Everyone who listens to music needs to READ THIS!

[Bennyboy]

Recently Emily White, an intern at NPR All Songs Considered and GM of what appears to be her college radio station, wrote a post on the NPR blog in which she acknowledged that while she had 11,000 songs in her music library, she’s only paid for 15 CDs in her life. Our intention is not to embarrass or shame her. We believe young people like Emily White who are fully engaged in the music scene are the artist’s biggest allies. We also believe–for reasons we’ll get into–that she has been been badly misinformed by the Free Culture movement. We only ask the opportunity to present a countervailing viewpoint.

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

[Make7]

1. Maybe each CD has 734 songs... ( n/t )

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. When I start seeing a widespread movement to force the labels to stop

stealing and treat artists fairly, I'll consider this a valid issue.

[Bennyboy]

4. What about the self produced albums?

Or the indy album? Arhoolie records, do you wanna screw them and their artists too? Rounder? Alligator? Or SCI Fidelity records? (Owned by the band String Cheese Incident and featuring their musical friends as the roster of artists?) Or, something dear to my heart, Threadheads records (featuring local New Orleans artists not already signed)?

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. And are they no longer making their music? Have their fan bases shrunk? This is not about artists,

nobody give a shit about artists, this is about an artistic market formerly controlled by businessmen that lack the imagination to continue their control.

The livery stable industry largely ceased to exist after the automobile supplanted horses. Things change and we adapt or die.

[Bennyboy]

27. Funny but why have indy musicians all sent this to me today?

Carolyn Wonderland, Galactic, all indy people, who rely on record and sales to survive? Yeah they do have large followings, but they don't sell CD's much anymore at their shows. And yes they have new product. Carolyn's album is Incredible. PEACE MEAL, get it.

We arent talking aout Madonna, who actually pays radio stations to play her music. Or Bruce Springsteen with many levels of payment from the labels, manager misters,and all that.

These are artists that need to sell CD's to get to the next gig.

[msongs]

30. thieves say and do anything to justify their behavior lol nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

57. Thieves need no justification. What is, is, and your options are to deal with it or pretend that it

Last edited Tue Jun 19, 2012, 02:22 AM - Edit history (1)

isn't real.

Name calling isn't going to change it either.

[kysrsoze]

5. What the labels do doesn't excuse her stealing 1,000 albums. That's moral relativism.

I want the labels to give artist tons more $$$ too, but stealing all the music hurts the artists, and dimishes their sales. It's one thing to get a copy of a disc from a friend here and there. I can see that potentially generating additional sales, but come on, stealing 1,000 albums?

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. No it doesn't, but it certainly does demonstrate the disingenuousness of the argument

that they have latched onto in order to justify their inability to deal with change.

This pretend issue was settled law prior to this nation's hard right turn into crazy town. They tried this in the 60's and the courts threw it out, they brought it back in the 70's and the courts threw it out, and they brought it up again in the 80's and the courts threw it out.

Edit; And speaking of moral relativism, that is the reason for my original reply.

[Ron Obvious]

53. Copyright infringement is not stealing

Sorry, but I have to repeat that. If I make an illegal copy of a CD to give to a friend, I have not stolen anything. I have possibly deprived someone of a sale, but it's never been successfully demonstrated that it reduces sales. More copies, more exposure, more sales, and especially more concert tickets sold.

The illegal download == theft argument is a canard from the RIAA.

[GReedDiamond]

56. As a copyright holder, I find your attitude to be...

...pretty despicable.

And I give away plenty of free mp3s (and even CDs) to understand the potential upside for the artist to the "free download," as you suggest in your post.

But that's for authorized, and legal free downloads, not duplicated/pirated through unauthorized distributors.

You should reexamine your ethical/moral values, IMO.

On edit: BTW, I am no fan of the RIAA and their tactics. As an independent artist, the RIAA does nuthin for me.

[Ron Obvious]

59. I was referring to the terminology

I was referring to the terminology, not the ethics.

If I steal a CD from your record shop, I have deprived you of possession of it -- a criminal offence.
If I copy your CD, I have not deprived you of possession of it. I've merely possibly lost you a potential sale. I have infringed your copyright, a breach of contract and a civil offence.

If I bake my own bread, I have deprived the supermarket of a potential sale of a loaf of bread. Fortunately, recipes cannot be copyrighted so I'm in the clear. But why can sheet music be copyrighted and recipes cannot? It's all far too vague for a clear sense of ethics if you ask me. Why should hard working chefs not be allowed to profit by copyrighting their recipes? Can you imagine someone being prosecuted or fined for illegally following a recipe? The distinction is purely artificial.

The rest of my post was referring to the record companies claims of lost profits.

[GReedDiamond]

60. Making a digital copy of an existing recording, which may have taken literally...

...hundreds of hours of time & effort, plus maybe some talent to produce, not to mention the money spent on recording studios/equipment and so on, is not at all comparable to making your own loaf of bread and comparing that to a lost sale of some other loaf of bread in a store somewhere, or to some chef with a secret recipe which may not be copyrighted, but which you likely do not know all of the ingredients and how much of each ingredient goes into the recipe.

Try again, no cigar. Better yet, stop trying to justify copyright theft.

