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 Why We Think Music Should Be Free |
Posted by Roblimo on Friday June 09, @12:00PMfrom the ruminating-and-rambling dept.
This is not a diatribe about copyleft. It's an exploration of ways "music delivery" has changed over the last three decades, and why these changes have led to a commonly-held belief that music can be downloaded or exchanged without paying a dime to the artists who wrote and played the songs. (more below)
When Music Was Live
When I was growing up in the sixties, every school dance had a live band. Almost every bar in every Holiday Inn featured live music. Upscale wedding receptions and Bar Mitzvahs offered wide-open employment opportunity for musicians. So did lots of other events, down to and including car wash openings. Small bars and coffeehouses universally featured folk or acoustic rock acts, and "old people" -- who were the age then that I am now -- had piano bars and swing dances that catered to their taste for pre-rock tunes.
Not all of the local musicians were much good, but at least they were human. The popular image of a semi-professional musician back then was of a dreamer who hoped to make it big someday, but was working a day job and playing on weekends, either steadily in bars or other places that had music all the time, or doing one-off gigs like weddings and school dances.
High school bands and choirs, at that time, were vocational education. If you learned to sing (at least more or less) in tune and to knock out four or five chords on a guitar and then got together with a couple of friends to buy instruments and amplifiers, you could get up a repertoire of 20 or 30 songs and (unless you were truly horrid) get enough gigs to pay for the equipment and have some money left over. There was a market for almost any kind of music you wanted to play, from classical to be-bop to Balkan folk dance tunes to top-40 rock. I happened to like folk and country, and while I never put much effort into trying to professionalize my musical efforts, I mananged to earn a little side money during my high school years playing fiddle and guitar either alone or with friends' groups. I was not very good, but I could stay in tune and play, as Arlo Guthrie put it, "with feeling." And this was all it took to get paid for playing music in Southern California and Southern Arizona back then.
The Twin Evils of Disco and Music Videos
I got my first inkling of a musicianless future the day Tucson, Arizona's first "disco" opened. This was in 1969, I believe. It was the first bar in the area to offer dancing and music without a live band. Instead, they had a guy playing records, backed by rudimentary special effects like strobe lights and a fog machine. Before long the place had lines outside the door, not only because of its novelty but because it had no cover charge and charged lower drink prices than any other dance bar in town. Sodas, as I recall, were 25 cents, and beer started at 50 cents per glass. Prices at live music bars were generally twice that high during hours when they had music playing.
Many people ignored the disco bar. We all had records at home, the reasoning went, so why go downtown to hear someone play records? If you went out, it was to hear real music, played by people you could watch and might even know, not to listen to some sort of glorified radio program done in person by a disk jockey whose only contribution to the music was to shout incoherently between songs.
On the other side of the country, at about the same time, a Baltimore City government employee named Fil Sibley was doing something just as insidious, in its own way, as replacing live musicians with record players: he was videotaping live concerts performed not only by local groups but also by big-name touring bands that played at the Baltimore Civic Center. Fil did this with city-owned equipment on his own time. He also borrowed the city's portable videotape equipment to show his tapes at local bars, and often interspersed the video showings (which were, in those days, black and white and had decidedly low-fidelity sound) with his own comments about the live shows at which he had made the tapes. In effect, Fil invented not only the music video, but also became one of the world's first video jockeys.
A bar owner could hire a disk jockey or one of the (then rare) music videographers like Fil for a lot less than the cost of hiring even the most mediocre live band -- and have his place filled with the latest Rolling Stones hits instead of whatever grab-bag tunes second-string local bands had managed to learn from the radio or sheet music or had written themselves. If a DJ only managed to drag in half as many patrons as a live band, that was okay; DJs typically cost less than one fifth as much as a live band. For a bar owner who was barely making a profit, this was an attractive deal, and for people who could barely afford to go out at all, the lower drink prices at "canned" music joints made them more attractive, most of the time, than bars that featured live musicians.
The canned music infection spread like Ebola through a pack of green monkeys. High school student governments found that they could hire DJs instead of bands for dances, cut admissions charges in half, and put more dance profits than ever into their activities funds. Couples getting married on tight budgets started hiring DJs or VJs for their wedding receptions. It didn't happen in one day, but over a short span of years the music died -- and was replaced by recorded copies.
Turning Music Into Gold
Each live performance is a unique event. You're either there for it or you're not. A record, tape or videotape is essentially static. Every time you listen to a particular recording of the pop song, "Daydream Believer," it sounds the same, even though John Stewart, who wrote it, did not sing the same lyrics to it in every performance, and often turned this piece of heavily covered top-40 pap into a sly commentary on hidden homosexuality with this simple change to the chorus:
Cheer up, Sleepy JeanThe Greatful Dead hasn't gotten all those people to follow them on tour for all those years by doing things the same way at every show. Phish, the Dave Matthews Band, and other younger groups also like to vary their material with each show, depending on audience reaction. At the other extreme, Janet Jackson's shows are so rehearsed that they are as close as you can come, live, to recorded music, with differences from one performance to the next coming purely from the hall or stadium's acoustics and the characteristics of the individual audience. There is no reason to follow Janet Jackson on tour. Her "live" performances are carefully contrived commodities, tapelike right down to the moves made by every single background vocalist. In essence, those shows are mass-produced products, as are all records, tapes, CDs, and MP3s.
Oh, what can it mean
To a daydream deceiver
And an old closet queen?
A lounge piano player is a human being. If you like the way he or she plays, there's a tip glass right there where you can directly and financially show your appreciation. Like the music played by a local rock band you hear at a local bar? Buy them a round of drinks when they take a break, and they'll likely thank you by name when they start their next set, just as the pianist will reward you with a smile and a subvocalized "thank you" when you slip that $1 or $5 bill into his tip glass. This is a human-level transaction. Someone is performing for you and you reward them for it, over and above the money they are getting paid by the bar to work there. Now try to give a gift to Janet Jackson -- or Metallica; or Madonna; or Ricky Martin -- and see if you get any acknowledgement for it. Chances are, if you try to hand one of this crowd something in person, you'll get stiff-armed by a security person wearing a radio headset. If you send a gift to a big-time pop musician by mail, it will probably not be acknowledged in any personal way. If you're lucky, you'll get a machine-autographed picture in return, and if you make a "fan" Web site for your favorite big-time performer you are more likely to get a "stop infringing our copyright" demand from their lawyers than a note of thanks.
Now I am going to take a small detour to blame The Beatles for much of this change in the way musicians related to their audiences: they were the first big-time popular musicians to make albums that were purely studio artifacts never performed in public and that, indeed, could not be performed live. They were fine albums, and I'm sure that when they were being made no one thought about the long-term effects of this innovation. But those albums were the first hint of music as a pure product (in the form of records) instead of music as a service (in the form of live performances).
Gold originally became popular as currency because it didn't change; it never rusted and never spoiled. It was the ultimate interchangeable commodity. Turn music into recordings and it, too, becomes a commodity. (John Stewart released a song called Gold that touched on this in 1979, long before the MP3 format was developed.)
Regulating Commodity Distribution
We humans have been trading commodities for at least 10 or 20 centuries; salt for woven cloth, gold for weapons, food for baubles, and so on. Now and then governments try to over-regulate commodity trading. A prime example of this was the British attempt to outlaw direct trade -- without stops in the "mother country" -- between its colonies in the Carribean, India, and North America, which was a large factor in the American colonies' decision to join together and declare their independence. If attempts to restrain commodity trading don't lead to revolution, they often result in organized smuggling, as happened with the alcohol trade during prohibition and is happening today with Heroin, cocaine, and other mood altering drugs the U.S. government dislikes.
Now that music is most commonly sold as a product and not as a service, it is another commodity to be traded or smuggled, just like any other, and technological workarounds for restrictions on commodity exchanges are nothing new. The clipper ship, which was first developed in Baltimore, Maryland, during the second decade of the 19th Century, is a prime example of of a technology that developed in response to trade restrictions. Its fine-bowed, narrow hull and manpower-intensive tall rig made it an uneconomical method of transportation for most low-cost goods, but its sailing abilities, which were far superior to those of any warships owned by the British Navy, gave it the ability to sneak past the British picket ships that blockaded American ports during the War of 1812. In its day, the Baltimore Clipper was as revolutionary (and, from the British perspective, as much of an outlaw's tool) as Gnutella is today.
Just as the clipper ship's design improved over time, and even faster steamships were developed on a parallel track that eventually took over most maritime trade -- and smuggling -- we can expect to see new Internet music filesharing tools developed as fast as first-generation ones like Napster either get outlawed or neutralized by becoming part of the royalty-paying mainstream music distribution system. And as the law (inevitably) catches up with the next generation of copyright-avoidance technologies, yet another generation of them will appear, and so on, into the forseeable future.
The Entitlement Mentality
Call it creeping socialism or anything else you want, but most citizens of developed countries seem to believe, down deep inside, that they "deserve" certain things as part of their birthright. Food and shelter are obvious, and almost anyone who lives in places where Internet access is common can usually get hold of these necessities one way or another even if they have no earned income. An American, Canadian or European homeless shelter may not be the world's most pleasant place to eat and sleep, but it's a more luxurious accomodation than most people in Africa will ever have, no matter how hard they work.
Books are free to virtually anyone in any developed country that has a public library system. Internet access is becoming another popular library feature, and many libraries loan music CDs and videotapes as well. You can argue that libraries are not free, just sponsored by taxpayers. You'd be right. But that doesn't change the fact that end users can make use of their facilities without paying any more than they pay to listen to ad-supported radio stations or to watch ad-supported TV sitcoms.
Then there's Muzak and other recorded background music you hear everywhere from shopping malls to self-service gas stations to office waiting rooms. Somebody pays for it along the way, but the average mall patron isn't asked to drop money into a slot at the entrance to help support the background music. It's just... there, like the (almost inevitable) wishing pool, and the chairs and tables in the food court. Talk about music as a commodity! You never hear anyone -- not the composers, the arrangers nor the performers -- getting credit for the "sweet strings" sound so stereotypically common in elevators and other public places.
So here we are, all of our basic needs met, with an entire generation now reaching adulthood whose members have been surrounded by free music since they were in their mother's wombs.
Why in the world would the RIAA -- or anyone else -- be surprised that these people now expect to get their choice of popular music products online for free? I see a logical progression that led to the current widespread acceptance of free Internet MP3 sharing, and see no way that the clock can be turned back. Either the recording industry will find a way to adapt to the way today's fans treat music -- as a commodity -- or it will die the same way medieval European scribes' guilds went belly-up soon after printing presses with movable type replaced quill pens as the most common book-production tool.
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The latest installment of Geeks in Space is up at The Sync. Listen to CmdrTaco, Hemos, and Nate talk about the latest events to happen - or not happen in the computer world. Perhaps you are seeking Emmett's series of articles about making music with Linux. These articles include We're Getting There, Mastering, Bandwidth, and Synthesis and Notation And Alphabet Soup. For something different, try reading the Jon Katz essay Showdown With The Pinkertons about his encounter with the Pinkerton Special Services Group. Also, be sure to check out Katz's feature on Napster and Metallica, entitled Metallica's "Justice" And Napster Update: 05/02 05:10 by CowboyNeal: |
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| Need live streaming garage music (Score:4, Funny) by hardaker on Friday June 09, @12:06PM EDT (#3) (User Info) http://dcas.ucdavis.edu/~hardaker |
| So, what you're saying, roughly, is that we need to change the way the internet works with respect to music. I say bands (all bands) need to hold virtual concerts all the time. Everytime they get together to practice, stream the session (live) to the net! Let everyone listen! |
| Wouldn't be so hard, either... (Score:2) by Greyfox (nride@uswest.net) on Friday June 09, @02:21PM EDT (#384) (User Info) |
| You'd probably want to compress your music stream, so you'd need a fairly beefy computer, but the many of the mid range ones these days would do nicely. If you want to add a video stream, you could always grab one of these. Add in a little multi-cast and mix and you could do a live performance on the net without too much trouble at all. Someone had to put all that chaos there! |
| Digital Radio (Score:1) by rak3 on Friday June 09, @12:07PM EDT (#4) (User Info) |
| It seems like one big complaint from the music industry is that people are sharing exact copies of the music that they are selling on compact disc or tape. But can't we just record this same music off of the radio and trade it with other people. I haven't heard about the RIAA cracking down on the teenagers recording music on the radio and trading it with their friends. Once better radio technologies come out, such as digital radio, what will our rights be then? Will we not be allowed to record whats on the radio? This is getting out of hand! |
| Re:Digital Radio (Score:2) by Mr. Slippery (tms@spambefuddler-infamous.net) on Friday June 09, @12:28PM EDT (#53) (User Info) http://www.infamous.net/ |
But can't we just record this same music off of the radio and trade it with other people. I haven't heard about the RIAA cracking down on the teenagers recording music on the radio and trading it with their friends.Sure. I used to have several mix tapes recorded off the radio in the mid-80's...even a few things recorded off TV. (Lost them along with most of my cassettes last time I moved.) Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/ "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?" - Nick Lowe |
| Re:Digital Radio (Score:1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09, @12:31PM EDT (#68) |
| Actually, you can't. The things RIAA (and MPAA) tend to complain about are 'perfect copies'. Radio doesn't have the audio quality of a CD. Tapes degrade over (short periods of) time. But when you make a bit-by-bit copy of a track from a CD, then encode it with an algorithm like MP3 which is near-perfect sound to the human ears (depending on the bit and sample rates) you now have the exact equivalent of a CD and no reason to go buy it. At least, this is the thinking of the industry. :) waiting for a /. password kaosmunkee kaos (at) liquidev.com |
| My only words of wisdom are "Radio Edit" (Score:1) by _xeno_ on Friday June 09, @12:34PM EDT (#75) (User Info) |
| The songs on the radio aren't the EXACT copies that you get from the CD's, and they often have DJs talking over them. Along with the quality degredation suffered from their being transmitted and received over radio waves, they aren't "perfect copies." While it may be possibly to get the digitally perfect to a digital, you still have DJs talking over the beginnings/endings of songs. Sometimes songs are "blended" together with one starting over another. Sometimes songs are cut shorter than the full version. They aren't the same on the radio as they are on CDs or casettes. |
| Re:Digital Radio (Score:1) by Tiny Ant on Friday June 09, @12:45PM EDT (#116) (User Info) |
| Taping off the radio has always been an infringment on copy right. Same as taping television shows. Problem is, that it's piecemeal infringment and to track it down would be not cost effective to track down the offenders. This doesn't make it OK to steal copywrited material off the air, it just makes it highly unlikely you'll get caught (unless you start large scale distribution of the stolen wares then your chances will increase.) Like shoplifting a jelly bean. Sure it's theft, but what store would want to press charges for a penny. Steal a handfull, and you'll likely just be escorted out of the store and told never to come back. Steal a few pounds, and you're likely to have a chat with an officer. Steal a few boxes, and you're now a criminal. |
| Not quite... (Score:2, Insightful) by Svartalf (fearl@!spammers!die!airmail.net) on Friday June 09, @12:57PM EDT (#153) (User Info) http://members.xoom.com/svartalf |
| There's Supreme Court precedents that indicate that this is not the case. In the case of video tapes, one can record a broadcast for the intent of "time shifting", etc. which falls under the context of fair use. Copyright only covers distribution rights- nothing more. Now, having said that, making a dozen copies of the broadcast and giving or selling them away- now that is a Copyright violation. BTW- You're parroting the MPAA's and RIAA's line, which is flatly and patently wrong with regards to the legislation and court precedents. "All we are is dust in the wind..." -- Kansas, Dust in the Wind |
| Re:Not quite... (Score:1) by Tiny Ant on Friday June 09, @02:19PM EDT (#376) (User Info) |
| I hadn't intended to imply the use of recording off the air for "timeshifting." As to record a radio or TV show for listening to at a later time. I intended to imply the taping of content for continuous use (which may include lendind to others) such as the creation of personal libraries like all Star Trek episodes taken from the air, or recording the top 10 radio hits from the top hits show, so that the purchase of those records can be avoided. In this case, when I record a song off the radio or show of TV for inclusion in my library it is infringment as I have rendered a broadcast (single use) into a permanent copy. To me it would seem legal, as no cops would be at my door. Even if they knew I had a library of Star Trek and Beatle tunes taken off the air, what return would become of my arrest? Nothing really. But if I was shipping duplicates of those tapes out to people, would I become more likely arrested? Now you could argue that those people were only paying me to "timeshift" for them. Also, if it was a handfull of people, it wouldn't make sense to prosecute, but at 100,000 copies... Regardless. With the advent of digital radio, will not make it illegal to tape songs off the radio. It will still be just as illegal has it has been even if still no one ever prosecutes any individual for copying a song off the air. |
| Re:Not quite... (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @05:17PM EDT (#548) (User Info) |
| The Supreme Court (and the district court which heard the case prior) both affirmed IIRC that while people might only watch a timeshifted tape once, they did not say that they could ONLY watch it once. The district opinion in fact said that people did accumulate libraries, but it didn't say that that was wrong. Thus, it's pretty safe to say that taping stuff for permanent use off of some public medium (e.g. broadcast radio / tv) is fair use. And copying stuff that you own a copy of is also legal as space shifting (among other things) Besides, there's an old legal rule along the lines of 'the law does not concern itself with trifles.' -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Digital Radio (Score:2) by gorilla on Friday June 09, @01:01PM EDT (#169) (User Info) |
| Actually, it IS legal to video tape programs in the US and view them later for personal use. This was pushed through in the 80's after the VCR producers were sued. I'm not sure if the actual law applies to radio programs, but I'm sure that if a case came to court, it would be consider the same as video. |
| THIS STORY IS A FAKE! (Score:3, Offtopic) by kinnunen on Friday June 09, @12:08PM EDT (#5) (User Info) |
| Anyone can see this is story by Jon Katz, posted by Roblimo to avoid flames. Don't be fooled. |
| Re:THIS STORY IS A FAKE! (Score:1) by CComp on Friday June 09, @12:32PM EDT (#69) (User Info) |
| Nah, can't be, it's partially coherent and even on a second reading didn't make me want to torture small animals in a futile effort to share the misery, like Katz' regurgitations do. |
| Re:THIS STORY IS A FAKE! (Score:1) by P_Simm (ev-9d9@microHELLOsith.com) on Friday June 09, @12:37PM EDT (#84) (User Info) |
| There's no way this was written by JonKatz ... my brain isn't bleeding after I read it. You know what to do with the HELLO. |
| Re:THIS STORY IS A FAKE! (Score:1) by E_D on Friday June 09, @12:37PM EDT (#87) (User Info) |
| HAHA! My thoughts exactly..... All while I was reading this, I kept going back up to the top and looking at the name...not believing it was Roblimo who wrote it... The article just screams John Katz...maybe they collaborated on it ? |
| Re:THIS STORY IS A FAKE! (Score:1) by DrEldarion (hwoarang29@yahoo.spamisevil.com) on Friday June 09, @01:33PM EDT (#252) (User Info) |
| When I read the title of the story, I immediately thought that it was going to be a Katz story... -- Dr. Eldarion -- Slashdot reject your submission? Still think it's important? Tell us. |
| Re:THIS STORY IS A FAKE! (Score:1) by Remote (jesus at oliveira dot com) on Friday June 09, @02:19PM EDT (#373) (User Info) |
I thought the same as soon as I saw even the title, but take a look at this:
The power is in the browser. |
| Re:THIS STORY IS A FAKE! (Score:1) by look (fran0382 -(a)- tc.umn.edu) on Friday June 09, @03:07PM EDT (#445) (User Info) |
| Hmm...maybe Jon's just totally Old School. Back in the day, typewriters didn't HAVE "1" keys -- you typed "l" for both lowercase "L" and the numeral "one". This is famously illustrated on the cover of one issue of the Perl Journal. Luke |
| Re:THIS STORY IS A FAKE! (Score:1) by acroyear (acroyear@io.com) on Friday June 09, @01:35PM EDT (#258) (User Info) http://www.io.com/~acroyear/ |
| it also can't be Katz, 'cause there's actual html links in it, and not just URLs that you have to cut-n-paste in order to see what the hell he's talking about... -- Joe |
| Mark another one up (live music)... (Score:2, Funny) by MicroBerto (roberto@soul.apk.net) on Friday June 09, @12:09PM EDT (#6) (User Info) http://soul.apk.net/ |
| What HASN'T disco killed? Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto Cleveland LUG Member |
| Re:Mark another one up (live music)... (Score:1) by DrEldarion (hwoarang29@yahoo.spamisevil.com) on Friday June 09, @01:07PM EDT (#186) (User Info) |
| Disco hasn't killed itself, unfortunately. -- Dr. Eldarion -- Slashdot reject your submission? Still think it's important? Tell us. |
| Re:Mark another one up (live music)... (Score:1) by ShelbyCobra (shelbycobra[at]theracetrack[dot]com) on Friday June 09, @01:14PM EDT (#203) (User Info) |
| One word, baby... KISS! No, wait a minute... Oh, that's right, it merely subdued them for a while -ShelbyCobra Living life in the right side of the s-plane |
| A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:5, Informative) by worktobedestroyed (benl@acefu_nospam.com) on Friday June 09, @12:10PM EDT (#7) (User Info) http://www.acefu.com |
| The Precedent: In all other aspects of the music industry there is some kind of specific license put in the copyright law that is associated with each medium. For the rights to public performance for radio/clubs, restaurants, etc; ASCAP/BMI/SESAC charge licensing fees calculated on a per listener basis. E.g. college radio station with small listener base pays less public performance than large corporate station with large listener base. Then ASCAP/BMI/SESAC determine from a random sampling (SESAC claims they monitor all radio and is not random) what songs are being played and how much royalties should be paid to each owner of copyright. It is important to note that the artist (or owner of the copyright) is the only party who gets paid for public performance, not the record company (sound recording owner). Television and film on the other hand, have to ask permission on a song by song to use a sound recording (called a synchronization license), but do not have to ask permission to use a copyrighted song (e.g. you can license a song but not the sound recording and have another artist record it). Obviously neither the sound recording nor the copyright are free and royalties must be paid separately to the copyright owner and the sound recording owner. Record companies producing albums own the (usually exclusive) rights to reproduce the sound recording. However, they must pay a mechanical licensing fee to the owner of the copyrights of the songs (the songwriter) on a per song basis (around $.07 per song, per album produced, as monitored by the Harry Fox Agency). How this Translates to Napster: A Solution: ((Total licensing fee Napster has to pay) x (% of songs individual artist has downloaded)) / 2 = Fee to pay sound recording owner ---and--- fee to pay copyright owner. Conclusion: |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by NetCurl (netcurl@gotlinux.orgNOSPAM) on Friday June 09, @12:23PM EDT (#34) (User Info) |
| Is there a difference in what Napster does and what a standard radio station does? I do not believe so: 1) Napster provides access to music that is copyrighted. So does a radio station. Whether or not you tape the song off the radio is your choice. 2) Neither of them breaks the law, their listeners/software users are the ones who CHOOSE to do the law breaking. Napster is no different than the ISP that allows access to illegal web content, or the FTP client that allows you to download MP3s from FTP sites that house MP3 files. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:2) by scheme on Friday June 09, @12:38PM EDT (#88) (User Info) |
| s there a difference in what Napster does and what a standard radio station does? I do not believe so In which case Napster should pay a fee for facillitating downloads based on the volume. Radio stations pay a given amount of money per broadcasted song based on the amount of people who listen so Napster should do the same. FYI, these fees go directly to the artist so the record companies aren't involved. "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity." |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by Andy_R on Friday June 09, @12:47PM EDT (#125) (User Info) |
| Is there a difference in what Napster does and what a standard radio station does? Yes, there is a very definite difference. Napster lets you choose when to listen to a particular track. A radio station doesn't. This is exactly the same distinction that applies to video tapes made from TV, you can legally time-shift a broadcast, but you can only legally play it once. Napster goes beyond that, giving you multiple playbacks to taste. It's the same distinction that dates back to the old "home taping is killing music" debate - getting it once by radio for free is ok, gettting a repeatable recording isn't. - Andy R. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @01:33PM EDT (#253) (User Info) |
| When did the Supremes say that you can only watch it once? They merely said that the time shifters only _do_ watch it once. As in, they didn't want to see it again / didn't find the desire to watch again greater than the desire to not buy a lot of Beta tapes. IIRC the district decision found that other people tended to accumulate libraries of tapes, but no one ever objected to this. Perhaps there have been some decisions to the effect of you only _can_ watch once in the lower courts, but that's odd anyway. Who said that fair use (which this is) can only be done once? It can be done infinite times as long as it's still fair use imho. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by Andy_R on Friday June 09, @02:16PM EDT (#367) (User Info) |
| Sorry, my bad - I was assuming United Kingdom law matches the US, and it seems it doesn't. - Andy R. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @03:47PM EDT (#496) (User Info) |
| That's ok, I was assuming you were an American and you're not. (an unforgivable faux pas, I'm sure ;) -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by gulped on Friday June 09, @01:03PM EDT (#175) (User Info) |
| Is there a difference in what Napster does and what a standard radio station does? I do not believe so umm... yeah... radios actually pay a royalty to broadcast recorded music on the air. napster doesn't. 1) Napster provides access to music that is copyrighted. So does a radio station. Whether or not you tape the song off the radio is your choice. is taping a song allowed? I can't remember... 2) Neither of them breaks the law, their listeners/software users are the ones who CHOOSE to do the law breaking. heck, if the guy at the radio station puts on a song that he wasn't allowed to play, then its not the radio station's fault, its the guy who played it. Napster is no different than the ISP that allows access to illegal web content, or the FTP client that allows you to download MP3s from FTP sites that house MP3 files. but radio isn't illegal. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by gulped on Friday June 09, @01:06PM EDT (#183) (User Info) |
| stupid formatting... ugh |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by JPrice (NOjpriceSPAM@bmts.com) on Friday June 09, @01:07PM EDT (#188) (User Info) http://www.bmts.com/~jprice |
Is there a difference in what Napster does and what a standard radio station does? Yes and no. Without arguing about details like the difference in quality between MP3 and FM radio, Napster effectively operates as a radio station that lets you pick which songs you want to hear (you could argue it's like having a lot of radio stations to chose from). The difference is (as pointed out in the original post) that radio stations pay fees to various organizations and the artist is receiving some sort of payment. Napster doesn't pay any of these fees and so the artist sees nothing. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by nEON_jESUS on Friday June 09, @12:26PM EDT (#49) (User Info) |
| Napster isn't the issue, though, is it? Bands like SellOutica are going to have to face up to the fact that people in general don't want to pay up the arse for music. (Not in this day and age). --Neon The sky over the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel... |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by Saint Aardvark on Friday June 09, @12:28PM EDT (#55) (User Info) http://st_aardvark.tripod.com |
| EXACTLY! I am now blessing your keyboard... |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:4, Insightful) by softsign (horbal at vlsi dot uwindsor dot ca) on Friday June 09, @12:41PM EDT (#101) (User Info) http://www.vlsi.uwindsor.ca/~horbal/ |
| This is, without a doubt, the most lucid explanation of a solution to the Napster problem I have seen. One problem I see is that the guilt will disappear and you really will see a drop in media sales. Right now, if I download some Rusted Root or Phish tune, I really do feel compelled to go out and buy their CDs. I realize these guys aren't exactly the Michael Jacksons of the world and I think they deserve their share. Especially since I like their music. However, if I pay a fee to use Napster, I have absolved myself of that guilt. No longer will I feel it necessary to search in my local independent music shops for these hard-to-find records. Then again, if the rewards for artists are large enough, maybe it might actually be better financially for the artists and their record companies. Someone really needs to look at these numbers, I really hope the people at Napster have thought about this. Does anyone know if this has been suggested to them? Perhaps independent artists - unable to get signed by big labels - could register directly with Napster to receive profits from their work. Whoever said that indie artists don't benefit from Napster was wrong. -- change topic -- Napster could use a little revamping of its search engine, but if more meta-data could be displayed describing different recordings and their genres, I think this could really explode as a way to find new music. Personally, I've discovered at least two dozens bands on Napster that I would NEVER have found through traditional media. Bands like Rusted Root, Moxy Fruvous or even the Brown Derbies that don't traditionally get a ton of airtime. You know how I found them? By searching for a song I already knew and then looking through the "hotlist" of a person that had that song. I then just randomly download some stuff that sounds even remotely interesting (hence the importance of descriptions). This is the magic of Napster. Just because it isn't rammed down your throat, doesn't mean it's not advertising. And just because you didn't pay millions of dollars for it, doesn't mean it won't work. If Metallica and Dre and the RIAA don't get this now, they'll regret it later. Napster is easier to go after. By the same token, they're also infinitely more easier to work out a deal with. Freenet and Gnutella will be real thorns in their side. "Me fail english? That's unpossible!" ~ Ralph Wiggum |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by bitchazz on Friday June 09, @01:38PM EDT (#267) (User Info) |
| See, the whole thing is...Doktor Dre and Metallica are already on the decline side of fame and income...these controversial legal moves are serving two purposes: 1 we all know that even bad publicity is publicity. How many people do you know think that Dre and Metal. are the hot new music you gotta hear? Cause some yelling and everyone wants to see what's going on. 2 (related to the first point) These guys are on the downward spiral...Metal. may still be able to fill concert houses but, for how much longer? Are the the Stones? Dont think so. They are trying to stave off having to live a non-lavish lifestyle as long as possible. Would you do the same? Maybe. Rich people rarely want to stop being so. *shrug* I dunno. I think its all pretty small potatos in the scheme of things. Music is MUCH much deeper (well maybe not with these bands =) and more emotional and important to being human than "copyright" and "revenue streams" (relatively recent ways of hampering how people may enjoy music made by themselves or others) and should be created to enrich peoples' lives not the artist's pockets. Allthough in that Andre whatever his Doctor's name is this is certainly debatable.... Ohh wait, that's that nigga that owe ya that grip ya, there that fool is break him off proper then what's up, what's happinin' ? i'm the man nigga you delinquent, can i get those in? nigga, pay this nigga here [i ain't got yo money] well, yo, check this out, nigga what's up *slaps around some guy that owes them money* what's up? what's up? ya motherfucker [i'll be back though, i'll be back] ya, you ain't never comin' back Never hesitate to put a nigga on his back yeah nigga Rat-tat-tat-tat like that, and i.. never hesitate to put a nigga on his back --A fairly tame excerpt from "rat a tat tat" from "the Chronic" by "Dr. Dre" Dont get me wrong i like some rap. More so when I was a kid, but..anyway..we should be paying money for that? uh drugs are baad...mmmkay... |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by softsign (horbal at vlsi dot uwindsor dot ca) on Friday June 09, @02:14PM EDT (#359) (User Info) http://www.vlsi.uwindsor.ca/~horbal/ |
| I don't necessarily agree that Dre and Metallica are on the outs. Well, Metallica, yes. I don't think they're hurting for money though, no matter how many Fenders they've smashed. Dre, on the other hand, is rolling it in - not necessarily off his own rap - but don't forget this guy was in NWA, gave Eminem his start and has his fingers in a lot of pot. s. Personally, I like both groups. They're both sellouts, by any definition you can think of... but so what? Are they less entitled to make money because they already have some? I don't think you can discriminate which artist deserves more money on the basis of the "quality" of their music. Music appreciation is probably one of the music subjective things in the world. Hell, my parents get migraines from the sound of a sitar - I think it's a great instrument. Let's have Napster paying these people for the stuff they sacrifice their days for - making music other people will enjoy. And let's not fool ourselves into believing that we don't owe anybody anything for the privilege of being able to listen to such great music. "Me fail english? That's unpossible!" ~ Ralph Wiggum |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by ZikZak (figure it out from the URL, guru) on Friday June 09, @01:55PM EDT (#314) (User Info) http://www.io.com/~zikzak/ |
Right now, if I download some Rusted Root or Phish tune, I really do feel compelled to go out and buy their CDs. I realize these guys aren't exactly the Michael Jacksons of the world and I think they deserve their share. Say what? Phish's days as a starving Burlington bar band are long past. They consistantly are one of the most profitable touring groups each year, and I really don't think Trey et al are relying on your $16 CD purchase to make the mortgage payment. Face it. Phish sold out 9 years ago, and all the wannabe neo-hippies are delusional if they think they are supporting some kind of grass roots, "honest" jam band. It's been all about $$$ for almost a decade now. |
| Ok, so maybe not Phish (Score:1) by softsign (horbal at vlsi dot uwindsor dot ca) on Friday June 09, @02:19PM EDT (#375) (User Info) http://www.vlsi.uwindsor.ca/~horbal/ |
| <sigh>=) I'm not trying to prove that I'm a loyal supporter of Phish and a neo-hippie - just that I think they deserve to be compensated for their efforts, regardless. If it was my band, starving or starring, I'd still want my cut. I don't think there's anything ignoble about making money doing something you love. "Me fail english? That's unpossible!" ~ Ralph Wiggum |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by Mojojojo Monkey Inc. (jakecarlin@hotmail.spam) on Friday June 09, @03:35PM EDT (#478) (User Info) |
| Right, I'm sorry that people found out about your cool underground hippie band 9 years ago and ruined it for you. Want a cookie? -o moving forward not backward... upward not downward... and always spinning spinning spinning toward freedom o- |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by ZikZak (figure it out from the URL, guru) on Friday June 09, @06:41PM EDT (#574) (User Info) http://www.io.com/~zikzak/ |
Chocolate chip, please. Actually, this has a whole lot more to do with the fact that it's just plain fun to beat up on the band. They're an easy target. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by Consul on Friday June 09, @02:20PM EDT (#382) (User Info) |
| You assume that Napster users would even have to begin to pay for the service. It seems to me that if Napster exploded as a legal way to for people to download Mp3's for free (via the solution presented above, or some other solution), they could make a killing from selling advertisements. But, if all else fails and a fee becomes necessary, make it a subscription fee. "$50 a year, download all you want. We'll send you a renewal notice at the end of... (etc)." Why not?
