It is of course obvious that copyright issues are also a big problem in music education, if we consider using technology in music learning. In fact, in my view, they are the biggest thing that hinders pedagogical development along with issues relating to the culture of learning and teaching. The copyright system is very complex, and complex systems tend to be hard to adjust, they change very slowly. There are too many different organizations handling copyrights, for whom we are obliged to

1. write reports of the music we use in online learning and
2. pay, and in some cases ask separately for permissions.

In Finnish copyright law, the owners of copyright have right to ban the use of their works in general (in education etc.) – even if copyright organizations handle their business. That is pretty dangerous for education. In Finland, copyright law is handled under the ministry of education, which of course creates contradictions within the establishment. Similarly, music teachers who are musicians are left with similar dilemmas: from one point (composer, musician) they should value copyright and from the other (teacher) they should be able to use music in their teaching as well. Since nowadays music education covers such a wide range of musical styles, it is impossible to buy every musical peace you use in teaching. When just about “all music” can be found (legally or illegally) now from Youtube or other basically legal services, banning educators for instance to copy songs from legally purchased CD’s for a group of students in an online course is ridiculous.

In Finland, we do not yet have licensing systems for the use of music in educational online environments, only in f2f-settings. Nor have we anything that resembles the fair use. The organizations with all their lawyers have the power to interpret the law: in one case they decided that video mediated distant teaching of protected pieces of music should be liable to payment & permissions, since the sound is stored (!!) for some milliseconds in the computer’s or video conferencing device’s cache :d. Some have claimed, that teaching can be seen parallel to commercial field, since the teacher gets paid from teaching (!!).

But from my point of view in online learning the bigger issue is with active learning, such as making arrangements (you actually could not write one without permission!!!), analysis etc., by students and displaying them in an online environment (closed space). Students should be able to practice arranging and share their works in a (closed) online environment for others to view and comment etc. BUT perhaps we should leave the historical materials for less attention and concentrating on creating new – value composing, remixing and recycling our own materials instead of those owned by the corporate field. This of course requires a huge change of thought within the music institutions. CC is a wonderful tool for this culture. In any case, the value of historical materials – especially those who ban the use of their works (e.g. the Beatless, ACDC..), is decreasing, and people are increasingly interested in the music that their peers are making. This was found again in a master’s thesis I supervised recently.

For the IP organizations & the legislators, it is much easier just to ban everything instead of being reasonable and flexible… A lawyer from the organization which handles the rights of recording artists & publishers told me that they do not give permissions to anything that is going to be used as a podcast (!!), this was a year ago.. So they are trying to protect by banning everything. I think it is a similar issue as with, say, some group of adolescents in a residential area breaks windows from time to time, so it is easier to impose curfew, than to solve problems.. And turn this around: it is easier for musicians and especially music listeners to break the law than to obey it. Until recently, you had to ask permission to put your own music to MySpace. Now you just make a new contract, which states that you have the right to do so. It is thus very difficult to teach and learn music online.

So, in education of course, the use of copyright protected music in online learning is parallel to radio or any other public use, instead of “classroom” use. It is sarcastic that one can play music for 1000 people in a school concert in a physical space, but not for 5 people in an online course! In fact, the price for the use of one song in an online course is much more than I got from some piece I composed that was played few times in local radio stations.
When we started the “fight” to permit the use of materials in learning, the officials from the ministry said that schoolbook publishers are lobbying hard to prevent the use of music in online courses. They are trying to protect the old way of education, since that is where their money comes from. The IP owners do not understand the Long Tail: Through licensing or perhaps some “iTunes music for edu” type of service, where institutions could use music for a monthly fee, or perhaps for, say, 0,05 cents a download (or a stream) they could start making serious money in global settings. Instead, teachers and students rely on Youtube (or p2p) for free and often illegal downloads. Times have changed so much from 2004 or 2005 when the law was renewed last time. Now we have MySpace and youtube with legal materials, and it seems that soon Apple is following Nokia and giving music for free with their devices. And so on. The whole system is in the middle of such a huge cultural and economical change, that the complex and old-fashioned IP-systems are falling so much behind all the time. Is education to be the last frontier to impose the old models?

This post was inspired by my correspondence with Paul Draper, who also wrote a blog post about the issue from his point of view!

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