Here's a great CBC radio 3 podcast on the topic of "Who Owns Music?"
In it, there are three suggested 'owners'; the labels, the artists, and the listeners. There is also a question of whether or not ownership is transferred from producer to consumer at the time of purchase.
The final comment that ownership is a legal matter while sharing is for everyone is interesting. There's no doubt that piracy in no way benefits the producer, but 'sharing' is still more inclusive than 'ownership'. I'm not defending piracy, but the notion of owning something that we cannot actually hold is kind of strange, despite the fact that we can still interact with it and engage with it.
My questions are then, who do you think owns music? Do you agree that ownership is a legal matter while everyone should be able to share? How do you feel about the ownership of physically intangible digital media?
To me ownership belongs to the creator. For example, a piece of art belongs to an artist, and if that artist sells it, in a formal agreement, then the art belongs to the buyer. With music ownership, these lines get really blurred, and very quickly at that. I honestly do not know how to answer this question effectively, other than I know that I still feel that, since it is an artistic creation, it belongs to the creator/performer: the artist. I know this is a really basic belief, but it's one that has not really changed for me despite my education in cultural studies. As for your question pertaining to digital media ownership, that is definatly a weird concept to wrap my head around! Again, it is difficult to answer. I can tell you that it reminds me a lot a bout our debates surrounding the ownership of intellect: Who owns an idea? Who has rights over it? I feel that the answer to the issue of digital media ownership and intellectual ownership are related because neither one is tangible, yet we interact with both quite frequently.
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