|
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by anharmonic on Saturday June 10, @03:00AM EDT (#645) (User Info) |
| are you serious? when have Rusted Root or Phish records ever been "hard-to-find"? it seems many people's reaction to the Napster issue is a function of how much sympathy they may or may not have for musicians, and in some cases, the major record labels. for the most part, whining from the latter on the woes of Napster is a threat to tolerance, considering the ways these labels consistently treat newly-signed artists. for factual "being in a band on a major label" data, visit the following URL: http://www.interstate40.com.au/NEWS/Nov_Dec/Trouble.htm major record labels establish that they are "protecting their artists" when they aggressively battle services like Napster. they are just protecting profits, which is their concern. but not necessarily yours or mine as consumers. (no sig, dig?) |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by softsign (horbal at vlsi dot uwindsor dot ca) on Saturday June 10, @05:20PM EDT (#687) (User Info) http://www.vlsi.uwindsor.ca/~horbal/ |
| are you serious? when have Rusted Root or Phish records ever been "hard-to-find"? I live in Canada. While quite a few of my US friends know about these bands, they are virtually impossible to find in most record stores here north of the border. I imagine the same applies for some of my favourite Canadian bands in the US. Bands like Great Big Sea don't release all their records in the states. So if I was an American fan of GBS, I'd have to look for "rare" finds. Hence, the problem. "Me fail english? That's unpossible!" ~ Ralph Wiggum |
| Protest Sign for the 21st Century: (Score:1) by albamuth on Friday June 09, @12:55PM EDT (#148) (User Info) http://www.piratemotel.org |
| "Less LAWS, mo' MUSICS!" $ chmod 666 soul.tar.Z |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by Godfree^ (me@thisisnurgle.org.uk.NOSPAM) on Friday June 09, @12:56PM EDT (#150) (User Info) http://www.thisisnurgle.org.uk |
| FYI... Metallica has most of its music available on its website (www.metallica.com) in .ASX format (Windows Streaming Media). Statements like "Metallica are against the groth of technology" (I'm paraphrasing) are wrong, and uninformed. WHy do ppl always assume things without checking for themselves? - Damnit, I'm dead Jim |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by orbital3 on Friday June 09, @01:43PM EDT (#277) (User Info) |
| Metallica has most of its music available on its website (www.metallica.com) in .ASX format (Windows Streaming Media). THIS is the way "free" music should be working... I can't believe people don't see this. The artists should want people to be able to listen to their music for free for exposure reasons, but also should be able to retain control over it. Is it really too much of them to ask to say "Hey, you can listen to our music for free, as long as you do it from our website?" I don't think so. Radio On Demand. That's what we need to be pursuing. Listen to whatever you want, whenever you want, as long as you get it from a licensed or whatever website every time you want to listen. Portability is a convenience you should have only after purchase. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by FlameSnyper (derek.moyes@poboxes.NOSPAM.com) on Friday June 09, @01:48PM EDT (#294) (User Info) http://www.flamesnyper.NOSPAM.com |
| Yes, but... can you put those ASX files in your playlist? I don't think so. I like to listen to music _all the time_ so I don't want to have to click on an ASX link for every song. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by orbital3 on Friday June 09, @02:17PM EDT (#369) (User Info) |
| Yes, but... can you put those ASX files in your playlist? I don't think so. I like to listen to music _all the time_ so I don't want to have to click on an ASX link for every song. Sounds like a privilege of purchase to me. You have to pay for convenience. Unless you can come up with a better way for them to make money from letting you listen to their music for free, I'd take what I had and run. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by YIAAL (ghreynolds@yahoo.com) on Friday June 09, @02:56PM EDT (#432) (User Info) http://www.mp3.com/mobiusdick |
| Note, however, that under the current system PERFORMERS don't get a dime for broadcasts of their songs unless they are also the author or publisher of the song. That's because when the current scheme was set up publishers had a lot of political power, and performers didn't. It is just as reasonable to pay performers a royalty for their unique interpretation of a song as it is to pay authors for writing it. The closest we've come to this, however, is an effort by some record labels to claim co-songwriting credit for such innovative things as putting background singers into a recording. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by John Ratke (jratke AT owc.net) on Friday June 09, @03:17PM EDT (#462) (User Info) http://www.owc.net/~jratke/ |
| Interesting ideas. One question I have for the proposed solution is how does Napster raise the money for the licensing fee it has to pay? I don't think banner ads on its web site will cut it. And if it has to charge users, they would have to come up with a fair pricing scheme. That alone would drive some users to other illegal mp3 distribution services. (The question/unknown is, how many of them). Would the remaining users be enough to support it? Would users still be the ones hosting the songs, or would the recording companies be the ones? Maybe some combination. One way it compares to radio is that once I download a song, I have a copy I can play at any time. This would be the same as if I taped and indexed everything I heard on the radio. But the way it's better is that it's my choice as to what to download/listen too. But I think you still need radio or some other service that suggests new things for you to listen to. Sort of like how mp3.com does it based on what you already downloaded. Perhaps that is the valuable service that could be charged for. Another thing to consider is, if this new scheme were to go and virtually replace CDs as a form of music distribution, would it be more profitable for the artist? Personally when I first read this I thought, screw the record companies, just get artists to sign up with Napster. Napster becomes their "record company." Bypass the middle man. |
| Re:A solution -or- my 2 cents (Score:1) by Mojojojo Monkey Inc. (jakecarlin@hotmail.spam) on Friday June 09, @03:47PM EDT (#494) (User Info) |
| what happens in 10 years when the Napster Recording Industry (NRI) gets big and bloated and starts hiking up prices? Just something to think about... -o moving forward not backward... upward not downward... and always spinning spinning spinning toward freedom o- |
| But Napster isn't profiting... (Score:2) by TheDullBlade on Friday June 09, @04:57PM EDT (#539) (User Info) http://www.boswa.com/boswabits |
| ...and never will. Just like ICQ, it's a service that anyone can provide and nobody can charge for while keeping users. What they are selling is hip, with-it, trading-card stock. The employees and officers are drawing salaries from invested funds, with no significant income. Besides, Napster doesn't offer these songs for download, they only connect users. I don't think they are either legally or morally responsible for any illegal purpose their service is used for, any more than recording tape manufacturers are responsible for illegal music and video copying. |
| What if Napster was in the Cayman Islands (Score:1) by SlimElvis on Saturday June 10, @01:30AM EDT (#638) (User Info) |
| Royalty fees are great. But would Napster pay if they didn't have to? (DO Napster users pay when they don't have to?) The parallel between Natpster and radio end where Napster can leave a jurisdiction where they are compelled to pay royalties and perform their service from a place where they are not compelled - eg South East Asia. |
| So? (Score:4, Insightful) by Otter (jsinger@leeta.net) on Friday June 09, @12:10PM EDT (#8) (User Info) http://members.tripod.com/jbsinger/index.html/ |
| I read through this a couple of times to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Nowhere does it address the main point being endlessly disputed on Slashdot - do you have the right to start making music free yourself? I don't think it's a shock to anyone that people would rather not pay for recordings than pay for them. The question is whether it's right to not pay and wrong for musicians to insist that people pay. And another question is why it's wrong for musicians to insist that their licenses be respected but OK for authors of free software to do the same. My opinion on licenses is that "he who writes the code gets to chose his license, and nobody else gets to complain". Anybody complaining about a copyright license is a whiner...I despise people who do complain, and I won't be sucked into the argument. Linus Torvalds |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by Harri on Friday June 09, @12:34PM EDT (#77) (User Info) |
| As I see it, there are _two_ separate questions. One is, do we have the right to do this. Should I, as an individual, feel justified in pirating music, and do the artists have a right to be paid for what they give us? The _second_ question is, given that rights or no rights, people are going to do this, what can we do about it? A (fairly stupid) parallel would be: Do people have the right to not have their homes exploded by previously undiscovered volcanoes? Answer: Probably, but a more important question is, what can we do about it after the fact? How can we adapt to it after it has happened? Debating whether it is good or bad is next to useless. Making a personal decision not to pirate music is also next to useless, except for your own personal satisfaction. If I make a product, which is the same as one you can get cheaper elsewhere, I can't expect people to pay me for it. I _have_ to find some way of producing a better or cheaper product or service. We are being distracted from the issue by the almost irrelevant fact that the people are getting the product illegally, which we can't do anything about. The behaviour of other people, like volcanoes, might not always be nice, but we just have to get on with life! |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by um... Lucas (lk@caralis.com) on Friday June 09, @12:56PM EDT (#152) (User Info) http://www.dioxidized.com/ |
| Should I, as an individual, feel justified in pirating music, and do the artists have a right to be paid for what they give us? Well, in that sentence right there, you stated clearly that you're pirating music. So long as you feel okay with the fact that that's what you're doing, there's not that much anyone can do about it. And since you know you're stealing it, you also are aware that it does indeed have worth. End of argument there. And yeah, your stupid parallel was indeed kind of stupid.... It's one thing if you make a product and someone else makes a cheaper and very similar version of that product. LIke one company making styrofoam cups and another company saying "hey, those are selling, why don't we make some and sell them for 5 cents cheaper?". But that's not what distributing mp3's with Naptster does... You're taking the product that they're (the musicians) are selling and selling it cheaper. The same exact product. This is akin to (in the styrofoam cup example) you seeing a store selling styrofoam cups pretty well. So, when it's next shipment is on it's way, you intercept the truck, kill the driver, deliver the cups to the store, and say "oh, these cups are free". The next time the company tries to deliver cups to the store, again you kill the driver and deliver the cups free of charge. Now, if the store gives away the cups for free, all the customer knows is all of a sudden something that they paid for is now free. Even if they turn around and sell them at the regular price, the customer sees no change in the cups and has no reason to complain. But what about the styrofoam cup company? And more importantly, what about all those poor truck drivers? It might be bad analogy as well, as certainly no one's dying over this, but it's a bit better (i think) than volcanoes simultaneously erupting under every house on the globe... :) |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by Harri on Friday June 09, @01:13PM EDT (#199) (User Info) |
| Should I, as an individual, feel justified in pirating music, and do the artists have a right to be paid for what they give us? + Well, in that sentence right there, you stated + clearly that you're pirating music. So long as + you feel okay with the fact that that's what + you're doing, there's not that much anyone can + do about it. And since you know you're stealing + it, you also are aware that it does indeed have + worth. End of argument there I am perfectly aware of how much a CD costs in the shop. That is entirely different from its "worth". They might be the same, or they might not. I don't think they are. There is music I listen to that I _do_ think is worth 17 quid. And I bought the CD's for that music. My point was, I could decide not to pirate music tomorrow and it _wouldn't help_. There just aren't enough of me ;) [Re. Styrofoam cups] Suppose that you were stealing the styrofoam cups _without_ killing the driver, just to make it a better argument, since I never killed anyone in order to pirate their music. Suppose also that a) the price of styrofoam cups was pretty much unaffordable, b) that styrofoam cups are an integral part of the local culture in this place and that c) due to available cup transporting technology, cups are left lying in the back of the delivery cart all the time for anyone to remove. Doesn't it make sense to start discussing alternative income models for styrofoam cup makers, rather than endlessly rehashing the question of whether it was ever right to steal the cups? |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by Vulpin (vulpin@lagamorph.fur.com) on Friday June 09, @04:47PM EDT (#528) (User Info) |
| But that's not what distributing mp3's with Naptster does... You're taking the product that they're (the musicians) are selling and selling it cheaper. The same exact product. This is akin to (in the styrofoam cup example) you seeing a store selling styrofoam cups pretty well. So, when it's next shipment is on it's way, you intercept the truck, kill the driver, deliver the cups to the store, and say "oh, these cups are free". I would like to point out that I know a couple places where I can get free styro cups, and there isn't a run on the places to get them. Let me put this a different way - look at the linux distros. Anyone could download them for free, yet more and more are buying the box. Just because something is free does not mean that people will only choose the free version. In the case of music, I lie somewhere between the zealots on both sides. Sure, music should not be the commodity. Sure, people shouldn't steal, since it is a 'commodity.' A middle ground should be found, I think. Not that I know what the middle ground is, mind you. Oh, incidentally the RIAA has been found guilty of price-fixing, making them criminal as well. Sure, that does not excuse those that steal the music industry's 'commodity,' but I think that criminals should not be dictating the laws to those who aren't. Email address spamblocked. To reply, kill the rabbit |
| Re:So? (Score:2) by gorilla on Friday June 09, @01:16PM EDT (#211) (User Info) |
| The _second_ question is, given that rights or no rights, people are going to do this, what can we do about it? I think this is actually the only important question. Anyone complaining about it being wrong and trying to stop it has missed the point. Music is going to be copied. It is going to be passed around. You're going be like King Midas if you try to stop it. The question is what can you do about it? Musicians have had a good period for the last 100 years or so. They were lucky in that their media could be easily distibuted, but no easily duplicated by the consumer. That time is over. The consumer can copy music as easily, or even easier, than the 'offical' distributer. The music industry has to realize that the landscape has changed, and deal with it, same as lamp oil companies had to deal with the introduction of electric light. If I was a major record company, I'd be looking at electronic distribution in a big way. While anyone can swap an MP3 with a friend, the big problem right now is finding the music you want. If there was a site where you could find any recording you want, and reliably download it for a modest cost, then this would probably push out the napsters & gnutellas out of the market. |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by Richy_T (slashdot@perihelion.demon.co.uk) on Friday June 09, @02:34PM EDT (#405) (User Info) |
| You're going be like King Midas if you try to stop it <pedantic> Rich |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by hardaker on Friday June 09, @12:36PM EDT (#80) (User Info) http://dcas.ucdavis.edu/~hardaker |
| My opinion on licenses is that "he who writes the code gets to chose his license, and nobody else gets to complain". Anybody complaining about a copyright license is a whiner... I despise people who do complain, and I won't be sucked into the argument. Isn't this quote sort of an oxymoron? It's sure sounds as if Linus was sucked into the argument... |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by mojotoad (toadster@mojotoad.com) on Friday June 09, @12:39PM EDT (#92) (User Info) http://www.mojotoad.com/ |
Nowhere does it address the main point being endlessly disputed on Slashdot - do you have the right to start making music free yourself? Absolutely. I'll start by picking up this guitar here and playing the song I just heard as many times as I like, for my enjoyment and that of my friends. In fact, I'm feeling a little nutty today...I think I'll rearrange that song onto my mandolin instead. Perhaps even the piano. Ah...er, actually I forgot to check with the license from whoever wrote the idea for that song. Shame on me. Mojotoad |
| Re:So? Idea Vs. Performance (Score:2, Interesting) by SlipJig (whistler@bellsouth.net) on Friday June 09, @02:48PM EDT (#427) (User Info) http://www.sessioneer.com |
| Since a substantial part of the original post discussed the idea of live performance, here are my thoughts: For things which can be reproduced, I make a clear distinction between the "original idea" and the actual concrete instance of it. In terms of software, the "original idea" would consist of algorithms and processes which are then implemented in actual code. In music terms, the original idea is the music itself, independent of its recordings. I want to believe that ideas are free and cannot be owned; therefore I think anyone should be able to (for example) implement an algorithm or play a piece of music. However, the actual implementation of the idea ought to become the property of the implementor, IMHO. Anyone who records a song should be able to control the distribution of the recordings; likewise for software. This issue is directly relevant to me, despite the fact that I've never used Napster and don't listen to much recorded music. I play traditional Irish dance music, and although I have no recordings, I do play for money on occasion. More often I play for fun. Still, why is it relevant? Most of the music I play is fifty to 200 years old, and for many of the tunes the original composer is not known. The music industry recently launched an attack against the Irish music community trying to make it illegal to play traditional dance music (or more exactly, to collect royalties from every player). Most traditional musicians treat a tune as a bare skeleton; every performance of the tune is a spontaneous recreation of it. It's different every time. Since the actual tune played is vastly different from player to player, and from minute to minute, the players think of the tunes as more theirs than the composer's. Still, I respect someone's right to record a tune and sell the CD. A settlement was recently made whereby the music is considered property of the Irish people (if I've heard correctly); therefore, musicians of Irish descent may play the music, but no one else can. This is about as ludicrous as I could imagine, but what can you do? |
| Making People Pay Just Ain't Right (Score:2, Interesting) by albamuth on Friday June 09, @12:46PM EDT (#123) (User Info) http://www.piratemotel.org |
| Hell, what's right or wrong about making people pay for anything? The idea of a self or eternal distinct entity / soul is an illusion, or logical fiction as Betrand Russell would say. If you agree with this (and I don't want to start an argument on this) then it's just logical that ownership falls under the same category as the idea of self. If ownership is an illusion, then that means that there are no universal ethics written in stone about buying and selling of "property". So the only thing you have to go on is a social or unanimous contract/agreement on exchange values - what can be posessed, how much to exchange it for, what the currency represents, etc. It looks as if the human race has decided that ideas are properties, and can be owned, traded, liscensced, etc. However the physical manifestation of an idea is merely data (think of radio waves) - in the gand sceme of things it's no more special than cosmic background radiation. The idea is more abstract than modulations in the EMF band - what is the meaning of a song or work of art or piece of code? Is it potential? Is it the effect? So here we are, busily haggling over the price of an idea, but unconcerned over the worth of it's content. What is it going to take to turn people on to the idea of making music because there's something to be communicated or expressed, not some cash to be made? To have a good time, express some politics, share an emotion - a lot of what music does, in groups of people, is break down those compartmentalized ideas of self. Like newborns in a nursery, we all feel what the others feel - total empathic immersion. $ chmod 666 soul.tar.Z |
| Re:Making People Pay Just Ain't Right (Score:1) by orbital3 on Friday June 09, @01:01PM EDT (#167) (User Info) |
| Music IS an expression... but the people who are expressing themselves need to eat. |
| Re:Making People Pay Just Ain't Right (Score:2, Funny) by jejones on Friday June 09, @01:12PM EDT (#197) (User Info) |
| If ownership is an illusion, you wouldn't mind sending me all your money, would you? |
| Make A Few Mortgage Payments And Say That... (Score:1) by tomblackwell on Friday June 09, @02:46PM EDT (#424) (User Info) http://www.websavvy.org |
| You still live with your parents, don't you? Get yer Music News |
| Re:Making People Pay Just Ain't Right (Score:1) by jafac on Friday June 09, @08:13PM EDT (#604) (User Info) |
| oh, you can't share an emotion or express some politics without making it a part of some money-making game. Otherwise those emotions or ideas become REAL. We can't have THAT now, can we? If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is! |
| Re:Making People Pay Just Ain't Right (Score:1) by grumling (egrumling_not@home.com) on Friday June 09, @09:31PM EDT (#616) (User Info) |
| you have a lot to learn about the modern world. Almost everything around you is the result of someone's idea. Heck, even natural landmarks, such as the Grand Canyon, could be thought of as an idea (in this case, as a giant hole).
|
| Re:So? (Score:1) by scotpurl on Friday June 09, @12:48PM EDT (#128) (User Info) http://homepage.davesworld.net/~scott |
| I'll pitch some theories about why folks think the music ought to be free: 1. It's free in different forms (TV/Radio), so why does format change use? (e.g. if you had recorded it off the TV/radio, that's OK) 2. CD prices are artificially high. Thus this is an attempt at regaining balance. 3. Most albums are 80% suck, 15% okay, and 5% good. Some are 99% suck and 1% okay. Downloading MP3s allows us to avoid listening to the sucky parts that the artist should never have recorded. Number three's my favorite. Reminds me of Daikatana. 99% suck, but hey, it's an RPG with new weapons. |
| Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful) by dirk on Friday June 09, @01:22PM EDT (#230) (User Info) |
| 1. It's free in different forms (TV/Radio), so why does format change use? (e.g. if you had recorded it off the TV/radio, that's OK) |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by superlame on Friday June 09, @02:11PM EDT (#350) (User Info) |
2. CD prices are artificially high. Thus this is an attempt at regaining balance.It costs pennies to make the CD. Studio time can be enormous. However, it is paid for by the artist, who typically gets less than a dollar of CDs sold. Advertising is usually in the millions, for a hot group, so lets say $3 million is spent on advertising. And lets say that shipping is $1 a disc (I pick that because that about what it costs to mail a CD. Actually bulk shipping would be much cheaper.). OK, so a CD sells for $17 dollars. I guessing that at least $5 of those dollars go to the seller ( I say that because I've seen a $4 price difference on a new disc between the chain store and independent stores, and indy stores also need to make money.). Lets be generous to the recording labels and assume that they only get $9 for the CD from the store. A buck for shipping, so we are down to $8. If the CD sells 1 million copies in the first month, and $3 million was spent on advertising, that means that $3 from the disc when to advertising, so now we are down to $5. Now, being extremely generous and assuming the artist gets $.50, and the disc cost $.10 (it really is much cheaper) that means that on every CD sold, the record company makes $4.40, or on 1 million discs sold, the record company just made $4.4 million. Assuming that they don't keep advertising the disc, and over the next 3 monthes another million copies are sold, that means that after 4 months, they make $11.9 million dollars. Now, how much did the chain store make? Assuming they get $5 profit (we assumed $8 above to be generous to the record company, now we are being generous to the store), then the stores just make $10 million of off that disc. Of course, no single store made that much money, but it adds up quickly. Now, lets look at the artist. As I mentioned, he has to pay for production himself. Of course, he can't afford it, so the studio loans him the money. We said above that he makes $0.50 a CD (very good for the artist). If production cost $250 thousand, that means that with 2 million discs sold, the artist made $750 thousand. That is nothing to sneeze at, but it isn't enough to retire or, nor does it make you very rich. Especially since most artists react in a stupid manor and spend most the their money before they realize how little it is. Anyway, I hope that gives you some perspective on how money is distributed. I tried to be generous to all parties, but still the record companies made a killing, and the artist didn't do to well (after the brief moment of fame, if he is lucky he owns a nice house, and is back to flipping burgers like he was before he was discovered. If he is exceptionally lucky, then he makes a few more discs and becomes filthy rich). |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by um... Lucas (lk@caralis.com) on Friday June 09, @03:42PM EDT (#487) (User Info) http://www.dioxidized.com/ |
| I'm sure some of you have seen this before, but if you haven't, go read this. It's basically a diatribe by Steve Albini, the engineer/producer that did Nirvana's album, PJ Harvey, the Pixies, etc etc etc. It pretty much puts things into perspective. Shows where each slice of the pie goes... you will note though, that at least the labels give something to the artists where as napster and other forms of free music exchange give them nothing except lipservice about "potential" and ways they "could" make money. Yes, labels can be evil. But you're not helping anyone but yourselves by stealing the music. |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by um... Lucas (lk@caralis.com) on Friday June 09, @09:09PM EDT (#615) (User Info) http://www.dioxidized.com/ |
| See, I'm in the boat that artists will continue to get screwed as long as they let themselves get screwed. No matter how distanced you are from the music industry, everyone should know or have heard by now (especially local musicians)the the industry is out for themselves and themselves alone. We agree on that much. However: When you run down the list and tally the costs associated with producing, promoting and distributing a CD, there needs to be a way figured out that musicians can have access to those funds or applicable subsititutes. I do my part as best I can, laying out jackets, producing short runs on my CD-R, editing snipets of video's here and there, and generally trying to immerse myself in cool local music scenes as they arise. You must consider though, that those costs are real. The good thing that I see of record labels is that they're like banks in the way that a band with no money can get access to funds. Even better for the band is that if the band fails (which Lars said was 9 out of 10... i'd probably think the odds are slimmer) the record company basically eats those costs, rather than sending creditors chasing them into bankruptcy. So... as you're trying to destroy the record industry as we currently know it, remember, that the bands are going to be the first ones to feel the pinch... Someone out there needs to figure out a way to compensate them for their ***WORK*** because otherwise you're just going to screw the people you're trying to save even more than they're being screwed already. Unfortunately, this post is coming sooo late in the game that it'll probably end up lacking any consideration whatsoever... Oh well... I hope someone sees it and thinks some about it. |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by SvnLyrBrto on Friday June 09, @02:15PM EDT (#361) (User Info) |
| >>2. CD prices are artificially high. Thus this is >>an attempt at regaining balance. >I often hear this arguement, but then no one has >any real data (that I've seen) about what it >really costs to put out a CD. Well, for starters, the Federal Trade Commission recently ruled that they were too high. The RIAA has been found, for the past decade or so, to have been engaging in illegial price fixing in order to keep CD prices artificially inflated above what a fair market would pay were supply and demand in effect. As for the cost of PRODUCING a CD... If *I* wanted to get into the CD pirate business, I could do it, with the computer equipment *I* have NOW for about $1 per. That's including all supplies: burning onto the blank CD-R, jewel case, scanning in the artwork, printing the artwork onto the appropiate glossy paper, and, in some cases stapling the liner notes into a booklet. Perhaps it'd come out a little higher if you divided the time to burn a CD into the MTBF of my CD-RW drive, but that's negligable. All this, I could do on less than $2K worth of hardware... I could pop out a new CD every fifteen minutes this way. The only MAJOR expense would be if I wanted to print onto the actual CD, which would require specialised hardware. That's CONSUMER equipment, available from any Frys or CompUSA. Now, if *I* could churn out CDs at a cost of $1 per, I'm certian that a COMMERCIAL repro house (with professional level equipment designed to churn the things out by the thousand) would have no problem producing CDs cheaper by a factor of at least ten. $.10 per may even be OVERSTATING the cost per of a major record label. john Resistance is NOT futile! |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by ktakki on Friday June 09, @02:16PM EDT (#366) (User Info) http://www.xensei.com/users/ktakki/vcr.html |
I'm going to answer your rhetorical question because in all of these discussions about Napster and copyright, I never see an accurate breakdown of costs. Given a $15 retail price:
Of course, transactions between the artist and label are a function of their contract. For a new band, a first deal might look like $100,000 up front and 10% of the net wholesale price, less returns and promo copies. The label will front the money for recoupable expenses (studio time, producers' fees, video, some tour support), but these are recovered by the label before the artist sees a penny. Plus, there's cross-collateralization, where money from your first album goes to pay back the label if your second album tanks (which it often does). The labels try to minimize their risk, of course. Album sales are not the only source of revenue for a musician, but it's the biggest one. There's also performance royalties from airplay and soundtracks and licensed merchandise. Touring is at best a break-even proposition, except for about 5% of the acts out there. It's long been a standard procedure to form a corporation before a tour and then declare bankruptcy afterwards, leaving the creditors to pick over the carcass. Touring is really just promotion for the product. k. -- "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank |
| CD Costs (Score:1) by mitheral (melvin dot willis at sait dot ab dot ca) on Friday June 09, @02:42PM EDT (#416) (User Info) |
| I often hear this arguement, but then no one has any real data (that I've seen) about what it really costs to put out a CD. No spread sheet numbers but something to give you an idea. About five years ago a local radio station (103 the Q; Victoria) and grocery chain sold some CDs as a fund raiser for a local charity. They were C$5.00 and 2.50 went to the charity. The CD's were master pressed and included cover art. I think they produced a few thousand. So actual CD prices are less (probably significantly less when you start pressing 100,000+) than 2.50 a piece. Of course The Q already owned all the content but from what I've seen paying the artist isn't a big chunk of the cost of a CD. |
| Re:CD Costs (Score:1) by jafac on Friday June 09, @08:34PM EDT (#612) (User Info) |
| My church has a band perform at worship service (California non-denominational), they're pretty good and all, and they produce their own CDs, and retail them for about $5.00. They make enough money to pay the band so they can be professional, full-time musicians, quality studio time, CD pressing, etc. They sell them direct, and they're sold through Christian music stores. Pretty low volume stuff, and they manage to make money at $5 a pop. If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is! |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by jafac on Friday June 09, @08:27PM EDT (#609) (User Info) |
| books DO cost too much, and movies too. And if it were technically feasible to copy them like MP3s, you know damn well that would be happening too. If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is! |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by kz45 on Friday June 09, @10:50PM EDT (#623) (User Info) |
| here is why pirating will go on NO MATTER WHAT THE COST OF THE CD IS: 1) the greedy assholes the believe in pirating HATE the corporate world.(I don't know why..Napster and Slashdot are both heavily involved in corporate america) 2) "too expensive" is a relative thing. 16 dollars might be too expensive for person X, but 5 dollars might be too expensive for person Y. 3) the only way slashdotters(the people that believe in pirating) will stop bitching is when everything is free(as in beer:it was never really about the speech and the mp3 situation proves it). But then...oh..man..then we will have something called communism, where everyone is equal. Isn't that what you want? an "equal chance". IF you want to give your software out for free and detest money, I don't see why I can't have a fair chance in making it. That's what Freedom is all about... 4) Think about this: everyone here says Microsoft is a monopoly blah..blah...blah.. But they weren't holding anyone back from coming out with a better OS! The real reason why there aren't any other OS's that have 95% market saturation, is because all the rest of them SUCK. If linux developers were smart, they would make a better OS instead of talking about one. Microsoft have some of the greatest programmers in the world. A lot of their ideas are revolutionary, but unfortunatly, greed comes before anything in the microsoft world. greed isn't a bad thing..in fact It's what keeps a lot of programmers driven to success. 5) it seems to me, that most slashdotters hate challenges. If this weren't the case, they wouldn't have pussed-out in the software department. |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by rev_reeko on Sunday June 11, @01:44AM EDT (#698) (User Info) |
| I often hear this arguement, but then no one has any real data (that I've seen) about what it really costs to put out a CD CD = US$11-17 cassette = US$5-9 i think the old excuse, of the deferred cost of upgrading recording equipment to "CD"(?) quality, has been paid off by now. .rev |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by NeoLazarus (NeoLazarus@altavista.com) on Saturday June 10, @06:32AM EDT (#660) (User Info) |
| 1. It's free in different forms (TV/Radio), so why does format change use? (e.g. if you had recorded it off the TV/radio, that's OK)
Ahhh but you do pay for music in different supposedly 'free' forms like radio and television, but just in indirect ways... TV and radio are paid for by advertising and advertisers pass the cost of doing advertisments on to consumers in the form of higher priced goods! 2. CD prices are artificially high. Thus this is an attempt at regaining balance. Because of promotion costs... and distribution costs and moving a physical object around through 'meat space' on FedEx or UPS or USPS. Buy it direct off the net. Your mileage may vary. 3. Most albums are 80% suck, 15% okay, and 5% good. Some are 99% suck and 1% okay. Downloading MP3s allows us to avoid listening to the sucky parts that the artist should never have recorded. So why not download it song by song? They force the same crap on us when cable companies charge us outrageous rates for basic cable and include shopping channels we may or may not want 'for free' as part of the deal. Why can't you just pay taxes for the stuff you like? Change the model to one that offers open choice at fair rates with fair rules and regs that govern fair use and then you've got something.
R.
