Copyright is why todays Music Sucks

[Krank]

Alright, copyright is a fantastic incentive for artists to create new amazing stuff.

The problem is, do you know how long our founding fathers originally intended for copyright to last?

14 years. That's right, 14 years. Think to yourselves, if this were still true today, all music from 1995 and earlier would be public domain. That's right you could use any o0r all of the parts of these songs composed before this time period freely, and legally to create your own songs or projects, irregardless of whether or not you are creating your version for commercial gain.

What is the current copyright length? Lifetime plus 70 years. 100 years extra if you are a corporation/
.

That's right, cocksucking, profit hungry corporations have fucked you and I over, the creative musician types have been screwed.

These corporations have lobbied over the past century to significantly extend copyrights to continue to scrape in profits on ideas and art that should be public domain right now.

Unfortunately, this gets to the thesis of my post. Why does music today suck.

Well, to make hit tunes, producers stick to tried and true chord progressions. Unfortunately, because so many melodies have been done over these chord proggressions already, the melodies have gotten more and more annoying and cheesier.

If all the sweet melodies from the music of the 50's through the 90's were public domain. I believe music would not suck today, as music would turn away from being cookie cutter crap with contrived original melodies, to building upon the previous generations hard work.

Remember, the history of music has been a constant building upon from already existing material

jazz and folk and blues and country led to rock. which led to metal, which led to alternative and heavy metal. Disco came out of rock and roll in the seventies. which turned into electronic music over the years.

Anyways, my two cents are that we need to lobby and musicians to get the copyright length significantly reduced back down to 14 years. Sure super popular and famous musicians wont continue to reap in royalties, but i beleive the logjam music has gotten into will break because all the creative goodies from the last century can be tapped into and built upon with today's technology.

WATCH THIS

[SpaceWhale]

today's music sucks blargh

[Rampant]

At 2/8/11 11:17 PM, Bjra wrote: Remember, the history of music has been a constant building upon from already existing material

...remember, that it's called the music industry. These record labels are here to make money -- they're not quite as successful as it nowadays -- but, the reason they want to keep these recordings in their possession for as long as possible is blatantly obvious.

All those megahits from the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's? Those sound recordings are worth a shitload of money. They went multi-platinum back 'in the day,' and now the people who own those sound recordings understandably want to keep making money off of them.

Every time you buy a Beatles' song off of iTunes? Bam. That's another 9.1 cents split between Paul McCartney, Ringo, and -- you guessed it -- Sony, who bought the recordings off of Michael Jackson's estate. It's an incredibly lucrative business.

Why does music suck today? Well, because the music industry has always TOLD people what they like. People like what they hear on the radio -- there's too much choice for them to be able to 'decide' what they like.

Popular music has always been contrived and derivative. In their early days, the Beatles copied the exact same drum beats and popular chord structures that other bands had popularized in the standard rock'n'roll in the late 50's. Then the Beatles started creating their own style, and popularized 'non-standard' instrumentation and a lot of experimentation and, the next thing you know, everyone else is imitating that style. (Most notably, psychedelia.)

To say "popular music today is all the same" is quite a dumb statement. Any time a style or chord progression gets popular, everyone jumps on the opportunity to do the same thing -- it happened in the 50's, it happened in the 60's, in the 70's, the 80's, the 90's, and the current decade. And it will happen again in the future forever until either Earth explodes and everyone dies, or people just stop making music.

Mainstream 'groups' aside, there's something called 'indie.' That is anything but standard. You have bands that blend styles, creating new and refreshing music, or just go all-out and create some crazy new forms of non-categorizable music. And that's where the future of music lies -- once the major record labels cease to exist, and they will, then small, independent labels and unsigned artists will get their chance to shine.

Basically, copyright is not why today's music sucks. You can't copyright chord progressions, or thematic material, or motifs.

The reason today's music sucks is because UMG, Sony/BMG, and EMI have found something that is cheap and easy to mass produce, is popular at clubs and dances, and generally 'sticks' with the teenage population. And large record labels are very slow to adapt -- once they've found something that can turn even a few cents in profit, they stick to it until they bleed it dry.

