by Jimmy Jazz
 

Pirate Enclave/ Rumpus Society 
Joint Communiqué V
 

The notion ART SHOULD BE FREE came to me sometime after Napster and was solidified by the reactionary repercussions sent down from the recording industry. It is an extension or sidebar to the vision of the designers of the www themselves, that all information should be free. They saw the possibility to set up a free exchange of ideas, so the free exchange of Art.

The problem is that artists want to get paid. 

When we look back we can find many examples of Free Art. Peter Plate squatting in abandoned buildings and using his SSI money to print and give away a thousand copies of his books; Abbie Hoffman titling without irony Steal This Book. Yet, the idea has never been codified and organized into action.

If I was in charge -- many people thank god that I’m not, and ha ha on them, god does not exist-- If I was in charge, I would do away with the recording industry. The price of CD’s is way too high and almost none of that price goes to the artist. The cost of CD’s, as we who burn our own know, is really pennies. So most of the money is going into the profit hole of some corporation that writes some of it off to production, publicity and bureaucracy. I would do away with publicity, especially commercials. I’ve never been convinced that they work anyway. There is only one kind of publicity in the new system, the best kind-- Word of Mouth. We can salvage rusted parts of the old machine like reviews by customers and look for un-bribe-able “experts” to write reviews in zines and newspapers. Musicians are encouraged to put their music on the web and find another way to get paid (such as live performance, or T-shirts.)

Whether you believe radio stations take payola does not invalidate the fact that they are simply giant commercials for the recording industry. I would not allow a radio station to play a song more than once in a year. Imagine all the music you would be turned on to.

In the year 2000 an entrepreneur named Gary Hustwit had an idea to give books away on the internet. Writers balked that they would not be able to control unlimited reproduction of their work, they wanted to retain a copyright, because they could not conceptualize new ways of getting paid.

Some visual artists (painters, photographers…) hate the idea of giving Art away, some are afraid to post their drawings on the internet because it can be easily downloaded and printed.

The fears of artists seem selfish and shortsighted. What about the new golden age? What about the transformation of the mundane? What about a world so hungry for beauty that it hung abstract art on the Orange County freeway?

Starving artists are so common as to be cliché, so I would argue that most Artists are already not getting paid for their work. Many Artists think they have to die before their vision will be applauded. Most Artists have to do other things to survive (they work in restaurants, as mail carriers, as lawyers, garbagemen, nurses…) On the other side of that coin a finite number of art stars get overpaid for their work.

State Sponsored Art. I’m against it, because in all fairness there should be something in it for the state-- like redeeming social value, and what does that have to do with art? Ask Karen Finely, Robert Mapplethorpe or Andres Serrano.

Corporate Art. I’m against it. Ask Diego Rivera about the syphilis cells and the jackhammer.

A more abstract argument against exchanging Money for Art is that Money corrupts Art. A rock n roll band’s first album is usually their best, afterwards in order to sell more records they alter or ignore directions from the muse. They are either asked or see a way to appeal to a demographic. When the goal of an artist is to make money, he will consciously or no, make an art that is inoffensive to consumers, and therefore irrelevant to connoisseurs. The writers who sell the most books have discovered a formula, a way to achieve popular success, but usually forsake creativity. The painter Kinkade whose cottages hang in many a living room is not an Artist, he is a craftsmen. He is no different than a garbageman and in a more perfect world would be paid like. Britney Spears… John Grisham…

Poverty makes more interesting art than wealth. The delta blues feel more authentic than light jazz (sometimes called jazz lite.) Poverty doesn’t always allow its Art to be preserved or disseminated properly. The current system does not allow marginal Art to affect the masses. Preservation and access must be improved.

I do not have faith in the professional artist. Perhaps we should let Artists work day jobs or starve while they hone their one masterpiece (I dig Jim Thompson, but do we really need more than the Killer Inside Me?) Later when they tire of suffering, we can use tax money to put them in the Retired Artist Home.

Against copyright. I can find no reason to copyright a poem. Poetry, like the airwaves, should belong to everyone. Religions try to copyright god, but we can see that this is a narrow-minded and limiting approach to extraterrestrial questions of the supernatural. We can ferret out a profit motive there too, and pull the mask off of a tool to protect power. Free Art allows a poet to sell hard copies of her book, charging for the paper, production and shipping-- breaking even is a virtue--  and encourages her to give the work away free on the internet. The idea of a poem is for people to read it, to learn new ways of seeing, to imbibe new ideas, to preserve old ones. Big corporations would love to take that idea out of context, and better exploit artists, but remember they are irrelevant and have been banned. Employees of Bertelsmann might as well start looking for a new job, stockholders should divest ASAP.

Alternative ways of getting artists paid. One of my favorite writers is Hakim Bey. There is no copyright on his book Temporary Autonomous Zone. There is no copyright on Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, nor could there be. Authors should find other ways to earn a living or commit suicide.

Find a lover (or several) to support you. There are men and women out there willing to work, to pay the bills, to sacrifice for the cause.

Look for an example in Jimmy Cliff’s character in the Harder They Come.

Work part time.

Live cheaply.

Jim Carrol did his best work hustling in the men’s room.
TRANSITION

The good people at Dischord Records in Washington DC have always flirted with the idea of Free Art. Minor Threat’s records have “Pay No More Than $3” right on the cover. Since they control creation, production and distribution themselves, they don’t need to sell a million Fugazi records to make an honest living.

Dischord is not a vanity press, their creative vision is validated.

Reg E. Gaines is a poet and playwright who is into collecting art. He says, “Buy Art from local artists while it’s cheap.” If you know someone who paints, buy them some groceries, a canvas and some acrylics, then hang the final product in your living room. Don’t buy shitty corporate art reproductions, instead of buying a Van Gogh for millions -- buy non-toxic paint for kids in the ghetto.

Intellectual property, like the land, like redwood trees, like beaches, like waterfalls should not rest in private hands. How much art has been lost to the world in the basements of museums, is locked in vaults like gold or is decaying in the private study of millionaire patrons? How much Art died in the mind of lawyers, doctors and postal clerks? 

After an Artist dies all copyrights should revert to Humanity. His descendants do not need to live off the royalties. If they wish to profit from intellectual property they should tap their genes and write their own books instead of resting on grandfather’s laurels.

Free Art is a way to free art.
 
 

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