Re: Samples and looping

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

I think this thread has been focusing too much on the recording of a
piece of music, while it is equally if not more important to discuss
the music itself. You guys are only talking about the container and
forget about the content!

In many ways I agree with Louigi that copyright sucks (because it
keeps people that should be creative and invent new wonderful things
occupied by suing each other for infringement of copyrights) but I
also think it's totally justified to have legal protection of
composer's rights in music. If you look close enough, isn't it the bad
legal implementation that makes the copyright law vulnerable for
abuse, not the idea in itself? If we still want composers in our
society we have to accept legal protection of their rights, because
composers don't sell recordings of their "products" and they don't
make quick money doing concerts (as performing artists may). I'm a big
fan of brilliant composers and for that reason I support legal
protection of the composer's/author's right to his unique idea,
because that is what actually makes it possible for talented people to
become composers in the first place, to pursue it as a future
profession. The important point here is that a composition is just an
idea and as such can not exist on a market without the legal
protection that creates its "product status". Compare that to any
physical product, like for example a pair of shoes, that has its
product status built-in by default. We can't simply undo these modern
mass societies and mass markets, created by previous generations, and
I personally hope that the governments in different countries will
keep up and educate the responsibility to act as a good "gardener"
because this modern society really isn't a natural system that in a
magical way works for the best of all living. To me the ideas
expressed in the Creative Commons movement looks like the way to go,
and some countries have already taken steps in that direction.

Here in Sweden the leading PRO, Performance Rights Organization,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_rights_organisation, STIM
just one month ago made it possible for members to apply
differentiated licensing to their work. But unfortunately they
implemented this in such a way that if you chose anything else than
the old exclusive license (All Rights Protected), for the PRO to look
after for you, you automatically miss out on getting compensated as
your music is played on public radio. That's lame... but it is only
2k9 yet, the future can be changed.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com