Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[tom poe <tompoe AT amihost.com>]

OPEN STUDIOS: RUNNING BOARD 

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"Trust everyone, but cut the cards"  -- Who said that? 
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Open Studios continues its registration process with states throughout
the country.  As a nonprofit organization, we seek donations and
contributions from the public.  Many states therefore, require that we
register with them.  Some five states permit registration without fees,
or don't require registration at all at this point.  The rest,
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our SPONSOR A STATE PROJECT. 
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ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: 
Each month, we'll highlight a few of the previous month's news articles
(hopefully with active links).  Subscribers and supporters are encouragd
to email us with links you found to be interesting.  We'll add them
here.  It's a good way for collecting an archive you can refer to when
you need it as part of your Internet business strategies. 
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http://www.mediareform.net/news.php?id=2135
Songwriters say piracy eats into their pay 
>From New York Times, January 5, 2004 
By David Bernstein 
"Not everyone is convinced that downloading is the devastating problem
that the music industry makes it out to be." 
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http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/152520p-134296c.html
Flip side to file sharing 
Critic at Large 

"No one objects to artists being paid, though it's also true that, for
many of them, the big hurdle to compensationhas been record companies,
not fans." 

"But downloading issues will not be solved by dropping an anvil on a few
unlucky file sharers. For starters, downloading music isn't a little
room with one door." 

"It's a big drafty warehouse with many entrances, exits, windows and
cracks." 
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/34829.html
Vivendi spinoff takes MP3.com archive private 
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco 
Posted: 12/01/2004 at 20:10 GMT 
"Artists who created the 1.5 million song archive have already expressed
some disquiet about royalties. TruSonic has a very limited pool for the
250,000 artists, based on the number of plays, but has said it may
re-evaluate this. " 
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http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Business/US/urban_development_040116-1.html
Getting to Funkytown 
Cities Look to Artists, Musicians for Economic Salvation, But Will It
Work? 

By Dean Schabner 
ABCNEWS.com 
"Jan. 16 — When the mayor of Indianapolis asked corporate executives
what could be done to make the city more appealing to business, their
advice surprised him. They told him to boost the arts." 

"There are many factors that make Austin a great place to live," said
Vincent Kitch, the cultural arts program manager for the Austin Economic
Growth and Redevelopment Services Office. "But we recognize that the
real strength of what brings business and tourists here is the arts." 

"I'm not sure how much work has really been done to see whether there is
a firm relationship between arts activity and economic development,"
said Thomas Lyons, a professor of urban planning at the University of
Louisville. "It's a new concept, and has not yet received a high level
of scholarly interest." 

In Pawtucket, Weiss said for every three artist who relocate to the
city, two new jobs are created for non-artists. 

According to the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, cultural
organizations are the 11th largest non-governmental employer in the
region. A study done by the group found that the arts generated $1.083
billion in economic impact in 2001, with 9.1 million people attending
cultural events. 

Lyons said there may be some validity to these kind of statistics, but
it is not clear, for example, that the money an Indianapolis resident
might spend on tickets for the theater and dinner wouldn't have just
been spent on something else if there wasn't a play to go see. 

In Pawtucket, Weiss said hard numbers don't matter — he knows there has
been a change a change in the civic attitude. 

"We have seen a vitality coming into our city," he said. "We looked at
it as an economic development tool that improves the quality of life for
all of our residents." 
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http://www.freep.com/entertainment/music/blues26_20031226.htm
Emphasis on the down beat: Detroit's blues scene suffers as clubs close
and fans disappear 

December 26, 2003 

BY CHRISTOPHER WALTON 
FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER 
"There really aren't any blues clubs left in the Detroit area," says
Johnnie Bassett, 68, who started playing guitar in Black Bottom clubs at
the age of 19 with Detroit's greatest bluesman, the late John Lee
Hooker. Bassett puts it bluntly: "Sad to say, but I don't think there is
a Detroit blues scene right now." 
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http://www.mediareform.net/news.php?id=2362
The tyranny of copyright? 
>From New York Times, January 26, 2004 
By Robert Boynton 

