The great music copyright debate.

[CskaTorpedo]

Music should cost so much only people who are in a certian tax bracket should be able to buy it.

Popular music should be the only music with a voice.

It's okay for a record company to pay the makers of their "products" a few cents, reselling it at a huge markup.

You should always do what society tells you to, because it's history has proven that it has never made mistakes (slavery, segregation, supremecy).

Whatever you do, don't think for yourselves, go on the internet and complain about piracy because you have been told by GIANT companies that run "robot music farms" that you are good if you spend an hour or two of your pay on one CD, and you are evil if you stole it on the internet.

Something will change, will it be the imprisonment of poor people who can't afford the cost of entertainment? Will the penalty for "stealing music" be simular to manslaughter?

[whyterabbyt]

dystonia_ek quoth
That's an important issue - there's never been a better time for musicians to strategically USE these new media and new paradigms to further autonomy and creative freedom.

(BTW quoting dystonia, but responding generally, not specifically to him...)

I agree. But why should people who dont use these things be penalised as a side-effect. Why should people who, for whatever reason, want their copyright and distribution protected have to just accept it? As I've said before, the main reason I find for people downloading music is so they dont have to pay for it. They want something for nothing; its greed. Now, whatever the possible benefits of the media or whatever for the artist, its this greed is actually what drives most of these 'consumers'. Why should we accept the greed, but fail to respect the wishes of those artists?


What I'm interested in, is how this shapes people's perceptions of entitlement. They want, and therefore get, all their 'soft' entertainment for free. But they still seem happy to pay (a lot, in many cases) for the 'hardware' to use it. For now. But that sense of 'entitlement' - what does that lead to? Girl turns a guy down so he reckons he can rape her because it doesnt cost her anything? Hasnt unchecked greed already f**ked this planet and its people up quite enough already?
Yes, I know some people buy what they download. But Im pretty damn sure they're in a shrinking minority. Most people, IMO, are after something for nothing. And they're just as likely to ignore what they're given for nothing because its not 'worth' as much as something which actually had an RRP. Explain that one to me...

Every new technology that takes control out of the hands of the corporations and governments and puts it in the hands of artists and their audiences is immediately and methodically stigmatised by the industry. Normally the creative people tend to be the radical innovators, and it surprises me that so many slaves are rushing to defend their masters in this debate.

But that hasnt actually been the case. Not with printers and desktop publishing for example.

Online music is generally distributed in lossy formats that renders it less appealing to serious audiophiles - myself included. The fact is that only a very small number of artists actually make 100% of their incomes from music - you'd be amazed at how many indie artists still have day jobs - and many of those that do are living quite marginally. The ones who do better have either reached a certain plateau in terms of music and merchandise sales (thus enabling them to get out of debt to their label and management, the single greatest obstacle to actually making any money at all in this business) and concert attendance (and tours, if well planned and not too heavily budgeted, are generally more profitable for musicians than record sales), or alternately have liscenced music for use in cinema, television or commercials (where the royalties are enormously more generous).

What happens, though, when bandwidth goes up and people start downloading the CD's, downloading the T-shirt designs and taking them to the local copy-shop. Or taking your album and using it for a soundtrack anyway. They downloaded it, so its free, right? Or maybe they'll just go to the website of some east asian or russian or canadian bootlegger congolmerate who churns out anything you want for $5 per item. If there's a buck to be made, someone will step in to make it, and if that means paying some lawyer $1000 bucks to say some mysterious client of theirs wrote the soundtrack and that your album rips them off, thus saving them the $5000 in licensing fees, then do you think that wont start happening?
If greed is good, and copyright is up for grabs, then I reckon pretty soon someone is going to muscle in on all the 'action' in some way, and the artists are just going to see more and more of their revenue opportunities hijacked from under them by people who want something for nothing. f**k it, if Moby releases your album under his name next week its you who are screwed. His lawyers and record company are bigger than yours, and hey, it doesnt matter cos you reckon anyone should download what they want anyways....

After all, if you're not going to protect one aspect of copyright for other people, then why would you expect any other part of copyright to be given any credence whatsoever?

[whyterabbyt]

CskaTorpedo quoth Music should cost so much only people who are in a certian tax bracket should be able to buy it.

Or maybe music should be so cheap noone can use the excuse 'I couldnt afford it'

Popular music should be the only music with a voice.

Or maybe popular music should be eradicated completely.

It's okay for a record company to pay the makers of their "products" a few cents, reselling it at a huge markup.

Just the same as it being okay for someone to pay the artists nothing for the 'product' they wanted.

