Should Music Be FREE????

[stefancrs]

Then the artist/studio etc really has no "right" to be paid per copy, since the cost isn't per copy, but a one time cost. Plus, the system today is a result of the current copyright laws, and hence can't justify the laws. The majority of the costs involved in getting music on the market is because of the copyright laws. Almost no record label contracted musicians get paid for their music.

An interesting read about the current system:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/

So are you saying that an artist should only be paid a one off fee for their works when it is agreed that it should be released rather than by sales?

If so who or what pays the originating costs to allow for the music to then be distributed freely if that what in an ideal world you would like to happen.

To be honest I like the logic of your idea but it won't work in the real world.

Most artists don't earn money from record sales. Yet they can earn money from their music. The current system is kindof unnatural and made up, we put material values to non material stuff. Not saying that I have some other solution though

[DWb]

Most artists don't earn money from record sales. Yet they can earn money from their music. The current system is kindof unnatural and made up, we put material values to non material stuff.

What we have at the moment is certainly unnatural - it's a legal compromise to encourage people to produce new stuff (by allowing them to levy copyright) while still giving the public as much free music as possible (by making it finite term.) Although I think that at the moment this is in the process of being dicked on by big business so they can keep making money off their old stuff and never have to do anything new, it does mean that (for instance) you can freely distribute Bach and Beethoven sheet music.

I don't know if anyone's started making super-early wax cylinder recordings freely available digitally yet, that might be interesting...

[rockstar_not]

I emphatically clicked the 'No' radio button as a vote, but with this contradictory statement.

Of course music should be free. You are free to hear it in your head. You are free to create what you hear in your head for others to hear, for free if you wish.

There are times I feel honored to pay someone for music that they have created because it has blessed my life so much.

I wish I could meet and pay Beethoven for 'Für Elise', Hildegard von Bingen for her entire series of chants, Sibelius for 'Finlandia', Holst for 'The Planets' (particularly Jupiter and Mars), Bob Marley for making reggae known, Keith Moon for making rock and roll drums kick serious rear end, Miles Davis for defining cool attitude through a series of frequency changes, etc.

I'm not talking about paying into estates - I mean looking them in the eye and handing over cash as my gift of thanks. Or at least ask them, eye-to-eye, what they would prefer as an expression of thanks and then being able to provide that. Money is an easy way to help that along.

When you hear a piece of music that sends that chill up and down your spine and makes you think "That was a gift from God", then ask yourself the same question as to whether music should be free of payment.

-Scott

[glurgle]

they have DWb, but I've lost the bookmark for it. I feel that musicians should not be so determined to make money off recordings. A band I spend money on is a band that has played in or around my city. If I don't like the music or already have it, I'll buy a shirt. The point is the same as stefancrs' though: I don't feel it's right to pay a record label for something their artist played a couple years ago in a studio thousands of miles away.

[BERFAB]

I emphatically clicked the 'No' radio button as a vote, but with this contradictory statement.

Of course music should be free. You are free to hear it in your head. You are free to create what you hear in your head for others to hear, for free if you wish.

There are times I feel honored to pay someone for music that they have created because it has blessed my life so much.

I wish I could meet and pay Beethoven for 'Für Elise', Hildegard von Bingen for her entire series of chants, Sibelius for 'Finlandia', Holst for 'The Planets' (particularly Jupiter and Mars), Bob Marley for making reggae known, Keith Moon for making rock and roll drums kick serious rear end, Miles Davis for defining cool attitude through a series of frequency changes, etc.

I'm not talking about paying into estates - I mean looking them in the eye and handing over cash as my gift of thanks. Or at least ask them, eye-to-eye, what they would prefer as an expression of thanks and then being able to provide that. Money is an easy way to help that along.

When you hear a piece of music that sends that chill up and down your spine and makes you think "That was a gift from God", then ask yourself the same question as to whether music should be free of payment.

-Scott

Well said. 'Nuff said.

-B

[shamann]

I don't know if anyone's started making super-early wax cylinder recordings freely available digitally yet, that might be interesting...

University of California, Santa Barbara Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project.

