S1L45 – “Intellectual Property” The debut of Miss Julyrain Arpeggio
I decided to pull a classcard “blind” just to really be able to call on someone with the highest degree of randomness.
“Miss Julia Regina Arpeggio?” Wow, I thought, at last a PROPER name! When I read the name, a chubby cute girl stood up wearing a silk scarf around her neck. She had a guitar hardcase on the floor but when she thought I wasn’t looking, I was actually spying on her out of the corner of one eye. She must be using the hardcase for a double purpose because when she flipped it open, I didn’t see a guitar inside. It contained books—several volumes of Supreme Court Reports Annotated (SCRA)! Strangest thing I’ve ever seen in law school campus.
“Miss Arpeggio, you are another one of those people whose parents couldn’t decide between two names which one to give you, huh?”
“I guess so, sir. That’s why I just combined my two names into a short one with just three syllables. I nicknamed myself Julyrain,” the girl said.
“July Rain? Those are TWO words, and they’re rather inaccurate, too, because it really rains the hardest around August,” I said. She just laughed.
“Alright then, it’s YOUR name so I’ll let you decide, Julyrain—one word.” I said. “Is that a guitar hardcase you’re stepping on?”
“It is, sir and if she wasn’t standing on it I’m actually taller than her!”
“Quiet, Miss Deema!”
The girl stepped off the guitar case, I felt instant remorse for even pointing it out.
“No, no, no—you can stay on top of your guitar case there, if it makes you happy,” I said.
“Sheryl Crowe, sir.” She said cryptically.
“Sheryl who??”
“You said ‘If it makes you happy’—that’s a rock song, sir, and Sheryl Crowe sang it. She wrote it too.”
“Did she now? Okay, I’ll take that under advisement, ” I said, “anyway, we don’t have to concern ourselves with song lyrics right now, it’s only words.”
“The Bee Gees.”
“What?” I said.
“You said ‘It’s only words’ sir, that’s the ending line of Barry Gibb’s song ‘it’s only words and words are all I have to take your heart away.”
“What are we, playing ‘Name that Tune’ now??” I exclaimed. It seemed every phrase I say reminded her of some song. So I’m guessing she must be some kind of musical genius, “what are you, Miss Arpeggio, a walking Jingle magazine?”
“A walking what magazine, sir?”
Oh, no—she’s too young. She’d never heard of Jingle Magazine, that legendary 1970’s chord book which was the teenager’s bible before there were MP3 players, before iTunes and Spotify.
“Never mind, Miss Julyrain. I just thought you might have been around already to remember song hits magazines of the 70s,” I said.
“No, sir, I’m from the 90’s. But I sing many songs from before my time, including many from the 70s. We call them ‘retros’ they’re actually ‘trending’ these days and they comprise the setlist for many gigs,” she said.
“Oh, so you’re a professional singer!” I said. I have a lot of respect for folksingers. I used to be one myself and I had gigs at ‘Fireplace’ in Assumption Road when the place was owned by Daisy Macapanpan, a history professor of UP Baguio. I have many lovely memories and some of my contemporaries are also lawyers now. Folks like Attorneys Bubut Olarte, Nestor Mondok, Alan Mazo, Richard Cariño, Monroe Tabingan—we were all self-supporting students who came from ‘modest’ families (meaning we were poor!) and worked our way through college. So we sang in places called Cuckoo’Nest (later renamed Gingerbread House) , Fireplace, Cozy Nook, Magoo’s Pizza, and Wagon Wheels in Marbay. We did ‘plakados’—that’s the term we used if you could sing a song exactly as it sounds on the vinyl record—of singer-songwriters of the era: James Taylor, DonMcLean, Jim Croce, Paul Simon…I was having flashbacks when Miss Arpeggio interrupted my reverie.
“Are you okey, sir?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry,” suddenly I was back in real time. “You sent me back through time when I heard you say you were a folksinger. So… do you do ‘amping’ or busker?” I assumed she knew the jargon—‘amping’ meant you sang indoors using guitar amplifiers, busker meant you performed street-art music totally “unplugged”’ or “all-acoustic.”
“Little bit of both, sir, and I have my own YouTube channel.” Miss Julyrain said.
“You have your own YouTube channel?? And you’re still in the college of law??” I exclaimed.
“Is that against the rule, sir?”
“No, no, no—it’s okay. I was just wondering…because if one or two of your videos went viral, you’re riding around in a limousine all of a sudden. I don’t think you’d still want to be a lawyer then—but you’ll be HIRING a lot of lawyers, especially the ones who specialize on intellectual property, which is what I wanted to discuss with you tonight, class.”
These lecture intros are really getting longer and longer. I need to do something about that, I thought.
“Listen to me carefully class. It used to be that the most valuable possessions are tangible goods—you know, land, buildings and such. But you have to realize that although God hasn’t stopped making people, He had stopped making land a long time ago. So you cannot add anymore to the ultimate tangible property, which is land. What else comes from land, Miss Julyrain?”
