Lawrence Lessig has the solution to make remixing legit
Lawrence Lessig is an author and law professor who has the best solution for bringing remixing into the mainstream that I've seen. He isn't just some ivory-tower academic though. He's created a copyright licensing system called Creative Commons that helps artists and remixers and he has advice on what policy makers can do today.
The basic problem is that using samples in mainstream music doesn't happen any more because of the high cost of clearing samples. This is stifling a huge amount of creative new music and pushing it underground. Why is it high cost? Because there is not a set price for using a sample and because the use of each sample must be negotiated individually.
Lessig proposes a couple of solutions to this problem.
- Creative Commons licensing for those who wish to allow for some amount of re-use. This is something that individual artists can choose to do and are doing today.
- He proposes a formula for using samples that would work similarly to the formula for covering songs. For example, every sample would cost 1 cent per track sold. This is something that will have to be done by the recording industry voluntarily or be forced onto the recording industry by new laws from congress. This is not very likely to happen in the near term, but there are good reasons to do it.
I think Lessig's solutions to these copyright issues could take care of the issues raised by films like Copyright Criminals (see earlier blog post: Why today's copyright law doesn't work with today's music) and the ridiculous Men at Work case (see earlier blog post: G'day mate! Court throws Men at Work on the barbie!).
Here are a few of the highlights from a recent iinterview with Lessig:
- On why covering a song is different than sampling:
- Covering has a set procedure and payments codified in law -- 2 cents a song.
- Each sample has to be negotiated separately -- hence it is a big mess.
- Why it will be hard for the system to change
- The current system makes way too much money for lawyers who play the "sample lottery."
- Congress will have to care enough to write new laws.
- Why Greg Gillis aka Girl Talk hasn't been sued even though he uses samples without paying for them:
- He cites everything he samples.
- He has released his music under a Creative Commons license that allows anyone to sample and remix his work without limit.
- Record labels may be afraid they will lose to him in court -- opening the flood gates.
- History is full of people fighting against changes in music technology and law and losing.
- Radio vs. in-person
- VCRs
- Young people today see widespread copyright violations as normal.
- Lessig says that this creates a widespread disrespect for copyright law specifically.
- Lessig says that this could lead to general disrespect for the law in general.
These are just the highlights from the interview that Well-Rounded Radio did with Lessig about these topics. See the interview page or directly download the podcast. The interview with Lessig starts about eight minutes in and is about 53 minutes long.
Some more background on Lawrence Lessig
Who is Lawrence Lessig?
- Expert on copyright law
- Writer of several books on copyright, music and technology
- Creator of Creative Commons licensing
- licenses for those who want to allow some forms of re-use and re-mixing
- some rights reserved instead of all rights reserved
- Law professor at Stanford and Harvard
- His website
(2002)
(2008)
What do you think?
I think Creative Commons makes a lot of sense. I also think it might be time to have a system in place that everyone can use for clearing samples quickly, easily and at a fair price. That way we can have more artists like Girl Talk.
- Do think Lessig's ideas make sense?
- Could we have a system where samples cost a certain amount, based on a formula like remaking songs?
- Would you consider publishing something under a Creative Commons license?
- If whole songs cost 2 cents to cover, how much should a sample cost to use?
