Interview With a Musician/artist about.... Music! 02/29/12

        One of the most famous, yet slowly fading away from his primitive period and becoming an old age song writer, Baek young kyu, performed at a small music caffe in Seoul. Also, I got to interview him about his difficulties of writing music and law that helped or made it hard for him to make music during his first step towards becoming famous.
        During his era, Korea was into one particular style of music called Trot. Trot, pronounced teuroteu, is the oldest form of Korean Pop music. Also, the name derives from a shortening of "foxtrot", a ballroom dance which influenced the simple two-beat of elements of the genre. It was developed in the years before and during World War II around the early 1900s. One of the people who broke this trend and started a new style of music was Mr. Baek.

        The question about, "What were the difficulties of writing music?" he said, "The difficulties were trying to come up with the right melody, right lyrics, and the right mood of the song that I am trying to portray certain meanings to my audience." In that sense, I quite agreed with him because it is really hard to make your audience feel the same way or get the music the same way as you would try to share and empathize about it. For instance, when I get all the beats done and try to come up with the lyrics for the song, it sometimes took me more than the time I spent making the beats and eventually just left the music as only instrumental.

        Nonetheless, I asked him another question saying, "I know many people won't ask you these kind of questions but what were some laws that helped you or prevented you from producing or legalizing your intellectual property, in this case your music?" To tell you the truth, he was very surprised of me asking this question. So, we went off course and talked about my current situation of taking a research project about music and law. He was so glad and even praised me that youngsters like me should be more passionate and ask good questions like these! Anyhow, he thought deeply and answered, "It happens very rarely but it happens to every professional singers/songwriters. What happen is that when it was a early stage of my style of music, other same style song writers didn't sue each other and sometimes actually helped each other out to make really good music, so our songs were very similar. But, as soon as our style of music became a hit and everybody started to listen to our music, it became a race. People started to steal a music and legalize it before the real songwriter actually shows it to the public, and sometimes the person who actually wrote the music got blamed for copying a different song." Listening to his story, which this quote is very shortened into a summery, I thought of how can we detect or protect of intellectual property being stolen during the process of preparing to show it to the public.
        This question made me very unsatisfied with my current knowledge of intellectual property and decide to learn more of its protection and try to come up with a solution. On the other hand, it was a very interesting and once in a life time moment to interview and listen to one of my dad's idol.  

The Answer to Limitation of Intellectual Property Law 02/24/12

        The first time I talked about intellectual property on my blog, I didn't went over my understanding of intellectual property's limitation due to first, not knowing what is intellectual property thoroughly, second, I had to understand what forms there are on intellectual property. On the other hand, now I know, not all but mostly, of intellectual property and I believe I can now explain and describe some of limitation imposed upon intellectual property law.

      The first limitation is the exclusion from copyright protection of certain categories of works. In some countries, works are excluded from protection if they are not fixed in tangible form: meaning, a work of choreography would only be protected once the movements were written down in dance notation or recorded on videotape. In addition, in certain countries court and administrative decisions are excluded from copyright protection.
      The second category of limitations concerns particular acts of exploitation, normally requiring the authorization of the rights owner, which may, under circumstances specified in the law, be carried out without authorization. There are two basic types of limitations in this category; first is free use, which carries no obligation to compensate the rights owner for the use of his work without authorization. Second, non-voluntary licenses, which do require that compensation be paid to the rights owner for non-authorized exploitation.

Examples of free use:

• quoting from a protected work, provided that the source of the quotation and the name of the author is mentioned, and that the extent of the quotation is compatible with fair practice;
• use of works by way of illustration for teaching purposes
• use of works for the purpose of news reporting.

      In addition to the specific categories of free use set out in national laws, the laws of some countries recognize the concept known as fair use or fair dealing. This allows use of works without the authorization of the rights owner: including whether it is for commercial purposes, the nature of the work used; the amount of the work used in relation to the work as a whole, and the likely effect of the use on the potential commercial value of the work.
      Non-voluntary licenses allow use of works in certain circumstances without the authorization of the owner of rights, but require that compensation be paid in respect of the use. Such licenses are called non-voluntary because they are allowed in the law, and do not result from the exercise of the exclusive right of the copyright owner to authorize particular acts. Non-voluntary licenses were usually created in circumstances where a new technology for the dissemination of works to the public had emerged, and where the national legislator feared that rights owners would prevent the development of the new technology by refusing to authorize use of works. This was true of two non-voluntary licenses recognized in the Berne Convention, which allow the mechanical reproduction of musical works and broadcasting.
      This part confused me very much because I didn't quite understand this works. Therefore, I am planning on doing some more research in this area and explain next week! I have my viewers understood some of the limitations on intellectual property and its forms.

