Ownership Society?

Time to play catch up. A couple weekends ago, I saw Siva Vaidhyanathan give a presentation called "Who Owns Folk? How Should We 'Protect' The Public Domain?" down at the library. Siva is the author of a couple books, Copyrights and Copywrongs and The Anarchist in the Library. He is a cultural historian & media scholar and he was an absolutely wonderful speaker. Unfortunately, my little recorder hoolie ran out of space and I was only able to capture about 15 minutes of his presentation.

He began by playing an excerpt of Robert Johnson's "Walking Blues". He then played "Country Blues" by Muddy Waters from his The Complete Plantation Recordings. They were basically the same song. It was Alan Lomax who recorded the young McKinley Morganfield at Stovall's Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1941 and 1942 and he asked Muddy where he got the song. He replied with three answers: 1) he made it up, 2) it was from the cotton fields, and 3) he heard Robert Johnson do it. Siva argued that all 3 explanations were legitimate and true given the context of folk music.

He went on to discuss the Free Culture movement and a movement whose name I can't recall right now - a reaction against the big businesses of the West. Mostly American businesses, I would assume. Proponents of this movement want to protect indigenous cultures from homogenization and from being appropriated/co-opted by commercial culture. As an example, Siva pointed to a few Maori tribes in New Zealand who took offense at Lego's use of their culture in a game. This example also demonstrates well the tension between Free Culture and Global Culture. People on the latter side are offended by Lego's use of their culture, the Free Culture folks would say it's fine, that no culture is the exclusive domain of a particular group of people. But Siva also argued that the two camps have common ground upon which they can work together. Both want to see culture, in the general sense, a participatory entity instead of one that is packaged by corporations and consumed by we the folk.

He played a few songs and talked about various aspects of Intellectual Property law. For instance, he played part of Negativland's "U2" and discussed the lawsuit that it's release entailed. I chuckled while looking at his iTunes playlist. It was mostly a mess of pop songs that inspired lawsuits. "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison, for instance, was ruled to have been plagiarized from The Chiffons' "He's So Fine". Then there was 2 Live Crew's version of Roy Orbison's "Oh Pretty Woman" that was ruled to be a parody. I also noticed Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Run Through the Jungle" and John Fogerty's "Old Man Down the Road". This was a fun bit of absurdity as Fogerty was sued by his former record label for having ripped himself off, he being the composer of both songs. Siva also showed a bit of a video from The Grey Album. It was really neat to have someone who obviously knew the issues and laws involved here who was able to explain IP law & issues in terms that a dummy like myself could understand.

One thing I noticed was that most of his examples were from music and rock/pop music. There was this dichotomy built up about blues & folk having a distinct set of rules for its progression and pop & rock have a different set. For instance, Muddy Waters took from Robert Johnson. This is generally seen as a natural, organic way for blues/folk culture to progress. Someone takes an artifact, changes it a bit - puts an individual stamp on it, and then puts sends it back to the community. For a rock musician to take from the cultural pool of rock music, put a twist on something, and put it back is plagiarism. Siva didn't go into this, from what I recall, but it would seem that $$$ is the reason for this distinction. Oddly enough, blues musicians and their music publishers have successfully sued rock musicians for plagiarism. Led Zeppelin is band that comes to mind immediately. They were sued in 1985 for having ripped off the lyrics from "You Need Love" and used them in "Whole Lotta Love". Willie Dixon was an in-house bassist and songwriter for Chess Records and he penned "You Need Love". Now, from what I can tell, it was Dixon who initiated the lawsuit as opposed to his music publisher acting without his knowledge, as was the case with U2 vs. Negativland. There was obviously a lot of money to be had for Dixon. But it seems hypocritical considering that Dixon worked within a tradition (or was he?) in which appropriating others' material and putting one's own twist on it was SOP. For instance, take Dixon's "Spoonful". It was done by bluesmen like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters as well as rock bands like Cream and Canned Heat. But it derives from "A Spoonful Blues" by Charley Patton, recorded in 1929 when Dixon was 14 years old. So it seems, at least from Dixon's perspective, that "bluesmen" work within one realm where taking from others and reshaping is acceptable but rock bands like Led Zeppelin work in a different arena where this process of appropration and modification is considered theft. Willie Dixon didn't seem to have any reservations about taking from Charley Patton but didn't want anyone taking from him. Funnily enough, Led Zeppelin continued this tradition. No qualms about taking from others but they sued someone whom I cannot remember for horking "Kashmir". (Kingdom Come for their "Get It On" which uses the same chord progression: A5, A+, A6, G, A...?) Does anyone know if LZ sued Pearl Jam for "Given to Fly"?

To go back to the beginning of the lecture, Robert Johnson make his "Walking Blues" out of, among other things, two Son House songs: "Preachin' the Blues" and "Walking Blues". (For more on Johnson's influences, go here.)

My knowledge of these matters is far outweighed by my ignorance, to be sure. However, it seems that my little tangent on blues illustrates the heart of the matter that Siva was addressing. This whole isssue is, in large part, about who owns culture. Do the Maori own their culture? (What makes a person a Maori?) What happens to culture when it's owned by large companies and people are only allowed to consume it but not appropriate it for their own creative endeavors? Disney has made billions of off Mickey Mouse, which is derived from a Buster Keaton character, but fiercely goes after people who seek to use MM for their own expressions. Companies have this attitude that it's OK for them to take from the cultural melting pot but that they don't have to give back to it. (One can, however, pay for the privelige of using what they make.) And copyright law has been crafted to protect their greed. I think the spirit of the Copyright Clause in the Constitution is best summarized by Jefferson:

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one(Emphasis mine.), and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me...

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody."

It would seem today here in the U.S. that culture is owned by whomever has the most money. Corporations need to stop acting like possessive 5 year-olds. In addition to being profit-making entities, they also have roles as cultural arbiters and cultural custodians. They are by no means the only entities in those roles, to be sure, but they have those roles nonetheless. And it's about time they stepped up to the plate and lived up to those responsibilities. Yeah, make your profit from the new Britney Spears album but realize, once you release the album, you can't take it back. It's out there for everyone to use, co-opt, and appropriate. Releasing something to the public de facto means that you lose at least some control over how it is used afterwards. This is not to condone theft, but, once I buy music, it's ours. I will not lay claim over its composition or anything like that, but the band put it out there so I'm gonna rip the tunes and put it on a million mix CDs. There will be a copy of it on every one of my computers. If I had a portable music hoolie, I'd put it on there too. If you don't want your work to become part of the nebulous melieu that is culture, keep it to yourself.