Music, Copyright, and YouTube

I've never paid much attention to copyright policy concerning YouTube until recently. I understand traditional music licensing, but since I haven't been uploading unauthorized material to YouTube, it's not been my concern.

And while I work with musicians whose songs have been used as background music for fan-generated videos uploaded to YouTube or have been covered by other musicians, and no one asked for permission to do so, the songwriters have been flattered by the attention and would never ask that the videos be taken down.

What got me interested in YouTube's policies was this recent video.
Margaret Gould Stewart: How YouTube thinks about copyright

She talks about YouTube's Content ID system:

Well, it starts with content owners delivering assets into our database, along with a usage policy that tells us what to do when we find a match. We compare each upload against all of the reference files in our database. ...

Now, what do we do when we find a match? Well, most rights owners, instead of blocking, will allow the copy to be published. And then they benefit through the exposure, advertising and linked sales....

By empowering choice, we can create a culture of opportunity.

I realized that although YouTube tells everyone to get permission from copyright holders before uploading material, they have a system in place to deal with it after the fact. This, in my mind, quite as step forward in the world of copyright. YouTube must follow the law, but it has a created a system which gives incentives to rights holders to allow copyrighted material to remain in place even if permission wasn't granted in advance. It's still up to the rights holders to determine whether the content stays or goes, but YouTube has created a system which might facilitate the more creative use of copyrighted material.

Content ID has helped create an entirely new economic model for rights holders. We are committed to supporting new forms of original creativity, protecting fair use, and providing a seamless user experience -- all while we help rights owners easily manage their content on YouTube. "Content ID and Fair Use," YouTube Blog, 4/22/10.

I think YouTube has developed a new licensing mechanism. It has created a database of content, then matches the content to the user, and lets the rights holder decide if the video needs to be taken down, if the sound gets shut off, or if the video stays. And as YouTube gets bigger, makes more money, and finds more ways to make it financially worthwhile to rights holders to be flexible about content usage, it creates a viable experiment to see if and how copyright and user creativity can work together. While pro-copyright and anti-copyright groups are debating, YouTube has actually created a system, though flawed, which is working and pushing the envelope without going so far as to get shut down. Here's more on the fine line that YouTube is trying to walk. "YouTube's Balancing Act: Making Money, Not Enemies."

Not everyone is as impressed with YouTube's database system as I am. Some people argue that YouTube is not doing enough to stop unauthorized material from appearing.

... YouTube is sort of like the pawnshop owner who sells stolen jewelry and says “How was I supposed to know it was stolen”? "Industry Chat: A2IM President Rich Bengloff on the State of Indie," Paste, 7/22/10.

.... Google’s habit of gaming the system, of calculating how to harness a willingness to cross the line of legality and then pull back to something more reasonable, while reaping the business benefits of its initial transgression. "YouTube Gets the Power of Eminent Domain," Digital Society, 6/26/10.

Others think YouTube is taking down videos too quickly.

YouTube's Content ID tool fails to separate the infringements from the arguable fair uses. And while YouTube offers users the option to dispute a removal (if it's an automated Content ID removal) or send a formal DMCA counter-notice (if it's an official DMCA takedown), many YouTube users, lacking legal help, are afraid to wave a red flag in front of Warner Music's lawyers. That's a toxic combination for amateur video creators on YouTube. "YouTube's January Fair Use Massacre," Electronic Frontier Foundation, 5/3/09.

Let me start first that I hope I do understand a bit of YouTube’s motivations in creating the Content-ID system. YouTube certainly has a lot of copyright violations on it, and it’s staring down the barrel of a billion dollar lawsuit from Viacom and other legal burdens. I can understand why it wants to show the content owners that it wants to help them and wants to be their partner. It is a business and is free to host what it wants. However, it is also part of Google, whose mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” and of course to not “be evil” in the process of doing so. On the same blog, YouTube declares its dedication to free speech very eloquently.

As such YouTube does want to avoid the blocking of non-infringing videos while trying to help content owners get rid of actual infringements on the site. These recommendations apply on what to do for partial Content-ID matches where the upload is not simply a verbatim audio/video copy of the content owner’s work, but is possibly transformed into something else which may be non-infringing. "YouTube makes statement on Content-ID takedowns," Brad Ideas, 4/24/10.

He goes on to outline how YouTube could deal with challenged videos in ways other than its current system.

Here's YouTube's response to someone whose account was closed:

Under the DMCA, the relevant law, service providers like YouTube are required to adopt and implement a policy to terminate the accounts of repeat copyright infringers. YouTube implements its repeat infringer policy in a way that has become the industry standard, and the courts have confirmed that other companies with similar policies adequately implement this legal requirement.

Of course, we do everything we can to help our users avoid being in the position of being accused of repeat infringement and losing their accounts. We have clear copyright warnings when people sign up for accounts and when they upload videos; we have a copyright tips section in the Help Centre; we make it easy to file counter-notices if users feel they've been falsely accused; and we provide clear notice to our users when a video taken down for infringement that we will close down their account if they continue to post infringing content. Also, we make it easy for rights holders to use our Content ID system so that their matched content can be monetised instead of taken down under the DMCA removal process if they so choose.
"Jimmy Carr killed my YouTube account," The SocialITe, 2/26/10.

It's important to note that although YouTube is moving forward on creative ways to encourage content usage, it hasn't eliminated copyright laws. So there's still a potential risk in uploading unauthorized content to YouTube.

Let's start with two facts:

1. If your video incorporates copyrighted material owned by someone else (like a clip taken from a movie, TV show, or song performed or written by someone else), the copyright owner could sue you at any time. They don't have to warn you first, they don't have to use the Content ID tool, they don't have to send a DMCA takedown notice.
2. As far as we know, no typical YouTube user has ever been sued by a major entertainment industry company for uploading a video. We have heard of a couple special cases, involving pre-release content leaked by industry insiders, but those aren't typical YouTube users. And there have probably been a few lawsuits brought by aggressive individual copyright trolls. But no lawsuits against YouTubers by Hollywood studios or major record labels. That's right — millions of videos have been posted to YouTube, hundreds of thousands taken down by major media companies, but those companies have not brought lawsuits against YouTube users. "Guide to YouTube Removals," Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The system seems to be sorting itself out little by little. Copyright laws haven't changed, but video creators haven't been slapped with massive lawsuits either. (Instead, the lawsuits have gone to YouTube, which luckily has the financial resources to deal with them. "Judge Throws Out Viacom Case Against YouTube.")

People who upload content created by someone else (e.g., movie and TV clips, recorded music) seem to run the most risk of getting it taken down because there are usually multiple rights holders involved and any one of them can flag the same video. People who upload videos of themselves singing songs they didn't write also have been asked to take down videos, but there seems to be less of a problem here. In fact, it has been widely reported that some artists have launched their careers this way. Given the apparent success of such a tactic, many artists upload themselves singing covers so they are more likely to turn up in YouTube searches. This is what I will focus on for the rest of this blog post.

Young amateur singers often sing other people's songs in "cover" versions. The first video Justin Bieber ever posted on YouTube was his cover of So Sick, a song by Ne-Yo. But Bieber, at the time only 12 years old, probably didn't get copyright permission to post his cover of Ne-Yo -- or, for that matter, any of the other artists Bieber later covered. The lack of express copyright permission creates a precarious gray area -- is a noncommercial cover video posted on YouTube infringing or fair use?

Hard to say, given how open-ended the fair use standard is. In these gray areas of copyright law, YouTube sometimes yanks down the videos, as it did with all of the videos of the amazing fifth grade PS22 chorus from Brooklyn. The chorus covered numerous artists, such as Tori Amos, Fleetwood Mac, Jay Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West, and posted the videos on YouTube -- all apparently without copyright licenses. Only after much pleading from the chorus's director, Gregg Breinberg, did YouTube reinstate the PS22 chorus's videos. Of course, YouTube did the right thing, as Tori Amos, Stevie Nicks, and other artists later praised the chorus's singing of the respective artist's song. "Edward Lee: On Being Justin Bieber in the Age of YouTube," Huffington Post, 7/1/10.

