all rights reserved

 "IT@IE copyright statement: the author of this blog hereby auhtorizes every PERSON to copy, publish and/or broadcast all materials posted in this blog wherever and whenever you see fit as long as you tell me about it"

Basically if you can prove that you are a biped with complex communication skills and opposing thumb you get copy and paste anything you like from here. Just keep me posted about it…

Copyright discussions have recently been BIG! Prosperous, long established cash cow industries that have been sucking the marrow out of artists’ work for decades are suddenly becoming the paladins of the protection of their employees’ original creations. They are naturally concerned of protecting the generous rewards they give the artists that are lucky enough to be on their payroll: something between 0% to (maybe) 8% of the proceedings (8% only if you happen to have” Madonna like” bargaining power…).


I suspect their efforts will be short lived. Throughout the history of the industry technical innovation has reshaped business models creating new jobs and firms whilst destroying or severely damaging others. Have a look at this clip and make a short (but highly enlightning) table linking, on one side, the technical innovations and, on the other, who benefited and who lost with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQW6KTt5dvk

Without underestimating the strength of the powers that currently are, I suspect it will not be possible to prevent the free spread of digital content, be it music, video, text or other. The winners will eventually be those who will better adapt to this new reality.

Which brings me to the beginning of this post and the blog’s copyright statement: there is no way I can control what you do with “my” content so I might as well play the generous and care free soul and let you have it as if your own.

It is interesting to see that there are other people which are doing the same as me lay in two groups: "the nobodys" that have got nothing to lose and have no other way to get the content out there anyhow (that’s me); and "the celebrities" who can afford to get their stuff out for free because they have other sources which will benefit from the widespread distribution of their music (that’s the Radioheads’ and company).

The great resistance to this comes from the guys in the middle. They rely on selling their content for a living and cannot get to grips with giving it out for free. This great example of the “donut principle”, where there is nice sweet cake for the extremes but a big hole of nothing for the mainstream middle, may be one of the reasons why the industry has been so sluggish in finding alternative business models for musicians.

I wonder if the this will lead to a very unequal industry characterized by zillions of "nobodys", very few "celebraties" and a big hole in the middle... any thoughts on that?