You should always do what society tells you to, because it's history has proven that it has never made mistakes (slavery, segregation, supremecy).

And if large numbers of people in a society tell you "we're entitled to what we want for nothing" (just like slave labour) then that means it isnt a mistake either.

Whatever you do, don't think for yourselves, go on the internet and complain about piracy because you have been told by GIANT companies that run "robot music farms" that you are good if you spend an hour or two of your pay on one CD, and you are evil if you stole it on the internet.

Alternately, don't think for yourself, go on the internet and say piracy is okay because you have decided that that you are evil if you spend an hour or two of your pay on one CD made by some struggling artist on his own label, and you are a lackey of the international companies if you dont want to see it stolen it on the internet. And you're a great and wonderful person for denying that artist any choice in the matter, just because you wanted it for free.

Something will change, will it be the imprisonment of poor people who can't afford the cost of entertainment? Will the penalty for "stealing music" be simular to manslaughter?

Something will change, will it be the disapparance of small artists who can't afford the cost of making entertainment? Will the penalty for "making music" be similar to penury?

[kaden]

So we go back to a situation where a reliance on the ability to 'perform' rules out a large swathe of people who's creativity can't fit into that realm? Im not a musician. I cant 'play' what I create, but I can create it. So how on earth do I 'make money performing'. Isn't that reviving the 'muso elitism' that computers were suposed to have freed us from??

The business model the music industry is based on has made live performance (and the vending of merch therein) the primary source of income for musicians. If you want to make money as a musician, and if that's the business model you want to participate in, don't start griping that it's elitist because they expect you to be able to perform live. It's their game, and they are a huge, inertia laden anachronistic monolith. Bedroom producers, regardless of how skilled, are just another dollop of demographic knocking at their door whinging "I made a song...I wanna be rich tooooo". If you don't have all the skills *they* expect you to bring to *their* game, don't complain.

K

[whyterabbyt]

kaden quoth

The business model the music industry is based on has made live performance (and the vending of merch therein) the primary source of income for musicians. If you want to make money as a musician, and if that's the business model you want to participate in, don't start griping that it's elitist because they expect you to be able to perform live. It's their game, and they are a huge, inertia laden anachronistic monolith. Bedroom producers, regardless of how skilled, are just another dollop of demographic knocking at their door whinging "I made a song...I wanna be rich tooooo". If you don't have all the skills *they* expect you to bring to *their* game, don't complain.

Ah right. Someone proposes that the best way to make a living if you want to avoid signing to a record company is to play live. And that you have to forego your revenue from CD's these days and just acceptthat you now have no choice but to 'promote' yourself via 'viral marketing' (courtesy of downloads.
And so I say that's not actually possible for people who couldnt play live, and you do what? Say that that's yet another artefact of the music industry, so they're stuffed that way as well? Say that you have to buy into the game no matter what? I thought the point was about not doing that, about finding another way to do it.
You're saying that there are no alternatives. You're saying that people have no choice but to accept their music wont make any rvenue, and that they've got no chance to make revenue.
Great. Thanks for your positive contribution to changing the industry for the better - "accept it and stop whining".

[kaden]

What I'm saying is 'Build a fanbase, then sell stuff to them'. How you choose to do that is up to you, but it's a lot easier when you're a performer.

K

[dystonia_ek]

kaden quoth

The business model the music industry is based on has made live performance (and the vending of merch therein) the primary source of income for musicians. If you want to make money as a musician, and if that's the business model you want to participate in, don't start griping that it's elitist because they expect you to be able to perform live. It's their game, and they are a huge, inertia laden anachronistic monolith. Bedroom producers, regardless of how skilled, are just another dollop of demographic knocking at their door whinging "I made a song...I wanna be rich tooooo". If you don't have all the skills *they* expect you to bring to *their* game, don't complain.

Ah right. Someone proposes that the best way to make a living if you want to avoid signing to a record company is to play live. And that you have to forego your revenue from CD's these days and just acceptthat you now have no choice but to 'promote' yourself via 'viral marketing' (courtesy of downloads.
And so I say that's not actually possible for people who couldnt play live, and you do what? Say that that's yet another artefact of the music industry, so they're stuffed that way as well? Say that you have to buy into the game no matter what? I thought the point was about not doing that, about finding another way to do it.
You're saying that there are no alternatives. You're saying that people have no choice but to accept their music wont make any rvenue, and that they've got no chance to make revenue.
Great. Thanks for your positive contribution to changing the industry for the better - "accept it and stop whining".