Dvds/blu rays of movies, documentaries and tv shows, visual art and graphics (fine art or commercial art), books and manuscripts, etc etc, all deserve copyright protections for the same reasons. People have gone to jail, rightfully, for bootlegging/counterfeiting all of the above, deservedly so.

You're really stretching here, into a distortion.

You're still wrong and ethically/morally challenged, in my view.

[Ron Obvious]

65. I'll try once more...

Copyright infringement is not theft. They are different things. Theft means depriving someone of something they previously possessed. Sorry, I can't make it simpler than that. This is regardless of the ethics involved.

The rest of my post merely tries to point out that copyright isn't in any way a natural, or obvious state of affairs, and I gave an example. In fact, copyright protection is extremely recent in terms of human history, so the ethics involved are not in any way natural or obvious to most people, the way actual stealing or murder, say, are instinctively and intuitively wrong to virtually anyone.

When I play a CD in my shop that my customers can hear, I'm also technically infringing copyright these days and owe the record companies money. I daresay that isn't intuitively fair or obvious to anyone, because it's a new state of affairs in a world of expanding copyright.

Equating copyright infringement with theft is an attempt to give the former offence the weight, gravity, and intuitive 'wrongness' of the latter offence by redefining the word 'theft' to equal the former offence. It's done consciously and deliberately. When you say 'downloading or copying is theft', you're perpetuating an artificial meme from the RIAA.

How much work and effort goes into the creation of a work is immaterial in this respect. I'm also indifferent to your opinions of my morals as you are apparently entirely misunderstanding what I'm saying and falsely projecting a point of view onto me.

[GReedDiamond]

69. You are using false analogies to try and pathetically cover up your...

...lack of ethics, morality, and lack of concern for economic justice.

If you copy and redistribute MY music, not the RIAA's, you are violating ME, not the RIAA. I could care less about the fucking-piece-of-shit RIAA, and I am typing my own words here, not theirs, so fuck that.

Your inability to recognize &quot h)ow much work and effort goes into the creation of a work..," as part of the import of copyright protection, indicates that you have zero respect for the intellectual, physical, technical and monetary effort it takes to compose, arrange, engineer and produce original music, not to mention the passion and sacrifices that most independent artists, such as myself, must make in order to do what we do.

You also do not have a clue about what you're talking about:

When I play a CD in my shop that my customers can hear, I'm also technically infringing copyright these days and owe the record companies money. I daresay that isn't intuitively fair or obvious to anyone, because it's a new state of affairs in a world of expanding copyright.

False. First of all, what you are suggesting in this scenario is "regulated" by artists' rights organizations such as ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, not the record labels. Second, I am not aware of those organizations actively pursuing businesses playing music in their shops to the point where it is relevant to the issue at hand in the OP (because it isn't).

If you are using prerecorded copyright protected/published music in, say, a restaurant or boutique you operate, you may be liable for paying royalties, but they go to the publishing company, not the record company. In my case, that would be me, because I have my own BMI affiliated music publishing company. So, what you are saying, you do not want to pay the artist who holds the rights to copyrights and publishing, making you a double-screwer of the artist.

In my opinion, you can take your rationalizations for copyright theft, and shove em where they belong, which would be a dark, foul smelling place right where you are.

I am through with you.

Have a nice life stealing stuff from who or whatever you feel like.

[JDPriestly]

77. This is a fascinating issue.

I have a lot of education/experience in music, and when I hear an artist's music, I hear influences, sometimes even obviously borrowed melodies, riffs or harmonic progressions -- musical ideas that were original or at least that I thought of as original to an earlier musician.

Think of Beethoven. How much of his music, of his creative ideas, did he owe to his predecessors -- Mozart for one, and his teachers.

Virtually every artist borrows and owes a big debt to those in his art form who preceded him and inspired him.

Yet, no one would expect a person who composes, let's say a movie score, to acknowledge Berlioz or Mozart as the source for a melody. Musicians hear the source -- but you'd think that the composer of the score just created it out of nothing. That is often not the case.

So, when someone steals from you, remember how much you owe to the many musicians who preceded you -- and probably some who are your contemporaries to whom you give no credit whatsoever and yet who help you in all your work.

I wish there were some better way to compensate artists. I try to remember that artists need to earn a living like everyone else, but then, as a retired person, I use Rhapsody because I see no point in accumulating a huge collection of CDs and other physical forms of music that I my children will have to sort through and throw away one of these days.

Do you want to have your music heard, or do you want people to listen to someone else's music for free? A lot of people are just giving good music away. These are really hard times. It is a privilege to be a performing musician. Be thankful for what you have.

And, no, I don't download or copy your music. I use Rhapsody and mostly for old stuff.

[GReedDiamond]

78. I have no argument with what you say here...

...yes, we are all influenced by many others' work. In our music over the last 30+ years, the styles may range, such as blues, country, folk, punk, psychedelic, experimental "noise" music, etc...and if you listen to our current tunes (at the Green Sparkle Frog link below), you'll hear, depending on the song, a Beatles influence, a little early period Alice Cooper, a little REM, maybe some Radiohead...ya never know til you hear it.

