been a lot of work on interactive music done over the last few decades. the use and application was VERY obscure, mostly stuff you heard on college campuses, or perhaps locked deep in a computer lab in the basement of said college.
when i was doing soundtrack work for videogames in the 80s and 90s, the idea of an everchanging background score was a sort of 'holy grail' for many composers.
in general it was hard slogging work, semi-successful and just not worth the cost in time or money.
several of us persevered, however. tom white of the MMA has supported this wild-eyed stuff since the mid-90s, worked with chris grigg to establish a working group devoted to the subject, and it's just now being ratified. here are links to the original work, and i think the most recent mentions are here.
additional information relating to the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group can be found here.
...this isn't very easy to digest. it's important foundation, though, as it touches on MANY issues that composers are about to face - for example, if a music format which is itself a 'container' for many files can be deployed as a generic solution, those individual sounds and control data are portable, and identifiable. within that notion, it suddenly becomes possible [and mandatory] to work out how to 'watermark' things like authored phrases, hooks, drum samples, etc so that the original creators can be credited.
further, it's important to make sure that creators get that credit. if one 'collaborator' gets paid, everyone should. end of subject.
the music industry currently enjoys a lot of slop in how they account for individual creative work. amidst all the hullaballoo about sampling, many practitioners never see profit for their work, itself simply appropriated and used by someone else and if they're caught, then they must be sued. ...and that costs money, and most people who make music do not make enough money to justify the time or cost to pursue legal action.
ASCAP and BMI play hob with composers/creators. unless you're a big artist with big lawyers, you don't get proper accounting for royalties, and often your royalties go to other composers with more prominence, or even to 'services' of questionable worth.
this is a subject worthy of its own blog, way too big for us to even want to approach.
...but i think that it should be considered in the background - if i make an 'interactive music' piece, hand said piece off to strangers and someone else takes my work to create an 'original object' that yields profit, i'm part of that process, and i should be rewarded.
not so much for ethics, or profit, but to maintain _my_ inspiration so that i can continue to inspire others...
i'm digressing, so i'll just leave it at that for now. lemme know if the linked articles cause any headaches... :D
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Credit is what's destroyed this world; creative people want their content to survive and they need to demand just due!
If some legacy work gets muddled in the legalese proprietaries of collaboration, everything's out of sync, everting into nobody's right to create and everyone's right to claim rights, which inevitably all everts to craziness and the aristocracy still owning the poor artists and their work.
Rant over & out!
yipes. well, i was going to make a feeble attempt to promote lessig's work with Creative Commons, but now i'm not so certain.
...this is going to muddle quickly if i take much of a stand. i know that google isn't looking quite as benevolent as they once were, and i know that CC is starting to smell corporate to some. having said that, lessig's got a new book out:
"Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy"
and i've liked his writings so far. there's a free opening/signing for the book on october 29 at the hotel W downtown, i'll be there. see you there, perhaps?
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