|
| Re:So? (Score:1) by Chandon Seldon (nat-at-calug-dot-net) on Friday June 09, @12:53PM EDT (#145) (User Info) http://www.calug.net/ |
I read through this a couple of times to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Nowhere does it address the main point being endlessly disputed on Slashdot - do you have the right to start making music free yourself? I don't think it's a shock to anyone that people would rather not pay for recordings than pay for them. The question is whether it's right to not pay and wrong for musicians to insist that people pay. And another question is why it's wrong for musicians to insist that their licenses be respected but OK for authors of free software to do the same. Wether or not it is "right" or "wrong" for people to be sharing music is completely irrelevent. They'll do it anyway, and there's nothing that the music indstry, the government, or anyone else can do to prevent it. -------- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. -Chandon Seldon |
| Re:So? (Score:2, Insightful) by orbital3 on Friday June 09, @01:15PM EDT (#208) (User Info) |
| Wether or not it is "right" or "wrong" for people to be sharing music is completely irrelevent. They'll do it anyway, and there's nothing that the music indstry, the government, or anyone else can do to prevent it. Oh, crap, well, if there's NOTHING I can do about it, I guess I should just sit back and accept that every murder, rape, and theft is going to happen whether I want it to or not, and we shouldn't waste our time arresting or trying to stop these kinds of things. People are gonna do it anyway, right? How about this (true scenario, btw... last night): Friend X: I LOVE this Crystal Method CD [that I borrowed from Friend Y]. Friend Y: You gonna buy it? Friend X: No. Heh. Me: Why not? Friend X: I'm gonna have Friend Z make me a copy. Me: You LOVE the CD, yet you aren't willing to spend $15 of the $300 you made this week on it? Friend X: Nope... Me: Prick. Paraphrased a bit, but you get my point. Let your friends know it's not acceptable behavior. No, they may not listen... prolly won't even. My friend didn't. But he's an ass. Who knows though? Your friend may change his mind if he finds none of his friends like what he's doing... |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by orbital3 on Friday June 09, @02:26PM EDT (#389) (User Info) |
| Please, PLEASE explain to me how I'm doing an injustice to victims of violent crime. And why exactly is it that piracy shouldn't be a crime? You didn't quite make that clear. Piracy is theft, just like any other theft. It's a crime. Rapes and murders are crime too. We wouldn't just ignore the fact that rapes and murders are going on, saying "It's gonna happen anyways" would we? Of course not. Then why should we do that with theft? I'm not saying you should turn your friends over to the cops for music piracy, but you can at least do SOMETHING by letting them know that it's unacceptable. Maybe you thought I was saying that's all we should do about rapes and murders? I don't know. That's obviously not what I'm saying. I don't think what I'm saying is in any way demeaning to victims of violent crime. Or maybe you just don't agree that piracy is theft, in which case, in my opinion, you are wrong. |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Saturday June 10, @04:29AM EDT (#654) (User Info) |
| Piracy is not theft. Theft requires that the owner be deprived of their (stolen) property. This is already impossible on three counts. First, copying music deprives no one of music. Second, music is not property. Third, music cannot be owned. This is how the law works - this is how the inherent natures of music and human beings work. You can be of a different opinion, but these facts are not something your opinion can change. Copying copyrighted works without permission from the copyright holder (in certain circumstances, and only while the copyright is in effect) is illegal, but it's not theft. It's copyright infringement which is altogether different (but also illegal). This isn't a semantic issue. The nature of information and of copyright greatly effects what we do with regards to them. This post is a little short on detail, I know, but it's late and I've had to go over this argument several times today. Take a look at some of my other posts for lengthy explanations of what I'm talking about. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by kz45 on Friday June 09, @11:15PM EDT (#624) (User Info) |
| just like clinton didn't have "sexual relations" the half-assed excuses of the mp3-copyright-violaters are just as bad. here is the problem with slashdot: trolls are people talking against the grain. Slashdot Free Speech= everyone can post about what other ("free minded" slasdotters) believe in. and..why don't we JUST have the artists that want their music for free on Napster? Because, probably about 2% would want such things. The only bands that it is really good for are the ones that are just starting out. why, if things need to be "free" do we need a gpl then?? because pricks like you are only in it for themselves. You are the greedy one for NOT willing to pay the artist for what their worth. If the artists had music that was so shitty....why do we need to copy it then????? THE IRONY OF IT ALL!? |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by kz45 on Monday June 12, @02:58PM EDT (#712) (User Info) |
| I have a question for you. Are you 1) Not a native English speaker, 2) 8 years old, or 3) Actually THAT stupid? 1) no 2) actually im 10, one year older than you 3) what a question..no i am not actually that stupid well..if you would have bothered to open your fucking eyes, before creating such a worthless post, you would realise I was responding to a post about online piracy. Now you're the dumbass. A response as poorly written as the one you have created obviously shows me that you are the typical slashdotter, who reads slashdot and uses linux to feel "31337". Why don't you try not repeating the same "slashdotturs suX0r d00d" crap you've been spewing with every single post you've made so far and try turning on your brain? so in every post, you would like to see people licking slashdot's balls, taking in everything as the truth. My posts are my opinion, and That's what slashdot is all about. Why don't you try turning on Your Brain for once and 1) get an actual slashdot account and 2) take the RMS cock that's FAR up your ass and look at the world with your own eyes. ----Freedom isn't a one-way street |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by kz45 on Tuesday June 13, @11:03AM EDT (#722) (User Info) |
| Indeed I post on slashdot....but from the outside looking in. Morally, if I steal something from you, you don't have it anymore. If I infringe your copyright, YOU STILL HAVE IT. I just haven't paid you for it. Even a mongoloid 10 year old like you should be able to tell the difference. That's his point, and one you didn't even bother to look at in your standard, eternally repeated, "Waaah! I hate Slashdot! They dont agree with me that Windoze is wonderful!" rant. But since when did knuckleheaded infants like you ever bother to let the facts get in the way of your crybaby whining? Who's doing the whining and bitching?? Every article on slashdot bitches and whines about how "our rights are being taken away". Im not the one whining. I am just trying to point out a little truth in the situation. It's also funny that you say that, because every one of your posts includes whining and non-intelligent rants about meaningless garbage. When your rights are being taken away, as an artists or programmer, I will have no sympathy. But then again, judging by your posts..Property rights on the Internet will never apply to you. What you fail to see, is the fact that Slashdot and Napster are both Large corporations. Each one has some part in taking away the rights of artists and programmers on the Internet. If slashdot wants art/programs to be free, why aren't they a non-profit organization? Napster the same way? the answer here is simple. Both organizations get an almost religious gathering of followers to get one thing: Money. You are blinded by the fact that you can get Free Music or software. Someone's rights are violated here(if it's not theft, it's copyright violation), but it's all right..because it's NOT YOURS. If slashdot didn't ever have another article/didn't care about GPL violations, it would be fine. But since each and every GPL violation is proceeded by 400 comments of Bitching about "our freedoms", a problem occurs. Slashdot is seen in it's true colors: as a greedy hypocritical coproration, That sways it's views to get more Advertising $$$ |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by kz45 on Tuesday June 13, @03:20PM EDT (#724) (User Info) |
| Many Slashdot posters have tried to justify copyright infringement, but Slashdot itself has not I realizes this. Slashdot itself has almost no opinions in anything, probably to keep more people coming to the site. I just see slashdot and slashdot users as the same thing, because it's almost like what goes on with scientology (Brainless followers and such) where do you get this Microsoft thing?? have I said anyting about windows...NO!..you are now the one putting word in MY mouth. The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend. Meaning: Just because microsoft sucks, doesn't mean linux is any better. I use Microsoft stuff, but who doesn't? I also have used: Beos, FreeBsd, OS/2, and Linux (many distros). They each serve their own purposes, but none can beat windows95/98 as a desktop OS. so...Practice what you preach... |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by kz45 on Wednesday June 14, @12:19AM EDT (#725) (User Info) |
| Unless your parents want a libel lawsuit on their hands, I'd be a hell of a lot more careful there. libel lawsuit on My hands?? all I have to say is HAHAHA..you're funny, it would NEVER hold up in any court of law. Please...Think before making yourself look like a Moron |
| It's Human Nature (Score:1) by uh on Friday June 09, @12:55PM EDT (#147) (User Info) |
| I'm quite a pessimist, so my personal opinion iis that people will do whatever they possibly can if they can get away with it. There is no way that we humans could have possibly 'evovled' to become civilized in 6000 years. It's just not possible. The only thing keeping us civilized is social pressure and punishment. In my opinion, most people would steal (mp3, warez), kill (abortion), rape, or any other crime that most would consider htey would never do. This shouldn't be too surprising, evolutionarily, we really should only care for ourselves and not the welfare or opinions of others. Then they use ridiculous defense mechanisms such as rationalization or repression to pretend that they are doing nothing wrong, when it is quite clear they are. What's so amusing about /. is that it is the epitome of the behavior I describe above. They claim to be libertarian, but they are clearly going with the communist side in this case. They subtely pick and choose things for each philosophy that specifically benefit the themselves at whatever cost to society or other individuals. |
| I'm sorry to hear about your childhood (Score:1) by blach (jblachly@antispaam.olemiss.edu) on Friday June 09, @07:54PM EDT (#597) (User Info) http://www.olemiss.edu/~jblachly/ |
| I'm sorry to hear that you never had loving parents, siblings, relatives, a girl/boy friend, or a spouse about which you truly cared and who truly cared about you. Fortunately, not everyone operates the way you described. We do in fact, care for people other than ourselves. Have a nice day ! -j --- It's nice to be important, but its more important to be nice. |
| Re:I'm sorry to hear about your childhood (Score:1) by uh on Saturday June 10, @03:44AM EDT (#646) (User Info) |
| God you are an assuming bastard. Also, the examples you give are horrible. All of those can be quickly dwindled down to products of evolution. Pessimism is a synonm for realist. Optimisim is distotion. |
| Re:So? (Score:2, Offtopic) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @01:17PM EDT (#212) (User Info) |
| Yes, people have the right to speak or print (etc.) anything they want. Freedom of speech and of the press is important. Copyrights restrict this freedom, ostensibly in exchange (here in the states) for having more works created which enter the public domain and promote the useful arts and sciences. That the work is temporarily monopolized by the author in a few limited respects (copyright isn't ownership - you can't own information) is not the primary goal of US copyright law. It is a carrot dangled in front of authors, but the goal is the creation of information and then putting that information into the public domain quickly. Ideally the copyright should last only as long as necessary to tempt the author into creating the work; never so long as to encourage him to rest on his laurels and not have to create another work, and another and another. Legal and illegal are very different concepts from right and wrong. As for licenses, I fail to see how malicious licenses as used by most software are supposed to be respected either. A typical license strips you of your rights, gives rights to the creator that are *WAY* beyond the boundaries of what copyright gives them. (which is traditionally a right on some, not all, instances of copying the work, nothing more) The GPL is quite unusual in that it only grants rights to the licensee. It openly admits that you don't have to agree to use it; that's the law. MS can say that you _do_ have to agree to use it, but legally they're lying through their teeth. Technical matters aside (like programs that won't work until you've clicked on them) it's unecessary to require a license for use. UCITA changes this, but I suspect that this will be found unconstitutional as it tries to shoot the first sale doctrine out of the sky, and the Supremes have upheld first sale above copyright holder insterests before. There's good precedence. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:So? (Score:2) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @02:07PM EDT (#339) (User Info) |
| I also believe this. However, I'm willing to be a little lenient and compromise to the effect of wanting a significant reform of copyright instead of outright abolishing it. My proposal is this: *Copyright lasts for 10 years and cannot be extended after having been granted, even retroactively by law (one exception below) *Copyright must be registered for or else you don't get it (with fees to pay for the costs of the registration process, like patents or trademarks) *The 10 year clock starts when the work is registered but doesn't apply before that; works are public domain until copyrighted as well as after the copyright expires. *USEFUL copies of copyrighted material have to be deposited with the Library of Congress in order to be registered. For films, high quality negatives and prints so it can be reproduced well. For software, the source files (etc.) and binaries. *Copyrights _can_ be extended for another 10 years. (again, this number can't be retroactively extended) The cost for doing so is (this number is off the top of my head) 5% of the gross for the first 10 years. This money goes towards commissioning works (art, books, software, movies, music, etc.) which will go immediately into the public domain. I think that this would work out nicely. It slows down derivative works (like your folk music or my fanfic) but makes them much more attractive. And I have no problem at all with derivative works; they're often better than the originals. BSD breaks down somewhat because it doesn't IIRC stop people from recopyrighting a derivative BSD'd work and preventing others from deriving from _it_. GPL works better in that regard because it preserves the rights to alter and redistribute that make derivative works attractive in the first place. But in a world w/o copyrights there's no reason not to release source - people can copy binaries (and the source) anyway. GPL and BSD would not be needed anymore, though I think that it's still more like GPL since no one can revoke rights as in BSD. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:So? (Score:2) by cpt kangarooski on Saturday June 10, @03:44PM EDT (#685) (User Info) |
| This is a pretty good post- I love reading stuff like this that's well thought out (lord knows I just had a huge debate with SPYvSPY which largely stemmed from a single slight but important misconception) Obviously, my ideal copyright is just a guess. I want it to be short, because while there are lots of things that take time to appreciate, I don't think that it's in everyone's best interests to establish a law that says that everything is copyrighted until it's accepted by the community or some such. No one appreciated Van Gogh till he died? Would an appropriate copyright period be - once people fight over your paintings, then they're in the p.d.? I don't think that varying lengths of time for different types of works is a good idea unless some omniscient fellow is determining what's appropriate. I also want to keep the length of time quite short, because I am a big believer in derivative works. There are plenty of really excellent works out there that largely rely on some preexisting work. /. has discussed fan fiction before, and that's a good example. I've read home-brewed derivative works that were leaps ahead of the original (though Sturgeon's Law applies) and I think it's a real shame to keep a work that promotes the arts as much as the original did in the dark for so long that no one cares by the time it's finally fully legal. Insofar as registration, that's nearly how things operate now. If you create a work now, it's generally copyrighted automatically, but your ability to get damages and prove that it was created when you say it was is severely limited. Additionally it's an incentive to accomplish point four. (which is also more or less active in modern copyright law as well) Three is an incentive for the creator to get a copyright immediately. (and start the clock running as soon as possible) You're right in that it may need significant work, but it's hard to determine when something was created, so starting the clock at time of registration seems like it would work better. And w/o registration I don't really want to grant the benefits of copyright. Four again, is nearly identical to current copyright requirements. It's not far of a stretch. The LoC is the closest thing to a national repository of creative information we have in the US. And I'm talking about US copyright law; I wouldn't presume to know the fundementals of foreign law or dictate things to them. The idea is simply that public domained information is no good if no one has a copy. Lost works are still inaccessable. And works may have more than one form. I would like for registered works which enter the public domain to be useful for people. P.d. binaries of software are not as useful as source, so source code would be a requirement. Film prints degrade rapidly, so high-quality negatives would be desired, in anticipation of the day when the work is free for all. Storage fees, etc. would be a significant part of the cost of copyright registration. That really can't be helped, as the costs have to be covered somewhere. Better proposals for how the expanded Copyright Office would function are cheerfully accepted. Now leaving my proposal behind.... I think that it's _possible_ for very small copyrights to promote the creation of new information while hindering the creation of yet more information that builds upon the first bunch very little. But I don't think that the current system does a good job. Obviously information is most valuable when it's free for all and can be used constructively and can be used to create even more information. I'm willing to accept the idea that there can be a compromise, though it has to be watched carefully to make sure that it acutally works. I also agree that copying is not stealing. This is why I would broadly leave copy restrictions in the law alone, although anything that impairs honest use can't be allowed to stand. There's no reason to have DVDs that you can't functionally copy when you have a right to copy them. That would have to go - sorry if I didn't sufficiently address that. And as for saving copyright, not everything is a purely technical issue. People really do frequently prefer to do things in a way that they find morally acceptable, even if there's an easier way to do it. This is why there are only a few shoplifters. If everyone was willing to do it, Walmart et al would have hoardes of looters descending upon them all the time. If copyrights aren't onerous, and if they do more good than ill, then I think that most people will respect them. If you could buy a CD for $1 wouldn't you be more likely to do that than get it for free? We're not all ruled by economics, we must also use our moral faculties in our lives. As for why lack of copyright would force the release of source - think about how commercial software currently operates in a psuedo scarce way. If a handful of copies of Windows can multiply into a nigh-infinite number of copies, there is no advantage for MS to sell their product. They have no advantage. Could they sell their source code? Again, only a few times before everyone had it. There's no reason to do that either. And no matter how tightly under wraps they are, in that environment they're both likely to get leaked out. But people still might pay them for the SERVICE of creating something (the Street Performer Protocol) and related services, like bug fixes and support can also work. After all, they know more about it than anyone else. Most of the Linux companies already operate a lot like this. But the reason that I don't think that the BSD would work is because it only works once. BSD software does not have to be shared freely by someone who alters it. If they also had to release it under the BSD then I don't see much difference between it and the GPL anymore. ;) -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:So? (Score:2, Insightful) by DavyWavy on Friday June 09, @01:36PM EDT (#263) (User Info) |
| Tha average musician or songwriter barely cares about the niceities of computing, legalese or even doing laundry. The industry is where it is largeley becaust artists have for years relied on record companies, publishers and managers to do things the felt they couldn't handle. Division of labour is thought by anthropologists to have been an important step in the social evolution of human culture. Everyone may have a 'vocation', but NONE of us can do everything! The resourceful artist is interested in creative freedom NOT restriction. For years we've heard artists gripe about how 'the MAN' from the record company has restricted creativity and also of the corporate evil of big money. Sadly I fear 'Microtallicasoft' have a team of lawyers reading sites such as this. When Lars and the boys get around to using the internet for something other than checking hockey scores they may see the glint of $$$, to say nothing about creative freedom |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by burris on Friday June 09, @08:16PM EDT (#606) (User Info) |
The industry is where it is largeley becaust artists have for years relied on record companies, publishers and managers to do things the felt they couldn't handle.Not quite. Why couldn't artists hire people to do all this work for them without getting fucked over? They couldn't because the major labels controlled the means of distribution. You couldn't just make an album and get it into the stores where people could buy it. It just wasn't possible without having a contract with a major label. Since the major labels had the power, they by and large fucked their artists. The Net is changing that. New artists and artists that finally get out of their contracts with the record companies will be able to sell their recordings to all comers. Anyone with a net connection (which will eventually be practically everyone) will be able to buy their album. Without exclusive control over the means of distribution, the major labels will have nowhere near the power over artists they have now. Labels will be forced to treat their artists right or the artists will just make a deal with someone else. Burris |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by jafac on Friday June 09, @08:22PM EDT (#607) (User Info) |
| There's also this to consider: Anyone over say, about 20, has probably noticed that there have been eras in music. Good and bad. (this is in regard to the concept of "the MAN from the record company restricting creativity, etc.". Right now, we're arguably in a very bland uncreative sucky era. No, it's really bad. 5 years ago was okay. Early 80's, well, a lot of people may disagree with me, but I think they were okay too. Late 70's, no way. I mean, I'm talking about overall choice. Top 40 has always sucked, but the dominance Top 40 seems to attain seems to do so in cycles. Then what gets popular is some iconoclastic non-conformist band, and all hell breaks loose. If you compare that to every major movement in Art History in the past 200 years, it's the same thing. An established standard, becomes bland, passe, the new iconoclast comes about, turns everything upside down, and eventually establishes itself as the new standard. The same can be said of fashion too, I suppose. I don't believe that the Art industry has been organized enough that this was more than just a cultural phenomenon, but the fashion industry sure uses it to sell lots of new clothes. I suspect the music industry does as well. Why else was there an aborted attempt two years ago to make "swing" the next big thing? Until somebody realized that these traditional swing bands required a lot of manpower, you needed like 10-50 really talented musicians, not a bunch of spoiled rich kids who bought a roland d-50 and a headset microphone. If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is! |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by NeoLazarus (NeoLazarus@altavista.com) on Saturday June 10, @06:37AM EDT (#661) (User Info) |
| The resourceful artist is interested in creative freedom NOT restriction.
...but mostly the artist just interested in freely creating.
R.
|
| Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful) by dsplat on Friday June 09, @02:15PM EDT (#360) (User Info) |
You have a good point. But something you said caught my attention in an odd way: Nowhere does it address the main point being endlessly disputed on Slashdot - do you have the right to start making music free yourself? I didn't read this the first time the way you appear to have intended it. You seem to be asking the question of whether you have the right to make other people's music available for free. I originally read it as questioning whether you have the right to release your own for free. That is an important question to ask, primarily because the answer is an unambiguous "Yes." That leads to a related question. Does the recording industry have the right to take any action that, as a side effect, restricts your right to distribute your own music for free. While it is a tougher case to make, I think the answer to this is "No." To do so would be to violate antitrust law. The primary reason that this question is near to my heart is that I listen to some pretty obscure musical niches, the kinds of stuff that sells a few thousand copies. Record stores don't tend to carry it. It can be very hard to find. Many of the artists I enjoy, promote their music on the net with MP3s, usually of selected tracks or parts of tracks, but sometimes of whole albums or concerts. Eliminating this marketting strategy would certainly mean that some of them couldn't make a living as musicians. Some of them don't now as it is. It would limit their audience even futher. That is going to reduce the number of CDs they record, possibly how many songs they write, and how many performances they do. I'll get to hear less of them and more of the same mainstream stuff that is in heavy rotation. I'm not trying to knock the mainstream on quality. I truly enjoy some of it. But I'd be losing the other options available to me. No man is an Island, entire of it self; Slight disorientation after prolonged system uptime is normal for new Linux users. Please do not adjust your browser. |
| "Paying the Musicians" should be "Paying Elektra" (Score:1) by startled (mfranklin@ILIKESPAMhomestead-inc.com) on Friday June 09, @02:24PM EDT (#387) (User Info) |
| The question is whether it's right to not pay and wrong for musicians to insist that people pay. This question always seems to revolve around paying the musicans. But generally, it's not the musicians who are concerned. Why is Metallica so pissed? They are one of the few bands that own their own recordings. Who else? Dr. Dre. Funny, he owns his own record label. Musicians, in general, do not own their own recordings. They get very little money from CD sales. For further proof of this, check out this article on a bill that classifies musicians' works as "works for hire", meaning that they no longer revert to the musician after 35 years (pushed, of course, by the RIAA: http://www.riffage.com/Features/GraceNotes/May3100/0,4759,0,00.html So, on a dollar for dollar basis, a much bigger question is: whether it's right to not pay and wrong for the recording industry to insist that people pay. I rarely see the question phrased this way, but given where your money's going, it really makes more sense. It is still a debatable question-- the recording industry is performing a service. But at least let's debate the right question. |
| Re:"Paying the Musicians" should be "Paying Elektr (Score:1) by startled (mfranklin@ILIKESPAMhomestead-inc.com) on Friday June 09, @04:35PM EDT (#519) (User Info) |
| Sure it does. And the "principles" underlying the laws change daily based on who's hiring the lobbyists. Laws have very little to do with ethics, philosophy, or principles. Again, the article, which I neglected to put in a tag last time: another example of lobbyists and their "principles" |
| FMP - the music GPL equivalent, PLEASE READ (Score:2, Insightful) by shellac (shellacATrocketmailDOTcom) on Friday June 09, @03:20PM EDT (#465) (User Info) |
| Here is a really interesting item I found at Irdial Discs, an experimental electronica label. Maybe more musicians can be convinced to free their music after reading this. The Irdial Discs Free Music Philosophy Here are a couple select quotes: Won't musicians starve to death if they freed their music? Musicians currently make money through a variety of sources: sales of records, merchandise and concert tickets, and royalties from commercial airplay. Freeing music will certainly not be detrimental to the sales of merchandise and concert tickets, nor will it affect compulsory or performance royalties. If anything, it will improve sales since people will continue supporting artists they like by going to their concerts and buying their merchandise. Profits from record sales will also not be affected because people will be encouraged to buy directly from the artist for the added bonuses of liner notes, lyrics sheets, and packaging. Thus Free Music can be used as a marketing tool to ensure that musicians do not starve. An approach where people send the artist a "donation", if they found value in the music they copied, is another way to make money in a direct fashion. This could become an ingrained practice in society, like tipping, where even though there is no enforced requirement to tip for various services, people do anyway. Why must we Free Music? Music is a creative process. Today, when a musician publishes music, i.e., exposes it to the outside world, only a privileged set of individuals are able to use the music as they please. However, the artist has drawn from the creativity of many other musicians and there is an existential responsibility placed upon them to give this back unconditionally, so creativity is fostered among people. -ali |
| I have cure for cancer. Licence fee: 500 virgins (Score:1) by Yogurt on Friday June 09, @03:44PM EDT (#490) (User Info) http://tim.pitas.com |
| "He who writes the code gets to chose his license, and nobody else gets to complain." Surely there is a point at which the benefit to society outweighs the IP owner's right to name his or her own price. To take an absurd example, if I had the patent on the cure for cancer and refused to licence it to anyone at all, or demanded an outrageous fee (like 500 virgins to feed my minotaur-god), then would anyone doubt that my patent should be infringed? I realize that the cure for cancer and a Metallica song are hardly comparable, but my point is that individual ownership of IP is not absolute. Perhaps the personal sharing of music would benefit society more than respecting the right to sell IP. And yes, this includes my IP. Share my writing and games all you want. I'll get by. Yogurt |
| So: That Goes Around Comes Around (Score:2) by goliard (goliard at weasel dot terc dot edu) on Friday June 09, @06:50PM EDT (#577) (User Info) |
That's right. He didn't say the first thing about right or wrong. He wrote a whole article which didn't try to present a one right ethical answer to this issue. Instead, what he wrote was an extremely thoughtful and insightful historical-anthropological investigation into the social causes of a certain political position. It is not prescriptive, it's descriptive. And those of us with sufficient wit and taste to savor fine irony are smacking our chops over how the recording industry is getting hoisted by its own petard. To summarize the article from a different perspective: in its shortsightedness, the recording industry essentially devalued a currency, and is on the brink of bankruptcy. After all, what is a recording, but a cheap knock-off of a performance, plentifully available? It's counterfeit performances. The bad drives the good out. The more costly, authentic live music, as roblimo explains, was driven out. The various industries involved in recording thought they were oh-so-clever for having cornered, then monopolized the market. But now it turns out by flooding the market with counterfeits, they've devalued their own trade good to the point the market is increasing unwilling to pay cash for it. (And that is what roblimo was documenting.) They've made music into rubles, and if the market isn't stablized it won't matter how much/many they have. I know this is terrible. I'm a musician. But I have enough morbid humor to be amused that, by gum, they set fire to a building they can't escape from, either. ---------------------------------------------- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. |
| Re:So? (Score:1) by jafac on Friday June 09, @08:11PM EDT (#603) (User Info) |
| Good burn with the Torvalds quote. Lots of MP3 downloaders are squirming as they read that I bet, expecially because Linus' words and opinions carry a lot of weight with the Linux-heads here. Then there's the Stallman crowd. . . If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is! |
| The good old days... (Score:4, Insightful) by rde (rde(at)ireland(dot)com) on Friday June 09, @12:12PM EDT (#12) (User Info) http://robertelliott.org |
| This argument is the same as the argument for a right to privacy; "we used to have it, so we should have it now." Like privacy, the only reason that people were used to it in the past is because the technology wasn't available to counter it. Imagine if, in the fifties and sixties, CDs and videos were available. How many people would today be waxing lyrical about the good old days of live music, and how many would have a collection of CDs that stretched half way to the moon. I like live music. But I also like CDs, and I don't mind paying for them. Is music commoditised? Like everything else from the good old days, the answer is 'yes, it is'. Does that mean that it's no longer worth listening to? Usually, yes. But I won't stop listening to The Divine Comedy because the latest videos are slick, or because the CDs are more expensive than they used to be. Nor will I give up in disgust as soon as my favourite musicians are too big to personally reply to all mail. |
| I don't mind paying the artist, but... (Score:1) by Hammer (bDeInEgtShP@sAoMlMeEcRt) on Friday June 09, @02:24PM EDT (#385) (User Info) |
| Who is actually making the BIG bucks here? The performer or The record company?? Consider this. Back in the time of 12" vinyls an album set you back about 8-12 bucks. When the CD made its debut the price of the album jumped 50-60%, even though the actual price of producing, manufacturing and distributing a CD is lower then for a 12" vinyl. Somehow I do not think that any of that money ends up in the pockets of the performers. I would buy considerably more music if the price of a CD was anywhere near reasonable and I had a feeling that most of the profit ends up with the artist. That is the point that RIAA is missing, stop ripping off your customers and they will be happy to pay for the music. They must act soon though before the notion that it's OK to trade MP3 gets deeply rooted in the public (if it is not already too late). (to email remove uppercase and add .com) |
| Re:mp3 is the radio of today (Score:1) by ClubStew (NOSPAM_hstewart@stewart.dorm.org) on Friday June 09, @12:40PM EDT (#97) (User Info) http://www.stewart.dorm.org/ |
But radio stations and their distributors PAY for licenses to play music by other artists. You (normally) don't pay anything for digital audio files (or video for that matter). It's only fair that artists should be able to make money on their talents. |
| I'm not as sure about the decline in live music (Score:1) by georgeha on Friday June 09, @12:13PM EDT (#13) (User Info) http://www.frontiernet.net/~ghaberbe/george2.htm |
| though I am experiencing a demographic decline in live music (any /.'ers in Rochester, NY want to babysit?) When I was in college, 1984-1989, there were plenty of bands playing on the weekends. I would usually split my bar hopping between seeing bands and getting hammered at a cheap place with 70's hits, though I'd get hammered first (I think it was called the Shandygaff?), and then go the Rathskellar. There's still a live music scene though, check out the folk festivals. And thanks for mentioning the Dead, they're method of music distribution is a great model, every day Trey should bow down in front of a picture of Jerry and thank him for making a him a famous millionaire. George |
| Re:Rathskeller at UCSD? (Score:1) by georgeha on Friday June 09, @02:09PM EDT (#345) (User Info) http://www.frontiernet.net/~ghaberbe/george2.htm |
| Nope, PSU |
| free music? (Score:3, Insightful) by room100 (jason@room100.net) on Friday June 09, @12:14PM EDT (#14) (User Info) http://www.room100.net |
| If any item of value is presented in such a way that it is free for the taking - people will take it. This becomes even easier over the Internet as the human element is lost. It is much easier to forget that someone actually put their heart and soul into the music when you just downloaded it using Napster. |
| how about MUSICFORGE.NET (Score:1) by Nik Picker (Nik@wired4life.org) on Friday June 09, @12:14PM EDT (#15) (User Info) www.wired4life.org |
| Maybe we need to start www.musicforge.net. Again rewrite the Napster servers to enable them to accept and share only musicforge certified tracks. The tracks of which are Created by independents seeking to distribute electronically and hoping for direct financial recognition. I return to my old suggestion of Micropayments, but maybe we could circumvent this by making MusicForge a Pay as you go site for a few dollars a month you can receive (after all sharing is not illegal its taking copies that is) a file from another member. Your account is then debited and after a while your client tells you how many tracks are left. Sure it could be abused but lets face it if we dont manufacture a way to get the money to the artists (artists = musical programmers ) then business will take over and someone takes a cut ! And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix. |
| Re:how about MUSICFORGE.NET (Score:1) by john187 on Friday June 09, @12:39PM EDT (#93) (User Info) http://www.2ad.com/john |
| I would pay a flat monthly access fee, to be able to download anything I wan't. I believe the comoditization occurs because individual tracks are priced and like talking long distance, each additional minute feels like it costs you something. If the music industry was 10% with it, they would have put up a service like this 10 years ago. The real problem is that all of the music industy endevours on the net have been laced with greed, charging like $3.00 for an MP3 download. Who's going to pay that when you can by the whole album after you bought 4 songs? Moreover, many of the companies are trying figure a way to rig it so once you download you still don't own it, and next time you wan't it you have to pay for it again! Rather than taking advantage of the ravenous online music community by offering a good service at a good price, we see greed and ignorance hindering progress as usual. I'll start the bidding at $5.00/month to download anything anyone wants in hi-fi format. John |
| Why should it be free? (Score:3, Insightful) by atomly (atomly@dontspamatomly.com) on Friday June 09, @12:15PM EDT (#16) (User Info) http://www.atomly.com/ |
| The author did a great job of describing why he thought music was a commodity, but never really established why it should be free. I'm assuming that his intent is that artists would get paid for a service (live performances) rather than getting paid for the recordings themselves, though this was never explicitly stated so I can't be sure. I think that the dance music scene is a great place to look for a good example of the market resolving issues itself. Essentially there are a lot of people distributing music for free or for cheap (MP3s and mix tapes) and the artists generally have no problem with this. In fact this is how artists get popular in the techno (in the broad sense of the word, not the genre) scene. On the same level these artists are generally unable to perform live (very few electronic acts do live performances, but some do) but they sell copies of their records to DJs who want to play them. Generally the big DJs get a free copy early on, play it, it gets popular and the smaller DJs rush to buy it. Since bands in the rock scene are able to perform live, they can bypass this whole system and just play live shows to make their money with their recordings acting mostly as promotional tools. (Think giving them away for free to people and charging radio stations, advertising, etc) It seems to me that either of these solves a lot of the problems that are currently happening in the music industry and would be best for the artist and the listener. -- atomly :: atomly(at)atomly(dot)com :: http://www.atomly.com/ |
| Re:Why should it be free? (Score:3, Insightful) by ivan256 (jbaboval@wpi.edu) on Friday June 09, @12:27PM EDT (#52) (User Info) |
| That's exactly waht this article is about though. He wasn't saying "Music should be free", but instead explained why many of us *think* music should be free while we guiltlessly download off of napster. Should it be free or not is another question. |
| Re:Why should it be free? (Score:1) by look (fran0382 -(a)- tc.umn.edu) on Friday June 09, @04:00PM EDT (#506) (User Info) |
| Oh well. Just because they aren't profitable doesn't mean they should be able to limit MY freedom. That's their problem, not mine. |
| Ummm...yeah... (Score:4, Interesting) by FascDot Killed My Pr on Friday June 09, @12:15PM EDT (#17) (User Info) |
| Unless I misunderstand it, your thesis is: "People want free (no-charge) music because they are surrounded by music all the time." Furthermore, your claim is that this is new to the "current" generation. Wrong on both accounts, I'm afraid (although the thesis is more interesting than the secondary claim). Just to dispense with formalities: How was music less free (financially) in your childhood? Were you paying for live bands at car washes? Forget "it was included in the price", Muzak and the like is included in the (admittedly lower) price today. But you main claim also deserves comment. You think that I feel "entitled" to free (no-charge) music because it's around me all the time. But that doesn't necessarily follow: I'm surrounded by free printed matter (books at the library, pamphlets at the grocery store, etc) all the time, too--but I don't walk out of Barnes 'n' Noble with O'Reilly volumes tucked under my coat (as much as I'd like to). An even better example is software. I'm surrounded by free (no charge) software all the time--I don't pay for any of the software at work, much of a normal person's home software comes with the hardware, etc. But I don't think you would argue that free (as in freedom) software people are "like that" for this reason. Given the great similarity between music and software, Occam's Razor dictates that the reason people pirate music is the same as the reason people pirate software: Information wants to be free. -- Wanna hook MAPI clients to your Tru64/AIX/Linux server? Try MailOne! |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:1) by GungaDan on Friday June 09, @12:34PM EDT (#78) (User Info) |
| "Ockham's razor" has nothing to do with piracy/sharing of any kind, and the claim that "information wants to be free" is truly as inane as babble gets. Ockham's preference for the simple over the complex probably doesn't extend to the simple-minded. |
| Occam's Razor? (Score:1) by delevant on Friday June 09, @12:41PM EDT (#100) (User Info) |
| Err, how does Occam's Razor apply in the case of comparisons? I'm not saying that it's irrelevant in this case -- I'm just a little lost, is all.
|
| Here's how (Score:1) by FascDot Killed My Pr on Friday June 09, @12:45PM EDT (#122) (User Info) |
| We already have an explanation that works for software. Music is very much like software. So it would violate Occam to come up with special reasoning to explain music. -- Wanna hook MAPI clients to your Tru64/AIX/Linux server? Try MailOne! |
| Ah, thanks! (Score:1) by delevant on Friday June 09, @01:27PM EDT (#239) (User Info) |
| Thanks for noticing & replying!
|
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:2) by B. Samedi (BaronSamedi@sluggy.net) on Friday June 09, @12:42PM EDT (#103) (User Info) |
| Given the great similarity between music and software, Occam's Razor dictates that the reason people pirate music is the same as the reason people pirate software: Information wants to be free. No... people want it for free. That's why people pirate music. As for the argument about Barnes and Nobles and O'Reilly books... if this isn't a problem then why do they have those alarm sensors at the doors? People take things for all manner of reasons. Whether it's because they don't want to pay for it, because it's a thrill or even if they can't afford it but need it they take it. As for information wanting to be free... how does a bunch of ones and zeros want anything? Almost every person I ever met who spouted this was also the person who most closely guarded what they had. The right saying should be "Other people's information should be free but you leave your sticking hands off of mine." I will admit that the free software movement has been changing this but even then the people involved expect some kind of return on their time, whether it be through payment for support of the software, payment to train people on it, etc. My final comment is this. When it comes to something free there is a saying that I always refer to... TANSTAFL (there ain't no such thing as a free lunch). (Insert obscure, profound and/or funny quote here) |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:1) by FascDot Killed My Pr on Friday June 09, @12:50PM EDT (#134) (User Info) |
| "As for information wanting to be free... how does a bunch of ones and zeros want anything?" Yeah, and how can genes be selfish.... Have you ever heard the word "anthropromorphic"? "As for the argument about Barnes and Nobles and O'Reilly books... if this isn't a problem then why do they have those alarm sensors at the doors? " I didn't say it wasn't a problem--I said people didn't believe they had a right to do it. Big difference. "...the people involved expect some kind of return on their time..." No doubt. And King George expected us to pay a tax on tea--that doesn't make it right. BTW, the "free" in TANSTAAFL is economic (money, time, etc)--not liberation. -- Wanna hook MAPI clients to your Tru64/AIX/Linux server? Try MailOne! |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:2) by B. Samedi (BaronSamedi@sluggy.net) on Friday June 09, @01:17PM EDT (#213) (User Info) |
| Yes, I've heard of anthropromorphic. Genes can be selfish because they are part of a living organism. Information is, at it's heart, either magnetic disturbances on a medium or carbon scratchings on paper. It is not alive. As for the price that King George was asking to tax on tea, it was miniscule. The reason that he was taxing the colonies was because the English had just fought a war for us here (French and Indian War IIRC) and he felt that we should pay for some of it. The no taxation without representation slogan was just that... a slogan. When Franklin went to England to negotiate with them he had specific orders not to except anything of the kind. With just the few representatives they would have had in Parliament they would have been easily over powered with votes on anything. I'm not complaining about the end result though. As a rule I do like my country. It's just that people should be aware of the real reason that it's here. As for TANSTAAFL (thanks for pointing out I missed a A) it applies to everything not just economics. In everything, you always have to give something to get something. This is true in physics, economics, your personal life, your job, etc. (Insert obscure, profound and/or funny quote here) |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:1) by RatBastard (rrward@gci.KILL.ALL.SPAMMERS.NOW.net) on Friday June 09, @02:41PM EDT (#415) (User Info) http://www.trilobite.org/ |
| re: TANSTAAFL You are right. Nothing is free. The food you eat? Something died for that kunch you juts ate, unless you ate nothing but fruit (Fruit is not free, either. The plant grew the fruit for you to eat in exchange for you to poop the seeds out somewhere other than where the plant is now). Some people just want what they want and they don't want to spend any of their own money, time or effort in getting it. "Infotmation wants to be free." He. I remember seeing an film from a rock concert in the 1960's. Some hippy was arguing with jerry Garcia about how he (Garcia) was evil for wanting to charge people money to see the show. The guy kept spouting "The music wants to be free!" -- "I'm too sexy for my code." - Awk Sed Fred. |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @04:53PM EDT (#535) (User Info) |
| You bet it was miniscule. In fact, the taxed tea would have been cheaper than the non-taxed smuggled tea. That wasn't the point. And while the Americans might have been overpowered if they had members in Parliment, they would have at least have had a say in things. Of course, no small number of revolutionaries were wealthy, successful smugglers. They just also understood the advantages of freedom. Anti-smugglers are not well known for being proponents of freedom. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @01:40PM EDT (#272) (User Info) |
| Personally I interpret the hoary old 'information wants to be free' as: Information is most valuable when it can be freely used by anyone. This sounds like an oxymoron but it's not. If only one person knew how to program computers it would be a worthless skill; no one would use computers because they're too tightly restricted. If everyone knows how to program computers then anyone could use them and I bet nearly everyone would. People can't get direct value from information unless they know it. The value just goes up though, the better it's known. Chalk one up for the triviality of reproduction and the impossibility of a natural restriction on use. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:1) by symbolic on Friday June 09, @01:04PM EDT (#181) (User Info) |
| Given the great similarity between music and software, Occam's Razor dictates that the reason people pirate music is the same as the reason people pirate software: Information wants to be free.
I can't remember where this "information wants to be free" junk came from, but I think it's a half-assed attempt to retrofit what, in this case, is a common crime (theft), with psuedo-intellectual rationalization. I think what we're talking about here has nothing to do with "information" (a purely man-made concept), but moreso an inherent trait of the human condition: Humans want to be lazy, and given the choice, most people will elect to take the shortest distance between two points.
I'd argue that EVERYTHING wants to be free (from the perspective of the one who has to pay), but the physical nature of various kinds of resources prevents this from happening. You can't cart a house off in your backpack, or download one over the internet. But if someone COULD, on the other hand, elect to pay for their house or not - with little or no penalty - how many would actually pay?
