Intellectual Property II

 

Woodstock

By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere was a song
And a celebration

Should the music be free?

In 1969, I was at the Newport Jazz Festival that was cancelled mid-performance because the fences were stormed.  Consequently, I did not go to Woodstock because I made the false prediction that it would also be cancelled mid-performance.  To show how good my instincts are, I also attended the Newport Jazz festival in 1971, the one that was cancelled mid-performance while Dionne Warwick was singing “What the World Needs Now” and the fences were stormed.

The problem is not that music should be free, as at Woodstock, or cancelled, as at the Newport Jazz Festivals.  One of the first things that the US Congress passed in 1790 was the copyright protection act.  If you do not protect Intellectual Property, like music, and the performers and copyright holders are not paid for their Intellectual Property then they have no incentive to create or perform.  You might wish their work was free, but I bet they don’t.  If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Both the Newport Jazz  Festivals and Woodstock were problems in that the expected and protected attendance did not match the actual attendance.  Newport cancelled.  Woodstock 1 gave up.  Once festivals figured out how many people would attend and figured out a way to collect admission fees from the attendees, which the festival, the attendees, and the performers all thought was fair, and like Bonnaroo, Woodstock 2 and 3,  Burning Man , Coachella, etc., etc. festivals happened.  Music, like all Intellectual Property,  isn’t free, and if the system is fair, then everyone will agree that it should not be free.