[ZStriefel]

You're proposing to combat unoriginality.. We just make everything fair game after 14 years?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your intent. But this doesn't make any sense to me. Copyright isn't an incentive to be original, it's protection for it's owner.

And if you want to use something that belongs to somebody else, you should ask.. And if you're making a profit off of it, you should pay.

[djInTheDark]

Yeah, modern music has really taken a dive in it's general creativity. It's like my friend always says when he writes songs with his band, 'it's nearly impossible to write anything original, simply because by about the late 70's, almost every type of chord progression and basic melody had already been written in some form already. Indifferent to tempo or key theoretically speaking.' So I can see where your coming from on that end.

On the second, Do I think people should have to pay other people to use material, even if the people they are paying only own said material on paper - and not in a more literal sense such as they created it or help create it? Meh, it's certainly questionable and there is quite a bit of wigle room to that rule to begin with.

And on the third, do I think we should deliberately recycle the parts and pieces of past works in order to gain more for ourselves? I'm not sure I have anything to say about that.

This is why I don't want to be a lawyer. >:P

[InvisibleObserver]

At 2/8/11 11:40 PM, ZStriefel wrote: Roughly what I read.

Yea I don't really see the issue, if we're the creative musical types, we don't have to dodge around unoriginality.

[djInTheDark]

At 2/8/11 11:48 PM, djInTheDark wrote: Yeah, modern music has really taken a dive in it's general creativity. It's like my friend always says when he writes songs with his band, 'it's nearly impossible to write anything original, simply because by about the late 70's, almost every type of chord progression and basic melody had already been written in some form already. Indifferent to tempo or key theoretically speaking.' So I can see where your coming from on that end.

I forgot to add that this is a literal definition, and does not mean there isn't anything original being made everyday. Think about it in a mathematical sense, not a artistic one.

[FatKidWitAJetPak]

My opinion on copyright is as follows:

All in all, it sucks, it blows, it makes me want to smash my face in with a hammer, jump off a bridge, and land on a giant, sharp rock surrounded by senile old men who wish to sodomize dead bodies. Harsh way of putting it, but completley true. I hate copyright laws because it just goes to show how greedy these companies really are. They are power hungry, and that is scary. If your a 13 year old with a song of lincoln park on your myspace and they find out, they won't even flinch before deciding to sue that kids ass for pirated music. It has happened many times in the past, it will continue happening, and barely anyone has the money, attention span, or will to go against these companies in court because of how difficult it would be to achieve an accomplished win under the jurisdiction of court. Even if one were to win the case, that individual wouldn't get much accomplished in the grand scheme of things. The copyright laws would remain the same. Sure, companies have lost to large trials in the past, but these trials usually revolved around a large group of people rather than a single person.

When a majority of the public does't like something, the public complains. When the public complains, the public begins to form a group of people who are passionate over the subject. When a group of people are passionate over something they are being kept from, they revolt. When they revolt, the goverment responds with the police force. When the police force stops the revolts, the public is discouraged. When the public is discouraged, they either give up, or someone brings them together in another, less violent and more jurisdictional attempt. This can lead to more violence, more hatred, and chaos, or it can lead to an agreement of sorts through complicated, annoying, and timely matters revolving around court.

In theory, we could bring together a massive group of passionate people who believe that copyright needs to be changed, but in reality 90% of those people would think to themselves, "Wait a minute... why am I risking my life, family, friends, and money for a simple law? Fuck that shit, I don't to get raped in prison!" When you look it like that, the copyright law is really just an annoyance, and not worth causing so much buthurt over.

