implications of a new book and website to be published next month called Spreadable Media. My review of this important new book will be posted about a week from now. I thought I'd preview some of its implications here. If you want to go further, I suggest you read my review and then read the whole thing. But here's a start.
We live in a rapidly changing media
environment that has nothing but good in it for bluegrass music, in
all its forms, while at the same time standing as a harbinger for
change that many of us will find difficult to integrate into our way
of consuming media. As the CD seems to be dying as a means of
disseminating music, after a run of more than a generation at a price
that has never been sustainable, and bluegrass festivals, while
highly enjoyable for those who attend for various reasons, are not
expensive enough to pay performers anything approaching a living
wage, we see change in delivery and presentation in every direction.
In a new book to be published next month (Spreadable
Media) and an active/interactive
web site of the same name, Henry Jackson, Sam Ford, and Joshua
Green lay out a picture of this new media world, based on the
Internet and YouTube, that has huge importance for both creators,
producers, and consumers of bluegrass music. While the book is
written by and for “media professionals,” its importance for
bluegrass is so large that it deserves wide and thoughtful
consideration in our community.
Bluegrass Music is a form of music
which has been maintained, treasured, and spread by its fans. The
music is unusual in that a large proportion of those who love the
music also play it regularly and, and some level, for pay. The lines
between full scale professional, talented semi-professional, able
amatuer, and fan are undefined at best and unclear in many cases.
People gather to play, sing, and listen to bluegrass wherever it is
played: at festivals, in local bluegrass associations, at pickin'
parties, before concerts, at conventions, and in many other formal
and informal settings. In effect, this range of places where
bluegrass is played and enjoyed serves to keep the songs of the Bill
Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers and other early
practitioners of bluegrass alive and in the standard repertory. It
also places the stamp of approval on new songs and performances as
they migrate from the stage and the recording studio to the jam
circle at varying levels of accomplishment. The arrival of a fairly
recent songs first performed by The Lonesome River Band, IIIrd Tyme
Out, Balsam Range, or the Gibson Brothers, by their mere inclusion in
regular jams, identifies the song as now a part of the classic
repertoire. This movement is facilitated by the existence of
YouTube, where thousands of performances by the first generation
greats are available either in studio recordings, television
kinescopes, or amateur videos, made available for study and slavish
copying by devoted adherents. These can also be adapted and changed
to meet contemporary standards, alter the original, or add new
wrinkles to it. Thus YouTube serves to both uphold tradition and
encourage innovation. How The Infamous Stringdusters interpret Jimmy
Martin upholds the Stringdusters' reputation as a bluegrass band and
alters our understanding of the relevance of The King of Bluegrass.
Copyright has been hurt by the
availability and transportability provided by the new media. While I
must confess to not being as knowledgeable as I'd like to be (or
planning to become in the next few months) about this important
issue, I'm certainly aware that copyright and its enforcement affects
performers, corporations, and performance videos as so-called
Performance Rights Organizations scramble to help collect royalties
and residuals for song writers, performers, and recording companies
from all the people who perform the music in all its various forms
and venues. Brought up in academic settings, I'm well aware of the
requirements to give credit to those who originated material and
stand to benefit from its use. I seek, on my own YouTube channel to
identify the writer of each song I post as well as the names of all
the performers. When requested by a copyright holder (rare) I
immediately remove the video from my site, although I have no control
over those who have shared it in the interim. It strikes me that
living in the spreadable media world we have created thrusts an arrow
in the heart of copyright holders, making it increasingly difficult
to collect and distribute royalties and residuals to performers and
writers. The current environment empowers fans, adapters, and
alternative communities to spread material across the world without
even acknowleging, let alone paying, the original creator. How to
make rational providing recompense to those who create the
performance is a matter of continuing concern.
