It’s curious that you don’t acknowledge the disconnect and dissonance between creation and ownership. Jamie merely did what musicians and arrangers have done for centuries which is remix something old into something new and, perhaps, providing exposure and sales for the new.

Handel did it, Beethoven did it, Led Zeppelin never stopped doing it to the point of note for note copies on which they then claimed authorship of the songs. Jamie did it and landed in a boiling pot of soup for doing it.

Of course, IP extremists didn’t exit for Handel, Beethoven, or Zep nor did they exist for those who “stole” whole songs sans lyrics and stuffed them into Hymnals, a lot of which became some of our culture’s favourite hymns which were, and continue to be, remixed into folk, country, rock, blues, jazz, show tunes, electropop, hip hop, and many other forms.

Yes, in one sense (not the copyright sense) there’s a direct link between ownership between the creator of music and ownership. One that should always be acknowledged and supported. Sadly, in the copyright sense these days, in the vast majority of cases the creator of music, through assignment, has signed that copyright ownership over to a label, who then bring billing agencies like BMI/ASCAP and others into the picture all of whom take a cut of sales long before the creator sees one red cent from their creation. IF they ever do.

NOW, that’s disrespect to the creator if there ever has been. And that’s the biggest problem with the current copyright regime and how it plays out in practice. Labels create zilch. Unless you count confusion and chaos as creation.

Yet the labels, and you, demand we respect them and follow THEIR rules as chaotic and confused as they are. Talk about demanding artificial respect!

If current trends result in a complete rethink of copyright and how it works in the real world (as opposed to the *AA’s world) I’ll cheer it on. If that means the death of a concept born in a world of dead tree books and publishers constantly undercutting each other by printing the same title at the same moment then I’ll be there to cheer it on. Megaphone in hand. If it means the appearance of a new form of “copyright” more appropriate for the digital age that ensures creators, not corporations, get paid first for their work I’ll turn my megaphone up to 10 and really get to cheering.

Label’s create nothing. Let’s get that clear from the start.

Alienating fans has far more to do with non-creative entities howling about how creative they are than living in “the hood” or the yard of a high school where two over hormoned teenagers square off.

Give me the new model any day.