In fact, I completely disagree on your comment about music sucking because of copyright law. We can all make our own music and still make it good. Sure, it can get old if you've heard the same tune over and over and over again used in different ways in different genres, but that concept applies to everything and has nothing to do with the limitations caused by copyright... if you eat doughnuts every day, you'll get sick of doughnuts. If you listen to techno everyday, you'll get sick of techno. If you hear an awesome guitar riff in a song, you'll love it at first, but then you'll get sick and tired of it after realizing that many, many more songs use it. This can be coincidence, or just the simple fact that the note and chord spectrum is limited to a certain, common use. We all learn how to make music in a certain way, and most people will come across a certain chord that they will find orgasmic, and want to use. It isn't strange that a handfull of people will come across the same chord and want to use it in their next song.

In psychology studies, certain doctors have found that originality doesn't actually exists, because our brains form ideas based on the things we see around us. If we were put in a pitch black room for all our lives, we would form ideas based on the darkness. If we have a brick, we come up with ideas revolving around that brick such as a wall, a floor, a house, an apartment complex, windows, e.t.c. You want to know where my "original" musical inspiration comes from? Me sitting at the piano and making up random chords and looking at the nature around me. I have seen that many other people have done the same, and therefore my ideas are not considered "original". However, I made them up completely on my own, with the ideas of nature 'talking' to me. this psychological theory, is just a theory, but when thought of in detail it sounds eerily true.

So, in conclusion I just want to say that copyright has nothing to do with how we make music, other than the fact we can't make specific songs, and I have RARELY heard songs that sound EXACTLY like a pink floyd song, a cream song, a Tiesto song, or whatever band is out there. We all put our own uniqueness into a song, and if some copyright letter shows up to my door I will present the simple evidence of my audio midi project file, showing that I played it all without the use of any rips from any songs... and yet again, I highly doubt I will ever make a song that sounds EXACTLY like a copyrighted song... but still, the fact that companies care so fucking much about money really makes me want to fucking shoot myself. They cause a lot of trouble that isn't needed, takes away creativity, and focus to much on detail on EVERY LITTLE THING THAT SOUNDS LIKE A COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. But hey, either I can complain about it or keep making my own music.

Fuck the police. That is all.

[FatKidWitAJetPak]

Im putting a copyright on nature. Then I will make millions. NO ONE WILL BE ALLOWED TO BE INSPIRED FROM NATURE. HAHAHAH!

[Knoxius]

At 2/8/11 11:40 PM, ZStriefel wrote: Copyright isn't an incentive to be original, it's protection for it's owner.

Many musicians don't own the copyright to their music, but rather the record label does. The label then makes 100 billion dollars muahaha

[RedRavenRuler]

Yes it is true copyright laws have been grossly over extended for profit gain but look at it this way... If Soulja Boy could rip a gutair riff from 14 years ago, put a new drum beat to it, and rap over it... how is that being creative and new? It's the same melody just new words and a basic bass heavy rap beat under it. I think that would get old very fast. Also since a lot of new music producers tend to use preset synthesizer sounds instead of creating their own, if they could take a pre-made melody, and a preset synth sound, put a trance gate on it and a kick drum and legally sell it would that be music creativity?

Truth is a good amount of people today are lazy beyond belief and would grossly abuse the public domain melodies. It would be saying it's ok to to be lazy and not write your own melody, or bassline... Hell why not just add 1 new sound to the original and call it new? I wouldn't put it past people to do just that and try to make money because they're lazy.

Now public domain is a good thing in my opinion but the fact remains to many people would NOT use it to expand on and would instead steal large portions of it and slightly change it to make a quick buck.

[Krank]

At 2/9/11 12:06 AM, RedRavenRuler wrote: Truth is a good amount of people today are lazy beyond belief and would grossly abuse the public domain melodies.

I disagree wholely. Currently artists horribly abuse recycled chord progressions, but are forced to contrive crappy new melodies and riffs.

extended copyright has made musicians creatively lazy because it is so incredibly hard to create something legally original these days. You get tons of inspiration, but you must throw a lot of it away to keep it legal.

If artists were able to build upon songs more than 14 years old as public domain, musicians would again be able to create to their hearts content, irregardless of whether or not they are pulling ideas from the public domain of the prior generation.

copyright does protect musicians. Copyright any longer than 14 years protects corporate profits.

