Why is this forum so pro RIAA? I thought enthusiast forums are supposed to be against the RIAA?

Pro-RIAA? Whatever gave you that impression? Or do you mean it's pro-RIAA because it's not pro-piracy?

No, I meant a lot of people here seems to be defending the RIAA's lawsuits and claims.

Moderation: removed full quote of previous post

It depends on the particular case. I would defend RIAA's lawsuit against people who put MP3s available for public download on a public FTP server for example.

But in general isn't the RIAA evil?

They have more lawsuits filed, and more wrongful claims than anyone else.

So one should add evil to evil by supporting others who are also bad guys because the RIAA is seen as a bad guy???

I mean, at least one RIAA member knew this was coming in 1988. They had lots of warning, and there is nothing anywhere in the history of the world where trying to legislate your market into remaining in the face of vastly superior technology has worked, but that doesn't justify supporting a thief of music, either.

Moderation: removed full quote of previous post

You don't "add" to evil, the two evil "balances" each other, because they work against each other.

Secondly, when RIAA is trying to file "spamigation" suits, they have declared that they are evil, and deserves to be pirated to death.

I try to avoid buying RIAA stuff and buy from labels according to the RIAA radar site. Which is like 80 percent of the CDs I own. So only 20 percent of my CDs are under an RIAA company.

Moderation: removed full quote of previous post

The trouble is that the RIAA is trying to protect its interests. The means of protecting those interests (or even the value of the interests) may be distasteful, unethical and perhaps even immoral, but you cannot fully blame them for wanting to protect their interests.

At their base, they want paid for recorded music that is sold. Pure and simple. This is not on its front unreasonable, since they do produce a large percentage of recorded music. The trouble is that in the digital age, recorded music isn't as tangible as it once was and its distribution isn't as controlled as it once was. In turn, RIAA is afraid of (possibly legitimately so) losing money because of these gray lines. Is this "evil"?

Now they're lawsuit happy to a ridiculous extent. The reason for this is because individual users want to share their music, which worked for many many years, as that's what made artists popular. But now, because it's so easy to share music people are downloading mp3s instead of buying albums, which is reduces the amount of money they make. It's easy to see them as the big bad (and admittedly, I still think of them as such), but you have to view it from their perspective. A user trading a few mp3s that indirectly causes another user to NOT buy an album, the RIAA normally wouldn't care much about it. But Tens of thousands of users doing the same can cost them some serious money.

No one has really solved the problem of being able to make money on a product when your distribution can be viral. This is the heart of what the RIAA is trying to deal with, and admittedly I find it an uneviable position to be in.

That all said, I consider using lawsuits against an individual as a form of bullying to be evil, so they don't get much of my sympathy.

All in all, the sooner we legalize file sharing for personal use and force the media industry to adapt to the change (as currently being discussed in Sweden), the better it will be for all of us. The current RIAA "sue everybody" model is demented and cannot possibly be the long-term solution.

Piracy is 'theft' only because a certain piece of antiquated legislation says so. Laws can be changed. And probably it will sooner or later because vast majority of population on the planet does not consider file sharing illegal or wrong.

File sharing for personal use?

What does this mean exactly, sharing a file with yourself?

Laws can not and should not always reflect the opinions and habits of the majority. The majrity may think it is perfectly ok that the wealth of Bill Gates is seized by the government and redistributed to the population, it doesnt make it right.

I think large parts of the recording industry deserves a long and painful death, but that does not mean that we shoud treat them worse (legally) than any other industry.

-k

Bad choice of words. I should have said file sharing for noncommercial use. Meaning that you do not receive or give money for sharing the files.

OT: you managed to describe the progressive taxation system of Finland pretty accurately there. Some societies and governments (that are not officially and publicly communist) seem to think it's perfectly OK to slap an insane income tax to the wealthy (i.e. punish you for being rich=evil) and distribute that money to whoever feels they need it.

But back to the issue, I have good reason to believe that majority of people approve the concept of private ownership. If someone thinks Bill Gates should be stripped from his property, why shouldn't their property be taken as well? Why stop at Bill?

Whether this can be applied to file sharing, I'm not sure. The actual damage caused by file sharing is simply too indirect. Maybe the point could be extended to "if you think file sharing is OK, you shouldn't have problems if people would pirate your intellectual property". Well, I wouldn't, but that's only because I'm not making any money from it anyway

It describes the system here in Norway as well. But the taxes are well known in advance (before one decides to make a career in the country). It could be argued that one reason why it is possible to even make a fortune, is that the infrastructure and skilled work-force paid by tax-money enables it.

But suddenly taking most of a persons fortune only because the majority thinks it is okay is something else, more reminiscent of communist revolutions.

People dont think generalised and consequence. They think "whats in it for me?", or "hang the bastard". Okay, this may be patronising people, but we tend to think short-sighted, while the laws should be non-discriminating, predictable and regulate general "concepts" instead of individual cases, or letting judges/dictators rule by heart.

Some people claim that a pirated CD is a lost sale. Clearly, this can not be a general truth. Many students have mp3 collections equalling a CD-cost of far more than they have ever earned. We can safely assume that in the abscence of pirated music, they would have purchased less than that.

