What Does Copyright Mean To Me As An Artist?

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I am a contradiction. In the eyes of the state, I am also a pirate. I download free books, free songs, free images, free movies and free software. Some of it legally, some of it by other means. I am a contradiction. I would never pay to download a Hollywood movie, yet I would gladly go to see something at the local cinema. I am a contradiction. I am an artist and I stand to gain from people buying my stuff.

To explain a little more, I write novels, short stories and articles under my own name. I make electronic music in a duo called Kloudbreak. And I help run a record label called Drawn Recordings. My heart should naturally lie with copyright laws. I should be championing this legislation from the hills. Yet, I feel that these laws are morally wrong. They are out-of-date and, given the ease with which people can transfer perfect digital copies of any media via the internet, unenforcible.

It didn’t always used to be like this. During my teens, I bought thousands of books, CDs and DVDs. And I wanted nothing more than to land a publishing deal or a recording contract so I could give up the work-a-day world. But back then, publishing houses, record labels and movie studios were the gatekeepers. What they said, went. And what they said was that commercial potential is far more important than artistic merit. And it was they who stood to benefit the most from any deal, not the artist. Yet there was almost no alternative, unless you were willing to risk losing a load of money trying to take on these massive businesses at their own game.

Luckily the internet changed all that, and changed it for the better. Now, anyone with even the most minor of creative urges can make something cool with a cheap computer, or even a cheap phone, and they can find an audience of thousands if they’re willing to put in a little work to promote it.

But how do you expect to make any money? That’s what I’m always asked whenever this topic comes up. I usually laugh, smile and tell them that I never expected to make any money from art in the first place. I’m not doing this to get rich and famous. I’m not even doing this to put a little food in my mouth. I’m doing this because it gives meaning to my life, nothing more, nothing less.

This doesn’t mean that I put everything out there for free. With Kloudbreak, we tend to give away about a third of our output and make sure that everything is available to stream in full via SoundCloud. The other two-thirds, we put out through labels who make absolutely no money, simply because it gives the band legitimacy in the eyes of the public. That’s unfortunately how our culture has been built. We live in a capitalist society. Everything, including status updates if you believe the media scare stories, has an assigned value. Without having your stuff on iTunes and all the rest of them, people look down on it as worthless, or even worse, unworthy of their time.

To explain myself further, let me give a brief history of my own music consumption. I went from buying overpriced CDs to ditching them in favour of torrent sites. I had a stupidly large collection during university. I could’ve played those tunes back-to-back for a year and never heard the same song twice. Overwhelmed with choice, most of it was in fact never played at all. I collected it for the hell of it.

Now I don’t do this very much at all. Instead, I tend to buy my music through iTunes, or even nab the odd vinyl every now and then. I do this, not to give money to the artists in question, but because I care about quality and convenience. Don’t get me wrong, I could’ve easily picked up these tracks for free. I could’ve torrented the popular ones or I could’ve ripped the audio from YouTube. But there are dangers of downloading malicious content involved in torrenting and the sound quality on YouTube is bollocks.

So how does all this apply to me as an artist? Do I care if someone torrents my own work? Not really. That is the short answer. The long answer is that I’m just glad that someone, somewhere, is listening to my creations, visiting my website or reading my stories. I owe a hell of lot to all the artists that have inspired me over the years, and I hope to give something back to this vibrant creative community. And I know that if someone gets something of mine for free, they may show their friends. And the more eyes on my work, the better.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love for there to be an alternative system of commerce, where artists could put their stuff on the internet for free and be able to collect royalties from sharing sites depending on the number of reads, listens or watches, etc. However, I also realise that this sort of thing would have to be paid for by advertising. And most advertising is bloody evil.

But let’s face it. Something has to be done. Copyright is unworkable. It was a model made for another age, an age where it was very expensive, time-consuming and downright difficult to create good copies of an artist’s work and get them distributed throughout the known lands. These worries have now disappeared. Digital media is incredibly easy to spread round the world. In fact, it’s hard to stop it from spreading if you happen to make really good shit.

There’s another facet to all this as well. I love the fact that people who grab things from the internet in next to no time don’t always mindlessly consume it. They often give something back. Just look at remix culture, mashups and internet memes, for example. I love hip-hop, a genre made almost exclusively from sampling funk breaks from back in the day. And I can’t express just how much joy I’ve had from watching Bruno Ganz’s Hitler going mental about various topics, from Man United going out of the Champions League to rants on copyright law itself. Yet if the lobbyists, lawyers and law enforcement agencies had their way, thousands of highly creative (and often very young) people would be in prison for nothing more than expressing themselves by remixing something.