We started back in the early days of the Los Angeles punk scene, moved on to what we called "psychedelic punk" in the early to mid 80s, went through a period of industrial meets goth with a great female singer named Cecilia Plus Minus (now sadly deceased), straight on from there to melodic pop-punk with two different female singers (in one of those bands, we were signed to a Columbia Records development deal by Sandy Pearlman - manager/producer of Blue Oyster Cult and others - but the deal fell through when the singer could not satisfactorily complete her vocal tracks on the demo!), back to punk and hard rock with male lead vocals again, and now onto a sound which melds some rock-edged Americana with pedal steel guitar and the occasional ukelele or banjo, and of course, my drums and percussion.

So, yeah, we have a lot of influences. But our music sounds pretty much like ours, regardless, and has a fairly original overall sound, IMO (and so I've been told).

And, as I think I have already mentioned in previous posts, I have no problem with giving away free mp3 downloads, CDs, or whatever...I just don't want others who downloaded our material, or acquired a CD, to then copy and distribute the tunes to their friends, or to anybody else, by making them available on file sharing sites or whatever. I don't think that's an unreasonable position to take.

Don't fear JD, you have my permission to download our stuff if ever you wanted to...in fact, I'd be more than happy to send you a copy of the next CD when its out, I think sometime in July, if you'd like. Just lemme know. In fact, unless I was overrun with requests, I'd likely be happy to hook up my fellow DUers with the CD if anyone is interested, just PM me.

[zappaman]

81. thanks for all your posts on this matter.

As a music lover, especially of independent music, I hate seeing people just expect music for free.
I go to at least 2 dozen shows a year and always buy a shirt so the band makes a little more money and have never downloaded any music. If I like the band, I buy their product that they worked hard and spent money on to make.
Simple as that.
Your words were impressive and I plan on buying your CD when you have it up on your site.

[GReedDiamond]

83. Thanks, I appreciate that...

...and the whole buying the CD thing - although, you may want to avail yourself of the streaming audio of the CD at ReverbNation.com before committing to that. Ha!

In any case, you made my day!!

BTW, on one of my earlier records (released on vinyl in 1982), Don Preston (I know you know who he is) played grand piano on one of the tunes.

We were in a recording studio in Silverlake (Los Angeles), and we met Don, who was working in another room recording the sound track for some low budget sci-fi movie with his ancient MOOG synthesizer - the kind with all of the patch cords going everywhere - and he accepted our invitation to drop by and record the part for us.

Also, Sluggo from Oingo Boingo played a sax solo on the same tune.

Thanks again and best wishes, zappaman.

[GReedDiamond]

62. In response to your mention of the record companies' loss of profits...

...which are not just claims, but real - they have only themselves to blame for clinging to their old systems of distribution, and failing to immediately embrace and develop a business model for the digital distribution of their products when the mp3 format was launched way back in the 90s.

Likewise, the RIAA can suck it too, I offer no support for them, or their tactics.

However, copyrights in music in general are legitimate and necessary, as a protection to the copyright creator/holder, most of whom are NOT big corporate copyright holders, but small time folks like me.

[Ron Obvious]

66. I'm not saying I'm against copyright protection!

It's just that copyright infringement IS NOT THEFT.

I'm in favour of copyright protection, provided is limited in scope and duration and allows for fair use.

[Zalatix]

74. The problem is technology is making it hard to enforce copyright.

Digital production makes the scarcity rule null and void. You're charging for your creativity, but the completely scarcity-free attributes of the distribution side of things, is making it hard to charge for it. Once the song or book is made, it's simply free to distribute. In short: anyone who makes any kind of digital media is going to get their ever loving tails kicked by tech. This doesn't make it right, though.

Things are really going to get painful when 3d printing matures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing

It'll be like mp3 piracy - except across every industry imaginable. Pirated mp3's all the way up to pirated cars and tanks.

[GReedDiamond]

80. Good point, Zalatix...

...but, I suspect, the technology will come full circle to where it will make it easier to enforce copyrights.

Which, of course, I have mixed feelings about - mostly negative, actually - as I think it would be part of the ever-growing "Big Brother" situation we find ourselves in, on an ever increasing level.

I'm working with a laser now, engraving art into wood and such but I can't wait to get my hands on a 3D printer. The possibilities are boggling my mind!

[JDPriestly]

76. She no doubt gets a lot of courtesy albums and tracks.

Sales promotion is what she gets.

We use Rhapsody. We have a huge collection of LPs and CDs and tapes -- bought and paid for or given to us, and we just don't have room for any more.

We sometimes bought things second hand. That's still legal, I hope.

[taterguy]

8. Read the article again

Or read it the first time.

Hell, I just skimmed it and saw that issue addressed.

[Egalitarian Thug]

21. No, it wasn't. It reprinted the same argument that they've been putting forth for years.

And it doesn't change the facts one bit.

[Initech]

9. Not all musicians have the ability to self produce albums the way Trent Reznor and Radiohead do.

[Egalitarian Thug]

23. And something in excess of 98% of all artists are never produced at all.

Most of them because they either aren't very good or simply can't find their audience, but they continue to make their art.

File sharing didn't change that. In fact it exploded the possibilities of any artist being heard.

[GarroHorus]

3. Maybe she got them all from iTunes?

Could be.

[Poiuyt]

54. That was my first thought too

[nashville_brook]

6. if she's a GM at a college radio station, those songs are likely promos.

you get literally covered up in promotional music working in radio...and college radio is especially targeted b/c their playlists are more eclectic.

