NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/music/6440

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-28 | 9.1 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Gregory Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: SJ Messing "samples" Christopher Penrose. Where's the bridge?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 27 Jan 93 14:04:08 GMT
References: <1993Jan19.033912.26449@icmv> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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Reply-To: [e-mail] (Gregory Taylor)
Organization: Heurikon Corporation, Madison, WI
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In a recent posting, I mentioned that I thought that some netdudes
might not take kindly to the notion that their "originality" is a
kind of special culturally-dependant term. It would appear that SJ
Messing has provided us with just such an example, complete with
the usual rhetorical devices and argument by assertion. He writes:
(Penrose gets the double arrows)

>> Copyright is an anachronism.  Originality, among social beings, is always
>> shared.  If you disagree with this sentiment, produce an example of isolated
>> originality.

>These comments (and the rest of Christopher's posting) provide an example
>of the most ludicrous pseudo-intellectual claptrap I have read in a long
>while.

Like a racehorse out of the gate. It's all here; the suggestion that our
reader has, from his sage position, seen all the arguments "for a long
while", and seems willing to brand them as ludicrous and "pseudo -
intellectual" (you been reading "Tenured Radicals" or the Dartmouth
Review recently?). I'd be willing to let these screeds pass, but there's
nothing here resembling real engagement or discussion. In its absence,
it looks like more sabre rattling.

He then does a restatement of Chris' view on "originality" as a form
of addressing the successive appropriation of the work of others.
Although it would offend his delicate :) PoMo sensibilities, I am
tempted to quote the Old Testament here wrt there being "Nothing New
Under the Sun."

>The problem is, that no one else wrote Achtung Baby-only U2 did.  Many folks
>have a working knowledge of the English language, harmony, instrumentation,
>song structure, etc. but they didn't write The Joshua Tree, or whatever
>U2's previous album was called.

SJ, you "just don't get it." What Christopher is saying is that the
idea of "copyright" *presumes* at its heart something which is at
least arbitrary and capricious instead of an "eternal cultural value"
and at worst terribly flawed by virtue of its being hopelessly
ethnocentric and rendered useless by the spread and availability of
new technologies which specifically exploit these weaknesses.

But to assume that you're not just some dweeb who pitches around
phrases like "pseudo-intellectual claptrap" the minute the going gets
rough for the brain, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt: U2 wrote
the stuff you give them credit for *only* until such time as my current
suit is resolved in court on their having "stolen" the chords and
general feel of [insert song title here] from *my* previous copyrighted
song "Muttering Xenophobes." It predates the song, uses the same basic
structure, and was already a hit in wide circulation before those creative
young individualistic geniuses "came up with it." In fact, it uses more
than 7 of the same notes. Like the now famous copyright case concerning
George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" (which ONLY George Harrison did, of
course) and the Shirelle's "He's So Fine", I may well wind up a very
rich man. I'd argue first that your view of the "uniqueness" of the
work you consume in mass culture is *so* poorly articulated, and the
law which you'd claim supports a very reasonable notion is *really*
arcane. If it's that simple, the whole issue would be much more straight
ahead than this (now you're supposed to pile on by appealing to the
popular prejudice against "lawyers," I think, rather than considering
the notion that the whole *idea* embodied by the law is flawed in the
first place).

And again - while you might argue that *only* U2 "did" the recording,
that, too, is a conceit. The little disc which embodies the unique
genius of U2 is actually the product of vast amounts of time and resource
by not only the unique genius of Paul Hewson, but also of the engineers
and Messrs. Lanois and Eno, who (according to considerable press reports)
had no small hand in the actual assembly of the songs themselves, as
well as the way the thing sounds). And I'm not even considering the
marshalling of resources necessary to promote and make sure the
work gets *to* you (all this is, of course, something that you're
encouraged to conveniently *forget* by clever marketing folks whose job
it is to make sure that you believe that U2 is a "unique" commodity so
that you'll continue to pursue and purchase *only* their "unique"
commodity that no one else could have done).

>Christopher's argument calls to mind a vision of some guy sitting back in
>his recliner saying "I cudda done that!". I know it sounds awful elitist
>and it's probably not PC, but some people just have more creative talent
>than others!  U2 was able to synthesize an amazing variety of musical,
>social, historical, lyrical, political, etc. influences into their music
>and they deserve the right as artists and creators to say - this is ours!

Visualizations like the opening sentence are probably more appropriate
in rec.music.newage or rec.music.stuart.smalley, but the fact is that
there are a lot of people who *could* have done it, but chose not to
for any one of a number of reasons. For all you know, there could be
an almost perfect note-for-note copy of Achtung Baby on the demo tapes
of a band from the late 80s who simply were never in a position to have
their work heard. I don't think that argues very persuasively for
your point - merely for the idea that putting one's "work" as a temporary
node in the discourse of a culture out there is a matter which may be
choice or may be constrained by a whole host of other factors. And it
would be possible to come up with a variety of better reasons to be
critical of a statement like "some people just have more creative talent
than others" without the faintest whiff of "PC" (which seems to me to
be another gratuitous swipe with el grande tar brush on the scale of
"pseudo-intellectual claptrap". To do my own Bill Bennett imitation,
"No one with any intellectual credentials ever uses the term  "pseudo
intellectual" :) ) - if only by arguing that the words "creative"
and "talent" paper over a pack of assumptions at least as well as
"originality."

And I suppose that even Christopher wouldn't have any problem with
anyone claiming that X is "their work," finally. Merely that the
status of that work as the product of "individual geniuses" is at best
a clumsy attempt to claim an ontological status for something which is
merely innovative which it doesn't necessarily deserve. On the basis of
that assumption, it isn't difficult at all to see why one might be
well advised to look at copyright law and ask a dangerous question like,
"Well, if we've got a bunch of laws that take this dubious assumption and
make them instruments of exclusion and engines for the generation of
money even though it's not really clear exactly *what* it is that's
particularly "unique" about the work that's being granted the protection
of law, then just who *does* benefit from trying to make this a law
and enforce it. Who does this law *exclude* who might, it could be
argued, just as easily be granted considerable recognition in terms of
"making" the final product? The answers to those questions might
provide you with some interesting questions to pursue even further.

Since you're all ready to sling the PC work about, I expect I may have
a little trouble convincing you of this, but you might be well advised
to go out and find an essay from the 1930s by a (gasp) Marxist critic
named Walter Benjamin. I know, I know - Marx is discredited and all
that. But the essay "Art in the Age or Reproduction" - whether you buy
his *whole* argument or not (and I, for one, sure *don't*) - lays out
the basic idea behind a *lot* of what we're talking about here. It's
a little eerie to read a 60-yr-old essay that saw into a future when
the technologies of reproduction would forever change the way we did
work and forever force us to question again our assumptions about
originality and ownership, but that's how it goes. And in your case,
you might find the all TOO PC Benjamin on *your* side in several
points.

Happy reading,
Gregory

P.S. There's *nothing* even remotely original or unique about your
arguments. Nor mine. Good thing we don't derive our belief in their
rightness from the notion that they're uniquely *ours*, eh? :)

P.P.S. And we've not said anything at all about all those cultures
which get along quite well without all this post-Enlightenment/Romantic
stuff about "uniqueness" and the "ownership" of ideas. That would, I
expect, be *too* "PC."
--
In the desert I prayed only for mercy, not happiness, not vindication,
willing to settle. No price can be too high, no cruelty excessive if the
end finds cruelty exhausted and mercy audible as a hammer's sound in rain.
Gregory Taylor/Heurikon Corporation/8310 Excelsior Drive/Madison WI 52717