You Can't (C) Me Without Permission
Upon the conceptualization of my business, streaming audio and video through social media networks had become lucrative for some and a snake pit for other business. Being able to share one’s creative talent with others is the prime way to gain fan exposure. Alas, such a simple concept as sharing- something that we were raised to believe as good- has turned in a rather large debate in the entertainment world through legal debacle.
Sound Cloud is a great source for streaming music from third party submitters, but even they were operating through a loophole in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. How it worked for SoundCloud for so long was that an immunity was to be granted to the webhost as long as a third party was uploading content that could be taken down by its originator. Now, major labels and publisher are looking to strike at Sound Cloud with content takedown demands.
For my personal business, this brings forth many issues that would halt development immediately. Once possible work around through this loophole, would be a stronger categorizing algorithm that allows for the content originator to be notified when their work has been uploaded by a third party by triggering an identifier through some form of a sonic fingerprint.
File Sharing and Prohibition?
Here is the enigma with the free-minded creative community; they vouch for restrictions in the usage of their openly sourced material. Why? They need to get paid, and one issues with creative file sharing is that many professional artists do not get paid for their work. An interesting notion on the webcast from TwiT is on the basis of legalizing file sharing for a commercial benefit. Much like Sound Cloud’s issue of licensing, it is very difficult for content originators to police their works over the Internet.
This seems to be a double edged sword, because on one end file sharing is like theft, and on the other having government regulations on it would incur taxation and fees. In the end, the artist could very well be in the same situation. One concept I have would be to legalize file sharing, and much like pay per clicks through advertising, the artist would have sponsors showcase their works and every work that is clicked on would earn a percentage of the said advertisers revenue.
Since copyrighted material is released to the public, there is a plethora of fair use litigations. Being an audio producer sometimes requires me to call to outside sources for inspiration. But the copyright act does not seem to give a definitive answer to what “fair use” actually is. Though there seem to be guidelines for the courts to follow, this notion of fair use could become quite problematic for my business concept. Remixes are the big problem when it comes to fair use, and many treat the concept of remixing original content as a meager toy for their childish enjoyment.
From my understanding, the purpose of the copyright act is to protect the originator’s individual content when released for the advancement of creative sciences into a society that it can directly influence. Fair use allows for that original content and those inspired by it to operate under some jurisdiction of the first amendment. I understand that people get a creative spark and may want to adapt certain content. The solution here would be to simplify the permissions process in a way that would not hinder the creative advancement for long periods of time. Creativity is of the moment and enforcing the Law is a lengthy process. Submissions of derivative works through a source site with legal specialist available to give clearance to the works in questions.