Traditionally when artists want to cover someone else's song, there are well-established paths to do so.

If they want to record someone else's song, they obtain a mechanical license, usually from the Harry Fox agency, and pay 9.1 cents per song per recording (i.e., $91 per 1000 CDs).

If they want to cover a song in a live performance, a fee is collected by one of the performance rights organizations (ASACP, BMI, and SESAC). Generally the venue handles that, so it isn't anything the artist has to deal with.

If they want to perform a song in a movie or TV show, the producer generally handles that and obtains a synchronization license from the songwriter and publisher and then also pays a performance fee to one of the PROs.

For YouTube, the performance rights are handled by YouTube (although that hasn't been going all that well).

Licensing negotiations between YouTube and the German music rights group GEMA have broken down, and GEMA is now demanding that the video share site take down or block access to hundreds of works. "Music Rights Holders to YouTube: Block Our Songs," NewTeeVee, 5/10/10.

"GEMA CEO Reaches Out To YouTube."

In May, YouTube was ordered to pay [ASCAP] $1.6 million plus future payments to account for the public performance of music on the video-sharing website. "The future of embedded video will (or will not) be televised," Hollywood Reporter, 11/16/09.

The synch rights would fall to the creator of the video, which means the performer is supposed to contact the songwriter and get permission. This is pretty easy to do if the songwriter owns all the rights and is easily accessible. Send him/her an email saying you'd like to perform his/her song and upload it to YouTube. Chances are the songwriter will be quite flattered and happy to give approval.

If it gets much more complicated than that, the performer wanting permission to do the song may either not know how to get permission or may decide it isn't worth the hassle. I'm not sure if this information is correct, but this person says that publishers aren't even set up to handle such requests.

We talked to a friend about this issue at Warner/Chapell Music Publishing today... and they said that W/C has a blanket deal with YT but that some songs were on a 'restricted list' whatever that means. Not only that but they had no idea how one would go about getting specific license to merely to cover a song on YT. It's not a mechanical license, and it's not a sync license, it's basically a new type of license altogether. And this is someone who has worked for the world's largest music publisher for over five years. So the reality is, there's basically no way to do what YT requires, at least not at Warner/Chapell... (at least according to our friend). "Possible solution to YouTube's cover song 'problem'," YouTube Help, 5/3/10.

Here is a more detailed explanation from a company, Web Sheriff, hired to monitor unauthorized use of Van Morrison's songs.

As many of you may be aware – and as pointed-out by Leflaw - in order to synchronize video / film footage with an artist’s music (and assuming, for present purposes, that you are not re-arranging or adapting the artist’s / writer’s songs), a synchronization license is actually required from the relevant publishers / sub-publishers, which, unfortunately, can be a lot more complicated than you might imagine. If the publishers then seek to enforce / protect their rights on-line – some do, some don’t, others have yet to catch-up – then that’s where issues start to arise.

That being said - and in relation to Van Morrison specifically – Exile have been conducting on on-going review of these matters, specifically aimed at opening-up as many copyright exemptions for fans and YouTubers possible / feasible ... .. thereby cutting-through the publisher-red-tape with a series of special, automatic, copyright clearances. Initially, these exemptions were secured for fans performing their own, personal covers / renditions of Van songs, as well as usages that were either educational (eg. high school concerts etc) or compassiontate (such as weddings and funerals – events where, so often, Van Morrison’s music means so much to those concerned).

As part of on-going process of rolling-out these copyright exemptions – and as was the case with our friend Cooperweb - we are very happy to be able to announce that, subject simply to providing an industry standard, courtesy credit, Exile shall now also be able to provide bands with direct permission to keep their professional Van Morrison covers on YouTube (and, indeed, any other cover clips featuring Van’s music, provided, again, that the lyrics and arrangements are not changed - as this would require yet further clearances with publishers and, of course, the consent of the author himself). The text of the credit should simply say "Copyright music and lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Exile" and this should be prominently displayed at the very beginning of your description of the clip ... .. so, Mike / Shmoo and Sixstringlass, we’re glad to say that, not only will your covers no longer be pulled from YouTube, but they shall also be a very welcome addition to the constellation that goes to make-up Van’s on-line presence. Naturally, these permissions are conditional / revocable, so we would kindly ask anyone posting a cover to ensure that your clip and the accompanying wording is not rude or obscene and that it does not infringe Van Morrison’s moral rights in his music and lyrics – which, of course, would not have been the case with either Mike or Sixstringlass.

For the avoidance of doubt – and as also mentioned by Cooperweb - these permissions / exemptions ONLY apply to the use of Van Morrison’s music in conjunction with fans' and artists' own footage / recordings and NO permission shall be granted for the use of Exile copyright footage / recordings or footage / recordings that actually feature Van Morrison ; for which many thanks, again in advance, for understanding and respecting the artist's and label's wishes. "Web Sherriff and Van Morrison discuss You tube "cover" issue," Boycott-RIAA.com, 7/30/08.

If a YouTube license was similar to a movie or TV show license, it would spell out whether the song was only going to be used in this particular video, whether the video is only going to be shown on YouTube and not on other websites, whether the video can only be broadcast for a few years or forever, etc.

So let's say you skip obtaining permission and go ahead and cover someone else's song in a video and upload it to YouTube. What will happen?

Chances are, nothing.

But some people have had their videos taken down. Here are some reasons:

1. The publisher doesn't give permission. For example, musicians have been spreading the word to avoid covering songs by the Eagles because many covers of those songs have been taken down at the request of Cass County Music.

2. Fraudulent claims. If YouTube gets a request to take down a video, it does so. But sometimes the people or companies making the request don't actually own the rights. Therefore, you could protest and get the video uploaded again, but not everyone wants to go through that hassle. Here's some discussion of the matter: "So, about false DMCA claims... is there any way to *really* defend yourself?"

3. Mistakes. Sometimes videos using songs that fall under public domain, have been legally licensed, or fall under fair use have been taken down. It's then up to the video creator to argue his case to get the video restored.

... my son once got his knuckles rapped by youtube for posting his rendition of ..... a Mozart sonata movement. We got a notice that there was an alleged copyright infringement and they threatened to pull the video down. I responded that the piece was almost 250 years old and that any damn fool would know that it was in the public domain. Well, I didn't say it quite that way, but I do recall being somewhat curt. They backed off. "Youtube Cover Removed for Copyright Infringement," Piano World Digital Piano Forums, 3/30/10.

We had two YouTube videos that WMG claimed were violating their copyright. Neither were music vids, just cool islandy stuff. The audio was ambient noise (no music AT ALL) and I added a bit from the sound effects that came with our iMovie software. Absolutely nothing in it was owned by WMG.

YT removed the audio from them and sent us the notice. For months I didn't do anything (trying to stay under the radar), but eventually I decided to dispute it.

The audio has been restored on those videos. I have no idea why they were tagged. We have dozens of covers on our channel and not peep about them. "I got a little warning on YouTube," Ukulele Underground, 7/31/10.

"Use of Royalty Free music gets three copyright strikes!"

If you have three of your videos taken down, YouTube closes your account. Here's an article about a popular performer who did many covers and then had his account suspended for a week until he was able to work something out with publishers.

The suspension, Choi said, came because he did a cover of “What Wonderful World.” Covering other artists' songs, in addition to creating his own music, is something Choi said he did since his first YouTube post.

Singing cover songs like Katy Perry's “California Gurls” and Lady GaGa's “Telephone,” Choi said he had to be careful because “technically you're not supposed to do covers.”

“I do a lot of covers,” said Choi, who is Korean American. One of the cover songs got a strike on YouTube, he added.

“Three strikes on YouTube and you're out. I just had to get the publishers to retract the strikes.” David Choi Talks Fame Via YouTube, Pacific Citizen, 6/18/10.

For a lot of musicians, uploading cover songs had become a try-it-and-see approach. Put it up and see if it stands. Of course, if you get three videos taken down and you can't get it worked out with the rights holders or YouTube, you can lose your entire YouTube account.

