Saturday, October 14, 2006

The Free Music Concept......

This is from a web-site I like about the free music concept. I have had a few people tell me not to copy music....so I looked up the copyright laws on it and found this:

What is the Free Music Philosophy (FMP)?
It is an anarchistic grass-roots, but high-tech, system of spreading music: the idea that creating, copying, and distributing music must be as unrestricted as breathing air, plucking a blade of grass, or basking in the rays of the sun.

What does it mean to use the term "Free Music"?
The idea is similar to the notion of Free Software ,and like with Free Software, the word "free" refers to freedom, not price. Specifically, Free Music means that any individual has the freedom of copying, distributing, and modifying music for personal, noncommercial purposes. Free Music does not mean that musicians cannot charge for records, tapes, CDs, or DATs.
The above definition of Free implies that any tangible object cannot be made free. However, something that can be copied arbitrarily many times, like music, should be set free. When I say music, I mean the expression of ideas (in the form of a musical composition or a sound recording) on some medium, and not the medium itself. Thus you have the freedom to make a copy of a CD I've created, the freedom to download soundfiles of songs I've created from my server on the Internet, the freedom to cover or improve upon a song I've written, but you are not necessarily entitled to free CDs.


Why must we Free Music?
Music is a creative process. Today, when a musician publishes music, i.e., exposes it to the outside world, only a privileged set of individuals are able to use the music as they please. However, the artist has drawn from the creativity of many other musicians and there is an existential responsibility placed upon them to give this back unconditionally, so creativity is fostered among people. As a dissenting opinion in the Vanna White vs. Samsung case, Judge Kozinski writes:
All creators draw in part on the work of those who came before, referring to it, building on it, poking fun at it; we call this creativity, not piracy.
Isn't free copying of music infringing copyright law?
The
Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) states:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. A literal reading of the law indicates that individuals can make copies of music recordings for personal noncommercial use and cannot be sued for copyright infringement (at least as far as those devices listed above are used). The message we get from this law is "Music listeners, start copying
!"


Anyways, There's a LOT more there about this theory. Just go to: http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp.html



Lanna

P.S. if anyone has any questions about my blog or whatever, my blog e-mail is altitude_up@yahoo.com
TY

5 comments:

Austin said...

Some musicians are afraid that if people burn copies of their cd's, then they'll lose money, but this is not actually true. In the long run, they end up making more money.

Linkin Park got famous by giving away free cd's on high school campuses. Then, when their next album came out, a whole bunch of teenagers went out and bought the new album. So they got really famous and made lots of money by giving away free cd's!

Burning cd's "spreads the word" about musicians. The more people who hear your music, the more fans you'll have. Music artists make more money at concerts than from cd sales by far. So the best thing for them to do is to allow music copying so that they'll get a big fan base and sell out concert tickets. More cd burning means more people at concerts which means more money - a LOT more.

LeeAnna said...

Good Question Daisy!
To copy music illegally is, your right, not a very trust worthy thing to do. If you have illegally burned cds and you know it, I would think that you can keep those, but stop copying the music. Maybe what you have on those cds this something you really like, so maybe next time you hear of a new cd that they put out, you'll what to buy it. I don't think throwing them away is really going to do anything.
Anyway, that's my idea.


Lanna

Austin said...

daisy girl,

Don't break the law (not that you were going to), I was just pointing out that if burning CD's is illegal, then it would be to the benefit of artists to change that law.

Austin said...

Daisy,

If it's illegal, then definitely get rid of them, in my opinion. I don't know for sure that it's actually illegal though. I'll have to look that up.

LeeAnna said...

I didn't know that it was illegal. I would get rid of them. Think of it this way: you can now know what CD you should buy next!

I'm no help, I know!

Lanna