What we're seeing here isn't human behavior with its roots in some deep philosophical axiom...but rather, a rather a less desirable facet of the human condition - out-and-out laziness. If one doesn't HAVE to pay, why should they? |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:1) by erinlee on Friday June 09, @02:00PM EDT (#324) (User Info) |
Unless I misunderstand it, your thesis is: "People want free (no-charge) music because they are surrounded by music all the time." Furthermore, your claim is that this is new to the "current" generation. One point that isn't touched by this (perhaps surprisingly, in the case of Muzak) is whether it's the music we want to hear. Sure, there's blandly pleasant music in the elevator, but do I want blandly pleasant music in the elevator? Sure, radio is free, but do I want to hear the latest half dozen pop princesses and dancing boy bands all day? If I'm "entitled" to any music, it sure tends to be crappy music... The greatest benefit of Napster, for me, has been downloading live boot tracks of my favorite bands, and hearing obscure old 80s tunes and anime music and such that don't get radio play. It's not an issue of entitlement, it's an issue of availability. If it's not available for sale, does that mean the song gets lost on the mists of time? And besides, nobody buys a CD without knowing what it's going to sound like to some degree. That usually means you have to listen to it first. Record co's still put out albums that don't get airplay: without "copyright violations" a lot of the most talented and enduring (but not radio-popular) artists wouldn't be profitable to the record companies at all. |
| Occam's razor fails on two counts here (Score:1) by Moooo Cow on Friday June 09, @03:42PM EDT (#488) (User Info) |
| "Given the great similarity between music and software, Occam's Razor dictates that the reason people pirate music is the same as the reason people pirate software: Information wants to be free." In plain english, Occam's Razor states that "if two theories explain the facts equally well then the simpler theory is to be preferred". It doesn't make sense to apply it here, because: 1) You only provide one theory - "Information wants to be free", and... 2) That theory requires that you give the capability of volition to an inanimate string of 1's and 0's. That hardly sounds like a simple theory at all. "Information wants to be free" is a catchy phrase, but it quite meaningless on its own, because it is open to so many interpretations. Do you mean that "people want information for free"? Or "people think information should be free"? In that case, you're just presenting a circular argument to the original question posed by the whole article - essentially, "People think music should be free because people think music should be free". Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:1) by Hecubas (hecubas@hot(spam)mail.com) on Friday June 09, @04:34PM EDT (#517) (User Info) http://windom.tripod.com/index.html |
But that doesn't necessarily follow: I'm surrounded by free printed matter (books at the library, pamphlets at the grocery store, etc) all the time, too--but I don't walk out of Barnes 'n' Noble with O'Reilly volumes tucked under my coat (as much as I'd like to). But, you can leave Barnes & Noble having read those books and no one can stop you and make you pay for your new-found knowledge. How does one keep control of information/code/music if they're putting it in the open for eyes or ears to consume? It's funny how we're sold things but have no ownership over. Maybe music cd's should come with a microsoft-like end user license agreement, because it seems like we have fewer and fewer rights to do what we please to the media once it's in our hands. |
| Re:Ummm...yeah... (Score:2) by Brian Knotts (bknotts@europa.com) on Friday June 09, @11:38PM EDT (#627) (User Info) http://xfmail.slappy.org/ |
| But you main claim also deserves comment. You think that I feel "entitled" to free (no-charge) music because it's around me all the time. But that doesn't necessarily follow: I'm surrounded by free printed matter (books at the library, pamphlets at the grocery store, etc) all the time, too--but I don't walk out of Barnes 'n' Noble with O'Reilly volumes tucked under my coat (as much as I'd like to). This isn't really the equivalent...it would be closer if you said "I"m surrounded by printed matter, but I don't go to the library and read books for free." I say that because what is at issue is the information, not any physical objects (like the books you don't steal). Now, that's not to say that I agree with the other side of this argument; it's just that the "unauthorized copying is the same as stealing a physical object" claim is not quite accurate, IMO. Personally, I wish that people would respect copyright more so that the people who are screwing over the public, like Microsoft and the RIAA, would be dealt their just desserts, and the struggling independent artists/programmers would achieve greater success. |
| eh? someone has been reading too much Katz :) (Score:1, Insightful) by Dethboy on Friday June 09, @12:15PM EDT (#18) (User Info) |
| This goes all over the place but never comes to a conclusion? Live music?? Where I live there is a huge club scene here with live music available 7 nights a week. Disko? I won't go there. Disco is dead. Music videos - this is something even I don't understand - MTV (VH1, etc) doesn't even play music videos anymore - so I don't know how much impact they have today. I don't even know why artists bother to make a video - it's probably never going to be aired. In any event I'd hate to be a musician trying to 'make it' in todays market. I would gladly give my $16 directly to a band - but man I feel bent over when I dish it out to the record companies. |
| Disco is dead???? (Score:1) by sumana (sumanah@uclink4.berkeley.edu) on Friday June 09, @12:26PM EDT (#47) (User Info) http://www.igs.berkeley.edu:8880/programs/gardner |
| But I just heard that "Bad Touch" song...I've been learning the dances and everything... To steal from one is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. |
| Re:eh? someone has been reading too much Katz :) (Score:4, Interesting) by AugstWest (fnord@themanagement.egg) on Friday June 09, @12:30PM EDT (#61) (User Info) http://www.infinitypointone.com |
| Disko? I won't go there. Disco is dead. Disco wasn't mentioned here as a style of music. Discos were mentioned as a new form of public music absorption. Heh. Basically, Discos are places where people go to hear recorded music played instead of live music. That certainly is not dead. Also, having spent way too much time listening to the constant electronic 4/4 thump of both 70's disco music and 90's/2000 disco music, I'd have to say that disco is far from dead. Even the wocka-jawocka guitar is making a comeback. --[The history of the music industry is a history of exploitation and theft - Robert Fripp]-- |
| Beautiful! (Score:1) by ZikZak (figure it out from the URL, guru) on Friday June 09, @01:45PM EDT (#287) (User Info) http://www.io.com/~zikzak/ |
| I just need to express my delight that a comment containing the phrase "wocka-jawocka guitar" got mod'ed to +4 :)=) |
| Re:Beautiful! (Score:2) by AugstWest (fnord@themanagement.egg) on Friday June 09, @02:30PM EDT (#397) (User Info) http://www.infinitypointone.com |
| I just need to express my delight that a comment containing the phrase "wocka-jawocka guitar" got mod'ed to +4 :)=) This kills me, and proves that the whole moderation system is really a random thing that we're fooled into believing we have some control over. Informative? He stated it in the article... --[The history of the music industry is a history of exploitation and theft - Robert Fripp]-- |
| Re:eh? someone has been reading too much Katz :) (Score:1) by B. Samedi (BaronSamedi@sluggy.net) on Friday June 09, @12:53PM EDT (#143) (User Info) |
| Sure MTV plays music videos. During the day they play videos with some teenybopper talking over them about how great the Backstreet Boys are and if they aren't doing that then they have the Top Ten [fill in the blank here] Songs of all time where they play about thirty seconds of the video. To be fair they do play full videos... in the middle of the night when they probably have their lowest viewer time. And they do this for money. They can make more money off of Road Rules, Real World, Daria, Beavis and Butthead, etc. then they can off of showing vidoes. Sickening but true. To put it bluntly... I want my old MTV back! (Insert obscure, profound and/or funny quote here) |
| u need digital cable dude... (Score:1) by chrome koran (chrome_koranHATES@SPAMexcite.com) on Friday June 09, @01:07PM EDT (#189) (User Info) |
| I agree with you fully! But last month I got digital cable which just came into my area...I now get MTV2 and MTVX as well as 4 other video music channels besides the original MTV and VH1. ALL the additional channels actually do nothing but show videos!!! hehehe - very cool
|
| Re:eh? someone has been reading too much Katz :) (Score:1) by Glytch (superglytch@you.know.what.to.do.yahoo.com) on Friday June 09, @01:15PM EDT (#206) (User Info) http://glytch.tripod.com/ |
| For music videos, give MuchMusic a try. It's a Canadian TV station, and I'm not sure how much it's available in the US, but it's pretty damned good. Basically it's what MTV used to be, except the folks at Much know what not to do. Except for Rick the Temp. He needs to go. And Bradford is cool. "Well if you're so good then you know what I'm..." "Pink," the other MIB interrupted, "with little blue bears." |
| Re:eh? someone has been reading too much Katz :) (Score:2) by aphrael (burble@aphrael.org) on Friday June 09, @01:27PM EDT (#238) (User Info) http://www.burble.org/aphrael |
| Where I live there is a huge club scene here with live music available 7 nights a week That's true in the cities (san francisco, for example) but it's definitely not true even in college towns like santa cruz, nor have I ever seen live music at a corporate party, nor in a high school event --- yet old movies have these things all the time. Which isn't to say there is no live music ... merely that the exposure to it, for people who don't live in major urban centers, is significantly reduced from what it was a generation ago. Disco is dead Is it? A lot of the musical sensibility of house music comes from disco; at what point do you draw the line and say it isn't disco any more? MTV (VH1, etc) doesn't even plan music videos anymore Ah, but in the fraction of the country where it's available, MTV2 does ... and so, if you're into that sort of thing, do CMT and BET (although the latter's selection is usually pretty lame). I would gladly give my $16 directly to a band - but man I feel bent over when I dish it out to the record companies. Amen. |
| Music Appreciation (Score:1) by Phule77 on Friday June 09, @12:16PM EDT (#19) (User Info) http://members.xoom.com/Phule77 |
| Music (much like theatre, or other art forms) is currently hitting a cycle end. Music's going recorded, theatre's going musical (and broke), art as a whole is becoming kind of questionable. This is perfectly normal, to be frank. We're probably going to see, say, another 50 to a hundred years of degredation of most art, followed by a revolution of some kind, and a total change in the way we approach these things. It's just how humans are. The MP3 issue could just be technological loopholes, changing attitudes, etc. copyright/trademark law is such a bogus area of definition and reality right now that the whole issue, whether in music or Napster, is about as provable as the existence of God in the long run. We're not dealing with definitive quantities at this point. Of course, our culture doesn't deal with the concept of "wait a while, things will change on their own" very well either... Listen to me Peter, I want this bench. You go sit on that bench over there, and if you're good I'll tell you the rest of the story. |
| Never heard big name play live, local radio sucks (Score:1) by blogan (slashdotter(at)network(dash)geek(dot)com) on Friday June 09, @12:17PM EDT (#20) (User Info) http://www.Network-Geek.com/ |
| Some people, like me, have never had to opportunity to hear a famous band play live. Sure, there's the regional band at the county fair, but that's where it stops. I grew up in western North Dakota, where big name musicians rarely come. I would usually have to travel to Fargo (about 6 hours) to hear a non-country band. It's just not something you can do after work. So I get MP3's to hear the bands (one local rock station, it's more on the level of VH1 than MTV). There's no local concerts so the local station won't hype any of the music. I got some Me First and the Gimme Gimme MP3's. They were good, so I bought the album. Probably would've never heard of them otherwise. |
| Feel the paradigms shifting... (Score:1, Insightful) by Coz on Friday June 09, @12:17PM EDT (#22) (User Info) http://www.starwarrior.com |
| I read, and understood... but don't entirely agree. If you ask musicians to stop getting paid for recordings of their music (and yes, I know most of the money goes to middlemen and big corps, but it's an important part of their livelihoods), how many will keep doing it? Would a band like the Stones still be rocking if they didn't make money off their records? Even classical musicians, the epitome of "hear it live" performers, make and sell records - and are hurting from the decline in the production and sales of classical music. I don't believe we're going to see a reversion to live-for-pay, playback-for-free music - but the basis of the existing business model is being eroded. Some new middle ground must be found. Being a techno-geek kind of guy, I kind of hope for a type of direct distribution, where I can hook up to Dave Mathews' archive and select a song for 1 play for $0.05, infinite playback for $1, and have it all keyed to something that's "me." I DON'T agree with the folks who're making mass copies of music. My personal moral code says that that's stealing, even if it's just pennies from the artists and dollars from the Big Bad Corporations. However, I'm not in a position to try to impose these morals on others - it's your conscience, kids, you have to deal with it. |
| Re:Feel the paradigms shifting... (Score:1) by spacen on Saturday June 10, @11:20AM EDT (#675) (User Info) |
| Paradigms, yes. I also want to see artists be compensated. My dollars should be a signal to them, "loved it, make more." I want them to be able to afford instruments, studio access, music lessons, access to the internet, buying music from other artists, etc. A basic question is how to finance the essential parts of the digital path of music between artist and listener. I don't think that live music is a viable universal finance model, though some artists who have other occupations can make it work. The Napster model doesn't have any means for compensation. mp3.com's approach is closer to viable. Elements of the digital path are: 1. Creative artist(s) - time, compositional aids, amortized training (note: producer and technicians could be considered artists) 2. Instrument(s), recording device(s), studio (mostly optional). 3. Digitizer (possibly within instrument/recorder/studio) 4. Internet access for artist, including storage server for them to make available digital music 5. Means for letting potential listeners know that artist and composition exist. 6. Internet access for listener to access artist's storage server. 7. "Analogizer" to convert digital music to sound waves for listener. 8. Listener. We need a way to get money to the artist so they can afford to do 1-4, including necessary long term investments like a share in a cooperative studio, instruments, training. If they are very good at #1 and #2 the beneficiaries (listeners) should fund them well enough so they can think and perform without the distraction of another occupation, enough not to worry about where to pay for food and rent (except for blues musicians whose creativity requires suffering :^) ). In the Napster model the listener pays for 6-8 but essentially nothing (one CD bought by one consumer) goes to the artist or to support the recording industry within #5. An internet listener can't efficiently compensate the artist by buying a CD, since the lion's share of that amount goes to others than the artist. The mp3.com model focuses on #4 and #5. Something like this is the successor to most of today's music recording/distribution industry. -- SP |
| Re:Feel the paradigms shifting... (Score:1) by spacen on Saturday June 10, @11:41AM EDT (#676) (User Info) |
| sorry about format of above; reposted below ---- Paradigms, yes. I also want to see artists be compensated. My dollars should be a signal to them, "loved it, make more." I want them to be able to afford instruments, studio access, music lessons, access to the internet, buying music from other artists, etc. A basic question is how to finance the essential parts of the digital path of music between artist and listener. I don't think that live music is a viable universal finance model, though some artists who have other occupations can make it work. The Napster model doesn't have any means for compensation. mp3.com's approach is closer to viable. Elements of the digital path are:
We need a way to get money to the artist so In the Napster model the listener pays for 6-8 but essentially nothing (one CD bought by one consumer) goes to the artist or to support the recording industry within #5. An internet listener can't efficiently compensate the artist by buying a CD, since the lion's share of that amount goes to others than the artist. The mp3.com model focuses on #4 and #5. Something like this is the successor to most of today's music recording/distribution industry. -- SP |
| Re:Feel the paradigms shifting... (Score:1) by Coz on Friday June 09, @02:28PM EDT (#392) (User Info) http://www.starwarrior.com |
| "marginal production cost of zero"?!?!? Maybe if they're self-taught vocalists, or they click their own spoons... but any band I've ever seen has had instruments, and transportation (to get to the gig), and today there's sound equipment - and all that's just for live music. Record, and you have studio costs, producers, etc. And DON'T try to tell me any hokum about THEIR labor being free. If you want GOOD music, it takes a professional base - folks who can make a living doing it. There will always be gifted ameteurs, but the pros, from teachers to conductors to mixers and arrangers to roadies, are the standard-bearers. If all the musicians who didn't get paid stopped, as you would have it - it's be awful quiet. |
| When the "selfish" phase of net goes away.. (Score:3, Insightful) by cholko on Friday June 09, @12:18PM EDT (#23) (User Info) http://www.archonon.com |
| I still can't believe the audacity of people who want stuff for free and believe they DESERVE IT. When this selfish bastard phase of the internet passes by we all will benefit. The number one concern of many businesses that offer digital product (meaning anything that exists on computers leading to easy transport between them) is that there is a bunch of selfish bastards out there who claim they DESERVE to have stuff for free, and if its not handed to them they have the RIGHT to take it. Once this band of selfish dinks is out of the way the internet will be a better place. They run ramshod over the net because they can... and that ruins it for those of us who want a useful net. . * Did aliens forget to remove your anal probe? |
| Re:When the "selfish" phase of net goes away.. (Score:4, Insightful) by panda on Friday June 09, @12:51PM EDT (#138) (User Info) |
| Having used the Internet for over a decade now, I think I can tell you where this "selfish bastard phase" comes from. The notion that everything on the 'Net is free comes the fact that everything on the 'Net used to be free. When it was just the DOD and the universities (for the most part), there wasn't much commercial content. The users of the 'Net were the same people who were making the content available in the first place, so they didn't mind sharing. The ethic was, "I'll put this out there for everyone to use because that's the right thing to do, or perhaps they'll also put something out there that I can use." When the mass acceptance of the 'Net started in the early Nineties, this situation started to change. Large numbers of people were attracted to the 'net because high quality modems had suddenly become easily affordable, and they had been promised that the Internet contained a wealth of free information. People came to the Internet expecting it to be free. (As a side note, I have heard someone say, "What do you mean I still have to pay to use your software? I pay $19.95 a month for the Internet already.") Commercial interests began to take notice and started offering their services online for a fee. With the increase in interest in the Internet, technologies for digitizing and sharing information began to proliferate. Each new technology made it easier to digitize and share information with others whether you had the legitimate right to share or not. Now, we have the situation we have today. The corps want to control what they see as their property, and users on the Internet want something for nothing, because that is what the Internet has always been in their eyes, a place to get stuff for free. Also, consider that many people do not mind paying for a CD, a book, or even some software if it comes on CD. Most people can equate cost and value with a physical artifact. Many of these same people would, however, balk at paying for a digital file, or a digital representation of a program. Why? Because they have gotten "nothing" in return for their money. They have nothing that they can touch and say, "I paid $9.95 for that." They don't care how much effort went into the creation of that digital file. If there is nothing there, it isn't worth paying for. I'm not saying that everyone is that way, nor that everyone trading MP3s feels that way, nor am I advocating that position. I'm just making wild suppositions. All of that being said, it doesn't take the Internet or digital equipment to pirate other people's intellectual property. The Internet merely facilitates it, since it is designed for sharing information and sharing digital communication. |
| Re:When the "selfish" phase of net goes away.. (Score:1) by Markar (emb12atnorthnetdotnetNoSpam) on Friday June 09, @05:33PM EDT (#550) (User Info) |
| I would like to point out that I view mp3 files as ephemeral. Loaded on a hard drive or in flash memory, it isn't there to stay forever. Space on a HD or Flash memory is limited. Both these mediums are subject to outside forces that could destroy the data. Examples-viruses (or is it virii or viriiuses:), HD crash, electrostatic shock, or buggy software. Some mp3s are downloaded, listened to a few times, deleted, and replaced by something better. If I am going to pay for something, I am going to pay for permanance. CDs represent permanence, if music is worth keeping long term, it is worth paying for on permanent media. CDs also offer convenience over mp3s, people in general are more likely to own a CD player than a computer or MP3 player, as CDs are a much more universal media, and cost much less than flash memory. Should I have to pay for music I'll listen to only a few times before deleting it? Can I get my money back if I think it not worth keeping? The mp3s I've downloaded have been legal mp3s from MP3.com, I've expanded my musical tastes as a result and purchassed some CDs I would have otherwise passed on by. Many people are treating mp3s as though mp3s are permanent media, they are not permanent! Those that are loading up their HD with mp3s, legal or otherwise, will sooner or later reach a point where files will have to be deleted to make room for others. The music industry would probably do better to allow downloading of mp3 as publicity for CD sales. The music industry would also sell more CDs if they lowered the prices of new CD to more realistic levels, and had a site where custom CDs could be ordered from. Just my $0.02 worth. M$ Inovations-Office Bob & Clippy, EOL. |
| Re:When the "selfish" phase of net goes away.. (Score:1) by Electric Eye on Friday June 09, @02:43PM EDT (#417) (User Info) |
| I agree with you. What really disturbs me are the people who have no conscience about this whole thing. I saw a report on the news last night where they were interviewing college students about MP3s. One of them said "Why should I pay for it if I can get ot for free?" And he was dead serious!!! I think this is representative of a wider phenomena going on in this country where people JUST DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ANYONE ELSE. It's apparent our "culture" (does the US have a culture?) is starting rot and it stinks. I'm not trying to preach a return to God or something like that. In fact, I hate those right-wingers. But where the f*ck is the decency in this country, man? Plain and simple decency. Everyone wants something for free now. If I raise kids who think/act like the people I see today, I'll kill myself....after I kill them. Will this go away? Probably not. Welcome to reality... |
| Middle -Ground Record Labels (Score:1) by albamuth on Friday June 09, @12:18PM EDT (#24) (User Info) http://www.piratemotel.org |
| It's about time that there cropped up a new breed of record labels and distros: not as limited in scope and esoteric as the common indie / DIY label, but not as greedy and money-grubbing as the major record labels. Think about it. The "Big 5" ,as they have been referred to, have been dominating the market for too long. Artists that want to get a national distribution and backing have to sign some pretty crazy contracts with the Major Labels; certain number of concerts within so-and-so amount of time, certain amount of royalties from CD's, certain number of albums, etc. Musicians tend to get shafted with Major Label deals, since people are so eager to "sign up" simply don't look closely enough at their contracts. Sure, for every artist that makes money, 9 other ones don't, but it's not like these Major Labels are struggling because of all the failed bands. I think it's time for an mp3 giant like MP3.COM to step into the role of Major Record Label - all they need to do is have better, more flexible contracts than the Big Five. Distribution is very cost effective, promotion is garunteed, since they can jsut put it up on their site for people to try out. The millions they make off of advertisements more than pays for a couple hours in the recording studio, plus engineer time to mix it down. Bands pay for their own tours, anyhow. CD's cost about 75 ¢ to make with a jewelcase, with the insert cost varying widely. So perhaps the low-cost and low-hype of indie labels can be combined with the wide-distribution and mass-mrket of major labels? $ chmod 666 soul.tar.Z |
| Micropayments? (Score:2) by sumana (sumanah@uclink4.berkeley.edu) on Friday June 09, @12:19PM EDT (#25) (User Info) http://www.igs.berkeley.edu:8880/programs/gardner |
| I think that perhaps peopl feel entitled to more, and that internet users (incl. me) have gotten used to "everything is free," but perhaps the model that will both provide people with content and pay the content providers is a micropayment model. I, personally, have no problem with "this song is only licensed to me, but I can transfer or sell it to someone else." (Property rights need to be clear, enforced, and transferable, economists say, and I agree; look at the software license problems when they aren't!) To steal from one is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. |
| Re:Micropayments? (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @01:44PM EDT (#279) (User Info) |
| Information isn't property. It's impossible for it to be owned. (2 out of 3 requirements for ownership are incapable of being applied to information) You're not going to work out problems like this by assuming that it can be owned, or is property. And besides, the law doesn't treat it like it is anyway. (copyrights aren't owernship - they're the rights over copying it, under certain circumstances, the rights expire after a while and are subservient to the public good, not any private one) -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Huh? (Score:1) by Score Whore on Friday June 09, @12:19PM EDT (#26) (User Info) |
| Hey slashdot, rather than posting how you think this, that, and the other should be free why don't you lead the way? Chuck the crappy banner ads. Get rid of the cookies. Lose the "product placement". Throw out your various "buy this so we get some money" schemes. And give that 7 million to the needy. I'm sure people are going to look down on this post, but the fact is that you (slashdot) are just as capitalistic, just as greedy, just as manipulative, and just as ammoral, as the industry associations you "report" about. |
| Cookies are neccessary (Score:1) by _xeno_ on Friday June 09, @12:40PM EDT (#98) (User Info) |
| At least part of the cookie is keeping you logged in - allowing your custom slashboxes and custom comment settings to remain in effect. While this DOES allow them to keep track of what you do on their site, it also means you don't need to log on every single page... |
| Muxed Ip (Score:1) by tomblackwell on Friday June 09, @12:44PM EDT (#110) (User Info) http://www.websavvy.org |
| They think music should be free. I didn't see any references within the story to how web content should be free. Get yer Music News |
| Re:Muxed Ip (Score:1) by Score Whore on Friday June 09, @01:01PM EDT (#168) (User Info) |
| Of course you didn't see any references to free web content. That's how they get paid. Until people start giving away their own work it's hard to take the seriously when they say other people should be giving it away. |
| Re:Huh? (Score:1) by B. Samedi (BaronSamedi@sluggy.net) on Friday June 09, @01:04PM EDT (#180) (User Info) |
| Last I checked it's free to use Slashdot. So they have banner ads. Is anyone forcing you to click on them? Is Roblimo or CmdrTaco standing behind you with a gun saying "Click on it and buy or we'll kill you!"? If you have clicked on something and/or bought something because you saw it on Slashdot then you have just made it worth their efforts. If not then why are you complaining? They have those things there because it works. If it didn't work then they wouldn't use them. If you want you can even set up a competing page and do all of those things that you say. As for the seven million to the needy... I don't even want to get started. (Insert obscure, profound and/or funny quote here) |
| Re:Huh? (Score:1) by Score Whore on Friday June 09, @01:26PM EDT (#237) (User Info) |
| Never heard of impressions? Big sites don't get paid on clickthrough. It's unlikely that /. gets less than $5 per thousand impressions. The fact is that they want to get paid for doing less than a musician does. |
| Re:Huh? (Score:1) by Mojojojo Monkey Inc. (jakecarlin@hotmail.spam) on Friday June 09, @04:45PM EDT (#525) (User Info) |
| cookies are for winners! logging in every time you want to post a reply is for losers! also, by loading banners, i'm supporting slashdot, while you are not. everytime I see that beowulf banner ad I just get all happy inside... I wish slashdot would have more "Punch the Monkey" java ads though, i loved that little guy... -o moving forward not backward... upward not downward... and always spinning spinning spinning toward freedom o- |
| I think music should be free (Score:1) by rob1imo (roblimo.nojunk@slashdot.org) on Friday June 09, @12:20PM EDT (#27) (User Info) |
| Does anyone else remember when the recording industry tried muscling smaller stores out of their distribution chain for selling used CD's? Those stores offered better prices and selection than evil joints like Musicland/Sam Goody, Wherehouse, and Tower -- the RIAA's pawns. Those stores don't sell used CD's, and they don't sell much outside of the Billboard Hot 100, which itself is heavily skewed by the industry's influence. Of course, maybe there wouldn't be that pressure if every artist wasn't demanding millions of dollars for their music. Similarly, I imagine that it wouldn't cost $30 to go to one of favorite professional sports teams' games... - Robin |
| It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:1, Flamebait) by LISNews on Friday June 09, @12:20PM EDT (#29) (User Info) http://www.lisnews.com |
| Musicians spend THOUSANDS of DOLLARS and THOUSANDS of HOURS on their music, don't they deserve to get paid? No one becomes a musician and says, "hey, I'll just open source this song, it's so damn good, i deserve nothing for it." Many people live in poverty hoping to make it big. |
| What musicians spend lots of time on their music? (Score:2, Insightful) by sumana (sumanah@uclink4.berkeley.edu) on Friday June 09, @12:29PM EDT (#57) (User Info) http://www.igs.berkeley.edu:8880/programs/gardner |
| Musicians spend THOUSANDS of DOLLARS and THOUSANDS of HOURS on their music, don't they deserve to get paid? If you've ssen ABC's "Making the Band," you know that not all musicians spend that much time on their music, on making their music better. Do you really think the Backstreet Boys spend more time giving interviews or more time practicing? Electronics and "emotion-pimping harmonies" (Jeremy Richards, http://www.lyricsschmirics.com) can make most anyone sound good. |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:1) by lalas on Friday June 09, @12:33PM EDT (#73) (User Info) |
| Musicians definately deserve to be paid, but I think that they should be payed whenever they PLAY THEIR SONGS!!! As for the THOUSANDS of DOLLARS and THOUSANDS of HOURS that musicians spend on there music...it sounds a little like College or Work!!! |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:1) by Stonehand (lw2j@cs.cmu.edu) on Friday June 09, @12:44PM EDT (#113) (User Info) http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~lw2j |
| Then don't use their music, and don't buy their CDs. You don't have to pay a dime to the recording companies aside from any cut they may or may not get from a live concert. They, however, don't have to tolerate people getting their unlicensed product for free. -- the silly student / he writes really bad haiku / readers all go mad |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:1) by LISNews on Friday June 09, @12:51PM EDT (#139) (User Info) http://www.lisnews.com |
| hmmm, I guess it is work for some, isn't it? not a bad job, eh? |
| Who's getting paid?? (Score:1) by Hammer (bDeInEgtShP@sAoMlMeEcRt) on Friday June 09, @01:22PM EDT (#229) (User Info) |
| Who is actually making the BIG bucks here? The performer or The record company?? Consider this. Back in the time of 12" vinyls an album set you back about 8-12 bucks. When the CD made its debut the price of the album jumped 50-60%, even though the actual price of producing, manufacturing and delivering a CD is lower then for a 12" vinyl. Somehow I do not think that any of that money ends up in the pockets of the performers. I would buy considerably more music if the price of a CD was anywhere near reasonable. That is the point that RIAA is missing, stop ripping off your customers and they will be happy to pay for the music. They must act soon though before the notion that it's OK to trade MP3 gets deeply rooted in the public (if it is not already too late). (to email remove uppercase and add .com) |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:2) by mindstrm (moctodemohtamrtsdnim) on Friday June 09, @12:44PM EDT (#114) (User Info) |
| I spend thousands of dollars and thousands of hours watchint TV and collecting swords. Don't I deserve to get paid? Of course not.. because nothing I produced is worth anything to anyone. Just because you spend money doing something doesn't mean you deserve to get paid. People don't 'deserve' to get paid. People create somethign that the public wants.. if people don't want it anymore.. then it's not WORTH anything to those poeple. Musicians create albums under the assumption that it is what the public wants, and is willing ot pay for. That is a state that is now changing. |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:1) by LISNews on Friday June 09, @12:50PM EDT (#135) (User Info) http://www.lisnews.com |
| Well of course not everyone should be paid for it. That wasn;t my point. Actually, most shouldn't be. |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:1) by lalas on Friday June 09, @01:03PM EDT (#173) (User Info) |
| Well, if people in general decide that then recorded music loses whatever perceived value that it has gained in the last few decades. The argument that it costs whatever the market will bear is valid, however that doesn't mean that the market is going to play fair forever. |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:1) by Rico_Suave on Friday June 09, @01:17PM EDT (#214) (User Info) |
| Well, what if I think what you do for a living isn't what I want? Does that give me the right to use the product of your work without compensating you? -- |
| Why do musicians have a right to make a living? (Score:1) by DG (trog@SPAM-ME-NOT.wincom.net) on Friday June 09, @01:00PM EDT (#166) (User Info) http://www.wincom.net/trog/ |
| Where does it say anywhere that musicians have some sort of God-given right to make a living playing music? About a hundred years ago, every village would have two essential things: a mill, and a blacksmith. The blacksmith was the guy that did all the metalworking - he was a factory, he was the Mr. Fixit, and quite often he was the vet too (all that experience shodding horses) But the invention of interchangeable parts killed off the blacksmith. When you need a new brake rotor for your car, you go to NAPA and buy one - there isn't some guy banging one out of a lump of steel in a forge out back. Now it just so happens that for a while, I was employed as a blacksmith. Yes, a big-ass hammer, an anvil, and a forge (although our forge was propane, not coal) At the time, I was one of maybe 50 blacksmiths in North America, and we earned our living churning out hand-forged decorative ironmongery. It was dirty, nasty, rotten work, mixing together the worst elements of traditional smith work (pounding hot steel with a hammer) with modern assembly line techniques (work in bulk, do large batches of similar operations, work as fast as you possibly can for long stretches) Now once upon a time, we'd've been the most important guys in the village. Fix a plow here, shoe a horse there - and we'd've been (comparitavely) making out like bandits. A 19th-century smith would have been horrified to see how hard we were working for so little real gain (I made $9/hour, with a half-hour for lunch, no vaction, no medical) But you see, nobody was holding a gun to my head and forcing me to be a blacksmith. That job was my CHOICE (makes a great conversation piece) and while technology advances seventy years before I was born made my (then) trade irrelevant, there was nothing anywhere that said I had the right to make a living as a blacksmith. Similarily, modern-day musicians made their living because there was great demand for recorded music, and a limited-access distribution model. Well, that limited-access distribution model has fallen down. It's gone. And like us blacksmiths looking at the first parts catalogue, musicians have to either adapt to the new reality, or find employment elsewhere. Yeah, sure it sucks that the Backstreet Boys are having trouble making a living. They can join us blacksmiths, buggy-whip makers, telegraph operators, ENIAC-vacuum-tube-changers, and God knows how many other professions whom technology has overcome and made obsolete. Welcome to the club - and deal with it. DG |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:1) by robwicks (rawrob@hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @01:08PM EDT (#191) (User Info) |
Musicians spend THOUSANDS of DOLLARS and THOUSANDS of HOURS on their music, don't they deserve to get paid? No one becomes a musician and says, "hey, I'll just open source this song, it's so damn good, i deserve nothing for it." Many people live in poverty hoping to make it big. The market will determine if they deserve to get paid. I think the shift in the motives for making music from enjoyment, and perhaps fame to "making it big" has led to a general decline in quality as people realize that, for the most part, the key to making lots of money in music is not to create really original things, but to put a new twist on things which are substantially the same as that which preceded it. The purpose of copyright is not to just reward artists. It is to benefit the public by providing creative people with an incentive to add to the culture. Once the period is up, the artist gives up rights to the song/software/book, and it becomes a common part of the culture. That's the trade-off. We give up a little temporary freedom by granting a legal monopoly for a limited time, and the producer gets any profits he can make during that time with little competition. We are not rewarding the labor, though. The product is what we are interested in. If the musician labors for years and produces something nobody wants, he gets no money. Even if the winds of change blow and his product makes a lot of money after the monopoly period is over. Tough luck. Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:3, Insightful) by gorilla on Friday June 09, @01:20PM EDT (#221) (User Info) |
| Only if their customers think it's worth it. I know an artist who spends every free penny she gets on materials, and sells almost everything she makes at a loss. She's hoping that in some day in the future, she'll be regarded well enough that she'll make a profit, but she will continue making her sculptures forever, because she is an ARTIST. |
| Re:It's all about Time And $$$ (Score:2) by Mr. Slippery (tms@spambefuddler-infamous.net) on Friday June 09, @01:40PM EDT (#270) (User Info) http://www.infamous.net/ |
Musicians spend THOUSANDS of DOLLARS and THOUSANDS of HOURS on their music, don't they deserve to get paid?Sure. But that doesn't imply that the way for them to get paid is a government-mandated monopoly on making copies, that interferes with my rights to share information. We need new models. Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/ "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?" - Nick Lowe |
| On music and money (Score:3, Informative) by GrayMouser_the_MCSE on Friday June 09, @12:21PM EDT (#31) (User Info) |
| I didn't see it mentioned, at least not prominently, but one of the original ways performers in the U.S. were paid was by publishing their sheet music in the newspapers. Families would sit at home and play the "rag of the week" and sing, etc... Until be-bop jaz came along and music became unplayable for your hobby pianist. Nowadays, most people don't play music, they just listen to it. And the means of distributing music has changed from the sheet music to recordings on various formats. Of course, these recordings are easy to duplicate and distribute independant of the artist/record label/retailer, etc... If you bought the sheet music, you could learn it, teach it to a friend, or share it. But you weren't allowed to photocopy and distribute it as it was copyrighted. Recorded music also has a copyright, but many people don't seem to mind violated this for various reasons, most of them fairly benign. The problem partly resides in the free as in speech vs free as in beer principle. People want to have things free as in speech. The problem is that it can then quickly become free as in beer. Software example: I write an application under the GPL and then sell it for $40 to cover my development costs. The first person can then put up and distribute it for less or free if he wants (hey, it didn't cost him very much...). He can even learn it and sell support if he wants to. So my sales drop as people can get the free version. I know that this doesn't always happen, as there is value with dealing direct and in packaging etc... Red Hat shows this with their sales of Linux. But it illustrates the potential problem. Back to music, lest I be accused of trolling: People have gotten accustomed to "free speech" and sharing music. They listen to music for free (actually paid by advertisers) on the radio, and don't see any difference between that and downloading or recording a song or album to listen to. Its not about evil intentions, its just about people becoming too comfortable with music and not thinking about copyright when they're just enjoying themselves kicking back to some tunes. Of course I use Microsoft. Setting up a stable unix network is no challenge ;p |
| Re:On music and money (Score:2) by Golias on Friday June 09, @03:00PM EDT (#439) (User Info) |
| Families would sit at home and play the "rag of the week" and sing, etc... Until be-bop jaz came along and music became unplayable for your hobby pianist. Actually, family music-making declined sharply at the beginning of the century, when the rise of Clay-78 records and music radio let you listen to professional musicians in your living room. Be-bop came along several decades later, as a reaction of musicians that got really, really bored playing swing band music in the dance halls, and went to the after-hours speakeasy's and coffee shops to play more challenging stuff after their big-paying gigs were over. I never said I was afraid of dying. |
| Music is just supply and demand (Score:1) by Miniluv on Friday June 09, @12:23PM EDT (#35) (User Info) |
| This is an interesting field in which to debate, because of the seemingly universal belief now that people of first-world countries are entitled to things. This is an erroneous belief. I can only speak about what I as an American am entitled to, and that is fairly straight-forward. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. I am not entitled to a house, food, clothing, internet access or free music. If I was I wouldn't work and thus would not be contributing anything to society, which is the fundamental way in which our nation (and every nation) functions as a whole. Musicians whose CD's sell for $18 a piece are following the most fundamental of economic laws:Supply & Demand. If nobody PAID that $18 for a cd, it wouldn't sell for that much, the price would slowly but surely creep down, as it does with "older" cd's and "less popular" cd's. While I've been as guilty as many others of trading music via Napster and similar clients, I haven't ever felt the urge to justify my copyright infringements with outraged moralizing. I like to think I'm an honest enough person to recognize tha t by trading music on Napster I am denying the musicians their due. Anyone who has had dreams of being a musician knows just how difficult it is to break into the music industry and achieve the sort of success a Metallica, Ricky Martin or the Beatles enjoy(ed). They have been decided to be worthy of monetary rewards by a global economy based on supply and demand, and the laws of most of the countries participating in this economy support this. If people disagree with copyright laws and "profiteering" record companies, fight back using the right's actually given you as a consumer and citizen. Don't buy that cd, write your representative and if they don't listen then vote for the other guy. If we ALL coordinate what seems to be a popular point of view people WILL get elected who share "our" views and falling profits will send a message to the record companies. Just don't forget that if cd's stop selling, people WILL stop recording music. |
| Re:Music is just supply and demand (Score:1) by deanc (romaios@hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @12:48PM EDT (#126) (User Info) http://www.media.mit.edu/~constans |
| First of all, when was the last time someone paid $18 for a CD? Also, this is a simplistic view of supply and demand. A price is set at $18 per CD not because _everyone_ is willing to pay $18, but because $18 is the profit-maximizing point. X people pay $18, resulting in the maximum amount of profit for the company, while Y people are priced out of the market. Thus those in group Y are supposed to bend over and accept the fact that they can't afford the CD because of group X that drives up the price. That's why some companies engage in "price discrimination", for example by charging $18 to group X, and giving discounts to group Y, so both groups X and Y are able to send money to the record company. So, in conclusion, music is not expensive because _everyone_ is willing to pay lots of money, but only because _enough_ people are willing to pay a lot of money. -Dean |
| Re:Music is just supply and demand (Score:1) by billd91 on Friday June 09, @01:23PM EDT (#232) (User Info) |
| Well, actually those entitlements aren't necessarily the only ones. The Declaration of Independence says there are certain inalienable rights and AMONG THESE are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness (property in earlier drafts). There is no indication that these entitlements/rights are exhaustive. The issues of safety nets, affordable housing, etc can all be taken as corollary to the 3 ennumerated ones anyway. How can you live without food, shelter? And from the views of the dominant political class, how else can we keep the masses from revolting if we don't provide enough base level of these to keep them docile? Russia and China both failed to do so (as many other countries do now) and many others faced revolt before building in these safety nets. But, back to the question of music. I think the suggestion that Napster and other distribution outlets should be required to pay a fee similar to radio stations is appropriate. In a setting where the supply is potentially infinite, the old 'laws' of supply and demand can't work. The only measure then is demand which can, in a non-anonymous digital environment, be easily tracked. The artist(s) should be paid an amount in proportion to that demand (which he deserves by his labor). Thus, I think a per-download licensing fee is appropriate from the distributor. It would then be up to the distributor to make that payment via advertising receipts or pass the fee on to the consumer. |
| Re:Music is just supply and demand (Score:1) by Miniluv on Friday June 09, @03:37PM EDT (#480) (User Info) |