Some people claim that pirating music is a good thing for the record companies. This may or may not be correct, but the fact is that most record companies dont seem to think so. I might think that a pepsi-commercial is working against pepsis interest, but it isnt my decision to make, its theirs.


I have a really hard time deciding what to think about music-sharing/illegal downloading.

On the one hand, I think that most record companies are dinosaurs that simply doesnt contribute to our culture, that are distasteful in their lawsuits and disinforming the people in false advertisements. I think that they should see this happening in the early 1990s, and have taken steps to improve their products instead of clinging to outdated products.

On the other hand, I am a firm believer in the right to have ownership of physical objects and cultural expressions. Even for companies and persons I dont like, that right should apply. Even if their exercise of that right leads to their demise, I think that the right to do stupid decisions is a part of the freedom that we grant indivduals as well as organisations.


My advice to record companies would be to improve and specialise their products.

• By making multi-gigabyte hirez "audiophile" versions, they are adressing a market that are willing to pay for advances in audioquality even if they can only be measured, and P2P-ing lossless 8channel 192kHz 24bit is a lot harder than mp3.
• As a technically inclined person, my main wish would be for a format that adresses the single remaining "inaccuracy" of current soundreproduction: spatial information. I dont know how this can be improved given economic and tech limitations, but some general ambisonics-like delivery format allowing me to install any number of speakers combining with room-correction to give best-effort spatial impression would be a major thing.
• By offering easy-to-use music for the mobile users, they could "grab em while they're young". The obvious need is for a general format that can be used by all players, just like CD can.
• Make music available as physical media, as downloadable songs/collections in different qualities, as monthly subscriptions, etc. Not everyone thinks that purchasing a CD with 10 songs is flexible enough.
• DRM must die.

-k

So musicians don't deserve to be paid?

Interesting that you value John Lennon less than the plumber who fixed your toilet.

Cheers,
David.

knutinh: I basically agree with everything you said. I don't have much more to add.


Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are already on their way there. I would suspect it's a good deal more difficult to pirate a Blu-Ray image (tens of gigabytes) versus a 1CD XviD encoding.

I have thought for a long time that the media industry should combat piracy with quality; if you want glorious full HD quality, you gotta pay for the disc. Should you choose to download it for free, you only get low-res crap. I see absolutely no problem with that.

Unfortunately providing legal full HD downloads has the same problems as in pirating them: capacity. There is simply no way to provide 15+ Mb/s HD streams to possibly millions of subscribers all around the world. ISPs are able to do this with 24 Mb/s ADSLs and direct ISP-to-customer connections, but ISPs movie selections are (as of yet) pretty lame.


Definitely. The current model of providing only lossy encodings online for half the price of CD is ridiculously limited. I don't think it's fair that I have to pay half the price of a CD for content that has only one-tenth of the information contained in the CD (in the case of 128 kbps encoding).


It's already dead in music (see Amazon.com MP3 store). But for games, software and movies it's probably going to live a while longer.

Musicians would still get paid from other income sources, such as concerts, T-shirt sales and whatnot as they do now. And I don't think legalizing file sharing would instantly stop all CD sales globally, although it might reduce it by some extent. Besides, how's that different from the current situation where like 70% of computer-owners pirate music anyway, be it legal or not?


I've never been much of a Beatles fan anyway. But let's not get into that here

In about 80% of the music I listen to, the band gets virtually no money from their art because they are so marginal. So I guess I'm the wrong person to ask about copyright issues anyway...

That arguement would cause a bias towards "live" bands. Some artists are simply better at making music over a 2-month period in studio than performing live at a stage. Others may decide that it is more important to stay home with the kids than touring the world. You are saying that they should not have that option?

While your musical inclination may be "all real musicians can play live", that may not be the opinion of everyone else.

As said before, the fact that "everyone does it" is not a sufficient argument for why a law should be changed.

So the system as is today really works very well for you?

-k

I'm not saying that. I don't think legalizing file sharing would instantly stop all CD sales worldwide. People would still buy CDs and the musicians would still get paid, like they do now.

The most visible change would be that the suing of children, single mothers, grannies and dead people by the RIAA would stop.


Incidentally, the bands I listen to don't tour much. Some of them (Darkthrone, Limbonic Art) are well known for not touring.


Come to think of it, yes it does. The music I listen to is mostly so marginal that it's not available on p2p, so I have to buy the content I want (sometimes directly from the artist since they're not under any label) legally.

Marginality, the best copy protection.

All in all, I just feel sorry for all the single mothers and college students out there whose lives are ruined because of RIAA court cases for something that is hardly even a crime.

Actually, if you study some philosophy (please don't take it offending, it is just that I don't think philosophy is mandatory in most schools), you'll learn that the laws were created and used to be voted and accepted as the majority people think.
Now, there's a limit to that. International deals of government-shouldn't-touch-the-economy is what makes impossible that extreme communist view, even if the population wants, as the government will use of force to protect these deals, since if they break the deals they won't be able to take international loans, and politicians won't get as higher salary as they expect.

So, in theory, laws were made to protect the majority, but that was before the capitalism form we are in. The fact that is no longer true is ethically wrong.

