In the most recent installment of 60 Minutes, Charlie Rose interviewed Russian leader Vladimir Putin. In addition to the expected questions on the crisis in Syria, and how Russia views the Ukraine, Rose asked Putin a question that I thought said a lot: "What do you admire most about America?" to which Putin responded "I like the creativity...creativity when it comes to your tackling of problems. Their openness...openness and open mindedness. It allows them to unleash the inner potential of their people. And thanks to that, America has attained such amazing results in developing their country."
That exchange says a lot. Vladimir Putin is not known for being a humble man, but when you watch the exchange between him and Rose, you sense the admiration in his tone - and why wouldn't he feel this way? Putin summed up what America is about: Ingenuity.
In no coincidence, President Obama met with Chinese president Xi Jinxing last week, and one major point of discussion was China's theft of U.S. company trade secrets. It is widely known that (for years now) China has been helping themselves to our legally protected ideas, and the economic impact has been staggering. A 2012 report issued by the The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee titled "The Impact of Intellectual Property Theft on the Economy" begins with: "Innovation drives economic growth and job creation. Protection of intellectual property (IP), through patents, trademarks, and copyrights is critical to ensuring that firms pursue innovation."
That's the gist of the entire U.S. economy. Innovation and ideas are the drive behind our economic force - but essential to that is the right to legally protect those ideas; and that has suddenly become one of the main (if not biggest) threats to our economy and society.
The report also addresses how piracy and counterfeiting have become "increasingly pervasive", and says that trade in illegally counterfeited and/or pirated products increased by 7.6 percent between 2000 and 2007. This amounts to over $101.9 million in revenue as well as $1.4 million in added costs to protect intellectual property rights. This all combines for a $46.3 million decline in overall profits.
The concept of valuing creativity and innovation is disappearing...and fast. A 2013 article in The Economist reports how companies now keep new ideas under wraps. Rather than legally protect then manufacture, they sit on them out of fear the idea will be stolen and put into production before they can do it. The Economist article also reports 90% of trade secret thefts are the result of insiders. Employees who have access to ideas (plans, drawings, concepts, etc.) simply lift them from the office "...via flash drive, mobil phone, or email" and sell them off. In essence, the world has become one giant Napster.
I jump on Napster a lot. I do so because (like I've said before) I see it as the catalyst. It was the application that ushered in the If it's on the Internet...it's free! mentality - and we are now seeing its global effects. This is the age of copying. So much so that a New York Times article reported how the number of American students who cheat keeps going up (even the smart ones). Cheating has not only become more rampant, but also accepted. As the article states; "The Internet has changed attitudes, as a world of instant downloading, searching, cutting and pasting has loosened some ideas of ownership and authorship." For a society whose socio-economic structure depends on new ideas - this is bad news.
I am not a "Luddite". I am typing this entry on a laptop computer, and uploading it the an Internet based Blog. How ever, I do get scared that someone will lift my words and use them as their own (it's not a crazy idea). After all, this is the world we live in now. You don't need to be smart, creative, or critical with your thoughts. Just log on; cut, paste, download, and claim it as your own. Don't pay for it...just steal it! That has (sadly) become the new normal.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Thursday, July 16, 2015
It's About Time
Rethink Music (which is a associated with BerkleeICE - part of Berklee College of Music) just released a report titled Fair Music: Transparency and Payment Flows in the Music Industry - Recommendations to Increase Transparency, Reduce Friction, and Promote Fairness in the Music Industry. The report begins by stating:
In 1999 I spoke on a panel at the CMJ Music Marathon in Manhattan whose topic was Music Promotion and the Internet. Inevitably, though, the controversy of the time - digital downloading - came into play. At one point, a fellow panelist spoke of an artist she knew who'd had a song downloaded for free over 100,000 times. In response I asked "OK, so now what?" to which the woman responded "It was 100,000 downloads...who cares!" The room erupted into applause. Once the noise died down, and the panel moved on, I noticed no one had answered my question.
My question was shaped by the fact that it was September of '99. Napster had stormed onto the scene that June, and suddenly the prevailing attitude regarding music became give it away for free. This bothered me for a couple of reasons:
1.) I am a musician, and played in a band that was eventually signed to a record deal. I know what struggle is like. To suddenly have an application render the hard work of musicians valueless (monetarily speaking) pissed me off.
2.) We don't live in a system where anything is free. In fact, music is probably one of the most important things in any society, and to suddenly have an attitude of Just give it away! made no sense - economically, socially, or aesthetically.
