If someone wants to not release their stuff into the public domain, that is their choice.
I can see how you could look down upon greedy people or copyright lawyers… and you can look for alternatives. There is loads of free music, there is loads of ways to make your own.
“Everyone attaches a different meaning to recorded music depending on how they’re involved.” – that does not matter. Keep your attached values to yourself – I may not value life much, but that doesn’t allow me to take yours. Simple as that. It doesn’t matter how much YOU value it, it only matters how much the OWNER values it.
Copyright has good reason to exist and lots of cases where we want it to exist… that people signed away the rights to their creations to some greedy corporation who doesn’t, really care about the music, that is the problem, not the legal framework that allows them to do so. Just like a police state doesn’t mean police is a bad idea, just like bad laws or corrupt judges don’t mean that having laws is bad in principle.
what do you mean by “human nature”? being lazy, selfish and short-sighted, or the ability to be noble and rational, to learn by observation and most importantly reflection? you just say that as if everybody knows what exactly the “human nature” is… and most importantly, you’re basically saying “it’s easy, so it’s okay”. Have you ever been mugged or anything like that? (And no, I’m not actually trying to equate copying with “stealing”, I just find it sad how little thought goes into all of this, to me it’s painfully clear that the logic doesn’t hold up)
Take it easy man, I’m not here to put anybody down nor to tell people what to do. Yes, I’ve been in violent situations and have had items stolen (including my private and precious thoughts) and if I may add, so has my family, friends, and some neighbors that I know.
I’m not saying “it’s easy, so it’s okay”. If you want to read it that way, fine.
But now that I feel awkward for being read that way, I feel that i have to defend myself a little bit…
I’m saying it’s hard to create for example:
off topic: farming (months to years)
off topic: human life to the point of being able to sustain oneself (about 18 years here in states, by law that is)
on topic: making music (including learning how to, which actually is a lifetime process, and depending on how crafty and organized someone is, a day to years)
but it’s easy to consume for example:
off topic: eating and digesting (minutes to hours depending on one’s digestive system)
off topic: to destroy life (depends on how sick and twisted a person or nation is, less than a second to years)
on topic: downloading and stealing music (depending on how much a person is downloading, minutes to hours)
If anyone cares to read where I lay some foundations upon my one previous statement…
My point of view has some basis on Jungian ideas, specifically on “The dynamics of the psyche” and “principle of equivalence”… [edit: as well as some of my own, to stay on topic, on creating, consumption, and human nature] http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/jung.html
To add, my point of view on people not agreeing on the same thing has some basis on Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit” and professor Robert C. Solomon’s take on the play.
I was trying to stay on topic which includes audience from the initial topic start.
Well, yeah, the owner is included in “everyone”, unless a piece of music is private and not public.
Personally I’ve balanced my creative output so I compose music for me, for close friends, and the public. The actual value for me is placed in the joy that others receive from it, not that I don’t care for my own but I its cool when others like it and put their own value to it.
I’m attaching this clip for the purposes of humor and to also throw more wood to the fire since there are some comments left on this video that somewhat relate to the topic…
BotB - the article didn’t say when this shift occured but it seems about right as far as music is concerned.
(sorry for the late reply been busy).
Anyhow…
In the UK through the 90s, most of the succesfull independant labels were ‘bought’ by the majors.
(in actuality of course people are still fighting to control the means of production as well as distrobution - yay anarchy!- of course there is only strong parallels here rather than any real marxist revolution)
Like a few here have mentioned - vinyl record sales have increased over the years.
The reasons for this sales increase are numerous but 2 are particularly important. (aside from the DJ reason)
You cant download a nice big vinyl disc with large cover art etc, and people are buying something that they feel is worth the money.
CD’s were cheaper to manufacture than vinyl, the quality of them is debatable, it turns out they aren’t indestructable, they aren’t portable (particularly if we talk cd walkmen - rather useless)
The music industry pushes what they want to sell, rather than what the public want.
They’ll always suffer piracy - but in my town only one store sells music and it tends to be the top 20 albums and some golden oldies - i cant buy the music i like here and my tastes aren’t particularly esoteric)
Unfortunatly i think the major labels ate themselves - they missed the boat when the online revolution occured. My nearest independant record store is 20 miles south, or 70 miles north. I live in the Uk, and have to pass through many large towns (and small cities) to get to a major city.