"Yochai Benkler, the law professor at Yale, argues that people want to
be more engaged in their culture, despite the broadcast technology, like
television, that he says has narcotized us. ''People are users,'' he
says. ''They are producers, storytellers, consumers, interactors —
complex, varied beings, not just people who go to the store, buy a
packaged good off the shelf and consume.''  " 
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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/music/2378017
Jan. 30, 2004, 9:37AM 
Local talents sing deregulation blues 
Broadcast complaints aired at FCC hearing 
By JOHN W. GONZALEZ 
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle San Antonio Bureau 
"Just as strip malls with national brand-name retailers have homogenized
the look and feel of large and small towns across America, so in certain
instances has radio done much the same thing to music," said Benson, a
35-year industry veteran. 

"If you take 18 or 20 records and play them over and over again, people
will learn to eat that kind of crap," he said. " " 
- - - 
THE COMMUNITY SCENE: 
Open Studios works with communities around the country and around the
world to build and operate community-based recording studios.  You can
keep up with the latest happenings by checking this section each month. 
Learn what others are doing, and get ideas for your community. 

Did you know that in the future, grandparents will have refrigerators
with computers on the side, the monitor stylishly displaying files from
the Internet?  Imagine the grandparents, each morning, walking over to
their refrigerator, loading up the day's drawing made by one of their
grandchildren?  Nice, eh? 

NO ENTRY THIS MONTH 
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HOW THEY DO IT: 
This on-going series explores potential business strategies and ideas
for musicians, artists, and authors interested in pursuing careers
outside mainstream industry practices. 

NO ENTRY THIS MONTH 
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FEATURED ARTISTS: 
http://www.geocities.com/drummerinterviews/upandcoming.html
Introducing the all new "Up and Coming" with Billy Donald 
drummerinterviews AT yahoo.com

Running Board wishes to present Billy Donald, who has agreed to
syndicate his column (rather his interviews) with us.  We hope you will
welcome him with open arms by sending an email to him and visiting his
web site often.  Oh, and don't forget to spread the word to your friends
and family.  Now, on with Billy: 

The Exclusive Interview with SERENA MATTHEWS! 
http://www.geocities.com/drummerinterviews/serenamatthews.html

"Tennessee born and bred singer/songwriter Serena Matthews has been
waiting for the opportunity to let the world hear her music, and she
recently had the great fortune of doing so through Soul City Cafe!
Serena was kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions about her
great musical adventure to this point!" 

Q:  Serena, thank you so much for taking the time to join us here for
this interview! I just wanted to start of by congratulating you for
getting a place in the spotlight of Soul City Cafe!  Tell me about your
thoughts on this golden opportunity to finally have your music heard by
such a wide audience! 
A:  It is truly an honor to be the first "Be Soul City" featured
Insider. I still can't believe they picked me to be the first. There are
so very many talented artists in Soul City, and I can't wait to see who
will be featured in the coming months. (I do have some guesses!) 

Q:  How did you go about getting the wheels in motion as far as
submitting your material to Soul City Cafe? 
A:  Actually I never did submit anything to them, they called me one day
in December and asked for my permission to do the feature, and naturally
I gave them a very enthusiastic YES! They said they felt badly that I
wasn't able to enter Jewel's song contest because I live in Tennessee.
It was a blessing to receive that call. I'm kind of happy that I
couldn't enter the contest now! 

Q:  For those unsigned or undiscovered talents that may be out there
reading this interview right now, can you tell us how Soul City Cafe has
helped you to forward your musical career, and how it can do the same
for them? 
A:  Most importantly it has given me a newfound determination to advance
forward with my music. Knowing that the Soul City Cafe community
believes in my work is such a spirit booster and motivator. I would tell
any artist that the first step to advancing forward in their music
career is simply believing in their heart that they can do exactly that.
Everything else will fall into place when the time is right, so don't
rush it, just enjoy the ride. 

