What About the Artists?

A few short weeks after the proposed music tax Ethan Caplan (VP of Technology at Warner Brothers Records) posted a page on society and art. It's quite well written, specifically designed and is well deserving of a systematic analysis.

"The focus though has always been on a very small situation: how to ascribe value to music, and how to prevent that value from being diminished by the notion of Free."

This guy is a senior executive for one of the largest music distributors in the world. Ethan isn't talking about ascribing value to music, he's talking about stopping the devaluation of Time Warner's music business ... and the sentence is carefully worded to make it appeal to the reader.

"How do you value art?"

What a simple question, and fundamental to the future of the music industry. Before the corporation, art was valued based on quality. Regardless of what the particular quality was (ingenuity, beauty, incite etc.), the quality defined the value of the art. After the corporation, mass-production has reduced the quality in some forms of art based on it's level of mass-marketing appeal and the potential for profit.

Does a video clip of a half naked woman dancing in a box while lip syncing the words to commercially appealing digitized music tracks constitute art? No, certainly not. This is marketing. The marketing appeal is included as an integral (if not core) part of the creative process. The artist has little or no input into the music which they deliver. If the music isn't being created by artists, then it can't be called art.

"Art is a complicated notion in the sense that it is the translation of the internal dialog within the creators core being into something that can be consumed in either representational or non-representational form by others."

In the sense of a music producer and distributor, the 'creators' referenced above is a corporation. A corporation, whilst having the same rights as an individual, does not possess a similar set of attributes. A corporation lacks emotion, understanding and conscience (amongst other things). A corporation is respectful of it's shareholders who are interested in making money. Hence the representation of the internal dialog of a corporation is by definition, a representation of greed. The representation of the music industry's internal dialog has been exceedingly clear for the last 25 years.

"The value exchange of music was rooted on the rights of the writer, the compensation for the mechanical reproducer and the acknowledgment of ownership by others who present the music. These things, 80 years later, still apply, but have had additional complication by digital vs. analog representation."

Indeed, completely accurate. The unfortunate additional complication in digital representation is that a 12 year old child can produce and distribute professional quality music with rudimentary equipment. This eliminates the responsibility and rights of the reproducer and presenter of the music.

"what is the value of the piece of art? Now its a digital artifact, but the same question applies."

The value of anything is as defined by the market place, what somebody is willing to pay for it. Mugging digital consumers on the side of the information super-highway isn't going to make everybody else passing by give a coin to the mugger.

"How does an artist make art a living, and likewise, how does an artist value their own art to the point where it is a mechanism by which they can make a living?"

Artists have a long and sordid history of starving for their work. In particular, there have been numerous world famous modern musical acts that lived in horrible conditions because they didn't have a means to capitalize on their music. Currently there are many musicians doing very well for themselves independently. Not to mention a few more notable successes netting millions in days. The internet provides a mechanism for artists to capitalize on their talents. Traditional industry support just isn't necessary anymore.

"until we remove the pro-ignoramus politics that have invaded the US in the past 20 years"

Absolutely correct. The proliferation of trade agreements to restrict the digital distribution of music. The global copyright acts that damage an artist's ability to reach their fans and restrict massive areas of research. Big business having such an in-ordinate political impact on legislation being passed by the houses of government. Purposefully expending billions of dollars to stagnate economic growth.

All to support an out-dated business model that has no chance of survival because it adds no value to the process. What's next Mr Music Industry? Going to open the world's biggest leech farm?