[KurtNYC]

37. Ding !

[Drale]

7. I don't buy CD's

sometimes I buy singles off Itunes or I get my CD's from the library.

[Scootaloo]

10. Unfortunately, there's no way to contain information

When you release a song, it's out there. Doesn't matter if someone's catching it on their cassette tape, or in an mp3, once you release it it's out of your hands.

That's just the practical fact of it, and it's been true ever since music started - One wonders if the troubadours of old smashed lutes over each others' heads over proprietary songs. Granted modern technology has brought the ability to "steal" a song to the hands of those who don't have musical skill themselves, but the concept is the same.

And it's not going to go away. It's really, truly not. The technology and ability is here, and it's only going to grow more advanced. The "industry" is going to have to find some way to adapt. Buying one song at a time or digital albums at a discount is a good idea, but it has some flaws; One of the problems with iTunes is that it's pretty user-unfriendly for anyone not using an iPod. I can only play my iTunes in the iTunes player and if I want them on a different computer or device, I have to buy them a second time. And I can't burn them to a CD for my car, either.

On the other hand, I have a paid Pandora subscription, and my little Pandora player is constantly going when I'm not watching a movie or otherwise needing my headphones free. The artists featured get their license royalties, I get a compact easy player that plays what I want more or less when I want it, everyone's happy.

The invention of the studio system took music from "I do this because I like music, and sometimes people tip me" to "I do this for a living." The internet and its attendant technologies are going to force another similar major change, and telling people "buy our outdated and user-unfriendly technology or else!" just isn't going to help anything.

[kysrsoze]

11. Nothing wrong with Pandora subscriptions, and there are plenty of iTunes alternatives

Amazon and eMusic sell music dirt-cheap, and you don't need iTunes. Pandora is no different than satellite radio or cable TV, and that's fine as long as the artists are getting paid in some way.

The whole issue is that this radio station employee has only purchased 15 albums in her lifetime - that's not likely without thievery. I doubt her collection came solely from promos and friends making copies for her, but I suppose I could be wrong.

[Scootaloo]

17. Yes, you could be wrong

First off, she states she's only paid for 15 CD's. That leaves plenty of room for purchasing albums via Amazon, iTunes, eMusic, etc. That's actually one CD more than me as well - well, if we're talking "bought it from a store at market price," I've bought plenty for a dime apiece at yard sales and such, and have gotten a fair amount as 'swag'

Second, she's running a college radio station. A friend of mine is a DJ on the KoL internet radio station. He tells me his listeners send him several dozen songs every night. More, if it's a "request" show. And he's one of like ten DJ's on this 24-hour radio thing they've got going, and they share internally. A very large portion of it, he tells me, is stuff BY the listeners - remixes, self-promos, obscure stuff from all corners of musical expression - You want an Indonesian folk song concert from the Island of Bali? You won't find it on Amazon, I'll bet, but some tourist recorded it, cleaned it up, digitized it, and sent it to this radio station. The big difference is, the college station probably reaches more listeners, and gets far more swag from the industry.

The truth is CD's are in there with eight-tracks, 45's, and wax cylinders these days. They're obsolete, and the only thing keeping them around is the fact that plenty of CD players remain functional; but when one of those CD players breaks, people don't usually go out to buy a new one, they buy an mp3 player, and maybe a setup to go with it. A CD is just a piece of landfill clutter; since the metal and plastic are so integrated, there's no recycling it, and frankly I have no use for them except popping them into old microwaves for the light show. Seriously, of those 14 CD's I bought at-market, do you know how many I've listened to recently? Not one. Not a single one. I haven't listened to my Stabbing Westward CD since I was fifteen... that was fifteen years ago. It's been sitting in its case, rotting away, for all this time.

If the industry and its artists want to be shackled to CD's, then all I can say is that it sucks for them. Nobody's going to hobble themselves for a business that can't keep up with the market.

[Zalatix]

64. But you can't fight technology! What are we gonna do, go back to phonographs??

Yes, folks, sometimes technology can seriously bite you in the ass, and it needs to be controlled. Unfortunately the only way to control this is to make Stalin proud.

[Scootaloo]

68. Pretty much; There's a reason the Amish lifestyle is voluntary

[Zalatix]

75. I was making fun of the "you can't stop technology" argument.

The advent of mp3 piracy is biting that argument squarely on its unprotected ass. This piracy thing is killing small-time book authors and music artists. It blew "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" right out of the water. Technology and progress is driving itself off a cliff here, and is threatening to cause an absolute crash in the entire media industry.

Unfortunately to stop it means doing even more damage to society.

[Jumping John]

12. I remember when radio stations would broadcast the time that they were

going to play hits over the air so that their listeners with boomboxes could record them as they were being broadcast.

Like it was a giveaway.

The music industry did not seem to mind.

Of course those cassette tapes only lasted a few weeks at best before they became un-playable.

And now it is a crime to copy a music CD to your personal computer.

[onenote]

15. They didn't mind for a few reasons

1. The quality of analog dubs was lower than the quality of the original (which wasn't all that great to begin with).
2. It was a labor intensive way to copy things and thus self-limiting in terms of the number of folks who would do it.

It was when music started being available in digital form that the labels got concerned
1. Because the quality of the copy was comparable to the quality of the original.
2. It was easy to copy and transfer copies widely.

