It’s MEMORIAL DAY in the US, but musicians are AT WAR every day. Who’s fighting for them?
BY LEE JOHNSON & MERYANA TAMERA
It’s MEMORIAL DAY in America, a day when citizens of the US remember the sacrifices their servicemen and women have faced in the line of their military duty against aggressors across the centuries.
Millions of Americans in the US and overseas will be reflecting on on-going wars, the wars of history, and the legacy of these wars on humanity.
But while we’re thinking of war, we’re also thinking about the on-going WAR on MUSIC CULTURE.
Let’s take some time to think about WAR in all its guises, especially WAR on MUSICIANS and all creative music rightsholders and how this affects music composers, performers, producers, and publishers across every sector of the MUSIC world, everywhere.
While no physical weapons are seen in this type of war, other weapons are at hand; the weapon to destroy music rightsholders’ ability to earn a decent living through blatant theft or piracy via the illegal downloading of the creative property of another, whether through torrents — illegal download platforms that are almost impossible to police — or through the illegal downloading of music by individuals who might simply don’t know that what they’re doing is ILLEGAL.
Let’s not forget the war waged by music societies, the world over, who threaten genuine music businesses who have direct relationships with their own artists — such as RadioSparx, for example. As AudioSparx and RadioSparx have discovered over the past 10 years, many music societies have been operating for decades abusing rightsholders’ rights by advocating to enact laws that purport to protect rightsholders’ rights, but in fact do the exact opposite, enabling the societies to completely infringe on rightsholders’ rights under the guise of protecting them, via absolutely crafty and nefarious wordsmithing combined in tandem with the highly opaque co-opting of legislator independence and objectivity by utilising undue financial chicanery.
This is a WAR against the music creators of this world. Without creators, we are all the ‘walking dead’, because creation is about life; life simply would not exist without music, art and culture, and artists need to be properly paid for their work.
Take the case of Napster. Remember them? If you’re old enough you’ll remember the big excitement at being able to get music ‘for free’, until Napster was stopped in its tracks — rightly so.
Young people, back in the 90s, didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong; this was the infancy of the new digital world. The LAW entered this war on culture and pulled out the big guns. The LAW eventually won the war, but this war continues in other guises, and at every level, the world over —mostly invisibly because it’s happening digitally.
Let’s remind ourselves of the Napster crimes against creativity.
The Napster legal story is a significant chapter in the history of digital music and copyright infringement. Napster was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing platform that allowed users to share and download MP3 music files for free. It gained immense popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s, causing major disruption in the music industry.
The legal troubles for Napster began in 1999 when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), along with several major music labels, filed a lawsuit against Napster for copyright infringement. The music industry argued that Napster facilitated widespread unauthorized sharing of copyrighted music, leading to financial losses for artists, songwriters, and record labels.
In 2001, a federal US court ruled in favor of the music industry, declaring that Napster’s centralized file-sharing model violated copyright laws. As a result, Napster was ordered to shut down its service, and the platform ceased its operations in July 2001.
Despite its closure, the Napster case had a profound impact on the music industry and set legal precedents. It sparked discussions about the challenges posed by digital piracy and the need for effective mechanisms to protect intellectual property in the digital age.
After the shutdown of the original Napster, the brand name and assets were later acquired by Roxio, and Napster was reimagined as a legal music streaming service. It transitioned into a subscription-based model, following the footsteps of other music streaming platforms that emerged in the subsequent years.
The Napster legal story serves as a reminder of the complex relationship between technology, copyright, and the music industry. It marked a turning point in the way the music industry adapted to the digital era and led to the development of legal music streaming services that have become prevalent today.
Napster was never alone in its activity. Let’s look at other instances of the war on music artists, copyright, and their control of and ownership of their creative work and livelihoods.
Here are a few notable examples:
1. Online Piracy: Online piracy involves unauthorized copying and distribution of copyrighted works, including music, movies, books, and software. It results in significant financial losses for artists and creators. Platforms such as torrent sites, streaming portals, and unauthorized file-sharing networks have been involved in facilitating the widespread distribution of copyrighted content without proper authorization.
2. Counterfeit Merchandise: Counterfeit merchandise refers to the production and sale of unauthorized replicas or imitations of branded products, including artist merchandise such as clothing, accessories, and concert memorabilia. Artists often face financial losses when counterfeit products are sold, as it undermines their ability to profit from their official merchandise.
3. Ticket Fraud: Ticket fraud occurs when individuals sell fake or fraudulent tickets to concerts, festivals, or other live events. This deprives live-performing artists of legitimate ticket sales and can lead to disappointed fans and reputational damage. Fraudulent ticket sales can happen through online platforms, classified ads, or unauthorized ticket reselling websites.
4. Unauthorized Sampling and Remixing: Sampling refers to the use of portions of existing recordings in new compositions. While sampling can be a creative practice when done with proper authorization and licensing, unauthorized sampling, or remixing of copyrighted material without permission from the original artists can lead to legal disputes and financial losses for the rightful owners.
5. Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement: This happens through the use of someone else’s work, such as songs, lyrics, or melodies, without a license, or without permission, or in claiming ownership improperly. Rightsholders can experience financial and reputational harm as a result.
These examples highlight the ongoing challenges faced by music rightsholders in protecting their intellectual property and maintaining their ability to properly earn a living through their creative work.
More recently, the advance of the use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the world of MUSIC provides the perfect opportunity for ETHICAL AI companies to finally get music compensation right. It is essential for AI companies to reward music rightsholders for the music used with their AI training models.
A beautiful new world is opening up for Musicians, as we speak, if AI companies properly take into account the value of the music that trains the new technology to be able to do its veritable magic.
So, while we think about MEMORIAL DAY as a US institution, dating back to 1868, let’s consider the on-going modern-day warfare on our music culture — which is almost never reported in the press — what this means for us, and how we MUST fight it on every level; through knowledge, education, joining forces to bring DIGITAL THEFT out of the shadows. And we must support an AI FUTURE that recognises the true value of music rightsholders and compensates them properly to reward the brilliance of their creative hard work and endeavors.
