Music Copyright Extension

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This summer the European commission has issued a proposal for the adjustment of Guideline 2006/116/ EC. Amongst other things it proposes to extend copyright protection for performing artists (and record labels) from 50 to 95 years. It was outlined by internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy, who thinks it’s high time Europe turns copyright from an incentive system (as it was designed) into a “welfare system”. If so, Europe would move into line with the US.

The Financial times states: “the passage to date has not been entirely smooth. Two prominent commissioners – Italy’s Antonio Tajani and telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding – are thought to have opposed the move, on the grounds that it would mainly benefit top-selling artists and record companies. Additionally, it is claimed, there could be problems for cultural institutions that want to make archives available online.”

“Major record labels want to keep control of sound recordings well beyond the current 50-year term so that they can continue to make marginal profits from the few recordings that are still commercially viable half a century after they were laid down,” said a statement from Sound Copyright, a group of rights activists that lobbies against the extension. “Yet if the balance of copyright tips in their favour, it will damage the music industry as a whole, and also individual artists, libraries, academics, businesses and the public.”

Pekka Gronow writes: The gloomy picture painted by the commission – “performers facing an income gap at the end of their lifetimes” mainly applies to the one-hit wonder who made one record in his teens and has never since had any gainful employment. One might still argue that musicians deserve more. After all, composers and other authors are protected 70 years from their year of death (they got a 20-year extension from the EU ten years ago). As a recording may have more than a hundred right owners (every musician who plays on the record), it would not be practical to calculate the protection from the death of the performers, but under present laws, some musicians do live longer than the copyrights of the recordings they made in their youth. But no one will live so long that 95 years from first publication is necessary.”

Indeed, the issue of the extension of copyright in sound recordings has been a controversial one. Quite a few studies recommended that sound recording copyright protection be kept to the existing 50 year term. One of them was written by Andrew Gowers: “Our conclusions were roundly criticised by the music industry in particular for actually doing the non-revolutionary thing of leaving the status quo in place, i.e. 50 years’ term protection for sound recordings,” he said. “I could have made a case for reducing it based on the economic arguments.” The Commission, though, did not agree with Gowers’ analysis.

FT: “Any legislation, meanwhile, will need the backing of a majority of member states and the European parliament, and could face further hurdles then. Britain, for example, has expressed reservations in the past. But there are suggestions in Brussels that the go-ahead for copyright extension could be a trade-off for a separate, widely leaked decision by the Commission’s antitrust arm on the way “collecting societies” – whose job is to gather up and distribute music royalties – do business. “Under the draft antitrust decision, societies are likely to see their domestic monopolies over broadcast material broken down,” says the FT. “Instead, they would be encouraged to compete – by offering better administration – for the right to handle an artist’s performing rights”. Some officials say that the fact that both measures are likely to come up at the same meeting is “coincidence”. Others maintain that the two are connected.”

So, all of this might actually be a trade-off. Don’t get me wrong: the antitrust proposal would actually be a good thing – ask our public broadcaster about their troubles with the domestic collecting societies – but at this price? Pekka Gronow: “The inevitable conclusion is that the only beneficiaries of the proposed extension are the four largest record companies, the only ones with significant catalogues of recordings which would otherwise soon fall into public domain. The additional income from the extension will be so small that it will not encourage investment in new production. The benefits of the proposed extension will be much smaller than the social and cultural costs.”

The Order of Sounds

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“If this word ‘music’ is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth-century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organisation of sound.”
John Cage, ‘The Future of Music: Credo’ (1937)

Just some notes on the (dis)organisation and classification of sound. I’ve been researching this a little bit in the context of the ‘Order of Things’ project, and became intruiged by some historical pieces. The score above is from John Cage’s ‘Williams Mix‘ (1952), which is constructed from recorded sounds divided into six types:

A. city sounds
B. country sounds
C. electronic sounds
D. manually-produced sounds, including the literature of music
E. wind-produced sounds, including songs
F. small sounds requiring amplification to be heard with the others

Sounds were further categorized by the predictability or unpredictability of their frequency, timbre and amplitude. These parameters could be “controlled” (predictable) or “variable” (unpredictable). So: Acvc = city sound, controlled frequency, variable timbre, controlled amplitude. The process of creating this piece, as Cage explained, involved the precise cutting/splicing of recorded sounds to create eight separate reel-to-reel, monaural, 15-ips magnetic tape masters for the 4-minute 15-second, octophonic tape piece. The 192-page score is, as Cage referred to it, a kind of “dressmaker’s pattern–it literally shows where the tape shall be cut, and you lay the tape on the score itself.” Cage explained further in a published transcript of a 1985 recorded conversation with author Richard Kostelanetz that “…someone else could follow that recipe, so to speak, with other sources than I had to make another mix.” Later in the conversation, Kostelanetz observed, “But, as you pointed out, even though you made for posterity a score of Williams Mix for others to realize, no one’s ever done it,” to which Cage replied, “But it’s because the manuscript is so big and so little known.”

This kind of “Sonic Taxonomies” were also used by Futurist Luigi Russolo, who organised sounds in six families of noises of the futurist orchestra. In his ‘Art of Noises’ (1913), Russolo wrote: “In this inventory we have encapsulated the most characteristic of the fundamental noises; the others are merely the associations and combinations of these. The rhythmic movements of a noise are infinite: just as with tone there is always a predominant rhythm, but around this numerous other secondary rhythms can be felt.”

