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David Lowery, the frontman for the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, has become perhaps the most assertive and polarizing figure in the movement for musicians' rights in the Internet age. Between his appearances onstage leading his bands both of which recently toured speaking to the business of music classes he teaches at the University of Georgia, and the blog he helps run, the Trichordist, Lowery works to stop the exploitation of artists. Sometimes, he's downright angry. "Once the cobra bit me, I might as well just eat the cobra," he told the New York Times. This week he frustrated by the video for GoldieBlox, which makes toys for intellectually ambitious girls: The video shows the little tykes playing with an elaborate Rube Goldberg device, to the tune of the old Beasties song "Girls." The lyrics to a song that once celebrated girls for doing the dishes and laundry now describe them as building spaceships. A triumph for the self image of young females? Maybe, but since the Beastie Boys have a long and strong policy of not letting their work be used in advertising replica hermes bag something written into the will of Adam Yauch, who died last year it's a bit awkward. Doubly awkward is that GoldieBlox has sued the band in a declaratory judgment. (The two sides have since apparently come to agreement.)
Let's start with the Beastie Boys and their tussle with GoldieBlox. So: Were the Beasties ripped off here?
Yeah, I think they got ripped off. Let's back up. GoldieBlox appears to me to be a well lawyered Silicon Valley, angel funded start up.
This is not a feminist nonprofit.
It's a commercial business. Secondly, it's a parody. But if you're making a parody to sell a commercial product, you are to the left of the pirate party, if you're calling that fair use.
What makes a parody fair use?
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I've played one on TV. But I'm 90 percent sure that I'm 90 percent righter than most people writing about this. A parody has to be about the song like, say, if you're parodying a song, then the parody is about the song that's the sole point of it. Not to sell a commercial product for a for profit company. So you don't take a parody of a song and sell Shell Oil, or you don't parody a song to, for instance, advocate some position that maybe the Koch brothers want to advocate or that George Soros wants to advocate. It has to be specific. The parody has to be about the song. Secondly, the other Hermes birkin bags fake thing about this that's been widely misreported is that the Beastie Boys are not suing GoldieBlox. GoldieBlox is preemptively suing the Beastie Boys. One of the guys is dead, and apparently in his will it stipulated to continue the policy of no commercial use of Beastie Boys songs they had a long standing policy.
We're talking about Adam Yauch here.
Yes. Right. And it's a band that's been pretty rigid, and it's kind of unusual compared to even '60s bands that claimed to be uncommercial and revolutionary. The Beastie Boys have been quite strict about replica birkin handbags not licensing their stuff and not letting it go commercials. So it's kind of ethically awkward or nasty as well.
Let's just zoom out a little bit to Silicon Valley in general. There's Silicon Valley and then there's a more radical, ideological version of Silicon Valley, and I think that's what we're dealing with here. This phrase gets bandied about called "permission less innovation." The idea is that you just do stuff without asking permission. In the down the rabbit hole never never land of Silicon Valley, they seem to present this unabashedly as if this were a good thing.
It's good for them. Commercially, it's good for them. Let's think about it. Silicon Valley, there's a part of it that has this notion of permission less innovation, that they treat this as a good thing, but think about this as a civilian. You put your photos on Instagram and then is permissionless innovation just using those photos without your permission? Is permissionless innovation just using whatever you might have written on the Web in any way that any commercial entity sees fit? That's largely what we're talking about here.
The bigger fight here is that if they can do this with our songs, with our lyrics, then they can do it with your Instagram photos, they can do it with your Facebook profile, they can do it with anything you put on your Web page without your permission. That's what permissionless innovation is. I don't think the majority of people want that.
It strikes me that the people preaching permissionless innovation are the same people who work very hard to patent their software and their algorithms and things like that.
Yes. But, on the other hand, "permissionless innovation" is a favorite phrase of Google, and you see them in all kinds of patent battles like their Motorola patents with other companies. So, I guess, the big corporations get to have different intellectual property rights than artists or people who use Instagram or something like that. Do we want a world like that?
With GoldieBlox, though, this is a company that says, "Oh, we're Kickstartering these girls' toys," but then they go and preemptively sue the Beastie Boys using a really big and powerful law firm. This isn't David and Goliath, but it's been represented that way. People need to pay attention here. Why do these things happen this way?
I think Silicon Valley has gotten a pass on this. Most companies in other industries have; you think about oil companies funding global warming sort of studies that cast doubts on global warming, things like that, that are subject to scrutiny. But I think Silicon Valley in general has gotten some sort of pass from the general public and the press in general on these kinds of issues. And the end goal is not they're not Camper Van Beethoven lyrics and they're not Beastie Boys songs the end goal here, the end zone is when they get your data: your Facebook photos, your Instagram photos. When they get to you and do that as they see fit. We're going to wake up in a world one day where we look back and say, "What fake hermes leather handbags the fuck were we thinking?"