That's the flaw in the system. You may find out that the rights holder is happy for you to upload your videos, but you may not find out until after you do and it is left standing. And in some cases what might be acceptable now might not be in the future. People who uploaded Warner Music Group content found out that when WMG broke off talks with YouTube, it began issuing takedown notices.

The ideal system would be for each video creator to run content past YouTube's system, find out if it is considered acceptable, and if not, have it barred without getting a "strike" on his/her record. And if it is okayed, then to receive a license agreement outlining the rights holder's terms so that there is some record of permission, even if the rights holder is allowed to ask that the video be taken down at some future point (with no penalty to the video creator).

Another wrinkle you should be aware of is that YouTube has been forming partnerships with some musicians who have attracted large audiences. But according to the discussions, if you have received a take down notice, you won't be eligible. So what do you do if you want to cover someone else's song, but don't want to run the risk of having it taken down? Obviously one way is to seek permission beforehand. If you can't or don't want to do that, you might consider having a fan upload such a video of you, or setting up a separate account for your more questionable videos so they don't drag your good videos down with them.

Here's advice from someone who has done quite a few cover songs on YouTube.
"Critical Info for Youtube Musicians Who Perform Cover Songs."

So in summary, here's my take on YouTube and musicians.

1. YouTube has been a great way to promote musicians.

2. YouTube knows this and has been publicizing this and expanding music programs, especially among unsigned artists. Success stories about artists covering songs are part of the news.

3. Legally YouTube must say everyone needs to post original material or get permission, but it doesn't really want to discourage users from uploading content.

4. There is no good system for fans and most musicians to obtain permission to cover songs on YouTube, so it is rarely done and YouTube and the musicians know this.

5. Content ID is an automated system to identify copyrighted material and can be set to allow varying degrees of usage without the user having to ask for permission.

6. Content ID right now is being presented to copyright holders to show they have control over their content.

7. Unfortunately at the moment users rarely know if what they have uploaded will be flagged unless it is entirely their own content (and even then they can be caught up in the system via fraudulent claims). There are on-going discussions among users about how to deal with these grey areas.

8. YouTube is likely to keep tweaking the system so that there is more transparency and fewer takedown requests.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE 8/8/10
I just found this paper which greatly adds to my above discussion.

Even beyond transaction costs, sometimes the copyright holders may actually prefer to allow third parties to use their copyrighted works, but without formal licenses. This informal arrangement gives the copyright holders effectively a “hedge.” Under the hedge, the copyright holders can “wait and see” what happens with all the different uses of their works. Some uses the copyright holder may end up liking—whether for free advertising, promotion, or even discovering new talent. For example, Nick Haley, a 19- year-old student in the UK, made an unauthorized mashup video of an iPod commercial, synched in with a copyrighted song and posted on YouTube. Once Apple saw it, Apple hired Haley to produce one of Apple’s new television commercials.

The advantage of hedging instead of granting formal licenses is that copyright holders can get the best of both worlds: free promotion and talent trolling from various unauthorized uses of their works, but also the ability to later protest other unauthorized uses of their works. "Warming Up to User-Generated Content," Edward Lee, University of Illinois Law Review, Vol. 2008, No. 5, 2008.

UPDATE 8/10/10

Record labels and publishers have already come to grips with one Google service: YouTube. In fact, they love YouTube now that they have worked through their many tussles. YouTube has taken steps to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material. It provides value by being a substitute for a good amount of piracy. It offloads IT and network costs to Google. And Vevo wouldn't be Vevo without the power of YouTube to create 90% of the video network's views. "Analysis: Will Google Music Be Good For The Industry?" Billboard.biz, 8/9/10.

UPDATE 8/12/10
Here's an article that gives a good overview of YouTube and music.
Saint or Sinner? YouTube's tricky relationship with music

UPDATE 9/6/10
Pomplamoose covers a number of songs on YouTube. According to this interview, the duo first obtains a mechanical license. That's generally done for physical or digital copies of a song and is priced according to the number of copies of the song made available. Technically a mechanical license wouldn't cover a video of them performing the song on YouTube, but perhaps taping the process of recording a covered by a mechanical license is being treated as something different than a video of someone performing a song.

... we make sure that we have all our ducks in a row. We bought mechanical licenses to all of our covers before we put them on iTunes. So it's all legit and legal. "Pomplamoose: Making A Living On YouTube," NPR, 4/11/10.

If You Want to Change Intellectual Property Laws

I haven't entered into the debates on copyright and other forms of intellectual property. I understand the copyright laws as they apply to me and the other creative people I know, but I don't feel strongly enough about the issue to argue for or against it. I'm saving my energy for other matters.

However, in reading comments from various anti-IP folks (some people more credible than others: snarky anonymous posts don't elevate the discourse), I've found some of their points less compelling than others. Why, I think to myself, should lawmakers change current laws if a strong case hasn't been made to do so? After all, there are all sorts of other issues requiring national and international action.

With that in mind, I decided to make a list of comments I've read on why IP protection is bad, ranking them in ascending order of persuasiveness. For the most part they go from arguments that focus on individual benefit to arguments that focus on societal benefit (without sacrificing the individual in the process).

1. I want it (e.g., content, music, ideas, images) for free, and they won't give it to me.
This comes off as self-centered.

2. I want to use it, and they won't let me.
This is a little stronger than the above statement because it implies you're going to do something proactive with the idea rather than just consume it, but it also implies that you can't come up with something on your own.

3. Culture was built by taking other people's ideas.
Again, not really a strong reason to dump IP protection, especially copyrights. Society has functioned pretty well so far within copyright restrictions. Creative people usually can find legal ways translate inspiration from multiple sources into something they can call their own.

4. I have already used it and now they want to sue me.
This has to do less with the rightness or wrongness of the laws and more with to do with how they are administered and whether or not any person/company has the money/time/wherewithal to sue. In other words, we can have laws that are fairly enforced. We can have laws that are unfairly enforced (e.g., suing people for minor infractions). And we can have laws that are no longer enforced. Perhaps we should decide which needs to be addressed first: the laws or the enforcement of them. Sometimes it is a matter of reasonable laws badly executed rather than the laws being inherently unreasonable. And sometimes the problem takes care of itself when we simply ignore old laws.

5. I want to use it because I have a business, but my plan will only work if I can get some or all IP for free or minimal cost.
Average people and most legislators don't care about your business per se. If you can't show voters and lawmakers how your business will help them, then they aren't likely to listen to you. And since you may come into conflict with other businesses that don't want you to have their IP for free or minimal cost, you need to show how these IP holders will benefit from your plan. If you've got a great idea that depends on cooperation from them, you've got to sell it to them. Telling IP holders and legislators that they are stupid for charging you is not the way to win friends and influence people.

6. I want to use all or parts of it, but I don't want to go to the trouble of getting permission.
The way to deal with this is to create easier ways to obtain licensing, so that both IP holders and potential users benefit.

7. I want to use parts of it to include in a critique or to pay homage.
Fair use allows for this already. So if certain uses are currently being prevented but should fall under fair use, then perhaps the fair use concept should be expanded or better defined. However some people argue that they are afraid to test fair use and therefore they self-censor rather than include other people's works within their own. I think this is often more of an education problem than a legal problem. If this can't be settled outside of court, then academic and creative groups may want to set up a fair use fund to cover legal challenges to their members.

8. I want to use it because I know how to make more money from it than they do.
This anti-IP argument is a crowdsourcing construct. People are saying, in essence, "Let the concepts be out in the marketplace and the rewards will flow to those who best execute." But the results may favor those companies and individuals with the most investment resources. On the upside, throwing concepts out into the marketplace may make the concepts most widely available. On the downside, the financial rewards may not be evenly distributed. So citing this as a reason to drop IP protection may be a tough sell to creative individuals and small companies unless there is a way for them to directly benefit from creating the concepts without holding any rights to them. Altruism is nice, but doesn't necessarily pay the bills.

9. I want to use parts or all of it to improve it.
Some people have suggested that IP locks up certain concepts with people/companies who do nothing with those concepts or utilize them badly. Most patents expire in 20 years, so there is already that. However, there is an on-going debate as to whether having to wait 20 years makes sense in these fast moving times. And copyrighted items are tied up even longer.