After this long and boring speech, the fact is that the population can take measures to this kind of law be accepted, but for ignorance they don't know it and who knows just don't care/don't want to create a whole manifestation for that.

I actually had to do some minimum philosophy and science theory for my MSc, but I have no problem admitting that my mind was more focused at technology than philosophy then (and now for that sake).

If I am not mistaken, most philosophers of the ancient greek (where we take a lot of our cultural heritage from), considered democracy to be a fundamentally flawed, or at least "lesser value" system than others.

A direct democracy would of course lead to a society where the people directly vote for laws. This puts a lot of power and trust into the hands of people. With the system used by most western countries, I think that there is a "feedback loop of some delay and/or hysteresis", where the people vote for the general long-term direction and goals for society, while the politicians are allowed some freedom in how to actually implement this.

A discussion on the pros and cons of those two may be o.t. for this thread ;-)

-k

knutinh and others, I want to ask you something. knutinh said people don't always think generally and consequentially, and sometimes have a hard time understanding why some actions, such as piracy, cause any harm to anyone. I'm unfortunately not above this so there might be some fallacies in my reasoning about copyright. Let's try to dispel them.

People generally understand the concept of private ownership since almost all people own something. They'll feel bad if that something is taken away from them. People understand that and can relate to that.

However, the problems start when the loss is much more abstract, like in the case of theft of intellectual property. People have a hard time relating to Lars Ulrich when he loses a couple of pennies because some kid downloads Enter Sandman.

So what would be an apt allegory for piracy, one which a regular working Joe can relate to? Let's rationalize like this: making music is the work that musicians do. They get their salary from CD sales. Let's say Joe is working in the conventional sense; he does something that an employer wants him to do and is willing to compensate him for his trouble. He gets his salary from that.

Now how does piracy fit in this picture? Would it be like this: imagine that the employer wouldn't pay Joe's salary straight to Joe's bank account. They would instead place a pile of cash to a public location and tell Joe to get if from there. By the time Joe gets to the pile of cash, passers-by have nipped off a considerable amount of the dough, not much per person, but a lot cumulatively. What remains is enough for Joe to live, but he is pissed off because he feels he should be getting more but all those dishonest people pick their share before Joe gets to the cash.

The majority of the passers-by did not know that they were doing something illegal. They just saw some money lying around and took it.

Who is wrong and who is right? How do imaginary losses (i.e. the fact that people might not have bought the content anyway were an illegal copy not available) fit into this picture? What needs to be changed to fix the situation? Do we continue to sue everyone (i.e. have a police officer run after the passers-by who take a bit of Joe's salary, and take them to jail if he can catch them)? Do we ban computers and other copy-capable equipment altogether? What would be a good long-term solution?

A good starting-point for a discussion.

Agreed.

I dont think that people have such a hard time relating to that. They just dont care, argue that those people have "enough" money allready, or that "everyone else does it, my actions are miniscule compared to that"

I dont think you have to refer to the material object money.

Think about a person working, expecting to get paid. If the employer choose not to pay him (or pay him less than agreed), no physical object is stolen, and the offended didnt suddenly get less objects in his posession.

Nevertheless, his agreement with the employer wasnt honored, and as a result the employer got "more than fair" (i.e. his lawn moved), while the worker got "less than fair", i.e. a hard days work and less pay than agreed.

I dont know the right solution.

A good approach in my view would be a creative recording industry striving to please its customers with good solutions and fair use, while piracy was accepted as a force of nature if not accepted legally. That way, "big pirates" could still be sued while grandmothers wouldnt.

-k

I would suggest that the right of Jury Nullification protects a population from laws it does not want...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

Also, copyright as first enacted in the Statute of Ann 1710...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_co...odern_copyright
...gives the right to the author to protect and sell their work for up to 28 years, after which it enters the public domain.

It's interesting that copyright "came into being" because of the printing press - before this, copying a book was so expensive and time consuming that you hardly needed a law to stop people doing it, even though people were already thinking about the moral case, yet rarely paid authors anything. The radical increase in availability created by the printing press necessitated some legal formulisation (and, in this case, improvement, if you were an author!) of the situation. Maybe p2p technology puts us in this situation again?


I don't propose any answers, but I think the knee-jerk "The RIAA is evil, we should all be able to copy music freely" reaction is, from any objective standpoint, fairly irrational.

The arguments, FWIW, are the same as are used by all thieves and criminals. People who break into other people's houses often claim they have taken nothing away from the house owner because all expenses will be covered by insurance. People who are caught speeding claim that everyone does it.

What's really bizarre is that the people who seem to hate "the industry" the most (which may itself be corrupt and deserving of derision) are often those who are the most desperate to acquire that industry's product (at zero cost).

Has it never occurred to people that if the population stopped listening to music for one single year, it would be enough to bring the entire industry to its knees? (If it isn't there already).

Cheers,
David.

So your neighbor Joe thinks that this is Paul McCartney who owns your "Band on the run" CD? Even if he does, what he thinks about ownership of "Imagine"?

OT: Progressive taxation is well-known and widely used form of protection of people with low-income. Think about it as not grabbing more from BGates, but as leaving some to poor Martha.

