What follows below I relate because I think it’s a useful cautionary tale, about the internet, intellectual property and how, when it comes to a legacy – and I seem to have spend a lot of time trying to protect mine – the thing is, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. See here a few bits of artwork... |
… one (top left) the cover of a lavish new book just published in Australia, Product 45, another (top right) a dummy version of the originally-proposed cover for that book, and two others (below) the cover and a page from my own 1981 book Inner City Sound: What follows is the story of how they all fit together; I think it’s important to take this opportunity to try and clarify those relationships… Some number of years ago now, I stumbled across a website called innercitysound.com.au. What it was, and still is, is what used to be called a tape-swapping service, where fans trade rare recordings of music, in this case by mostly independent/underground Australian acts from the late 70s/early 80s, as in the scene documented by Inner City Sound. Of course I was at once both flattered and affronted that someone would have the cheek to simply appropriate my title like that. I don’t ‘own’ that story as some people seem to think I think I do – nobody ‘owns’ stories – but I do own that branding/presentation of it. And so I got in touch with the convenor of the site, who turned out to be a fellow from Sydney called Murray Bennett, and I said, Look, okay, I might not mind you using the ICS name, because the site is a useful extension of the work the book started, but you have to add some sort of disclaimer, or acknowledgement, and links to the book – and that, to MB’s credit, he did. And so, okay… Then more recently, I stumbled across Bennett’s Inner City Sound Facebook page. I was a bit more annoyed this time because, well, since we’d already been around the block once, I thought he’d at least have the courtesy to ask me first, second time around. But he didn’t, and so, since these very sort of copyright or passing-off issues are virtually impossible to police in the virtual world of the internet, all I could do was again appeal to his decency and make the same request as before – put up a disclaimer, and links etc – and again, thankfully, that he did. I have to say though, I was less impressed by this variation on the theme, because what it largely seems to be about is old farts indulging in nostalgia, and that’s not my thing and certainly was never ICS’s thing – it’s meant to be a telling history; I mean, if, say, the Screaming Tribesmen are getting back together to play some gigs, I couldn’t be less interested, you know, and I don’t think it’s got anything to do with ICS and its real legacy – but again, what can you do? THEN Murray Bennett approached me with the idea, already well-developed, that has ultimately just come to fruition in the release of the lavish, limited-edition book Product 45. It was upon seeing the dummy cover as reproduced that I really had to spit the dummy, and protest, Whoa Nellie! This was now cutting way too close to the bone, and in this much more permanent format of an actual book, I felt I had to rein it in. But because I could also see the value of something like this being out there as a sort of, daresay, ‘remix’ of Inner City Sound, I wanted to try and come to an agreement that I thought could be beneficial to both ICS and MB. It’s like sampling, I told him – you can do it, if you get approval. And I’d be willing to give that approval, given the further approval of original ICS cover artist Phil Brophy, if MB met certain conditions. So, to cut an even longer story short, I invested a fair amount of time and energy haggling and taking many steps forwards and backwards – until one day MB did an unexpected 180º and informed me he’d decided to change his whole approach, thus no longer needed my approval or input. And so all my months of effort were wasted! MB offered me some money for my trouble, but I told him, it’s not about money. MB in turn went direct to Phil Brophy for new cover artwork, and I certainly don’t begrudge my old friend Phil the gig, just as I don’t begrudge so many other old comrades-in-arms taking a fee for waxing nostalgic in this forum that still amounts, either way, to something of a homage to Inner City Sound, whether it actually pays that due credit at any point or not. I don't doubt it's a useful addition to the literature, I just don't care to find out . |