<
https://doctorow.medium.com/schroedingers-streaming-service-just-died-a92bbf756681>
"When you buy a vinyl record, cassette or CD, you own it, thanks to copyright
law’s “first sale” principle. I have real criticisms of copyright law, but at
least it’s a law, created by a democratically accountable legislature. When you
buy a digital download of a song, your use of it is governed by private terms
of service, not copyright law.
These terms of service are outrageous. Not only are they incredibly long and
dull, but they confiscate all the rights that Congress reserved to the public
when they crafted copyright law. You can donate your old CDs to a library, you
can leave your mix-tapes to your kid, you can divide your CDs in a divorce, but
none of that stuff is on the table with digital media.
Virtually no one has ever read these terms of service. That makes sense — not
only are they written to be impenetrably soporific, but they’re also so
manifestly unfair that just trying to parse them risks an aneurysm. Perhaps the
only way to read the Itunes ToS with your sanity intact is via R Sikoryak’s
incredible graphic novel (!) adaptation:
https://memex.craphound.com/2017/03/03/terms-and-conditions-the-bloviating-cruft-of-the-itunes-eula-combined-with-extraordinary-comic-book-mashups/
The confiscation of your rights to your digital media depends on the fiction
that you are
licensing the music, not
buying it. The fact that there’s a
giant “buy now” button on the interface notwithstanding, tech and entertainment
companies maintain that you are engaged in a licensing deal, like an advertiser
buying synch rights for a hamburger commercial.
The digital media industry wants to eat its cake and have it, too. Even as they
tell you that you’ve just bought a “license” and therefore have no rights under
copyright, they tell their workforce — the creative laborers who composed,
arranged and performed the music — that you’re
buying your music,
not
licensing it.
That’s because all the record deals from the prehistory of digital music have
two different royalty rates: when a musician’s work is sold, they get a low
royalty rate (12%-22%). When that same work is licensed, they get a
50%
royalty."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