If it is true we're all being disadvantaged because people can't tweak other people's concepts when they wish, there are at least three possible solutions:

change the IP laws;

have people/companies/organizations decide it isn't worth their resources to enforce IP laws;

or develop new ways to share concepts.

I'm guessing that of the three scenarios, changing the laws will be the last to happen. And if one or both of the other two scenarios happen first, it won't really matter much if the laws aren't changed.

10. I want to use it because society as a whole will benefit.
Some concepts are already freely available to everyone. They are in the public domain. Chances are that if they are currently in the public domain, they will remain so. So let's assume that's not an issue.

That leaves concepts that aren't currently in the public domain or concepts yet to be created that might not be placed in the public domain in the foreseeable future.

I can't see legislators altering protection for concepts currently protected. Telling someone who has complied with the laws that his concepts are now going to become freely available years before he had planned won't go over well. Therefore, let's assume currently protected concepts won't enter into the public domain before their patents or copyrights expire.

But perhaps legislators can be persuaded that IP protection is currently too long and is hurting society. A logical response from them would be to let currently protected concepts live out their days under IP protection, but to shorten or eliminate protection for concepts yet to be released. But I don't think there's enough evidence yet to persuade legislators to go this route. Right now we don't have any side-by-side comparisons to show that countries without IP protection laws have a better quality of life than countries that do have IP protection.

What we are likely to see in the interim are experiments by certain groups of people choosing to make their concepts freely available as they publish them. If there are then demonstrable economic and societal benefits, we may see widespread support for downsizing IP protections. In other words, show the positive results first; then lobby for change of the laws.

Here's a good outline of the potential benefits of having concepts placed in the public domain:

In attempting to map the public domain Pamela Samuelson has identified eight “values” that can arise from information and works in the public domain, though not every idea or work that is in the public domain necessarily has a value. Possible values include:

Building blocks for the creation of new knowledge, examples include data, facts, ideas, theories and scientific principle.

Access to cultural heritage through information resources such as ancient Greek texts and Mozart’s symphonies.

Promoting education, through the spread of information, ideas and scientific principles.

Enabling follow-on innovation, through for example expired patents and copyright.

Enabling low cost access to information without the need to locate the owner or negotiate rights clearance and pay royalties, through for example expired copyrighted works or patents, and non-original data compilation.

Promoting public health and safety, through information and scientific principles.

Promoting the democratic process and values, through news, laws, regulation and judicial opinion.

Enabling competitive imitation, through for example expired patents and copyright, or publicly disclosed technologies that do not qualify for patient protection. "Public domain," Wikipedia.

11. Some concepts are so important to society that they shouldn't be patented.
Rather than trying to eliminate or reduce IP protection for all categories of concepts, perhaps we should focus on those that are too fundamental to be owned by one person/company, or are so important to the future of mankind that they should immediately be made available to everyone (e.g., basic scientific discoveries, new sources of energy, biomedical research). To accomplish this, it may be up to world organizations to set the parameters. However, there are issues which will still need to be addressed:

If certain companies or organizations have invested considerable resources in creating these concepts, will there be ways to compensate them?

Will secret societies be formed to give certain groups knowledge not available to everyone?

Will wars be fought to keep these life-changing concepts within certain groups?

If there is a cost to execute these concepts, who will pay for that? A concept that is publicly available, but can only be utilized at great cost may be less beneficial than a protected concept that can widely reproduced and distributed inexpensively. How do we guarantee equitable use of these freely shared concepts?

So, that's my reaction to some of the IP debate. I'm not for or against, but I do note when justifications one way or the other are poorly presented.

Overall I think IP protection has functioned well in some cases and has been abused in others. On the one hand, I believe a lot of the paperwork and legal maneuvering related to IP could be better spent elsewhere.* But on the other hand, I'm not sure doing away with copyrights and patents will necessarily transform the world anytime soon. For example, poor nutrition and inadequate health care in Africa are not IP issues. The solutions are already in the public domain; they just aren't being distributed.

* For the same reasons -- less paperwork and more efficiencies -- I like the idea of universal health care.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE 10/24/10
Rarely has the case for lessening IP protection been made so that it is relevant to the average person. When we go to vote, IP issues tend not to be a priority.If anything, the emphasis on copyright and music lessens the perceived relevance because most voters don't see that as a major issue in their lives. Here's is an good discussion about how environmentalists were able to transform their concerns into a national issue and what might be learned by those in the IP debates.
"Chapter 10: An Environmentalism for Information." The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. James Boyle.

Collaborating on "Creative Things"

The post below was originally the last half of this post, The Rise of the "Creative Thing," but to keep the amount of reading to a manageable level, I moved it into its own post.

___________

Of the three ways to create multimedia productions (do it yourself, hire someone, or collaborate) collaboration is the most complex because establishing how everyone gets paid can be tricky. Payment can be based on:

everyone's individual contribution, or

an equal distribution, no matter who does what, or

an unequal distribution based on what everyone brings to the table in terms power/influence/prestige.

Denver-based John Common reached out to artists while working on his most recent album. They were invited to decorate wooden boxes which, in addition to serving as fancy CD packages, would be displayed and sold in an art gallery. The band, the artist, and the gallery would each share equally from the sale.

Completed boxes will be returned to the Bailey/Common team where they will be prepared for exhibition/sale. All boxes will be exhibited from July 9 -17 at Abecedarian Gallery. Base prices for each artwork will be mutually agreed on by the artist and Bailey/Common team. Once sold each artist receives 35% of the sale price, along with a copy of the new CD. Common Box Project: Prospectus

Amanda Palmer has done multiple collaborations. In most cases she hasn't said who gets paid what, but she did go on record in this case, involving a troupe of performance artists who went on tour with her.

Lisa: Is it true The Danger Ensemble perform with you for free?

Amanda: I can’t afford to pay them, so we have been touring for five months cutting costs wherever we can, staying with fans and handing out donation baskets after the show, sometimes the fans even bring food in. This system has been working well, if it didn’t they wouldn’t be here, so far they have been making more money from tips than their regular jobs. "Who Killed Amanda Palmer? An Interview with the Queen of Punk Cabaret," LifeMusicMedia, 2/26/09.

Here is what she says in general about collaborations.

Having done a long career with the Dresden Dolls and a couple of years with a solo career, I've really been able to divine what's important to me. And it's not money. It's not commercial success. What I really want to do is make art with my friends. And if possible make people happy by doing that. ...

That being said, I've also seen enough friendships destroyed by creative collaboration that you have to choose very carefully what you're doing and who you're doing it with. There was once in this collaboration -- not creatively, because we work creatively and business-wise really well together -- but when it got to the point that some people got upset about the project, that really strained our relationship. Because all of a sudden -- our intentions are completely good, we were loving our recording and loving planning our tour and playing this wonderful game with our fans. But as soon as critics from the outside came and rained on our parade, we had different recactions to it. And that was a challenge for us. We're wise enough people and good enough friends that it only lasted a day. "Interview: Amanda Palmer on Neil Gaiman, Frances Bean Cobain, and why her people think Evelyn Evelyn is career suicide," The Phoenix, 4/12/10.

Denver-based photographer Lucia De Giovanni told me her collaborations are often friend-based projects as well.

It's usually a mutual interest - a lot of friendships are born out of photoshoots for which I get approached, and then people get interested in what else I have cooking up and start collaborating, usually over dinner or drinks! I would say that people are very respectful of certain artistic boundaries - for example, I usually have carte blanche for a photoshoot, but I don't think of that as my project, it's something I do to promote them. And vice versa - when I select music for a slideshow, it's certainly a collaborative project, but the composer is providing a piece of the big project... they're a part of it, under my umbrella. And it works because we're all friends and supportive of each other's creative outlets - I don't know if it would have the same "feel" if we didn't know each other. Then, I guess, it reverts to a service provider, you hire me. But that doesn't mean it's not their project as well, they're a HUGE part of it... it works because creatively we are on the same wave length.

And here is what David Byrne has to say on collaborations.