Back to the topic. All these "it's a LAW" arguments make some effect for pressing public. But we (as people) can/should discuss/change stupid-obsolete-wrong-whatever laws. Living your life by obeying only written-down laws is wrong, even from goverment side of view. What else we have to mention here is morality. It was always OK for everyone around me to share their music - especially in pre-CD era. Every guy in town has cassette tape recoder. Did you ever recorded radio? TV-programme? Did you ever "shy" doing this?
Here I come to the point why people are angry about this RIAAs - they are pushing us to sacrifice our moral principles to their "law". And all they have to say in support: oh, our poor artists... It's just wrong. Only well-known, bloated superstars can make living from record sales. Real reason - distribution chain - they are loosing exec control of it. It's money talk, not moral.

No matter how you see it, it is a transfer of wealth from those who have much to those who have less.

A person who think that individualism is very important might be just as concerned with poor people as one that thinks highly of collectivism. But she might think that the state is a poor tool for redistributing wealth - I think that Bill Gates has chosen to use most of his fortune on charity?

It is interesting to note that some countries with a relatively "lean" state, has a culture where it is socially mandatory to help out poor people and to use money on charity if possible. In other states, (such as where I come from), there is no such mechanism, and rich people tend to use all of their money for personal consumption.

-k

How would that work for say a Britney Spears. Her songs are written by Max Martin who doesn't play live with her. The songs are recorded by studio musicians that are way too expensive to take on tour with her. The producer, mixer, engineer, etc. that work in the recording studio? I doubt they go on tour and demand a slice of the pie.

Interesting discussion. Don't you think there is no "transfer of wealth" if taxation is "plain" (proportional)?
Our Billy made $100 last year. Martha and Joe $10 each (BTW, proportion poor:rich should be greater). All taxed 10% to airport security and playground - everybody is happy; but isnt Billy who've built playground for Martha's kids?


Don't really catch this - does he really gave money away or made a fund? Don't you know what these funds and charities serves for in Billy's homeland?



It all complicated, really. I, personally, think it's bad for everyone to have really rich and really poor population tied together. So, it's for richies's sake security to share some (don't they want 1917?)

No. This is not meant to be my allegory for intellectual property in general, that's later in my post. This particular text is simply for establishing some ideas about human behavior.


I hope you don't mean Martha Stewart

Anyway, I'm kind of inclined to think that the state and mandatory taxes may not be the best possible wealth redistribution tool. Progressive tax system surely has it's place, but I think we should instead work towards increasing the employment rate and improving the economy in general, instead of punishing people in good position. Progressive taxation is a good emergency tool in severe economic recesses where a large number of people lose their jobs simultaneously, but I don't think it should be the default state in a country.

Besides, in Finland due to a weird loophole in the law the richest of the rich have a smaller tax percentage than average workers. This is because they get most of their income from owning stock, and this type if income has a fixed 28% tax. My personal conspiracy theory about this is that the ruling elite, which consists of the richest of the rich, deliberately planted this loophole into the law in order to avoid paying so much taxes. They get their political support by promising huge benefits for the poor (which they fund with the tax income extracted from the middle class) while they pay less taxes than average workers themselves. It's as if the whole purpose of the system is only to screw the middle class.


Agreed. I think it's curious that the besides Sweden, pretty much no government in the world has been willing to openly discuss about the justification and future of the copyright system. They just seem to accept media industry demands just like that, like it's some kind of universal truth that everyone must follow, no questions asked. In Finland the great copyright law strictening (similar to DCMA) of 2006 happened just like that, without anyone asking anyone whether it's right or not. It's almost frightening.

Exactly as it works now. The only change would be that noncommercial file sharing would no longer be illegal, everything else would remain the same. People would download MP3's exactly as they do today, but they wouldn't randomly get sued every now and then.

Unfortunately if one wants to strictly enforce the current copyright system, it will also lead to rather irrational things. Like declaring a prime number (one representation of the DeCSS key) illegal. Making discussion about circumventing copy protection illegal. Something like that simply cannot be. It's absurd.


Whereas I understand what you're saying and in a way agree with you, I simply cannot stretch my imagination enough to compare file sharers with thieves (who sometimes kill people) and reckless drivers (who also hurt people directly, not via some imaginary "lost sales"). I simply cannot. Perhaps IP theft needs to hurt me directly before I can understand. I can't see that happening anytime soon, even though I'm a hobbyist musician.


I'm doing my part by favoring unpopular, unsigned bands. Unfortunately not everyone else does. But they can't, can they? If they would, these bands would no longer be unpopular nor unsigned

The same here in Norway. I think it is only a sign that tax system are pragmatic and not idealistic.

Capital put into companies is very mobile, and investors could easily move their investements to a different country if needed.

Salarys are usually bound to a company, and an individual working and living in the country.


I see this as countries competing against each other with regards to investement capital, while they dont have to compete equally hard when it comes to income.

On the other hand, I am a technologist not an economist.

-k

Of course. That makes perfect sense. More than my conspiracy theory anyway. Although there's still some "screw the workers" ethics visible in this big picture.


Yes. Note to self: never forget about macroeconomics.


Judging from your comments you might as well be. At least you have a much better grasp of macroeconomics than I do.

