In my previous post on SXSW, I said that the 1,400 bands here all want to get paid. Ain't that the truth. But remember, they also don't want to toil for the man. That presumably means they want to have some say over how they are paid. Copyright gives them that control. In a negotiation with a major label, they are going to be at a disadvantage, just as I was at a disadvantage as a freelance writer when negotiating with a major magazine or newspaper. But copyright allows a band like Super Sonic Festival Projectionists to walk away from a contract without their work being otherwise used. Some outside the music industry don't like artists to have that right of refusal.

The Digital Freedom campaign has the money to purchase and man a booth here on the SXSW trade show floor. I went up to have a chat with the person manning it. I wanted a vigorous, intellectual debate, but this wasn't much fun; the campaign just sent some young kid from Qorvis Communications who clearly had been trained on talking points but really didn't know that much about creativity, copyright or what is happening on Capitol Hill.

His presentation, though, was amusing. He was talking to an audience of one conference attendee. He kept talking about the importance of artists, but what he was talking about protecting was the hardware made by CE manufacturers. I pointed that out to him. He said it's important that the CE industry get to keep making these devices. I asked how that tied to artists. He didn't have a coherent answer there, but eventually said artists should be allowed to not sign with a label but instead distribute their songs themselves online. "They can do that now. Many already do that now," I said. "Is there a law preventing that?" No, he said. But they're forced to use DRM, he said. "Not if they're distributing it themselves," I said, and it was just that type of distribution he was advocating. "They can use DRM or not, it's their choice." Once again he had to agree. Then he said something about copyrights. "So then your campaign supports copyrights?" I asked him. "Yes," he said, "we support compensating artists." "No, I asked if you supported copyrights?" He nodded vigorously. "Yes, we want artists to get paid."

Oh, this was really too easy. "Copyrights and compensating artists are not the same thing," I pointed out. "You can take all the copyrights away from an artist, impose some form of compensation regime on the artist that you think is fair, and then you can say that you've compensated the artist, but the artist has no more rights." I saw some nodding in the small crowd that had gathered during our discussion. I hope I persuaded at least a handful of SXSW attendees from believing this coalition actually has artists' interests at heart. I support the right of any artist to give away his or her rights, but I want that artist to have the rights to give away to begin with.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 1:47 PM | Free Culture Movement

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