
'Music is as good as gold or oil': A man spending billions on old hits - codetrotter
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/08/music-hits-elton-john-beyonce-merck-mercuriadis
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bgrainger
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22019925](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22019925)

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metalliqaz
This is not what copyright is for.

~~~
WJW
The internet was "for" military communications and academic research sharing,
not cat videos or ecommerce. A great many things are used for things other
than what they were intended for.

~~~
metalliqaz
A meaningless argument. The Internet is for communication, which is still its
primary purpose.

~~~
coldtea
It wasn't for communication in general though, it was for millitary
communications - a specific thing.

And even if the argument if flawed, the concept underlying it is solid: what
something was "originally meant for" is not the same as what something was
actually usef for, or found eventually useful for....

~~~
uryga
im a bit surprised by this thread tbh! the original comment's pragmatics (in
the linguistic sense) are pretty clearly _" i believe this is an abuse of the
copyright mechanism"_. discussing the system's original purpose or whatever
seems besides the point...

~~~
coldtea
But it's only an abuse of the copyright mechanism based on the "original
purpose" (to promote art etc).

It's not an abuse based on its actual, de facto, purpose: to sustain
profitable back catalogue sales and aid the entertainment industry.

So whether the "original purpose" is important is the whole point in
determining abuse or not...

~~~
rumanator
It seems you're confounding, for some reason, the concept of spirit of the law
with an initial usecase of a technology.

I'm sure that, if you are serious about the discussion, we can easily agree
that both are not equivalent or comparable.

~~~
coldtea
> _It seems you 're confounding, for some reason, the concept of spirit of the
> law with an initial usecase of a technology._

Not exactly. When the grandparent (metalliqaz) wrote "This is not what
copyright is for", I felt like they were the one confusing/conflating the
"spirit of the law"(about copyright) with what copyright is actually used for,
and intented to be used for, by the parties passing copyright laws and
benefiting from them.

Copyright might not have been "for this", in some original "spirit of the law"
sense, but it very much is for this in the de facto, 70 years plus running,
sense.

So, I'm saying that there's an expressed spirit of the law and an operating
(de facto) spirit of the law. Or, if you will, what the law hypocritically
pays lip service to, and what the law is actually drafted and passed to
achieve.

Those laws might have started back in the day with the intention (spirit) to
promote the arts and protect creators etc, but for nearly a century they have
been extended with the intention of making the entertainment business more
profitable and protecting a multi-trillion US industry.

That's the actual spirit those laws are drafted, proposed, passed, and
enforced for 70+ years now...

Few (if any) in the lawmaking and in the industry cares for the original
"spirit of the law", the original wording is just left there as a historical
artifact, to justify a different (and even opposing) application of the
copyright law.

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Swenrekcah
This is why copyright should only last for 20 years or so. Possibly extendable
one time and one time only. As an absolute maximum.

~~~
javert
Longer copyright times would incentivize more investment in artists.

For example, you would see "YC for budding young novelists" if copyright were
more long-term and secure.

You can pay the living expenses of a whole lot of would-be-starving-artists-
but-actually-baristas, for an enormous number of years, if you can collect
investment revenue from the one who turned out to be Stephen King.

This idea is an extension of what copyright is for, which it to allow creators
to make money, thus incentivizing them.

I support unlimited-duration copyright.

~~~
leetcrew
> You can pay the living expenses of a whole lot of would-be-starving-artists-
> but-actually-baristas, for an enormous number of years, if you can collect
> investment revenue from the one who turned out to be Stephen King.

even with unlimited-length copyright, who would do that? if I'm the investor,
I would just find a bunch of aspiring artists and offer to pay their living
expenses for a year in exchange for ownership of the copyright. I'd ditch the
ones that didn't make money and offer better terms to the successful ones for
their next work. with unlimited-length copyright, I might be willing to give
more people a one-year shot, but the end result would still be that most of
them go back to their barista job.

~~~
mr_toad
This is pretty much how the music industry operates already.

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echelon
With AI-generated vocals and music, I think we're about to see an explosion in
works created. I don't know that it's wise to invest in copyright catalogues
right now. We're going to be able to create nearly unlimited music with famous
vocalists (and entirely generated ones!)