| To risk being moderately off-topic and not actually disagreeing with you, Life does not include food or shelter, Liberty merely means due process in our (the american) justice system, and the Pursuit of Happiness means we will not be impeded from lawful "fun". The Consitution and Bill of Rights doesn't list things to be provided us, but prevents the Gov't from taking certain things away. The gov't cannot deny us the right listen to music obtained lawfully, nor can it deny us the right to shelter, food or clothing obtained lawfully. That's really what the entire controversy boils down to is what's lawful and what's not. |
| Music is an Experience (Score:1) by OpenSourceRulez (mwl1979@hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @12:23PM EDT (#37) (User Info) |
| I agree with some of the stuff said in this posting. For example, most bands performances are just identical to what is on their albums. Sure you may get a cover or two besides that, but essentially you are paying to go listen to an album live. I can remember when people would come back from concerts and saying that it was a great overall experience. Now a days I only hear people says this about a few select bands(Phish, DMB). I mean if I had my way, every concert I would go to would have the effect of a Pink Floyd concert. Not only did you listen to the music at a Floyd concert, you experienced it. That's why so many people loved going to Floyd concerts, it wasn't just music it was an unforgetable experience. Now if Napster was just for trading live versions of songs, and independant artists, I very much doubt this whole debaucle would be going on. I mean I would much rather listen to a live recording then a studio recording. Maybe it's because I am a musician(I've played trumpet for over a decade), but I like to hear muscians put their heart and soul into their music and all the little imperfections than to hear the clean antiseptic studio recordings. I just think for a lot of the bands today its about money, not the music. |
| Why Recorded Music is Better than Live Music (Score:2, Insightful) by VAXman on Friday June 09, @12:24PM EDT (#39) (User Info) |
| Roblimo's point that people should harken back to live music and support live bands with different shows IMHO is absurd. - The best music is difficult, and hard to understand, and takes several listenings to appreciate. There have been symphonies which I have had to listen to nearly a hundred times to first appreciate, and even music which I have been listening to for ten years still has more to reveal today. It is impossible to appreciate the best music after one or two listens in a concert setting. - Many of the best musicians are dead. - The best music is not participatory and/or social. It should be listened to in silence and the audience shouldn't react until it is over. With live music you need to deal with people shuffling chairs, etc. - Permanence. Musicians change their styles, technology changes. Live music gives you merely a snapshot view, but it is rather more difficult to judge how everything has changed. - Global view. Before the advent of recorded music, it was rather difficult to hear the best musicians in Africa, or the best orchestras in Japan. - Value. It is rather more cheaper to pay $15 for a lifetime of listening pleasure than, $20 for a two hour show. -- The Linux Promise: Crash Early, Crash Often |
| Re:Why Recorded Music is Better than Live Music (Score:1) by deanc (romaios@hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @12:57PM EDT (#156) (User Info) http://www.media.mit.edu/~constans |
| Well said. The only music I go to see live anymore is classical music. Another problem is the mixing of instruments and vocals during a performance. In a recording studio, enough time and effort is spent to get the balance right before a recording is made. On the other hand, I rarely see this done right at live performances. Usually, either the vocals overshadow the musicians or the musicians drown out the vocals. Finally, what's the point of listening to amplified music live vs. listening to amplified music amplified through a home stereo system? At least I have control of the volume at home. :) -Dean |
| Rebuttal (Score:1) by Vermifax on Friday June 09, @01:16PM EDT (#210) (User Info) |
| "-The best music is difficult, and hard to understand, and takes several listenings to appreciate. " An opinion, not a fact. There is something to be said in the simplicity of many Peter,Paul and Mary songs and/or the Beatles. Complex does not always equal good. "- Many of the best musicians are dead. " Meaningless. equally true are the following: Many of the best musicians are alive and many of the best musicians are yet to be born. "- The best music is not participatory and/or social." Also an opinion. Audience participation actually lets you relate with the people creating the music. Some people would also say that the "shuffling chairs" is part of the environment and therefore a part of the music" "Permanence. Musicians change their styles, technology changes." While it is good that we are able to collect these recordings, the musician may have expeirienced something that colours their music on the day they perform in a way that the sterile recording booth does not show. "Global view" - This one I will agree with. However, I would still rather hear a live recording of said musicians in Africa/orchestras in Japan. "Value. It is rather more cheaper to pay $15 for a lifetime of listening pleasure than, $20 for a two hour show." Arbitrary valuation. It is rather more cheaper to pay $20 for a lifetime of memories of a shared experience with the artist, then $15 for a cd when you never interact with the artist
My guitar instructor has students who have become fairly famous. He has played with famous people and currently makes a living playing studio gigs for other groups as well as live performance. He has written some music that the band he is in plays. He once told me that people ask him why he has never recorded an album. His response is that without the people there listening too him, his music didn't mean anything. That the music that was created on that night wasn't meant to live forever except in the mind of the people who listened to him. Music is in the moment and once the moment is gone the music lives on only as memory. I don't go as far as he does, but having played in an orchestra as well as a live band, speaking as a musician, live play is more musical (in my opinion) than studio recordings can ever be. |
| Participation is bad? (Score:3, Insightful) by sumana (sumanah@uclink4.berkeley.edu) on Friday June 09, @01:32PM EDT (#248) (User Info) http://www.igs.berkeley.edu:8880/programs/gardner |
| In general, I agree with many of your points about advantages of recorded music. The best music is not participatory and/or social. It should be listened to in silence and the audience shouldn't react until it is over. With live music you need to deal with people shuffling chairs, etc. Is "good music" only music that is made my the performer and not the audience? I understand that in classical music, perhaps that's the best way to enjoy it, absolute silence except for the music, and no distractions, but in other performances -- e.g. live concerts of Rage Against the Machine, dances, etc. -- perhaps there's more to the music than just sound. Maybe there's a community spirit, or a ritual, or some other aspect to the experience than just listening. I think it's a little narrow to say that the music that you prefer is "best." Is this an Atlas Shrugged kind of thing where the music that takes the most work and the most intellectual discrimination to enjoy is best? There's room for all types, perhaps? Buzzy Frets and Ravi Shankar and Rage and Shostakovich and Ella Fitzgerald might all be good in different ways, and maybe different environments are best for different people to enjoy different styles of music. |
| Re:Why Recorded Music is Better than Live Music (Score:1) by gark (doane@spam.sucks.acm.org) on Friday June 09, @05:01PM EDT (#543) (User Info) |
| I don't see why it's not possible to have both. Why suffer the Tyranny of the OR when technology offers the Genius of the AND? Also, I disagree about the "best" music being non-participatory. A good audience generally helps to energize a performance. If you're at the event, you need to deal. But good recordings of live events are quite common, and should become more so as recording equipment and delivery mechanisms continue to drop in price. |
| Re:Why Recorded Music is Better than Live Music (Score:1) by ksheff on Saturday June 10, @10:12PM EDT (#693) (User Info) |
Value. It is rather more cheaper to pay $15 for a lifetime of listening pleasure than, $20 for a two hour show. I wish $20 was all it cost to go to a concert these days!! That's about half of the price I paid for one ticket to the last concert I went to...and they were in the nosebleed section. I hope you aren't a Don Henley fan...your wallet will go into shock: $100/ticket! An org that treats its programmers as morons will soon have programmers that are willing & able to act like morons only |
| What's the point? (Score:1) by Pseudonymus Bosch on Friday June 09, @12:24PM EDT (#40) (User Info) http://www.dmoz.org/ |
| Is there any conclusion? Other than "people expect this thing to be free. So it should be free" __ "Free" as in "free 'undred quid". |
| Radio diversity (Score:2, Informative) by quixotal on Friday June 09, @12:25PM EDT (#43) (User Info) |
| If you want more diversity on the radio, you should contact your representatives in Washington about Low Power FM. It looks like it's going to get defeated. streaming mp3/asf/ra!=low power fm |
| LPFM (Score:1) by Coz on Friday June 09, @01:18PM EDT (#219) (User Info) http://www.starwarrior.com |
| Even if LPFM doesn't get defeated - most folks are ignorant of the technical requirements. Not just the equipment, but the necessity of finding an open frequency that meets the non-interference criteria. I'm in one of the first states to be able to apply (Maryland), and there's nowhere within 50 miles of home that I can put a 100W station, because the interference patterns from existing commercial broadcasters overlap. I'm bummed. These folks who live in a top 50 market and think they're going to get licenses need to check the FCC Web site for the terms, then hit the LPFM Channel Finder to see if there are any frequencies available - then get ready to compete for them. (Requires transmitter coordinates in degrees/minutes/seconds - check their Coordinate Finder for a first approximation.) |
| Beatles - records/stage (Score:1) by lukpac on Friday June 09, @12:26PM EDT (#45) (User Info) http://www.lukpac.org/ |
| This is a bit of a tangent, but the issue was brought up that The Beatles' later output was not, and could not be performed on stage. I know this stance has been held by many writers. But I'm not sure I agree. I know many folks have said Revolver could not have been performed on stage, even if The Beatles continued touring. Why not? Sure, it would have been hard to do something like Tomorrow Never Knows on stage, but there is really not that much out of the ordinary. Sure, some of the arrangements would have to have been changed (fitting the songs to 2 guitars, bass and drums), but... I'd bet if The Who had never played Tommy on stage critics would have said it couldn't be done. Oh, all those horns and keyboards! Multitracked vocals and guitars! Well, the Tommy performances onstage, in 1969-1970, were IMO some of the best rock has ever seen. And it was all done with a guitar, bass, drums, and three vocalists. No backing tapes, outside musicians, etc... And it was more powerful than the studio version, to boot. I guess this doesn't address some of the larger issues raised, but...oh well! |
| Re:Beatles - records/stage (Score:2) by gorilla on Friday June 09, @01:25PM EDT (#236) (User Info) |
| The Pet Shop Boys said the same thing, that they would never tour because it was impossible to generate their studio sound on the stage. A few years ago, they did go on a tour. |
| Re:Beatles - records/stage (Score:1) by Laural (lauralb@ipassDOTnet) on Friday June 09, @03:25PM EDT (#472) (User Info) http://www.duke.edu/~lhb2 |
| >The Pet Shop Boys said the same thing, that they >would never tour because it was impossible to >generate their studio sound on the stage. A few >years ago, they did go on a tour. ... and in fact they were on tour just last year. All they had was a huge synthesizer and a keyboard with them (plus back-up singers). Depeche Mode does the same thing. The Beatles' not touring has more to do with the homogenization of shows (that they despised as much as anyone) than the difficulties in performing their new work. "Yesterday" had a string quartet backup on the album, yet it was played in the concerts, either acoustically or with a backing track. |
| Re:Beatles - records/stage (Score:1) by Tiny Ant on Friday June 09, @03:50PM EDT (#499) (User Info) |
| Yes, the Beatles much perfered studio, as they could hear what they played. Being able to mime only goes so far at a live concert (they couldn't be heard over the screaming audience - not that they were lip syncing to music, and the audience was listening.) At least with LP's the audience could listen to the music. |
| Hear, Hear....... (Score:1) by flatrabbit (flatrabbit@crosswinds.net) on Friday June 09, @12:26PM EDT (#46) (User Info) |
| I whole heartedly agree..... It's all about evolution, evoultion in the way we think and act. The standard "I have what you can't but you can pay me for it" society is fading in to the backround. We can no longer allow greedy oppurtunists to control our every move(i.e. RIAA, MPAA, GOV, LOL). Now I am one of those people who never actually used napster. I won't say that I never downloaded an "illegal" MP3 though. I'll just plead the fifth. I firmly belive in a bands right to compensation for their musical creation but, I don't think that these people deserve the "lions" share. I fugure that if they love music so much they would be willing to make "just enough" money rather than "more than enough" money. This can be appiled to Major sports stars too. (Does anybody really deserve $10 mil a year?) I won't bore you by going into a huge rant against the big Corporations but I thnk that sombody(i.e. a musician of a storts star) needs to take a stand and say "hey I'll work for the bare minimum!!" or "I play music(or a sport) beacause I love it I don't need to be paid 50 mil.!) Thanks for your time. flatrabbit, peripheral visionary "A genius, just a little off to the side." |
| Mixed tapes, too. (Score:1) by Saint Aardvark on Friday June 09, @12:26PM EDT (#48) (User Info) http://st_aardvark.tripod.com |
| Well put. But there's another factor, I think, in the sense of entitlement: the extremely common practice of making and giving away mixed tapes. Remember in High Fidelity where John Cusack talks about making tapes, and what a careful process it is? It was spot on. And when's the last time you heard of someone being busted for giving away a mixed tape? The closest that we've ever come up here in Canada is putting an extra levy on blank media (tapes & CD-Rs) that, IIRC, is still vapourware after a few years now. My point is that, conceptually, there's little difference between giving someone a 90 minute cassette, and giving someone a copy of your MP3. "So one's a better copy. And can be copied a million times. What's the big deal? We've always done this. Why the sudden knot in the gotchies over copying now?" I think this the big factor in the kicking and the screaming (and the hurting and the shoving and biting, WAHEY!). It still bothers me that performers aren't getting paid for copying their songs, and it's still very striking to me that, among a significant chunk of people, they don't understand why that's not good. Kinda petering out here. Oh well. Let's go to a commercial, shall we? |
| What a useless diatribe. (Score:3, Insightful) by um... Lucas (lk@caralis.com) on Friday June 09, @12:28PM EDT (#54) (User Info) http://www.dioxidized.com/ |
| I'm sorry, but I can hardly see any sense in this... None of the barriers that your perceive today exist in any way shape or form. 20 or 30 years ago, any group of 3, 4, 5 kids could go work at McDonalds, save their penny's, buy a couple of guitars, amps, and a drumkit, and be on their way to playing the local bar scene. It's the same case as it is today. It's not that hard to find places to play if you've got a band together. Even if you SUCK, someone will take you until you've proven that you suck to every bar, and/or coffee house owner. And to say that we're conditioned to free music is just absurd. Since when have the great majority of concerts been free? They aren't. Woodstock 25 was one of the most capitalized events in the history of music. Lollapallooza is proving over and over how much money can be squeezed out of kids with too much money on their hands. The muzak that you hear at the mall or in the elevator is paid for by the mall owners, who are trying to make shopping a slightly more endurable experience. You have to be at the mall to hear it. The music you hear on the radio, you can listen to at home, but again, it gets paid for by the advertisers and not you. The music you hear at a dance club is again, paid for by somebody else, again, you need to be present at the dance club, paying a cover chage in most cases, and purchasing overpriced drinks generally. If you don't want to go to the mall, listen to the radio, go to a club, etc. If you want to be able to listen to the songs you want to listen to in the order that you want to, no one's able to subsidize ti, so therefore it's you who should pay for it. Musicians earn a living recording music. If you take away the ability to earn money, no, music won't suffer immediately, but eventually it will be hard to see much good coming from it. Forget about calling them "artists" and thinking that "true artists should give their work away for free". That's hogwash. Many of the great artists in history have made money from their skills, either selling their paintings, or being commissioned to create works for others. The ability to record music and it's popularity thereafter was not to serve fans... It was a way that musicians could "sell" their work and be able to concentrate on making more of it. This entitlement things really getting old. You're not guarenteed anything in life. You may want it, you may even need it, but you need to earn it to make it yours. Just like you have to go buy a new machine from Dell with a 1000 dollar processor in it, over 1/2 of which is just intel's markup, yet no one shrugs their shoulders about that. If you want free music, go make it. Or just listen to the bands who actually support the cause that you're following. Distribute their music. In any other case, you're just stealing/. |
| And your responce, IMO, isn't much better. (Score:1) by WorLord (gonzo@REMOVETOMAIL.worlord.com) on Friday June 09, @05:48PM EDT (#556) (User Info) |
| "Forget about calling them 'artists' and thinking that 'true artists should give their work away for free'. That's hogwash." That sentiment is quite possibly full of more hogwash then the article that spawned it. Music made with money in mind has NEVER been any good. I'm an artist; I can say this. In all the shows my work has been displayed in, and in all the music I've heard, the Art ALWAYS suffers when the artist's attention is shifted towards dollars instead of personal fulfillment. This is almost a universal constant. You don't really want or advocate, "more music surfacing;" you're just a fan of having more chaff in the wheat. A digital revolution (like the MP3/Napster thing) like this will only mean *one thing* for music: the strong artists, who produce their work for art's sake alone, will survive; and all the garbage will disappear into the realm of "where are they now" rockumentaries. And I, for one, couldn't be happier about it. May the One shine in us all, even those happy to see a new age of Real Music on the Horizon. --WorLord |
| Re:um Lucas are you a RIAA PR rep? (Score:1) by um... Lucas (lk@caralis.com) on Friday June 09, @02:57PM EDT (#436) (User Info) http://www.dioxidized.com/ |
| This is like the second time that an AC has asked that question... is this the same one per chance? And I get asked this just because I'm a fan of music and think that artists should be paid? No, I'm not in league with the RIAA or any other facet of the industry that get's mentioned around here.... I'm just a FAN who wants more music to surface in the world rather than less. Get it through your head. |
| PAH! (Score:1) by chickenmadrasplease on Friday June 09, @12:29PM EDT (#56) (User Info) |
| >artists who wrote and played the songs Come off it. Most of the current so-called music is straight off a production line these days. Most *bands* couldn't play an A-D-E progression if their lives depended upon it. Heck I doubt most of the chart toppers even knew guitars had to be tuned. Granted people who actually can write AND perform should be very handsomely rewarded (assuming people like the material). However, these talented individuals will survive the test of time and have a far better life style than Mr Joe Average, whereas your Spears & Co. types will end up saggy old slappers doing the elderly lady chat show rounds. |
| Re:PAH! (Score:1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09, @05:58PM EDT (#560) |
| If music sucks so much how come you're so eager to steal it? |
| Re:PAH! (Score:1) by chickenmadrasplease on Saturday June 10, @06:39PM EDT (#688) (User Info) |
| Please forward the name of your legal representation. I'll be seeing you in court. |
| there's a fundamental drive to share culture (Score:1) by Ricdude on Friday June 09, @12:30PM EDT (#59) (User Info) http://www.tux.org/~ricdude |
| I've been thinking of writing just this very article for a few months now. But I think it really goes back farther to at least the medieval days, where traveling bards would play for people, and the performer is what differentiated one performance of a song from another. Two performers may play the same song differently, but there was a commonality between the songs, that people everywhere could bond with. Much like taping records from my friends in high school, we now trade mp3s as a way to develop a common bond with other people through an interest in similar cultural (music or video) tastes. I think there's a fundamental cultural drive to share cultural interests with our fellow people. It's just that now, with the capability of being able to create "perfect" copies of various media via apropriate compession schemes, and the ability of the internet to facilitate *point-to-point* distribution of digital data, that we are able to accomplish with such great efficiency, what we struggled to do in high school and college with hi-fi tape decks, and our favourite "underground" (or at least underknown) bands. Perhaps a second edition of the article could address these and other issues raised in the comments?
|
| Intelligent Flow, Realistic Outlook (Score:1) by Zanth_ on Friday June 09, @12:30PM EDT (#60) (User Info) |
| Nicely done, the purpose of any business is to make money, but when the rules of business change, all involved have to adapt or be left behind. The RIAA has, as recently decreed, fixed music prices, the consumers have in retaliation found ways to receive their music preferences without paying those inflated prices. The technology has now been established and will only improve over time. If the RIAA does not accept and encourage the technology, the "free trading" of their product will be their death. Micropayments of individual songs is a start, but charging 1-2$/song is ridiculous when you consider an album can be 12-28 songs and thus even a 12 tract album will cost more than if purchased in a store. MP3s at 128 kbts is not nearly as clear as a disk, so this way, they make more money and provide a lower quality product. that will not fly. The consumer may be willing to pay $.25/song, at 128 kbts, 44Hz which will result in an album costing $3 online. Reasonable? sure. People who want things for free will continue to steal, but those with a higher moral outlook will file down to the lower cost items if and only if, they are paying for something that is WORTH their money, and not inflated. should music be free? No I don't think so, but should I pay $20 Canadian for CD? no I should not and I will only do so for those bands who have proven themselves to me. They are few. So RIAA top the price fixing, jump into the 21st century already, stop crying and start putting out quality products at a logical price |
| A veritable paradox (Score:1) by creep on Friday June 09, @12:30PM EDT (#62) (User Info) |
| Very well written editorial--I agree with Roblimo. Well, at least to an extent. About 7 months ago I started to DJ wedding receptions and dances. I do it on my own, using nothing more than my trusty computer with MP3s (ripped from my own CDs and downloaded). It's something I enjoy doing and it allows me to make a little extra cash. The digitalization music has shaped my taste in music in a huge way. I enjoy listening to an increasing number of artists and types of music now because of the sheer availability of it. To me, that alone would justify making music free. It is in that sense I concur with what Roblimo had to say. However, I don't think that making all forms of digital music freely available (and completely legal)is going to happen anytime soon, simply because for many it is a form of income. It's a paradox that's difficult for me to deal with because I want to be a law-abiding citizen, but so far those laws haven't kept me from participating in an activity that has allowed my musical tastes to soar. ___________ Mr. Valenti: I don't know. I just don't know. |
| The music wants to be free (Score:1) by LordLobo (lordlobo@execpc.com) on Friday June 09, @12:30PM EDT (#64) (User Info) http://lordlobo.net |
| I've thought about supporing this motion on earlier 'metallica v napster' articles. As the world should be, music should be free. It's free over many mediums (like radio). Live performances are a different story. As well, people should be allowed to make their own choices. We shouldn't be hand-fed Britiney Spears or N'Sync because some suit over at B&G records can push them upon us despite their lack of talent (have you SEEN 'Making the band' on ABC?). If someone wants to make money on their music...hold a concert. Maby get someone to sponsor it so you can afford/rent the equipement and let your music speak for you. If your music sucks, no one will come. If not, you'll have a swelling stadium filled with people who came to see you because they like your music. Not because they like your tits. ------------------------ LordLobo - Because I can |
| The old ways are the best (Score:1) by Protocull (Protocull @ post . com) on Friday June 09, @12:31PM EDT (#66) (User Info) |
| God, those pesky British, always being mean to the us Americans. If it's not the army, it's the Beatles. And why oh why does nasty technology have to spoil everything? Things were so much better back when the bar owners weren't making any money and the singers were just scratching a livin'. Trust the young people to try something new, they never respect the old ways. I know what, I'll try writing on this newfangled computer thing and put them straight about it all. Back when me and Jerry used to jam, 'ol Tim Leary got quite excited about it. Course he died nastily, actually so did Jerry, but I've got to make them understand how great it all was. Perhaps a tribute song... if only Arlo was still here. The thirties must have been great too, Woody could tell them a thing or two about noble poverty. Put the blame on meme |
| Why defend the majority? (Score:1) by jeremy_d_peterson on Friday June 09, @12:31PM EDT (#67) (User Info) |
| I agree that most people would like their music for free. But I'm suprised to find Slashdot defending the rights of the majority! The music industry may be bad and stupid, so Slashdot is just about the only community with the wherewithal to do anything about stopping it. I think that the whole "rights" discussion is largely futile. The laws of the US are built around curbing certain freedoms in order to benefit the majority. The question is does it benefit people more in the long run for recorded music to be free, with a disincentive to make music, or not-free with an incentive to make music. I don't think an individual artist, or a government are equipped to answer that question, and I don't think they ought to either. I think that question can only be answered by individuals. Then again individuals rarely look beyond the immediate consequences of their actions. In any case, I don't think quality recorded music will die, even if it were, say, illegal to make a profit from it. |
| Re:Why defend the majority? (Score:1) by timothy (timothy@slashdot.borg) on Friday June 09, @01:02PM EDT (#171) (User Info) http://www.monkey.org/~timothy/ |
| jeremy B Peterson wrote "I agree that most people would like their music for free. But I'm suprised to find Slashdot defending the rights of the majority! The music industry may be bad and stupid, so Slashdot is just about the only community with the wherewithal to do anything about stopping it." As I read this piece, I didn't get the feeling that roblimo was necessarily *defending* the idea that music should be free, but more explaining in a pretty interesting way the reasons that the belief is widespread. I think the background he describes could be useful to those on either side of that argument, because there *is* a widespread feeling that music "should" be free, whether that is rooted in faulty logic, mental evasion or greed ... Now he may believe that as well, but this essay doesn't really advocate it that I can see. timothy CTY 91-98;UT@ustin 93-98. Why not "appropriate/inappropriate" rather than "fair/unfair"? |
| Re:Why defend the majority? (Score:1) by jeremy_d_peterson on Friday June 09, @02:11PM EDT (#349) (User Info) |
| How are apologetics different from advocacy? Reading history so as to express a certain moral or ethical position as being part of a trend makes that position seem "natural" or possibly even inevitable. While I agree that the background he describes could be useful to those on either side of the argument, he _is_ siding squarely with those who would defend free distribution by giving the movement the legitimacy of a history. |
| Re:Why defend the majority? (Score:1) by timothy (timothy@slashdot.borg) on Friday June 09, @02:57PM EDT (#434) (User Info) http://www.monkey.org/~timothy/ |
| jeremy d paterson wrote: "While I agree that the background he describes could be useful to those on either side of the argument, he _is_ siding squarely with those who would defend free distribution by giving the movement the legitimacy of a history." |
| Re:Why defend the majority? (Score:2) by Mr. Slippery (tms@spambefuddler-infamous.net) on Friday June 09, @03:23PM EDT (#469) (User Info) http://www.infamous.net/ |
The question is does it benefit people more in the long run for recorded music to be free, with a disincentive to make music, or not-free with an incentive to make music.But you can't make it non-free without resorting to totalitarian tactics. How are you going to stop me from ripping a cd and e-mailing the tracks to a friend, without intrusive surveilance? Will the RIAA be able to get the populace to fall for a "War on Drugs"-style anti-copying blitzkrieg? Look for an "MP3 Madness" after-school special, coming soon to a TV near you. Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/ "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?" - Nick Lowe |
| Music has always been a commodity (Score:1) by Spittoon on Friday June 09, @12:33PM EDT (#70) (User Info) http://www.mediasnob.com |
| I think the idea that music existing exclusively as a service until it was subverted into a commodity by crass capitalism is a fiction. Just scratching the surface of history will prove your theory false. Before records there was sheet music, most famously produced by the artists working on Tin Pan Alley. And thank God for sheet music, for before Tin Pan Alley, there was Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, Faure, Haydn, and on and on. Were there no sheet music we wouldn't have those works today. And don't think symphonies and concertos were performed only by their composers! Did you know that Classical period composers (Haydn, Mozart, etc.) were often paid by the note? Not by the performance. You could argue that music before and during the renaissance was service-based, speaking of the troubadours and minstrels who made a living traveling around bringing news in the form of song. However, even those minstrels made money from the work of others, passing around popular ballads and tunes and earning their keep with them. A second-rate minstrel can make money if he's got a first-rate ballad and a catchy tune to go with it. Are you going to Scarborough Faire? |
| Maybe things will go full circle... (Score:1) by Kris Warkentin (kewarken@NOSPAM.simon.math.lakeheadu.ca) on Friday June 09, @12:33PM EDT (#71) (User Info) http://erwin.math.lakeheadu.ca/gtool/ |
| Perhaps things will be going back to where they used to be. I don't think that the distribution of music on the internet is stoppable so it will likely become somewhat less than profitable to record albums. If bands become more dependent on concerts for their income, perhaps we will begin to see a resurgence in the popularity of live music. Hallow, my name is Scott McNealy and I pronounce Solaris, "Soo-LAAR-eese". |
| live music versus recordings (Score:5, Insightful) by geekpress (geekpress@ihatespam.geekpress.com) on Friday June 09, @12:34PM EDT (#74) (User Info) http://www.geekpress.com |
I'm just not sure that I can lament the fact that live music has largely died. With rare exception, live music is painful in comparison to recorded music. My husband and I used to frequent the big bookstores in St-Louis on the weekends, only to be driven out by some horrible singer with an acoustic guitar. Never once was there someone playing who was tolerable. So sure, I'd rather they play from CDs or play nothing at all. You won't see me crying that we now have better music for for less money. Frankly, the drive for free music seems to be related to: 1. Poor college students having a huge interest in music and super-fast connections. 2. People having beeing shafted into spending $16 for a crappy CD and being unable to return it. 3. People downloading music they like, but don't like enough to ever buy the CD. 4. People just wanting free stuff, whether for reasons of misplaced greed or leftist ideals. But whatever the reasons, the record companies need to get on the ball and find some way of making some money off of downloads. -- Diana Hsieh |
| Re:live music versus recordings (Score:2) by Kintanon (sleffer@hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @01:35PM EDT (#257) (User Info) |
| I'm just not sure that I can lament the fact that live music has largely died. With rare exception, live music is painful in comparison to recorded music. My husband and I used to frequent the big bookstores in St-Louis on the weekends, only to be driven out by some horrible singer with an acoustic guitar. Never once was there someone playing who was tolerable. So sure, I'd rather they play from CDs or play nothing at all. You won't see me crying that we now have better music for for less money. Define 'Better'. Are The Backstreet boys 'Better' than the Rolling Stones? Is Brittany Spears 'Better' than Stevie Nix (Nicks?)? I really would like to argue that we don't have better music now. We just have more of it. I'd rather pay twice the price for GOOD music than half the price for the current crap. I paid 125$ to get 2 CDs by a band called Grey Eye Glances because they are REALLY GOOD and I loved their live show. Every time I've been to a live performance it has far far outshone listening to the same songs on the radio or CD. Just because you happen to not like the music played in your local bookstore doesn't mean live music sucks. Kintanon Trying to make everyones day a little more surreal. |
| Re:live music versus recordings (Score:2, Insightful) by cenobite on Friday June 09, @01:45PM EDT (#285) (User Info) |
| I disagree with you, for a number of reasons... the first one being that there are a number of musicians that simply don't translate to studio recordings very well. The Grateful Dead. Without an audience, they were terrible (and sometimes with an audience, too). Their music was a conversation or even a dance, with the audience. Without them, they had nothing to say. Steve Reich and Musicians. They're just very difficult to reproduce accurately with a stereo system. A large array of marimbas, metallophones, glockenspiels and tuned drums has a completely out of control set of overtones and interference patterns that just aren't captured by even superb recording equipment. King Crimson. As Robert himself says, `Studio and live are two worlds. Would you, the audience, prefer to have a love letter or a hot date? Each have their value. Crimson were always the band for a hot date. From time to time they could write a love letter too, but for me they were better in the clinches'.I listen to a lot of recorded music, and a lot of music that could only be made in a 32 track recording studio. But the value of good live music shouldn't be overlooked. |
| Re:live music versus recordings (Score:2) by geekpress (geekpress@ihatespam.geekpress.com) on Friday June 09, @06:17PM EDT (#565) (User Info) http://www.geekpress.com |
| I agree; I used too broad of a brush in my original comment. Some artists sound great live and suck in the studio. (Billy Joel was one of those for me.) But I've also been to some completely worthless (and overscripted) concerts. What recorded music does is allow people access to excellent music that they couldn't possibly afford to have played for them live. Sure, it would great to have Fleetwood Mac sing for your backyard BBQ, but in all likelihood, if you opt for live music, you'll pay a bunch of money for some barely tolerable local band. So why is it such a bad thing (as the ./ article seemed to imply) that we go for recorded music? Why is it so bad that we pay less money and get the superb quality of Fleetwood Mac at the same time? -- Diana Hsieh |
| Re:live music versus recordings (Score:1) by swb on Friday June 09, @02:25PM EDT (#388) (User Info) |
| Wow, you really hit the nail on the head. One nice thing about have retro-rock music tastes is that for me, I can go to one of the huge used record stores and find tons of stuff on vinyl for nearly free. If I spend $20, I'll often walk out with at least 5 records, often in near-mint condition. You can often go to used CD stores and do the same thing -- I have a huge Tangerine Dream collection on CD bought entirely used for $6-$8 per CD. I think the solution for the record companies would be to start selling CDs with as little margin as possible to get the price down to the $5-8 range. It's not the same as free, but I'm betting that the low price plus the convenience of being able to buy an entire CD in pristine fashion will have as least as much appeal as a download from the internet, which can yeild crappy sound quality and other problems. This would also increase the relative moral standing of the record companies to a degree -- the 'moral' argument that the record companies are ripping us off, why not rip them off, too wouldn't hold any water. |
| Re:live music versus recordings (Score:1) by fugue (bwpearre@alumni.princeton.edu) on Friday June 09, @04:41PM EDT (#523) (User Info) http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwpearre |
| Heh. I have a $5000 stereo at home, with bits from Epos, Classe, Rega, Benz Micro, etc, and yet I'm constantly amazed at how much better live music sounds than even the best records. And I love hearing different interpretations of works that I know well. But I suppose it's easy to find free or cheap concerts of quite high quality when you like classical... People who think "Industry Standard" is a compliment probably haven't used industrial toilet paper. |
| Re:live music versus recordings (Score:1) by ZephyrAlfredo on Friday June 09, @09:31PM EDT (#617) (User Info) http://www.telusplanet.net/public/mbuttrey/ |
| I am the opposite. With few exceptions (Nobuo Uematsu, which is of course complete synth) I find recorded music insipid and dull. I have never bought a music CD of my own volition, and will instead spend those $700 on live performances. I would also note that unless you're playing vinyl or DAT, the sound quality is usually zip. -- "This was the noblest Roman of them all." |
| Re:live music versus recordings (Score:1) by deefer (deefer@[Spam:_Just_Say_No]dial.pipex.com) on Friday June 09, @01:37PM EDT (#266) (User Info) http://www.deefer.dial.pipex.com |
| Oh, well, /. undid the moderation anyway... :( GRR! Strong data typing is for those with weak minds. |
| Recording != Live (Score:2) by TheTomcat (sean@nbnet.nb.ca) on Friday June 09, @12:36PM EDT (#83) (User Info) http://riptear.dyndns.org |
| Recordings and Live Music are two completely different media. Recognizing this is, IMHO, the key to appreciating the music in any form. I absoultely HATE it when I see a band 'perform' their CD on stage. But I hate it equally when a recording has a flaw. When I see a band, and I can't tell if they're actually singing, it drives me nuts. Sure, there's atmosphere at the show, and I REALLY appreciate specialized staging effects such as lighting, but in almost every case I can think of, I went to see the MUSICIANS, not the smoke machines and roboscans. If a live show is done properly, these 'effects' can be minimal, or non-existant. For example, I saw Blue Rodeo earlier this year. Anyone who's not Canadian, likely doesn't know who Blue Rodeo is(are). The show was amazing. It was FUN to be there because there was this 'community' sort of feeling. You get to see everything. Ad libs, screwups, fretnoise, stings breaking, and musicians switching roles (ie: drummer and guitarist trade instruments for a song) all make up elements of a live show. The guitarist might not be the best drummer, but it's still cool to see them switch off. Gives the band a little different sound to have a fresh guitarist. But when I listen to a CD, these elements that add value to a show become annoyances. Why? Simple. You see a live show once. If they screwed up 8 bars ago, you've forgotten it by now. On a CD, you hear that exact same mistake at the exact same place, every time you hear the track. Robin mentioned that bands such as the Dave Matthews band and Phish have a huge following. This following is mutually EXCLUSIVE to their mainstream support. They have this following because they're GOOD, not because some producer manufactured their music to appeal to the masses. I've come up with a REALLY simple way to detect manufactured music. If the 'artist' can gain 50 pounds, and not have that impact their album sales/show attendance, then we can know that their music is genuine, and the 'supporters' (consumers, in many cases), appreciate the music, not the image that comes with it. The way the music industry works is constantly changing. We're going to see huge changes to the way music is distributed, and financed in the near future. "If there is hope it lies in the proles." -George Orwell, 1984 |
| Live Music (Score:1) by sness (sness@sness.net) on Friday June 09, @12:37PM EDT (#86) (User Info) http://sness.net |
| My Grandpa was a big-band leader back in the day, and although he had a day job, he was able to go out and play lots of gigs at night. The pay wasn't great, but there is a lot of satisfaction being able to play for a whole group of people. My Dad played in a band as well, although when he was young, recorded music was already chipping into the live-music scene. I've been in a couple bands myself, but there are way less opportunities to play in front of people nowadays, and this is too bad. There's something much more human and alive about going to see a live band in a small venue, and I think we've really lost something. I think that it's a great thing that Napster is making music much more available, and hopefully this will spark more small bands to get out there and play. |
| Clipper nitpick (Score:1) by Kaa (freedomdotnet!kaa) on Friday June 09, @12:38PM EDT (#89) (User Info) |
| This is somewhat off-topic, but Roblimo thinks that clippers (as in very, very fast sailships) were developed to run the blockade of US by the British Navy. AFAIK, that's not so. Clippers were developed by the British to quickly bring goods from the East. The prime example of this was tea from India -- there was a very important race of which clipper will bring the first shipment of the new season's tea to London docks. It is to win in such races that clippers were build for. Kaa Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots. |
| Re:Clipper nitpick (Score:2) by Mr. Slippery (tms@spambefuddler-infamous.net) on Friday June 09, @03:27PM EDT (#474) (User Info) http://www.infamous.net/ |
Roblimo was talking about the Baltimore clippers - a specific type of clipper ship. During the War of 1812, it was the British attempt to destroy the shipyards of Baltimore (source of the privateer's clipper ships) the led to the Battle of Fort McHenry - immortalized in "The Star Spangled Banner." (For you dang foriegners, that's the USAmerican national anthem.) Fort McHenry is a mandatory field trip for local elementary schools. The horrid "Clipper chip" was named in dubious honor of these ships. (NSA headquarters at Fort Meade is less than an hour's drive from Fort McHenry.) Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/ "What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?" - Nick Lowe |
| What he's saying.. (Score:2) by mindstrm (moctodemohtamrtsdnim) on Friday June 09, @12:38PM EDT (#90) (User Info) |
| I really enjoyed that. Part of the message I get here, that I think is important to note, is that , until recently (say, last 50 years), there *was* no overpowering recorded music industry. Recording was there, but not an all-powerful industry. It was a niche thing.. but music was still there, perhaps in more variety than it is now! And likewise.. music will still be here even if the normal distribution of music on CD disappears! See.. look at vinyl. These days, people don't buy vinyl just to hear a new tune.. they buy it because they want vinyl. The product being sold is not purely the music, but the fact that the music has been carved out on vinyl.. somethign that certain subculture(s) really *want*. CD's , on the otherhand, are merely a really cheap, medium quality way of moving music around. |
| How much do artists make PER ALBUM? (Score:1) by DoorFrame on Friday June 09, @12:39PM EDT (#94) (User Info) http://www.rumorsdaily.com/ |
I've been trying to find this out for a while, and it seems to be an important factor in this debate:
Thanks. |
| You really want to know? (Score:1) by cthulhubob (baldridgee@cadmus.com) on Friday June 09, @03:24PM EDT (#471) (User Info) |
| They make zero. Actually, it varies depending on their record contract. For most bands on most record labels, they receive a set amount of money ($250,000 or whatever) when the album is released and make the rest of their money off of merchandising and licensing deals. Let me repeat that: the artists (generally speaking - there are a few exceptions, like Metallica) make NO money on royalties. Record companies make 100% of the royalties produced from a record sale. This goes toward paying the employees of the record company, paying new bands for record deals, and (hopefully) paying for advertising and promotion of records. Trust me on this one - I'm a musician (lead bassist for Dryad, if you're interested or if anyone has heard of us :) ) I've seen this question pop up several times and I like to enlighten people. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt...then it's just fun. |
| Or more accurately (Score:1) by morven2 (mbrown@tickets.com) on Friday June 09, @08:01PM EDT (#600) (User Info) |
| A band's advance, and promotional costs, are deducted from their royalties. It's only once those are covered in full does the artist see another cent -- something only the best selling artists see. I've played your music on my radio show before, btw ;) |
| Problems (Score:1) by mmaddox on Friday June 09, @12:40PM EDT (#95) (User Info) http://www.alnitak.org |
| You make note of the death of scribes due to the invention of the printing press. To elaborate, the modern book, which owes its existence to the printing press, is a concept similar to music publishing - you've taken an artistic or intellectual discourse, and reproduced it, funneling the mind and actions of the author into a medium that can be easily distributed. The essential issue quickly becomes the ramifications of this distribution. Books can be shared, but not copied and distributed freely (increasing the number of these distribution mediums) without the consent of the author or his/her executors. Analogously, you can share music - your licensed copy - as long as you do not copy and distribute the music production, again thereby increasing the number of distribution mediums that exist. The creation of unlicensed MP3's, no matter how simple and enjoyable, violates this essential premise: the creation of the medium increases the total number of mediums that exist WITHOUT the owner's consent. The argument here is obviously based on the right of property; the representation of the art, the distribution medium, is the property of the creator. Your article implies that books could also be treated as free information, distributed freely, and the medium treated as commodity. Authors should receive their income from public readings of their works. This view denies the author's essential right of property ownership. The music industry has dug its own hole, long allowing a sketchy interpretation of the right of property. No matter how much it has been done, the copy and distribution of material from the radio is illegal since it violates the property principle; you've just been getting away with it. MP3's, no matter how much we like them and how beneficial they are to the IDEALS we serve, are illegal when they violate the right of property. We have to change the very nature of man to alter this perspective, so, is there really an answer? Can we remove this right of property from music without declaring all property ownership null and void? We have to choose our ideology, and realize that no choice we can make will right all the perceived wrongs in the world. Me::Sign(name) |