I have done a number of collaborations myself – with designers, other musicians, theatre directors and choreographers. It’s always a little bit different one project from another, but the collaborative process has certain similarities. I find someone has to be boss. Though we might claim open source, no censorship and willingness to listen, veto power resides somewhere, and has to be acknowledged as such. Someone, as subtly as possible, has to keep things on track and focused. There are ways to do this that are dictatorial and other ways that are benign, subtle, almost invisible – but the guiding hand needs to be there. In my experience I sometimes choose to defer to the other collaborator, and I make that clear from the start; other times it’s the other way around. "Interview: Bruce Mau and David Byrne," Contemporary, Issue #69, 2004.

Here are three resources which might be of use if you are thinking of collaborations.

Building a Collaborative Entertainment Property

Small-Scale Network Modeling for Interdisciplinary Art Collaborations (Powerpoint presentation)

Dividing Ownership in a Group Project (Added 10/4/10.)

Palmer's latest project, Evelyn Evelyn, is also a collaboration.

“It was really a wonderful, true collaboration,” Palmer says of Evelyn Evelyn’s origins, on the line from a Prague tour stop. “Jason [Webley] and I, looking back on having written some of these songs two years ago, can’t remember who did what. We can’t remember who wrote which line, who came up with which melody idea. And I think that’s actually a really good sign that our minds really melded during the songwriting process.

“It was like playing a really manic game of songwriter Ping-Pong,” she continues, “where one of us would come up with a concept and we would just bat ideas back and forth over Thai food, cracking each other up. It’s so funny—you can come up with all sorts of artsy, highfalutin ideas and reasons why we did this project, but really, we just wanted to hang out together.” "Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley make Evelyn Evelyn twice as fun," Straight.com, 5/13/10.

I think it’s important to point at that this record never had a “message”. But in that Malcolm McLuhan way, the record itself is the message. We are two artists who love games, theater and dark humor. In giving ourselves permission to do a project this ridiculous, we’re probably saying something that we’ve never said with our more self-serious solo records. "An interview with Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley on Evelyn Evelyn," NewBeats, 5/10/10.

In addition to the album, there will be a graphic novel, a concept that has been embraced by other musicians as well.

Is the pairing up of the graphic novel and the album the future? Palmer isn’t so sure. “As artists are getting cleverer about capitalising on their releases, some will do some groundbreaking stuff with graphic novels. But for others, it won’t make sense. Sure you may see the pop star du jour putting one out but that doesn’t mean it’s this great new thing. I’d love to read what a brilliant mind like Robyn Hitchcock would do in the genre but, to be honest, I don’t know if I’d want to see the Beyonce graphic novel.” "Pop stars branch out into graphic novels," Financial Times, 4/16/10.

Cynthia Von Buhler, who will do the artwork for the Evelyn Evelyn graphic novel, is herself a multimedia artist and frequent collaborator.

Cynthia von Buhler is an internationally exhibiting visual artist, illustrator, children's book author, and performer living in New York City. Von Buhler uses traditional as well as unconventional media: painting, sculpture, performance, video projection, installation, living fauna, collage, photography, human detritus, and electronic audio.

... Von Buhler's paintings have appeared in more than a thousand magazines, books, publications, billboards, and CDs. ...

Von Buhler is also involved in the music industry and performance art, and has performed at museums, galleries, and nightclubs in major cities around the country. Von Buhler's seminal, underground performance troupe, “Women of Sodom” won a Best Music Poll Award from The Boston Phoenix and paved the way for the revival of burlesque and cabaret acts in Boston such as the Dresden Dolls. ... Von Buhler also formed and managed the band Splashdown, who were for a time signed to Capitol Records. She also co-owned Castle von Buhler Records with her ex-husband and Splashdown member, Adam Buhler and Clifford Stoltze. Castle von Buhler released a series of three art and music CD compilations which won many art and design awards. The Curriculum Vitae of Von Buhler

Some of her projects are more lucrative than others.

Cynthia von Buhler entered the field in the mid-1980s but found it slow going at first. In fact, she contemplated being a stripper so she could work on illustrations during the day. “I got two jobs my first year, but then it picked up and I quit my day job.

... "Through the years, I have tried other fields like band management, record label ownership, and running my own band, and in all I was disadvantaged due to my sex, but in illustration I have always felt that it doesn’t matter what I look like and it doesn’t matter that I’m a woman.” "What Inequality?" Step Inside Design, Nov/Dec 2005.

I’m getting royalties from my books now and it is a nice surprise to receive unexpected money in the mail. It isn’t enough to live on yet but I’m working on it. I do fine art, illustration and run my own gallery/event space so I make my money from various sources. I see my book royalties as my retirement fund. "Getting Published—Myth or Reality?" Communication Arts, 7/5/07.

I have found nothing specific about how she gets paid on her collaborations, but I did find this, which suggests she doesn't expect everything to make money.

Illustration is her bread and butter; von Buhler's works have appeared in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone, Atlantic Monthly, and Vogue, on the cover of the Juilliard String Quartet's ''Intimate Letters'' CD, and in countless periodicals. But her immediate focus is on creating an exhibition space for ''artists who want to do things that aren't market-driven, that aren't necessarily for sale, that are cutting-edge. Art that you probably wouldn't want to put in your house but is really interesting to view, and opens your mind to new ideas.'' "Original Cynthia." Boston Globe, 3/30/2000.

Another musician/designer is Nathan Johnson. He does film scores, produces visual art, and is a member of a design studio. He also created The Cinematic Underground, a performance ensemble, which included multiple siblings and a sister-in-law.

Imagine this: a film composer, a classically-trained piano instructor, a log-cabin builder, a high-school student, a dancer, a grade-school teacher, an actor, an architect, a struggling novelist, an illustrator and a landscape gardener all move together under one Boston roof. "Interview w/ The Cinematic Underground," Sounds Good, 11/9/05.

Their big project was Annasthesia.

We wrote basically a literal concept narrative album, which is quite different from your standard concept album because . . . it actually is a literal story with exterior characters. It's called Annasthesia. The story is about love and escape and risk. And kind of the choice you make that either has to do with numbing yourself or engaging with life . . . it's sort of an anti-love story, and that's the album we're touring. . . The album comes with a 24 page color graphic novella that my brother Zach did all the illustrations for. So you actually read it like a comic book as you listen to the album. And what we're doing this year is we're taking that and putting it on the stage, so the show becomes a mash-up between a concert and a graphic novel, and kind of a weird narrative storytelling form.

It's not acting 'as such,' but I'm in character on the show and my sister is as well . . . So the way that we do it is we actually play all the songs live, but we project all of the graphic novel onto the stage on this big screen behind us. I'm kind of the [lead character.] So it's not acting in the sense that . . . well, we don't have lines but we definitely perform it as an abstract theater piece, a concert, and a comic book. It's really fun.

The thing that really drives it is the storytelling aspect of it. And that's something that I think is apparent in the way we made the album. We wrote the story before the music. I recorded it in my brother's bedroom in my parents' house. We had these massive charts up all over the wall where I was madly working out how to structure this story and what was drawn. That really laid the groundwork and the restrictions for the music. The music came out of that and filled the different parts we needed in the story. "Interview w/ The Cinematic Underground," Sounds Good, 11/9/05.

The Past, Present, and Future of "The Creative Thing" Musical Production

Creating a story and then writing music to fit has long been part of opera, operettas, and musical theater. And perhaps that's the way it should be done. Green Day's American Idiot was turned into a musical after the fact. But as one critic pointed out, you'll get a more cohesive production if you coordinate a story with the songs from the beginning.

... the qualities that can make an indie-rock album so compelling — attitude, mood, grit — are probably not going to be able to sustain a theatrical journey. Drama needs more connective tissue. "Critic's Notebook: 'American Idiot' and the fate of the contemporary musical," Los Angeles Times, 5/20/10.

Aside from the fact that most bands don't have the talent to write a rock musical/opera, there are at least two challenges which may limit the popularity of this format: not all fans want to follow a linear story line at a concert and not all music venues can accommodate a stage production.

Still, Byrne's latest release, Here Lies Love, about Imelda Marcos, appears to be headed that direction.