Let's talk about lyrics, specifically about lyric websites. You've urged the shutdown of sites like Rap Genius I urged licensing.
Licensing, OK. There's been a shutdown order, I think.
I haven't done anything.
I'm talking about the NMPA.
But the NMPA has basically put websites that were from my list, from my study, sites that appear not to be fully licensed, that are using artists' work. I published that list and then the third time I sort of published it, the NMPA would take this list and basically tell these sites that they needed to become licensed, or, if they didn't become licensed, they would move to shut them down. I'm not personally urging this action.
The other side of the argument says that people have been trading lyrics, scrawling them down from the records for decades, this is fair use Why does this battle seem worth fighting to you?
These are commercial. All of the sites that are on my list appear to be commercial endeavors; they're making a profit, or they're attempting to make a profit, or they're raising venture capital. Rap Genius, which is at the top of the list, is a very popular site interesting site, I have to admit but they got $15 million of venture capital from Andreessen Horowitz, which is a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. They obviously intend to make a profit if somebody's investing $15 million in them. If they're making a profit from our work, at the very least we should be asked permission to use the work. This is just about common decency, consent, any number of things that go along with what we normally think of our great just and fair society. That's what we're asking. If that involves paying a small royalty or a big royalty, let's work that out. Silicon Valley is to the left of the Pirate Party, apparently. Oddly enough.
One of the unlikeliest foes of the argument that people like you and David Byrne make is Dave Allen, who was the bassist for a Marxist rock band (Gang of Four), and once upon a time, I think, a critic of Spotify. What do you make of his point of view that musicians need to adjust to this brave new world, they need to start making revenues in new ways. Where does he seem to be coming from?
But we have adjusted. We are making revenues in new ways. I think he's an advertising executive. He's on the board of Cash Music, which admittedly accepts money from Google. I think he speaks from his commercial interests. I can't be sure, but to me it looks like he speaks from his commercial interests. Look, to call David Byrne a Luddite is ridiculous. David Byrne has been one of the most forward thinking, innovative artists of our generation. Just because his view or my view of how our technological future looks is different than David Allen, that doesn't mean you're against technology. We have differing views of the future, our future world, our future of how we use technology. One of the best books on this subject is "Freeloading" by Chris Ruen. He and others have pointed out that "Happy Birthday to You" is not in the public domain, it goes back to the 19th century, but it's going to be owned by Warner Bros. for years to come.
David Lowery, the frontman for the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, has become perhaps the most assertive and polarizing figure in the movement for musicians' rights in the Internet age. Between his appearances onstage leading his bands both of which recently toured speaking to the business of music classes he teaches at the University of Georgia, and the blog he helps run, the Trichordist, Lowery works to stop the exploitation of artists. Sometimes, he's downright angry. "Once the cobra bit me, I might as well just eat the cobra," he told the New York Times. This week he frustrated by the video for GoldieBlox, which makes toys for intellectually ambitious girls: The video shows the little tykes playing with an elaborate Rube Goldberg device, to the tune of the old Beasties song "Girls." The lyrics to a song that once celebrated girls for doing the dishes and laundry now describe them as building spaceships. A triumph for the self image of young females? Maybe, but since the Beastie Boys have a long and strong policy of not letting their work be used in advertising replica hermes bag something written into the will of Adam Yauch, who died last year it's a bit awkward. Doubly awkward is that GoldieBlox has sued the band in a declaratory judgment. (The two sides have since apparently come to agreement.)
Let's start with the Beastie Boys and their tussle with GoldieBlox. So: Were the Beasties ripped off here?
Yeah, I think they got ripped off. Let's back up. GoldieBlox appears to me to be a well lawyered Silicon Valley, angel funded start up.
This is not a feminist nonprofit.
It's a commercial business. Secondly, it's a parody. But if you're making a parody to sell a commercial product, you are to the left of the pirate party, if you're calling that fair use.
What makes a parody fair use?
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but I've played one on TV. But I'm 90 percent sure that I'm 90 percent righter than most people writing about this. A parody has to be about the song like, say, if you're parodying a song, then the parody is about the song that's the sole point of it. Not to sell a commercial product for a for profit company. So you don't take a parody of a song and sell Shell Oil, or you don't parody a song to, for instance, advocate some position that maybe the Koch brothers want to advocate or that George Soros wants to advocate. It has to be specific. The parody has to be about the song. Secondly, the other Hermes birkin bags fake thing about this that's been widely misreported is that the Beastie Boys are not suing GoldieBlox. GoldieBlox is preemptively suing the Beastie Boys. One of the guys is dead, and apparently in his will it stipulated to continue the policy of no commercial use of Beastie Boys songs they had a long standing policy.
We're talking about Adam Yauch here.