| Free MP3s Help Sales (Score:3, Interesting) by Phrogman (atho@pagans.org) on Friday June 09, @12:40PM EDT (#96) (User Info) http://www.omphalos.net |
At least with regards to me that is. I have tried Napster (but I didn't inhale) and DLed a few songs that it turned out I liked a lot. So I went and bought the CD. If I come across more songs that I like enough, I will probably go and buy those CDs as well. Now I don't buy a lot of music (1 or 2 CDs per year at most), so for me to go and purchase an album solely because I listened to a few singles from it via Napster means that it has had a pretty significant impact on my spending habits. Perhaps I am far from typical (I certainly know a few people with Gigs of HD space eaten up by MP3s) but I am probably not a complete exception. I think the major problem here is that the music industry is missing the point that those folks who do not go and purchase CDs as a result of listening to the tunes are probably the same people who would have made an illegal tape of the CD in the first place. Those who do listen to the CD then go purchase it if they like it, did so because they got a free chance to listen to the music. I think they are exagerating the "lost sales" involved considerably. My 0.1 cents Cdn worth. |
| Re:Free MP3s Help Sales (Score:3, Insightful) by DrEldarion (hwoarang29@yahoo.spamisevil.com) on Friday June 09, @01:29PM EDT (#243) (User Info) |
I believe that there are maybe five groups of people using Napster:
The third kind really has no financial benefit from buying an $18 CD because they could burn a $0.50 one or stick it on the Rio. Again, the only reason they would probably buy the CD is if they 'wanted to support the artist'. Or maybe if they felt guilty. The fourth kind of person wouldn't be able to buy the CDs in the first place. The fifth kind of person most likely only buys the CD because there's no other way for them to bring their music with them... and they probably still only buy a fraction of what they download. I'm guessing that it's a pretty unlikely occurrence for the average person to buy a CD after getting the songs they want on Napster. Still, the record companies are turning record profits... most likely because the number of people downloading/able to download music pales compared to the number that aren't/can't. -- Dr. Eldarion -- Slashdot reject your submission? Still think it's important? Tell us. |
| The sixth reason (Score:1) by Shadarr (shadarr@STOPSPAMMINGME.crosswinds.net) on Friday June 09, @03:09PM EDT (#446) (User Info) http://www.crosswinds.net/~shadarr |
| I download songs that I like by bands that I don't like. I have never had any intention of buying the album, but now I can listen to the song. Scones! Oh you are a cruel giant teabag. - Kevin MacDonald |
| Re:The sixth reason (Score:1) by randombit (ySyblPq@nApz.wuhM.rqh) on Friday June 09, @04:39PM EDT (#522) (User Info) http://www.randombit.net |
| I download songs that I like by bands that I don't like. I have never had any intention of buying the album, but now I can listen to the song. Or soundtracks and compilations. For instance, Garbage's Number One Crush is on the Romeo & Juliet soundtrack, while IIRC everything else on there sucked. Or a song by Poe on the Great Expectations soundtrack. Etc, etc. -- (Remove the leters S,P,A,M and then rot13 to email) |
| Re:Free MP3s Help Sales (Score:1) by vovin on Friday June 09, @08:28PM EDT (#610) (User Info) http://shaun.tancheff.com (Needs Update) |
| Well I like esoteric Folk/Black/Death usu from Europe. Some of the band I like are semi-popular and/or have record contracts with outfits that have US distibution (CenturyMedia/NuclearBlast) in which case the cheapest way to purchase CD's is in large amounts directly from the record company. Century Media sells for about $11 per disk and no shipping charges if you order over $80 worth (so I buy about 10-20 disks at a time). I buy disks of stuff I like so the bands make more. It's much more cost effective if I can listen to some/most of the songs on a disk before I but it. Some disks are quite varied, some are samey. I'm likly to buy a few extra disks to experiment if I known what I'm getting. One group that I have to thank Napster for introducing me to is Otyg on napalmrecords.com. There is one song of their two albums available from naplam, and I got about 40s from somebody on Napster. Frankly I rarely even use napster 'cause it's loaded with everything I'm not interested in listening to :-). So I'm mostly napster agnostic, pro-MP3, and really like having a 250+ disks on random song play at work :-). |
| Re:Free MP3s Help Sales (Score:1) by arafel (mindstar20@hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @02:11PM EDT (#352) (User Info) |
| Considering that I've just got three CDs - one of them an album that I'd never have considered without Napster, two others that I'd probably not have bought - you're not alone. And as I come across other bands that I like, I'll probably grab a couple of sample tracks, then either buy CDs or delete the tracks. I don't think we're quite as common as I'd like, but we're certainly not alone. |
| Re:Free MP3s Help Sales (Score:2) by Remus Shepherd (remus@netcom.com) on Friday June 09, @03:40PM EDT (#485) (User Info) |
| I have tried Napster (but I didn't inhale) and DLed a few songs that it turned out I liked a lot. So I went and bought the CD. If I come across more songs that I like enough, I will probably go and buy those CDs as well. |
| Re:Free MP3s Help Sales (Score:1) by lemonjelo on Saturday June 10, @05:06PM EDT (#686) (User Info) |
I'd been burnt too many times buying CDs that had only one decent track on them, after having heard it on the radio. Even though I found many gems in the other tracks that didn't get airplay by other artists, my album consumption died off drastically about 5 years ago. Although the price of a single CD isn't going to break me, I felt it wasn't worth it overall to buy music based on radio play anymore. In my circle of friends, we'd come to this conclusion around the same time, so it was no longer likely I could check out a whole CD at someone else's home anymore either. MP3's and napster particularly have increased my likelihood to buy certain artists' work because I have been able to hear tracks that I wouldn't have otherwise - taking away the risk of having another CD rack filled with music I won't listen to. As for the quality of the copies - even though I may be able to download a song, and then burn a CD and listen to it on better equipment than my computer speakers, I still think the MP3's are of lower quality than the original. It's not so bad, but the format isn't an exact copy. At 128bps encoding the difference is very apparent. That alone isn't an argument justifying the piracy in general, but is a reason for me to purchase originals of music I happen to enjoy alot. Also, if the RIAA seriously feels that I must pay twice for a song, simply because I copied the track from a CD I already bought to my HD, then this is where the comparison between music and software ends. When software was distributed on floppies it was suggested that people backup the software before installing it. AFAIK having the same software on multiple computers I own is still fine, as long as it is only in use on one machine at a time. I could be wrong, but I'd think the same argument should apply to music. If I copy a CD to my HD so I can leave the CD in my car for example, I'm not taking money away from anyone since I can't listen to it in both places at once anyway, it's a matter of convenience. |
| Like smuggling? No. (Score:1, Interesting) by Captn Pepe on Friday June 09, @12:41PM EDT (#99) (User Info) |
First, let me just point out that this essay is massively better written than anything I've seen Katz put up here before. Bravo. I can't help but wonder, though, how apt the comparison of Napster/Gnutella/etc to commercial smuggling actually is. There is, of course, the obvious difference that nobody ever smuggled anything for free -- which is the entire point of the MP3 filesharing systems. Yes, some people *couth*Napster*cough* have visions of making huge profits off of MP3s, but if they move to being a subscriber service, they'll see many of their customers leave, and besides, in that case they no longer count as smugglers; they would have become the Industry. The closest parallel I can come up with is actually the pre-Civil War-era Underground Railroad. (Nobody get offended here -- I'm not trying to trivialize, just draw an analogy.) People who, for various reasons, thought that slaves should be free went out of their way to appropriate them from the slave owners and transport them beyond the reach of the authorities. All without expecting compensation, and at considerable risk to themselves. Similarly, people now are (via legally questionable means such as encoding MP3s from CDs) liberating music from the RIAA's clutches and sending it into a world where the music can be free. Simply because they believe in free music (at least for themselves). Of course, there's the obvious difference that many, if not most, MP3 listeners are simply in it for the free (beer, this time) music, but I'd argue that the people actually doing the encoding and posting are in it for something else. Principle, reputation, whatever. |
| Muscians shouldn't Complain (Score:1) by SirStanley ({spamisbadmmhhk}ravskel@moseisley.com) on Friday June 09, @12:43PM EDT (#104) (User Info) |
| The way I see it.. Musicians Shouldn't complain. The universal Music Rule is. If your famous. And you play an insturment, you can score with Super Models and get lots of groopies.... I would love to do taht and i wouldn't care about the money. --------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========-------- |
| We have rights here...but... (Score:1) by Gorbie on Friday June 09, @12:43PM EDT (#105) (User Info) |
| This post is a little one sided because I can only speak anbout my knowledge of how things work in the U.S.. There is a simple solution here. Speak with your money. If you think a product shouldn't be sold, but given away, then don't buy it. If you think that companies are killing consumers with licensing and sales tactics and you want it regulated, call your local representative. That's what they are there for. The point is that this is a free country, generally ruled by the wishes of the masses. If you don't like the way something works, use your constitutional rights to try and change it. Complaining about it won't help. Breaking the law or policy or license is only going to create bitterness and or action on the part of the companies or authorities. A little more than $.02. Inflation happens. |
| use your brain (Score:1, Troll) by briancarnell (brian@carnell.com) on Friday June 09, @12:43PM EDT (#106) (User Info) http://www.carnell.com/brian/index.html |
| Do these people ever use their brains before they write this nonsense. Hmmm...okay, we're used to hearing music everywhere for free, such as in elevators or on radios, so we expect to download it for free. Well, I guess then that bookstores shouldn't be surprised that I want to steal my books rather than buy them, because I'm used to checking them out for free at the library. And I guess Slashdot won't mind if I launch a DDOS attack on their server to crash it because I'm always crashing my PC at work too and I'm just used to being able to do certain things. Besides I think this is wrong on the main point -- people don't expect their music to be free, but they do expect it to be relatively inexpensive (and CDs are dirt cheap) and they expect it to be portable (when I buy a CD I want to be able to convert it to many different forms -- MP3, cassette, etc.) |
| Logic is flawed (Score:1) by Troy Roberts (trobe@pulse.net) on Friday June 09, @12:44PM EDT (#108) (User Info) |
| In each of the cases you mention, where you recieve "free music", except for MP3s, someone has paid for the music and it is being used with in copyright law. Further, to compare music to other commodities (i.e. food, clothes, gold, etc ...) is just inaccurate. With material goods there is clearly an owner and trade involves exchanging other material goods or labor for the goods you want. Music is not a material good, It is a product of the creative mind. Music is much like a story in a book. Would it, Should it be argued that stories should be free also? I could scan a copy of "Winnie the Pooh" into my computer. Should I be able to distribute it without paying royalties to the author? You simply want to disregaurd copy right law concerning music, because it is convient for you. Because like a child you think because you want it , that makes it right. Well, you are wrong. Copy rights should be respected. Theft is theft and no amount of whining and self righteous lamenting will change that. Troy Roberts |
| Bring on more local radio... (Score:1) by saltlyck on Friday June 09, @12:44PM EDT (#111) (User Info) |
| I for one am sick of the record company's choosing what I should listen to. Thank god theres an online radio station in my town playing only unsigned local music. And guess what, the music is pretty good too, without any commercials. I think its a good idea but who knows it probably won't last. Check it out here http://www.real-local.com |
| if(music == FREE) (Score:4, Funny) by hitchhacker (jtaylor5@bayou.uh.edu) on Friday June 09, @12:44PM EDT (#115) (User Info) http://yottahz.dhs.org |
| if(music == FREE) { delete Backstree_Boys; delete Spice_Girls; delete pop_band->next; } The TRUE musicians will all be left still making wonderfull music. // yottaHz |
| Re:if(music == FREE) (Score:2) by banky (samhain@slac.com) on Friday June 09, @01:55PM EDT (#317) (User Info) http://rammalammadingdong.com |
| > The TRUE musicians will all be left still making wonderfull music. No, they won't. Pop sucks but it is popular for a reason: its accessible, its easy to listen to, and it doesn't need much intelligence to comprehend. Ever listen to Pierre Boulez? Frank Zappa? Tool? Black Flag? THis is stuff that I, and others, think of as beautiful and amazing, in varied genres and styles. Yet Tool is loved by metal-heads who don't understand the implications of the music they mosh so hard to (Guess that, guys, that "beligerent fucker" song is about you, not someone else). Black Flag was loved by punkers who never took the bag of glue off their face long enough to listen as to just why they were one of the punk greats. People want pop, and as much as I sound like an elitist prick above, its true: its simple and accessible and not very extreme, which you will find, is the majority of the population. --- I am out of my mind. |
| Re:if(music == FREE) (Score:1) by MrHanky on Friday June 09, @04:10PM EDT (#507) (User Info) |
if(music == FREE)Well, maybe in an ideal world, but things are different in the Real World. Try searching for the two bands you mention on Napster. Find anything? Now try searching for something more obscure, something released on a small recordlabel, like alog on Rune Grammofon. Any hits? Didn't think so either. Obviously, the major record companies are the ones who lose money on Napster, not the lesser known artists. The problem with real free music distributed on the internet is that you don't know that you should look for it at all, so you won't find it. There's no promotion. |
| Re:if(music == FREE) (Score:1) by MagicHack on Friday June 09, @06:20PM EDT (#567) (User Info) |
| Actually I think that's partially true. Not so much the true musicians but a good reason why people aren't willing to pay $$ for a lot of their music. The rate at which pop bands come and go out of fashion certainly aids the music companies in attemmpting to sell their music. But I hate to think of today's pop fan trying to keep up with the amazing glut of new music (I won't debate the quality at the moment). Musicians came out with a new album say once a year maybe a bit sooner. (Unless you were a Boston fan and then you waited a real long time :) ) The shelf life of current pop music is about the same as a milk container left out on the counter (ok I exaggerate a bit). The cost is horrendous. Plus of course the elimniation of the low cost single (ala the old 45 days) and your forced to spend big $$$$ when you only want a few songs. |
| Bad logic, bad article. Here's why. (Score:4, Insightful) by Bowie J. Poag (poag@u.arizona.edu) on Friday June 09, @12:45PM EDT (#117) (User Info) http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda |
| When an artist "doesn't see a cent" when his work changes hands, I'm more and more these days beginning to think that it's their fault, not the consumer's. After all, its the artist who signs the contract, and agrees to be paid an already a miniscule amount of money by the record company. Nothing forces them to sign a contract. Bands these days are capable of mass-producing and releasing their own music, and many of them do. Infact, i'd even speculate that by singing a contract with a major record label, that they give up the right to sell their work independently to the public. "Oh, but they'll never become known unless they do sign a contract, Bowie!" No. Case in point: Most of the music I remember hearing between 1990 and 1994 was written and released by Amiga scene people. I remember their names, and their work. I remember it because it was good, not because it had a $18,000,000 shiny space suit / helicopter / wide angle lens video to go with it. All it takes is distribution, and the quality more or less takes care of it for itself. Crappy musicians fell by the wayside, while others made it to the top. The internet takes care of the distribution problem. There's a wealth of ways and resources available to artists to publish and promote their own work. Its costless, and effortless, and it CAN be done. I should know, after all. Although my forte' is in graphics rather than music, I successfully managed to create a name for myself at zero cost, without inking any deals with any companies. It just takes hard work and persistance. The bottom line is, I dont think i'm alone when I say i'd rather my $16 go directly to the artists themselves, rather than have it go to the record company, so they can make another $18,000,000 Puffy Combs shiny-space-suit / wide angle lens / helicopter & humvee video. Its a fucking waste of money, and it insults the intelligence of most people for the industry to cry about how companies like Napster & MP3.com are undermining their profits. If my local music shop had a kiosk where I could burn a CD make up of tracks that I specifically selected, I'd gladly pay for something like that versus blowing a few days getting the stuff via Napster, going through the hassle of converting it back down to .wav's and burning a CD for my own use. But that isnt the case. I cant go into a music shop and see one of those kiosks. They want me to pay $16 for 37 minutes worth of crap, only 5 or 6 of which I actually enjoy. Its the artist's own fault they're poor, especially if they sign away the right to make money independently of the company. Not Napster's fault, not MP3's fault, not the internet's fault. Their fault. Bowie J. Poag Project Founder, PROPAGANDA Desktop Enhancement Graphics For Linux (Now at MetaLab/UNC!) |
| Re:Bad logic, bad article. Here's why. (Score:1) by perky (tom_perkin@NOSPAMING.hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @03:53PM EDT (#504) (User Info) |
| If my local music shop had a kiosk where I could burn a CD make up of tracks that I specifically selected, I'd gladly pay for something like that You are indeed quite correct: this is the immediate future of music distribution, and it is already happening in the UK in stores like HMV. However the long term solution is to provide this service directly into the home, whilst using legal and technological means to ensure that piracy is prevented.
|
| Re:Bad logic, bad article. Here's why. (Score:2) by Bowie J. Poag (poag@u.arizona.edu) on Friday June 09, @04:26PM EDT (#516) (User Info) http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda |
The sad thing is, the technology to do this sort of thing has existed for years now, and they still haven't done it. Thats the nice thing about Napster -- It's the great equalizer. I'll never again have to buy a CD just to get one song off it. I'll never again have to wait 6-8 weeks to pay $30 for a CD to be specially ordered by some hippy freak behind the counter. They'll milk the cow for all its worth before moving on to something new, it seems. Until then, i'll continue to enjoy Napster. Like most industries, the record industry can afford to suffer. I've paid them far too much for what I own, IMHO. Cheers, Bowie J. Poag Project Founder, PROPAGANDA Desktop Enhancement Graphics For Linux (Now at MetaLab/UNC!) |
| Re:Bad logic, bad article. Here's why. (Score:1) by A Crunchy Zephyr on Friday June 09, @07:50PM EDT (#594) (User Info) |
| I have got to take issue with this, but first: Infact, i'd even speculate that by singing a contract with a major record label, that they give up the right to sell their work independently to the public. this is correct the RIAA recently pushed through something called the "Work for Hire Clause" on some recent legislation (DMCA maybe?) which basically gives all rights to the masters and such to the record company. Many major musicans are fighting it. So you consider an indie band that does not go with a major label. They face major costs just to produce their art. Many thousands of dollars for instruments and studio time in an independent studio can cost upwards of $10,000 to produce an album. Internet distribution can potentially get people to listen to the band, but many bands simply cannot afford to give the music away for free. and with Napster and Gnutella alot of it will be passed around for free. It really has nothing to do with the recording contract it is more that with the technology nobody can control the distribution of the product. Though I like the kiosk idea. "I lost my taste for expense account feasts when I felt the embrace of a corporate leash" -Tsunami "Old Grey Mare" |
| Re:Bad logic, bad article. Here's why. (Score:1) by daddy'o on Monday June 12, @03:51PM EDT (#715) (User Info) |
| You hit the nail right on with this crappy music explanation. See my post meadering somewhere in this sea of flames.... |
| Free Music VS Greed (Score:2) by Kagato on Friday June 09, @12:45PM EDT (#118) (User Info) |
| I like a bargin as much as anyone else, but I hold no illusion that when I use Napster I'm not ripping somebody off. Which is pretty much why I don't use Napster. Problem is, I don't view Napster as a product as being illegal. It just happens that a large part of the population isn't feeling bad about swiping the music. Beyond the moral aspects (or lack there of) I think there is a almost Robin Hood like belief going on. The napster users are the men in tights and the RIAA and it's members are the MAN. And to a large extent that's true. Music companies treat the fans like shit. Fan sites are threatened. Not because they are being hurt finacially, but because they lose control. If the company isn't in control of everything end to end there is the belief that they MAY lose money. And that's what it's about. Money. There is nothing bad about liking money. But when you get so greedy that you start horking the fans off. Well, then you're biting the hand that feeds you. As consumers we all know that CD's cost much more than Tapes or LP's ever did. But we also know that CD's cost less to make that a tape or LP. SO what gives? Well, this is where price control comes into play. It's also why the Record Industry just got bitch slapped. See, retailers had MAP pricing. Just like...anyone...anyone? MicroSoft has on Windows. Retailers could only go so low. Why? Well, if prices are driven down by the chains like Best Buy and Circuit City. Who are willing to sell CD's at a lose just to get people in the store to buy other items then the other 50% or your market, (MusicLand, Tower, etc) will demand cheaper CD. That's bad because then consumers might get a fair price of only 900% mark-up instead of the normal 1300% mark-up. So basically, while I don't agree that the Users of Napster are all that moral I think that the record industry brought it upon themselves. And now that Napster is out they are going to have to change. Because getting rid of Napster is like trying to get Pee out of a pool. |
| Ripping people off (Score:1) by Whackamole on Friday June 09, @04:45PM EDT (#524) (User Info) |
| When you use Napster, you're only opening the door to ripping people off. If you bought copies of music from pirates somewhere, you would be ripping the industry off - music you COULD be spending on the RIAA and co is definitely gone. On the other hand, when you download for free, your money COULD still be heading to the hands of artists and producers, supposing that your monetary output remained at approximately the same level. It's only once you're DEFINITELY not paying the industry back that you're definitely ripping someone off. I seek a signature | fresh, funny, and with much wit. | Alas! I am without! |
| The real reason (Score:3, Insightful) by / on Friday June 09, @12:45PM EDT (#119) (User Info) |
| The real reason why people unlawfully distribute copyrighted works is a combination of: There are valid economic reasons for trying to maintain a copyright system, but there are strong aspects of human nature that have to be overcome (as with any other system of legal prohibition). Roblimo's essay mostly contains justifications that people make aftern the fact. "If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes |
| Please? All of you? (Score:2, Insightful) by Mierdaan (goemerus@hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @12:45PM EDT (#120) (User Info) |
Alright, this is only about the second time I've actually broken down and put my two cents in here in threads, so please, understand how monumental this is. Can you all, and I mean every single one of you, PLEASE go read Atlas Shrugged? I can't think of a more perfect book to refute every single 'point' that Roblimo made in that god-forsaken post up there. If you want to boil down the whole book to one sentence though, here it is: Any time you, as a consumer, declare that it is your 'right' to a product, and take it for free (with or without legal support), you're a thief, plain and simple. Musicians offer a service, which they depend upon for their livelyhood. I don't see how you people all think you're somehow entitled to the fruits of their labor without paying for it. The Record Labels, for all that they may be incredibly greedy bastards (even I don't dispute that one),have spent more money than most of you make in your lives by hiring and paying for the recording of the music you now feel is your right. If you can't see that you advocate free music over the internet as a form of 'free speech' (god it hurts to even type that), are simply trying to justify your outright thievery of someone elses work, then... well, like I said, go read Atlas Shrugged. -Mierdaan "Not all who wander are lost..." -J.R.R. Tolkien |
| Re:Please? All of you? (Score:2) by PigleT (spodzone @ netscape.net) on Friday June 09, @01:10PM EDT (#194) (User Info) http://www.glutinous.custard.org/ |
| (Quoting "Atlas Shrugged"): <i>"Any time you, as a consumer, declare that it is your 'right' to a product, and take it for free (with or without legal support), you're a thief, plain and simple."</i> Wrong. This is totally because someone else has *made* it "a product", invariably by removing some feature or other - I speak particularly of the computer "Software" arena, in which I'm ashamed to work at the moment - in order to sell you crippled units at inflated standing-charge plus linear rate, or less-crippled units at an even more inflated standing-charge plus linear rate. Make no mistake about it - if the shop didn't say "give us $16 or no music" then it would not be wrong not to. It's *relative*. Now for the music-specific bits. Music is a bit like information: it is intrinsically a Free commodity. You can't pin it down. You can't copyright or patent the chord of G#minor7 any more than anyone else can copyright or patent the use of parentheses and braces in a C program. It's a fundamental substance. What I would pay for is skill in manipulating this "substance". People may well take to different kinds of skill but frankly, most of the stuff I hear (radio) doesn't even pass muster - it's just noise. Stuff that does appeal to me, maybe I go out and buy - I do have some CD collection. Stuff that might appeal or not? Give me the ****ing mp3 and I'll tell you whether I like it or not! And *that* is why the record companies should get off their arses and supply sample mp3s for all! ~Tim -- .|` Clouds cross the black moonlight, Rushing on down to the circle of the turning world .|` |
| Re:Please? All of you? (Score:1) by Mierdaan (goemerus@hotmail.com) on Saturday June 10, @12:09AM EDT (#631) (User Info) |
There's only really one part in your response that warrants comment. The first part's about software, and we're not talking about software, so I'll ignore that completely. However, if you wish to compare music to software in your paragraph #3 analogy... well then. You state in your analogy that music in and of itself is not a copyrightable media; that you can't copyright a chord any more than a set of brackets in code. Well, that's true. I couldn't pick up a guitar, strum a chord, and then copyright it; that's obvious. What I could do, however, is pick up a guitar, play a song, and then copyright the song. The chord is not my invention; the song is. The same goes for programs: you may not be able to copyright a for loop, but you can sure as hell copyright a compilation of well established and previously used programming structures. This is called a 'program,' I'm sure you're familiar with it. They're copyrighted all the time. Basically, my previous argument stands undamaged by your response. If you think that you're entitled to the creative work of another human being without any compensation, there isn't a single, possible argument which could make me, or any other sane human being, consider you anything other than a thief. Rationalize all you want, but what it boils down to is that these artists, whose work you obviously enjoy, are pouring their heart and souls into their music, and you're amoral enough to think that you're within your rights to take that work from them without even so much as a tip of the hat. If you want free music, go write it yourself. It's like open-sourced programs; if you want to write a program, invoke RMS three times and throw it out on the 'net, that's your business. However, don't expect other people to surrender their products to you without compensation; their sympathies may not mirror yours. -Mierdaan "Not all who wander are lost..." -J.R.R. Tolkien |
| Re:Please? All of you? (Score:1) by PigleT (spodzone @ netscape.net) on Monday June 12, @07:23AM EDT (#707) (User Info) http://www.glutinous.custard.org/ |
| If you will go around ignoring the point in my comment, you're free to think what you like of me. I said it once and will say it again: if you don't ask $16 for a CD, I'm not stealing $16 from you. ~Tim -- .|` Clouds cross the black moonlight, Rushing on down to the circle of the turning world .|` |
| Re:Please? All of you? (Score:1) by Mierdaan (goemerus@hotmail.com) on Saturday June 10, @12:13AM EDT (#632) (User Info) |
Ahh, blessed honesty! As long as you're perfectly aware that what you're commiting is thievery, and don't blind yourself with any rationalization to the contrary, that's fine. I get along better with honest thieves :) (Hey, I've got my mp3 library too, but I'm like you in that I don't make any apologies about what it is: illegal). It's only when people try and say that they're entitled to free music that I get upset :) -Mierdaan"Not all who wander are lost..." -J.R.R. Tolkien |
| Walter Benjamin & Mechanical Reproduction (Score:3, Informative) by ardran (ardran@hot-spam-mail.com) on Friday June 09, @12:49PM EDT (#130) (User Info) |
| The early bits of this article (with which, as a whole, I do not entirely agree) are reminiscent of Walter Benjamin's amazing essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (available here). It was originally written in 1935 about photographs, films, etc, but its examination of the "aura" of art that is not perfectly reproducible is relevant to Roblimo's discussion of live music. It's long, but well worth the time. |
| Artists Deserve to get Paid (Score:1) by ClubStew (NOSPAM_hstewart@stewart.dorm.org) on Friday June 09, @12:49PM EDT (#132) (User Info) http://www.stewart.dorm.org/ |
How many of you out there use your technical expertise at a job to earn money? I've been working as a net admin for years and I can tell you there's no way in hell that I would do everything I have for free. I've spent a better portion of my life learning and exploring computers and I'm sure most of you on /. can say the same. Would you want to give up your services for free? Yes, there is the question of open source projects, but companies make money off them too by selling support. No matter how you look at it, we need money. Now apply this same thought to artists. When I wasn't working on computers, I was playing the drums. I spent a good portion of my life doing that, too. It took hard work to get to where I did before college took all my time up. And professional artists (excluding rapers and the Backstreet Boys!) spend even more time practicing what they do best. Many people, like Santana, have spent the entire lives practicing and playing, and now you want them to freely render everything they've spent their lives for free? I think that's just selfish mentality. Copying tapes and CD's from others when you don't own them was / is illegal, why shouldn't copying files, be? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for open source and free shit (because we all love free), but people deserve to be paid for what they've trained for. Musicians (eq., not boy-bands) spend most of their lives to make it big and many don't even get that chance. If they want to explore the Internet and release a few of their singles on MP3 or the like, great! But if they ask to be paid for what they've worked hard for (and what others like the directors and producers have gambled their pay on), that's great, too. |
| Music Costs (Score:1) by Stickerboy on Friday June 09, @12:50PM EDT (#136) (User Info) |
I see a lot of ranting here about "exorbitant" prices and the gouging in general of consumers by the entire music industry. Let's say, hypothetically, that Slashdot gets what the majority (or vocal minority) seems to want - free copies of recorded music, and a shift to live performances. There would be a couple of main consequences to the industry due to supply and demand, and none of them really beneficial:
So, basically, making recorded music free will reduce diversity, increase the cost of live concerts, and finalize the drive from music being an artistic form to being a commodity. I personally buy CDs, not from Britney Spears, but from artists with something to say like Reznor and Corgan. Do I think "there are just a few good songs on every CD"? No, because that's bullshit. I enjoy the music, warts and all, because that's their space to express what they have to say - much like the entire painting for a painter is their space, not just "a few good places on the canvas". If you enjoy music like I do, then you understand why I think the idea of free recorded music is total bunk. Just Say No to the commercialization of an art. |
| Re:Music Costs (Score:2) by gorilla on Friday June 09, @01:35PM EDT (#256) (User Info) |
| No more cheap independent concerts. When was the last time you went to a concert? $50 concerts are already here, and are the rule rather than the exception. The little artists will be squeezed out. How much of the loss with 'little artists' would be avoided if we were dealing with electronic distribution? Quite a lot I think, no printing costs, no wasted warehouse space. Let's face some facts here - the record company, on average, makes less than a dollar off of every $15 CD sold today. Where does the money go? It's not pirates, it's not marketing, it's the distributed cost of signing the unknown, small-time acts that never make it big. For every Third Eye Blind and 'N Sync that goes platinum, the recording companies turn out tens of thousands of CDs from a hundred artists and groups that never even go gold. The millions of dollars from the few star acts subsidizes the unknown artistic talent of everyone else. What happens when recorded music becomes free? Those unknowns are relegated back to Podunkville, USA. Not to mention the bankruptcy of most of the small, independent labels that only sign unknowns. |
| Call it progress, but... (Score:1) by fredbevins (this is the field that you put your email address) on Friday June 09, @12:51PM EDT (#137) (User Info) |
| The primary genre that you seem to be basing your beliefs about DJ's on, is folk rock. We've made considerable progess in the last 30 years within the realm of musical technology, and with this, has come synthesizers, mixing techniques, audio processing and a number of other things that dishinguish our decade of music from the previous one. This also brings with it the notion that there are some things that simply cannot be duplicated live, for example, do you think an artist like fatboy slim would be abmle to simultaniously sample the works of 10 different artists into one song, while on top working with a beatbox and synths? This technology has given us an entirely new artform, and in someways this artform is even more liberating than in the past. Electronic music, at its core is very free and innovative, not only because of the means by which it was produced, but also, by the universality and freeness of producing it. One can buy a $300 used computer, download a tracking program, some samples and be on their way to producing true art. And one must appreciate, especially from an open media (music and software BOTH being media) standpoint the beauty of this system. So, whether something is live or not, it's still art. And in some ways, the best art isn't live. I doubt live painting will ever become a spectator event. -f |
| Why the record industry isn't THAT scared (Score:1) by drougie (doug@SPAM-SUCKS.escape.com) on Friday June 09, @12:52PM EDT (#140) (User Info) http://slashdot.org |
| While Napster and MP3 have been and will continue to be responsible for a lot of lost money, the record industry has been working hard on a solution. The most obvious one, as we know, has been to fight mp3 and friends in court. What not all of us may be aware of, however, is that the industry is preparing for the shift of selling music in stores to distributing it on the Net. For the past few years, developers have been racing to come up with a "secure format" to sell music over the Internet. The goal is that the compression and sound quality will be better than MP3, and that it will be somehow copy-proof. This format is just around the corner... Eventually, much of the NEW music will be sold through the internet. It will be very convenient for people to buy, and probably cheaper too. Illegal copying, if not impossible, will be difficult and the sound quality might be greatly reduced--not worth the average consumer's time. Only a small group of commie nerds with gnutella will be stealing still. Mp3 will be phazed out. The industry's business model will be very different, but they will survive. It might even be more profitable. Why are we having these debates on Slashdot? I'm glad to see an increasing rate of posts that disagree with Slashdot's "Screw big business!" bias. No left turn unstoned. |
| This is not an issue worthy of scholarly debate (Score:5, Insightful) by Junks Jerzey on Friday June 09, @12:53PM EDT (#142) (User Info) |
| The driving force behind MP3s and Napster is this: 1. I am a student. 2. I don't have a lot of spending money. 3. I like popular music. 4. My school provides me with a fast internet connection, at no direct cost to me. 5. If I can download the popular music that I like, then I won't have to either (A) pay for it (which dips heavily into my beer, gas, and clothing funds), or (B) go without. 6. This is somewhat of an abstract theft, if you can call it that, so spare me your speeches. This is also the justification behind the piracy of computer games. When I was in school a few years back, there was rampant trading of long distance card codes for the same reason. It's an abstract theft that gives you something you want and saves you money. Were I in college now, I'd probably be all over unauthorized MP3s. As it is, I just buy what I like, usually from local bands, and I don't feel so deprived. Perhaps the biggest problem is that this has been turned into a rider tacked onto the Open Source movement's bill of rights, a subject that seems to fire up hot-headed freedom of speech debates left and right. Countries where freedom of speech is a *real* problem, and who aren't on the internet as much, would laugh--or cry--at how free CDs has turned into a political issue for whining college students who think they're making human rights statements (and those journalists who are pandering to them). |
| Re:This is not an issue worthy of scholarly debate (Score:2, Insightful) by jnd3 (jd3work at yahoo dot com) on Friday June 09, @01:33PM EDT (#254) (User Info) http://www.apologeticsindex.org |
| Actually, I think it is an issue worthy of debate. There's this big gray area that many people see in terms of black and white. Is it right? Is it wrong? This is also the justification behind the piracy of computer games. When I was in school a few years back, there was rampant trading of long distance card codes for the same reason. It's an abstract theft that gives you something you want and saves you money. Yes, it's possible to justify anything by that standard. We'll call it "abstract theft" instead of "stealing", that'll make it allowable. By the same token, you can call it "retroactive abortion" instead of "murder", and we all know that the US court system think abortion is a Constitutionally protected right. My point is, you can call it whatever you want, but if it walks like a duck and quacks, it's a duck. If it has thorns and smells like a rose, it's a rose. If it's taking something without paying, it's theft. Face it, nobody has the right to be entertained (contrary to modern popular opinion). If you want entertainment, work for it! [begin sarcasm] And all that money that everyone's saving by not buying CDs ... I'm sure that's ALL going to charities, right? [end sarcasm] |
| At the risk of sounding pedantic ... (Score:2) by FreeUser on Friday June 09, @02:00PM EDT (#323) (User Info) http://jean.nu/ |
| My point is, you can call it whatever you want, but if it walks like a duck and quacks, it's a duck. If it has thorns and smells like a rose, it's a rose. If it's taking something without paying, it's theft. You take breaths of air every second without paying. Is that theft? Hardly, as you are not taking something away from another party, which of course is the key ingredient in the definition of "theft" that you left out. If the government decided to impose a "breath tax" and you refused to pay, yet stubbornly refused to stop breathing, would that be theft? Hardly. It would be tax evasion, but not theft. Making illegal copies of mp3's is copyright violation, not theft. If you are caught, arrested, and taken to court, you will be tried for copyright infringement, not theft. Why? Because you have taken nothing from a third party. Stealing a CD from another party is theft - you have deprived the other party of their property. Burning a copy of their CD (with or without their permission) is not theft - you have taken nothing away from anyone else. The artist may or may not have lost some potential revinue (who says you would have bought the CD if you hadn't copied it), but that hardly constitutes theft. Let me reiterate: denying someone potential revinues is not theft. To argue otherwise is to either argue that all kinds of other activities which have the same effect theft (such as competing with a superior product, boycotting a product, or doing without, all of which denies someone potential profits), or to insist on a rediculously contrived double standard for one's definitions. Calling a Kitten a Duck doesn't make it so, and neither does calling copyright violation theft. It is copyright violation, nothing more, nothing less, with well defined penalties under law. |
| Re:This is not an issue worthy of scholarly debate (Score:2, Insightful) by etymxris (rostewa2@vNoSPaMt.edu) on Friday June 09, @02:32PM EDT (#398) (User Info) |
| Ad hominem arguments are invalid. Giving a psychological description, while interesting, is not an argument. Consider a widow stripped of her retirement funds by a swindler. Of course she is going to be mad, of course she is going to say what happened to her is wrong. But we cannot say, "She just thinks swindling is wrong because she lost money." She has a more immediate perspective on the problem than most of us, but she is hardly disqualified from speaking. When people are debating a topic, there are always going to be personal reasons for their positions. If they did not, no one would care about it. But when we consider people's arguments, we have to put aside their personal motivations and focus on what they are SAYING. |
| how about the tracking scene (Score:1) by Ambien (ambienn@yahoo.com) on Friday June 09, @12:53PM EDT (#144) (User Info) |
| I find it odd that people always ignore the underground music scene in these debates-music that is made to be free. I've been active in the underground music scene for over 3 years, and even though the music there is amature you can easly find artists creating professional levels of music. If you want to see for yourself check out: www.traxinspace.com or www.modarchive.com WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. The Party - 1984 |
| Re:how about the tracking scene (Score:1) by Ranger Rick (ranger+Slashdot@SpamBeGone.befunk.com) on Friday June 09, @02:19PM EDT (#374) (User Info) http://radio.scenespot.org/ |
| Exactly! I've been a tracker since before #trax moved off EFNet (grin), and in my time I've seen *tons* of very talented musicians put out volumes of music. Heck, the Hornet archive was many gigs in size, in a time when samples were 8-bit 22khz, and 200k was a huge mod file. If you want to see very talented people doing innovative new things with music (ugh, I sound like a Microsoft commercial), check out Hunz or Mellow-D or hundreds of others. Free music (as in beer, *and* freedom, you can take apart modules and see how the music was made) is not dead. :wq! |
| Fundamental question not addressed (Score:1) by dlakelan (qynxryna@lnu-spam-bb.pbz) on Friday June 09, @12:55PM EDT (#149) (User Info) |
| It seems to me that this article fails to address the fundamental question that most people on slashdot are wondering about: What is the MORAL implication of copying information without the permission of the person who originally created it vs. creating a system whereby people are legally punished for doing so. As I see it, the main reason why digital copies of information should be free, is that the cost to freedom of enforcing copyright laws is huge, and terrible. I do not want to live in a country where the police can arrest you for sending packets over the internet. I do not want to live in a country where it is illegal to create hardware or software to read DVDs, I do not want to live in a country where your computer can be searched remotely by the FBI using key escrow techniques. The list of proposed measures to counter freedom in the name of CONTROL goes on and on. Copyright of electronically reproducible information is like gun control, or encryption control, or drug control. It's about CONTROL (of guess who), and it is wrong. Now it's an entirely different thing for someone to alter or change a book, and redistribute it as though it were the original, or to reproduce a physical item as though it were an original item. Especially if they are selling these items. Both of these things involve a certain degree of fraud. But musicians/publishers/programmers/visual artists and so-on have no right to insist that other people give up basic human rights to liberty, including freedom from the kind of repressive law enforcement that copyright control seems to require, in order that they can enforce the collection of payments for copies of original work that other people produce. and THAT my friends is why I think copyright in general is wrong, and why music (and other types of information) should be free (speech). ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) -delete -spam- and rot13 the email- |
| Re:Fundamental question not addressed (Score:1) by Rico_Suave on Friday June 09, @01:21PM EDT (#223) (User Info) |
| What a bunch of pinko crap. -- |
| Rift in the industry? (Score:1) by dragonfly_blue (mbeihoffer@uswest.net) on Friday June 09, @12:56PM EDT (#151) (User Info) http://mark.dragonflydynamix.com |
| Is it possible that the recording industry* is lagging several years behind the software industry? There is yet no mechanism in place for the licensing and protection of rights, for both the music fans, and the musicians alike. There are many musicians who would trade their right arms (OK, bad analogy) for the chance to get their music out to the masses, even if they collected no royalties, never got a gold record, and never made it onto the Billboard Top 100. They are afraid to do this, however; afraid that they will give their music away, even under some type of license, and that somewhere, somebody will take that song, rub the serial numbers off, change the lyrics slightly, re-publish it under the standard commercial contracts, and make a million dollars. This is what is holding most unsigned bands and songwriters back; fear that their hard work will be stolen and republished, and they will see other profit from their workwhile they, the creators, fail. Programmers and software users have developed the GPL and the BSD licenses, among others, as a means of distributing software, another form of intellectual property similar to music. They are similar types of IP because: a. They can both be infinitely produced indefinitely for the cost of the media. b. They represent the finished product cultivated from, in some cases, thousands of man-hours of work. c. They are easily pirated. d. They represent huge bloated cash-cows of capitalism.