The package contains a small illustrated book, with notes and lyrics by Byrne, plus an additional DVD of documentary footage. If he can secure the financial backing, Byrne hopes to present this in future as a sort of club-based musical.

“Some people may feel it’s a bit too close to Evita, but I’ve made a point not to see that show, so I don’t really know,” says Byrne. In truth, he says, he’s not that keen on straight musicals, but he accepts that this is what Here Lies Love will probably end up being. He prefers to see it as a drama set to music, a portrait of a flawed and needy attention-seeker. "Imelda Marcos gets the Evita treatment," Times Online, 2/21/10.

To put today's musical into context, here's a good overview of music combined with theater down through the ages.

And for fun, here's a big list of concept albums, the vast majority of which will never be turned into musical theater or movies.

At this point, I'd like to expand into a discussion of transmedia, but I'll save that for the next blog post: An Overview of Transmedia

More Examples of Multimedia Projects or Collectives that Involve Music

Ride, Rise, Roar

The songwriter essentially invited three choreographers to wrap him up within their sometimes faux-naive, sometimes sexy, often transfixing compositions, and even fans who hang on [David] Byrne's every gesture may have a hard time keeping their attention off the dancers who leap over him, dart between him and his microphone, coast by him on office chairs and cavort abstractly around the stage.

Color performance footage is intercut with black-and-white behind-the-scenes material that offers some insight into the choreographers' creative agendas and hints at the collaborative process that led to the latest Byrne/Eno record, "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today." "Ride, Rise, Roar," The Hollywood Reporter, 3/16/10.

77 Million Paintings

Hard to say what this Brian Eno invention is. Part book, part screen saver, part gallery painting, part DVD video, part music, part software. It slices and dices your perceptions! The accompanying book in this package makes it clear that this an art piece that is normally exhibited in a large room. Here it comes disguised as DVD that you load onto your computer (Windows or Mac). "Cool Tools: 77 Million Paintings," kk.org, 12/19/06.

Ghostly International

Ghostly International is a multi-platform cultural curator, a tightly knit aesthetic universe fulfilling the roles of art gallery, design house, clothing designer, technology innovator, music-publishing company—and, yes, record label—in one. In the years since its birth in 1999, Ghostly has grown from a boutique label known for its experimental-pop and -techno acumen to an internationally recognized platform for the work of the world's best visual artists, designers, technologists, and musicians.

Alligator Mouth Improv

Drawing on theater, movement, vocals, music, storytelling, and video, and using audience stories, themes and ideas as inspiration, we offer one-of-a-kind performances created in the moment.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE 6/6/10

Here's a very good overview of how new American musicals are differing from older forms and the fact that traditional forms still sell better. My take is that the newer forms are going to be more popular with audiences that never attend Broadway-style shows. That means reaching those audiences elsewhere. But to do that means staging productions which are much cheaper to produce and can be offered in a bigger variety of venues. "New York 2010: Out with the old American musical"

And here's a piece on Jim Lewis, who collaborated on Fela!, one of those new musicals.

The idea that [choreographer Bill T. Jones] and I could create a new kind of show that would appeal to a really diverse audience, more accustomed to MTV than a well-made play, fueled our work over the next five years. How could something closer to the energy of a concert also tell a story and inspire young people to strive to change the world? ...

... our dreams of that alternate space were replaced by a new reality: to do the show we’d created would cost too much to run anywhere but Broadway. "Fela! Scribe Jim Lewis on the Show's Wild Ride to 11 Tony Nominations," Broadway.com, 5/25/10.

Here's an essay that discusses the Internet and collaboration and how "art" is no longer a fixed object anymore.

... where art is concerned the single most important effect of Wiki-culture may be what it portends for the very idea of a tangible art object like a book or painting and what this would portend for industries dedicated to art. Take the Johnny Cash Project again. Like much Wiki-Art, it is organic and ever-changing. The work may reside on the Internet, but, in truth, there is no work — no single art object. It is an ongoing, dynamic series, potentially infinite. "Technology changes how art is created and perceived," LA Times, 6/6/10.

UPDATE 6/13/10
An exploration of where today's music is headed.
Broadway rocks, conclude The Times' theater and pop critics

UPDATE 6/15/10
I had been waiting for more information about this project before posting it, and now I have it. What looked like a good music/graphic novel/theater presentation isn't.

Gorillaz' planned opera with Watchmen and V For Vendetta creator Alan Moore has been ditched....

Going on to explain he had already "wrote a third of it", the writer added that "nobody had done anything else upon the opera" and that other commitments from both parties had decided the fate of the collaboration.

"I had too many commitments as well," Moore admitted. "And since I had never received any money or a contract, I was alright saying, 'Yeah, I'm pulling out of this. You can do your own opera about Dr Dee, I don't own Dr Dee, I don't own the concept of opera'." "Gorillaz ditch opera project with 'Watchman''s Alan Moore," NME.COM, 6/14/10.

UPDATE 6/21/10
Here's another resource on collaborative projects.
Co-creating Value through Collaborative Entertainment

UPDATE 6/27/10
Here's a story about Cirque du Soleil's attempt at creating a scripted show which didn't fare well.

The show struck executives as a little of everything (vaudeville, theater, clowning, acrobatics) but neither entrancing nor memorable by the standards of Cirque — whose popular shows include “Ka” (a gravity-defying production, inspired by martial arts performers) and “O” (a water show). ...

“The reality is, people have very specific expectations with Cirque shows, and ‘Banana Shpeel’ turned out to be neither fish nor fowl — neither circus act nor theatrical vaudeville entertainment,” [Paul Binder, the founding artistic director of Big Apple Circus] said. “So I think it was probably difficult to get a large audience excited about a show when many didn’t really understand what it was.” "When Cirque du Soleil Met Theater - ‘Shpeel’ Failure," New York Times, 6/26/10.

The Rise of the "Creative Thing"

The Devaluation of Music

A number of people have embraced the idea that since it costs nothing, or nearly nothing, to make unlimited digital copies of your music, you should freely give it away for the exposure and then sell limited objects and experiences to those who want more and are willing to pay for it.

What recorded music becomes, then, is the promotional or marketing vehicle for something else. Increasingly it can't be sold as a standalone product because people expect it to be free. Our perceptions of recorded music have changed.

For example, consider these two scenarios:

1. Buy the CD and get the T-shirt for free.
2. Buy the T-shirt and get the CD for free.

If getting music for free has conditioned people to think it has no monetary value, then whatever monetary value they assign to the bundle will be for the T-shirt.

(In contrast to how music is being presented these days, the infomercial trick is to assign a value to the bundle by telling people that all the items in the bundle have a value.

For $20 you get a $15 CD AND $15 T-shirt. A $30 value!!

A smart infomercial person would never say, "Hey, we're not losing any money if you download our music for free, so please do.")

Once we come to accept that recorded music isn't much of a standalone product, we start looking for what we can couple it with to enhance its value. Even Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, says as much.

... he was willing to admit that, “music has to become a multimedia business.” The product is no longer the music in and of itself. The product is the musician’s story and the experience of being a part of it. "TechCrunch Disrupt - Day 3," SoundCtrl, 5/27/10.

One of the most obvious shifts in music presentation has been the move from just recording a song to including it in a video. That's increasingly how we consume music.

[Comparing the same one-week period] the ten most-played music videos on YouTube racked 57.3 million views, while the top ten on MySpace Music generated 7.5 million. "YouTube v. MySpace Music: What a Difference Two Years Makes..." Digital Music News, 5/12/10.

Another example to illustrate that the video can be more important than the music is OK Go.

Their new video for This Too Shall Pass is another viral smash (8m views and counting), but their record sales have been nothing short of a disaster. It hasn't even sold 25,000 copies in the US. ...

[This Too Shall Pass is] endlessly watchable, using a panoply of junk to create a colourful, impossibly complex Rube Goldberg machine. [The video is] certainly popular, but might be just as viral if it contained no sound at all. "OK Go find more viral success – but not real success," The Guardian, 3/18/10.

Thus, combining music with video appears to be good for exposure, but you still need to find something to sell. That leads us to a point where musicians are looking for even more stuff to tack onto the music.