1. Roars, Thunderings, Explosions, Hissing roars, Bangs, Booms
2. Whistling, Hissing, Puffing
3. Whispers, Murmurs, Mumbling, Muttering, Gurgling
4. Screeching, Creaking, Rustling, Humming, Crackling, Rubbing
5. Noises obtained by beating on metals, woods, skins, stones, pottery, etc.
6. Voices of animals and people, Shouts, Screams, Shrieks, Wails, Hoots, Howls, Death rattles, Sobs

Later, Stockhausen also made a classification of 68 sound types for the 33 “moments” that comprise his piece Mikrophonie I (1966):

ÄCHZEND: groaning, creaking; BELLEND: baying, barking; BERSTEND: bursting; BRÜLLEND: bellowing, bawling; BRUMMEND: growling (low buzzing); DONNERND: thundering; FAUCHEND: hissing, spitting; FLÖTEND: fluting; GACKERND: cackling; GELLEND: yelling; GERÄUSCH: noise; GRUNZEND: grunting; HAUCHEND: exhaling (like a breeze); HEULEND: howling; JAULEND: wailing; KLÄNGE: pitched sounds; KLAPPERND: clacking; KLATSCHEND: clapping; KLIRREND: clinking, jingling; KNACKEND: cracking; KNALLEND: banging, clanging; KNARREND: grating; KNATTERND: chattering, flapping; KNIRSCHEND: crunching, gnashing; KNISTERND: crisping, crinkling; KNURREND: grumbling, snarling; KRACHEND: crashing; KRÄCHZEND: cawing; KRATZEND: scratching; KREISCHEND: shrieking, screeching; LÄUTEND: pealing, tolling; MURMELND: murmuring; PFEIFEND: piping, whistling; PIEPSEND: cheeping; POSAUNEND: tromboning; PRASSELND: spattering, jangling; PRELLEND: slapping, rebounding; QUAKEND: croaking, quacking; QUIETSCHEND: squeaking, squealing; RASCHELND: crackling; RASSELND: clashing, clanking; RATTELND: rattling; RATTERND: clattering; RAUSCHEND: rushing, rustling; REIBEND: rubbing; RÖCHELND: choking (rattling in the throat); ROLLEND: rolling; RUMPELND: rumbling, thumping; SÄGEND: sawing; SCHARREND: scraping; SCHLÜRFEND: shuffling, slurping; SCHNARCHEND: snorting, snoring; SCHNARREND: twanging, rasping; SCHWIRREND: whizzing, whirring; SINGEND: singing (whining); TÖNEND: ringing, resounding; TOSEND: roaring; TRILLERND: trilling, tinkling; TROMMELND: drumming; TROMPETEND: trumpeting; TUTEND: hooting; UNKEND: keening (or mourning with “u”-timbre); WINSELND: whimpering; WIRBELND: whirling; WISCHEND: wiping, swishing; WISPERND: whispering; ZIRPEND: chirping; ZUPFEND: plucking.

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Holger Czukay (who was once a student of Stockhausen, before he started with CAN) wrote about this piece: “Four musicians were standing at a huge tam-tam with some “creation tools” and a microphone in their hand. The tam-tam was prepared at parts with chalk or colophony so that a hard paper bucket for example could scratch upon the chalk- or colophony field (The material which a violinist is contacting his bow to before he starts playing so that he is able to create a tone). Or an electric razor was another device which created a rich world of sounds, when it was touching the surface of the tam-tam. Two microphones was scanning the different sound areas of the tam-tam and got connected with 2 Maihak W49 radio play Eq’s, passive filters with a strong cutting characteristics (years later I was able to get hold of them at an undertaker’s shop). Stockhausen was sitting in the audience at a little mixer and created something like a “tam-tam live dub mix”. If you are able to attend such a performance these days, it still would sound completely up to date. Such a thing together with a right DJ could perfectly fit into the end of the nineties.”

(I always wondered if and how composers such as John Oswald and John Wall classified their sounds…)

Below are also some really nice notations I found on the net, starting with Varèses’s classic ‘Poème Électronique’, created for the Brussels’s World’s Fair of 1958, in collaboration with Le Corbusier and Xenakis. The technology available to Varèse at the time he created Poème Électronique was out of reach for most of his life, forcing him to realize his unique vision through conventional instruments. When early electronic instruments became available, Varèse was quick to use it towards his goal of “organized sound.” Varese’s intention – as stated in “the Liberation of Sound” – was “Liberation from the arbitrary, paralysing tempered system; the possibility of obtaining any number of cycles, or, if still desired, subdivisions of the octave, and consequently the formation of any desired scale; unsuspected range in low and high registers; new harmonic splendours obtainable from the use of subharmonic combinations now impossible; the possibility of obtaining any differential of timbre, sound-combinations and new dynamics far beyond the present human powered orchestra; a sense of sound projection in space by the emission of sound in any part or in many parts of the hall as may be required by the score; cross rhythms unrelated to each other, treated simultaneously, or to use the old word, ‘contrapuntally’, since the machine would be able to beat any number of desired notes, any subdivision of them, omission or fraction of them- all these in a given unit of measure of time which is humanly impossible to attain.”

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Aldo Clement, ‘Informel
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Jack Glick, Mandolinear
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James Drew, Lute in the Attic
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Lars Gunner, Demikolon
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Lois Andriessen, A Flower Song
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Malcolm Goldstein, Illuminations
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Sydney Wallace Stegall, Dappled Fields
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Ichiyanigi, The Field
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Joseph Bird, Defence
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Anestis Logothetis, Ichnologia
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Philip Corner, Mississippi River
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AM Fine, Song for George Brecht
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Cornelius Cardew, Treatise
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Franco Donatoni, Babai
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Graciela Castillo, El Pozo
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Philip Krumm
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Udo Kasemets, Timepiece for a Solo Performer
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Ligeti
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John Cage, Fontana Mix
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Terry Rusling, Composition no 5
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Stockhausen, Studie 2
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Xenakis, Mycenae Alpha
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(This music is created using the UPIC which makes sound based on drawings that Xenakis made).