Q:  You were born and raised very nearby me in one of my favorite places
in the world, Tennessee, so you have the great fortune of being around a
huge music scene in Nashville.  Can you tell us about the music
listeners that come out to see you perform in the city? Is it a good,
supportive musical town in your opinion? 
A:  I can't imagine a city other than Nashville where the listeners are
more supportive, especially to folk and acoustic musicians. I think
every songwriter should play in Nashville at least once in their life,
even if it's just for the sake of saying, "Yeah, I played in Nashville
once". Haha! But seriously, there are good and bad places just like in
any other town. I would recommended hitting the open mic at The Bluebird
Cafe on Monday nights to anyone who is trying to get their foot into the
door in the Nashville music scene. Listeners are actually told by other
listeners to be quiet if they talk to loudly during a writer's
performance. It's all about the music there. 

Q:  Your Homemade CD Sampler has become a hot seller for you all of a
sudden and hey, at $5.00 a CD, a great value for the pure, honest music
that is on it! Can you tell our readers about this CD that you recorded
and produced yourself? 
A:  Sure thing! (And thanks!) The CD is autographed and contains just
over 20 of my songs recorded at my home from 2001-2003. It was
originally offered to fans who would write to me seeking a way to buy
one of my CD's without a credit card. For a long time I offered the
homemade version for free, but as requests began to happen more
frequently, I just couldn't afford to send them for free anymore, so I
charge $5 to cover postage and CD costs. 

Q:  I know that you are now working on your first official album at this
time. What is the progress of the album, and how has the experience of
going in the studio to record the album opened your eyes about the music
industry? 
A:  The studio album is coming along very well, and I hope to have it in
music stores by summer of 2004. (I'm taking my time with it, as I want
it to be very good!) It will contain several of the songs from my
homemade sampler, but they will be newly recorded and mastered, and I
will also have the help of some other very talented musicians on some of
the songs. All in all I am very excited to bring this album out to the
rest of the world, and I can only hope that people continue to listen to
my songs as I move forward in my career. 

Q:  I did want to mention that you are a very strong supporter of Animal
Rights, which I think is wonderful. It truly is something I believe very
strongly in myself. Can you tell us about some of your favorite
organizations out there? 
A:  Absolutely! To name just several of the organizations I support, I
would have to include People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
(PETA),  The World Wildlife Foundation, The Fund for Animals, The World
Society for the Protection of Animals, The Humane Society, United
Poultry Concerns, Last Chance for Animals, Farm Sanctuary, The Elephant
Sanctuary, and Greenpeace.  I could go on and on and on, so if you would
like to see a more comprehensive list, please visit the animal rights
page on my website at www.serenamatthews.com/animalrights.html.  Thanks
so much! Also, please don't forget to check out my charities page as
well. 

Q:  Serena, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us
here once again! I want to wish you the very best of success with all of
your future musical projects, and I hope we can have you back here again
soon! In closing here, do you have any messages that you would like to
pass on to our readers here? 
A:  Thanks so much, Billy, it was absolutely a pleasure to join you and
your readers here today. I would be happy to come back and do it again
anytime. To your readers I would love to say thanks to each of you for
checking out this interview, and I hope that people will continue to
support the music of independent singers and songwriters around the
world. Thanks again, and keep in touch! 
- - - 
COLUMNS: 
A]  Anatoly Volynets - Culture vs. Copyright 
What Is Culture? Specifics of Art

Synopsis of Previous Issues

One of the basic points I stand for is that culture and  copyright clash
completely. To illustrate my  understanding of culture I took arts as an
example. A  piece of art proves to be the representation of a new 
virtual world: one that is strange and, at the same  time, important to
us. As such, it is also a message  that invokes a new alter ego in its
author as well as  its audience. Some other topics covered were: 
people-to-art relations, arts and dialogue, etc. 