Speaking at Twitter's first-ever developers' conference, Black Eyed Peas frontman, Will.i.am outlined a vision of the music industry of the future where developers will be just as important to a band as the musicians that play on the record. He claimed:

"A band's going to be a singer, a guitar player, a bass player, a code writer, a guy who makes applications, a guy who does computer animation; that is a group. It's going to be self-contained content providers and digital distributers." "Why musicians need digital creatives," StrategyEye, 5/27/10.

Explaining the "Creative Thing"

I'll take it a step further than Will.i.am. I envision a day in the near future where music will be so intertwined with additional forms of media and experiences that it may become nearly meaningless to speak of it as a distinct entity. It will become an inseparable part of a bigger concept, which I will call a "creative thing." There won't be a discernible line between the music and what it is bundled with, which will mean the music business as such will no longer exist. There will be people who continue to specialize in creating music, but since the packaging of music (in whatever form: sound, performance, products) will involve more than just music, music becomes an adjunct of a bigger whole.

You can find good examples of "creative things" on Kickstarter. Artists are trying to raise money for all manner of creative projects. To entice people to contribute money, the project creators offer a variety of premiums. Often neither the projects nor the premiums fall into any sort of neatly defined box. (Examples: A musician offered home-cooked meals. A performance artist offered lip prints. A magazine publisher offered handmade quilts.) The creativity of the project, the offerings, and the presentation/communication of it all blur into a gestalt. Every aspect of each Kickstarter "creative thing" is connected to and reinforces the concept as a whole.

The publisher who offered quilts on Kickstarter is Lee Tusman. One of his music-related activities is serving as a traveling art/music show host.

For Lee, “Running with the Night” is only moonlighting: his day job is curator of the Riverside Art Museum, but his list of artistic extracurriculars is extensive. He created the quilts (or “quiltz” as he likes to call them) that spill out of the Vanagon, as well as many others; he runs a micro-record label called Jewish Noise, which combines abstract electronica/noise with traditional chanting and singing; he sews one-armed cloth dolls; he operates an occasional pizza delivery service out of the Vanagon—people call him, and he makes a gourmet pie from scratch, puts it into a hand-painted pizza box and drives it to the door; he curates the Vanagallery, a mobile art space that’s housed a carousel of artistic works; and most recently, he’s producing a magazine called JANKY. "Behind the Zine," Inland Empire Weekly, 3/11/10.

Not associated with Kickstarter, but one of the best examples of someone in music thinking three-dimensionally is Amanda Palmer.

The wonderful thing about rock is that it's a truly multimedia forum. There's the album artwork, the posters, the live shows, the stage design, the costumes, the videos....it's perfect for a gesamtkunstwerk hound like myself. "Art Space Talk: Amanda Palmer," myartspace> blog, 1/6/09.

In the above interview she also talks about her experience as a performance artist, living in a building housing artists from a variety of media, and having painters creating art during some of her shows.

Who Does the Creating?

To function in this world of "creative things," musicians will need at least one of three approaches:

Personally be able to create more than just music.

Hire people or work with a team who can supplement what they don't/can't do.

Collaborate with artists in other media so that together they create multi-dimensional packages/experiences.

There are a variety of economic and creative ramifications to each arrangement (e.g., Who is going to generate the creative vision? Is everyone going to be paid for their efforts and if so, how?).

The Multidimensional Musician

When the musicians can do everything by themselves, it keeps the economics simple. Whether the music leads to an art sale or the art leads to a music sale, it's all going to the same creator.

Jeffrey Hoover creates works that include both music and visual art.

People sometimes wonder whether the music or the art comes first. It can be either way, and sometimes the work develops simultaneously. In the case of Peacock Blue and An American Toccata the music was written first, then the paintings were created. I wrestled with the idea of how to best represent the music. Would a graphic score be appropriate, or some type of freely conceived representation? I resolved this dilemma by the majority of the painting being an intuitive representation of the music, inserting a graphic score/sonic representation as an entablature on the bottom of the painting. "new work for the eye and ear," Composer NewsUpdate, Vol. 3, No. 1, January, 1999.

Brian Eno has always done art and music together.

Neither my visual nor my musical directions would have taken the shape they did without each other. I make no distinction between the development of my visual and musical output as the two have been growing together, feeding and informing the other. "Brian Eno: The life of Brian," The Independent, 7/25/06.

Another example: A Denver-based band, Lil' Slugger, is putting out a series of comic books they have created themselves.

[Band members] Martin and Couch wrote the books, and Martin’s girlfriend, Beth Link, drew all the pictures, which Martin himself then manipulated in Photoshop. “All credit goes to her,” he says, “and all blame goes to me. It was a totally nightmarish process and no one should ever do it.” "Lil' Slugger's art rock and comic books," The Denver Post, 5/21/10.

Using Specialists to Fill in the Blanks

More typical is the musician/band/label paying creative contractors to do the non-music art. Generally this is a work-for-hire arrangement where the contractor is paid a fee and whoever commissions the art owns it outright and can do whatever he/she/they want with it. A work-for-hire arrangement usually costs more money upfront, but if the musician/band/label think they can sell a lot of copies, it's probably a better deal in the long run because they don't have to share any revenues with the contractor.

Do you ever approach bands you would like to design for?

Sometimes, but mostly they approach me... I prefer working on assignment. ... I need a frame for my work. ... there is a message to be sent to the audience. By looking at my poster, people should be able to see what to expect from a band or gig. An interview with graphics designer Wytse, FuryRocks, 10/4/08.

However, as music is declining as a standalone product, I anticipate we'll see more visual artists realizing what they create is what actually sells. Therefore they may not relinquish their rights so quickly.

The self-supporting graphic-art scene that's flowering now has its own back-story. It was the music business that first really allowed graphic artists off the creative leash; from Milton Glaser's kaleidoscope-haired Bob Dylan poster for CBS in 1966 through to Peter Saville's emotive imagery for Factory Records in the early 1980s, by way of some far-out Pink Floyd gatefolds. As King notes, "Even at the end of the 1980s people went into graphic design because they wanted to produce record sleeves, and that link sadly faded away when vinyl disappeared."

With this avenue of free expression shut down, graphic artists moved over into the rag trade. During the 1990s, the likes of James Jarvis and Fergus Purcell helped create a new trend for limited-run printed T-shirts. At the same time, bookshops such as Magma had started selling monographed design products, and a new breed of graphic-design nerds and collectors was soon multiplying. Once the internet arrived, there was no stopping them. "Warning: graphic content - how a new wave of illustrators is blowing the art world apart," The Independent, 5/16/10.

If designers anticipate more income down the road rather than upfront, they might start asking for a percentage of each sale (often in the form of a licensing fee) rather than a one-time payment. Or, for that matter, leverage might shift entirely. We may find designers commissioning music to go with the art and paying the musicians a fixed, work-for-hire fee. (It's less likely that we'd see the designer creating the art, finding music to go with it, and then giving the musician a percentage of each sale because music has already established itself as the marketing vehicle, not the product itself.)

On to Collaborations

Since this blog post has grown rather long, I'll discuss collaborations in my next post, Collaborating on "Creative Things."

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE 8/3/10

We used to give many of these tchotchke items away for free in an effort to entice people to pay for the music, but we're considering flipping our strategy so that people pay for the toy and receive the music for free. Just a thought. "Sub Pop's Considering Selling Band Merch and Giving the Music Away For Free," Seattle Weekly, 7/30/10.

UPDATE 10/23/10
I knew Liz Clark awhile back when she was still living in Denver. Now she spends part of her time in NYC, part in Ireland (where her bandmate/partner is from), and part of the time on the road. According to their bio:

Liz and Tessa’s philosophy of simplicity manifests itself by spending part of their year as homeless troubadours, touring the USA and sharing their love of music. The rest of the year is spent in Ireland, working a 10 acre organic garden and running an award-winning cafe on the Emerald Island’s West Coast.

They have developed this idea which is a nice variation on the usual house concert.

