My Own Biggest Fan

My review as it appears in Izzum
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The obvious first: Free Culture is about US copyright law. It doesn’t seem like the most exciting read, and unless you’re already interested in this sort of thing, you may find it dry. But if you’re at all concerned about how big money is affecting the public domain and stifling new media, this could be the most important book you could read right now.

Lessig is an intellectual property lawyer, and, thankfully, also a teacher. He knows he’s going to have to teach his message to the normal guy/gal, the people most affected (last year, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) took action against seniors and minors for downloading songs; as an example, the RIAA took $2000 in “damages” from a 12 year old, the entire balance of her savings account). Lessig also makes the disclaimer that he isn’t an anarchist that prefers scrapping copyright law altogether. Instead, because Lessig respects these laws so much, the idea that lobbyists such as the RIAA can use the law like a blunt instrument disgusts him.

Another of Lessig’s concerns is the state of the public domain. US Congress extended copyright 11 times in the last forty years; nothing has passed into the public domain during that time. Anything made over the past century is still protected and unavailable for republishing without consent from the copyright owner. This is a big deal when one considers the amount of unclaimed works in the public domain: no particular person makes money from these works, though they are still protected from the “pirates” of the world. Lockers full of disintegrating films, audio recordings, and more are destined to rot because the studios that won’t give up the copyright over them also don’t consider these works worthy of restoring. They are allowed to atrophy because Disney Inc. and the Seuss estate are deadly afraid that Mickey and Red Fish Blue Fish will be rendered to us, the unwashed.

Canadian copyright law is slightly more lenient, but not immune to being tightened. I download music. I feel no guilt about it. In Canada, we pay what the government calls a “levy” (I call it a “fine”) to SOCAN every time we buy a blank CD, regardless of the intended use. There’s talk of amending Canadian copyright laws, but little coverage in the news about it: changes proposed would allow a Canadian RIAA to use the same tactics as its Yankee twin. Google “Canadian RIAA” to find out what I mean.

And while you’re at it, read Free Culture� it might make you angry enough to do something yourself. You don’t even have to buy it if you don’t want to: you can get it free at www.free-culture.org. Download it while it’s still legal to do so.

Mason Hastie

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Postscript:
There is a nice little movie that illustrates these ideas here. (via Kaliber100000)
And I really like Die Puny Humans, but Warren misses the point here.

The Television clones are attacking in 2004 and I for one welcome our Tom Verlaine quoting overlords.

Up All Night excels at the things that Hot Fuss fails at. The lyrics are engaging and thoughtful, the energy is high and you don’t feel like you should be listening to something else that this album reminds you of. I am hard-pressed to find a low point. The formula of hot guitar riffs and sixties pop hooky rhythms that Verlaine gave us with Marquee Moon is as potent now as ever. Hang By is a text book example, if there were such a text book…

Lyrically all the songs are first-person relationship sort of stuff. The sort of thing one falls into like a warm bath during the verses and then rides like a wave at the choruses, when the volume is turned up and the energy level raised. Songs like In The City (download 5.7 Mb) and Too The Sea show a rhythmic pacing that is superbly exact. I don’t know what happened in Britain that made New York punk OK to like after denying it since 1976, but if they weren’t carrying the torch, do you think America would?

Not bloody likely.

Just before Suede gave up, they performed 5 nights at the Institute Of Contemporary Arts in London. Each show was devoted to playing one of their albums from beginning to end. If anyone knows where one can get copies of these shows I would be greatly indebted to them. I really only want the first two nights, as Dog Star Man and the debut are my favorite albums by them.

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