On an interesting side note, why do computer programmers seem to be much more liberal and non-profit seeking than musicians?

A huge bunch of computer programmers have written millions and millions of lines of free open source software that resulted into an operating system that nowadays powers multibillion dollar corporations and has generally improved the lives of everyone. Sure, some people have ended up rich in the process, but the majority of programmers really did it for free in their spare time.

Naturally there are game companies and commercial software houses that are extremely keen about protecting their IP and wouldn't even dream of doing anything for the public good. But at a glance there seems to be much more open source software than there is "open source" music (whose copyright hasn't expired, mind you!)

I haven't seen a similar phenomenon in music than in computer software, where a huge bunch of composers would write millions and millions of notes of good quality music for free, and would change the world in some visible way. Why software engineers and encyclopedia article writers can work for free but musicians can't?

My personal opinion is that art should be created only for the sake of art itself; anyone doing it for any other reasons (such as money) shouldn't be doing it and definitely doesn't deserve to be paid from it. Art transcends money. It's downright vulgar to mix those two in any way. But I guess it's an artist's right to profit from their work if they so desire. But at least they won't be getting any respect from me. None. Zilch. Zero.

Apparently some blokes calling themselves "Radiohead" have similar visions about art since they released an album for free, much to the discontent of some record companies, I'm sure. Perhaps it was just rebellion and nothing else. But they did it anyway, so perhaps times are a-changing after all.

That's wrong, at least in the UK.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_...eview_index.cfm

The Gowers review decided that artists and record companies were unjustified in asking for an increase in the 50 year copyright term for sound recordings. The UK government accepted this decision, despite continued bleating from artists.

The Gowers review also highlighted other issues regarding copyright, which are now the subject of another consultation...

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/about/about-consult/...texceptions.htm

Cheers,
David.

Lots and lots of musicians perform music for free. This means that other people can enjoy their music without paying.

Artists needs to eat as well. I have no problem with artists working and expecting to be paid. Do you also not respect the bus-driver since he works for the money?

I think the quality of a piece of art does not depend on the artist being a suffering, poor "artist". I enjoy listening to ABBA, one of the most commercial bands to appear. I think the way that they used available studio tools and made catching music is an art, and I have no problem with them earning money for it.

-k

Because musicians are far more likely to have girlfriends, who will become wives, who will have children, who will need supporting.

Serious answer: maybe writing code is easier to do in spare moments fitted around a day job than being a musician? Also easier to do collaboratively over the net.


There's a lot of free music out there, or at least music that no one charges (or can charge!) for. Most of it won't reach more than a handful of people because it's rubbish.

I think some of those encyclopaedia entries are of similar quality to the free music.


Are you trolling, or serious? What are these unpaid artists to live off? Should they have a day job too? Would they not make better art if they didn't need to spend 8 hours a day in a (paid) job? Should we go back to the system of patronage, to ensure the next Mozart dies penniless and is buried in a paupers grave too?

I'm glad you think so much of artists. I expect the ones you really respect are the ones that invite people to give them a jolly good kicking as well - wouldn't want them to have life too easy now, would we? Heaven forbid they should actually (gasp) make a living from the tallent they have.

What a wonderful world we would have if no one was allowed to make money from whatever they happened to be good at.


You're being silly here - I didn't see a note with it saying "please don't pay us - we don't want money - it's art for art's sake!"

Cheers,
David.

Possibly. Based on experience, it requires a long session in order to compose pretty much anything. But so does programming. The kind of situations where you can work on a piece of code for fifteen minutes and then move on are pretty rare.


I'm not sure. Possibly. A very large number of musicians have to have a daytime job anyway since they couldn't possibly make ends meet with the income they receive from album sales. Only a handful of superstars (at least in a small country like Finland) actually get enough money from music to live a luxurious (or even comfortable) life.

A lot of the Finnish musicians that I deeply respect indeed have mundane daytime jobs. And they still managed to produce something great, despite the mindnumbing eight hours a day they spend at work that simply must kill their creativity. Perhaps it's from this that I have gotten the impression that musicians shouldn't need superstardom to do their thing.


Funny that you should mention Mozart, since he happened to produce some pretty magnificent stuff despite of the harsh conditions. I'm not going to go as far as to say because of the harsh conditions, but I'm tempted to.

Hardship and tough experiences (pain, if you will), which can arise from poverty and feelings of emptiness are an integral part of art. Naturally art can exist without them, but some kind of suffering is apparent in a great number of works.


Now you're just putting words into my mouth. As I said previously, art is art and should be separate from financial concerns. As far as I'm concerned you're completely free to make money from any useful skill you might have, including craftsmanship, manufacturing, writing software, driving a bus or whatever. This is known as The Mundane. Art transcends the mundane. Art is a place away from all this. It shouldn't be treated as some bloody industry.

Ability to make extremely good products, such as excellent loudspeakers or high quality software might actually approach art, but are still (IMHO) distinct from it. Some things are much more difficult to classify. For example, I'm having a hard time deciding whether computer games are art or industry. The same thing with movies.


Radiohead put that album online with the condition that you can download it and pay any amount you want for it, including paying nothing at all. A gesture like that, at least to me, screams "we did it for the art and not for the money" (or possibly rebellion, but that's almost the same thing). I'm having difficulties interpreting it any other way.

