it limited the pool of artists was the much higher cost of doing art back then. Not just the cost of materials either; most people spent their entire lives doing backbreaking labor effectively all the time they were awake. They couldn't have created art even if they had been gifted with the materials. Artists had to be supported by "gifts" of food and shelter and all the other basics we almost take for granted today.
Technology is allowing the pool to get larger. Amateur creativity is going to become increasingly more important and partially replace art that comes from the industry.
Well it seems that many (if not most) of the posters here side with the girl's explanation. So be it, but don't get pissed at me when I take your GPL product, incorporate it into my closed-source set top box and refuse to release the source. After all, it's not like I've stolen anything or deprived you of revenue.
Some people do BSD because they actually want corporations to actively use their instead of "shitty version that corporations wrote from scratch".
Some people, like me, just don't feel like we have anything to lose, but we also accept the fact that somebody might make a million bucks off my work and be totally fine with it.
In fact, I mostly evolved a sort of indifference as I diverge from the BSD and GPL hardliner positions to "hey, let just share!"
I live most of my formative years immersed in open source software. It just feel icky not to give anything back for so much of the free education that they enabled and provided for me in addition to all the great tools that I have the privilege to use.
The author obviously come from a very different culture, a culture that doesn't automatically share its capitals and works, that of which is clearly alien to me, if not to hackers in general.
For me, money and sharing isn't something that belong to the exclusively of one side or another, like charity and jobs. Money and sharing isn't in conflict at all. In fact, I like to think more sharing lead to more cash.
It's a clash of cultures really, but it doesn't mean each culture is equally good, just with a different perspective. What's really happening is a conquest and battle of ideologies, heart and minds, and which make more money. If one culture is clearly better than the other at this, then they are truly the superior culture.
Fair point, but people tend to feel differently about the issue once somebody is making money from the IP theft. Eleanore apparently is a teenager trying to become an artist, not a scammer who repackages that artists compositions for ad jingles and becomes a millionaire from it. No matter what the law says or what you think about it, aspects like that will factor into what people FEEL is right.
Your reasoning is fallacious. You've equated coping copyrighted works with witholding changes to a GPL program based on the observation that they're both illegal.
This is not the basis under which they should be compared. The correct comparison proceeds by thinking about which of the two actions is ethically justifiable.
You might as well have said "You want to break the speed limit to get your pregnant wife to hospital. So be it, but don't get pissed at me when I break the speed limit to get to the sports game."
I have also heard from a continuing stream of extraordinarily hostile young men (always men) who insist on "educating" me on the ins and outs of cybermorality, the definition of "stealing," and why I deserve to choke on my own obsolescence.
What he interpret as hostility is a bunch of young men who can't help but try tell you the truth as they see it.
It's about watching people oblivious to the fact of life getting chop to bits by pirates and free markets because they refuse to recognize something crucial.
And when they can't help you, they will buy other people stuff just to spite you. If they're in the same business, they will manically laugh at you. Then they will try to help you, knowing that you will just dismiss them like last time.
Admittedly, they describe me. I am one of those young men who would do this on and off. I wanna crush them, and then tell them the good news.
I have a tiny bit of domain knowledge that I'd like to impart:
1) To be fair, real scores are hard to find. Most of the published stuff is simplified, has parts removed, or is otherwise substantively altered from what is actually performed by professionals (code for this: "Vocal selections from..." "Adapted from..." etc.) I can't speak to this particularly to JRB, who may very well publish real scores, but there is a perception in the industry that in general the good stuff is unavailable.
2) There is no iTunes for sheet music. If you click through his links, get ready to install ActiveX DRMey plugins to preview the music. On mac? Too bad. So there's no way to confirm, i.e., that this is the "real stuff" as opposed to simplified sheet music.
3) If you study the industry in any detail, you'll discover that it's set up like a "Good ol' Boys" system. You can't get a part until you join the union, but you can't join the union until you get a part. New actors are placed on secret lists that are passed around to other directors either to promote or defame them. This may be totally valid and even necessary for Broadway to function--but it does breed resentment among those trying to "break in" to the system.
