I don’t think most Californians appreciate the dread experienced by band business managers when they see California on the tour itinerary. California just sent Camper Van Beethoven a 2023 tax assessment for $800. CVB has been a Virginia LLC since the late 1990s. We haven’t played in California since 2019. It’s not really clear to me what value the state is providing to the band. And don’t bother trying to get anyone on the phone. No one is home at FTB. This is a simplification, but once you play in California, FTB likes to assess you as if you are a Californian entity whether you are playing there or not. Tennessee used to do something similar but they seem to have stopped.

All the true promise of AI does not require violating writers, artists, photographers, voice actors etc copyrights and rights of publicity. You know, stuff like reading MRIs and X-rays, developing pharmaceuticals, advanced compounds, new industrial processes, etc.

All the shitty aspects of AI DO require intentional mass copyright infringement (a RICO predicate BTW). You know stuff like bots, deep fakes, autogenerated "yoga mat" music, SEO manipulation, autogenerated sports coverage, commercial chat bots, fake student papers, graphic artist knockoffs, robot voice actors etc. But that's where the no-value-add-parasitic-free-rider-easy-money is to be made. That's why the parasitic free-riding VCs and private equity want to get a "fair use" copyright exemption.

Policy makers should understand that if they want to reduce the potential harms of AI they need to protect and reinforce intellectual property rights of individuals. It is a natural (and already existing) brake on harmful AI. What we don't need is legislative intervention that makes it easier to infringe IP rights and then try to mitigate (the easily predictable and obvious) harms with additional regulation.

This is what happened with Napster and internet 1.0. The DMCA copyright infringement safe harbor for platforms unleashed all sorts of negative externalities that were never fairly mitigated by subsequent regulation.

Why do songwriters get 0.0009 a stream on streaming platforms? Because the platforms used the threat of the DMCA copyright safe harbor by "bad actors" (often connected to the "good actors" via shared board members and investors*) to create a market failure that destroyed the value of songs. To "fix" the problem federal legislation tasks the Copyright Royalty Board in LOC to set royalty rates and forced songwriters to license to the digital platforms (songwriters can not opt out). The royalty setting process was inevitably captured by the tech companies and that's how you end up with 0.0009 per stream.

TBF the DMCA safe harbor requires the platforms to set up "technical measures" to prevent unlicensed use of copyrights, but this part of the DMCA safe harbor were never implemented and the federal government never bothered to enforce this part of the law.

This is the Napster playbook all over again.
1. Unleash a technology that you know will be exploited by bad actors**.
2. Ask for federal intervention that essentially legalizes the infringing behavior.
3. The federal legislation effectively creates private monopoly or duopoly.
4. Trillions of dollars in wealth transferred from creators to a tiny cabal of no-value-add-parasitic-free-rider-easy-money VCs in silicon valley.
5. Lots of handwringing about the plight of creators.
6. Bullshit legislation that claims to help creators but actually mandates a below market rate for creators.

The funny thing is Lars Ulrich was right about Napster. At the time he was vilified by what in reality was a coordinated DC communication firm (working for Silicon Valley VCs) that masqueraded as grassroots operation. But go back and watch the Charlie Rose debate between Lars Ulrich and Chuck D, everything Lars Ulrich said was gonna happen happened.

If Lars Ulrich hadn't been cowed by a coordinated campaign by no-value-add-parasitic-free-rider-easy-money Silicon Valley VCs, he'd probably say the same thing about AI.

And he'd be right again. * In the case of YouTube, it was bought by Google. Google has explicitly used Youtube as a sort of "bad actor" to get favorable licensing from labels, performers and songwriters. Google flooded key departments of the federal government with revolving door appointments...

If you want know what's screwed up about Antitrust in the US, look at how songwriters are treated. Since the early 50s both major songwriter organizations (ASCAP/BMI) have been governed by DOJ "consent decrees" ostensibly for anti-competitive behavior 1/x because the DOJ treats songwriters as producers of a goods, not laborers, when we collectively bargain we are treated as colluding on prices. This is complicated by the fact the songwriter organizations also have publisher members 2/x

In the age of Silicon Valley monopoly pseudo-capitalism, a tell that an organization is up to no good, is the use of the word "open." Take OpenAI. It has slathered itself in a pseudo-academic ooze, presenting papers, hosting "discussions, hoping you don't realize who really owns OpenAI: The same Silicon Valley monopoly pseudo capitalists that have given you all the other monopoly platforms. Start with Sequoia capital. Go from there. Now it's important for the scam to present it as something that is "open" to the public as if they are creating something..

Windowing is a concept from the movie business. That is you move your release from one "platform," say movie theaters, to another say subscription streaming, eventually something like free over the air TV. The idea is the price decreases as the value of the movie decreases 1/x with time. At least to the consumer. The legacy corporate music business doesn't do this (with rare exceptions). Everything goes straight to streaming. Essentially valuing the recording from the outset at residual long term price. In the case of music about $0.005/stream.