[h2o-discuss] new guy intro

[John Kwasnik <jkwasnik@jps.net>]

        Hello, good people.

        My name is John Kwasnik.  I live in Oakland, CA with my wife and our
three cats, and work for the State of California as a computer technician.
I've been an amateur musician for years, and have been using MIDI to play
around with music arrangements for a few years now.  I operate a hobbyist
MIDI music file site at:

                www.jps.net/jkwasnik/midium.htm

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        The internet has its roots in a user-driven cooperative model.
People organized themselves along interest group lines, and enjoyed one
another's contributions, without regard for profit or commercialism.

        Those of us who like music have a history of this kind of
participation.  In the early 90s, thousands of MIDI music hobbyists
clustered around the America Online MIDI file libraries, as well as the
various MIDI newsgroups.

============================================
<<MIDI is an international standard interface and protocol for linking
musical instruments; as a file, it is also a system of musical notation.
This file can be "played" on a MIDI synthesizer, MIDI keyboard, or sound
card, very much like an old-time piano-roll could on a player piano.  Files
are extremely small (most well under 100KB) in comparison to even heavily
compressed digital audio. 

A further distinction:  MIDI cannot COPY an existing sound recording, in the
manner of WAV or MP3 files; it simply records performances on MIDI
instruments.  An analogy:  a WAV file could be like xeroxing a Picasso, but
a MIDI file would be like re-drawing it (to the best of the artist's
ability) using crayons.>>
============================================

        We exchanged MIDI files, discussed arrangements and techniques,
helped answer newbies' questions, and maybe did some "jamming" in
collaborative works.  Likewise, people could swap song lyrics, or guitar
chords, at cooperative databases like the International Lyrics Server and
the Online Guitar Archive.  And now, garage bands can swap MP3 recordings of
their performances.

        In all of these cases, music hobbyists do some original work; some
hobbyists (like ragtime or folk-music fans) stick to the public domain.  But
many like doing new arrangements of more-or-less current popular music.  And
this is where things get sticky.

        Derivative works, based on copyrighted material, must be licensed by
one or more of the copyright licensing agencies (the Harry Fox Agency,
ASCAP, BMI, etc.).  So some of the musical content mentioned above,
constitute technical copyright infringement.  However, we music hobbyists DO
NOT consider ourselves criminals or pirates.  People think of it as akin to
sharing music with friends, or busking on the street corner, or going to an
open-mike session at a coffee house.  (Further, the licensing fees ($1K to
$2K per year) are beyond the means of non-profit, hobbyist, personal websites.)

        But things are different on the internet.  The real-world analogs,
like playing a cover of some hit tune at a coffee house, would also
constitute technical copyright infringement.  However, there's a lot of
slack here, because it's practically impossible to enforce.  But similar
content on the internet is subject to constant scrutiny and regulation ...
the little bots and spiders that roam around are cheap, and don't require
donuts.

        So the copyright licensing agencies have begun an online inquisition.

        Last year, the Harry Fox Agency negotiated with America Online to
license the member-contributed music content in the MIDI file libraries.  A
March 1998 press release (still up at the HFA website) was very excited and
optimistic about this development.  But for whatever reason, America Online
backed off on the deal ... and instead simply closed the MIDI file libraries
to all but original compositions.

        The Harry Fox Agency forced the closing of the Online Guitar Archive
last summer, arguing that the chords and tablature were infringing
copyright.  And in January, they closed the International Lyrics Server.
Likewise, a number of personal MIDI file collections websites have been closed.

        The Digital Millenium Copyright Act is serving to accelerate this
purge.  ISPs, web-hosting services, and so on, have been prompt to shut down
personal websites alleged to be infringing copyright ... this is a condition
for their immunity from copyright infringement lawsuits.

--------------------------------------------

        So I've joined forces with a group of MIDI music hobbyists.  We
would like to continue doing what we've been doing ... but legally, and not
as pirates.  The current licensing fee schedules tend to be
one-size-fits-all; while this may be a minor overhead cost for the
e-commerce biggies, it is beyond the means of non-commercial, hobbyist,
personal website operators.

        So we're interested in either a very low-budget licensing fee
schedule, or an exemption in the copyright statutes.  And as we have NO
funds for a lobbyist operation, we must rely on getting LOTS of folks to
make LOTS of noise.

        And there's a further problem with defining our turf.  The deeper we
delve into this stuff (and none of us are lawyers), the more we run up
against problems and contradictions IN GENERAL ... at the place where
intellectual property law meets the internet.

--------------------------------------------

        Anyway, thanks for putting up with this lengthy post.  That about
sums up what brought me to the Berkman Center website, and this mailing list.  

        But I wish to thank the folks here for broadening my perspective.
There are many crucially important issues:  term limitation, open source,
copyleft / copy-counter, and so on.  And I love the "commons" metaphor ... 

                        John Kwasnik
                        Oakland, CA