Perhaps piracy has added to the decline of these independant shops - but high property rent charges and small mark ups from the major labels is a big issue here also.
The record industry could have been a ‘middle man’ between artist and customer (online) but they had other ideas (sell CDs- the internet will kill them)
Middle men have established themselves (itunes and many other online stores and artists direct).
The majors really have fumbled the ball.
For some reason they think they have a god given right to sell all the music.
Thats a good enough reason to raise a two fingered salute to them.
Unfortunatly in this struggle many artists are losing out - but hey - theres lots of artists happy to sell online and they are making some good hard cash.
there is no issue or debate imho its fiat paper money and even discussing it promotes bullshit . Hollywood the music industry its all bullshit if you want to believe in or support the so called music industry, the magic of Disney or other rubbish created to manipulate and control culture i wish you the best of luck.
Laughable spin you put on that with the dj thing, who said anything about that? What part of “spinning someone elses records and shouting silly shit” is creation of art? You are in fact reinforcing my argument with that comment…you must be a bit of a moron - or maybe english as a second language? Is there something you didnt understand there?
And just how does a book - a physical thing - compare with a recording; data - a re-creation that takes away nothing from the original? Further to that, something that the original creator(s) did not have to put any work or effort into making available. I make the same argument with books, if they really care about what they’re saying they’ll say it regardless of whether they get paid; nonfiction doesnt apply here as its more a scientific/academic endeavour than an artistic one - One is work, one is play; one is for the advancement of the human consciousness, one is for entertainment alone. Plus it’s not like we’re talking about stealing books from a bookshop.
Now lets look at the other side - what right do a bunch of politicians have to tell people what to do with the data they have gone to the effort of collecting? Where is the recognition of effort for the people who have made it available to others? People going against copyright legislation are just not paying the toll and making another road, not stealing a physical thing - or skipping the tollgate, to keep it within the metaphor. By YOUR logic, me remembering a book and reciting lines to someone is breaking the exact same rules. Taking credit for it is another thing, but thats exactly what I’m referring to when saying the artists should stfu and be happy people want to listen to it - they get all the kudos they had coming either way, the cash on the side is just another golden handshake for the “beautiful people”.
Its a matter of physics. If I can make a copy of something without them losing from it, then thats my prerogative, and its that old “if a tree falls in the woods” theory. The only reason they care is because they know about it. This is not a political argument I am making, but a logical one.
Also I’m insulted that you pidgeonhole every artist as a moneygrabber wanting to make a profit from their creations. I would return to sender any money given to me for my artistry and just thank them for listening. I work for my living, thanks very much. My art is an expression, and I want no more money for that than I do having a conversation. How can it even be art if you’re doing it for money? That’s more of a supply and demand thing, and if thats the case its exactly as I said earlier, and part of the advertising industry.
I would argue that once you let the cat out of the bag: there it is. Once you have made it, its yours and yours alone until its out there, and then it belongs collectively to whoever has it, regardless of how it was aquired. Logic please, keep your politics in a separate spectrum if you wish to be taken seriously.
Its a politician that tells you that you “own” a string of data once you’ve made it. In reality, you are not the OWNER, but the CREATOR. Pull your head out of the sand.
Usually I listen to music with services like last.fm or shoutcast-streams (preferrably hhuk, di, trancebase) and that works fine with me.
I love the stuff from several netlabels and of course teh songz-area here in the board is a never ending source of great music.
But there were times when I had more than 500 Gb of music from unknown sources. Now, my mp3-folder is around 10 Gbyte and most of the stuff is from the forementioned renoise-board or ripped by myself.
If your art is widely respected and requested enough that you can devote your time to it, than it is worth the money. Usually art costs a lot of time and doesn’t pay much.
I know some sculpture artists that generate lots of different stuff and ask piles of money for it… but they also travel around the world to get the materials, like real gold artifacts from a family inheritage by a family from India. Not only does that costs a pile of money to purchase it from the family, you also have to pay government agencies for export licenses to get legal custom clearance for that.
Not all folks consider how much effort and time and money is stuffed into art and consider it easy to make. You have a few of those lunatics though → lunatics who buy paintings from tramps for thousands of dollars because they think it is worth it while all the painting consists of are some solvent street paint mixed with beer-remainants.
But not all art is created that simple and that cheap.
If you get a lot of requests for your work and you can devote your time to it: just do it! No better things in life than having a dream-job.