These three factors spell the perfect storm for piracy. There are multiple roadblocks to acquiring the music legally, and there's a huge resentment factor on the part of the consumers.
The author links to his wife's blog post of a year ago in which she says a major part of the problem is the lack of an easy, legal way to access the material in question. He later links to a site where he says his work is available for instant purchase.
When you visit that site, the first thing you see in Chrome is a giant 'missing plugin' block and an invitation to download the 'Scorch' sheet music plugin, which it turns out is available for IE, Firefox or (on Macs) Safari. JOY.
Further down, you get the following message:
"We advise you to check your printer setup now before you buy. You will only get one chance to print your music after you have purchased it. If you have difficulty printing, please see our print problems help page."
WTF? OK...let's have a look at the print problems help page:
"=== It says Printing To File Not Allowed ===
"Copyright law prohibits us from allowing customers to store image files of the scores on their computers. Therefore, when you buy from us, we only allow printing to paper."
No. Seriously?
The takeaway for me: not only do these people not get filesharing, they don't get computers and their attitude to those who do is one of xenophobia.
Try getting a refund when their crappy plugin crashes your browser...
How about the printed copy that's now unusable (because it's, you know, paper, and paper has a habit of getting crumpled or ripped or wet or binned...)
Even iTunes doesn't make me pay for an mp3 again if my HDD dies...
I think he made a mistake posting this on his site. He was technically in the right but he came off as a total asshole. The girl was offering to basically advertise his work. Plus she stopped trading his music when he asked. She could have put it all on torrent to spite him (and something like that is very likely to happen if certain groups like 4chan see this).
Hell, if his site wasn't so miserable I would just pay the $4 or whatever for her (i.e. I would but it doesn't look like there is a way for me to pay it for her). Sheesh.
Let Jason Robert Brown feel mighty and righteous about his sheet musics being copied.....I mean...err..stolen.
For the rest of everybody else who actually have some common sense about business, this is a dream come true. It's market inefficiencies ripe for exploitation. Exploit it and don't let the illegal pirates take it away from you, especially when your competitors decide to stick his head into the sand and give you a free lunch. The more Jason Robert Brown type people, the better.
In one of the comments someone asks the author if he himself never infringes on copyright. I thought his response to that was disappointing: while the majority of the imagery on my site is co-owned by me I can't vouch for all of it nor can I promise that it's all legally sound; none of that should prevent me from asking people not to trade my music illegally
Frankly, I'm kind of shocked by HN's collective opinion on this subject- and I am not a conservative.
In my opinion, it is really very simple. I don't care so much about the nebulous question of whether it's right or wrong to infringe on IP, and all these other new questions that come about when you remove the physical aspect and introduce CTRL+C/CTRL+V. What matters to me, is that books and music and movies continue to exist.
That won't happen if we insist we deserve it all for free. Who the fuck will spend their life writing music or books or movies if we don't leave them a way to monetize it? Artists are rarely driven by greed (and if they are, disillusioned quickly) but in nearly every human being, the desire to NOT DIE usurps the desire to express yourself creatively, so artists will be forced to abandon their works to continue living.
Who the fuck will spend their life writing music or books or movies if we don't leave them a way to monetize it?
That's a very narrow, brainwashed view. Many people will continue to spend their lives on it. Remember music has been around long before there were ways to "monetize" it.
Moreover please realize that your HipHop millionaire and Britney Spears are anomalies in first place. For every Britney Spears you'll find ten thousands of underdog musicians who stay (often barely) afloat not by having their videos on TRL, but by playing small gigs in front of people.
That kind of making a living with music is not going anywhere and will, in fact, greatly benefit when the "Great wall of EMI" (or Universal, or Sony, or what not..) comes down.
You know what else is interesting - the means to produce music and movies is moving down market, fast. My friggin phone records HD, and my Mac comes with some basic music production software, I can self-publish my own books on amazon or just host them electronically myself.. and this trend is only accelerating.
