Download Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century AudioBook Free
It was a period when music enthusiasts copied and traded recordings without permission. An outraged music industry pressed Congress to go away anti-piracy legislation. Yes, that point is now; it was also the age of Napster in the 1990s, of cassette tapes in the 1970s, of reel-to-reel tapes in the 1950s, even the phonograph epoch of the 1930s. Piracy, it turns out, is really as old as noted music itself. In Democracy of Sound, Alex Sayf Cummings uncovers the little-known record of music piracy and its sweeping results on the definition of copyright in america. When copyright surfaced, only visual material such as books and maps were thought to deserve safeguard; even musical compositions were not included until 1831. Once a performance could be captured over a wax cylinder or vinyl fabric disc, profound questions arose over this is of intellectual property. Is a written composition defined as a bit of art? If a singer performs another type of interpretation of an song, is it a fresh and unique work? Such questions have only expanded more pressing with the climb of sampling and other kinds of musical pastiche. Indeed, music has become the excellent battleground between piracy and copyright. It is compact, which makes it easy to duplicate. And it is highly social, distributed or traded through social networks - often systems that arise around music itself. But such systems also create a counter-argument: as programs for copying and showing sounds, they were instrumental in nourishing hip-hop and other new kinds of music central to American culture today. Piracy is not necessarily a poor thing. An insightful and often entertaining go through the record of music piracy, Democracy of Sound offers priceless background to 1 of the hot-button issues involving creativity and the law.
