The holes in the value chain are a classic
problem in the industry: musicians have always complained that, to be paid per
session, they never see reward if the recording is successful (it is also true
that they do not share the hardship if it is not). Producers have complained
repeatedly of the same, as it was analyzed (in the Spanish context) in the
round table The
rights of intellectual property of the artistic producer, organized
last year by the Master in Intellectual Property of the Universidad Autónoma de
Madrid. In the world of music, nobody trusts
anyone: the cake is smaller than ever, and the numbers on revenues are not
clear.
Protest against intermediaries is not only the
reflection of an economic problem. It is the swansong of a system of property
intellectual who has been built patch after patch, based on the negotiations
between old and new actors to adapt to new interests affecting not too much the
status quo (Litman, 2006). A system without the capacity to think about how obsolete are old
categories , built from the old bookish paradigm. What is an author today?
What is a user? What is an editor? These categories need to be redefined in the
age of Google, Facebook, copyleft and the prosumer. The environment has
changed, but not the logic of the law.
Academic research may help to clarify what is
the real role of each of the parties in this new environment. It is necessary
to define, above labels, what each party do, what each party think they do
(which are not necessarily equivalent) and what the other actors in the field think
that other parties do. This research can only be built crossing the empirical
data with a vision from the inside, based on collaborative field work. This
research should include all actors, even those whose economic contribution is
small or poor: it should deal with the problem of how to include users, whose
point of view tends to be despised by the industry, due largely to the
difficulty of finding a body that represents users (Drahos and Braithwaite,
quoted in Klein, 2015, 115)
How can you contribute academic analysis? First
of all, in a context in which each of the parties have conflicting interests,
it provides a neutral space, a point of equilibrium where all voices can be
heard in search of a balanced position. In addition, since the academy is not a
player with economic interests in the field, the research has presumption of
objectivity, not to be ballasted by the pursuit of a position of dominance over
other actors.
In this way, the research would represent both
the public interest and the needs of each of the parties; these only can
challenge their views and ways of work being questioned from an external point
of view that use different categories and values that the ones assumed by those
involved in the music industry.
REFERENCES
Klein, Bethany; Moss, Giles; Edwards, Lee. Understanding copyright. 2015. Sage.
London
Litman, Jessica. Digital copyright. 2006. Prometheus Books, Amhers, NY.