Check out the Tupac Shakur voice on [https://vo.codes](https://vo.codes)

It's kind of broken, but it took zero effort. And that's the direction we're
headed.

r9y9 on Github has amazing results synthesizing lyrics. Better than vocaloid
at this point.

Look what people are making:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/VocalSynthesis/comments/i3egph/even...](https://www.reddit.com/r/VocalSynthesis/comments/i3egph/even_stronger/)

[https://youtu.be/3qR8I5zlMHs](https://youtu.be/3qR8I5zlMHs)

[https://youtu.be/2X3Rqo6JVmg](https://youtu.be/2X3Rqo6JVmg)

[https://youtu.be/noJHHN39ZCw](https://youtu.be/noJHHN39ZCw)

[https://m.soundcloud.com/r9y9/sets/dnn-based-singing-
voice](https://m.soundcloud.com/r9y9/sets/dnn-based-singing-voice)

My prediction is that in ten years, music copyright is going to be very
different than it is today. We'll still have live artists putting on
performances, but we'll also have entirely virtual artists like Gorillaz (with
neural-backed lyrics) and recreations of Tupac, MJ, Elvis, and so on.

~~~
lordnacho
Yeah, it's only a matter of time before everyone has an AI composer on their
phone continually creating works they are likely to enjoy. I wonder if it will
feel formulaic.

~~~
echelon
> creating works they are likely to enjoy

This! This is the future I want to live in and help create.

People are going to have all sorts of media tweaked to their interests. The
system will have to be smart enough to introduce novel changes in interest so
that it never gets boring, or so that people's interests can be expanded.

If we're careful, we can characterize and destroy the filter bubble while
we're at it.

~~~
grawprog
I have to say, this sounds awful to me. Living in a tiny bubble world
surrounded by only things I like honestly sounds horrible.

How can you appreciate the things you like if you never have to experience
things you don't like?

Life isn't supposed to be a constant pursuit of cutting out any unwanted or
negative things. It's about experiencing things in general.

A world like you describe sounds pretty bland and lifeless to me.

~~~
echelon
> I have to say, this sounds awful to me. Living in a tiny bubble world
> surrounded by only things I like honestly sounds horrible.

This sounds like the anti-rock and roll argument wearing a different cloak.

> How can you appreciate the things you like if you never have to experience
> things you don't like?

I doubt this would remove all displeasure and pain from life. We're a long way
away from dopamine drips and AI overloads.

> Life isn't supposed to be a constant pursuit of cutting out any unwanted or
> negative things.

Life isn't supposed to be about anything. We're apes on a mote of dust in an
infinite void.

> It's about experiencing things in general.

This increases diversity of experience. It's something new. People aren't
going to stop making music because it got easier. That strikes me as a Luddite
argument.

> A world like you describe sounds pretty bland and lifeless to me.

The world gets better every year. These arguments are, frankly, a nostalgia
for youth.

Times change.

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paulpauper
This only works well if if people still care about the artists and culture
long after the hits are released. Catalogs from the 50s, 60s, and 70s were
dirt cheap in the 80s and early 90s because few anticipated the huge nostalgic
demand by boomers to relive their youth in the 2000s and later. Will today's
consumers of pop music feel the same nostalgic attachment as boomers to today?
hard to know. But I think not, due to fragmentation. A top-selling Arina
Grande song will probably be all but forgotten in 50 years.

~~~
puranjay
People will always listen to the music of their youth. The 90s pop hits are
still popular among my 30+ year old friends because that was the music they
grew up listening to

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martindbp
An interesting thought experiment: what if shares in songs could be traded on
a public exchange? Which would be in the S&P 500?

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zozbot234
I do wonder why this guy thinks that the rights to a successful song are an
"uncorrelated" asset. Wouldn't strong economic growth mean that people are far
more likely to spend money on these things? Especially for 'sync' rights which
mostly come up for things like ads, or derivative mass-marketed media (e.g.
successful song X ends up in the soundtrack of movie Y)? Just seemed like a
weird claim to me.

~~~
paulpauper
Because even in recessions, studios and ad agencies still shell out big bucks
for songs, even if the stock market is down a lot. The royalty rates for
Beatles songs did not fall in 2000-2003 despite the S&P 500 falling 50%. There
is very low correlation with other asset classes.