So will we see less art in the future? Absolutely not - we'll be seeing huge amounts more, and from people who may not have had access to, say, a recording studio in the past. The economics are changing on both ends of the "business," which I think is a net positive.
They both fall for the common fallacies and null arguments common to this sort of dispute.
It is still an interesting read though; and I think they both come off well (less so the "obnoxious young men" :)).
Who is right though? It's a morally difficult question because this is not like, say, a big film producer or an indie game developer (representing the two main extremes). This is a girl who (supposedly) wants sheet music for her school production. On the other hand Jason arranges music exactly for those sorts of scenarios; and at what point do you say "this person is now deserving of having the music for free".
Thinking this through there is a fairly easy solution; Jason should offer his music through schools and other youth organisations for free (or free loan). Thus allowing teenagers such as this to put on their shows and practice their art. Then there will be no need for such people to trade the music.
Just use the rather common approach of the Golden Rule: 'Treat others like you want to be treated'. If you want others to keep their promises to you, you should keep your promise to others. Likewise, if you want others to fulfill the contracts they agreed to, you should fulfill the contracts you agreed to.
The author offered a contract: "Pay 4 dollars and promise not to copy and redistribute the media, and I promise to give you a copy". Nobody who accepted this contract, has the moral right to violate it. Otherwise, everybody would have the right to violate contracts, in general.
Everything else is just a matter of organization: If teenagers need sheet music for school production, their parents should pay for it. Or the parents can create a club, hire somebody to write music, and share the resulting work.
I'm impressed with the length of dialogue between the two, and disappointed that it got condescending on both accounts. As far as I can tell, Mr. Brown is legally correct and yet Elanor had some wisdom to offer him. I still haven't heard his work, but I'm thinking about it on her recommendation.
I'm mildly surprised to see the classic FSF lend-a-book argument in there:
"Would it be wrong for me to make a copy of some sheet music and give it to a close friend of mine for an audition? Of course not. In fact, it would be considered nasty of me to refuse. But to trade sheet music online is bad? "
[+] [-] noonespecial|15 years ago|reply
This is likely his first encounter with a gift economy, its logic and its denizens (who are mostly, but not exclusively) teenagers. It would seem that the qualities he wants to attribute to the "teenage mind" are really traits of the gift economy that sprung up around trading digital sheet music.
Its easy to sympathize with him however. It may turn out that only a handful of generations found themselves in the peculiar circumstances that allowed them to cast elements of culture into items of physical property that could be mass produced but were not easily duplicated. It must be quite disorienting to find oneself at either edge of that transition.
[+] [-] cschwarm|15 years ago|reply
Sure, his analogies fail at some point, just like most analogies. But that doesn't make his point invalid. Or yours valid, for that matter.
The problem still remains that his time is scarce -- no matter how easy it is to copy the media he uses to distribute his work. And that's what copyright is about: Not the scarcity of the media, but the scarcity of the time needed to create the master.
Or can you snap your fingers and have beautifully designed, perfectly written, and bug free software appear on your hard drive?
[+] [-] pmccool|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JacobAldridge|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErrantX|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russellallen|15 years ago|reply
You know those bands that make their money from touring that are always put forward as the future? Their mp3s compete for mindshare with pirated Lady Gaga stuff.
Maybe if we all obeyed copyright then Elanor would have looked around for some other composer who gives their stuff away for free. Win-win. Composers who want money get money, composers who want fame get it instead.
The biggest competitor to Gimp is pirated Photoshop.
Etc.
[+] [-] kiba|15 years ago|reply
Some of us are just convinced that it's good money, but some of us can't help but trying to tell people about the truth while being happy that they don't believe it. It's a weird situation.
[+] [-] nkurz|15 years ago|reply
I thought the weakest part was his attempt to make it a clear-cut case of right and wrong, and then go on to give some very muddy examples that really haven't been clearly decided: "I then ripped that CD on to my hard drive so I can listen to it on my iPod in my car. Well, that's not FAIR, right? I should have to buy two copies? No. There is in fact a part of the copyright law that allows exactly this; it's called the doctrine of fair use."
