trading samples

["Robert Eberwein" <robert_eberwein@hotmail.com>]

I'd like to suggest that, righteous indignation aside, all copy write laws 
will be coming into question soon.

Ever since Rodin decided that he had the *right* to *design* a statue, 
have 
his students sculpt and build it, and himself keep all profits and rights, 
there has been an exaggerated acceptance of what deserves protection.

Why people buy *official* prints of etchings or photographs [*#5 of 235*]I 
have never understood. The idea that the *artist* has only allowed 235 to 
be 
made- and shut the negative away, is about as bogus a notion as has been 
conceived. Surely, in the end, only lawyers and galleries profit.

As an actor [ex] I've been busted many times for not paying royalties to 
dead playwrights, law firms and publishers that *bought the rights* to 
Shakespeare or Ionesco. How did they GET this *right*? Publishing is one 
thing. Hording and scalping is another.

I don't care what happens to Napster. Clearly they are pirates and are 
getting rich encouraging an irreverent, anarchistic mentality [which they 
themselves don't have], but, the fact is, ever since photography, LAWYERS 
have devised methods to increase profits  for middlemen that have NOTHING 
to 
do with the Creation [Nike or M. Jackson for Beatle songs, for instance]-- 
and nothing in my code of ethics tells me that I can not give my cakewalk 
discs to my drummer. Hearing people call that *theft* gets my goat. I 
sincerely doubt that they have thought it through any further than I have. 
Less, in fact.

I can paint/draw/photograph as many copies of the Mona Lisa as I want and 
I 
will never have what DaVinci had. With digital music that has changed. I 
can 
have exactly what was created in the studio. Any attempt to change this 
fact 
[same goes with intellectual property rights for software] is bogus. They 
are bullshitting us. Once I buy Cakewalk it's mine. Once I play a new riff 
in public, it's public. Once someone combines oil colors together in a 
particular way, anyone is invited to try to duplicate it. In the past this 
was limited by imagination and talent. Photography and *Digital* has 
changed 
all that, but morality and reality has not changed. Ideas come into 
existence. They NEVER belonged to anyone.

And I've BEEN sampled against my will, so don't even go there. I want to 
maximize my profit as much as anyone, but ideas *emerge*. Very few real 
artists think they *invented* their best stuff. Just lawyers and academics.
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