WOW!!!

Beautiful read! I really enjoyed the points you outlined. I agree with you on all of your aspects. I am studying 'Usury' on a higher scale now even, and the facets you presented are often forgotten. You really demonstrated the need to study and define the underlying reasons things are. What I find so compelling about your argument are the closing sentences. "I hope that Prince can ponder on this and see that Truth cannot be sold. Truth just is. Once it is out it should not be restricted. There are no secret truths. Trying to control, obsess over ownership, and become a miser with Truth will destroy one's soul ultimately.

No honest man of Truth ever asked for payment for revealing the Truth to people. Asking for payment betrays falsehood. Do not believe or trust in persons who ask you for payment in exchange for their falsehood."

It reminds me of two songs (In Particular) where Prince is talking about "Truth" and it being "Sold". First we have 'Gold'.

"Everybody wants 2 sell what's already been sold

Everybody wants 2 tell what's already been told"

It seems from this line, he believes truth can be sold in a sense.That everybody seems to want to sell it?

The same is said in "Muse 2 The Pharaoh"

"But when all truth is told, would U rather be dead or be sold?

Here..it seems as if Prince, believes when the truth is told...You might rather be sold or dead..

I am not here to look too much into this.lol

But I think you deliver your points so well. It causes one to think again, and possibly Prince should look at it in a new light. This argument goes a long way, when one really studies the flow of numbers and people's associations to it.

Wonderful thread! Impeccable and outstanding points my friend!

Funny. There are a couple of threads talking about Prince's attitude on where he does and doesn't want his music to be heard. Must be something in the water! I found the articles posted by ArielFriend in this thread [http://prince.org/msg/7/381785] really interesting, even if they're from over 10 years ago...

I'm trying to wrap my head around your argument, as the topic of intellectual property is really interesting to me. You extended the definition of usury from money gained off of interest on a loan to "unearned wealth" gained after payment. An artist should therefore be compensated: initially for having created his/her work and then subsequently only when performing this creation, thereby sticking to "fair payment for a fair quantity of work."

To me, though, this is an odd phrasing for intellectual property because how do you quantify the work put in to create something like a song, or quantify the value of an invention or a piece of art? I think this is part of the problem you see in Prince's stance and why you bring up usury. It's definitely a tricky issue, but I feel that any artist's claims for ownership/copyright are warranted, as is his/her position against piracy. The problem in my eyes starts with our society's packaging/selling of abstract/intangible things and also the scale and scope of demand for these ideas-turned-objects. On one hand, you can say that an artist participates in this system by making money off of copyright, but on the other hand, copyright gives the artist control over the use of his/her creation.

I suppose one could get metaphysical and ask who really owns something like an idea or who has the right to sell it (if that's even the appropriate thing to do). You touch on this, but it certainly isn't the record companies who might pimp a song out to some talentless hack or pirates who make a profit on something they stole and had no part in making. At least an artist (if you believe s/he is a vehicle for divine inspiration) will respect this gift and want to safeguard the integrity of his/her art object.

Anyway, I wonder what the ideal alternate business model looks like in today's society. (Maybe websites like Etsy and Bandcamp?) I mean, I don't want to sound greedy, but I want those remasters and everything that's in the Vault! AND I don't want to become a criminal in the process!

One of the first and most basic things an artist should do in order to avoid piracy is to make sure his/her work is out there available to the public to buy it and not out of print, which creates usury anyway.

Go and check the prices of new and used P albums and cd's oop...

So, what do people do facing those prices? People just google it and find it for free...

LittleBear said:

I'm trying to wrap my head around your argument, as the topic of intellectual property is really interesting to me. You extended the definition of usury from money gained off of interest on a loan to "unearned wealth" gained after payment. An artist should therefore be compensated: initially for having created his/her work and then subsequently only when performing this creation, thereby sticking to "fair payment for a fair quantity of work."

I don't see why this "has to be". This is a modern concept, and one that seems almost exclusive to artists. The code I write gets executed every day, and yet my paycheck doesn't get bigger, and I certainly do not get paid for code I wrote at previous companies that is still used. And nobody thinks this is odd. The plumber who laid the pipes in my home doesn't get paid every time I take a shower. Etcetera. So why do artist need to be paid over and over again for things they did 5, 10, 20, 50 years ago -- or even worse, why does their offspring find that they need to get paid for that?

but on the other hand, copyright gives the artist control over the use of his/her creation.

Which was never the intention of copyrights.

Really great thread to think about! Thanks Balladium.

Read until the nonsense about "God's gift of inspiration."

BartVanHemelen said:

LittleBear said:

I'm trying to wrap my head around your argument, as the topic of intellectual property is really interesting to me. You extended the definition of usury from money gained off of interest on a loan to "unearned wealth" gained after payment. An artist should therefore be compensated: initially for having created his/her work and then subsequently only when performing this creation, thereby sticking to "fair payment for a fair quantity of work."

I don't see why this "has to be". This is a modern concept, and one that seems almost exclusive to artists. The code I write gets executed every day, and yet my paycheck doesn't get bigger, and I certainly do not get paid for code I wrote at previous companies that is still used. And nobody thinks this is odd. The plumber who laid the pipes in my home doesn't get paid every time I take a shower. Etcetera. So why do artist need to be paid over and over again for things they did 5, 10, 20, 50 years ago -- or even worse, why does their offspring find that they need to get paid for that?

but on the other hand, copyright gives the artist control over the use of his/her creation.

Which was never the intention of copyrights.

Yes, you're right that this concept, and in general many others, shouldn't automatically be taken as given or fixed. It's easy/common to forget that many things we believe are cornerstones of our society are actually new constructs. Usury became less taboo with the rise of capitalism, and even as you pointed out, copyright as we understand it today no longer reflects its original intention.

Thinking about your examples, I feel like they reveal the implicit value judgments we unknowingly take as fact and never question (i.e. plumber's work not equal to artist's work)... Prince doesn't get paid each time I play one of his songs (just like I don't pay the plumber each time I shower), but Prince does get paid if a television show plays one of his songs. I don't get why someone writing code is any different from a scientist who's invented a new technique or drug, but I'm sure a scientist (like an artist) makes more money the more in demand his/her invention is. Tritocin brought up a good point about demand, which made me think: is a used CD from a record store different from a downloaded file? For each CD pressed, how many times is an artist entitled to be paid?

Last thing: part of the reason why people believe this concept "has to be" stems from, I think, how people view art (i.e. "God's gift of inspiration"), which reminds me of the Ted Talk heard 'round the Org--artist as individual genius? or artist as vessel for muse/divine inspiration? Where does compensation fit in this equation? Never mind the fact that even when the muse idea was popular, patrons were still paying artists and using their art for not-so-divine purposes... We want (or are told) to treat something like a song as unique (so then different from plumbing), but then we want to replicate and sell it. We want to compensate Prince for the work he puts in in the studio and for his performances onstage, but we don't want him to exploit his "gift" and/or pay him too many times... Many lines in the sand maybe, and now my brain hurts!