Most importantly, (at least in my opinion as a musician) can we create a license that helps unknown musicians feel safe in choosing to give their music away for free? There must exist some mechanism to do this. The article makes some good points. Music ceased to be a record with the Beatles: Record: a recording of an event; the event of people making music in a room. It has become a manufactured product with few exceptions. Let's establish this new license, and see if the strong arm of the free market puts an end, finally, to the abohorrent pricing practices and greedy monopolist frivolity of the recording industry at large. *Mommy, when I grow up I want to be an Industry Mogul", yeah, right. Special thanks to God Ate My Homework, for their Free Music Public License. I am developing a public license, called the Musician's Only Other Option (or the MOOO, as it is known). Please take a look at it and let me know what you think! |
| Ideas... (Score:1) by darsi (lila@madasafish.com) on Friday June 09, @12:57PM EDT (#155) (User Info) |
| I love music, I may never be able to hold a note, sing in tune but I still love music, the power it holds over near everything. and if I like a song, a tune, if it inspires me or makes me feel good, or just makes me feel I don't see why I have to pay to experience that emotion. No one charges for laying in the grass and staring at the clouds, yet sometimes it causes immense joy (for some of us at least). Music makes me feel the same way. I have a lot of MP3 and I have the records for most of them, either purchased previously or afterwards. but I would have missed out on a lot had it not been for them. Music has been a very big business for a long time, the sad bit about is that no one tries to hide, and even take pride in 'productions' like Britney Spears and numerous boybands. But by far worse is the fact that lots of people are suckered in by it and they achieve constant number ones. I long for a day when music is made for joy and for pleasure. The sharing of ideas and emotions. Not made for the money. I don't like mondays... |
| Metallica ::ducks and runs:: (Score:2) by RimRod (serotkin@NOSPAM.uiuc.edu) on Friday June 09, @12:58PM EDT (#159) (User Info) |
| This probably isn't going to be very popular. :) But, I *am* a Metallica fan, and I've thoroughly enjoyed every concert of theirs I've ever seen. They fit right into Roblimo's definition of being a real, honest to goodness *live* band and not just a recording of their CDs enacted on stage. They always look like they're having fun, they'll switch roles for a song, throw shit into the audience, start making up new songs as they go along... I've dragged non-fans to their shows, and even though they might not have liked the music, most of them have really enjoyed it just because it was so good of a performance. - ...and remember, you can't invade Brainania. It's not on the big map. |
| Re:Metallica ::ducks and runs:: (Score:1) by Rico_Suave on Friday June 09, @01:01PM EDT (#170) (User Info) |
| Damn straight - if anything, Metallica is primarily a live band. Sure, they have tempo problems from time to time, but the energy is there. I dare anyone who has been to a Metallica concert to say they are not an excellent live band. -- |
| Re:Metallica ::ducks and runs:: (Score:1) by kmcardle (kmcardleATsssnetDOTcom) on Friday June 09, @02:06PM EDT (#332) (User Info) |
| Damn Straight! Personal favorite Metallica concert memory: About 5 seconds of the Knack's My Sharona. Most of the young fans didn't realize what it was. :) I go to see Metallica every time they are in the area. The only time I skipped was when they were with Guns and Roses. I'm taking a trip to see a friend next month just to see Metallica, 'cause the Summer Sanitarium tour isn't hitting my area. I always try to drag a non-Metallica fan along with me to the shows. Most of them walk away Metallica fans. The only group that even comes close to Metallica is the Brian Setzer Orchestra. I got a chance to see him a few years ago, and I stood about four feet in front of him and watched him play and sing. You may not like the music, but that boy can play guitar. First class. -- then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way "Go, Metallica." -- Linus |
| Albums = Soundtracks (Score:1) by rograndom (ajones@outofdarkness.com) on Friday June 09, @12:59PM EDT (#162) (User Info) |
| I think it was Aerosmith that said that they thought of Albums as soundtracks to their live show. You like their live show, so here, you can have a version to take home and help remember the show. The albums helped promote the show, but now it seems that it's the other way around. andy j. |
| Missing the point...radio is to blame. (Score:2) by sugarman on Friday June 09, @12:59PM EDT (#163) (User Info) |
Nice article, managing to cover most of the major points, but I think you came short on an actual conclusion to the article: why do we think we're entitled to free music. The reason we are is because of the two things that provide us with music, ostensibly for free: radio, and to a lesser extent, TV, with VH1, MTv and Much being the main carriers. We have grown so accustomed to being able to listen to music, and a wide variety of it, that we forget about the business model behind it. The fact that all radio stations (and I'm assuming the video stations as well) pay royalty fees based on the tunes that are in rotation is usually completely ignored by the majority of the listening public. We all know that they stations have advertising, but we often think that goes to paying staff and equipment, not to royalty fees as well. Besides the human ability to 'tune out' stuff they don't want to listen to make it very easy to forget about the ads completely. So now we have music available to us online. We don't pay when we listen to the radio (though we do pay to 'put another dime in the jukebox') so why should we pay now. The fact that the music is a perfect digital copy, and we can take it with us anywhere to be played at our leisure doesn't enter into the equation. We're accustomed to freely available, ad-based music everywhere in our lives, so why should the net be any different? The RIAA is not stepping outside their bounds in their actions. Rather it is we as consumers who are being exposed to the process behind the free music we enjoy, and we're having some difficulty adapting to the growing pains. Just some thoughts... |
| Simpler Explanantion (long) (Score:2) by angst_ridden_hipster (angst_ridden_hipster@yahoo.com) on Friday June 09, @01:03PM EDT (#172) (User Info) http://www.andthehorseyourodeinon.com/ |
| I think that there's a simpler explanation of why some people seem to think music should be free: Music companies have been gouging the consumer for nearly thirty years. The profit margin on music has always been very high. A typical CD costs less than $1.50 to print and package. The artist gets around 15-20 cents. The label will spend up to $2 in promotion and advertsing for each CD. So their net cost is on the order of $4-$5 per CD, including some overhead. They wholesale this CD to music stores for $8-$10. The music stores turn around and sell to the consumer for $12-17. Even with this (over)simplified analysis, there's clearly a lot of fat in there. For those of you who remember vinyl, the margin was roughly equivalent. So people became accustomed to making tapes for one another. This was controversial, and RIAA was almost successful in getting a "piracy tax" put on blank tapes. They were successful in getting this applied to DAT, which is one of the (many) reasons the format never took off. But in any case, making tapes is a slow business for the average consumer, even with the dual cassette double-speed units, and there is a net loss of quality. I know that when I got a tape from a friend that I liked, I'd buy the record (or later, the CD), and use the tape to listen to on the crappy cassette player in my car, where it was too noisy to hear how bad the sound was. This, I believe, was fairly common. I still see people citing studies showing that music trading has a positive effect on music sales. And if I didn't like a tape enough to go buy the original, well, I justified playing the tape because of the high prices. I figured I wasn't hurting the artist much, since they didn't get more than a few cents. The ability to make this rationalization is behind what I think leads to the attitude that music should be free. But things are different now. The MP3 thing allows me to get decent to excellent quality recordings. I can burn 'em onto CD if I like. There's minimal quality loss, and minimal effort involved. And since I have a CD player at home, at work, on the notebook, and in the car, I have the ability to listen to the same media wherever I want. And now I have really no reason to go and buy a CD unless I'm feeling ethical and law-abiding. That, of course, is why RIAA is so scared. And the fact that they've been gouging people for years has eroded the feeling of responsibility among music fans to pay for the music. There's also the issue of "I like one song, why should I buy the album?" that gets easily solved by MP3 collecting. Again, the record companies had chances to support the online services that allowed you to mix your own CDs from vast libraries of songs. Instead, they sued. And again, that shows them in a greedy, profit-grubbing light. I see the attitude all over, especially here on slashdot: "maybe I'll just send the musician a dollar if I download one of their albums. They'll make more that way anyway." I'm not going to argue that excessive record company profits morally justify music theft, but I think it has a lot to do with the attitude. It's too simple to say "they just have themselves to blame," but just think what would have happened if they had dropped CD prices rather than raised them at any given juncture... - bukra fil mish mish - Monitor the Web, or Track your site! http://www.andthehorseyourodeinon.com/tech/netgrep/ |
| Call it what you will, you are still stealing (Score:2, Insightful) by Figec on Friday June 09, @01:03PM EDT (#176) (User Info) http://www.consorti.com/jason |
| If someone has something, or performs a service, and you take that from them without their permission and without compensating them, YOU ARE STEALING! Some of these artists do not want their material or their services stolen from them. That is what this is about. When you "comoditize" a service (in this case, recording a song is turning a service into a comodity) you replicate, or rather, transfer that service. When you distribute that comodity to other people, you are transfering that service around. Musicians perform the service of entertainment, and when you transfer that service around without compensating them, you are stealing from them. Musicians will want to make the most out of their service. How can they do that, when people make access to their service so trivial that performing that service again gains no worth? How can a musician expect to make a living by performing their art when you can reap the benefits of their service for free from somewhere else? They can't. I'm sick and tire of people not being able to fess up to what they are doing. Trading mp3's and other copyright material without compensating the owners of that material are stealing. To the people that do this: You steal, get over it. Stop denying what you do, and take the label like a man (or woman). |
| Re:Call it what you will, you are still stealing (Score:1) by cpt kangarooski on Friday June 09, @04:59PM EDT (#541) (User Info) |
| I tell you what. Take a look at some of my other posts on this subject today. (I really don't feel like typing it again for the millionth time) Then tell me if it's possible to steal something that you don't own. Recorded music is not a service, it is a copyrighted work. That doesn't mean it's ownable; it's not. And with no owner, who can you steal from? Music as a service means musicians actually playing, not a recording. Forcing musicians to play at gunpoint is not something I condone, but you need to be careful about what you say. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Re:Call it what you will, you are still stealing (Score:1) by NeoLazarus (NeoLazarus@altavista.com) on Saturday June 10, @07:42AM EDT (#665) (User Info) |
| I have taken a look at most of your other posts and I think you're blowing zen smoke up peoples asses about this subject.
Recorded music is not a service, it is a copyrighted work. That doesn't mean it's ownable; it's not. And with no owner, who can you steal from?
That 'service' of mixing, editing and recording... that choice conversion from .wav to .mp3 that I believe is the absolute best that can be done and that I put up somewhere like riffage.com for people to download freely. It's tangible, baby. I remember creating the file and burning it to CDs. I remember doing all the layout and artwork for the CD. I remember the countless hours spent printing and preparing the CDs. I remember ripping my songs to .mp3 and I remember uploading my songs to riffage. I own that, cpt. I have other recordings of my creations dating back for years and they're all copyrighted. If the composition, creation, transcription and recoding of an original musical recording into song form is too abstract a concept for you to grasp as being 'ownable' then I don't know how to convince you.
Of course I suppose someone could be a right rat bastard and strip the copyright notices from my free songs and redistribute them as their own, but that's a risk I take to get the music I've created out to the people of the world. Please note that I've not once mentioned which band I play for or where to get our music other than generally at 'riffage' (lesse here 3 or 4 now 5 riffage plugs at 2 cents per -- keep this up and I'll be a billionaire!)... I'm not discussing this to get 'viral' promotion for myself or my band. I'm just trying to convince you that you are wrong about your perception on the issue of the possibility of music 'ownership'.
It is not raw information. The creators of the information have created something from raw information into an art form that may or may not be pleasing to you. You can choose to abide by the content creators wishes -- only having free access to the songs they choose -- or you can go without if you don't like it. You cannot in good conscience redistribute it as being wholly your own 'free information'. In its original form it has coherence, rhythm, pace and duration... it makes sound waves, it displaces air. There are so many ways to refute your claim that this is just 'information' and that it should just be out there like a bank of fog or mist, ready to be had under whatever terms you want to dictate. You may think that's cool but in old scool hacker circles its called being a lamer. And you may have a copy but I have the original and the copyright to back it up. If you want the best information go to the content creator direct. You'll probably get it for cheap or for free because what live performance musicians really want is for you to come to concerts and shows. That's the real attraction -- to see a group of people create music out of thin air live and in real time. If that's not tangible maybe you'd better take your earplugs out.
R.
|
| Re:Call it what you will, you are still stealing (Score:2) by cpt kangarooski on Saturday June 10, @11:27PM EDT (#695) (User Info) |
| Services: I'm still not sure about this. If I buy a car, yes, while I am paying for the services and materials required to create the car, the car cannot be considered a service. It's clearly a good. So I don't entirely understand why it is that recorded music should be different. The CD and the packaging are goods. The costs to make them include services, but this does not make them services as well. I would argue as well that music itself is a good (although unownable and intangible) although about the only thing that goes into making it are services. Funnily enough, the service of performing music includes goods. (consumable music supplies like reeds or picks or strings) So I am pretty sure that recorded music isn't considered to be a service since music is a good, but paying for someone to perform music is clearly a service. The additional layer of seperation that comes from CD players not having little flintstones-type animals inside is what prevents music from being lumped in as a service along with the performance. This means that you're not stealing a service. You're stealing a good. But in order to steal something you have to deprive someone else of it and we all know that that's not true in the case of raw information. Stealing CDs is possible, stealing the music within is not. Copyright attempts to cover (in a limited way) the hole that results; I haven't said that it doesn't. But it doesn't do so in the same way. What started this: You said "Trading mp3's and other copyright material without compensating the owners of that material are stealing." What I'm objecting to are four things: 1)Trading is a fair use (provided that the mp3 being traded is a copy created with the authorization of the copyright holder or that other fair use circumstances apply) 2)Only some types of copying are not fair use; it's fair use for me to make an mp3 from a CD that I own (even if I do not hold the copyright to the material therin) 3)No one owns copyrighted material 4)Because no one owns copyrighted material, and because copying doesn't cause deprivation, you can't steal it; the crime being committed (depending on the exact circumstances) is copyright infringement. But I think that the stealing crowd doesn't get the response from their audiences that they want when they say "Trading mp3's and other copyrighted material without authorization by the copyright owner or the exercise of fair use rights is copyright infringement." which is much more accurate. 'Raw Information:' Now, when I say 'raw information' what I mean is information contained within the mind, or information as seperate from the medium in which it is contained. It's tricky, I know. And I think that you (and a couple other guys) are confusing mediums through which information can be carried with the information itself. Music that's printed notation is music we all agree, but it has nothing to do with sound waves yet other than what the creator expects it to sound like when performed. Music on a CD or a tape is just patterns of ridges in aluminum and plastic, or spots of carefully magentized tape. Again, there's no sound wave, but it's still music. When we play music though, it is carried along a sound wave, gets to our ears and we convert the pressure from the sound waves into information that enters our minds. I've already brought up this example elsewhere, but I'd like you to try it. I would like you to *THINK* the well known ending of the 1812 Overture to yourself, without humming or making any other sound. Despite the absence of any sound wave, people are still capable of comprehending it as music. We're incapable of transmitting that though, until it goes into some other medium, like sound waves through air. (which are tangible, no question) Compensation: Now, I'm not saying that artists should not be compensated for their efforts. It has happened a lot, particularly in the days when copyrights didn't exist at all, but I don't endorse this unless the artist doesn't want compensation. This being said, I'd _like_ to be able to get music for free, but I'm realistic and I don't see it happening in a legal manner. That it can happen at all though is going to have to be addressed in ways other than straight up prohibition I think. What the solution will be, I honestly have no idea. I don't think that we're on the right track now though. I personally believe that copyrights may indeed work (I could be wrong) but that the copyright laws we have now are both unconstitutional and that much of the work associated with them muddies the issue so that misunderstandings to the nature of copyrighted material and what copyright is and entails occur. The point here is that you're accusing people of doing something that they couldn't do if they wanted to, and which has not occured; theft of owned information. That's about as smart as blaming Newton for causing gravity to exist when you fall out of bed. -- I support anonymous posting. |
| Since no one else has posted the address yet... (Score:1) by CSG_SurferDude (moc.66tr@aadew) on Friday June 09, @01:04PM EDT (#179) (User Info) http://www.rt66.com/~wedaa |
| Here's the mandatory link to the The Street Performer Protocol and Digital Copyrights, since nobody else has posted it, I felt I had to. CSG_Surferdude www.fuml.org |
| you have a point, but.... (Score:2, Insightful) by nicedream (moore008@gannon.edu) on Friday June 09, @01:06PM EDT (#185) (User Info) http://nopants.org |
| Sure, music today is certainly different than it was 30 or 40 years ago, but come on, times change. I'm not saying that either the service or commodity view of music is right or wrong, but you seem to be taking the view that the old way is the "one true way" and I'm not ready to say that it is. Granted, mainstream pop is pretty much rubbish, but look at the many differing musical styles that have emerged in the last 10-20 years, that would never have surfaced if all artists made livings at car washes and weddings. Think for a minute, are there any stations 30 years from now that will be able to play just "oldies"? No, because kids today listen to so many different styles of music- pop, rock, alternative, hip-hop, techno, etc. The list could go on and on. As for the aspect of "musicianless" music, what's so wrong about that? If I go to a bar, and the band sucks, why would I want to hear them all night? A DJ can play different things depending on the crowd response. I'm not saying that live music (at a concert) isn't great, great fun, but I honestly think a DJ is better suited for a bar, and especially a dance club. why go downtown to hear someone play records? If you went out, it was to hear real music... For techno music the DJ most certainly IS a performer, not someone who just shouts between songs. He IS the music maker. Some people don't recognize techo (and hip-hop while we're at it) as "real" music, since artists don't sing and play instruments in the traditional way. The Beatles: There were very good reasons they became a studio only band. First, they pretty much had "outgrown" the studio-only music. You can't argue that the maturity and complexity of their music skyrocketed after Sgt. Pepper. Second, their concerts were described (by the Beatles themselves) as freak shows, not really about music but about gawking and screaming hysterically. Instruments would break down but nobody, not even the Beatles would ever know or care. I saw Ringo on the anthology video describing how he was playing the absolute shittiest he'd ever played in his career. Maybe it did set the trend for music to become a commodity (although I do think PLENTY of Beatles albums were sold in the years previous), but it was just a natural expansion in their careers, one I am thankful for. It's seems like you long for the "good old days" when music was a service(50s and 60s), while the record companies long for the days of music as a commodity (70s and 80s). I don't know what the future brings, but neither of the old models is going to come back. |
| Metallica Accesability (Score:2) by kmcardle (kmcardleATsssnetDOTcom) on Friday June 09, @01:08PM EDT (#190) (User Info) |
| Roblimo, just wait outside the stage door after a Metallica show. You will be ushered in with a group of 10 or so, and allowed to chit-chat with the band for a few minutes, get an autograph or four. You would have ample time to give Lars his five bucks. I would imagine that he would refuse it unless you insisted. -- then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way "Go, Metallica." -- Linus |
| Artwork & Hope (Score:1) by doonesbury on Friday June 09, @01:08PM EDT (#192) (User Info) |
| I think Roblimo brings up an excellent point. Furthermore, I'd extend this into an area that I'm intimately familiar with - political cartooning. The same commoditization happened there, during the same period, using similar methods. Substitute "national syndicates" with "D.J.", and you're way, way too close. Cartoonists now, earn approximately $50/year for each newspaper they're in. Compare that to a salary of $25,000 a year when each newspaper had a political cartoonist only for their newspaper! Even if you're syndicated, as a artist, you can't make a decent living without selling T-shirts, books and the like. It's immensely tough to break into. (Not that I didn't know this going in - I knew. It's just sad). So, the question becomes: are we killing off art by attacking the leeches which thrive off of artists? Can we actually save and de-commidify(?) art by forcing it to become free, or are we just going to force artwork into a low-rent ghetto? And if artwork becomes too cheap to actually live off of, what will happen to all of these people who want to make artwork for a living ? I don't like my job that much. It's a good job - don't get me wrong - but I'm not able to make a living off what I want to, cartooning. That's life. But I think I'd be, and the world would be, even more miserable, knowing that there was *no way* that *anyone* could survive being an artist. I still cartoon in the hope that someday I can make it. Hope was one of the things that Roblimo talked about, hope that someday you can make it big. Without some setup of retaining the value of art, (without over-valuing it) eventually that hope dies off; and then the artists disappear; and then art fades away. |
| Re:Artwork & Hope (Score:1) by doonesbury on Friday June 09, @03:04PM EDT (#442) (User Info) |
| Except it's not - it's even worse. No one employes cartoonists as a cartoonist. Comic strips are syndicated, same problem (if not worse!); illustration is over-crowded, and while you can make a living at it, it's not really "cartooning" (I've done that) - it's cartooning for a business. No freedom to artistically express ones' self. Animation is booming - but only if you want to do animation, which is quite different from cartooning. It's really a bad scene out there. The market's there - people buy and like cartoons. But syndicates won't take anything unless its safe, papers print almost nothing but syndicated cartoons. It's a dying medium - but even worse, it's dying not because people don't like it, but because the quality coming from the "official" sources is as bland and boring. Comic book artists, unless they make it big, rarely even make back the money they spend on the book itself. It's a shame, but the form's dying. Has been for years. Like I said, I like my job, but it's not what I would have chosen to do - because what I'd choose to do is *dying*. |
| a license is still a license... (Score:1) by voodoo on Friday June 09, @01:09PM EDT (#193) (User Info) |
| <p>I know this may be heresy on Slashdot, but I don't see how any of the above justifies violating someone's license. Yes, CDs are a ripoff, but if the artist I happen to like insists on selling it, do I have the right to not pay and still get it? If someone were to violate some open-source license (e.g. GPL), people would naturally say that is wrong. Both the music artist and the coder supply their material under a license. Somehow we feel justified in ignoring one license but regarding the other sacred. How is it okay to violate one license and not the other? <p>If you don't like the license, don't use the material. |
| Cultivated IDEAS are still not free (Score:1) by tedbronson on Friday June 09, @01:12PM EDT (#196) (User Info) |
| "Books are free to virtually anyone in any developed country that has a public library system. Internet access is becoming another popular library feature, and many libraries loan music CDs and videotapes as well. You can argue that libraries are not free, just sponsored by taxpayers. You'd be right. But that doesn't change the fact that end users can make use of their facilities without paying any more than they pay to listen to ad-supported radio stations or to watch ad-supported TV sitcom." You STILL are not allowed by copyright law to go into your local library, pick up a copy of a book, and photocopy the whole thing so that you don't have to go out and buy it at the store. |
| Is this Slashdot's position? (Score:2) by DonkPunch on Friday June 09, @01:15PM EDT (#207) (User Info) |
| Maybe I agree with Roblimo. Maybe I don't. My question: Does Roblimo's article represent the editorial position of Slashdot? If it is the editorial position of Slashdot, is it also the position of VALinux? I would really like these questions answered before I decide whether or not to purchase any VALinux hardware. I express my displeasure with Microsoft's practices by not buying their software. It would be hypocritical for me to not apply these same principles to other vendors -- either to their benefit or their loss. So, without committing either way, I would like an honest answer. Is this the position of VALinux? Is this the position of Slashdot's advertisers? Or is this just the position of one employee with access to a really large podium? Can you believe they let me moderate? |
| Re:Is this Slashdot's position? (Score:1) by falloutboy (ben@nospam@cloud9.net) on Friday June 09, @01:28PM EDT (#242) (User Info) |
| "If it is the editorial position of Slashdot, is it also the position of VALinux? " I think its pretty obviously _not_ the expressed position of VA Linux. Hence the label "editorial." By definition, its the poster's personal opinion. "I express my displeasure with Microsoft's practices by not buying their software. It would be hypocritical for me to not apply these same principles to other vendors -- either to their benefit or their loss. " That doesn't strike you as being reactionary and ludicrous? A reasonable analogy would be if you chose not to buy a Sony Discman because you disliked a political statement made in a film released by Columbia (or Orion, or whoever Sony's movie label is).
|
| Re:Is this Slashdot's position? (Score:2) by DonkPunch on Friday June 09, @01:42PM EDT (#274) (User Info) |
| If it is the poster's personal opinion, why does the title use the plural first-person "We"? Does Roblimo have a mouse in his pocket? Clearly, he claims to represent more than just himself. My decision to avoid Microsoft software is not "reactionary and ludicrous". Given their license agreements and inability to adhere to accepted standards, I feel that their software is usually not worth the price. I also try to avoid giving them any additional funds with which to crush my choices as a computer professional. That's just me exercising my rights as a consumer. But, with regard to your Sony analogy, the fact is that there ARE media vendors I avoid. Yes, this is mostly because of their editorial positions. The bully pulpit of mass media is powerful and has the potential to sway the opinions of many. It is a tremendous responsibility -- one which is often not met. If I believe that Time, ABC, or whoever is not meeting the standard of fairness and impartiality, I chose to ignore them. The loss to their pockets is minimal (until more people do the same), but I can't afford to waste my time absorbing misinformation and biased reporting. ...which leads people to wonder why I check Slashdot, I'm sure. Can you believe they let me moderate? |
| Re:Is this Slashdot's position? (Score:1) by Fooknut (meebert@!yahoo.com) on Friday June 09, @01:49PM EDT (#298) (User Info) |
| Man I think you're right about the idea of the thing, but it almost seems like you're angry and just looking for something to whine at. Hell I stopped watching tv, I don't read newspapers because all I hear is crap. it's all one big tabloid. Half is biased, the other half is a pack of lies. I think people are missing a lot of what Roblimo is saying in this. This is almost a bit of his personal life. the things he laments as being gone. The human touch in music really IS gone compared what it used to be. I agree totally with that. A mass concert can't compare to a small band in a bar or club for the "feel". Concerts with variety are far better, and I've gone to some that I regreted because I could have listened to the cd and had the same effect. "A day without sunshine is like night." -Steve Martin |
| Re:Is this Slashdot's position? (Score:2) by DonkPunch on Friday June 09, @02:12PM EDT (#355) (User Info) |
| You're assuming that I'm all about boycotts. That's just not the case. While I tend to avoid companies with political/social agendas contrary to mine, I also make it a point to patronize companies with whom I agree or who wisely stay out of these issues. While I don't read Time, I WILL read magazines that have a history of being neutral and factual. I WILL do business with software vendors who have fair license agreements -- they don't even have to be Free-with-a-capital-F. I'm a big fan of Palm Computing, for example. I am deliberately not committing on this question because I want an HONEST answer. VALinux might easily gain a customer for life in me. VALinux has indirectly provided Roblimo a pretty loud megaphone with which to shout. I want them to tell us whether they did it on purpose or if he just took advantage of it. That's all. Can you believe they let me moderate? |
| Re:Is this Slashdot's position? (Score:1) by Fooknut (meebert@!yahoo.com) on Friday June 09, @01:40PM EDT (#271) (User Info) |
| Seems like you have some personal problems with Microsoft, and maybe with Roblimo's opinion. Opinions are nice, everyone has one and they're all different. Being a reasonable person, and an adult means that you can view someone's opinion and make a mental choice to accept or not accept their opinion. You can't effect VALinux just like you can't effect Microsoft. So why bother? Would you buy a Ford Ranger at double the price of a Chevy S10 just because you didn't know the opinion of one of Chevy's subsidiaries? If it's the principle of the thing, I can certainly understand that, but it is also possible to go overboard on the principle side as well. Don't assume that Roblimo's opinion automatically become's the opinion of everyone he happens to be involved with. Fook "A day without sunshine is like night." -Steve Martin |
| Re:Is this Slashdot's position? (Score:2) by DonkPunch on Friday June 09, @02:00PM EDT (#322) (User Info) |
| Don't assume that Roblimo's opinion automatically become's the opinion of everyone he happens to be involved with. Then why does Roblimo say, "We"? Whom does he represent? I don't have "personal" problems with Microsoft. I don't think their software is worth what they charge. I think their EULAs are unacceptably consumer-hostile. This is not a revolutionary cause -- it's my right as a consumer. And, yes, principles do matter to me as a consumer. Consider this hypothetical scenario: Chevrolet provides free vehicles and advertising for the "Club the Seals Project". By doing this, I can only assume that Chevy supports the position of the "Club the Seals Project". Personally, I'm opposed to clubbing seals because I think they should go to live concerts instead of hanging out in clubs. Point: Chevy supports "Club the Seals" by lending them aid. Point: I disagree with "Club the Seals". I don't think Chevy should get involved. Therefore, I am morally justified in not buying a Chevy. It's my money and I will decide how I spend it. VALinux is providing servers and financing for Slashdot. Roblimo uses Slashdot to express the opinion of himself and an unspecified number of others ("We", remember?). Can I conclude that VALinux is providing a forum for Roblimo's opinion? If I agree with Roblimo, I can show support by choosing VALinux products whenever they are a reasonible choice. If I disagree, I can avoid VALinux. Why is everyone trying to convince me otherwise? I'm just asking a valid question. Can you believe they let me moderate? |
| Re:Is this Slashdot's position? (Score:1) by _vapor (glenn@schmim.com) on Friday June 09, @01:46PM EDT (#288) (User Info) http://schmim.com |
| When I first saw the headline of the editorial, I thought it was supposed to be Slashdot's official stance on the issue. But after reading, I think Roblimo uses "we" to refer to those music fans who, in general, are rejecting the "old" system. I have no idea whether Roblimo is right or wrong that there is a major movement toward "free" music, but that's what I think he is referring to. I don't think the editorial is supposed to represent Slashdot's official stance. "We are #1. Everyone else is #2 or lower." |
| Rock is Dead! (Score:1) by dasspunk on Friday June 09, @01:20PM EDT (#220) (User Info) |
| In my youth, I made a lot of "illegal" tapes of band's records. I guess their lawyers were too busy to notice me in my room spinning off their latest record onto tape. Maybe they didn't care because my tape didn't sound as good as the original. Maybe they didn't notice because I wasn't advertising the fact that I was "stealing" from them at the top of my lungs or maybe they just didn't think my piracy was a threat to their record sales. Strangely, on the floor, in the back seat of all my friend's cars, there was always a ton of tapes too. Those lawyers must have missed those ones too. "Stealing" music is nothing new, it's just being done louder than before. I think the real threat to the record companies is that people buy the crap they shove down our throats just because that is all we are aware of. The problem being, all they advertise is the flavor of the week crap that we as musical automatons go out in droves to buy but within a week ends up at the bottom of the stack (and in 6 months we swear we never liked it). If we get sick of the crap they push without buying the record first, THAT is a problem for them. Pushing music from artists that make good music is not an option for these people. If you don't have a hot tummy, you will have to prove to them you can make them money. I can only hope that somehow, the web kills the current music industry and in it's place, a startrek-next-generation kind of music industry where music, not the size of your tits, is what's important. Dreaming... Spunk |
| How the recording industry will adapt: (Score:1) by axlrosen on Friday June 09, @01:20PM EDT (#222) (User Info) |
| Either the recording industry will find a way to adapt to the way today's fans treat music -- as a commodity -- or it will die... In five years, every song will be a jingle. Get ready for "You're Sweeter Than a Pepsi" and "4Runner of Love..." The next "Smells Like Teen Spirit" might actually be sponsored by Teen Spirit. |
| a modified business model (Score:1) by falloutboy (ben@nospam@cloud9.net) on Friday June 09, @01:22PM EDT (#226) (User Info) |
| It occurs to me that artists get paid for live performances, while record companies get paid for the majority of album sales (most of the time). If the bulk of an artist's profit comes from playing live shows and not from the record companies, why isn't it possible for a band to release their music into the public domain for free and simply make money playing live? I suppose the answer is Ticketmaster. Can't book Madison Square Garden without them. I wonder if the DOJ could sue Ticketmaster for monopolistic practices? But I digress. Is this idea beyond the realm of possibility? IANAL, but it seems to me the only problem with this is the venues and booking shows. MP3.com is still a record label, isn't it?
