Thread by @rob_sheridan

The public domain is something that has really radicalized me on copyright. I use a TON of public domain source materials in my work. Almost no one has ever recognized the sources, because I've transformed them so much. That's the whole spirit of the public domain.

https://twitter.com/leviathant/status/1363340325444550657

The original intention of copyright is actually really cool and really smart. It gives the creator of an artistic work some time to exclusively profit from what they made, but it also encourages them to make new work by saying "okay, this thing has had its moment, move on."

And by releasing that work into the public, it not only encourages the creator to move on, it also gives millions of other creators the opportunity to build from that work. It's a really cool system, and unfortunately was damaged by corporate greed *cough* Disney *cough*

When we talk about music licensing, it's important to remember how weird and rare it is that we have this cultural idea of musical recordings being something that should earn money always forever any time they get played in any context.

Mostly this happened because music was the first thing to be easily-duplicated by technology. Music was the first victim of digital copying that also had a bazillion dollar lobby behind it. So it got the advantage of a big congressional panic around copyright.

And that begs the question: What if, instead of MP3s, widespread 3D printers happened first, and people were making their own IKEA furniture? Would the laws have adjusted to make sure you had to pay for every time your YouTube video showed an IKEA couch?

The way art is used and re-used in the digital age, and the role it plays in creating new art, is constantly changing. And it's the music industry that always turns up as the old man yelling at clouds making the conversation more difficult.

Support artists, support musicians, but also remember that a thing you made once was not always legally designated as a special flower that no one could ever touch for the rest of your life. And there's a ton of value in thinking of it that way.

Those of you who know me from my NIN work know many raw audio materials we released for fans to make their own remix creations. It was so revolutionary at the time (for 2005's WITH TEETH) we actually had to lie to the record label about how much we were putting out.

The whole concept behind putting out remix stems goes back to the very first conversation I ever had with Trent Reznor, at my job interview in 1999, and it was something that stuck with me. He said:

"Maybe we could upload all my sound samples I create for an album, so people can fuck with them and remix them or whatever. If anything, that will encourage me to never reuse them, I'll be inspired to make new shit for the next album."

I'd never heard an artist speak that way about their work, but in essence, he was describing what the whole idea of copyright and the public domain was about. And it was inspiring.

I agree! @creativecommons is such an awesome solution, and I release all of my personal work under CC licenses. I highly encourage other creators to do the same.

https://twitter.com/idcalligraphic/status/1363491227988078592?s=20

I want to reiterate that this was one of Trent's first ideas for what to do with a NIN website (that didn't exist yet) in 1999. It would take six more years before we made it happen, and it was STILL considered radical at the time.

https://twitter.com/rob_sheridan/status/1363489760723890177?s=20

So if you read this and think it’s insane for tattoo artists to demand compensation from films, it forces you to question why we accept it as gospel that background music in streams deserves compensation. The main difference is the power of the lobbies behind the industries.

https://twitter.com/jeremygaffer/status/1363514762584236036

And this all circles back around to why small independent musicians are frustrated by streaming rates: The whole system was negotiated by big corporations to try & reclaim the inflated profits of pop music they felt they were owed. It wasn’t negotiated with small artists in mind.

My point is more about the increasingly varied cases where artists DON’T deserve money. If a gamer wears my t-shirt in a stream, I shouldn’t get royalties for that bc my art isn’t a key factor in why people are watching. And that opens a big conversation around background music.

https://twitter.com/SadieMcMian/status/1363522510290116614

The music industry had the luxury of designing its own rules around licensing and it was designed exclusively around preserving expected profits of pop music. None of this took new media into account, and if we’re all going to keep making videos, we HAVE to re-evaluate licensing.