Edit: looking back at my posts, I realized that some things I said came out in much more extreme manner than I actually think. I'm not really that extreme, inflexible and unrealistic in my opinions. As I said earlier, I think an artist has the right to profit from his/her work if they want to.

Due to that I'm willing to revise my stance on art and money somewhat. Art is not about money, but money is a necessary evil that is needed for the artist to survive and continue producing art. Also in some cases it's indeed better that an artist doesn't need to have a daytime job so that they can fully concentrate on their art. Therefore they should be compensated for their work, and royalties are one way to achieve this. But I still think art should not be about the money. Otherwise it's industry, not art.

Just a small note here. As niktheblak wrote there are tons of musicians who have day-time job. But vast majority of them has music-related job. Do you think that all musicians are geniuses? All of them should lay all day on the coach, smoke, drink, and all what they are obliged to do is to fill-up 50-minutes CD ones a year?
Most musicians has music-display jobs, and payed for living. How many symphonic orchestras in your city? Do you know you have a bars nearby with live music performances? Casinos? Shows? Weddings? Churches? Who makes CDs then?

Unfortunatly I have no statistic what percentage of musicians make their money from CD. But I think it's disappearing small.

Isn't that in contradiction with your earlier statement? "Exactly as it works now"... to me that means you hire me, pay me a salary which will come out of your pocket (I don't work for free). To get that money back you would have to sell CDs, tour, sell t-shirts, etc. That is the way it works now. But in your terms it would mean that I, as a musician, should be touring. The only tours a studio musician does is hired gun in backing bands (like David Bowie or so), or from studio to studio.

And on the free software: promoting a CD by touring will wreak havoc on a steady dayjob. I cannot think any boss would agree that you off touring the work to support a CD he doesn't get some sort of return for. The free software is usually made by people that don't do it for a profession. The student math genius could write a lot of wicked code to be inserted into Linux. A computer security professional could write a program to help him in his day-to-day job and decides to put i up for download as it can help others. Etc. Musicians that have a dayjob, aren't (semi-)pros. They do it for fun, and in the hope that maybe, just maybe they may become the next Beatles/Rolling Stones/whatever. You will find that these musicians usually don't really care about money, as they don't depend on it.

Another difference between free CDs and free software is the monetary cost to get the thing done. The programmer invests time, and a bit of money (but mostly that would be money he would have to pay anyways, like electricity, a computer or the development software). The musician will have to pay a whole lot more. Rehearsal studios, recording studios, engineers, photographers for the pictures on the sleeve and the booklet, designers for the booklet in the CD, CD pressing plants, etc. Some you can do yourself, some you cannot. And they don't work for peanuts either.

Free music is something else, the performer can set his own prices though that will be within certain boundaries as well. After all the keyboardist will have to take his keyboard rig with him, guitarists are helpless without their amps and effects (not to mention the guitar itself). That means transport costs. P.A.? More costs... Want to liven up the place and use some nice lighting? Even more costs. A bar band is something else, but we're talking about the "big shots" here, not the local band.

What I originally meant was that people "should" still buy CD's in order to support the artists, but it wouldn't be illegal to share the content of the CD via the internet. This system would depend on the morality of people at large to support the artists. However, I'm beginning to see that this might not be such a good idea after all.

I'm not sure what kind of effect legalizing file sharing would have on album sales, but I think we have to expect the worst, which would be massive piracy with no one but the worst computer haters buying CDs anymore. That would have a dramatic effect on the well-being of many artists. And that wouldn't be good.

I just hope we (as mankind) are able to design a system that is fair towards artists and the consumers. As 2BDecided said, in the old times the problem of piracy didn't exist because copying was prohibitively expensive. Now it's completely trivial to copy and distribute binary data, so we need to invent a system that works without making computers illegal. And I'm not talking about DRM schemes, in their current form they're extremely hostile towards the consumer.


Going to a tour is The Big Decision between music and daytime job for the musician. This is the place where one simply has to choose between the two. It's possible to make a CD while at a daytime job, but it's definitely not possible to go touring (unless your employer is very liberal or you work at the music industry anyway). I would imagine that when a musician decides to go on a promotional tour, he is already pretty confident of his success and is willing to risk everything.

If you're satisfied with no touring and low/zero income from the CD, then everything is fine. You have a daytime job so you don't need the album sales income anyway.

On the other points, you are of course completely right. It is easier and cheaper to write and upload a piece of source code than to make a CD and go to a promotional tour. Although both skills (programming and musicianship) take a considerable amount of time to learn, the "logistics" of contributing to open source software projects are much easier and cheaper.


I guess I belong to this group. I have a dayjob, I do music for fun and I don't care about the money since I get my living from my dayjob anyway. But I understand that things can be completely different for musicians who actually live off their music. I can imagine how hard that must be if you're not a superstar. I'd guess income from album sales is unpredictable at best and vastly dependent on your popularity at the moment. And exactly how popular does one need to be for the income for a few albums to last for a lifetime? My guess: very.