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| MP3's? It's not about the money.. (Score:1) by rabitd (regex(at)JustAnotherPerlHacker.com) on Friday June 09, @01:22PM EDT (#228) (User Info) http://www.justAnotherPerlHacker.com |
| Just like linux isn't. It's about a persons right to have and control what is theirs. If I'm trapped into someone's proprietary format (like dvd, or some encrypted music format) my data is under their control not mine, even if I've paid for it. It is still controlled by them, because they hold the keys to my utilizing it. I want to reward the artists who's mp3's I listen to, but there is no method to do so right now. Every solution proposed to date requires a proprietary format (controlled by someone else, and protected by law from reverse engineering). I refuse to give up my right to gather data in a format that I believe allows me to freely utilize the data I've paid for, and that I know I can still use a week from now, a month from now, or how ever long. And when the time comes for a change to a new format, I want to be able to move over to it without having to upgrade my entire collection. Can't you just see the error messages now?: "We're sorry but you'll have to upgrade that song to: 'Limp Bizkit-MI2 Version 4.51' to listen to it on this player". "This song will only play on an authorized version 5.43 player, please purchase an upgrade to your software now." -- |
| the transition to commodity *necessitates* payment (Score:1) by J.J. on Friday June 09, @01:23PM EDT (#231) (User Info) |
| The transition of music from a service to a commoditity necessitates the payment for that product, not general freedom. The transition that you describe is an excellent argument, and a point of view that I have not seen expressed before in this on-going saga of litigation and litany. I don't think anyone can argue effectively the change that music has undergone. However, I disagree with your sudden conclusion that because music is a commodity and we are surrounded by it, that it should be free. The transition of music to a commodity based industry was inevitable. Music is a thing of talent - an art. Certain individuals are more talented in music than others. As the world has grown smaller and smaller over the past thirty years, the means of giving the more talented musicians, the more appealing musicians, the more demanded musicians exposure appropriate to their popularity has become easier and easier. Since the band cannot meet the demand for their music in person, across the world, simultaneously, the musicians (and the ever-present middlemen looking to turn a profit) find ways to distribute their music to meet demand. Much like a talented artist finds copies of his oil paintings on posters and prints, musicians find records, tapes and CDs of their work. The most discerning individuals won't be satisified with the reproductions, but 99% of the world will be. But this distributed means of meeting demand necessitates some means of accepting distributed payments. You think that since an artist is popular and has high demand, that he should suddenly give his work away for free? Of course not. Hence, we are charged a fee for those records, tapes, and CDs. The natural evolution of business and the world has grown that industry into a monstrosity, but the single, underlying principle is still the same - just because an artist is popular, doesn't mean that he should suddenly start giving away his music for free. There is the argument that they should make their money off performances, endorsements, etc., and adopt the Dead idea of embracing the free distribution of music to increase awareness, but that's a step that just feels intrinsically wrong - not to mention the fact that the aforementioned monstrosity can't, and won't let it happen. A phenomenon such as new as the Internet, even with it's size and ever-increasing inertia, will budge neither that monstrosity nor music industry tradition easily or quickly. Now, to take a step back from the pseudo-hypotheotical and take a look at the real world: I don't think that anyone using Napster, Gnutella or local college networks had any idealistic opinions that "music should be free" spoken in the 60s style hippie when referring to love, drugs, Vietnamese, or the cause of the hour. Folks are trading MP3s because it's cool. CDs are expensive, and inconvienent when compared to MP3s. It's all a crime of convienence. To read more into it reeks of JonKatz and other screaming liberal arts-kind-of-writers-and-journalists. (Sorry, Roblimo) I think that eventually, music will be free. MP3s will be an accepted, and prevalent form of music distribution. There will be no one making money off of the digital distribution of music. Why? Because it's happened already. That damned cat is out of the bag, and no amount of coaxing or brute force will shove him back in. Nothing can stop the trading of MP3s. Nothing. Eventually, the monstrosity will realize this, and the world will move on - and this will just be another step in the process of a changing world. J.J. |
| KFMF (Score:1) by mikpos on Friday June 09, @01:24PM EDT (#233) (User Info) http://mikpos.dyndns.org |
| I'm sure many of you have heard of the Kosmic Free Music Foundation (KFMF). If not, then you suck. They're basically a group of trackers who have been making free music for many many years (pretty much for as long as I can remember, anyway). Anyway, apparently, in order to stay in business, they've been forced to join forces with MP3.com. Maelcum has written a great explanation of the situation (both the situation of the KFMF and the situation of the music industry as a whole) on <a href="http://www.kosmic.org/what.html">this page</a>. Read it. It's very good. Really. -- yay for 6 ish!! |
| I like giving my money to certain artists. (Score:2) by Lord Kano on Friday June 09, @01:27PM EDT (#240) (User Info) http://trfn.clpgh.org/wpngg |
| There are a few artists that I feel a sense of duty to support by making sure that they get some of my money. When I was in high school I experienced a peried of deep depression. I probably lost about 20 pounds, I was (and still am a little) overweight so it didn't affect my health to lost that weight, but I digress. I discovered the music of a manic depressive who was the only man whom I'd ever heard express the confusion, despair, anger, and deep sadness that I was feeling. I saw that I was not alone. I saw that other people had felt, or were feeling as sad as I was. It was his music that helped me to find the strength to carry on and beat my depression. It was his words that helped me to find the joy in life that I had lost. It was his thoughts and feelings that went into making that music; it was his heart and soul that brought into the world the music that was able to reach through the cloud that I was in and touch me. I realize that he made his music for his own reasons, but I feel that, in part, I owe him my life. No matter what happens, I will definately give him my money by buying whatever he puts out. Although his last album was rather lame, the rest of his work has been top notch. Sometime this month he plans to release his final album and the second that it hits the shelves, IT'S MINE! LK "If a President of the United States ever lied to the American people, he should resign."-William Jefferson Clinton |
| ease of distribution your whole argument? (Score:1) by AshleyB (Ashleyb@microsoft.com) on Friday June 09, @01:27PM EDT (#241) (User Info) |
| Then pass along to Jon Katz to let us know when he posts the entire text of his new book online. Not that I will read it but it would be nice to see Slashdot practicing what it preaches. sigh...just read the user bio. |
| One way I've thought about it (Score:1) by m0nkeyb0y on Friday June 09, @01:32PM EDT (#246) (User Info) |
| MP3s are the FM radio of the new generation (corny, but stick with me on this one). When FM radio first came about, artists were pissed as all could be because people were taping their songs right off the radio! This eliminated the need for most to buy a record/tape/8-track whathave you. Did they sacrifice quality? Sure, you had to deal with static and DJs cutting in at the very end of the song, but most didn't care. Now a days kids can roam the internet easily and find MP3s of any song they want, and burn it on a CD. It shares many similarities with taping off the radio.
-- And remember kids, crack doesn't smoke itself!!! |
| Disco Dance Killed The Coffee House Star (Score:2) by Golias on Friday June 09, @01:32PM EDT (#247) (User Info) |
| Just to let you know where I'm coming from, I hold a degree in Music, have played in jazz combos and garage bands, and I also have worked as a DJ to help pay my way through college. Rob, you sound a little like the union auto worker in the 70's complaining about the robot that now spray-coats the joints that an assembly worker used to deal with. Most people go to bars and dances for the social encounters more than anything else, and it matters little to them if "Twist 'n' Shout" is being played by a good cover band or a recording of the Beatles. Even many of the Dead-Heads were mostly following Garcia & Co. around for the chance to drop acid with other hippies, rather than the chance to hear yet another improvisational exploration of "Truckin". This is really only bad news for the bad cover bands... the good ones still get paying gigs. The lousy ones were just taking advantage of a supply shortage, and like all supply shortages, somebody came along to close the gap (DJ's, in this case). All of this has nothing to do with music copying. The reason people don't copy books very often is because the cost of copying all those pages (in terms of both time and money) is far more than the cost of just buying your own copy. This is because the publishers can mass-produce a 300-page text for far less money than it costs you to print a duplication. With music, this has not been the case for a long time. Dubbing albums to tape is easy and cheap, and electronic copying is even quicker and cheaper. Add to this the fact that large-scale music promotion costs millions these days, resulting in very high per-album costs, and you have tremendous incentive to copy. It has nothing to do with people feeling they "deserve" anything, nothing to do with communism, and everything to do with people deciding that the new Kid Rock CD is just not worth paying $17 bucks when bootlegs are so easy to get. Is Kid Rock and his label getting ripped off? Sure, but no more than they are ripping off the rubes who buy their awful music. The model that the free-music crowd seems to advocate is to give away recordings, charge for the show... but live music, especially in the stadiums, is a big money loser.; the shows are put on to sell more records and merchandise, not make a profit off the gate. The other problem with this model, is it would lay waste to the album format. Albums like Sgt. Pepper's would not be made, because the incentive would not be there to do anything other than make albums that are just good enough to get people to the concerts. U2 might still make a buck, but Brian Eno will have to go get an MCSE or something. Studio-only musicians and producers like Alan Parsons would be out of luck. Perhaps there is room for compromise. Copyright serves a purpose, but it seems a little too restrictive for the modern era. How about a new law that expands public access to copyright... to allow the Library of Congress to stream any published file [music, video, text, etc.] to you for free, but in some kind of format that prevents you from storing it long-term. If you don't want to go through the trouble of downloading it every time, you buy the right to download it to permanent storage from the publisher/distributor. Content creators would still do well, as long as they were creating content worth paying for. As Joel used to say to the mad scientists, "what do you think, sirs?" I never said I was afraid of dying. |
| Re:Disco Dance Killed The Coffee House Star (Score:1) by MoonPilgrim on Friday June 09, @02:11PM EDT (#351) (User Info) |
| We used to make our own music. In fact, we still do. We don't play for money, but sometimes we get paid anyway. We don't steal recordings, we don't photocopy sheet music. We pay for these things. But mostly we practice the music daily and get together on weekends to play together. If we have an audient, or perhaps an entire audience, we will try to be sure they 'get it.' It's fun, and these persons who listen passively frankly shouldn't concern anybody. |
| Tips == CDs, essentially (Score:1) by orbital3 on Friday June 09, @01:32PM EDT (#249) (User Info) |
| You hear the live musician in the bar, and you like him, he brightens your day, so you tip him a buck or two, right? Sure, I would. That's the way I view CDs. Did I really enjoy myself listening to this artist's music? If so, I tip him a few bucks through the purchase of his CD. "But $15 is way more than $2!", you say. I agree, but when I tip the live musician $1 or $2, I can't put him in my pocket, take him with me, and have him play for me whenever I want him to. Seems worth the extra cash to me. Tips and buying CDs are a way of saying "Thanks". Thanks for giving me something to identify with. Thanks for giving me a perspective on something that I didn't have before. Thanks for entertaining me. No, these days, you can't walk up to the person and shake their hand... things are on a larger scale now. But you can still show your appreciation through the tip. I've spent thousands of dollars on CDs, and what I got out of the music I paid for was more than worth it. Please, show the artists your appreciation. |
| but how do artists make money? (Score:1) by djinn87 on Friday June 09, @01:36PM EDT (#262) (User Info) |
i agree with the article and think it presents a very interesting take on the changing state of the music business. the one thing that i believe is missing, however, is a real remedy to the problem. it's implied, even, that there is no remedy, and we'll end up in an endless cycle of having to break new laws in new and interesting ways. by comparing mp3s to the american revolution an interesting point is made, but that doesn't, by itself, legitimize mp3s. what i have been puzzling over personally is a proper model for money to be made for the artists and the labels if music is free, or freely distributed (or even distributed for pay with the knowledge that it is easy to get "illegal" copies). despite my dislike of most labels, especially the large ones, it's hard to say they are not necessary or don't deserve reward. they (should at least) promote the artist, put money out to record the artist, help the artist with touring and booking, etc. and, certainly, the artist is entitled to fiscal reward. so the question remains how do the record companies make money (enough to pay the artist) if they give most of the music away for free? |
| I feel sorry for you guys..... (Score:1) by kirE_lateM on Friday June 09, @01:41PM EDT (#273) (User Info) |
| All this talk about how local music is dead is kinda depressing. I'm mostly a hardcore/heavy metal guy myself (though I can appreciate some techno hardcore, I know what you're about to say, not live...), and I have to say the area where I live (southern New England) has an awesome scene. Tons of great bands that put out excellent cd's for no more than $10. I hardly listen to anything other than local music now. I wish other areas of the world had such a fantastic scene. Please tell me that local music isn't dead elsewhere. |
| DJs are not the enemy. (Score:1) by Da_Monk on Friday June 09, @01:42PM EDT (#275) (User Info) http://the-monk.diaryland.com |
| The whole point of being a DJ in the techno context is to blend songs into one continuous song... so you dont really know where one ends and one begins... so in a very real sense you are creating something new.... it is really simple what has brought the music scene into the state it is in now: GREED. by consumers, producers, RIAA, musicians, and government. Living is a way of life. |
| Books and Music (Score:1) by lgw4 (lgwarden@home.com) on Friday June 09, @01:44PM EDT (#280) (User Info) http://csce.uark.edu/~lgw4/ |
| Is it just me, or is this argument ridiculous? Come on, paying musicians who play live but not paying for their recorded music is like paying to watch an author write but not paying for his books. Few would do the latter, but it seems the (g)Napsterites feel the former is okay. As for books being free at libraries -- you don't get to keep them, and the librarians tend to get fussy when you try. Books are protected by copyright (as is most music produced in the West) and you are NOT given permission to copy them to keep for yourself. Sure, there is "fair use", but it is definately agaist the law to photocopy a book and distribute those copies to friends and strangers. Don't get me wrong: I love the mp3 format. I frequently rip CDs I own and keep copies of the resulting mp3s on my laptop hard drive. Playing mp3s use much less battery power than playing CDs. I also think that MP3.com got the shaft in their lawsuit. But I can't help but see Napster/Gnutella users as theives and pirates. |
| Is music important to you? (Score:1) by labargmd on Friday June 09, @01:44PM EDT (#281) (User Info) |
| For one who wishes well to the creator of something they enjoy, be it some obscure songwriter who sells tapes on the web or a "commodity" band, the gift that creator has asked is the cost of the recorded media. It's easy to forget that every dollar you spend is a vote for how you want the world to be. I love small Mom and Pop record stores and one-of-a-kind restaurants, so I go patronize the ones that are local to me, and when I travel, I seek them out. There used to be lots more of them: either there aren't enough people that share my tastes to prevent their gradual demise, or the people who do didn't figure out in time that the money they gave Sam Goody and TGI Friday's might have preserved something they enjoyed. Musicians have bills to pay. To do anything really well, it's generally a good idea to be able to do it without the stress and time commitment of an unrelated full-time job. There are lots of cases of musicians that make more money than required to continue to keep music-making their top priority- Metallica is probably one of them. I can't blame them for wanting more, but they're probably not going away any time soon despite Napster. On the other hand, many of my favorite musicians don't have hit records. Lots of bands and musicians "go away" every day- who's on that list in the near future? Shane MacGowan? Richard Thompson? Tom Waits? XTC? It's been a long time since Joe Jackson or Elvis Costello had a hit- are their album sales down even though I think they're making the best music of their careers in recent years? (I have no idea, but I don't personally know anybody who's buying them) I buy music to thank its creators as well as folks who got it to me (who take too much, but that's a different issue), but also because it's my vote for more really good music. |
| The genie is out of the bottle. (Score:1) by mtoal on Friday June 09, @01:44PM EDT (#282) (User Info) |
| I don't give a damn about licenses. Technology has changed, and the only thing that licensing stops is people who still care about it. You can't publish a media or information object these days and expect it not to be copied because - despite the fact it may well be costly to *develop* that media or information object - the cost to copy and reproduce the media or information object it trivial once it is produced. Therefore the media or information object in itself has no real value. The value comes from ACCESS to the media or information object, and from tangible goods or services which are necessary for, or desirable to the consumer of the media or information object. You're simply fooling yourself if you place a media or information object in a public forum, and expect it will not be copied or reproduced, despite all the little disclaimers you attach to it. It's called ASSUMPTION OF RISK. |
| DJ's can create some experience...look at IBIZA (Score:1) by jacoplane (jacoplane@SPAMpostmark.net) on Friday June 09, @01:44PM EDT (#283) (User Info) |
| Ibiza's an amazing place. It's an island in the middle of the mediteranean, and is THE party place for Europeans. The clubs there are absolutely amazing, and it all revolves around the idea of DJs. Now I know this is not everyone's thing, but to me it's the kind of experience that no live-music event could hope to replicate. This article seems to suggest that in "the good old days" artists were performers. Well, what about Mozart and Beethoven? Sure they were performers too, but their legacies were written by their compositions, not their actual performances. However, the DJs are performing-artists...they know when to mix in one song after another to make the crowd go wild. |
| Question #428053: is it the music or the "artist"? (Score:1) by Somerset on Friday June 09, @01:48PM EDT (#290) (User Info) |
| Free everything. See what happens. Oh you say that some free sampler are useful for ad promotion? Well, yes. I listen to some free tracks of an artist. The artist is interesting. I buy his/her CD. Oh yes. It happened to me. Rare cases. You know why? I don't have much money to spend in CD. To make me buy the CD the artist not only has to be interesting: he/she must be GREAT. Today more and more people "make" music, in the gastronomic sense of the word. And today I see less and less artist, in the great sense of the word. So, to all the MEDIOCRE artists: remember, I may download your free mp3's but forget I will buy your CD or come to your live shows. Regards, Somerset |
| The basis of culture (Score:1) by kettch on Friday June 09, @01:49PM EDT (#295) (User Info) http://home.sprintmail.com/~markangela |
| So many commentators and historians have spent much time touting the benifits of music. Many have said that much of our culture expressed in the styles of music that we produce. Back in the day.... i.e. middle ages or before, music was the only form of entertainment that was available to the poor commoners. Song was also one of the only ways that people had to pass along their history and heritage. Back then it was very important for everyone knowing about the past. It would be like making the library charge a fee to get in. bleed and die, yub-yub |
| studio-recorded vs live performance (Score:3, Insightful) by tokengeekgrrl on Friday June 09, @01:50PM EDT (#301) (User Info) |
| Now I am going to take a small detour to blame The Beatles for much of this change in the way musicians related to their audiences: they were the first big-time popular musicians to make albums that were purely studio artifacts never performed in public and that, indeed, could not be performed live. They were fine albums, and I'm sure that when they were being made no one thought about the long-term effects of this innovation. But those albums were the first hint of music as a pure product (in the form of records) instead of music as a service (in the form of live performances). I'm going to take a small detour in venture into the philosophical realm of whom music serves. Glenn Gould, a well-known classical pianist virtuoso of the 50s, caused a stir when he retired from public performance early stating that "at live concerts I feel demeaned, like a vaudevillian." He was fanatical about perfect acoustical environments and felt he could better serve music in the studio than in a performance hall. Here we have the theory that music does not serve anyone - this opens an interesting subject to the debate: if music is served by the musician, whom does the musician serve? If they choose the audience, then they will produce either or both studio and public performance, depending on the public demand and the business plan, placing music second. If they choose music, they will produce either or both studio and public performance, but it may be to their own financial detriment since they are not working for the needs of music itself which can be contrary to public demand. Hold on a second, though - it gets more complicated. Musicians who want to serve music often have to serve the demands of public in order to support themselves so that they can continue to work on music for its own sake. That's what Mozart did. He was, in his day, a pop artist by today's standards. He composed pieces for the aristocracy that they wanted so that he could work on what he wanted - opera. Beethoven had the ideal situation - he knew he was a genius and devoted himself to music, the aristocracy knew he was a genius and financially supported him to do just that with no strings or conditions. Trying to balance between what the public wants as opposed to what a musician feels music demands is difficult. It wore me to the ground when back many, many years ago I gigged as a cocktail jazz pianist. I couldn't handle it because I hated playing mediocre music which is what people wanted to hear and what I was getting paid to play. As a result, I have the utmost respect for professional gigging musicians - it's very, very hard work. So who's to say which is better? Personally, I believe musicians who perform live well have to work much harder than studio musicians because they have to deal with the audience, the performance hall acoustics, their own anxiety AND still focus on the music. But I can't say that Glenn Gould, one of my heros of classical piano, wasn't a great musician because he preferred the studio. - tokengeekgrrl |
| Music Free? (Score:1) by sky on Friday June 09, @01:50PM EDT (#303) (User Info) http://www.finger-rock.com |
| As a part-time musician myself, I find your arguments lacking in logic. You seem to be saying that music and intellectual property are commodities wwhich people are entitled to. As a person who makes his living as a creator of intellectual property (database designs, programs, music, improvisational theater), I say you're no more than halfway correct. Understand: I do business like this: Recordings, copies, Internet postings, anything easily duplicatable are as nearly free of charge as I can make them. Then I charge through the nose for my personal time. At least a dollar a minute, plus expenses. And that's the model that seems to work. Just because I'm brilliant, doesn't mean I have to starve. |
| The Swindle's Open Music Licence (Score:3, Interesting) by Cplus (cplus(@)angelfire.com) on Friday June 09, @01:50PM EDT (#304) (User Info) Leave nasty comments about my mother here |
| One of the first things I read about this morning was the fact that an open music licence is being considered by my favourite website, The Swindle. All insights into such an idea are welcome, please help us make this happen properly. Go here to read more on what's going on. One of my thoughts about open music would be to make available all of the samples and other such files so that the music would be free in the sense of anyone being able to interpret it as they like and re-create it as well. Check out The Swindle. (lie)If it's successful they'll give us all millions. I swear.(/lie) |
| keep the channel itself free and open (Score:2) by jetson123 (br_9801 at hotmail dot com) on Friday June 09, @01:51PM EDT (#305) (User Info) |
| I don't care much whether the current commercial music distributors figure out better business models. What matters to me is that the new electronic distribution channels themselves are unencumbered. The way things are going right now, we are heading for an oligopoly on musc distribution written in stone through exclusionary laws and "copy protection" features, features that keep small artists from using inexpensive commodity hardware for recording music, and features that keep end users from making fair use of recordings they paid for, as well as recordings that the author intended to be free. I'm sure that if the channels remain free and unencumbered, the free and inexpensive music will follow, without any changes to copyright law, and even in the presence of vigorous copyright enforcement on behalf of those companies foolish enough to demand it. |
| Street muscians (Score:1) by kniedzw on Friday June 09, @01:51PM EDT (#306) (User Info) |
| I'd just like to add a point to Robin's argument. I have the pleasure of living in Cambridge, MA. The Boston metropolitan area is well known for its street performers, who operate very much along the same lines that the lounge singers did in the 60s and 70s. Every time I walk through Harvard Square, there is at least one performer, be it a group of South American ethnic musicians, a sleight-of-hand magician, some dude with a guitar, a performing artist, or just a guy banging out a beat on a set of old barrels. I love that, and from what I've heard second hand, these people can make very good money. Enough that this is their day job. In fact, several more mainstream artists were discovered as street performers (like Tracy Chapman, who used to perform in downtown Boston). What's important here is the fact that these performers manage to get a decent amount of money through public largesse and appreciation. They don't need the RIAA. In fact, I've seen more than one of them with a self-burned CD that they're implicitly hawking. That is something that improvements in technology have made available. I will grant that the recording industry offered a valuable service to consumers in the years before MP3s became available. It would have been a chore - if it was possible at all - to find a wide range of music in a "backwater" area if there were no method of recording music and distributing it. I would further argue that they could still offer a valuable service by locating and promoting some of the more talented artists. ...but I think that music, as all information, wants to be free. More importantly, perhaps, it still can be while supporting the artists. |
| I am a musician (Score:1) by ZipperHead99 (josowski@usinteractive.com) on Friday June 09, @01:51PM EDT (#307) (User Info) http://www.upallnite.com/ |
| I go to live shows frequently, and generally do not listen to things that can not be duplicated live. Being a musician, music has never been about money for me. Music comes from the soul, if people listen to it and like it, its great. I earn more from that then any dollar amount can equal. I think any GOOD musician will agree. |
| Jon'Lor the Mighty speaks (Score:1) by hal200 on Friday June 09, @01:51PM EDT (#309) (User Info) |
| I read this article, and the attached posts, and this is what my split personality (he calls himself Jon'Lor the Mighty) had to say, "Bah! Puny Humans! I have the solution for your Napster problem! More Nukes! Nuke the RIAA! Nuke Napster! Nuke Lars! Nuke CowboyNeal! Nuke Microsoft(s)! Nuke the World! Then, the survivors can trade all the free music they want, because the artists and their families, and their lawyers and their cute little kitty cats named Spot will all be dead!! It's not stealing anymore! Problem solved, case closed. I'll be in my shelter downloading all the mp3's and pr0n I can before the cleansing nuclear fire wipes them out!" Fortunately for us all, I'm in control most of the time...Or at least, I think I am...today has mostly been a blur to me...And where did all these monkeys come from? The world would be a better place if God had left us a tarball. |
| Re:Jon'Lor the Mighty speaks (Score:1) by jalewis (jlewis (at) jasonlewis (dot) net) on Friday June 09, @02:44PM EDT (#421) (User Info) http://www.jasonlewis.net |
| I like Monkeys. Your "friend" Jon'Lor is a little disturbed, but you probably already knew that. I bet you didn't know I like Monkeys, though. jas |
| Napster is not a clipper ship (Score:2) by Sloppy (sloppy@spam^H^H^H^Hrt66.com) on Friday June 09, @01:54PM EDT (#313) (User Info) |
Likening clipper ships to internet trading of software/media is a horrible analogy. We're supposed to view the clipper as good and romantic thing that preserves our freedom, right? Well, I don't have a problem with clipper ships smuggling and getting around restrained trade, provided that the owners of those ships do one little thing. When they dock to pick up the commodity cargo, the cargo owner gets compensated.
Either the recording industry will find a way to adapt to the way today's fans treat music -- as a commodity -- or it will die the same way medieval European scribes' guilds went belly-up soon after printing presses with movable type replaced quill pens as the most common book-production tool. Treating music as a commodity isn't a problem. Treating is as if no one owns it is. Roblimo implies that ubiquitous things should be free and that it is reasonable for people to expect them to be free. I wonder why he doesn't call up his electricity and water companies, and tell them to stop sending bills but continue service. --- Have a Sloppy night! |
| What irks me is..... (Score:4, Interesting) by TuRRIcaNEd (bf294spam@eggcity.sausageac.beansuk) on Friday June 09, @01:58PM EDT (#321) (User Info) |
| .....the fact that the record companies have been slowly and insidiously changing the playing field. Back in the days that Roblimo is talking about, the record companies tended to find artists who were playing, disseminate the wheat from the chaff and promote them, allowing the records to be released to the public. What happened during the 80's was that their focus was shifted. They figured out that they could hire a kid/kids from stage school, pay them as an employee rather than an artist, and get an in-house team to generate songs for them (I'd say 'write' songs, but that implies artistry, which music factory songs seem to lack), then spend on promotion and marketing, effectively telling people what to buy rather than providing a choice (Hmm... not unlike a certain software company ;-). That way, they get to keep more money. 'Smells like Teen Spirit' going to Billboard Number 1 put a kink in that for nearly ten years, but with the new wave of Britney-alikes, everything's going the way they want it, and nothing seems to be halting this state of affairs. There's no artistry in it, one manufactured artist's song is much like another, so why pay through the nose for it? With genuine artists, people tend to not mind paying for the CD, although CD's are too expensive at the present time (especially in the UK). Ever notice that fewer real bands are being signed by majors? To the execs they're just too expensive, and if that weren't enough, they get to keep songwriting royalties! (the cheek!) The poster above outlines a cool distribution policy for electronic music, but of course, not everyone's into that. It's really worrying me that genuinely talented artists are being passed over in favour of recruiting more stage school fodder, simply because of the dollar signs in the eyes of the execs. The only downloads I make are of artists too obscure to pick up in stores, or as a backup of CDs I already own. In these times, where the music industry is largely controlled by about three or four companies (Sony, AOLTimeWarner and Universal), I have real trouble with my conscience buying a CD, knowing that any money that I pay is largely not going to the artist whose recording I've just bought, but financing the record company to produce another boyband/girlgroup 'sensation'. If this is the future of music I want no part in it. |
| Re:What irks me is..... (Score:1) by afeman on Friday June 09, @03:15PM EDT (#459) (User Info) |
| But back in the days that Roblimo is talking about, there were the Monkees. And if memory server me right, company-assembled bands with company-bought songs were at least as common in the 50's and early 60's as they have been the past 20 years (remember Menudo? Like Ricky Martin's Menudo?). This ain't new. "You mean the whole time Darth Vader was such a badass, it was because he missed his mother?" |
| Re:What irks me is..... (Score:1) by perky (tom_perkin@NOSPAMING.hotmail.com) on Friday June 09, @03:49PM EDT (#498) (User Info) |
| A nicely cynical view of the top 40, and one that I am inclined to agree with, but there is still plenty of music being produced by artists and not by manufactured teeny bands. For a good example that is relevant to the debate look at Metallica. You could hardly call them manufactured. Anyway, the bottom line is that unless IP is protected on the internet there will no longer be any incentive for any band to produce recordings any more as there will be no money in it for the band, the record company or the distributor. The result will be that demand for live performances will rise, but given that there is only one of each band, and that touring bands work their arses off anyway, supply will not expand with demand. The resul;t will be that live performance prices will shoot through the roof, and only the rich in the west will be able to see their favourite bands perform. Do we have the right to prevent anyone who is not a wealthy American from hearing the latest Britney/Metallica/REM? I don't think so.
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| Re:What irks me is..... (Score:1) by Somerset on Friday June 09, @07:18PM EDT (#584) (User Info) |
| ...that in a certain way this is more or less the same as my posted comment (entitled "Question #428053: is it the music or the "artist"?") and it's FOUR times longer. Next time I, too, will be so -ehm- accurate. :-/ Thanks |
| Re:What irks me is..... (Score:1) by Fraew (fraew@musican.org) on Wednesday June 14, @02:44AM EDT (#727) (User Info) |
| Not to be picky or anything, but i'd say Faith No More's 'Epic' did the same job as Nirvana back in 1990 and a lil' fella called Beck was pretty much the pinnacle of underground success during the Mellow Gold phase... The problem isn't just the music either - all popular culture force-feeds us from birth the kind of crap that no intelligent human beings should really be exposed too... In ever civilization, theres one individual that stands out from all the rest, i am that man! |
| Napster Killer! (Score:1) by mansemat (chris@nospam.digital-salvage.net) on Friday June 09, @02:02PM EDT (#327) (User Info) |
| If you ask me a CD worth of songs isn't worth the 12 bucks or so they charge for it. I say it's worth $2. $1 to go to the band, and $1 to go to the cost of the medium. (Bear with me a sec here...) Now you got these record companies that push their bands non-stop. They push good banda and they push bad bands. They justify the extremely high costs they place on us, the consumer (The CD) and the costs on the artist (Recording Fees) to the fact that only 1 in a handlefull of bands they promote ever make it big. And they only make their money on the big bands and not the sucky ones (which they loose money on). Now, do they push these bands because they think they are good, or just because they think it will make them money? I'd opt for the latter. And when a band sucks, or rather doesn't sell a million copies, then it's their fault that they took a chance. Because they took a chance everybody else pays for it. Hence prices are high for us to buy the CD, abd high for the artist to record and promote the CD. The record companies say that they are needed in this world. They are needed to help promote these bands and help us, the consumer, notice these great talents. But the record companies, as they seem to admit, suck at this, because they loose so much money on bands that don't make it (cause the must suck). "That's why prices are so high dammit, we promoted all of these bands and only one was a big hit." Well what good are they then? Now let's remove the record companies from this equation... 1) We already have a distribution mechanism for bands to deliver their products - AKA the internet. Not everybody is connect yet, but that's being worked on... 2) The bands only make like a buck or two of a CD now anyway, so lets keep it like that. The price of the music you would normally get on a CD is 2 dollars. 3) Make it so you can download any song from an album for 10 cents (lets say there are usually 20 songs on an album). 4) Radio stations (at least some of them, WFNX in Boston for example) are really the main promoters of music. Let them do the dirty work and search the net for cool bands, bands with 5) The bands have a dedicated website for you to download their music. You want a song, you get charged 10 cents (somebody is working on an internet micro-payments scheme right?) So why does this kill Napster? Have you ever used napster? How many songs have you grabbed that were of shoddy quality? How many of these songs were not complete? How many times did the other side kill the connection in the middle of you downloading a song? How long did it take you to find the song? Not all the time, but some of the time this happens. It's a pain in the ass. All I want is one song and I have to spend 10 or 15 minutes trying to get it from napster. If the band had a website where you could EASILY download a song, and not have to worry about quality, connection SNAFU's, etc, I'd pay 10 cents in a heartbeat. If I liked it I'd get the whole album right from there for 2 bucks. Cheap music, no real need for Napster, the Artists still makes the same amount of money. Screw the record companies. Problem Solved. Of course this is a solution that took 5 minutes of thought. But it's something... One more thing, if this works then concert tickets should probably be double what they are now, say 50 bucks. To give the bands incentive to TOUR and not worry so much about "static" representations of their music. Whoa... sorry for the long rant ;) -- |
| 'Free' music (Score:1) by duscha on Friday June 09, @02:03PM EDT (#329) (User Info) |
| Some time ago in another epoch an author pointed out that he had purchased the 'White Album' in eight-track tape, vinyl record, cassette tape, and CD-ROM, before downloading in .MP3 format. The position in this article was that the RIAA was upset that they could no longer keep on selling the same tune on new media. I remember listening to the soundtrack of the movie 'a funny thing happened on the way to the forum' on my Dad's reel-to-reel tape that he had purchased from some music store! How can the RIAA or anyone else accuse me of piracy when I've already purchased the damn songs two or three times on different media? If I buy a boxload of worthless eight-track tapes for a penny have I not purchased the right to download these songs from fellow Napsters? Lawyers, what say you? |
| Something for nothing (Score:1) by MajorBlunder (majorblunder@do_you_really_care?.net) on Friday June 09, @02:06PM EDT (#333) (User Info) |
| "Call it creeping socialism or anything else you want, but most citizens of developed countries seem to believe, down deep inside, that they "deserve" certain things as part of their birthright. Food and shelter are obvious..." Please note, that you will find no one born prior to 1945 who holds this view (with the possible exception of a few politicians). The WWII/Depression Era generation were violently and radicaly disabused of any notion that they could get anything without effort on thier part. Please also note, that those countries/governments that tried to guarantee thier citizens food, shelter, and other neccesities as "rights" for the better part of the 20th century are now bankrupt and can no longer support thier citiziens, neither can thier citizens support them. Every being that exists in nature must expend effort in order to get what it needs/wants. The wolf must hunt to stay alive. The deer, while it does not need hunt to obtain food, must work to avoid the wolf that is hunting him. However, human societies upon reaching a certain level of prosperity will support those that could not otherwise survive by thier own effort. Whether or not this is a good thing, I'll not debate here. The point I'm trying to make here is that those who do get something for nothing should hold no illusions that there is no cost that has not been payed. Either by them in some form that they do not regard, or by some other benefactor whose motives may or may not be entirely altruistic.
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| Puts me in the mind of e-mail (Score:1) by L Fitzgerald Sjoberg (lfitzgerald@brunching.com) on Friday June 09, @02:06PM EDT (#334) (User Info) http://www.brunching.com/ |
I remember (forgive me if I have some of the details skewed) that back before the Web was World-Wide, Clari.net bought the rights to distribute Dave Barry columns via its proprietary Usenet service. Some time later, Barry bailed out of the deal because, horror of horrors, people were e-mailing his columns to each other, "stealing" his work. Now, of course, Barry and other writers have more important things to worry about, and many news sites encourage people to e-mail articles to friends, even providing the service themselves. (which, handily, makes sure the attributions and URLs are attached.) As far as I'm aware, even with all the copyright skittishness going on these days, there have been no crackdowns on unauthorized personal e-mailing of copyrighted material. Sometime between 1989 and 1994, did Barry suddenly stop "deserving" income from everyone reading the articles via e-mail? Were the copyright laws changed to make it okay? Of course not. What happened is that e-mail became so ubiquitous and easy that fighting it became a losing battle. The relationship to the MP3/Napster/Metallica controversy is this: at some point, questions of what someone "deserves" run into the sticky question of how to strongarm it out of the populace. If I hum "Enter Sandman" to myself, I'm getting enjoyment out of |