The Sound Recording Performance Rights Act of 1994 actually imposed limits on the ability of digital music services to announce their playlists in advance and/or to play more than a limited number of songs by the same artist or from the same album consecutively.

[Egalitarian Thug]

24. Actually, they did mind and they went to court and lost. Several times over 30 years. n/t

[GReedDiamond]

48. Back when cassette tapes were popular...

...as a format for selling albums, cassette playback equipment often also had the ability to record onto blank cassettes, so the Record Industry attempted to force the manufacturers of blank cassettes to add an additional amount of money to the retail price of their products, which the cassette manufacturers were supposed to pass on to the Record Companies as a "royalty payment" that would supposedly go to the Labels/Artists as compensation for people recording stuff off of the radio or from other sources, such as vinyl or prerecorded cassette, onto blank cassette. That, fortunately, never happened.

So, yeah, The Record Industry had a big problem with people recording stuff off of the radio or whatever.

FWIW, I am an indie recording artist dating back to 1978 - when we still released stuff on 7" and 12" vinyl - and I still record and release stuff myself (or get it released sometimes by other indie labels), and it is a very difficult biz to make any money in - although part of that is because we often times give our music away as free mp3 downloads, just to get the material out there.

Personally, I do not care for the quality of the audio from an mp3 as compared to a properly recorded and mastered, commercially produced CD. To my ears, mp3s have noticeably inferior sound quality, due to the compression. Plus, you usually don't get the album artwork/graphics when you download a digital audio file.

I am now working with a Canadian based company which is attempting to find other revenue streams for our catalog of tunes, by looking for mechanical licensing deals, movie/tv show music placement, sub-publishing (re-registering our already registered tunes - registered with BMI through my pub co, with altered titles through 2nd party publishing companies), etc etc.

The latest CD we have produced should be out in July, only about a year or so behind the original schedule, and we are already working on the followup to it.

[Logical]

13. It amazes me when people n the DU think copying music is ok! But...

They hate scabs! Lol!

[musiclawyer]

14. As someone who writes, records, produces, publishes on my own

I can tell you that anyone with a sliver of talent, a brain, and limited financial resources can get a song on itunes and emusic etc. ( getting the song to play on all your devices is another topic) An artist does not need a record label anymore. But the consumer does need to pay for the song. Otherwise, not only is the record label getting screwed but also the indie artist ( such as me) who does not have the backing of a label.

When my daughter all on her own burned me a disc of her favorite artist, I liked it. But I looked at is as a free preview only. I went ahead and bought two other CDs released by the same artist. My little contribution to the cause.

If this young lady is not buying other songs from some of those artists whose songs she got free, she is part of the problem, not the solution.

Everything on my ipod is now something that was a gift, released for free by anm artist, I purchased or I recorded myself. Nothing downloaded illegallly.

Bottom line, if you get something pirated, and you like it, buy it. That's the only thing you can do at this juncture.

[just1voice]

19. I've noticed a lot of artists uploading "bad" files to protect themselves

It's a great idea too. The "bad" file looks the same in name and size so people download it and get nothing. It's a great way to deter illegal downloading.

[marlakay]

22. We are on vacation in Hawaii

And in a small shopping center this young girl was singing and her grandmother was handing out cards asking people to like her on FB and YouTube.

There definitely ways to get your stuff out. I love it that little people finally have a sht if they have talent and no money...

[Comrade_McKenzie]

18. Good for her for being frugal. Anything I can download, I do...

Spotify has reduced the amount of music I download quite a bit, but if it's not available on there... I have no shame about downloading it.

[kentauros]

32. Here are a couple of sites you may like:

All Music - All Blogs
WFMU - Beware of the Blog



I downloaded quite a lot of my library, too, though much of it is either out of print, or from areas of the world where there's no option to buy (or not with USD/PayPal.)

There is a seemingly endless supply of music made for free download on the Internet (Internet Archive and jamendo being two such places.)

So, there's no reason to assume that someone's medium-sized library consists solely of ill-gotten tracks. Not to mention (for at least the third time) that she used to be the General Manager of a public radio station. Until you've volunteered (or worked) at one, y'all probably don't have any idea of just how much music comes into a radio station as promos.

[AverageJoe90]

35. I frickin' LOVE WFMU. =D

Best. Radio. Station. EVAR.

[kentauros]

46. If I could stream at work,

they'd be one of three stations I'd listen to. Them, HayHouse Radio, and somafm for their "Secret Agent" channel (an online-only public radio station.)

[Zalatix]

67. Back in the golden age of the demo scene, I downloaded free "mod" songs.

Anyone here remember Necros, aka Andrew Sega of Five Musicians? This was the underground of the underground music scene. This is the kind of SCARY GOOD music this guy made for free, and the song was all of 800kb in size.

Music like this thrived around 1995, which started the golden age of the "demo scene". Those days are long gone now, sadly, with the top talent having gone commercial or having quit.

His music and a ton of other good (late 90s era) ones can be found on the Mod Archive.

[kentauros]

70. I hadn't heard them before,

but they've got a nice sound

Thanks for the link, too. I checked my old links for similar sites, and they're all gone now. Here's a cool educational one, though: http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/

[Zalatix]

71. My jaw has fallen and it can't get up!

Nice explanation on the evolution of music. And their samples are ADDICTIVE. I stumbled upon "Timeless" by Goldie and am ready to buy.