[djInTheDark]

At 2/8/11 11:59 PM, Knoxius wrote:

At 2/8/11 11:40 PM, ZStriefel wrote: Copyright isn't an incentive to be original, it's protection for it's owner.

Many musicians don't own the copyright to their music, but rather the record label does. The label then makes 100 billion dollars muahaha

Yeah, but the artist chose to sign themselves to label xy. Nobody forced them to sign the contract. Just saying'

[Krank]

At 2/9/11 12:19 AM, djInTheDark wrote:

At 2/8/11 11:59 PM, Knoxius wrote:

At 2/8/11 11:40 PM, ZStriefel wrote: Copyright isn't an incentive to be original, it's protection for it's owner.

Many musicians don't own the copyright to their music, but rather the record label does. The label then makes 100 billion dollars muahaha

Yeah, but the artist chose to sign themselves to label xy. Nobody forced them to sign the contract. Just saying'

remember, it was the corporations using their influence to extend copyright to tip the favor of copyright to their profit interests, through lobbying, etc.

[loansindi]

At 2/9/11 12:12 AM, Bjra wrote: If artists were able to build upon songs more than 14 years old as public domain, musicians would again be able to derive to their hearts content

i fixed that for you.

[Laqur]

so wait... you want original and unique chord progressions? this is a tough one. just how many juxtapositions of the tones in the european 12 tone system will end up sounding any good? making unique melodies isn't a real concept unless your making tones that piss everyone off. you can be creative with your melodies but at the end of the day I can guarantee you that if it isn't just noise then your melody has already existed somewhere else before and you're just not aware of it.

I agree with you on the copy right biz though. melodies are ephemeral and thus should not be copyrighted. everyone made such a big deal out of vanilla ice's queen sample but at the end of the day it's just a cheesy riff that could have been written by a five year old. thanks queen for ruining the key of D. i guess i can never compose with something using that note ever again.

[Laqur]

oh, and for people that hold to vanillas "but there's a different note" excuse, the sample is clearly just playing the first note of the second measure before looping back to the first measure.

[BluGil]

Regarding what you said about every melody and chord prog being used, I disagree with you. There's an extensive amount of melodies, nearly infinite, especially considering how even changing note lengths can affect the sound and catchiness of a phrase. So while there are several melodies that are extremely catchy, it's not logical to say that since there are so many of them, we can't find more.

Consider all the different scales available from contemporary, classical, and world music. It's a shitload. So just like, experiment. Using a middle eastern scale in a song doesn't mean you've stolen something. It means you're using musical elements and arranging them.

On a somewhat unrelated note, there's always those people who just arrange loops in FL or Garage Band and call it a song of their own... that gets me.

gooodnight.

[Laqur]

but what im saying is how many of those intervals are going to sound pleasing? theres a difference between making a coherent phrase and making noise... the second of which I do a lot actually.

[PainasaurusRex]

What I'm getting out of most of you is that you dislike copyright laws. Also, if you want to judge accurately whether or not something is free domain, is by thinking of when Mickey Mouse was created cause Disney is a huge part of why the copyright lasts so long. Now, I'm not saying that what their doing is right, but I'd like to point this out. Let's say you create a song, completely original and it goes platinum. Woo, there we go. Now, in 14 years, it's still going to be selling, just like the Black Album by metallica is still selling to this day. However, suddenly, you stop making money off of it as easily, the only people buying are the people who want the album for shits and giggles. So all that work that you put into producing this beautiful piece of art is now free to anyone. Personally, I'd rather the continued influx of money for being good at producing music. Also, making people have to write new music is a GOOD THING. Would we get anywhere with music if the only songs that were played anymore were the same songs played twenty years ago? No. I believe that the requirement to produce new music is good. It allows people to produce new stuff.

TL;DR: It's not bad, it's just how it is. It also forces people to produce new music rather then relying on the best from the past to do the work for them.

[S3C]

At 2/8/11 11:17 PM, Bjra wrote: Alright, copyright is a fantastic incentive for artists to create new amazing stuff.

