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Authors: Christian Engström, Rick Falkvinge
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later.
1930s: Hijacked By The Record Industry
During most of the 20th century, a battle of prominence raged between
performing musicians and the record industry. For most of the century,
musicians were regarded as the important party in law and in common sense.
However, the record industry would rather see music under corporate control.
Active intervention by the selfdeclaredly fascist regime in Italy tipped the
scales in this direction.
Copyright in the 20th century was not characterized by books, but by
music. The 1930s saw two major developments that affected musicians: the Great
Depression, which caused many musicians to lose their jobs, and movies with
sound, which caused most of the rest of musicians to lose their jobs.
In this environment, two initiatives were taken in parallel. Musicians’
unions tried to guarantee income and sustenance to the people who were now
jobless. Unions all over the West were concerned about the spread of
“mechanized music”: any music that isn’t performed live and therefore didn’t
need performing musicians. They wanted some power over the speaker technology,
and the question was raised through the International Labour Organization (a
predecessor to the UN agency
with the same name ).
At the same time, the record industry tried to exert the exact same
power over speakers, radio and musicians. However, the entire political and
business world at that time regarded them as a service contractor to the
musicians. They could go about running their business if they were
service-minded enough, or go bankrupt trying, and weren’t worth diddlysquat more
than that to anyone. Anyone, with just one exception:
Fascist Italy.
(This word, fascist , is loaded
with emotion today. Italy’s regime at this time were self-declared fascists. We
are using the word to describe them exactly as they described themselves.)
In 1933, the phonographic industry was invited to Rome by the Confederazione Generale Fascista
dell’Industria Italiana and under protection of the same. At this
conference, held on November 10-14, an international federation of the
phonographic industry was formed. It would later be better known under its
acronym, IFPI. It was agreed that IFPI would try to work within the Berne
Convention to establish producers’ rights similar to those of the musicians and
artists (which were always sold to publishers).
IFPI continued to meet in countries which welcomed their corporatist
agenda, so they met in Italy the next year too, in Stresa. 1935 and onwards
proved a bit turbulent for the world at large, but Italy still enacted
corporatist rights of the record industry in 1937.
Negotiations for a copyright-like monopoly, attached to Berne and
therefore international, was still too tempting for the record industry to
resist. So after the war, IFPI reconvened in para-fascist
Portugal in 1950. Italy wasn’t suitable anymore, and the conference
readied a draft text that would give them copyright-identical monopolies,
so-called “neighboring rights”, for producing and printing creative works such
as music. This monopoly would be practically identical to the commercial
copyright monopoly for fixations of a creative work.
The neighboring rights were ratified by BIRPI (today WIPO) in 1961 in
the so-called Rome Convention, giving the record industry copyright-identical
monopolies. At the same time, ILO’s attempt to give musicians similar rights
had flopped, waned, and failed.
Since 1961, the record industry has feverishly defended copyright,
despite the fact that it doesn’t enjoy any copyright monopoly, only the
copyright-identical monopoly known as “neighboring rights”.
One needs to remember two things at this point:
First, the record industry is confusing all these monopolies on purpose.
It keeps defending “its copyright”, which it doesn’t have, and talks nostalgically
about how this copyright monopoly was created in great
1930s: Hijacked By The Record Industry
During most of the 20th century, a battle of prominence raged between
performing musicians and the record industry. For most of the century,
musicians were regarded as the important party in law and in common sense.
However, the record industry would rather see music under corporate control.
Active intervention by the selfdeclaredly fascist regime in Italy tipped the
scales in this direction.
Copyright in the 20th century was not characterized by books, but by
music. The 1930s saw two major developments that affected musicians: the Great
Depression, which caused many musicians to lose their jobs, and movies with
sound, which caused most of the rest of musicians to lose their jobs.
In this environment, two initiatives were taken in parallel. Musicians’
unions tried to guarantee income and sustenance to the people who were now
jobless. Unions all over the West were concerned about the spread of
“mechanized music”: any music that isn’t performed live and therefore didn’t
need performing musicians. They wanted some power over the speaker technology,
and the question was raised through the International Labour Organization (a
predecessor to the UN agency
with the same name ).
At the same time, the record industry tried to exert the exact same
power over speakers, radio and musicians. However, the entire political and
business world at that time regarded them as a service contractor to the
musicians. They could go about running their business if they were
service-minded enough, or go bankrupt trying, and weren’t worth diddlysquat more
than that to anyone. Anyone, with just one exception:
Fascist Italy.
(This word, fascist , is loaded
with emotion today. Italy’s regime at this time were self-declared fascists. We
are using the word to describe them exactly as they described themselves.)
In 1933, the phonographic industry was invited to Rome by the Confederazione Generale Fascista
dell’Industria Italiana and under protection of the same. At this
conference, held on November 10-14, an international federation of the
phonographic industry was formed. It would later be better known under its
acronym, IFPI. It was agreed that IFPI would try to work within the Berne
Convention to establish producers’ rights similar to those of the musicians and
artists (which were always sold to publishers).
IFPI continued to meet in countries which welcomed their corporatist
agenda, so they met in Italy the next year too, in Stresa. 1935 and onwards
proved a bit turbulent for the world at large, but Italy still enacted
corporatist rights of the record industry in 1937.
Negotiations for a copyright-like monopoly, attached to Berne and
therefore international, was still too tempting for the record industry to
resist. So after the war, IFPI reconvened in para-fascist
Portugal in 1950. Italy wasn’t suitable anymore, and the conference
readied a draft text that would give them copyright-identical monopolies,
so-called “neighboring rights”, for producing and printing creative works such
as music. This monopoly would be practically identical to the commercial
copyright monopoly for fixations of a creative work.
The neighboring rights were ratified by BIRPI (today WIPO) in 1961 in
the so-called Rome Convention, giving the record industry copyright-identical
monopolies. At the same time, ILO’s attempt to give musicians similar rights
had flopped, waned, and failed.
Since 1961, the record industry has feverishly defended copyright,
despite the fact that it doesn’t enjoy any copyright monopoly, only the
copyright-identical monopoly known as “neighboring rights”.
One needs to remember two things at this point:
First, the record industry is confusing all these monopolies on purpose.
It keeps defending “its copyright”, which it doesn’t have, and talks nostalgically
about how this copyright monopoly was created in great
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