Many performers are finding it
effective to bypass the traditional publishing and recording methods
for self-publishing content and merchandise through web sites or at
merchandise tables at concerts and festivals. The example of rock
band RadioHead's self publishing of a digital album which netted
several million dollars is alive for all performers. Where this is
headed is still very much up in the air, but it is clear that there's
going to be change as well as winners and losers. One can only hope
that the winners will not be solely those with deep pockets and
access to expemsive legal advice. It's also worth noting that the
existance of copyright goes to making production more expensive and
does nothing to guarantee excellence. Neither, however, does a
completely open and unfettered market of ideas, which by definition
will include more bad product along with the inevitable jewels which
never would have seen light of day had they been required to
copyright their material and gain the notice of a label.
The line between fan and audience or
producer has inevitably become blurred as fans can combine into
motivated interest groups to affect the decisions of producers. Fans
are, therefore, the key to both the maintanence of tradition and the
support and spread of change. By seeking to narrow the definition of
bluegrass they can keep the genre from growing and encouraging
artistic experiement. By rewarding the best of the new and different,
they encourage people to innovate. By subjecting the music to
continuing re-evaluation and re-hearing based upon the increasingly
large availability of choices, they make the world, whether it be the
world of art, film, or music both more difficult to navigate and more
suscpetible to change. Finally, only the test of time will determine
what remains, what changes, and what enters the awareness of the
audience. Now is perhaps the most challenging and exciting time to
be in bluegrass since Flatt & Scruggs stepped on the Stage of the
Grand Old Opry in 1945. Have a good time.
Ted, Excellent foray into a most difficult, complex subject. As you discuss the opportunities and challenges I began to think back to the establishment of ASCAP and BMI and wonder if a modern media and communications version of that type of royalty system couldn't be generated. Computers with their power could certainly track transactions of all types. But privacy issues and so forth would have to be addressed. You provide much food for thought in these few paragraphs. Well done.
ReplyDeletejim
Ted, This is an excellent foray into a most difficult and complex area. As I read along about the challenges and opportunities proffered by new media I kept thinking back to the establishment of ASCAP and BMI and wonder if there couldn't be a modern version of that type of model in the future. Computers, after all, are powerful things with the ability to track all sorts of transactions. Of course privacy issues and such would need to be addressed. Anyway, excellent introduction and exploration in such a few paragraphs. Thank you.
ReplyDeletejim
Really appreciate this post, Ted, and especially glad to see that you think the book has some application to the bluegrass world...because the world of bluegrass is especially close to my heart. As you may have seen on my bio on the book, I'm based in Kentucky and am actually from the same place (county, as we measure origins here in KY) as Bill Monroe. They have a big conference in my hometown each year called the Jerusalem Ridge festival, at or around Bill Monroe's homeplace, in Rosine, Ky.
ReplyDeleteI see a lot of connections between the world of music I grew up in--with it's emphasis on sharing and community--and some of the dynamics behind how content is shared online today. The question is how content creators, marketers, and others can adjust systems built for a broadcast world for new ways of circulation (that, of course, aren't that new at all)...
While I didn't get fully into the "sharing" dynamic with bluegrass in the book, I did manage to work in some around gospel, as interwoven as its history is around these parts with bluegrass...
In any case, on the copyright front, Henry Jenkins (one of my co-authors) hosted a panel discussion with Jon Taplin of the Annenberg Innovation Lab and T Bone Burnett at the Futures of Entertainment conference at MIT back in November. It was pretty tense discussion that might help shed some light on the tensions/divides/etc. felt on this issue from a copyright perspective at the moment. See here: http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/convergenceculture/videos/21732-foe6-rethinking-copyright
Very well put Ted, you've addressed a complex issue which
ReplyDeleteisn't easily solved.
ASCAP has an messy & confusing way of applying its fees & it makes live music restrictive. I agree credit should be given but it's easier said than done.
You do the right thing by being
respectful of copyright law but there are multitudes of others that don't. Some of the smaller venues can't afford the ASCAP fees & will hire only singer/
songwriters doing their own material. I'm not a song writer, so I have limitations as to what I can & can't perform. Some of the older generation are not computer literate & don't make it to You Tube & other web sites, so they don't have the benefit of hearing bluegrass or other genres. They may (or may not) buy CDs or DVDs. In any case, they may never have the opportunity to hear bluegrass or other really interesting genres. Some thing has to change & you target that issue in a provocative way. I hope something does change or we'll hear less live music both on line and in the venues.