No its not. being poetic, adventurous, and having the knowledge and skills to express yourself is what results in creating new amazing stuff.

14 years. That's right, 14 years. Think to yourselves, if this were still true today, all music from 1995 and earlier would be public domain. That's right you could use any o0r all of the parts of these songs composed before this time period freely, and legally to create your own songs or projects, irregardless of whether or not you are creating your version for commercial gain.

Not sure what you're implying. People using the melodies, chord progressions, and thematic material in the work? Because there's only a certain amount of what can be copyrighted until your "patchwork plagiarising" and even that's still done in remixes and covers. If you're referring to samples, that's done all the time. Maybe not in commercial products, but the real creative musicians you describe truly don't reap in commercial and monetary benefits.

I don't see how 14 years makes any difference from 14 months. I think alot of the laws on intellectual property is bullshit, anyway.

What is the current copyright length? Lifetime plus 70 years. 100 years extra if you are a corporation/
.

That's right, cocksucking, profit hungry corporations have fucked you and I over, the creative musician types have been screwed.

They havent physically came to my house and confiscated any of my musical equipment. They havent stopped me from making ideas. They havent taken away my education. They don't force me to listen or buy a certain music, other than provide whats in mainstream media- which I have a choice to ignore. There's hundreds of other musical outlets that can cater to my tastes nicely.

These corporations havent fucked me over nor helped me. They are irrelevant.

These corporations have lobbied over the past century to significantly extend copyrights to continue to scrape in profits on ideas and art that should be public domain right now.

Their profits has nothing to do with my creative pursuits.

Unfortunately, this gets to the thesis of my post. Why does music today suck.

Well, to make hit tunes, producers stick to tried and true chord progressions. Unfortunately, because so many melodies have been done over these chord proggressions already, the melodies have gotten more and more annoying and cheesier.

Maybe, maybe not. 1. Most everything has been explored harmonically as of the 20th century, what hasnt been explored is currently in stages of development....and seriously, sometimes a vi-IV-V-I progression is more suitable than a nontonal passage 2. annoying and cheesier is entirely a subjective statement 3. mainstream producers and musicians lack the education and knowledge to make more diverse music- more than half of mainstream producers dont have any classical backgrounds and/or private studies nor are they exposed to a wide variety of music, perhaps. 4. composition is only half of making music, instrumentation, timbres, synthesis, sound manipulation, sampling, digital sequencing methods are all very new ways of making original music that may be overlooked and under-appreciated by music "purists" and the like. But such innovations occur in music all the damn time.

This point is only relevant if your talking about mainstream music and popular culture philosophies.

If all the sweet melodies from the music of the 50's through the 90's were public domain. I believe music would not suck today, as music would turn away from being cookie cutter crap with contrived original melodies, to building upon the previous generations hard work.

I dont see how the music now doesnt utilize previous generations as building blocks today. It's just harder to notice when the time period that you mention is not really all that distant in the grand scheme of things. 100 years from now people are going to be complaining about the same shit, 200 years now, and so forth. Perpetually passing forward the same bucket of piss.

[blackattackbitch]

Umm, no. I'm pretty sure it's not copyright that's making today's mainstream music suck. I'm pretty sure that the promoting of talentless hacks by the record labels has more to do with it. People listen to these guys because of two thing: Familiarity and culture. In regards to familiarity, these guys all sound and look familiar to what they've already been exposed to. That can either be exposure due to one's past musical listening experience or exposure due to marketing. In regards to culture, people listen to certain musicians because that's what their peers listen to, and because we're social animals, we tend to do what the group is doing.

Besides, as an AF regular and a fellow indie musician, 1) why aren't you just listening to indie music, 2) why aren't you using the amazing resources of the interwebz to sift through the multitudes of both indie and professional music?