Yes. Right. And it's a band that's been pretty rigid, and it's kind of unusual compared to even '60s bands that claimed to be uncommercial and revolutionary. The Beastie Boys have been quite strict about replica birkin handbags not licensing their stuff and not letting it go commercials. So it's kind of ethically awkward or nasty as well.
Let's just zoom out a little bit to Silicon Valley in general. There's Silicon Valley and then there's a more radical, ideological version of Silicon Valley, and I think that's what we're dealing with here. This phrase gets bandied about called "permission less innovation." The idea is that you just do stuff without asking permission. In the down the rabbit hole never never land of Silicon Valley, they seem to present this unabashedly as if this were a good thing.
It's good for them. Commercially, it's good for them. Let's think about it. Silicon Valley, there's a part of it that has this notion of permission less innovation, that they treat this as a good thing, but think about this as a civilian. You put your photos on Instagram and then is permissionless innovation just using those photos without your permission? Is permissionless innovation just using whatever you might have written on the Web in any way that any commercial entity sees fit? That's largely what we're talking about here.
The bigger fight here is that if they can do this with our songs, with our lyrics, then they can do it with your Instagram photos, they can do it with your Facebook profile, they can do it with anything you put on your Web page without your permission. That's what permissionless innovation is. I don't think the majority of people want that.
It strikes me that the people preaching permissionless innovation are the same people who work very hard to patent their software and their algorithms and things like that.
Yes. But, on the other hand, "permissionless innovation" is a favorite phrase of Google, and you see them in all kinds of patent battles like their Motorola patents with other companies. So, I guess, the big corporations get to have different intellectual property rights than artists or people who use Instagram or something like that. Do we want a world like that?
With GoldieBlox, though, this is a company that says, "Oh, we're Kickstartering these girls' toys," but then they go and preemptively sue the Beastie Boys using a really big and powerful law firm. This isn't David and Goliath, but it's been represented that way. People need to pay attention here. Why do these things happen this way?
I think Silicon Valley has gotten a pass on this. Most companies in other industries have; you think about oil companies funding global warming sort of studies that cast doubts on global warming, things like that, that are subject to scrutiny. But I think Silicon Valley in general has gotten some sort of pass from the general public and the press in general on these kinds of issues. And the end goal is not they're not Camper Van Beethoven lyrics and they're not Beastie Boys songs the end goal here, the end zone is when they get your data: your Facebook photos, your Instagram photos. When they get to you and do that as they see fit. We're going to wake up in a world one day where we look back and say, "What fake hermes leather handbags the fuck were we thinking?"
Let's talk about lyrics, specifically about lyric websites. You've urged the shutdown of sites like Rap Genius I urged licensing.
Licensing, OK. There's been a shutdown order, I think.
I haven't done anything.
I'm talking about the NMPA.
But the NMPA has basically put websites that were from my list, from my study, sites that appear not to be fully licensed, that are using artists' work. I published that list and then the third time I sort of published it, the NMPA would take this list and basically tell these sites that they needed to become licensed, or, if they didn't become licensed, they would move to shut them down. I'm not personally urging this action.
The other side of the argument says that people have been trading lyrics, scrawling them down from the records for decades, this is fair use Why does this battle seem worth fighting to you?
These are commercial. All of the sites that are on my list appear to be commercial endeavors; they're making a profit, or they're attempting to make a profit, or they're raising venture capital. Rap Genius, which is at the top of the list, is a very popular site interesting site, I have to admit but they got $15 million of venture capital from Andreessen Horowitz, which is a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley. They obviously intend to make a profit if somebody's investing $15 million in them. If they're making a profit from our work, at the very least we should be asked permission to use the work. This is just about common decency, consent, any number of things that go along with what we normally think of our great just and fair society. That's what we're asking. If that involves paying a small royalty or a big royalty, let's work that out. Silicon Valley is to the left of the Pirate Party, apparently. Oddly enough.
One of the unlikeliest foes of the argument that people like you and David Byrne make is Dave Allen, who was the bassist for a Marxist rock band (Gang of Four), and once upon a time, I think, a critic of Spotify. What do you make of his point of view that musicians need to adjust to this brave new world, they need to start making revenues in new ways. Where does he seem to be coming from?
But we have adjusted. We are making revenues in new ways. I think he's an advertising executive. He's on the board of Cash Music, which admittedly accepts money from Google. I think he speaks from his commercial interests. I can't be sure, but to me it looks like he speaks from his commercial interests. Look, to call David Byrne a Luddite is ridiculous. David Byrne has been one of the most forward thinking, innovative artists of our generation. Just because his view or my view of how our technological future looks is different than David Allen, that doesn't mean you're against technology. We have differing views of the future, our future world, our future of how we use technology. One of the best books on this subject is "Freeloading" by Chris Ruen. He and others have pointed out that "Happy Birthday to You" is not in the public domain, it goes back to the 19th century, but it's going to be owned by Warner Bros. for years to come.
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