[kentauros]

73. I was just saying to myself

"I could spend all night on this thing!" And I've surfed around it plenty of times before. However, I love the "tutorial" at the beginning, such great descriptions

I just turned it off on Laibach. I gotta go to bed! Enjoy getting your jaw back in place

[Honeycombe8]

39. You call stealing being frugal? That's an interesting take, no pun intended. nt

[sadbear]

25. I heard today that Metallica can not afford to quit touring

It's not that the quality of their music has fallen. It's that no one buys their music any longer. Everyone should pay a little for every song they "own".

[LeftyMom]

41. Those guys have made a skillion dollars over a thirty year career.

Which is pretty impressive considering that I was in junior high the last time that they put out a relevant album.

If they "can't afford" to retire it's either because they pissed away money or they expect to live like rock stars forever.

[sadbear]

43. Either way

IMO it's wrong to take someone else's intellectual creation and not pay anything for it. It doesn't matter if it's relevant or not. And yes, perhaps they do have an expectation that if they create something and enough people want it, they should be compensated appropriately for it.

[LeftyMom]

44. I don't disagree, but I think that's the problem.

So many people are putting out stuff that sucks and expecting people to buy it. I don't have the money to contribute to welfare for spoiled artists on the decline, and I don't think I should have to.

Since we don't have decent radio stations that let us listen to enough new music to know whether or not it's worth our money*, downloading music to see if it's worth buying is pretty common and largely fills the role radio once did. There are a lot of MP3s floating around on my hard drive I listened to once and decided I had no intention of listening to again. If I find myself listening to something repeatedly I buy it.

The only albums I buy unheard are from bands I already know put out consistently high quality stuff. There aren't many who get my $15 no questions asked, and that's because there aren't many bands who can be counted upon not to suck.

*this is another rant, I'll spare you

[sadbear]

45. I can appreciate your approach

but wouldn't you say that you're more of an exception than the rule? And I do think that musicians must adapt to the technology. Perhaps entire 10-20 track CDs should be a thing of the past, going the way of the 45s. Digital singles that everyone must pay for ($1 or so each maybe) makes sense to me.

[LeftyMom]

47. I guess that works for pop.

It wouldn't work at all for the stuff I listen to, but the bands I like mostly set ten political rants to music and call that an album, and I mostly buy vinyl because I don't like squinting at the liner notes and I do like meaningful lyrics, so I know I'm an atypical consumer.

Still, I think the singles-driven model leads to more catchy but meaningless radio-friendly crap, and I think there's entirely too much of that already and ultimately it's what's destroying music.

[sadbear]

51. I suppose we are talking apples and oranges then

Most pop(ular) music has always been singles-driven and radio-friendly crap, and I don't think it has completely destroyed music yet (rock, maybe, but not music in general.) Of course, it is called pop music for a reason and it shouldn't be free (or at least the artists should be able to make that decision.) Just my two cents. Do you think the musicians you like are very much affected by this issue?

[LeftyMom]

55. Not as much, I don't think.

Almost no major labels involved, and I think people are a lot more likely to buy your stuff when they know they're rewarding you for your work and not SoullessAutotunedShiteFactory, a division of GiantLabel, Inc, which is a division of some multinational whose main business is making nuclear submarines out of ground up toddlers and panda tears.

Plus if you go see a show at some abandoned titty bar on the seedy side of town* for $10 and the band's album and shirt are on a card table for $15 each, you know the band's getting their share of that or you're going to hear about it before you go home. If you order it off Amazon or itunes or something, who knows? And who's really going to be convinced to stop stealing from giant corporate labels when they've been stealing from musicians for years? I don't think that's a winning argument and I think it's telling that you don't hear many musicians on major labels making it.

*actual local venue, no longer extant- the foot of sawn-off brass bar hanging down over the stage was a classy touch

[high density]

26. I spend at least a thousand bucks a year on music

Most of the releases are from smaller labels... Music is an important part of my life and I am happy to help support it. I wish more people did the same.

[hobbit709]

28. Considering her job, i'd say she got a lot of promo copies.

I know people in the music biz and they get tons of promo copies. Hell, I probably have 20 or 30 myself.

[BOG PERSON]

29. pirating music is cool and fun

Last edited Tue Jun 19, 2012, 02:17 PM - Edit history (1)

n/t

[MrScorpio]

31. Has anyone ever heard of promos and giveaways?

I'm not going to say how many songs are in my collection… Let's just say that it's way more than 11,000. However, much of my music is obtained from the artists themselves on sites like Soundcloud and Mixcloud as GIVEAWAYS. Free music or pay the price that you want to pay, from FREE on up. I follow almost two thousand music folks on my Twitter account, quite a few of them have even given me their music to play on my show. Much of the music out there is actually leaked by the record companies and uploaded on to sites like YouTube and Vimeo.

The music business today is driving towards a new paradigm of artist and producer promoted music, leaving the old model of record company restricted access behind.

Artists and fans are finding new ways to connect, through social media, that have never been seen before. More artists and producers, who in the past have had to depend on the record companies to publish their music, are doing it for themselves. The result is that music lovers now have a wider access to more varieties of music than ever before. Excellent music that would have never been heard in the past, you can hear it now.

