Should Music Be FREE????

[TristanWilliams]

I can't believe I got suckered into a political rant in KVR... Damn you all!

[Reverse Engineer]

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.

Mr. Engineer
21 Street St.
Glasgow
G22 3FS

Please let me carry the burden of any monies you may have by sending them to the address above, i may not deserve this punishment, but i'll bestow it upon myself nonetheless, if you're willing to allow me?

[stevieb19]

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.

Oh come on this is getting silly now

Look I don't mind having a discussion about alternative lifestyles\ideologies but lets all to stay on the same planet please.

Commercialism is here to stay and has been with us since cilvilisation began and probably before.

Even before money there was the barter system so you still paid for things in the long run.

To bring this back on topic

If you brought a minstral to your village in the middle ages and asked him to play you would still have to provide goods, services or money as reward for his services.

[bro. miles]

If musicians are free, as in they live in a country where there is a free market, then whoever wants to be a musician can make whatever music they like. They are free to sell it however they like, and if they can sell it to enough people, because the people are free to choose, then the musician can make enough money to support his or her family, maybe even wealthy enough to have luxuries. This means the musician must be free to own his music and sell it, possibly through a company that sells CDs or concert tickets. For this to work the musician must own the music (via copyrights). This is the capitalist system.

Now if the music i.e. the MP3 or CD or live performance is free to the public, this means the musician must work for free. He must do something else to feed his or her family. No company signs him to a recording contract since they make no money. No concerts, those cost a lot to put on for free. Maybe the musician can beg on the street corner while he plays. This is called Anarchy. It is a place where there is unrestricted filesharing and no copyrights.

Then we have the option for "if so and so rules The State." Let's call this person The King, but he could be the Party Leader or The Dictator too. The King can say all music is free to the public. Guess who gets to decide who can be a musician and what the music will sound like? Let's say The King likes Britney Spears. All music must sound like Britney Spears and only musicians who look and sound like Britney can be musicians. Guess also who gets to work at the widget factory so The King can have money to pay Britney and her clones? In this system, The King is free to dictate what you listen to, Britney gets paid, and the MP3s, CDs, and concerts are free. All other musicians work for The King doing whatever The King wants, like making more widgets. This is the Totalitarian State a.k.a the Communist System a.k.a. Monarchy. Under this only the kind of music _you_ don't like is free, and _you_ are not free to be a musician.

In between the first two is where we are now. Genres whose customers pay (Rap, Country, and Christian) grow. Those genres whose customers don't pay (Electronica, Rock, Pop, Metal) shrink.

Voting here is pointless. Vote with your dollars in the marketplace for the music you like by paying the artist (and his record company). Vote at the P2P network for unpaid musicians. Vote at the ballot box for what kind of economic system and laws you want. You are free to decide.

[whyterabbyt]

This is called Anarchy.

Wrong.

[RoyNoahJones]

/me is waiting for the next polls

Should musicians be paid
Should murders be punished
...

[BRIGGS]

I think it depends on the audience preference and quality of the music...

Iow, supply and demand

basic economics

Briggs

[RoyNoahJones]

I can't believe I got suckered into a political rant in KVR... Damn you all!

Haha...

Well even if you got point on a good phylosophical intention, sorry to say but that's an utopia.
Unless you're fortunate enough to spend your time entertaining yourself and giving the output for free.

Well for some people, even if music was free, that's not a guarantee that they'd find an audience .

ciao

[Sepheritoh]

I knew I would get into trouble when I posted that "communist was good for music" post. At least I feel very vindicated, as usually if critism is about my spelling only, then at least there is not much else wrong with what I said (Hi Dave, are you well?).

What is the problem? You guys don;t like Russian Polka!!!!

Anyway, more seriously. Russia has delivered some of the most respected classical composers (Rimsky-Korsakov, Smirnov, Stravinsky etc) and made advances into atonal music, without which modern music just would not have been the same (I'm excluding pop and rock music, which is still very tonal).

[alex zonder]

Free? Not as long as one has to pay for housing, food and drinks.

[shamann]

Not sure what "should" has to do with it. Music is free, always has been, awlays will be. Tap your hands on the table and hum along. Find a friend and sing a song with them. Pick up a guitar, and strum a tune. There, music, free.

Just because we're a pack of nincompoops who find it acceptable to bottle up water and put a price tag on it doesn't have any bearing on what goes into that bottle.

[mellotronaut]

I knew I would get into trouble when I posted that "communist was good for music" post. At least I feel very vindicated, as usually if critism is about my spelling only, then at least there is not much else wrong with what I said (Hi Dave, are you well?).

What is the problem? You guys don;t like Russian Polka!!!!

Anyway, more seriously. Russia has delivered some of the most respected classical composers (Rimsky-Korsakov, Smirnov, Stravinsky etc) and made advances into atonal music, without which modern music just would not have been the same (I'm excluding pop and rock music, which is still very tonal).

Please, read some biographies about these composers and you'll know how complex and difficult the situation was for these magnificent composers. Recently I saw a ducumentary about Ligeti, one of my favourite composers, who had to suffer from the german nazi-terror first and then from the hungrian stalinists-satellite-regime. Forget about communism!

Mello

[stefancrs]

If you were a plumber or a carpenter would you provide your service free of charge??

I think not, therefore why should music be any different. It takes time effort and knowledge to make it just the same.

Quite a difference though. If I'd hire a musician to compose music for me I don't see why I wouldn't have to pay, because it takes up his time. Making digital copies does not and has virtually no cost per copy. Hence the today oh so lively debate. It's not really as simple as "everyone should have the right to get paid for their work", because making the copies is really no work for the one who made the original. The end users seems to be more than happy to do this for him, most of the time. It's an infected and conviction filled subject. It is also important to remember that our current copyright based business are here because of the copyright laws, not vice versa.

Working in a copyright based industry is interesting these days, to say the least

I think your missing my point.

The price of digital copies is irrelevant it's only a media end product. It's the time and effort of the artists, studio staff, promotion etc. It's these people who should be paid.

Apologies if I misread your point.

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/

Now think again.
Digital copy or not.
You are also stealing the experience, emotion, effort etc., you get out of that copy. You don't have the right to that.

Those are not stealable. If they where, I'd also be able to return them after I had stolen them. They are not products. Only products can be considered as property. Now, I still don't mean that one has the rights to force someone to "give away" their experience, emotion, effort etc. But these are not bound to the copies of the works said person makes.

[alex zonder]

Don't say a word about 'communism and music" before reading Shostakovich's memoirs - or be at least a bit ashamed of your stupidity. Shostakovich would curse you. Communism is hell on earth, particularly for outstanding indidivuals such as Shostakovich; hell on earth for ordinary folk just as well. Communism was, is and will be an invitation to human destruction and slaughter. It is history's most succesful inquisition against individual freedom and dignity so far.

The lives of Russia's greatest poets of the 20th century (Achmatova, Mandelstam, Tsjetajeva, Brodsky) have all been destroyed, not simply by Stalin and his followers, but by the doctrine of communism. After you finished reading Shostakovich, read the memoirs of Mandelstam's widow - imo the most lucid acount of life under communism. You'll never be the same again.

[stevieb19]

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.