Getting to Know Intellectual Property 02/22/12(Korea Time)

       Last time I dwelled upon intellectual property, I couldn't find any document that satisfied my eagerness to understand it. And I was pretty sure my viewers wouldn't be happy with my explanation of intellectual property if I was unsatisfied with it too.

       On the other hand, after coming over to Korea and using Myonji University's database, I have found documents and resources from the World Intellectual Property Organization, which thoroughly explain what is intellectual property and show some of the fields of intellectual property protection.

       According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, "the term intellectual property refers broadly to the creations of the human mind. Intellectual property rights protect the interests of creators by giving them property rights over their creations." In addition, there are three different types of law that protect intellectual property: copyright, trademark, and patent law.    

Nonetheless, subject matter protected by intellectual property rights are

• performances of performing artists, phonograms, and broadcasts;
• inventions in all fields of human endeavor;
• scientific discoveries;
• industrial designs;
• trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations;
• protection against unfair competition; and
• “all other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.”

       Overall, intellectual property relates to items of information or knowledge, which can be incorporated in tangible objects at the same time in an unlimited number of copies at different locations anywhere in the world. The property is not in those copies but in the information or knowledge reflected in them. In addition, Intellectual property rights are also characterized by certain limitations, such as limited duration in the case of copyright and patents. Therefore, my next post will cover what I learned about intellectual property right's limitations.

Taking a First Step Towards Making Music 02/17/12

        For couple of days, I have not only been researching on intellectual property, but also been developing some Hip-hop beats. Even though I have put a lot of my time and effort, the beats are far away from completion. Nonetheless, I am currently working on my music based on couple of songs, such as "Beyond Monday" by The  Glitch Mob and "Day 'N' Nite" by Kid Cudi.

        "Beyond Monday" by The Glitch Mob is not a Hip hop style music, but rather a genre of Electronica, and Glitch hop: meaning that it is similar to techno except more similar to hip hop. "Day 'N' Nite" by Kid Cudi is a Hip hop style music. By incorporating some of their beats and style, I am currently working on producing a music that will use similar style drum beats of the song "Day 'N' Nite" and industrial music chorus beats from the song by The Glitch Mob.

        On the other hand, I am currently facing a problem of finding and using right software that would give me the similar or same beats that I want, compared to the song. The software that I specifically want is a program that can detect specific instruments played in the song and convert into separate sound files and then I can only use the drum beats. Nonetheless, if there is no software currently available the only way is to make the beats by myself, which is a harder work for me but not much of a big issue.

        In addition, I am leaving to Korea today to continue my research at my dad's University. Therefore, I think I will find much more software and information not only for music but also about intellectual property by using the university personnel and database.

What is Intellectual Property? 02/15/12

        I was very astonished by how little did I know of the usefulness of getting resources from my local library. I didn't even know the public library provides a database! Nonetheless, by using its database, I acquired two articles about intellectual property, and answering one of my questions; the limit of intellectual property.


        When I read Two Challenges To The Idea Of Intellectual Property by Laura Biron and "Limits in Intellectual Property Protection" by Vera Munch,  I could slightly grasp the limitation of intellectual property. However, I noticed that we first have to know what is intellectual property - before we question its border.


        Therefore, my plan was to find more articles and texts about intellectual property other than just the dictionary's definition. On the other hand, so far today I have failed to find an article explaining thoroughly about intellectual property, but I have found a very interesting and "intellectual" quote about intellectual property. 


        "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it."

- Thomas Jefferson

        
        Looking at Jefferson's quote, I thought to myself of how would I define intellectual property in my own words. I can't come up with it right now, of course, but I am not giving up yet! So until I find and understand the right of intellectual property, I hope my viewers to be patient until I write an awesome post about my explanation and thoughts of intellectual property.