So, yeah, rant over. I’d love to hear your opinions, whether you’re an artist, or a reader, listener or watcher of free shit. Please leave a comment below.

Write Something (Anything) Every Day

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This is going to be a little longer than my previous efforts, but I have some important things to share since my last post some three months ago.

I have rediscovered the value of writing something (anything) every single day. I cannot stress just how much this has re-energised my writing over the last few weeks. Even if I write something of little importance, like how I’m feeling right now, or what I’m currently seeing out of the window, or what I remembered on my way to work this morning, I have made it my mantra to record something every single day, without fail. Even if I can only bring myself to scrawl something random in my notebook, or just sketch out a vague memory, I will write it down for the sheer hell of writing it down. It does not matter if the writing is utter shit, if it is never used in any of my major projects, or if it is never even looked at again. With something (anything) down on the page, I can feel satisfied that I have fed the beast within me for at least another 24 hours.

15 minutes is all it takes. That’s not a lot of time out of your day when you really think about it. Doing the laundry or having a shower probably takes you longer than that. And it can easily be done in between other things – on the train to work, during a lunch break or just before you go to bed. Personally, it gives me the feeling that I have achieved something, that I haven’t completely wasted another day. Plus it’s getting me to engage with my writing on a daily basis, making think about the basics of my style – words, sentences, punctuation, paragraphs, scenes, etc. And I also get to do rough plans, set myself goals and envision what I can do with larger projects.

(As an aside, I used to do this 15-minute thing when playing guitar or singing, and it’s genuinely surprising how many creative doors open up for you when you do something regularly. I see it as a positive habit.)

The problem with my previous plan of only writing on certain days was that I sometimes lost the thread of what I was doing, sometimes felt like it was a chore and sometimes had to work very hard to bring things back into focus. The benefit of doing things more regularly (and adding a little more spontaneity into the mix) is that I sometimes get an idea that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my writing nights firmly in place, whereupon I will try to concentrate on bigger projects, but know I have the added benefit of going completely off course once a day, where I’m free from all constraints of narrative, character and all those other stylistic restrictions. For 15 minutes a day, I can revel in my own fantasies, write anything I please and know that whatever comes up will always be there in a notebook – in case I happen to accidentally write something worth showing other people.

And in other (but somehow related) news, I have completely stopped work on my hacker sci-fi film/novel (I could never decide which format to choose). Anyway, I have now decided to concentrate my efforts upon a semi-autobiographical novel that’s been gestating in my head for the last three years – three years of suffering from total writer’s block (though I hate that Hollywood term), upon which the novel is based. The sci-fi thing is completely planned out and can be returned to at any point if I want, but right now it’s time for me to embark on project much closer to my heart.

This train of thought all began with a revelation I had one lunch time. I was sitting in a park next to my office, re-reading George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, all to make sure that I hadn’t stolen too many of his ideas for my own dystopian work (without realising it, of course). I was re-reading the passage where Winston is trying to remember what it was like before the Party had taken over and Big Brother was installed as its undisputed leader. All well and good. But then I found that I wasn’t really reading anything at all. It was just there as a distraction – something for my eyes to do while my brain was elsewhere. After however many minutes had gone by, I realised what the end of the book I was trying to write would be. It was something that had eluded me, the end of the book, for bloody ages. Actually, I shouldn’t describe it as a book at all. More accurately, it was a book that I had been writing in my head, about losing the creative urge, about trying to find inspiration in all the wrong places, about battling with work, time and money (or lack thereof). So, yeah, I came to the conclusion that the book that I was writing in my head would only end when I started writing the very book in question.

It was so simple that I was truly astonished that I hadn’t thought of it before. I went back to the office smiling giddily at my own stupidity. Yes, the only way to end this miserable period away from the page would be to write the book itself. That’s when I decided the time had come to finally get everything written down once and for all.

So, I’ve been writing something (anything) for 15 minutes a day, regardless of the subject matter and with absolutely no plan in my head before I set pen to paper. Sometimes, of course, things just happen by themselves, and I will come out with a scene that’s fully formed and ready to slot into the book. Other times, it’s just random thoughts. But that’s okay. The most important thing is that I am practicing my art every day.

A Time And A Place For Everything?

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I hadn’t written much over the last few years. I hadn’t finished a single chapter in fact. There was always something in the way. Whether it was freelancing to pay the bills, working a regular job-type-job (again to pay the bills) or finding the time to eat three meals a day. Fitting in something as financially unrewarding and time consuming as writing was difficult. And that’s not even factoring in the hours and hours needed to read around a genre, research a topic or sit still long enough to think of some good ideas.

