Techdirt ran an interesting post recently about The Myth of Original Creators. In it, they explored the Romantic Era notion of the artist as the sole creative participant in a work.

And when I say ‘Romantic Era’, think Beethoven. He was the poster child for art as unique ‘self expression’ rather than art as contributing participant in a cultural dialogue with antecedents and referents.

I’m not saying Beethoven was deluded – and nor that his genius is diminished if I claim that no work is wholly original – but simply that he was making an assertion about his art that has captured the imagination, and which largely remains as the basis of our music copyright law.

But music – especially popular music – is part of a cultural conversation.

The piracy of Elvis
Peter Friedman, the law professor whose blog is quoted in the Techdirt article, cites the case of Robert Johnson. As he points out, Robert Johnson didn’t sell his soul – he just listened to what was going on around him, developed some ideas and was recorded.

In other words, he was no more the ‘originator of the blues’ than Elvis was the ‘inventor’ of rock and roll.

Both men took elements around them, engaged in the conversation, and fashioned those elements into something that had not previously existed in that way. Nobody’s denying the creativity or genius that goes into it – just that these things don’t happen in a vacuum.

And you can’t bake a cake without ingredients.

The locked ingredient cupboard
Unfortunately, because of the power of that Romantic notion of the lone genius and the fact that it’s been crystallised in copyright law – which, for interests with which we are now entirely familiar, enforces the myth of original creators – most of the ingredients from which we could make more popular music culture are locked away in vaults.

Tapes, mostly – and they’re decaying rapidly. Most of them will never see the light of day for the simple reason that the corporate owners of those vaults cannot imagine a way in which investing in releasing and ensuring the availability of those works will turn a profit.

And since music is, for them, purely a commercial interest, the cultural, communicative and ‘conversational’ component – and the potential value of those works as springboards into other, possibly significant cultural works – is entirely overlooked.

For that reason, the ideal of musical composition as solely an artistic, cathartic and personal endeavour that is simply an expression of the creative outpouring of the artist – and which may or may not be shared with an audience – is problematic.

Not only does it (inadvertently, perhaps – but inescapably) serve the exclusive corporate interests of the ‘music purely as commerce’ brigade, but it also denies the very real fact that music is culture – and that the seemingly inevitable disappearance of that culture is not only tragic but, because it is entirely avoidable, criminal.

Music as Lone Works of Genius vs Music as Culture
Put simply, copyright law assumes that creative works are either wholly original, or they represent theft. That idea is nonsensical, because no works are wholly original. Because significant corporate interests are based on that framework, works that are under copyright but which are not commercially viable are dead works – stolen away and left to rot.

This stolen past – conservatively estimated in the region of 90% of all recordings ever released – could seed a massive, profound and important shift in popular music culture – like the birth of the blues or the genesis of rock and roll. Or it might just inspire a few good dance tunes. We just don’t know.

But what we can be certain about is that our stolen musical heritage cannot hope to contribute to culture where it is now – and that’s important.

1) A lot of people seemed alarmed when some Flying Nun catalogue disappeared from your site. What happened?

Warner Music (WM) has taken the decision to not repress the Flying Nun catalogue on CD. As they run out of stock of a given title then that title will cease to exist physically. We were given a list of FN titles and their current stock levels. Several were already out of print and a dozen had such small stock levels that we couldn’t be guaranteed supply. To the dismay of the office we were left with no option but to remove those titles from sale. Many more will also be removed over the coming weeks/months as stock levels fall.

WM are making these titles available digitally through iTunes, however we have no digital agreement in place with WM so we’re left with no way to retail Flying Nun.

The explanation that we were given by WM was that the titles were commercially unviable and that a re-run of 500 CDs would take years to sell. From a business perspective I can’t fault this however when you’re dealing with art, and music is art, I feel there should be some level of custodianship taken into account. Also I know that for the majority of NZ CDs are still the primary media for accessing purchased music.

2) What’s the commercial imperative for a New Zealand only music website?

There is no commercial imperative for only selling NZ music. If it was only about making money I’d be selling the latest Eminem album or Ronan Keating’s Songs For My Mother. Amplifier exists because a handful of people are willing to make survival money to do something that we believe in. And that belief is in the ability and talent of local musicians.

3) I found it impossible to buy the incredibly successful Smashproof single online from the UK. Why do some record labels want to prevent audiences from purchasing music?

Territories. Universal probably only have the right to sell Smashproof’s single in NZ/Aus. And that’s fair enough as they most likely wouldn’t be able to muster the promotion for Smashproof outside NZ/Aus to warrant them signing over the rights. Unfortunately it probably also means that some kid sat in their bedroom in Herne Bay has already loaded the song up to a torrent and everyone in the Northern Hemisphere will currently be getting it that way.

We’ve been able to fill the gap for many bands in this respect. If you buy Scribe or P-Money from iTunes in the UK/US/EU/JP/CA then you’re buying it via our aggregation company DRM NZ, if you buy it on iTunes in NZ/AUS then you’re getting it from Warners. Same with Goodnight Nurse’s cover of Kelis’s Milkshake.

4) How does kiwi music connect to New Zealand identity, do you think?

Probably more so than any other country that I’ve lived in. And it’s a hard thing to define why. I guess if you ever saw a crowd react to TrinityRoots then it would be apparent.

5) What proportion of Amplifier’s sales are to ex-pats like me who want to connect to the sound of home?

A good number go overseas, though the majority are still to New Zealand. It’s getting harder to find places to buy CDs over here and online services are becoming more important.

Of those going overseas we know that a lot of them are to ex-pats though there are also a lot of people, especially in Europe, who are really into the whole roots scene down this way. We also have a large market in Queensland, Hawaii and the West Coast of America with the Samoan diaspora. The second biggest selling artist on Amplifier is the Laughing Samoans.