At a speech he gave last week he had been asked: What’s going to happen to the music industry?, Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine and author of the book The Long Tail, writes in his blog:
“To which I answered ‘Which music industry?’ You don’t mean just the one that sells CDs, do you? Because it’s a big mistake to equate the major labels and their plastic disc business with the industry as a whole.”
When you stand back and look at all of music, things don’t look so bad at all, concludes Anderson. It appears that every single part of the music industry is up, only CDs are down (-18%). They’re around 60% of the industry, but just around 25% if you include MP3 players. Anderson: “So the problem with the music labels is not that music is an industry in decline, but that they have a too-narrow view of what business they’re in.”
On Friday at the World Forum on Music in Beijing, artists, producers, law experts, representatives of intellectual property organisations, researchers and activists have discussed the present and the future of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The session, dedicated to this topic was chaired by Peter Rantasa, member of the exceutive board of the International Music Council (IMC), which held the Forum, and initiator of fair music.
Within the perspective of the IMCs five musical rights (in short: freedom of expression, freedom to learn, right to access, right to develop artistry and communicate, right to obtain just recognition and remuneration) the panel explored the needs for and obstacles to creating an effective IPR-regime in countries which do not have one; the situation for collective ownership and traditional music; alternatives to conventional IPR-regimes; the international quest between copyright and authors rights; collective rights management; the cutting edge issues for IPR in the digital realm and empiric data on the financial outcomes of IPR-regimes and their effects on creativity.
Mulonga.net is a platform for a very special kind of sustaining and furthering cultural diversity and cultural exchange between the area of the Tonga people of Zimbabwe and across the Zambezi River in Zambia, Austria and the world.
The Tonga.Online Project, that has been launched in 2001, has focused attention on promoting a Tonga voice over the Internet. The aim is to provide the Tonga with access to the most advanced communication tools, so that they may represent themselves to the outside world and reflect upon the social, political and economic environment in which they live.
“Although, in recent years, attention for the necessity of intellectual property rights has grown enormously against the backdrop of globalisation and digitisation, until now no consensus has been found in the music sector,” Peter Rantasa, chairman of the panel discussion “Intellectual Property Rights” at the 2nd World Forum on Music in Beijing that will be held Friday, director of mica - music austria, and founder of the initiative fair music, states.
Rantasa says, it is no coincidence that the topics of globalisation and digitisation appear simultaneously and he also gives the reasons for the current situation: “Rich countries, artists and industries logically defend their positions. Openness for a new and innovative approach which meets the requirements of a model orientated towards a balance of interests is to be found among those who have been refused access to global markets.”
Mp3 is just a technology, a method to compress audio. But for some it is devil’s advocate because it actually made the quick and easy sharing of music over the internet possible. But one could as well “think of an mp3 as metadata about the artist”, was Joi Ito, chairman of the board of Creative Commons and member of the board of ICANN, considering at the fair music discussion in Linz in September.
“The internet is about creating relationships between the artist and the user. The problem with labels is: this brand is standing between you and the artist. We know from experience that people actually pay more if it’s going directly to the artist.”, says Ito. For artists it is therefore necessary to experiment and one possibility to find new ways of dealing with their own intellectual property is the alternative licensing scheme Creative Commons. Ito: “We think it is important to let the artist decide under which circumstances they want to give away their work and when they want to be paid.”
For the first time, an attempt is being made in the field of culture to achieve a balance of interests between the right to intellectual property and the right to participate in world culture. The 2nd World Forum on Musicof the International Music Council (IMC) in Beijing this Friday brings together representatives from the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), royalty collecting societies and artists, the International Musicians’ Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), one of the globally most prominent civil rights initiatives, as well as Creative Commons and the fair music initiative. The discussion-process on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) is anchored by the International Music Council, the top-level umbrella-organization of music-related NGOs associated with UNESCO. The debate seeks a balancing of interest within the framework the Musical Rights of the IMC. Moderator and chair of the IPR-Panel is Peter Rantasa, a member of the IMC’s board of directors and the initiator of fair music, the first global initiative for justice and fairness in the music business.