Because personally, this is unarguably the best era for music creation in history (bold statement, but let me explain). Gaining the tools needed to compose and distribute a piece has never been cheaper, and learning the skills necessary to write a good piece has never been easier. To put this in perspective, I haven't spent a dime to compose any of the tracks I've made besides buying headphones. I didn't have to pay for any kind of instruction either; any instruction I've needed was readily available to me on the internet. There are millions of others with access to the exact same resources I have. All one needs is a computer and internet. Hell, I was doing this on a computer with horrific specs about a year ago (13gb harddrive, 192 mb RAM, computer made for windows fucking 98).

TL:DR mainstream music sucks because of corporations, I don't know why you care, and this era of music totally doesn't suck.

[Sequenced]

Bjra is on his period again.

[Reaper93]

I think the copyright period may have become somewhat too prolonged of late, though I'm not sure 14 years cuts it anymore.

[jarrydn]

I think that music today is better than it's ever been, personally.

And if some cunt in a pinstriped suit strolls up to me and says "I will pay you stupid amounts of money if you write me some music", then I'll probably say yes. I wouldn't have the rights to it? Doesn't really bother me...I'm well aware that it's commissioned work, and that I can still do all the fun stuff in my spare time ;D.

[HungarianSupermarket]

You're just mad because other people's paychecks are stylin' on you.

[Krank]

At 2/9/11 02:12 AM, PainasaurusRex wrote: What I'm getting out of most of you is that you dislike copyright laws.

I dislike how copyright laws have been extended to a gajillion years

You mention that once something is public domain, artists will immediately stop making money on it, no.

Say metallica's black album becomes 14 years old under the original copyright. Since the song has become public domain, metallica will be able to sell their album without having to split the profits with the corporation, the record label they made the song for. They will still be more than able to sell their album commercially for full price and make money off of it from the fans willing to support the band.

fortunately, the corporation that holds the rights to the album wont be able to say, no metallica, you can't do that or we will sue you for making full profit off of the song we own partial rights to.

If metallica tried to do that today, their label would sue the shit out of them.

But the artists trying to make full money off of their products aren't screwed over by themselves. Look at youtube, these big record labels will delete your creations on youtube if you contain clips of their songs. Why. They want to limit where you can hear the song. Why is that. They want the ONLY way to listen to the song to be to buy the album. WHY. So they can make the biggest profits possible.

This is even more evident with movies. Look at Disney, they actively go and find highschools doing plays resembling their movies, and they will prosecute the schools for breaking copyrights, on movies over 50 years old.

It's disgusting.

Copyright is a good thing, but we need to get the time of copyright cut down to size. 100+ years is absolutely ridiculous.

At 2/9/11 02:34 AM, Sequenced wrote: Bjra is on his period again.

Wanted to start an interesting discussion

[loansindi]

At 2/9/11 09:10 AM, Bjra wrote: Say metallica's black album becomes 14 years old under the original copyright. Since the song has become public domain, metallica will be able to sell their album without having to split the profits with the corporation, the record label they made the song for. They will still be more than able to sell their album commercially for full price and make money off of it from the fans willing to support the band.

Yeah but so could anyone else. Once it's public domain you could simply print your own copy of the CD and sell the shit out of it, or 're-interpret' it one way or another, or whatever it is you want to do.

fortunately, the corporation that holds the rights to the album wont be able to say, no metallica, you can't do that or we will sue you for making full profit off of the song we own partial rights to.

The corporation could just keep selling the album the way they are. Who's gonna win, the folks with the giant infrastructure or the band?

[joshhunsaker]

Yeah, I kinda think music has gotten steadily better since the 80's so I'm not too worried about it.

In fact, while there is a lot of good classical music, typical "pop" music from the 20's - 70's era is almost unlistenable in my experience (with the exception of decent jazz). Now we're back to having incredible music in most every genre (oddly enough, now most jazz modern jazz sucks - it's as if the whole arrangement of music quality flipped). I think copyright reflects minimally if at all on those kinds of trends.

[Envy]

No. new pop and "dance" music ruined music (Ke$ha, Brittany spear's new stuff, and all the new "rap" songs with a 4 to the floor beat and like electrohouse backround)

Now every single damn song I hear at a party is the same as the last one with a different set of vocals.

Fuck you David Guetta