They say nobody has a crystal ball—but that’s not true. I bought one at a flea market years ago.
It’s a little dull and scratched nowadays, much like its owner, but I still peer into it. And even with my dim orb, I have a decent forecasting record, especially on matters related to creativity and culture.
Some people know about this crystal ball, and want my forecast for the most turbulent area of the culture business: namely, copyright and intellectual property.
But I give them my standard warning: Beware, my friend—it’s better not to know the future.
And that’s true, especially in this case. But many of you are musicians or writers or involved in some other creative field. So you depend on copyrights to earn a living. I’m in the same boat. Without copyright law, I’m sunk.
But is it even possible to make sense of this madness?
Today the latest bitter battle broke out—with Universal Music pulling all of its songs from the TikTok platform.
Universal Music says they are doing this to support the “artist and songwriter community.”
I’ve been asked for my opinion:
Is that true? Do they actually want to help musicians?
Will they really go to war against TikTok?
If so, who wins?
And, finally, who is the hero here? Who is the villain?
Let’s get to the bottom of this. Oh, but it’s such a dirty story that I hate even thinking about it.
Don’t say you weren’t warned. Beware, my friend—sometimes it’s better not to know the future.
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The first thing we need to do is sniff out the money trail….
Let’s start with the ugly truth: Almost everything you read about copyright law is misleading.
The reality is that two huge corporate interests are battling for power and money. Both sides of this power struggle are profit-driven and self-serving.
Absolutely EVERYTHING happening in copyright law is driven by this binary opposition. In aggregate, trillions of dollars are at stake. I’m not exaggerating—this may be the biggest battle in global capitalism.
The payoffs are so large that you can tell who is winning simply by looking at the list of the largest corporations in the world. Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. are all deeply involved—even though they aren’t arts and culture businesses.
And they will NOT lose—they are too big, and will spend whatever it takes to prevail. But this makes their smaller competitors quite angry.
You see it every day in the business headlines. Here’s another one from Monday.
Does Spotify also love artists and songwriters? Hah!
Maybe you’re starting to realize that battles over copyright law have nothing to do with nurturing creativity. It’s all about cold, hard cash.
But the combatants can’t say that openly—they must pretend that they care about fairness and virtue and your favorite indie rock band and all that claptrap. They spread this nonsense via
their huge legal teams
public relations
friendly media outlets (many of which they own or indirectly control).
lobbyists (they employ armies of them)
donations to politicians.
That’s why you never hear a straight story about copyrights. These people are paid to prevent it from happening.
I’m not beholden to either group. I just care about creativity and a healthy culture. So let me offer a frank and unfiltered assessment…
Let’s start by introducing the two major combatants in this heavyweight battle. In the first corner, we have:
SILICON VALLEY (and other tech companies & platforms):
Their Goal:
Silicon Valley wants to destroy copyright so that it can monetize ‘content’ on its tech platforms without any limitations—and never pay for it.
They can’t admit this, so instead they say:
“Content wants to be free!”
“We’ll give you exposure for your work.”
“Web users deserve cheap, easy access.”
Etc. etc. etc.
The other combatant is:
HOLLYWOOD (and other creative companies)
Their Goal:
Hollywood wants to extend copyright protection forever so that it has total control of its intellectual property—and thus can maximize profits without limitation until the end of time.
They can’t admit this, so instead they say:
“We support creativity.”
“Artists must be treated fairly.”
“Piracy and IP robbery are everywhere.”
Etc. etc. etc.
Here’s a chart summarizing this:
It really boils down to NorCal versus SoCal (although both have allies all over the world).
Now let’s analyze this conflict. I have nine useful rules you can use in trying to make sense of it—and five predictions for the future.
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