Just today I had an extremely boring day at work. I pretty much daydreamed I would be able to do what I love the most (music) for a living. So I guess it's hypocritical for me to expect that other people wouldn't. The best gift I can give to an artist is the ability for them to concentrate fully on their art. If this can be arranged simply by a small exchange of money when I buy their album, then so be it.


Yes. I have lugged my guitar cabinet around. And the keyboardist's keyboard and associated PA gear. What a nightmare.

From what I gathre the In Rainbows experiment by Radiohead was a fail. As long as people regard music as a consumer good instead of art this will be the case. Simply put the overabundance of same-sounding-and-marketed music (Britney, Christina, Mariah/ Take That, 'n Sync, Backstreet Boys) dilutes the winnings. Tv shows like American Idol also favor this approach with every week a new starlet to use as a temporary cashcow. But that is a completely different topic.

Legalizing file sharing would eliminate piracy in one whack as it isn't illegal anymore. Then again... I would still buy CDs as I refuse to pay for .mp3 files. Many audiophiles would do that, as an mp3 is handy for iPods and like where it doesn't really matter that it is compressed. If you're in a concert hall waiting for the headliner to start you won't hear the subtle (or not so subtle) omissions in an mp3. But at home you would like a good sound ,so you shell out for the silver platter.

Personally I doubt this, as every system will be exploited by the people with the most power. Copyright was invented to help the poor artist make a buck, but contracts and other stuff makes it so that you relinquish that right to corporations like record companies and you don't see a return on it anymore. Once you become big you will get the power to turn the tables, and own your own copyrights, publishing rights, etc.

Concur.

Not necessarily. I know quite a few musicians that are considered (semi)-pro that do the touring in their off-time. They take vacations and go touring for example. I'm not gonna name names, but I do know that a keyboardist in a Danish hard rock band is like that. They have quite a few albums out, and he holds a job in the Danish telephone system. His vacations are used to tour. These days hard rock is quite a niche market, so a European tour can be done in 2 weeks. And they are playing to some 1000 to 2000 seaters. Another German band I know does the same, their three tours in support of the last album took a week each at most. Touring on a world wide scale will be next to impossible though.

But wouldn't it be rewarding to sometimes see a return of what you put in? I know I liked it when I saw the check in the mail (though it wasn't much).

andI am both. I program for a living, program a bunch of freeware programs, and act as a keyboardist/guitarist in the world of (Classic) Rock.

Part of me has those dreams as well. Another part doesn't as I've seen many many bad sides of the music industry. It put me in the problematic position of loving music (and loving to play), yet hating the industry side of it. In other words I want the stage, not a videoclip for the MTVs of the world.

I so love my Mac Notebook.... One 8 octave keyboard and 2 guitar cases on the backseat, Line6 combo amp in the cargo hold (or the Pod if they have adequate amps), and the laptop and a bag with cables on the shotgun seat. No need for hundreds of keyboards to haul around as they all live in the Mac.

http://www.pendragon.mu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1740

this might be a nice breakdown of some of the costs and the effects of it on the musician. In case you don't know them Pendragon is a British band that is counted as one of the biggest in Neo Prog Rock land. In size (venuewise) they are comparable to the bands I mentioned earlier.

I would imagine most people who make a CD make some money from the CD. Those that lose money will think twice before making another!

I acknowledge that the number of people who can live off one CD release per year is relatively few (though I think it's a healthier aspiration to put infront of young people than living off an appearance on Big Brother!).

However, even if the CD is not fantastically successful, it might still help to top-up earnings from their day job, or maybe pay for one day a week away from that job to concentrate on music.

To suggest this is somehow wrong, and that real artists won't seek to make any money from their recorded music, and further that the laws which allow artists to do so should be scrapped, really is an extreme view.

If you want artists to suffer, you could just make sure that a woman comes along and breaks their heart every year. Seems to have help Paul McCartney's output somewhat!


I've had another thought on the open source argument earlier in this thread: I wonder how many computer programmers would have continued to program into their adult lives if there was no living to be made from it? While they may contribute to open source projects, if the skill didn't also earn money, it probably wouldn't be nurtured as a skill, and the open source projects would be the poorer for it.

Cheers,
David.

I think you are biased to some group of people here. I can hardly imagine this kind of musicians. Are you talking about amateurs? Students, who rehearsals in garage? As I mentioned before, most musicians have music-related day-job (evening-jobs actually). That is the main professional reality. Again, some of them, really _some_, should be able to get to the level in their careers to issue a record. It becomes easy to make one with CDs and PC-based studios. And even guy who plays guitar in subway has his own CDRs on sale. Can you imagine something like that 30 years back?


RRRRRight, I smell RIAA's wording: manipulation, that what general public doesn't want. And yes, this is "somehow wrong" when I begin thinking twice before asking my buddy for borrowing his CD for couple days listening...

So what?

No matter the changes in the recording practice, anyone who makes CDs will earn "a little more" if "a little more people" pay for their CD?

If "a little more money" is enough to quit your day-time/evening-job, or to spend more time making music and less time washing dishes, then it is a good thing, isnt it?

If it lets you spend more time "making the music you love", and less time playing oldies at local bars and weddings, it is a good thing, isnt it?