8 Culture and Humanity

All that has been said so far about the basic definitions of art, can,
in fact, be said about humanity. Let us list notions developed above and
some of the obvious offshoots of thereof:

* If a work of art represents a new world, and this new world speaks to
us, then it invokes new feelings, new language to express ourselves, new
views on our relations to each other, and et cetera. Thus, an artwork
creates new layers of the human way of life; in other words, new
insights on humanity itself.

* For example, people-to-art relations are pretty much similar to
human-to-human relations. Since the arts are developing these relations,
they bring the new ways back to society.

* In doing so, arts disseminate ideas, which are exclusively human
things to desire, to value, to be interested in, to hate, to like, to
fight, to encourage, to ameliorate and so forth.

* On the other hand, arts bring in ideas in another, exclusively human,
way via aesthetic form, thus developing human ability to perceive newer
and newer aesthetic forms.

* The very ways a work of art influences us comprises some fundamental
features of human nature: curiosity, empathy, and reflection. Remember,
a virtual world of an artwork must be recognizably ours and intriguingly
strange in order to work.

* A work of art directly enriches personalities of its author and its
audience for it develops new faces of their alter egos. The faces able
to understand that new work, its language, its new aesthetics, and new 
interpretations of human-to-human and human-to-universe relations.

* Arts develop the spectrum of the simplest human senses via the
development of new genres and kinds of art.

* Arts develop further and deeper basic sensations of space, time and
movement.

* Here is one of the important specifics: the sense of historical time,
which translates into the sense of total unity of humankind throughout
time and national boundaries.

* It is the arts which develop the basic of all basics of the human way
of life: dialogue (free communication).

* It is within the arts, where people first and foremost enjoy and
enforce their most powerful ability--creativity.

* ...To list just a few.

If we go farther back in time to those times when there was virtually no
art, we will find that no human way of life had yet been created. Arts
create humanity, amount to it, and vise versa: no humanity emerges
beyond the arts. It is important to stress, that humanity is measured,
here, in all possible dimensions: ethics, aesthetics, feelings,
thoughts... everything that makes a human being specifically human.

9 Reality of Art and Civilization

Virtual worlds of art and the physical world do interact and influence
each other. Real tensions of the physical world provoke creators to
reflect them in imagined worlds. These imagined worlds are imaginable 
in new ways every time they meet an audience. Therefore, creations bring
about new ways of human life and thus bring change to societies. It is
up to civilization to accept or to deny what culture brings in. Both
scenarios have occurred throughout the history of mankind.

Often they fight each other. Culture questions civilization, and
civilization, in turn, denies what culture brings in, fights creations
in different ways, for different reasons, punishes and stages obstacles
to creators, disseminators of art, and the audience. The first examples
that come to mind when we think of such fights are that of Fascists and
Communists (or other dictatorships). However, the same can be said about
copyrights and other culture-restricting laws, perceptions and
practices. Granted, there may be differences in motivations, but there
are hardly any differences in results. Restrictions may be imposed on 
cultural phenomena, until the time comes for society to accept them (for
instance the sometime ban on _The_Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn_. This
lovely piece of work had the bad luck of falling under two kinds of 
restrictions: copyright and censorship). For some, that time never
comes, or may come after another 1000 years. At any rate, it is
impossible to imagine and measure all the harm done by civilization to
culture and, consequentially to civilization itself, due to all 
mentioned and unmentioned restrictions.

10 Culture and Creativity

Creativity: a brand new idea in relation to culture, isn't it? Yes, I'm
joking. However, inter-relations between culture and creativity are not
that obvious. This can be seen by looking at hundreds of definitions 
of culture. Here are the relevant definitions from One Look on-line
dictionary (www.onelook.com), which, in turn, takes entries from a great
deal of other dictionaries, such as Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary 
(www.w-m.com), Cambridge International Dictionary of English
(dictionary.cambridge.org), and others:

Quick definitions (Culture)

...noun: the tastes in art and manners that are favored by a social
group

...noun: the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a
particular social group or organization (Example: "The developing drug
culture")

...noun: a particular society at a particular time and place 

...noun: all the knowledge and values shared by a society

...noun: a highly developed state of perfection; having a flawless or
impeccable quality 

All of the above stated definitions are related to the current subject
at hand (the culture of mankind) in the sense that they have been born
within culture and continue to give birth to other forms of culture. If
we disregard the continuous process of the development culture as part
of its definition, all that will remain will be nothing more than
complex forms of behavior. 