I had the desire to write, stories to tell and ideas to get down, for sure. But I couldn’t find a day to dedicate solely to writing, never mind a string days. And even when I did find a day to myself, I became overwrought with the pressure I’d placed upon myself.

Yet strangely I never gave up on the vague and unproven idea that I was in fact a writer. It was strange how the faith stayed with me through years of inactivity. It was stranger still that I knew I had to get something down when one of those rare free days came along, but that I could only watch as I filled the hours with other distractions.

I put it down to romantic notions of waiting for inspiration. I put it down to not having enough time when I had a job. I put it down to not having enough money when I didn’t.

Only later did I realise the answer to my problems was simple…

Now I have a routine! I’d never even considered it before. I thought that the creation of art was an unpredictable, spur of the moment, thoroughly zen activity. That it involved channeling flashes of inspiration, being attuned to ideas in the ether and writing yourself into a state of mental exhaustion. That it was the be all and end all of life.

But sticking to a routine, where even the time I stop writing has been decided, is probably the greatest thing I’ve done this year. The other part was organising my own space – a little bedroom/office with a desk and a chair. This is my retreat from the outside world. I have my keyboard, my notes and my time limit. No distractions, except a little music to stir up the emotions or to block out other people’s maybe.

Every week, then, without fail, I write for two hours a night from Monday to Wednesday. Maybe I’ll add a Thursday if my girlfriend is out or a Sunday morning if nothing much else is going on. But it is these three precious nights that have given me the bug again. It is these nights that I have made as sacred as drinking three pints after work on a Friday. It is on these nights that I lock myself away and get down to business.

And it’s proven fruitful beyond all my expectations. In a couple of months I’ve planned an entire sci-fi novel (maybe a trilogy). I’ve even pinned up important plot notes on a cork board, written detailed character profiles and sketched out the entire political history of my fictional city. Amazing. Just stick to the routine and the rest takes care of itself.

Now I’ve got some time off from work over the Christmas period to really indulge myself. By the time 2012 begins I will have written my first chapter.

Henry Miller’s Writing Commandments, 1932-1933

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Henry Miller in Paris

This second Henry Miller post once served as a guide to keep him productive and on point. And even though it is personal to Miller (during the time he was working on Tropic of Cancer and Black Spring), I think all writers can take inspiration by applying variations of these simple rules. After all, this is the period in which Miller found his true voice and began to set the literary world alight.

  1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
  2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring”.
  3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
  4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
  5. When you can’t create you can work.
  6. Cement a line every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
  7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
  8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
  9. Discard the Program when you feel like it – but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
  10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
  11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

Henry Miller’s Daily Writing Programme, 1932-1933

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Henry Miller on Bike

Of course, most writers have a day job, myself included. Most do not have the freedom to commit every day to writing, even if we’d like to. Yet I find these privately written notes from Miller’s Tropic of Cancer period incredibly useful. Perhaps they can serve as a guide for your Sundays, or one of those rare days off that you decide to dedicate solely to writing?

Mornings:

If groggy, type notes and allocate, as stimulus.
If in fine fettle, write.

Afternoons:

Work on section in hand, following plan of section scrupulously. No intrusions, no diversions. Write to finish one section at a time, for good and all.

Evenings:

See friends. Read in cafés.
Explore unfamiliar sections – on foot if wet, on bicycle, if dry.
Write, if in mood, but only on Minor program.
Paint if empty or tired.
Make Notes. Make Charts, Plans. Make corrections of MS.

Notes:

Allow sufficient time during daylight to make an occasional visit to museums or an occasional sketch or an occasional bike ride. Sketch in cafés and trains and streets. Cut the movies! Library for references once a week.

Writing 101

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Some brilliant tips for beginners from V.S. Naipaul:

  1. Do not write long sentences. A sentence should not have more than ten or twelve words.
  2. Each sentence should make a clear statement. It should add to the statement that went before. A good paragraph is a series of clear, linked statements.
  3. Do not use big words. If your computer tells you that your average word is more than five letters long, there is something wrong. The use of small words compels you to think about what you are writing. Even difficult ideas can be broken down into small words.
  4. Never use words whose meaning you are not sure of. If you break this rule you should look for other work.
  5. Avoid using adjectives, except those of colour, size and number. Use as few adverbs as possible.
  6. Avoid the abstract. Always go for the concrete.
  7. Every day, for six months at least, practice writing in this way. Small words; short, clear, concrete sentences. It may be awkward, but it’s training you in the use of language. It may even be getting rid of the bad language habits you picked up at the university. You may go beyond these rules after you have thoroughly understood and mastered them.