Sunday, October 31, 2010

Lewis Hyde: Common as Air: Revolution Art and Ownership

I finished reading a new book by Lewis Hyde a couple of days ago – it is titled ‘Common As Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership’. I was going to post a 4 page summary of it but decided that was too long for a blog post - get the book and have a read yourself it is great.

I was interested in raising one part of the book here though - that with respect to the song writing style of Bob Dylan. Hyde Writes:

“By his own account, Dylan is ‘not a melodist’, which explains in part the largeness of his debts to borrowed tunes. A musicologist at the Library of Congress, Todd Harvey, has tracked down the sources behind the first seventy songs Dylan recorded. ‘Almost every song... had a clear predecessor”, Harvey writes; his documentation shows that about two-thirds of Dylan’s melodies from that period were lifted directly from the Anglo- and African-American traditional repertory.” [pg 199]

He then goes on to extract part of a transcript of an interview with Bob Dylan from 2004 where Dylan discusses his song writing process:

“What happens is, I’ll take a song I know and simply start playing it in my head. That’s the way I meditate... I’ll be playing Bob Nolan’s ‘Tumbling Tumbleweeds’ for instance, in my head constantly – while I’m driving a car or talking to a person or sitting around or whatever... At a certain point, some of the words will change and I’ll start writing a song. ...That’s the folk music tradition. You use what’s been handed down.” [pg 199]

Hyde goes on to note that melody from ‘The Times They Are A Changing’ actually comes from a 19th century hymn ‘Deliverance Will Come’ written in the 1830s by John B. Matthias or in 1870 by W. McDonald or is simply indigenous to South West Virginia, origin unknown. Dylan first used the melody from ‘Deliverance Will Come’ in his song ‘Paths of Victory’ with variants of the tune also included in ‘When the Ship Comes In’ and ‘One Too Many Mornings’.

Hyde then goes on to question whether a young song write could arise in the same manner today as Dylan did in the 1960s. It seems unlikely with copyright law at present insisting that all sampling be licensed in advance. Hyde suggests that the creative ecology has changed significantly over recent decades and makes further reference to Dylan: “Remember his remark about the Merle Travis song ‘Sixteen Tons’: ‘You could write twenty or more songs off that one melody by slightly altering it.’ Hyde comments: ‘That may well have been the case in 1962 when Dylan’s first album appeared; today you’d better radically alter the melody, leaving no three-note passage untouched, or else make sure you have in hand twenty or more licenses from the Merle Travis estate.’ [pg 206].

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Limewire

ArsTechnica are reporting that Limewire has been issued with an injunction forcing it to no longer provide file sharing software or support. This comes after a ruling earlier in the year in which the courts held that Limewire induced copyright infringement. A visit to the network shows a notice which states:

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL NOTICE THAT LIMEWIRE IS UNDER A COURT-ORDERED INJUNCTION TO STOP DISTRIBUTING AND SUPPORTING ITS FILE SHARING SOFTWARE. DOWNLOADING OR SHARING COPYRIGHTED CONTENT WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION IS ILLEGAL.

I have a very old version of Limewire but when I logged in I couldn't connect to the network. I guess this means Frostwire will be the next port of call for those wishing to share - this is an open-source file sharing network which has not been subjected to any litigation to date. And of course the popularity of BitTorrent will mean that most people can still get what they want. Its a shame to see it go really though - what a waste of a perfectly good business.

Further Reading
ArsTechnica, Sour ruling for LimeWire as court says to turn off P2P functionality (26 October 2010) < http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/sour-ruling-for-limewire-as-court-says-to-turn-off-p2p-functionality.ars > at 27 October 2010

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Sony Walkman

Sony has announced it will stop producing its classic Walkman with the digital era displacing it with mp3 players and mobile telephones. I myself had a Walkman many moons ago and can't help but think of this as a milestone in the move to digital technologies.

The ABC report on this announcement discusses our love for mixtapes and taping songs off the radio - if only we had known then we were pirates perhaps the law would have been changed sooner but as it stands both of these activities were illegal. That didnt stop us though. In recent years creating a mixtape of songs we own is now legal but like so many mine were from friends and that of course remains illegal. DRM wasnt even an acronym back then.

Its high time the music industry got with the program on the sharing of music.

Further Reading
ABC, Tape lovers mix it up, old-spool (25 October 2010) < http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/25/3047591.htm?section=justin > at 26 October 2010

Friday, October 22, 2010

Dan Bull - Death of ACTA

I've posted a couple of songs from Dan Bull in the past - here is his latest titled 'Death of ACTA':


Tuesday, October 12, 2010

MC Lars

I was reading through some VERY old things that I have written over the years and came across this song by MC Lars - this is awesome and well worth viewing, take a look at it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBkuiChImb8

Set Back for 3 strikes in Ireland

EFF (via Facebook) are providing a link to an article from TechEYE.net which states that the High Court in Dublin has found no legal basis for ISPs to disclose user identities for the purposes of a three strikes disconnection policy. Irish ISP UCP will therefore not be involved in this process until such time as new legislation is brought into the country. This is a good outcome and a great precedent for other common law countries. Irish ISP Eircom however, has already begun implementing a three strikes or graduated response program as part of an out of court settlement with the content industry. It is unclear whether this will continue.

Further Reading
TechEYE.net, Irish ISP wins major legal victory against record labels (11 October 2010) < http://www.techeye.net/internet/irish-isp-wins-major-legal-victory-against-record-labels#ixzz126RlMHqg > at 12 October 2010

Thursday, October 7, 2010

ACTA

The text of the ACTA - Anti Counterfeiting and Trade Agreement - has been released today. I havent had much of a chance to go through it but it is available here for those looking for it. Be careful when you read it to separate the things that 'must' be done from those that 'may' be done. Also the text commonly states that it applies to 'at least' copyright and trade mark meaning there is discretion to expand the provisions to other areas in the future.

I note that the border security measures may be excluded with respect to travelers' personal luggage which means that the non commercial and personal use of works may continue without baggage or personal searches at airports.

The treaty does appear to insist on increased damages payable on infringement of the law, increased measures for the disclosure of identities from ISPs as well as the implementation of laws with respect to the anti circumvention of DRM.

Countries involved in the negotiation of the agreement include: Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU) represented by the European Commission and the EU Presidency (Belgium) and the EU Member States, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United States of America.

Further Reading
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (2 October 2010) <http://www.ustr.gov/webfm_send/2338> at 7 October 2010

Office of the United States Trade Representative, Statement from Ambassador Ron Kirk Regarding the Public Release of ACTA Text (October 2010) < http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2010/october/statement-ambassador-ron-kirk-regarding-public-rel > at 7 October 2010

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

ACMA: technology developments in the digital economy

The Australian Communications and Media Authority have recently released a new report on technological developments in the digital economy available here. It is divided into three areas - Infrastructure, Smart Technology and the Digital Community.

Interesting data is presented with respect to social networking with the report stating that Australians spent the same time as the global average - 1 in every 11 online minutes at sites such as face book and twitter in 2009. In June 2009 there were 8.9 million unique visitors to social network sites - an increase of 29% in a 12 month period. In November 2009 it was found that Australians led the world by spending 29% of their online time on Facebook.


Further Reading
ACMA, Technology Developments in the Digital Economy (August 2010) < http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib311925/technology_developments_in_digital_economy.pdf > at 6 October 2010