You’ve heard of Earth, Wind and Fire. This is one of their hits, from an album called Touch The World, released in 1987. Never been reissued as far as I can tell. Shame to see it rot, really – especially since it raises some good questions, comments on the contemporary politics of the day and reflects aspects of the culture of its time rather well.
Thanks to Andrew B White for pointing this one out.
A few things have made me question my focus on music as the territory for this conversation recently. After all, all culture is under threat as a result of copyright conservatism in a changing media environment.
Chris Bestwick raised the point in a comment on my last post, I’ve talked about it with a few people – and a somewhat belated viewing of Rip: A Remix Manifesto earlier this evening made the point really clear.
The cultural and intellectual lockdown extends way beyond popular music into books, visual arts, academic works, medicine… and extends into the realms of international trade, global politics and genuine life and death issues.
And yet – the book in progress (not to mention this blog) is called ‘Deleting Music’ and not ‘Deleting Culture’. Why?
Techdirt ran an interesting post recently about The Myth of Original Creators. In it, they explored the Romantic Era notion of the artist as the sole creative participant in a work.
And when I say ‘Romantic Era’, think Beethoven. He was the poster child for art as unique ’self expression’ rather than art as contributing participant in a cultural dialogue with antecedents and referents.
I’m not saying Beethoven was deluded – and nor that his genius is diminished if I claim that no work is wholly original – but simply that he was making an assertion about his art that has captured the imagination, and which largely remains as the basis of our music copyright law.
But music – especially popular music – is part of a cultural conversation.
Dwele’s tribute to Michael Jackson is the most honest and authentic expression marking the passing of the pop legend I’ve yet seen.
Essentially a cover version, but with no reasonable cause for publishing claims or financial transactions to take place. This is simultaneously an artistic expression and cultural communication of something for which there aren’t any right words.
It’s pop music by an important recording artist, using the intellectual property of another.
But it’s not commerce.
Tagged: tribute
Roly Keating delivers his keynote speech at FOCAL
Late last year, I was involved in a research project with the BBC’s Audio and Music Interactive Department. It was about how specialist music fans connected with the BBC with regard to that kind of programming.
You can read what we came up with as a result of that research, but for me, one of the key lessons was the problem of the word Broadcasting as a defining and totalising concept for the BBC – that is, the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Because the BBC’s role, in a digital sphere, is no longer simply about making content and pushing it out there to audiences. It’s about acting as a resource for public media. That’s not to say they shouldn’t do broadcasting – but that the broadcasting should be part of a bigger concept of British Public Media (and BPM’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?).