[Ford Prefect]

Freedom/freeness is relative...free how? free from its current constraints? I ask 5 people their definition of free...I only get the same answer from 2 if they are japanese(severe cultural/educational homogeneity)...even that's no guarantee...the first step is humanity breaking free of the capatalism paradigm...but because most of us only know what we experience, especially within the bounds of our "education"...we probably can't define freedom in terms of anything else...we have trouble visualizing living any other way still trapped by our filters...for example in terms of how relative in can be...if one is very spiritual in holding to the concept that there is a divine song of the universe we are only able to experience uninhibited before we are born and after we sublime and that every attemp at making music is an effort to join/reach/taste that song again...how the f**k can something like that have a pricetag...yeah? I mean...the way we live now makes no sense really anyway...a bottle of cocacola is cheaper than a bottle of clean water! If we were all doing more to help eachother rather than hoarding information, technology, real history, etc...we'd all be happier, healthier, and on the next level of existence humanity has the potential for...rather than swimming in the cesspool of greed, selfishness, and shit we're in now...People have to survive...and as long as we're under the current system, there are needs that need to be filled...people have to be payed for their work...but things are changing so fast we may be lucky enough to see the next great shift in our lifetimes...separating your music from your tools, how materialistic are you about your gear? The answer to that should put alot in perspective for any of us...

[Holistic Ska Guy]

Cash itself is owned by private companies. Cash is a promise to pay the bearer on demand a particular sum of money, which does not exist. Money is, if anything, a false promise that goods and services will be transfered from one place to another, in exchange for other, unspecified goods and services.

Everything should be 'free'. Money can be demonstrated to be holding back civilisation itself. Relatively few people starve because of poor soil. 'Economic pressure' forces farmers to grow cash crops for export. Medical science is held back by inadequate, short-sighted funding in a system where money is more important than life itself. We burn fossil fuels and cut down trees and force people to die in order for a privileged elite to make 'money'.

Music, like all things, SHOULD be free, unfortunately while idiots rule the world, it can't be.

You should try getting off the dole and earning your money until you have a bit more than needed for macaroni and weed - you may feel differently. What a (usual) load of sophomoric shit.

your HSG.

[Holistic Ska Guy]

"Medical Science is held back"...god, you just shake your head. I f**king HATE how many bone-stupid people hang out here!

Thinking of starting my own non-stupid music forum, where I'd ban shitheads like Tristan instantly,

your HSG

[mellotronaut]

I emphatically clicked the 'No' radio button as a vote, but with this contradictory statement.

Of course music should be free. You are free to hear it in your head. You are free to create what you hear in your head for others to hear, for free if you wish.

There are times I feel honored to pay someone for music that they have created because it has blessed my life so much.

I wish I could meet and pay Beethoven for 'Für Elise', Hildegard von Bingen for her entire series of chants, Sibelius for 'Finlandia', Holst for 'The Planets' (particularly Jupiter and Mars), Bob Marley for making reggae known, Keith Moon for making rock and roll drums kick serious rear end, Miles Davis for defining cool attitude through a series of frequency changes, etc.

I'm not talking about paying into estates - I mean looking them in the eye and handing over cash as my gift of thanks. Or at least ask them, eye-to-eye, what they would prefer as an expression of thanks and then being able to provide that. Money is an easy way to help that along.

When you hear a piece of music that sends that chill up and down your spine and makes you think "That was a gift from God", then ask yourself the same question as to whether music should be free of payment.

-Scott

Thanks Scott! There is nothing to add, I think...that's it!

Mellohappy

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

FISH FISH FISH!

Where's the damn FISH OPTION??

[emdot_ambient]

The current system is kindof unnatural and made up, we put material values to non material stuff.

I work in a major corporation as a database analyst. As such, I produce nothing material. But I receive a salary for my time, effort and creative thought. Yet by your logic, I should not get paid. This idea that electronic media is not material, and thus, has no monetary value is total crap. The "unnatural" quality you're referring to is essentially the idea that work, effort and creative thought are valuless since they produce nothing material. I've seen several people on KVR claim that no one can own a thought, therefore the idea of "intellectual property" is bogus. That's so patently wrong. If I have a thought and I choose not to express it, write it down, or use it to create something, then that thought is withheld from everyone else in the world--I have control over it. That is the essense of ownership: possession, the ability to choose what to do or not to do with something. I agree that the current business model for music distribution is hopelessly antiquated and flawed, but the facts remains, people want to consume music, they value it. And making music takes skill, time, effort and economic resources. As such, those who create it deserve to be paid for their work.

I graduated from college with an art degree. When people at work found that out, they started asking me to do art for work projects. I said, "Fine. How much are you going to pay me?" They looked at me like I was nuts, then told me they weren't going to pay me anything for it. So I told them, "Well, since the art obviously isn't worth anything to you, I see no reason to spend my time doing it." I feel the same way about music. If you aren't willing to pay for music, then I hope you get what you pay for.

[odo]

i don't think music should be free but pay 40 to 60 $ for a cd NO
i'll spent it on a VST and make some music my self

[lucasherrero]

I think music needs to be free (it seems like today it is) but musicians have to be paid. Who pays? The record labels who do their money with alternatives ways to do it: call it merchandising, events, publicity...I don't how a Label works, but I think this can be a solution.
Good Topic

[odo]

they have to be payed thats true