Regardless of my thoughts, I was in the minority. To be honest, I felt like people were angry I'd even raised the question. The mindset in the room was "If 100,000 people downloaded your song, and 40,000 liked it...they'll go pay for one or two more or maybe...the whole album." That was naïve, and I knew it. Napster had created a mindset of "don't pay for it...take it" - and accomplished this in a mere four months. I found this hilarious because without music what was Napster? Seriously, would it have been culturally, or technologically, relevant if it was an application allowing the free and open exchange of recipes? The secret sauce providing its value was music. Napster wasn't what everyone wanted - it was what it gave them access to.
Why do I harp on Napster? Simple: It created a national mindset that musicians/artists and creative people ultimately still battle today: If it's on the Internet - it must be free. This subsequently spread to movies, books, newspapers, articles, photographs, images, quotes, papers, and anything else requiring creative thought, and input, from an individual. An article in CNN Money from 2010 discusses how music business revenue dropped more than 50% beginning in 1999. As if that wasn't depressing enough, the piece also states that by 2010, 90% of the market was "unauthorized downloads". That's a fancy way of saying that a mere10% of people pay for their music.
I teach music in an alternative High School for at risk inner-city kids. This past year I covered the history of Hip Hop music and, when we got to the unit on sampling, I discovered something I had taken for granted: My students had no idea how musicians get paid for their work. The discussion eventually led down the road of illegal downloads, and I was shocked to find that a vast majority of my students thought they were "screwing" the record labels by stealing music - not the artists themselves. This epiphany led me to create a lesson plan on how artists get paid, copyright laws, and protecting your work. I did one class where all of the kids simulated "stealing" a song from one student. This student was particularly vocal about why he didn't have to pay for music anymore, but suddenly, in this exercise, he found himself getting very angry as his fellow students took money from his pocket.
One of the biggest problems we face today is technological ignorance. In an earlier post here I wrote about the problem Internet based cheating has become in college. Young people today see this massive space they've been given access to as a place where creative copyrighted works can be downloaded, copied, cut, and pasted free of charge. Napster (and applications like it) created a generation of people (adults included) who don't believe they have to pay for any of it.
Maybe in addition to addressing the outdated methods by which musicians are paid, Rethink Music should also institute an initiative to educate kids about creative ideas in this technological age - and how you get paid for those ideas. Again, we have given our kids the keys to a world where they have access to a lot of wonderful and amazing things. How ever, they also have access to a lot of awful and illegal things. Yet, in our current system of education, there is no class on creative works, their value, and how to respect them in the age of the Internet.
The unsurpassed reach of the Internet and the emergence of a range of new digital technologies
have transformed virtually every corner of the music industry for fans and creators alike. While
consumers enjoy vastly more options, these market disruptions are presenting a range of important
challenges for creators, producers, and distributors of music.
In 1999 I spoke on a panel at the CMJ Music Marathon in Manhattan whose topic was Music Promotion and the Internet. Inevitably, though, the controversy of the time - digital downloading - came into play. At one point, a fellow panelist spoke of an artist she knew who'd had a song downloaded for free over 100,000 times. In response I asked "OK, so now what?" to which the woman responded "It was 100,000 downloads...who cares!" The room erupted into applause. Once the noise died down, and the panel moved on, I noticed no one had answered my question.
My question was shaped by the fact that it was September of '99. Napster had stormed onto the scene that June, and suddenly the prevailing attitude regarding music became give it away for free. This bothered me for a couple of reasons:
1.) I am a musician, and played in a band that was eventually signed to a record deal. I know what struggle is like. To suddenly have an application render the hard work of musicians valueless (monetarily speaking) pissed me off.
2.) We don't live in a system where anything is free. In fact, music is probably one of the most important things in any society, and to suddenly have an attitude of Just give it away! made no sense - economically, socially, or aesthetically.
Regardless of my thoughts, I was in the minority. To be honest, I felt like people were angry I'd even raised the question. The mindset in the room was "If 100,000 people downloaded your song, and 40,000 liked it...they'll go pay for one or two more or maybe...the whole album." That was naïve, and I knew it. Napster had created a mindset of "don't pay for it...take it" - and accomplished this in a mere four months. I found this hilarious because without music what was Napster? Seriously, would it have been culturally, or technologically, relevant if it was an application allowing the free and open exchange of recipes? The secret sauce providing its value was music. Napster wasn't what everyone wanted - it was what it gave them access to.
Why do I harp on Napster? Simple: It created a national mindset that musicians/artists and creative people ultimately still battle today: If it's on the Internet - it must be free. This subsequently spread to movies, books, newspapers, articles, photographs, images, quotes, papers, and anything else requiring creative thought, and input, from an individual. An article in CNN Money from 2010 discusses how music business revenue dropped more than 50% beginning in 1999. As if that wasn't depressing enough, the piece also states that by 2010, 90% of the market was "unauthorized downloads". That's a fancy way of saying that a mere10% of people pay for their music.