So of course, this woman has 11,000 songs in her library… Good on her.

People need to wake up and smell the coffee… There's a new world for music out there. The old models are dying fast.

[kentauros]

33. We both know the truth you speak.

And yet, any time someone mentions that they have a large library of songs downloaded from online, the automatic assumption is that they were gotten illegally. It's a rare occasion when someone points out that those may very well have been freebies.

I think the reason why most people don't assume this is that there's a strong stigma against either "free" content, or "self-published" content. I continue to see this reaction by writers (whether here on DU or elsewhere online.) "You can't make any money self-publishing!" Never mind the continued and growing success of mid-list and formerly unknown authors utilizing Amazon, SmashWords, and others, for self-publishing.

The whole world of publishing is changing. People are still behind the curve on seeing it, much less embracing it

[MrScorpio]

50. I forgot to mention Bandcamp

Between Bandcamp and Soundcloud, that's where the majority of the music that I'm collecting comes from.

Some of it for a small or flexible fee, but most of it for no cost at all.

The main purpose of artists to giveaway their music is for exposure.

Many of them use these sites to appeal to DJs like myself for the AirPlay that they'd never get on traditional venues like MTV and commercial radio. They're creating a totally net based fan followership through specialized blogs and message forums, Twitter, Tumblr, net only radio, podcasts and video sites like Vimeo and YouTube.

The neat thing about this is that it's all legit.

[Festivito]

38. He wrote her at NPR to clarify that.

He has not noted getting a response yet.

[AverageJoe90]

34. I actually thought this article was decently thought out for the most part, but.......

The biggest issue I had with this was that he stated that the 'Free Culture' movement was corporate backed.......I'm sorry, but other than perhaps a few, that simply isn't true for 99% of them. The truth is, the corrupt commercial interests really are against them and they'll place the blame on everyone other than the people who are really causing the problem, and that is crooks in the music industry, like the SOBs running the RIAA. Unfortunately, Dave didn't mention this much, if at all, in his article.

I do give him kudos for trying to present his argument in a compassionate and logical manner, but in the end, it just doesn't quite hold water here, all good points taken into consideration.

TBH, I used to be against music 'piracy' when I was younger. Then I began to understand the reality of how copyright law operates in today's America.

Here's a question for those of you who have bought into the "Downloading is theft" line: If downloading is truly theft, then isn't non-commercial radio guilty the same thing, according to this logic? I listen to a very well-known indie station in New Jersey that's been around since the late '50s and they've survived only on donations and records that their employees buy(And I personally have been opened up to a whole new world of music thanks to these guys.) Should they suffer for offering their services for free like downloaders do?

That is the mentality of the pundits pushing this crap, I'm sad to say. And many good people like Dave Lowery don't realize it yet......

[jp11]

36. What I didn't see or saw little of

in that really long piece was the issue that people take more than they'd consume/use or actually buy when it is free. Call it what you will and I'm sure there is some name for it.

When you don't have to make a choice between things and can have them all why not do so? I think virtually no one who has that many songs would actually buy them all, ever. Even if you could get them used for half price or buy them cheap then resell them so the total cost was close to 25-35% of retail hardly anyone would do it. Not even if you could remove the burdens of having to physically handle all those cd's and rip them to a computer.

Right there is a basic flaw in this 'stealing deprives artists/labels of money' because the very large majority of people WOULD NOT buy them if they were not available for free. Thus there is very little stealing in that equation, would they buy something I'm sure they would but not nearly as much as many of them take. It doesn't excuse it but it does deflate that argument that everything acquired is stolen and a direct sale 'lost'.

I see little in regard to the vast increase in the number of artists, yes more people can produce albums so record sales probably take a hit from that in some aspect. Does it cover the decline over the years, highly unlikely that it does, what about the way the RIAA fought tooth and nail against moving into the next century with digital music? Or how about the way they went after kids, college students, etc not just to stop them but punish and make examples of them. Suing for millions dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars when at most the cost of the IP was in the range of a few thousand dollars or low tens of thousands of dollars? Some forced to take pleas, with heavy fines, over facing the huge court costs and even harsher penalties of the lawsuit should they lose.

There is also no mention of all the other things that have changed in the last 10-15 years. People can listen to most of the albums they used to buy through music videos online, create a playlist on youtube and you have many of the songs you'd buy free. Video gamers ranks have swelled so that just listening to music isn't as popular as it once was. Those are just a couple of examples in addition to the increase in the number of artists that are now able to put out their material who don't need a label to do so as they did 15+ years ago that probably hurt commercial record sales as well.

The writer asks 'how hard is it to use itunes or enter your password' and says it isn't 'their job to make it easy' except that is exactly their job. If you want people to pay for the content you sell when it is available FREE elsewhere you need to not make doing so a PIA, you need to not put restrictions on your customers that actually punish them for supporting you and doing the right thing. Itunes is actually still 'new' when compared to file sharing and I can't speak to how well it was stocked at launch(10 years ago) or the pricing then but consider that before Itunes opened up there were numerous other alternatives that were free and fully stocked with whatever you wanted no registration no limits on what they had. They, Itunes, only recently like the last 3 years removed many of their DRM restrictions.

Even today many digital albums still cost as much as the physical copy which has material costs and has to be transported/handled to be sold. While that cost isn't all that high it should reduce the price for a digital product absent the physical media.