... we are starting a new concert series to raise money for the album and we are calling it "Beat Roots". It is going to be a food and music series. ... So the idea is that we, L & the M, will come to your house and cook a 3 course gourmet meal for you and your friends, using the finest produce from your locality and while you are eating your dessert we will treat you to an acousic house concert of our L & the M songs. There is a price of course and for the works (which includes a glass of wine or 2) it is $50 a head but we are flexible. Maybe you just want appetizers and wine and we could probably do that for about $30. "Beat Roots," Lonely and the Moose, 10/23/10.

Music Creation for the Untalented, the Untrained, the Lazy, and Those with Some Time to Kill

I've been checking out iPhone and iPad music creation applications. Some are geared for experienced music professionals who already know their way around equipment. But I like the stuff that is intuitive and can produce results in a minute or two. I suppose you could say I was looking for the equivalent of tambourines, finger paints, bubbles, or beach volleyball. In other words, stuff that is so simple to use it is hard to screw up.

Here is some of what I have found. Some are iPhone and iPad apps; others are website-based. (I looked at more apps than I included here, but some of them weren't all that interesting or seemed to make sounds rather than music or musical tones.)

DRAWING

Sonic Wire Sculptor 2010: "The Sonic Wire Sculptor turns your 3D drawing into sound. It introduces a simple yet deep connection between visual and audio composition."

Squiggle: "Squiggle is an iPad application that allows you to draw lines on the screen which turn into stings and can be played like guitar."

Soundrop: "Soundrop is a sound toy application for iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch which allows you to create sounds by drawing lines on the screen and have ball bouncing off them. Each time the ball touches the line, a sound is generated. Depending on the location of the line on the screen, the tone of the sound is set."

gliss: "Gliss is a new sound application which lets you play sound files and mix them easily by drawing on your iPhone."

MusicDraw: Another drawing-based app. More about it here.

Artikulator: "While traditional sheet music is cryptographic for the uninitiated, Artikulator is as simple to understand as a child’s toy. A line that curves upward creates a higher-pitched sound. A line that is bigger makes a louder sound." (ADDED 5/19/10)

Singing Fingers -- Finger Paint with Sound: "While you drag your finger across the screen, your voice or any other sounds nearby are turned into colors on the musical canvas. The pitch of the sound is translated into a color, while the loudness of the sound determines the size. If you start on a blank white space you are recording. If you start on a colored space you are replaying. Use up to five fingers to play back many sounds at the same time, forwards, backwards or sideways." (ADDED 10/21/10)

Bubble Harp: "Bubble Harp draws bubbles around your fingertips, recording and replaying your movements while creating music based on the animated forms. It’s a combination of drawing, animation, music, art, geometry, and games." (ADDED 10/21/10)

Reactable mobile: This isn't a drawing tool. Rather it is a synthesizer you control by moving objects around on the screen. (ADDED 10/21/10)

TONES

Raindrop Melody Maker: This is web-based, so you can go on this site and immediately begin playing with it. It creates beautiful wind-chime-like sounds by clicking on the raindrops.

Here's the iPhone version. Dropophone (ADDED 6/16/10)

Melodica: An app that also allows you to play around with tones.

Euphonics: This application is good if you want to create piano-like songs without actually having to know how to play the piano.

rain.: "Rain. is a minimalistic audio visual composition app for the iPhone created by Rainer Kohlberger. Tap to create black sound stripes, double tap to create moire phases, shake to create a colored beat, double swipe to change background loop. The longer a stripe the lower its pitch. After creating a stripe, use your second finger to alter the length."

SoundGrid: This one is a bit more complicated. "Even if you have never composed music, you will find SoundGrid simple and exciting to play with and will start creating unique compositions in minutes with just the tips of your fingers."

Flourish: Seems to be more visually interesting than musically interesting.

ToneMatrix: "Simple sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer. Each triggered step causes a force on the underlaying wave-map, which makes it more cute." (ADDED 5/17/10)

Pulsate (ADDED 5/17/10)

Incredibox: This website allows you to create an online beatbox a capella group by dragging symbols of instruments, percussion, effects, chorus, voices onto online cartoon singers. (ADDED 6/4/10)

Beatwave: Allows you to create patterns, choose from three basic instruments (with others available to add), control tempo and pitch, and manipulate layers of sound. (ADDED 6/10/10)

SoundPrism (ADDED 10/21/10)

MUSIC GENERATORS

Bloom, Trope, and Air: Three different apps created by Brian Eno and/or Peter Chilvers that produce patterns and melodies. This site (not associated with Bloom) supposedly offers both a web version (though it didn't come up for me) and a downloadable PC version.

Lexikon-Sonate: Classical pieces generated by software from composer Karlheinz Essl. "Essl creates electronic and interactive music (with emphasis on algorithmic composition and generative music), and has produced numerous real-time compositions and sound instillations." You can find a downloadable program here.

WolframTones: This site generates songs based on mathematical formulas.

AMG: Ambient Music Generator: "There are no notes to play, no multitouch, no buttons to play sounds, simply shake iPhone and leave the iphone by your side to fill your space with ambient tones."

Aura Ambient Music Generator

Melody Generator: This software will generate melodies (in three forms: basic, chord-based, or scale-based) which can be edited and also saved as an audio file and in print form.

Musical Images: This is a brand new app that creates music from whatever image you plug in. There isn't anything about the application up on the web yet, but I found this at the website of the organization which created it and appears to be an earlier exploration of the concept. Lotto Lab : Music from colour

C O D E O R G A N: Plug in a URL and it generates music based on the text on that page.

Chimes: An older downloadable program that generates random sounds based on an African thumb piano and a Native American drum.

Marvim Gainsbug: This looks interesting, though I can't find place where you can enter lyrics. So it appears more of a demo of an experiment rather than a working application. "Marvim Gainsbug is a software that acts based on Twitter, implemented to compose and to play songs, with music and lyrics, in real time."

The Crooked Road: Build-A-Lyric Song Generator: This site actually produces a song for you, although the melody is set and you have a limited number of lyric options.

Synthia: It creates a song from an uploaded image. (ADDED 5/17/10.)

Sonic Charge Patternarium: This provides randomly computer generated patterns and rhythms. You can vote on each one to influence which combinations are more likely to develop in the future. (ADDED 6/10/10)

LYRICS GENERATORS

None of these generate music, just lyrics. But I anticipate that before long lyric generators and music generators will be combined so that you'll get finished songs based on the genres and subjects you select. Will any of them be great songs? Well, think of them like digital photos. You may need to produce a lot to get the right one, but you just discard those that don't work. And if you have something that almost works, you tweak it with the equivalent of a musical Photoshop.

Song Generator: Fill in the blanks and the program gives you song lyrics based on what you have written.

Love Song Generator: Another fill-in the blanks program by the same creator as above, but this one more narrowly focused on love songs.

More sites:

Country Song Generator

Country Western Song Generator

Random Pop Song Generator

Alanis Morissette Lyric Generator

And consider these for lyrics, too (there are actually far too many poetry generators in Google to list them all, but it should give you an idea of where to look if you're stuck when writing lyrics for a song):

Poem Generator

Poetry Generator

The Genuine Haiku Generator

Dada Poetry Generator

Love Poetry Generator

Another Love Poetry Generator

If you want to sound vaguely Shakespearian

Poetry Forms

Once you have found some lyrics you like, this application will create a song around them.

Songmaker for iPhone: "... simply speak the lyrics you want into the microphone while pressing the keys to enter the melody you want. After recording completed, SongMaker will play the song with your voice following the given melody along with background music." (ADDED 10/21/10)


I'm sure I have missed some good applications. So let me know about them. Again, I'm not looking for apps that require much training. This is a list for products which will allow the average not-very-musical person to create something worth listening to and perhaps sharing. I anticipate that as more products and tools are developed, the creations will become more sophisticated.

Suzanne Lainson
@slainson on Twitter

UPDATE 5/9/10
This doesn't have to do with music, but if you are going start promoting your app generated music, you might need these to help you create your web page. 55 Astonishing Online Generators for Web Designers

UPDATE 6/29/10
Here's a video where two developers demonstrate a new, easy-to-use iPad music creation tool. They also explain their motivation. And they mention finger painting.
CultureLab: The first ever iPad music performance