I haven't come up with any conspiracy theories lately, have I? No, I didn't think so. But I'm leaning in that direction. Here is the situation: from many discussions we have had here it seems clear that the best solution to the problems of classical music in terms of widening the prospective audience, comes down to improved music education. So why is it so difficult to improve music education, not for the gifted elite who are pretty well-served, but for the ordinary amateur player or listener?
Some things that we have observed is that the use of music examples in music notation have been nearly completely banned from all materials in general circulation. You find them in professional music journals and books for music professionals and in little niches like this blog, but in general publications they simply never appear. Music education programs in public schools have been a target for a long time as music has consistently been classified as inessential.
But I just found a new phenomenon: what is preventing the expansion of high quality music education online? Well Rich Beato has a rant that points out one of the major problems: you can't use any copyright material as an example without losing two thirds of your revenue or being simply banned. Let's let him explain:
That's pretty dire. In music courses at university we are constantly using musical examples to illustrate all manner of musical ideas. In a music course, if you were talking about the mixolydian mode you would hand out a sheet illustrating it, maybe write out the scale on the blackboard and possibly play a musical example--maybe even from a pop song like "She Said She Said." And you would never get into trouble with the copyright holder. Professors often assemble whole anthologies of materials with excerpts from books, papers and copyright scores--all approved by the copyright holders--to use in teaching. This has been the long-standing practice. But the situation now is that, on YouTube at least, copyrights are enforced with a vicious intensity as Rick illustrates.
So you are not going to be able to do any educating it that way. But how about what I do? I use embedded YouTube clips all the time, don't I? Yes, and with the exception of my own compositions and recordings, they are all posted by others so there is no revenue involved. Also, most of my own clips are not actually on YouTube at all. I have avoided setting up my own YouTube channel because, frankly, the revenues seem so miniscule as to be not worth the trouble.
Is there some kind of conspiracy to prevent the education of the populace in music? Maybe not, but there are certainly a nasty set of situations and incentives that seem to serve the same purpose. And one of the key ones is simple greed. As Rick says, I have no problem either with the pop stars making a lot of money. That's their thing. But I don't see why exceptions cannot be carved out, as they were traditionally done in academia, to at least allow people to teach this stuff using musical examples without the "bogus" consequences Rick mentions.
Here is where I would put a musical example. But not today!
6 comments:
Yes we have batted this issue around. There was an article you posted a few months ago where Naxos Records alleged someone playing a Beethoven sonata violated copyright on one of their CDs if I remember rightly.
Again we have to go back to the music establishment including the schools. Individuals are not going to get anywhere complaining or negotiating with Google, Facebook etc. It has ti be a vested interest like a conservatory.
My guess is that all this is worked out behind the scenes. Professors attached to an approved site can get away with almost anything as can the organizations themselves. Anyone else will be attacked. The absence of stated rules is a feature not a bug since they can make any hodgpodge set of arrangements that have no consistency and no specific rule has been violated. The techs merely say someone complained. But of course you can complain about someone they approve doing it and they will say the complaint has no merit.
There are some outstanding YT channels that could make a great contribution to music education. I'm thinking for example of Seth Monahan's lecture series, with many fine musical examples throughout. But maybe that's the kind of thing that Maury is referring to when he says: "Professors attached to an approved site can get away with almost anything."
I recently discovered another excellent channel, "En blanc et noir," but there Michael Koch plays all his own musical examples at the piano... beautifully!
In my experience (as curator of Settecentista, an educational YT channel on eighteenth-century music) as long as I keep musical examples less than 30 seconds, most copyright owners are OK with it. And I have been able to post some videos with whole movements of 5 minutes or more without a problem. To be sure, I have not received a cent from YT; but that's another issue.
I should have mentioned as well that the only good solution would be the splitting of platforms and info purveyors. Over a century ago electricity was added as a public utility service even though it had never been one before. So now in the 21st C basic internet platforms and services need to be designated public utilities and governed as such. Perhaps computer operating systems also.
Thanks John and Maury for weighing in.
John, yes YouTube is an unimaginably useful resource for music education and music generally. I couldn't do this blog without it. But you and I are in the area of classical music where these copyright restrictions are usually not an issue. Mind you, there seem to be a few avaricious companies ready to ban even the occasional classical performance if they THINK it might be their property. I have never had a problem, but I don't have advertising on my site and also don't receive any money from YouTube. But the commercial sites like Rick Beato's sure do seem to have a problem.
Maury, your idea causes an immense inner conflict for me! On the one hand, yes the big internet companies are enjoying some of the benefits of being a public utility such as being free of liability for any comments on their sites. But at the same time they, under the guise of "community standards" (and where have we heard that before?), reserve the right to censor anything they please. This will not likely last forever. But on the other hand, my libertarian capitalist side cries out, don't mess with the freedom of the internet because it is that very freedom that has allowed the enormous wealth creation and benefits we enjoy.
Maybe I wasn't clear. A basic search service and basic operating system etc are different than applications with content. What is happening is that the owners of the utility type platforms are using the monopoly money to fund applications and their content streams which inevitably creates a conflict. There is a financial incentive to modify the basic platform for their own ends.
I believe Google, Microsoft and Apple have all been successfully sued for using their platforms to disable competitors.It would be like the electric company being able to control which electric devices/ brands you can operate in your house.
And Amazon buys up companies before they can become competitors. Yes, I see your point. Time to revive the anti-trust laws on the books?
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