“Everything, sir! Food and other farm produce, and all raw materials used to make everything from paper, houses, cars, to cellphones, everything we own, they all trace their roots back to the land,” the singing girl said.
“That’s right, class. So if man were to create a new source of wealth, it has to come from property that exists in another dimension—the virtual dimension. I’m talking about property that is real only by legal fiction. Something that exists only in our minds, that’s why they’re called….?”
“Intellectual property!” the whole class chorused. Finally it was clear to them what the concept was.
“Miss Julyrain, do you write your own songs?”
“Yes, sir! I do write many original materials, or sometimes I do covers,” she answered.
“You do covers? Like how? You stitch and sew them from cloth?”
The class laughed. There goes that generation gap thing again.
“No, sir, a ‘cover’ is when you take an existing song written by somebody else, tweak it a little bit, you know, change the pitch, change the tempo, change the arrangement of the instrumentation, or stylize the singing…but you retain the original chord progression. THAT’S a cover.”
“I see…well, in that case, class just remember everything your classmate Miss Julyrain just said and know that under the law on intellectual property, THAT is called ‘derivative work.’ It is an intellectual property in its own right, distinct from the original work itself. But it’s only recently that people could finally make that fine distinction.” I said.
“Oooh, so that’s why YouTube allows covers now. They used to take down covers, or block videos of covers,” Miss Arpeggio said.
“Yes, YouTube will not take down cover channels anymore, “ I confirmed, “but you STILL can’t monetize cover videos for yourself. Each time a video gets a view or a ‘like’ it earns money but it’s given to the original composer of the song, which I think is fair. The only exception is…? Miss Julyrain?”
“Music in the public domain, sir. Songs whose original composers died more than 50 years ago.”
“Correct. So if you want to rearrange the classic ‘Happy birthday’ song and it gets a million hits, you just made a thousand dollars. THAT is how hot intellectual property can be,” I said. “Of course, it all sounds much easier said than done. Remember, for everything you do there’s a hundred million other guys trying to do exactly the same thing. Everybody think’s he’s the next Justin Bieber, or the next Taylor Swift…”
Deema said, “Or the next July Rain, sir!”
“Indeed,” I said, “you just don’t know who it will be next. Sometimes, you could in the same city as the next superstar “
“Or the same classroom!” Deema said.
“Of course, it’s not just all about the legal stuff, you have to have the artful talent—which you cannot get from any law school. I can teach you law but not the blues scale, I mean, go easy on me.”
“Adele, sir.” Julyrain said.
“Who??”
“You said ‘go easy on me’ that’s Adele’s newest single, sir. Just released a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh, we’re BACK to playing ‘Name that Tune’ are we?” I said, and the class burst out laughing.
I don’t know what’s wrong with this Alpha section. It seems even just the slightest push gets them laughing right away. I mean, are these bubbly jerks TOO HAPPY or what??
“Poetry is a gift class, it’s a gift from God Himself. So if you have it, be eternally grateful because that means the same God who is already retired from creating land—from creating matter itself—is still active in YOUR life, creating dreams in your heart for you!” Miss Julyrain wiped a little tear that rolled down her red rosy cheek.
“I’ve always asked God for that gift myself, but I think my request is still pending,” I said.
“No, sir, He gave it to you already,” Julyrain said, “you just don’t USE it.”
“Me? Gift of poetry? Naaah….” I said. “I couldn’t compose a line of rhyme, if God gave me all the time…and I certainly can’t sing, blending words with music not my thing,”
Miss Julyrain gave me that look that says, “Duh??” and the class laugh again. About what, I have no idea.
“Maybe you should try collaborating first, sir, you know, work with somebody,” Deema said, “why don’t you try your WORST rhyme right now sir?”
“Well…that would be, ‘roses are red, violets are blue, most poems rhyme but this one doesn’t!”
Without even batting an eyelash, Miss Julyrain said, “like many I’ve tried, like many I’ve failed, but oh, my Lord who HASN’T?”
THAT’S IT. Everybody stood up and gave her a standing ovation. Kata, the English major slash creative writer crossed all the way from the other side of the classroom to give Julyrain a tight hug.
I could just barely hold it together myself long enough to say “Class dismissed!” before taking out my own handkerchief.
Meanwhile all her classmates started milling around her. Deema, Kata, Hannah, Joanna, Grippa and all the other girls of Alpha Section were taking turns hugging Miss Julyrain, until she said, “Woh, woh, guys ..go easy on me!”
Did she just say it, or did she actually SING it? I’m not sure.
About the Author
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”
About Images: Some of the images used in the articles are from the posts in Atty. Joel Rodriguez Dizon’s Facebook account, and/or Facebook groups and pages he manages or/and member of.