First of all, there are whole genres of (technically) non-musicians who play live, and do fine.
Second, the whole point is that you don't have to buy in. Start your own label, manage everything yourself. It's not that difficult to become self-sustaining, and accessible to any reasonably determined person, in the first world anyway.
Thirdly, this debate is dragged repeatedly back to economics, which is not really the primary issue - I'm willing to imagine that human music began somewhat before the development of monolithic, codified economic systems. Seen from a standpoint a little further back, the economic frameworks that are being used as a coathanger for MORAL judgements here are very much relative to time, culture and geography (as is the implied morality). All of this makes it difficult to establish any sort of neutral ground to be able to see the issues rationally.
Fourthly, why not just do away with the industry altogether rather than reforming it? Or is that too radical a proposition even for the self-proclaimed leftists, anarchists and libertarians to deal with?

Wish I could develop this debate in more depth but I have to go out for the rest of the day - my viewpoint is not as extremist as it appears. I suggest checking the free music phil. link I posted earlier and thinking very carefully about it, preferably outside the western capitalist economic frame of mind.

[munchkin]

Perhaps it's worth considering why people download music. What is the psychology that has led millions of people to ignore copyright and freely share music?

1. Previewing music.
I d/l so I can hear what the musician/band is like. I might hear a track on the radio or TV advert and want to find out more about the band. Rather than travel to HMV/Virgin (both a couple of miles away and I work full time.) I use the internet to audition music. If I don't like it I never listen to it again. If I like it I buy it on CD. I've always listened to other peoples LP's/CD's, the radio and TV before buying music so this is how I've developed my music collection over the years. I imagine other share for this reason.

2. Contradictory messages.
On the one hand, music is advertised where ever we go - on TV, in pubs and clubs, supermarkets and on the radio. We are virtually brainwashed into viewing music as part of every moment in life and as a throw away commodity. CD's full of music are given away for the price of a magazine or a weekend newspaper. The labels treat music and musicians as makers of money rather than music. They freely re-use (sample) and re-distribute music in many forms at completely contradictory prices. They rip off musicians by paying low wages and then charge the public high prices. Bootlegs and white labels are encouraged by the majors so that a hype is built up without them having to spend any cash. Then the majors market the white labels and bootlegs if they catch on.

Yet, on the other hand we're lectured on the sanctity of copyright. If the majors set up these contradictions is it any wonder that when all of this contradictory information is processed by people they interpret it in different ways? The majors are the architect of there own problems.

Example:
Boney M's, 'Rasputin' is given away on a CD of disco hits by the Sun. It's also available on a Boney M CD for £14.99, a 70's compilation for £4.99 and is downloadable from iTunes for 99p in the UK and 79p in the rest of the EU. Part of 'Rasputin' is used in someone else's song. The copyright has been owned and licenced by a variety of labels during the life of the song. This is just one example of how contradictory the whole issue of pricing and copyright appears to be.

3. Collecting.
People share because they want to build a collection. The music isn't the issue it's the collecting that interests this group.

4. Lack of money.
People who don't live in the affluent West will share because the music is completely out of their price range. If they have access to a computer and internet then they have the opportunity to live up to the promotional hype of the record labels.

5. Peer pressure.
Having the latest tracks to play to your friends is very important to many young people. They can't afford to buy everything. So instead of taping each others LP's as we did when I was a teenager they d/l them. This doesn't mean that they don't buy what they can afford just like I used to buy LP's and singles when I had the cash rather than copy them on tape.

It's no use telling people not to be greedy or telling them that it's tough if they can't afford to buy music. Just because there is a law against it. There are laws against drugs but that doesn't stop people using them. The 'Just Say No' response has been proven not to work. That's why many governments are using other ways to influence social behaviour rather than punative methods. I think it's time that record labels realised this and acted accordingly.

[herodotus]

Wish I could develop this debate in more depth but I have to go out for the rest of the day - my viewpoint is not as extremist as it appears. I suggest checking the free music phil. link I posted earlier and thinking very carefully about it, preferably outside the western capitalist economic frame of mind.

WHAT???? GO OUT???? HOW DARE YOU?

[shamann]

So we go back to a situation where a reliance on the ability to 'perform' rules out a large swathe of people who's creativity can't fit into that realm? Im not a musician. I cant 'play' what I create, but I can create it. So how on earth do I 'make money performing'. Isn't that reviving the 'muso elitism' that computers were suposed to have freed us from??