Getting payed for your art is also a token of respect from your audience and that is a thing we all have to earn somehow. Just ditch the agent and publishers… they are only useful if you can’t do the mass production and distribution, but i think it remains fun if the financial token of respect stays at a level that you can enjoy your life with it and do not need to press millions of copies of your art.
It ain’t fun having so much money that you won’t be able to spend in your remaining lifetime.
I get the feeling most of what I’m saying is lost in translation
Fair enough, but what has that got to do with what I said? The point is that if your motivation for making art is money, then you are in it for the wrong reasons, and in fact working against what is truly artistic in my oppinion. If you’ve got something to express, you won’t care whether people are paying you or not; the motivation will be in being received, not in receiving funds.
I think its a bit naive to assume musicians (as is the particular topic of art being discussed) are in such demand that the big business end of town comes begging for peoples work… theres always a grind for the artist(s) at trying to gain popularity - the self promotion stage - that preceeds any demand for their music…and please don’t try and tell me people self promote in such a way without thinking about money first and foremost, thats just over the top…Not to mention the fact that you draw upon the example of a one off item. Tell me how it’s even possible to pirate a sculpture… enlighten me…
Well, perhaps that is the beauty of sculpturing, not the right example however for paintings from bigger masters, there are folks that have mastered the excellent art of forgery in world famous art paintings.
They also make big money with that…Even in legal aspect. (if the buyer knows he is buying a fake repaint)
Now that is an interesting part… almost comes close to the Common Creatives that allows commercial reuse of music… perhaps now we are somewhere back on topic again…
I would say we’re so far off topic its all but lost… now we’re talking about recreating something. As far as I recall, this wasn’t about cover bands (closest relevent thing to what you’re talking about)
for instance a much larger scale, depending what you would believe, they still didn’t randomly commission Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel.
and now at the lowest level of art, it is still work, is this work sanctioned off into frivolous endeavors?
no, it is a piece of work developed as a social & cultural experience, deserving monetary gain to a capable artist.
Again I fail to see a valid comparison. The closest this can be is a metaphor, but a metaphor to what exactly? Where do you drive this point back to music? Sporting achievement is quite measurable as in any competition, whereas art is a matter of pure personal oppinion, and as such is as easily influenced as any other uninformed opinion with regards to the general public (ie, those without a vested interest in artistic endeavour). Also, with regards to knowing what one is worth… Allow me to digress to illustrate a point: Through no will of my own, where I work the radio is permanently tuned to the latest “pop” tunes, and I can say without a shadow of doubt in my mind, from both a technical and creative standpoint, there is nothing new nor particularly skillful about anything being pushed by the major labels other than perhaps the attention to detail given to the mix and master (at least here in Australia. Forgive me for not really understanding the EU scene, as it is quite literally foreign to me )
It consists almost entirely of the same old lyrical content of sexual inuendo auto-tuned over the top of a standard pop beat, almost always using as much as they can get away with in terms of what I regard as “stealing” from an older popular song’s riff/tune/base song structure without actually breaching copyright, but close enough that it blurrs the memory of the original song. Furthermore, often enough they are selling out and out remakes of older songs. This is not artistic in any sense as there is no real individual expression, and yet these things are what the “major’s” bread and butter consists of. I could go on and on about how “unartistic” this is, but the real point, and the shame of it all, is that people trying to push the boundaries of what is new and creative are stifled under this mass-marketting machine’s heft, and digression aside, the people being paid the most for their music at the moment are the people who bring very little to the table artistically, so I believe the system of talent/reward is fundamentally broken in this day and age (at least, in my own environment, in my own healthily informed oppinion. I’m not totally naive, even if I have trouble convincing you lot otherwise)
I guess what my argument will really boil down to under pressure is that the stuff they are trying to prevent us from obtaining for free is crass, not worthy of mass-publishing in the first instance - let alone defending the copyrights of - and that the “real” art is usually free to begin with these days, as those artists more often than not get enough of a buzz out of just being heard, so I say fuck the major labels and all they stand for, let em go down with the ship they captained.
I might be missing a point or two that links my whole argument together - please forgive me - I’m a few shots of rum in tonight Before you attempt to shoot me down, question me and allow me to retort soberly
I just realized… I stopped downloading music illegally 2 years ago. Currently actually buying the applications and plugins I use thoroughly, just like the music I thoroughly listen to. I pay for it. The only thing I download illegally is porn. I aint paying a fucking dime for porn.
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