PROTECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Under state statutes, the California Lieutenant Governor chairs the California Commission for Economic Development, which provides support and guidance to the Governor, Legislature and private sector regarding the development of California’s economy.

He is also in charge of writing the economic plan for the state of California.

As part of the economic plan he will write new policy recommendations to Federal and State governments to address the theft of Intellectual Property in California.

When we think of the California economy, citizens often think of High Tech or Agriculture but our Art, Film and Music industries have shaped the world; however, are now suffering due to theft and underpayments, particularly to musicians.

David Fennell comes from a giant Catholic family with his father being the second of 10 children and his mother being the second of seven children. David Fennell is the oldest of 28 grandkids and they almost all went into science, tech, or music and arts with his uncle founding and running a 92,000 square foot art center with more than 90 artists.

David Fennell’s first job after college was Selling NeXT Computers for Steve Jobs who brought art to the computer world when Jobs’s 1972 calligraphy class at Reed College lead him to learning about san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations which lead Apple to develop PostScript turning computer printing from robotic IBM Selectric typewriter font to a new level of art which lead to artistic desktop publishing world which we take for granted today.

However today California art and intellectual property is under assault.

To earn $1000 on Pandora a musician needs 769,231 streams.

Recently in one year the co-writer of Bon Jovi’s biggest hit received a half billion streams between Pandora and Spotify and only got paid $6,000.

Talk about “Living on a Prayer.”

Gene Simmon’s Kiss famously stated ‘Rock is dead’ because artists like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Prince, and Jimi Hendrix don’t have any major successors due to record companies and lack of support for them even though there are many talented young musicians out there. Nobody is investing in new artists because anyone who invests in the new artists cannot get paid as people only download or listen to the songs on the internet instead of buying them.

The record streaming services are worth billions and YouTube’s parent company has at times surpassed a market cap of $2 trillion making no content itself but simply being the website that you access The Beatles videos. Any 8 year old girl can make a website. It take years of work and talent to create “Let It Be.”

However, with the streaming services it is not time to “Let it Be”

Art and music like tech is a high risk investment.

For every big hit you invest in 10 or maybe 50 are failures but that big hit will pay you back.

The last 5 albums to sell 1 million copies in the USA were all established artists except for Billy Elish they were aging established musicians.

California is still the place creative people come from around the world to follow their creative dreams in music and art.

But, nobody will invest in new art unless the investors can make their money back.

It is time for the California Lieutenant Governor to use his power as Chairman of the California Commission for Economic Development and write and negotiate a plan so that artists, filmmakers and musicians get paid for their work, and also insure copywrites are enforced overseas as the Lieutenant Governor also acts as the economic trade ambassador for California.

Elect David Fennell Lieutenant Governor and he will protect artist intellectual property and generate music and art for the next generation.