Logical, I'd agree, but he might want to discuss this with the RIAA, who argue that it's not fair-use, and merely an example of their forbearance not to sue for such petty infringement: 'there’s no legal "right" to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns...' (http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=pira...)
But his moral argument seems almost reasonable: I created this music, so I get to control who uses it. He trades fair-use under copyright for exclusive rights to distribution. Inevitability aside, 'hostile young men' of HN, what's the flaw with this reasoning? Does one need to resort to the fairly weak position that 'sharing' with strangers falls under fair-use, or is there something stronger that can be said?
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply
Did you miss out on the point that making music is how that guy makes a living? And part of that making a living is from the sale of his music, in all it's forms? If he chose to give something away for free, that would be a different matter. But that wasn't the case here. She was really arrogant and showed an unbelievable sense of entitlement and the "perpetrator is victim" mentality. Dude, you think his argument is "almost reasonable"?!?!?! Who made that music?
I also love how she sounds like this modern suburban American teenager with Internet access and she's studying theatre of all things, and yet cannot afford $4 to buy sheet music?! Probably needs it to buy a cool case for her iPhone, or buy the latest clothing fashion, etc. Here's the sound of the world's smallest violin playing a sad song just for her...
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] peterwwillis|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frossie|15 years ago|reply
If every teenage girl was this expressive and self-assertive, I personally would feel better about the world.
cough I now return you to your "Illegal downloading bad, m'kay?" programming
[+] [-] gwern|15 years ago|reply
She's not your usual girl, it seems to me - how many collect and use sheet music? Just following her musical/theatrical passion that far is unusual enough, and I was a little impressed that she understood copyright law enough to think she was getting around it by emailing stuff off-site. (She's wrong, of course; contributory infringement could be used to nail her.)
[+] [-] seertaak|15 years ago|reply
cough she mistook "defiantly" for "definitely".
[+] [-] iamdave|15 years ago|reply
Further tl;dr - the comment section by and large are all pats on the back to the writer. Few worthy of reading, but not many.
While I certainly see the perspective of the author here, wanting to preserve the integrity of his work, invariably he faces the same crisis the mainstream music industry faces: refusal to accept the change in mentality about content distribution and consumption, and an ardent unwillingness to entertain the idea that maybe in order to attract new audiences you have to tickle their senses and find out what they want, and how to give it to them. "Build it and they will come", thing.
[+] [-] jws|15 years ago|reply
He is already selling artists sheet music that they absolutely need for their profession via instant download for the cost of a coffee and the teenager in question still believes it is her right to misappropriate a copy instead because she doesn't want to pay.
The author isn't trying to preserve his work's integrity, whatever that is, he is trying to preserve his income.
He is a song writer. He genre is not a big recording industry item, mechanical royalties will be minimal. There are no concert tee shirts ,to assuage anyone's guilt here.
[+] [-] chc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] delackner|15 years ago|reply
Some artists have a "live" performance that people enjoy paying for that un-copyable experience. But do we really want our authors to make their entire living from tips at book-signings?
Copyright hasn't caught up to the reality of unlimited instant effortless copying, but artists still need to eat, and paying them for what they do is probably going to remain the simplest way to make sure they eat at all.
[+] [-] zaphar|15 years ago|reply
In some ways the medieval and renaissance periods had a more valid model with patronage for the arts. That limited the market to a much smaller pool of career artists though. I wonder what will replace the current state of affairs since a lot of signs point to it being unsustainable. And I do enjoy the results of having a larger pool of artists.
[+] [-] billswift|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andresmh|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Anechoic|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kiba|15 years ago|reply
Some people, like me, just don't feel like we have anything to lose, but we also accept the fact that somebody might make a million bucks off my work and be totally fine with it.
