Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
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Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
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Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#2I remember reading a sci-fi novel that impressed me as a child about the wife of a recently deceased composer corrupting a politician to not vote for a proposal to extend the copyright on the basis that there are only a limitited number of possible "interesting" combinations of notes. Hence an unlimited copyright is like a death sentence to the creativity of all future musicians. I believe that the actual limit of 50 years is already too much.
Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#3I remember reading a sci-fi novel that impressed me as a child about the wife of a recently deceased composer corrupting a politician to not vote for a proposal to extend the copyright on the basis that there are only a limitited number of possible "interesting" combinations of notes. Hence an unlimited copyright is like a death sentence to the creativity of all future musicians. I believe that the actual limit of 50…
I remember this too -- saw it on reddit, had a title that had something to do with elephant's memory or something to that. Anyone know exactly what this was?
Edit: found it! melancholy elephants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholy_Elephants
Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#4I remember reading a sci-fi novel that impressed me as a child about the wife of a recently deceased composer corrupting a politician to not vote for a proposal to extend the copyright on the basis that there are only a limitited number of possible "interesting" combinations of notes. Hence an unlimited copyright is like a death sentence to the creativity of all future musicians. I believe that the actual limit of 50…
50 years is definitely excessive. One can argue that for very successful authors/artists it can provide income for heirs. In most cases it only benefits publishers. 30 years sounds like a reasonable period for me.
Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#5I remember reading a sci-fi novel that impressed me as a child about the wife of a recently deceased composer corrupting a politician to not vote for a proposal to extend the copyright on the basis that there are only a limitited number of possible "interesting" combinations of notes. Hence an unlimited copyright is like a death sentence to the creativity of all future musicians. I believe that the actual limit of 50…
I remember this too -- saw it on reddit, had a title that had something to do with elephant's memory or something to that. Anyone know exactly what this was? Edit: found it! melancholy elephants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholy_Elephants
Thank you, I couldn't remember the title.
Here it is if anybody want to read it:
http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm
It is strange the way in which a random quote stays in our mind for years, I still remembered the following almost verbatim.
"Artists have been deluding themselves for centuries with the notion that they create.
In fact they do nothing of the sort.
They discover.
Inherent in the nature of reality are a number of combinations of musical tones that will be perceived as pleasing by a human central nervous system.
For millennia we have been discovering them, implicit in the universe—and telling ourselves that we `created' them.
To create implies infinite possibility, to discover implies finite possibility.
As a species I think we will react poorly to having our noses rubbed in the fact that we are discoverers and not creators."
Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember this too -- saw it on reddit, had a title that had something to do with elephant's memory or something to that. Anyone know exactly what this was? Edit: found it! melancholy elephants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholy_Elephants
Thank you, I couldn't remember the title. Here it is if anybody want to read it: http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm It is strange the way in which a random quote stays in our mind for years, I still remembered the following almost verbatim. "Artists have been deluding themselves for centuries with the notion that they create. In fact they do nothing of the sort. They discover. Inherent in the nat…
This is very similar to the philosophical implications that all mathematics are out there and we are just discovering them. In this light one can always use the example of the infinite monkeys typing random characters and producing all the works of Shakespeare. If you do the Maths though you will need more time than the predicted life-span of our Universe.
Thanks for the link though very interesting.
Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#7I remember reading a sci-fi novel that impressed me as a child about the wife of a recently deceased composer corrupting a politician to not vote for a proposal to extend the copyright on the basis that there are only a limitited number of possible "interesting" combinations of notes. Hence an unlimited copyright is like a death sentence to the creativity of all future musicians. I believe that the actual limit of 50…
I wouldn't mind it being 50 years if it were non-transferable.
It is, after all, an incentive to create, not to seek rent.
Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#8I remember reading a sci-fi novel that impressed me as a child about the wife of a recently deceased composer corrupting a politician to not vote for a proposal to extend the copyright on the basis that there are only a limitited number of possible "interesting" combinations of notes. Hence an unlimited copyright is like a death sentence to the creativity of all future musicians. I believe that the actual limit of 50…
I wonder why there aren't copyright trolls similar to patent trolls. They could just release huge libraries of computer generated music with all of these interesting combinations of notes. Then do automated comparisons of popular songs to find "violations." Could also be another one of those cases of getting an absurd law revoked by exercising it.
Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#9"...was the product of intense creative labor"
I don't mean to downplay the amount of work that goes in to writing a song, but this seems a bit over the top. Short little melodies like this are trivial to write. My pre-school age children come up with these all the time.
The tune of Happy Birthday doesn't seem particularly catchy to me. We've just heard it repeated so many times.
Re: Copyright and the World's Most Popular Song
#10I remember reading a sci-fi novel that impressed me as a child about the wife of a recently deceased composer corrupting a politician to not vote for a proposal to extend the copyright on the basis that there are only a limitited number of possible "interesting" combinations of notes. Hence an unlimited copyright is like a death sentence to the creativity of all future musicians. I believe that the actual limit of 50…
In the UK the Gowers review did some economic analysis and found that the current length (50 years) was too long to benefit the UK economy.
They didn't bother trying to argue that point though, as they were too busy trying to prevent the length from being increased to 95 years, which was being lobbied for strongly by various interests.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gowers_Review_of_Intellectual_P...