But the fallacy in the argument is that non-performing musicians make much money from just selling recordings. Think about all the electronic musicians you know. How many make a living just selling CDs, without performing publically at all, whether its installation work, DJ work, or traditional live performance? Personally, I don't know any. Those that don't perform always have alternate means of income. Besides, if you restrict to non-commercial use, you can still go about earning money from licensing. I know some people who have done music for television and make ridiculous amounts of money compared to effort put in.

Thats fine if thats what an individual want to do, but why should they effectively be forced to give up those rights because most people are getting too greedy to pay for the bulk of their music collections any more?

I don't advocate they be forced. No one has to do anything in this. But I think not coming up with new methods of copyright management, not allowing listeners certain freedoms is damaging and based entirely on selfish needs. You don't have to change, but I don't have to hold my tongue. That's it.

It also comes down to the relationship you wish to have with your audience. Would you prefer to have hostile relationship where you try to outline 100% the way it's going to be, or would you rather seek a more amicable, communal route? You can't steal a gift after all.

Sure someone is always going to try to rip you off somewhere, but restrictive copyright hasn't stopped that, and personally I don't need the grief of round-the-clock enforcement.

[munchkin]

I just thought of a possible way round all this. It's probably been thought of before but here goes:

What if IP connection fees included a portion of money that went to musicians? Humour me on this one because I know there are lots of pit-falls.

I currently pay £30/month for a 4mb/s connection. This is quite high cost compared to some countries but it's dictated in some part by BT's control of the exchanges.

If my IP connection fee included free access to music to download then I would be free to copy any music I liked and share it with others while still paying royalties.

This would only work if IP's and record labels could come up with an affordable model that rolled out univerally. A big task to fullfill but not completely impossible. Even if this model was limited to the West it would mean that record companies would recoup some lost revenue. Whether the musicians would see any of this money is a different story. How distribution of these royalties would occur is something that needs to be worked out.

There are already sites where a monthly fee is paid for unlimited music downloads. Connection speeds are getting faster. Internet 2 is on the horizon. Streaming of large files is now possible for some people. Unless companies selling media such as music embrace this technology then they will lose out in the long term to companies that change with the times.

I think this could work if IP's and record labels lowered their profit margins. In other words limit the extent of their greed (just to get on the moralistic bandwagon for a moment. )

[shamann]

What if IP connection fees included a portion of money that went to musicians?

The question though is which musicians would get the money?

In Canada, there's a tax on blank recording media that in theory is supposed to go to musicians, but it doesn't. Gets handed to songwriter organizations or labels or lawyers, mostly it just sits in trust somewhere.

[munchkin]

What if IP connection fees included a portion of money that went to musicians?

The question though is which musicians would get the money?

In Canada, there's a tax on blank recording media that in theory is supposed to go to musicians, but it doesn't. Gets handed to songwriter organizations or labels or lawyers, mostly it just sits in trust somewhere.

I accept what you say but unless a way forward is found this issue will remain a stalemate. If there's a will to change then it has to come from all players - the record labels, musicians, consumers and anyone else involved in this process.

Perhaps, there could be an independent collecting agency that musicians could join. Anyone who wants to sell their music can join and receive a proportion of the money collected by IP's. It could be distributed on an equal basis.

At the moment a small percentage of musicians receive obscene amounts of money for their music (considering that they get just a tiny % of all revenue imagine how much the record label receives!) Well perhaps it's time this changed. Why should the value of one musicians music be disproportionately higher than anothers? Why should record labels decide and control what music is saleable?

[kaden]

Why should the value of one musicians music be disproportionately higher than anothers?

Because that's what *someone* is willing to pay. Labels, punters, whoever.

Why should record labels decide and control what music is saleable?

Because they're guys who sell music.

They have a lot of customers, and they have no interest in changing.

You only need them if you wanna be a 'Star'. If you wanna be a 'working musician', you can do it all by yourself. Notice the word 'working'. It's a job.

The key to successful self employment is to understand your market, and understand your competitors.

Your biggest competition is 'The Industry'. They're crooks, and no one likes them. Their business model revolves around licensing and controlling the usage of music. This is why they are crooks, and why no one likes them.

Your market is people who like your music and want to give you money. Remember...these people are *currently* buying music from crooks they don't like. ANY reasonable alternative is gonna look good to them.

Now, get a lot of people to like your music, and give them a reason to give you money.

There are countless ways to achieve this. None of them are easy.

K

[dystonia_ek]

Wish I could develop this debate in more depth but I have to go out for the rest of the day - my viewpoint is not as extremist as it appears. I suggest checking the free music phil. link I posted earlier and thinking very carefully about it, preferably outside the western capitalist economic frame of mind.

WHAT???? GO OUT???? HOW DARE YOU?