In fact, I mostly evolved a sort of indifference as I diverge from the BSD and GPL hardliner positions to "hey, let just share!"
I live most of my formative years immersed in open source software. It just feel icky not to give anything back for so much of the free education that they enabled and provided for me in addition to all the great tools that I have the privilege to use.
The author obviously come from a very different culture, a culture that doesn't automatically share its capitals and works, that of which is clearly alien to me, if not to hackers in general.
For me, money and sharing isn't something that belong to the exclusively of one side or another, like charity and jobs. Money and sharing isn't in conflict at all. In fact, I like to think more sharing lead to more cash.
It's a clash of cultures really, but it doesn't mean each culture is equally good, just with a different perspective. What's really happening is a conquest and battle of ideologies, heart and minds, and which make more money. If one culture is clearly better than the other at this, then they are truly the superior culture.
[+] [-] Tichy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tome|15 years ago|reply
This is not the basis under which they should be compared. The correct comparison proceeds by thinking about which of the two actions is ethically justifiable.
You might as well have said "You want to break the speed limit to get your pregnant wife to hospital. So be it, but don't get pissed at me when I break the speed limit to get to the sports game."
[+] [-] john_45|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kiba|15 years ago|reply
I have also heard from a continuing stream of extraordinarily hostile young men (always men) who insist on "educating" me on the ins and outs of cybermorality, the definition of "stealing," and why I deserve to choke on my own obsolescence.
What he interpret as hostility is a bunch of young men who can't help but try tell you the truth as they see it.
It's about watching people oblivious to the fact of life getting chop to bits by pirates and free markets because they refuse to recognize something crucial.
And when they can't help you, they will buy other people stuff just to spite you. If they're in the same business, they will manically laugh at you. Then they will try to help you, knowing that you will just dismiss them like last time.
Admittedly, they describe me. I am one of those young men who would do this on and off. I wanna crush them, and then tell them the good news.
[+] [-] ErrantX|15 years ago|reply
And they (you?) are not doing very well at "educating" us. Mostly it verges from amusingly incoherent to downright disturbing :)
[+] [-] drewcrawford|15 years ago|reply
1) To be fair, real scores are hard to find. Most of the published stuff is simplified, has parts removed, or is otherwise substantively altered from what is actually performed by professionals (code for this: "Vocal selections from..." "Adapted from..." etc.) I can't speak to this particularly to JRB, who may very well publish real scores, but there is a perception in the industry that in general the good stuff is unavailable.
2) There is no iTunes for sheet music. If you click through his links, get ready to install ActiveX DRMey plugins to preview the music. On mac? Too bad. So there's no way to confirm, i.e., that this is the "real stuff" as opposed to simplified sheet music.
3) If you study the industry in any detail, you'll discover that it's set up like a "Good ol' Boys" system. You can't get a part until you join the union, but you can't join the union until you get a part. New actors are placed on secret lists that are passed around to other directors either to promote or defame them. This may be totally valid and even necessary for Broadway to function--but it does breed resentment among those trying to "break in" to the system.
These three factors spell the perfect storm for piracy. There are multiple roadblocks to acquiring the music legally, and there's a huge resentment factor on the part of the consumers.
[+] [-] noibl|15 years ago|reply
When you visit that site, the first thing you see in Chrome is a giant 'missing plugin' block and an invitation to download the 'Scorch' sheet music plugin, which it turns out is available for IE, Firefox or (on Macs) Safari. JOY.
Further down, you get the following message: "We advise you to check your printer setup now before you buy. You will only get one chance to print your music after you have purchased it. If you have difficulty printing, please see our print problems help page."
WTF? OK...let's have a look at the print problems help page:
"=== It says Printing To File Not Allowed ===
"Copyright law prohibits us from allowing customers to store image files of the scores on their computers. Therefore, when you buy from us, we only allow printing to paper."
No. Seriously?
The takeaway for me: not only do these people not get filesharing, they don't get computers and their attitude to those who do is one of xenophobia.
