Hblog

The artwork that's hidden under the bed

I was in Cape Town last weekend, speaking at the Ice Box Festival at CAPE Africa on Buitengracht Street. The coolest thing about speaking at these events is the people you meet - usually I'm speaking to activists or academics or lawyers about the new copyright logic of web 2.0. But this event was deliciously different. About 40 people once we got going, the room was filled with a set of Cape Town's bedroom musicians, aspirant filmmakers, internet gurus and digital artists. If the brains of the gathering belonged to one person, they would be holding up their head with their right hand.

Julian Jonker spoke about a real-life story of the chilling effects of copyright.  He and Ralph Borland took part in the Durban Red Eye Festival on 'transformation'. Their take on the theme was to tell the story of Solomon Linda's Mbube which has been "remixed" hundreds of times (some say up to 700!) since he recorded the original in 1939. Centred around the ‘transform button’ on DJ mixing hardware that switches sound sources, Jonker and Borland took 62 versions of the song and cut them into fragments. Borland then developed a software tool called 'Morpheus' that selected bars of similar length and re-created the original version in what Jonker calls a 'celebration of the genealogy of the song' (listen here).

But when the two came back to Cape Town and someone contacted them with an offer to buy the work, they had to think very hard about whether they wanted to face the risk of being sued for copyright infringement. They had only used 2-second selections of the songs, and copyright law only forbids using a 'substantial' portion. But what does a substantial portion mean? And would the case against Disney by the Linda family mean that the local legal fraternity would hotly pursue such innocuous possible infringements?

Speaking to Jonker before the event about the Linda case (which was settled out of court) I was saying how we would, at least, have some kind of precedent for families with similar cases if it hadn’t been settled before. Jonker complained about the problems with going through court cases like this. He said that even people like Justin Nurse, who had eventually won his case in the Constitutional Court, was left pretty much broke.

The two decided not to take the risk. ‘The work,’ said Jonker, ‘is now sitting in a cardboard box under my bed.’

This story reminded me of two things about why the ‘commons’ – at least in the sphere of culture and creativity - is such a complicated concept in a place like South Africa. Fear of appropriation - coupled with an almost paranoid fear of ‘theft’ and a good dose of xenophobia and victim mentality does not go well with the kind of trust and confidence it takes to share our creativity with the world.

But, along with our demons, we also possess some traits that marry particularly well to open sharing on the internet. Being able to share a (relatively equal) stage with the world’s most popular artists on U-Tube, for example, enables the kind of collaboration almost impossible to attain for South Africans in the physical world. South Africans have always been a friendly bunch – we love going out into the world and finding ‘our place’. It is here that many musicians encapsulate the role that South Africa plays in global politics: a responsible global citizen, a moral leader and an incredibly creative society just waiting to be heard. 

Every country has a particularly unique response to something like Creative Commons, and in SA, I think very big things are going to happen very soon...

Thanks Laugh It Off for the pic - you can buy some of their awesome Tshirts here.

Meeting Albie

I met Judge Albie Sachs at his stunning Constitutional Court offices (or quarters or whatever you call important peoples' office abodes) yesterday. Judge Sachs is of my all-time heroes :) It was a great moment - although I can't help thinking that I would have preferred keeping him up on my wall as one of my all-times and rather not met him in the flesh - people are so... well... "fleshy" in the flesh. Anyway, I managed to meet him because goddess, Eve Gray introduced us and I said that I really needed to talk to him about Creative Commons. We didn't talk for long. I wanted to chew the cud but Judge Sachs is a busy man. We spoke mostly about the Laugh It Off case - what an amazing  ! He said that no other judgement he has written has had as much exposure as that one. But the funniest thing? He said that the SAB advocate had this to say about it: 'The downfall of capitalism.'

I agree with Albie: if only it were that easy!

(Thank you, Joburg.org.za for the pic!)

A lesson in bad publicity (part 2,367,300 or thereabouts)

Another crazy story from the copyright zealots. German Harry Potter fans took just 2 days to translate JK Rowling's new book - they couldn't wait for the 'official' version and so they helped their local fans along by communally developing their own.

'Wow!' You would think the publishers would say, 'We've created more brand loyalty than we could've bought.'

But no, according to this article in the Guardian, a spokesperson from Carlsen Publishers has lashed out at the group with threats and warnings. Like the music industry before them, they might just go ahead and sue their most loyal customers.

I just can't work out the responses by the industry. Jarred Cinman Esq. agrees, 'The answer is to find a way to be part of that enthusiasm, not try and shut it down.'

Cinman believes that the publishing industry needs a lesson in strategic planning. 'They're just terrified of the future because they haven't got it worked out...it's like their enemy has a plan, but they don't, so the best thing to do is nail down the windows and sit with a gun pointing at the front door.'

Teenage prosecutions for 'piracy' hit SA

Yesterday's lead story in the SA Sunday Times reads: 'Teenagers as young as 14 have been charged with peddling pirated films at roadsides and flea markets as South Africa battles a tidal wave of counterfeit movies, music and computer games pouring across its borders.' The Sunday Times has now decided to do a bit of advocacy work in its publication - but at least they admit it with a hint at the end of the story: 'Johnnic Communications, which owns the Sunday Times, has launched a campaign against the piracy of music and movies.'

Related to this, Clay Shirky has a great post in his email list entitled, 'The RIAA Succeeds Where the Cypherpunks Failed' about prosecutions against individual users of music file-sharing software in the States. He says: 'The obvious parallel here is with Prohibition. By making it unconstitutional for an adult to have a drink in their own home, Prohibition created a cat and mouse game between law enforcement and millions of citizens engaged in an activity that was illegal but popular. As with file sharing, the essence of the game was hidden transactions -- you needed to be able to get into a speakeasy or buy bootleg without being seen.

This requirement in turn created several long-term effects in American society, everything from greatly increased skepticism of Government-mandated morality to broad support for anyone who could arrange for
hidden transactions, including organized crime. Reversing the cause did not reverse the effects; both the heightened skepticism and the increased power of organized crime lasted decades after Prohibition
itself was reversed.'

At least the US didn't try to extend prohibition beyond its borders, though.

Black Labour White Guilt

Laugh it off is a great South African company that has given the finger to large corporate brands operating in the country. I went to Rhodes University with the founder, Justin Nurse, who had already started started producing his cutting commentary on contemporary South African society and culture in the guise of logo T-shirts that turn perfect brands on their heads.

Yesterday, Laugh it off won the latest round in a legal battle against beer giant, SAB over its 'Black Labour White Guilt' T-shirt campaign. It will be interesting to see how the Constitutional Court deals with freedom of expression concerns such as this one in the face of trademark and copyright laws. Watch this space.