Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:59a.m.
If there is one man well qualified to raise his voice above the rabble in the recent debate on New Zealand’s proposed “guilt upon accusation” copyright laws – it is Andrew Dubber.
His personal blog says he is a “lecturer, author, speaker, broadcaster, music enthusiast, and haver-of-ideas”, he is a New Zealander living in the UK and he is also one of the foremost thinkers on the way in which music and its creation is changing in the twenty-first century.
His CV is impressive: Senior Lecturer in Music Studies at Birmingham University, five years as George FM’s specialist Jazz DJ, a one-time record label manager and the author of the influential music blog New Music Strategies.
Visiting New Zealand to take part in a music conference chaired by Russell Brown, Dubber is unsurprisingly opposed to new copyright laws targeting file sharing, which he says will stifle creation and have not been asked for by the public or artists.
“Make no mistake – it is the record companies that have lobbied for this,” he tells me over the phone.
So who are these lobbyists – in New Zealand it is the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) and according to Mr Dubber they have lobbied hard for laws like these to come into existence.
However, some Internet Service Providers are being swayed by the record company’s arguments. You only have to look at the multi-million Euro deal in Ireland between Eircom, one of the country’s major ISPs, and a host of record companies to impose a similar three strikes system, to see this in action.
Mr Dubber is surprised by this.
“Why are the ISPs even coming to the table, there is no incentive for them,” he says.
However, Mr Dubber is not averse to changes in copyright law – he believes copyright is important but needs to adapt to take changes in technology, and therefore creativity, into account.
“I’m opposed to anything that stifles creativity. The current format favours traditional songwriters but doesn’t take into account the whole ecology of artists such as remix artists and samplers.”
But who are these new artists? A good example would be
Girl Talk – a one man sampling machine who creates three minute pop songs using samples from around twenty other popular tracks. He never pays royalties and he has never been sued – perhaps because record companies know that being sampled by Girl Talk gives their records a new lease of life, a new burst of kitsch-cool.
Mr Dubber draws an interesting line from the advent of sheet music, through to recorded music to the file sharing phenomenon of today.
When sheet music was invented – performers worried that their audiences would dwindle as people played the music at home. Then recorded music arrived and music became a three minute commodity used to sell radio adverts.
“It was only after the advent of recorded music that music became a read-only format,” says Mr Dubber.
What is worrying for the record labels is that current technology makes music creation a lot easier – now it is possible for everyone to create good music in their bedrooms.
Ironically, we have, in a way, returned to the times of sheet music – although instead of gathering round the piano to sing carols, we are connecting our laptops to create remixes of our favourite songs.
The read only format is waning and participation is back in. In classical economic terms the supply of music has increased a great deal – and there will be downwards pressure on the price we pay to access it.
So, are there any record companies who do not want to place restrictions on file-sharing?
Mr Dubber says the vast majority of the music industry, especially the small independent labels he often deals with, is embracing the internet and file-sharing as a means of distributing their music.
“The biggest hurdle for a band or musician is obscurity,” he says. “It is actually very hard to give away 1000 copies of an album.”
And there are certainly examples of bands who have succeeded via viral marketing. The Arctic Monkeys built up their huge fan base through MySpace playing legendary gigs in people’s garages. Radiohead reportedly made fine profits from asking people to pay what they liked for their latest album In Rainbows.
There is an ever-growing move towards bands who communicate directly with their fans – band members now blog their innermost thoughts and contribute to their own chat forums.
The major record labels are on their own on this one, and their objections make them look like dinosaurs. The record labels and musicians that will survive and prosper due to this change are already embracing new technologies.
File-sharing has been healthy for the industry – it has given exposure to a glut of bands that would have otherwise been ignored. It has opened up careers in music for the non-photogenic, the off-key and the kinked.
“The concept of the poor starving rock star is rubbish,” says Mr Dubber, who would rather concentrate on the artists at the other end of the scale.
And he’s right – I don’t see Mick Jagger looking for leftovers in London bins or Bono asking to stop his own poverty now. What I do see is a music scene that is vibrant and constantly evolving new ideas.
We have file-sharing to thank for that.