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sebster wrote:Except forms of music are very specific, and a lot of songs start to sound very similar. Look at Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend, which sounds almost identical to the 80s song from the Rubinoos, so much so they went to court over it. If you listen to the two songs they're both pop by the numbers that its easy to believe that they could both be built following the same pop methodology.

While we don't know the exact details of the settlement between Lavigne and the Rubinoos, Lavigne and her song-writing partner were cleared of plagiarism.

Avril Lavigne? Whatever floats your boat...

I never said it would be completely devoid of crossover, just that it seems significantly less of an issue in music copyright. Although again, I'm not a huge music aficionado, so I guess I can't say how often it occurs for sure. If the pool of possible songs is being noticeably diminished I can see why it would be the same as the issue of patents.

The idea is that chair is a material object available for the use of one person. If after twenty years I lose ownership of the chair, the most use it can achieve is someone else sitting in it. But ideas don't work that way, if an idea is freed up and put into public domain then many, many people can benefit from it at once.

But that isn't to say that patents shouldn't exist - if the creator can't control his idea and profit from it for a length of time why would he bother creating in the first place? So certainly they should have a period of time where they're free to benefit from their ideas. But is there any greater profit incentive in controlling an idea for 100 years than there would be for 20?

So, after a reasonable length of time has passed, doesn't it make sense for intellectual property to move into public domain?

No, not really. If a person does not rightfully own the idea for having come up with it, I don't see how it can be justified to forcibly suppress others from using the idea. On the other hand, I don't see how if coming up with the idea makes the idea itself that person's, anyone else has a right to it. In either case it would be the majority ignoring the rights of the minority to have the product of their labor to increase their own wealth (in the first case to ensure that people put effort into labor for them, and in the second to assure that they can have the product of the labor for free).

Ork, I can see the logic to that except for one thing: does everyone else have to pay you to build a chair? No. You own that chair, not the idea of a chair.

You are not going to collect money on ottomans and foot stools and benches as 'derivative work' nor will you be sueing the makers of tables since their design clearly infringes on your intellectual property.

Copyright laws as stand work like that.

Remember that intellectual property covers VERY wide range of things, and occasionally employment agreements can have very, very nasty clauses hidden away in places. Marvel Comics used to have one at one point that basically said that while you were working for them, everything you drew the entire time was their intellectual property, even if you drew it at home, on a cocktail napkin. Further, anything you drew for up to six months after you were terminated was more or less theirs too, if they could argue you had the idea while working for them.

and Disney was (and probably still is) even worse.

Orkeosaurus wrote:Avril Lavigne? Whatever floats your boat...

I’ll admit I liked Complicated. She basically makes cookie cutter pop music, which is how she ended up accidentally making a generic pop song that was very similar to a generic pop song made twenty earlier.

I never said it would be completely devoid of crossover, just that it seems significantly less of an issue in music copyright. Although again, I'm not a huge music aficionado, so I guess I can't say how often it occurs for sure. If the pool of possible songs is being noticeably diminished I can see why it would be the same as the issue of patents.

Its more that songs have genres and those genres have rules. It’s unlikely that two bands will accidentally make the same prog rock song because that stuff is so diverse, but most music follows basic patterns, so when you get something like radio friendly girlie pop the number of possible songs drops to a point where you might end up creating something that’s already been created.

]No, not really. If a person does not rightfully own the idea for having come up with it, I don't see how it can be justified to forcibly suppress others from using the idea.

An idea will be optimally used by society when it is free to access by everyone. However, we want to encourage new inventions and if every invention was free for public use there would be no incentive to invent. This is something of a problem when it comes to backyard inventors, and really, really big problem when it comes to encouraging companies to set up multi-million dollar research labs investing in new medicines.

Restricting the idea to just the owner is a necessary evil to encourage future inventions. But after a lengthy period that profit incentive has been more than met, and it serves society best to have the idea move into public domain.

I think you might be looking at this from a personal rights POV. All I can say is that the issue is primarily discussed on utilitarian grounds, and trying to balance the desire to get the most out of an idea (allowing everyone to use it) and encouraging new ideas (giving profit to the inventor).