[+] [-] nikz|15 years ago|reply
How about the printed copy that's now unusable (because it's, you know, paper, and paper has a habit of getting crumpled or ripped or wet or binned...)
Even iTunes doesn't make me pay for an mp3 again if my HDD dies...
[+] [-] loewenskind|15 years ago|reply
Hell, if his site wasn't so miserable I would just pay the $4 or whatever for her (i.e. I would but it doesn't look like there is a way for me to pay it for her). Sheesh.
[+] [-] kiba|15 years ago|reply
For the rest of everybody else who actually have some common sense about business, this is a dream come true. It's market inefficiencies ripe for exploitation. Exploit it and don't let the illegal pirates take it away from you, especially when your competitors decide to stick his head into the sand and give you a free lunch. The more Jason Robert Brown type people, the better.
[+] [-] lena|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kuahyeow|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|15 years ago|reply
In my opinion, it is really very simple. I don't care so much about the nebulous question of whether it's right or wrong to infringe on IP, and all these other new questions that come about when you remove the physical aspect and introduce CTRL+C/CTRL+V. What matters to me, is that books and music and movies continue to exist.
That won't happen if we insist we deserve it all for free. Who the fuck will spend their life writing music or books or movies if we don't leave them a way to monetize it? Artists are rarely driven by greed (and if they are, disillusioned quickly) but in nearly every human being, the desire to NOT DIE usurps the desire to express yourself creatively, so artists will be forced to abandon their works to continue living.
[+] [-] moe|15 years ago|reply
That's a very narrow, brainwashed view. Many people will continue to spend their lives on it. Remember music has been around long before there were ways to "monetize" it.
Moreover please realize that your HipHop millionaire and Britney Spears are anomalies in first place. For every Britney Spears you'll find ten thousands of underdog musicians who stay (often barely) afloat not by having their videos on TRL, but by playing small gigs in front of people.
That kind of making a living with music is not going anywhere and will, in fact, greatly benefit when the "Great wall of EMI" (or Universal, or Sony, or what not..) comes down.
[+] [-] jexe|15 years ago|reply
So will we see less art in the future? Absolutely not - we'll be seeing huge amounts more, and from people who may not have had access to, say, a recording studio in the past. The economics are changing on both ends of the "business," which I think is a net positive.
[+] [-] ErrantX|15 years ago|reply
It is still an interesting read though; and I think they both come off well (less so the "obnoxious young men" :)).
Who is right though? It's a morally difficult question because this is not like, say, a big film producer or an indie game developer (representing the two main extremes). This is a girl who (supposedly) wants sheet music for her school production. On the other hand Jason arranges music exactly for those sorts of scenarios; and at what point do you say "this person is now deserving of having the music for free".
Thinking this through there is a fairly easy solution; Jason should offer his music through schools and other youth organisations for free (or free loan). Thus allowing teenagers such as this to put on their shows and practice their art. Then there will be no need for such people to trade the music.
Solution, no?
[+] [-] cschwarm|15 years ago|reply
Hardly, in my opinion.
Just use the rather common approach of the Golden Rule: 'Treat others like you want to be treated'. If you want others to keep their promises to you, you should keep your promise to others. Likewise, if you want others to fulfill the contracts they agreed to, you should fulfill the contracts you agreed to.
The author offered a contract: "Pay 4 dollars and promise not to copy and redistribute the media, and I promise to give you a copy". Nobody who accepted this contract, has the moral right to violate it. Otherwise, everybody would have the right to violate contracts, in general.
Everything else is just a matter of organization: If teenagers need sheet music for school production, their parents should pay for it. Or the parents can create a club, hire somebody to write music, and share the resulting work.
[+] [-] timinman|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kuahyeow|15 years ago|reply
"Would it be wrong for me to make a copy of some sheet music and give it to a close friend of mine for an audition? Of course not. In fact, it would be considered nasty of me to refuse. But to trade sheet music online is bad? "
[+] [-] TerminalDummy|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkramlich|15 years ago|reply