In short, I believe that culture and creativity are interrelated and
interdependent: they are practically synonymous, to the extent of almost
complete congruency. Culture is the embodiment of novelty. We noted
above that an author creates not only a work, but also a new alter ego
and a new audience. If novelty stops coming in, all thus far developed
culture immediately turns into forms of behavior only, and, as such,
essentially would not differ from animal life. Likewise, if thinking
stops, speech loses sense and as such doesn't differ from other forms of
animal behavior.

One more important dimension in the culture-creativity tandem is worthy
of recollection. It is the dimension of author-audience relations.
Remember, a single artifact presents culture when it serves as a medium
in dialogue, provoking an act of free human will. For instance, when it
is read, watched, listened to, empathize with, feared, thought of,
discussed, etc. Culture is born out of and gives birth to creativity.

11 Creator and Mankind: Who Owes Whom?

A work of art develops a new way of free human communication (dialogue),
and, precisely because of that, it is actually a form of communication
and vise versa. Dialogue is a creative process. I believe, many of us
may recall countless cases, when ideas popped up in friendly
conversation or unfriendly quarrel absolutely unexpectedly, out of
nothing. But if we accept dialogue as working mechanism, or better say 
body of creativity, we have to draw conclusions from here.

In inner dialogue author is as much a contributer as a receiver, so he
and the mankind are on the equal positions here and no one owes anything
to the other side. Mankind and creator are always on par. Mankind 
contributed in him all he knows, actually much-much more than anyone may
pay back. Generally speaking, this is about mankind and a human being.
The more one is creative, the more one takes from mankind. Work of art 
is always mutual one.

To be continued.

Topics to be covered: Culture and Freedom, Culture and Personality,
Culture beyond  Arts, Economics of Culture and others. 

Anatoly Volynets, Board member of Open Studios, and President of
Total-knowledge.com, will continue his thoughts next month about the
copyright implications on culture.  You can contact Anatoly at: 
av AT total-knowledge.com
*** 
This article licensed under Authoright: 
http://www.culturedialogue.org/ 
*** 
Literary editing by Alexandra Volynets 
*** 
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COMMONS GALLERY BEST OF THE BEST: 
The Creative Commons Project offers musicians, artists, and authors a
nifty way to meet their legal needs for licensing their works for
distribution across the Internet.  If readers discover interesting
material that sports the Creative Commons tag, let us know, and we'll
link it here.  Attach your photo with your suggested link, to be added
to the gallery.  Let's spread the word! 

NO ENTRY THIS MONTH 
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OPEN STUDIOS:SONG STORM is LAUNCHED!!!  You can take a look at:
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/mt/Song_Storm/  .  Please
visit soon, and comment on what features we should add.  SONG STORM is a
project designed for fun, great listening pleasure, super exposure for
independent artists and internet stations, and more.  Submit your
favorite independent artist song sets, and win a prize.  Sound good? 
Enjoy! 
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Remember when cars sported running boards out of practical necessity? 
Most roads back then weren't paved like our roads, today. 

The Digital Age, still in its' infancy, requires the use of electronic
running boards.  People are out there that have never used a computer. 
Most people don't understand how computers work [I just raised my hand],
let alone how to make CD's, DVD's, MP3's, OGG, WAV, and the list goes
on. 

And, in the arts and sciences, from musicians to artists to authors, the
knowledge that recordings no longer requires an expensive recording
studio is restricted to just a few.  This newsletter intends to help
musicians, artists, and authors to step out and enter the Digital Age. 
We'll provide the running board to help you avoid the "mud".  If you're
involved in the arts, we hope you'll join us each month. 
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Licensed as Public Domain with the Creative Commons Project, August 1,
2003. 
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