BaronIveagh wrote:Remember that intellectual property covers VERY wide range of things, and occasionally employment agreements can have very, very nasty clauses hidden away in places. Marvel Comics used to have one at one point that basically said that while you were working for them, everything you drew the entire time was their intellectual property, even if you drew it at home, on a cocktail napkin. Further, anything you drew for up to six months after you were terminated was more or less theirs too, if they could argue you had the idea while working for them.

Of course, that kind of language tends to be obliterated in court - a person has the fundamental right to make a living that trumps these kinds of legal clauses...

JohnHwangDD wrote:

BaronIveagh wrote:Remember that intellectual property covers VERY wide range of things, and occasionally employment agreements can have very, very nasty clauses hidden away in places. Marvel Comics used to have one at one point that basically said that while you were working for them, everything you drew the entire time was their intellectual property, even if you drew it at home, on a cocktail napkin. Further, anything you drew for up to six months after you were terminated was more or less theirs too, if they could argue you had the idea while working for them.

Of course, that kind of language tends to be obliterated in court - a person has the fundamental right to make a living that trumps these kinds of legal clauses...

Not when your lawyer is the one that you can get on artists wages, and their lawyer is the legal team that millions of dollars buys. And no it doesn't. Most of them, for example, have a non-compete agreement in there someplace, prohibiting you from working in the industry for X amount of time, in an effort to discourage head hunting by rival companies. If you're freelance, you don't have that as often as the salaried employees do, though.

For extra fun, some of them have the location of their parent company HQ as the area who's laws govern the employment agreement. Ever have to fly across country, or even out of country, to file suit? Iceland, for example, has some very different laws on the subject. And for real entertainment, visit a country who companies are also organs of state.

BaronIveagh wrote:Ork, I can see the logic to that except for one thing: does everyone else have to pay you to build a chair? No. You own that chair, not the idea of a chair.

You are not going to collect money on ottomans and foot stools and benches as 'derivative work' nor will you be sueing the makers of tables since their design clearly infringes on your intellectual property.

Copyright laws as stand work like that.

But that doesn't matter if no one was ever going to build a chair anyways until you did; i.e., the idea is too original to ever be replicated independently. Not that this is necessarily true of music copyright (as the Avril point seems to show).

sebster wrote:Its more that songs have genres and those genres have rules. It’s unlikely that two bands will accidentally make the same prog rock song because that stuff is so diverse, but most music follows basic patterns, so when you get something like radio friendly girlie pop the number of possible songs drops to a point where you might end up creating something that’s already been created.

Hmm. Not listening to pop as much as I wasn't really considering them.

An idea will be optimally used by society when it is free to access by everyone. However, we want to encourage new inventions and if every invention was free for public use there would be no incentive to invent. This is something of a problem when it comes to backyard inventors, and really, really big problem when it comes to encouraging companies to set up multi-million dollar research labs investing in new medicines.

Restricting the idea to just the owner is a necessary evil to encourage future inventions. But after a lengthy period that profit incentive has been more than met, and it serves society best to have the idea move into public domain.

I think you might be looking at this from a personal rights POV. All I can say is that the issue is primarily discussed on utilitarian grounds, and trying to balance the desire to get the most out of an idea (allowing everyone to use it) and encouraging new ideas (giving profit to the inventor).

Well, I understand the rationale behind it well enough from a utilitarian standpoint. Although it seems that utilitarian arguments will peter out if music piracy becomes too widespread to be forcibly stopped.

And nearly always, non-compete clauses are illegal.

Companies will ask for them, and typically, the response is that they will "agree" to "waive" them in lieu of a very strong class-action lawsuit that could potentially invalidate ALL of the clauses for ALL of the employees due to it being a one-sided "contract of adhesion".

Orkeosaurus wrote:Well, I understand the rationale behind it well enough from a utilitarian standpoint. Although it seems that utilitarian arguments will peter out if music piracy becomes too widespread to be forcibly stopped.

Pretty much. It's likely the industry will restructure, moving on-line and selling stuff at a sufficiently low price that the hassle of piracy isn't worth it - a few dollars for an album. This will be a hit to revenue, but the industry is finding new sources of revenue all the time in branding opportunities. The actual musicians will likely continue to make their money from touring as they always have.