Here, here, and here.

In the most recent development, a quick and dirty taxonomy of speculation and creativity:

Speculation and financialisation of:

1. Past, “public domain” works: here there are works that sneakily resist easy domestication. They are part of an “old school” way of thinking IP. Thus, they are kind of “grandfathered” in as universally accessible, part of an antiquated notion of serving the public good. But, they can be appropriated by capital for the cultural capital that accrues through their use. Case in point, many of the musical selections used in period pieces (I’m thinking Boardwalk Empire here). Also, such pieces can be used free of charge to create new works, which are made in the context of current IP frameworks and are thus more easily integrated into the profit machine. Speculation and financialisation can occur on future creative uses of older works. In this scenario, these stubborn old works must be tweaked in order to fit the needs of property.

2. Royalties on Past Works: as you say, tried and true and currently informing things like the Bowie Bonds and the SBCEA. Here, the global juridical apparatus is ensuring the future profitability of creative works that have already proven their viability, and betting on continued viability. The vast catalogues of recorded music already form a large part of the stock value of major labels and media companies. Here, the property referred to in intellectual property retains a tangibility. A song can be said to exist, and thus it can be made into property.

3. Future Economic Success: …of yet to be known creative work. Here’s where your Idol analogy seems to fit. A populist speculation in which the audiences of the idol show provide, free of charge of course, the “ethnographic” market research needed to determine future preferences. What is a talent show but the (emotional or financial) investment in one or another performer to win? Add some healthy betting and odds to this and you’ve got speculation on future success. Here, the wager builds on the notion of a mental property that exists, but as yet has no specific form. The bet is that it will take form, and that form will have some success according to the logic of exchange in the market for actualised creativity.

4. Future Potential Creativity: this is where marketisation is fully internalised, such that the very potential extant in every human being is what speculated on. From birth, bets are waged as to whether or not an individual will actualise that creative potential at all, or whether they won’t, and this is done regardless of form or potential for success in the market for acutalised creativity. Here the wager is on the moments between thought and action, on the affect itself. Thus, an investor stands to gain if a person steps into some predefined creative role as such: makes a recording, paints a painting, dances, etc. (Or stands to gain if they invest in the default swap option, where the bet is on the non-expression of the creativity.) Here the juridical apparatus takes steps to define and track creativity in order that they be accurately catalogued and reported back to the investment houses. First, through campaigns to achieve the full hegemony of the notion of intellectual property are waged so as to ensure that creativity itself is understood as a property before it takes on a form. Second, through the creation and maintenance of a marketplace for that property, a mental stock exchange if you will, in which potential creative actors are speculated upon. This could be with or without their knowledge, of course.

Capital is driven to expand as it seeks ever more opportunities to intensify surplus value. In the last 200 years we have seen it expand from regional mercantilism, through colonialism, the expansion of the factory, and recently into globalised trade and manufacturing. It also took to the sky in the late 1950s as the “space race” was cast in terms of the cold war between “free” markets and state socialism. In a palpable sense, it was surmised that whoever got into space first would thus prove the superiority of their economic system. The Soviets got there first, followed soon after by the Americans. It is of no small significance that the purpose to which space was put was principally that of communication. And for years we have taken for granted that a) space is no longer contested, reinforced by international scientific cooperation aboard MIR and the ISS and (b) that it is there solely to be put to use by the ever expanding needs of capital, reinforced by the now current fascination with private citizens funding their own space exploration, by renewed dreams of space tourism, and tellingly by continued threats to the public funding of NASA.

It is within this scenario that those who are concerned with cultural freedom and intensified legal restrictions on the reuse of cultural work are now speculating on the use of space for goals that resist those of capital, at least at the level of IP. I think it’s also of some significance that resistance to intellectual property law – to be sure a law of the abstract and ethereal – is in this case literally taken to the ether. It’s also suggestive of the long history of space as the domain of the imagination, “out there” where anything is possible. Space is the place of dreams. In this way, it is refreshing to see discussion that takes place in the realm of speculation and the imagination rather than in the often dry and procedural arena of copyright law and international trade negotiations.

You know who peddles false hope to naive would-be artists? People who go around implying that but for all those internet pirates, there’d be full creative employment for all of us. That the reason artists earn so little is because our audiences can’t be trusted, that once we get this pesky internet thing solved, there’ll be jam tomorrow for everyone. If you want to damn someone for selling a bill of goods to creative people, go after the DRM vendors with their ridiculous claims about copy-proof files; go after the labels who say that wholesale lawsuits against fans on behalf of artists (where labels get to pocket the winnings) are good business; go after the studios who are suing to make it impossible for anyone to put independent video on the internet without a giant corporate legal budget.

At the Guardian.

With mounting pressure from the U.S. – there have repeated meetings with senior U.S. officials in recent weeks – the PMO sided squarely with Moore’s vision of a U.S.-style copyright law. The detailed provisions will be negotiated over the coming weeks by the respective departments, but they now have their marching orders of completing a bill that will satisfy the U.S. that comes complete with tough anti-circumvention rules and no flexible fair dealing provision.

More at Geist’s blog.

The entertainment industry’s willingness to use parliament to impose censorship and arbitrary punishment in the course of chasing a few extra quid is so depraved and terrible that it has me in fear for the very underpinnings of democracy and civil society.

Indeed, the swiftness with which the DEA went through the British parliament is something that does not bode well for democratic processes. A scant debate, a paltry showing of MPs, and blatant ignoring of public outcry marks the very opposite of engaged and responsible government. Add to the this that the substance of the law is largely the construct of profit-driven (i.e. not concerned with democracy) private industry, we have here authoritarian rule by the unelected and the unaccountable. A travesty.

So what, it’s just music and movies, right? Cutlral production plays a massive part in the circulation of ideas, social norms, possibilities and potentials, etc. This move represents the continued imposition of control in the name of profit on the very texts that might hold the key to new discoveries, that might open up posibilities for better worlds. In process and in content, this law is an attempt by a powerful elite to suppress the common, to lock down communication, and to punish those who dare to dissent. It is absurd.

turned out en masse for a public town hall meeting in Toronto late last month, resulting in multiple interventions from record label executives (four from Warner Music alone).  Packing the room ensured that there was virtually nothing heard from education and consumer groups, many of whom could not even attend the town hall since all the tickets were scooped up in less than five days.

See the full post here.