I teach music in an alternative High School for at risk inner-city kids. This past year I covered the history of Hip Hop music and, when we got to the unit on sampling, I discovered something I had taken for granted: My students had no idea how musicians get paid for their work. The discussion eventually led down the road of illegal downloads, and I was shocked to find that a vast majority of my students thought they were "screwing" the record labels by stealing music - not the artists themselves. This epiphany led me to create a lesson plan on how artists get paid, copyright laws, and protecting your work. I did one class where all of the kids simulated "stealing" a song from one student. This student was particularly vocal about why he didn't have to pay for music anymore, but suddenly, in this exercise, he found himself getting very angry as his fellow students took money from his pocket.
One of the biggest problems we face today is technological ignorance. In an earlier post here I wrote about the problem Internet based cheating has become in college. Young people today see this massive space they've been given access to as a place where creative copyrighted works can be downloaded, copied, cut, and pasted free of charge. Napster (and applications like it) created a generation of people (adults included) who don't believe they have to pay for any of it.
Maybe in addition to addressing the outdated methods by which musicians are paid, Rethink Music should also institute an initiative to educate kids about creative ideas in this technological age - and how you get paid for those ideas. Again, we have given our kids the keys to a world where they have access to a lot of wonderful and amazing things. How ever, they also have access to a lot of awful and illegal things. Yet, in our current system of education, there is no class on creative works, their value, and how to respect them in the age of the Internet.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
What About Her?
I have a piano student who is very talented. She is a sixth grade girl and plays pieces better than all of my high school students. Mind you, those students have all been playing four (or more) years longer than she has. She is very well spoken, is a sweet kid and enjoys life. So why is her mother is worried sick about her?
This poor girl doesn't do "well" in school. Her grades in math, science are pretty bad. In addition, her state test scores are pretty low. This all has her mother worried about where, and if, she'll get into college. Mind you, she is acing music, art, and language arts. In addition to playing the piano she loves to draw, read, and write stories. The problem is, her grades are - generally speaking - pretty low.
If you were to look at this kid's report card from the outside you may think to yourself Average student at best, but I can tell you that this girl is very bright - and this frustrates me. Why isn't there a section on the state test for art...or music? What about a creative writing section? Why isn't there someone at the school who can see that this girl has intelligence, but that it just comes in different ways? Why aren't there programs in place at school for varied learning types? If this girl's parents wanted to, they could go searching for, and maybe find a school, that could accommodate their daughter but why do they have to look?
This is the plight of education in the twenty-first century: Creativity is not addressed at all. In too many articles, and interviews, company CEO's are lamenting on how today's college grads lack creativity, and/or critical thinking skills. Yet, we insist on spending a huge chunk of the year preparing for tests that, apparently, leaves no time for questions, problem solving, or analyzation.
In one of the first posts here, I wrote about the Torrence Test (which tests creativity), and how American kids scores have been in a steady decline since the 1990's. It has become quite apparent that creativity is something akin to "real" intelligences - like math and science. Suddenly, as we begin migrating the first few years of the twenty-first century, we need to make sure our kids maintain their creative capacities. We need to do this because our kids are growing up in a world where social, political, economic, and technological shifts are an almost daily occurance. Our kids need to be able to not only come up with new ideas, but also adjust, change, and adapt them so they can accommodate those shifts.
This poor girl doesn't do "well" in school. Her grades in math, science are pretty bad. In addition, her state test scores are pretty low. This all has her mother worried about where, and if, she'll get into college. Mind you, she is acing music, art, and language arts. In addition to playing the piano she loves to draw, read, and write stories. The problem is, her grades are - generally speaking - pretty low.
If you were to look at this kid's report card from the outside you may think to yourself Average student at best, but I can tell you that this girl is very bright - and this frustrates me. Why isn't there a section on the state test for art...or music? What about a creative writing section? Why isn't there someone at the school who can see that this girl has intelligence, but that it just comes in different ways? Why aren't there programs in place at school for varied learning types? If this girl's parents wanted to, they could go searching for, and maybe find a school, that could accommodate their daughter but why do they have to look?
This is the plight of education in the twenty-first century: Creativity is not addressed at all. In too many articles, and interviews, company CEO's are lamenting on how today's college grads lack creativity, and/or critical thinking skills. Yet, we insist on spending a huge chunk of the year preparing for tests that, apparently, leaves no time for questions, problem solving, or analyzation.
In one of the first posts here, I wrote about the Torrence Test (which tests creativity), and how American kids scores have been in a steady decline since the 1990's. It has become quite apparent that creativity is something akin to "real" intelligences - like math and science. Suddenly, as we begin migrating the first few years of the twenty-first century, we need to make sure our kids maintain their creative capacities. We need to do this because our kids are growing up in a world where social, political, economic, and technological shifts are an almost daily occurance. Our kids need to be able to not only come up with new ideas, but also adjust, change, and adapt them so they can accommodate those shifts.
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