With some of the content delivery systems you actually don't own the thing you bought you are granted a license and *if* they want they can revoke that while keeping your money. It hasn't happened much as I recall the only instance that comes to mind is a book that Amazon pulled, people who bought it had it wiped from their accounts. But the way they want it is you don't own these things you just have 'use' of them for as long as they allow you to do so. That might be fine but the power is not in your hands as the consumer who purchased the item/thing/IP because they redefined what you were buying.

None of this excuses not paying artists for the work they make and you benefit from. People have a right to make a living and should be paid for their efforts but things aren't as black and white as a great deal of the anti-piracy/copyright infringement arguments try to make them out to be.

[Bennyboy]

40. For those who don't know...

David Lowery, who wrote that retort, has a long-standing status as an indie music leader with Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker.

[LeftyMom]

42. If you want to support your favorite band GO SEE THEM LIVE.

If you can buy their music off their website or via the merch table at a show, do that so they get a bigger cut. But if you listen to a copied album and spend your $15 on a shirt they'll make more money off of you than if you buy their album and stay home.

[redqueen]

49. This. nt

[Bennyboy]

61. That's a nice sentiment BUT,

Some bands relay on selling CD's at shows to survive. And if you have already downloaded it, why would you buy it again?

I see tons of live music and the sales of CD's are really going down now at shows.

[KharmaTrain]

52. For 30 Years I Never Paid For A CD or LP...

...I worked in radio stations which got multiple copies of albums that were passed out among the staff members. Record companies wanted us to listen...take the music home so we would play and talk it up on the air. It was also real popular practice of people taping albums. At one time we figured that when we played an album it would generate sales not only from people listening but also from among the part times and office people around the station who did go out and buy. For each promo album they shipped us we probably helped to sell 50. Not sure if they're still sending out as many promotionals...but the record companies are stupid to go after or embarrass people who help promote their product.

[MrSlayer]

58. And the scumbag RIAA will sue her for eight zillion dollars.

Be careful what you admit to in this litigious society.

[Prophet 451]

63. And the RIAA will probably crucify her for umpty billion dollars

I haven't brought a CD from a store in years. I have brought quite a lot of music directly from the artists. That's by far the arrangement I prefer since it channels my money to the people who actually produce art rather than bloated record company fatcats.

Also, I'm not saying that she hasn't committed a crime or doesn't deserve to be punished but the practice of awarding utterly disproportionate damages in such cases just makes me hate the RIAA even more.

[Go Vols]

72. I can remember

in the '70s,the local rock radio station would play 3 entire albums every Sunday night,and reminded everyone to turn their tape recorders on to get them.HBO did the same with movies in the early '80s.

Shit has sure changed.

[MicaelS]

79. To speak like a "grumpy old fart"

For the last 60 years modern music (rock, pop, rap) has been based around a theme of rebellion to any and all authority, to a rejection of "conventional morality" and of a "if it feels good do it" mentality.

I think it's quite ironic that now the self-same artists who have been creating said music with said values, now complain about a lack of morality among the very same market they have selling to for the last 60 years.

As the old adages go "the chickens have come home to roost" and "you have sown the wind, now reap the whirlwind."

[JonLP24]

82. I'd never download songs

because I can listen to any song I want through Youtube. Is that stealing? There isn't any incentive to buy when I can listen to any song when I want.

[Bennyboy]

84. Another take.....(great response to the response to the response)

Once again, the issue of stealing music and its moral/financial/ethical arguments are dredged up. And once again, most people miss the overall point, causing the collective issue to dig a deeper ditch while those who've moved past it (i.e.: major labels) are busy raking in the dough in the new music business.

Yeah, you heard me. It's 2012, and now the neophytes are actually many indie artists (not all) while the smarter ones tend to be concentrated at major labels, thereby strengthening their power.

SNIP

Respected blogger Cory Doctorow also noted last month that a summary of over 20 different papers on file trading shows very little impact on sales from file trading. Drew Wilson, the author of the summary, got his results from such "fringe" groups as The Wharton School, The Journal of Law And Economics, and The Journal of Business Ethics. The most interesting line in the summary to me is this one:
Judging by the evidence we've collected, the evidence does not point in the direction that file-sharing, in and of itself, displace sales, but rather, other factors would also play a role in displacement of sales.
The primary "other factor" is the fact that there are too many artists competing for shrinking dollars, largely due to the shift from albums to singles. Despite the economic number that David Lowery quoted of the number of professional musicians falling by 25%, if you took "album releases" as an indicator, it seems like the number of pros has increased. In a decade, we've gone from about 30,000 albums being released to over 77,000 last year. And that's just albums going thru legit channels.

SNIP>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

MORE AT LINK:http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/guest-post-jay-frank-on-npr-s-emily-white-1007388552.story

[backscatter712]

85. This shows the old business models the MAFIAA are trying to shove down our throats just don't work.

Piracy is a symptom of market failure - when the providers, aka artists/studios/distributors are charging way too high of a price, compared with what the market will bear, people will look for alternatives.

The fact is that DRMing everything, using draconian laws and charging huge amounts of money for movies and music is just going to result in more piracy.

Probably what we'll need to do is just legalize downloading completely, then compensate artists and producers with a tax on electronics and media.