I think that the real economics of CD piracy is far more complicated than both the RIAA and "pro-consumer" agencies claim, but the right of an artist for legal protection doesnt need to consider the economics. The laws should regulate what is legal and what is not. What is good business practice should be left to those doing business.

I think that implying that all "real" musicians should not make money is an extreme view. If you think it is ok, then it might as well be you that has been manipulated as me or 2B?

-k

I can't tell nothing about this kind of musicians, really, - I can't recall any singer/band/orchestra I've listened to who made their CDs between dishwashing. Music is different. Let's talk about particular jenre. Classic music is definitely not a case here... Rock music? OK, let's talk about it.
AFAIK the usual way to get to the top for rock band is to attend various rock shows, fests of different size. Meet industry people... send demos to labels... They do need to be IN already - so no more dishes!


Artists already have legal protection. RIAA wants more - but I think not for artists.


You've got me wrong - I'm OK with making money from recorded music. What I'm against is: pretending that they are "protecting" one group of people corporations lobbyed laws to further restrict my rights to use of product I've bought. I want to listen to the CD in any place and in any device in my home. In home of my friend. In my car (with windows open). In my DAP. In my friend's car. Even make copy for him... Do anything I want with it until I do not make money on it or broadcast it.

I can... Me being one of them. It isn't dishwashing, but still a dayjob. And in the weekends and evenings I would be in the studio getting rid of the frustrations of everyday life and recording my parts.

Wake up and smell the new millenium. In "the old days" you would get your name and fame by touring extensively. From one horse town sh1tholes to support slots for bigger bands. In the meantime you would be sending out demos in the hope to catch the big fish. To get an opening slot on a festival would mean you already have a recording contract or are really chummy with the organisers. Your rise to the top of the bill would be linked to your status as a crowd-pleaser. Now.... Fast forward to the year 2000. You've got an audience that isn't interested in new songs, they want a rehash from some "forgotten tune from the 70s", so all you hear is raped versions of staples of your youth. I mean Britney's "I Love Rock'n'Roll". Mariah Carey doing "Open Arms". I recently heard a house version of "Another Brick In The Wall". Oh.... Come on people! On the one hand you have the youth that isn't interested in music and/or merely see it as an object to be listened to once and thrown away. On the other you have the older people that are still interested in music, as long as it sorta sounds like what they are used to (in other words the cover, sorry tribute band industry). as an "original" it's hard to get a gig, let alone play the aforementioned rise on the bill game.

Then if you factor in other costs, you will draw the simple conclusion that this is a hobby you pour money in and have hardly a chance to make it back. Then again, hey it is your fun, and who knows? You could have used to support the retirement fund of a bar owner as well. Then you'd be sure not to get a return on it.

RIAA and other companies don't work for the artists. They work for record companies as they are the copyright holders. Recording contracts will make the artist hand over these copy- , publishing and other rights to the record company in exchange for an allowance to make a record, a video, advertising costs, lawyers to clear those samples that you use, etc.

Remember ,they call it the entertainment INDUSTRY. It's all about the money, not the art.

No less than three people in my workplace alone are involved in different beginning bands that have CD-R demos available. The ratio of wannabe-musicians/population in Finland is unusually high, though.


Yep, it's a catch-22 situation: when you get enough money from music to make music, you're famous and established anyway.

It takes a lot of money to start. Instruments, equipment, demo recording etc. costs money. At this point no one gets any royalty income from album sales, and probably not from live performances either (since they are nobodies). How can they finance this? There are basically two options: either they have very rich and supportive parents or other patrons, or they have daytime jobs.

Yes, this is bad, bad, bad. Bad beyond imagination

Really, how dare they talk about "protecting the artist's rights" when the recording label is the one who took the rights from the artist to their own songs in the first place! Often beginning bands have to sign a zero-royalty, we-take-all-rights, screw-you contracts because they have no choice. The crap contract may be the only one they're offered. Either you publish with the crap contract or don't publish at all. And as any real musician should know, the choice in this situation is obvious. You publish and suffer because you want your music to be heard more than you want the royalties.

IIRC at least Cradle of Filth started with a zero or at least near-zero-royalty contract (meaning they got little if anything from album sales), and possibly Dimmu Borgir too. The fact that both these bands became really successful (well, as successful as extreme metal can be ) must've been really nice for the record companies. This is in my opinion a far worse screw-over that any pirate can ever do to anyone.

This is the reason why any smart musician will establish their own production company as soon as they are famous enough, like Madonna did. Then you can retain all copyrights, publication rights and get 100% of the income.

Fortunately for musicians, modern technology, such as CD-R's, the internet and home studios are slowly eroding the almighty power of the recording labels. Signing a recording contract is no longer so absolutely necessary that it was a few decades ago. Some bands (Radiohead again) are even going back from being signed to being independent.


Now we're on the same wavelength

It seems that you have a difficult time realising that your particular friends may or may not be representative?

A friend of mine works at a petrol station, and tries to sell records of his own music. If more people purchased his records, he could pay his rent without working (that much) at the petrol station. True or false?

Is it immoral of him to hope for "the big break-thrugh", and hoping to make a living of music?


Is it "right" for me and you to judge his financial and musical approach to stardom, or should we simply aim for laws that are "fair" and wish him good luck?

-k