MP3.com articles: How Free is Free Music? 40
Richard Hestilow writes " MP3.com has a couple of recent articles on IP and its affect on music. The first article, The Future Of Music , relates mp3s to free software and describes the threat IP presents to music. In response, MP3.com posted another article, How Free is Free Music? , which states that from now on each download page will have an appropriate copyright notice appended. "
In a perfect world..yes, but (Score:1)
this isn't. There is the real world, and then there is the highly financial backing of fake-plastic marketing hype. I've seen some incredible talent in the shittiest places like run down hole-in-the-wall bars. And I've seen it on the charrts here and there. The thing about record labels. Marketing. Plain and simple.
Yea, bands make tons of money touring if they have a solid fan base. I've seen alot of really cool bands make it w/o huge advertising from labels. But the definition of "making it" is different for every band. I've seen alot of bands who had alot of money backing them fail miserably.
As a musician and engineer, I've seen the dark side of the music biz far to much. The tech biz is no different either. Free is my favorite four letter word, but not when it comes to paying the bills. I think royalties is my favorite word actually, and there is none with "free" music.
I like the
It's all a big mess, and cleaning it up is something that confuses everyone. I certanly don't have all the awnsers, I just require my paycheck, that's why I don't do alot of engineering much anymore.
What's the difference. (Score:1)
I'm getting REALLY tired with all this MP3 talk.
As far as i'm concerned, the radio does the same
thing. What is to prevent me from tapeing a song from a radio station. If I really like a song I heard on the radio, I might buy the whole CD. I think MP3's do the same thing. Record companies and Artists should be happy. They get another media to sell their music.
Enough already! (Score:1)
Imagine for instance, that we allow free redistribution of the music, and that very little of it is actually sold.
Imagine, for instance, that the artists make their money from tangible goods that come as a result of their popularity.. Selling concert tickets, T Shirts, Merchandising their craft.
May I have a minute or two of your time? I'm sorry if I've come a little too late to this party.
Your solutions point to impossible examples; sure, the Stones and the Floyd can make tons of money this way, even while their recordings are yawn-inducing loss-leaders designed to promote the latest World Tour, but this has nothing to do with music, and everything to do with showbiz. Popular music has more to do with showbiz than it does with music; it's a distinction that goes largely unnoticed. Thanks to the suits who work at the large corporations affiliated with the dreaded RIAA (and the suits who work in showbiz management), Mick'n'Keef, and whomever's-left-in-Pink-Floyd-these-days have been able to establish brand names that are as powerful as brand names such as Microsoft and Oracle. This has little or nothing to do with music; we're talking about brand names and product. There are only subtle differences between Mariah Carey, Marilyn Manson, and whatever little-known band or DJ is appearing at your favorite local venue - but perhaps this flame-inducing statement probably belongs elsewhere.
Yeah, maybe it's OK for some just-started band to try to make their money off of ancillary merchandise - they've probably come up with a logo and an "angle" before they've even come up with a full set-list. And they've chosen a genre of music that is highly marketable, thanks (again) to the dreaded RIAA, the dreadful agent-weasels, and their henchmen in the radio industry (which, again, has little to do with music, even though their programming is rife with it). But what of those people who make "real" music - i.e., non-pop music. Do Ellery Eskelin (who?) or Fred van Hove (who?) now have to sell t-shirts and assorted tchotchkes? I've seen people wearing Coltrane or Beethoven t-shirts, but I don't think the licensing monies are doled out to them posthumously. As a kid, I remember reading an article about the (then pre-academe) composer/saxophonist Anthony Braxton (who?) in which it was mentioned that he was having trouble coming up with the money to pay his phone bill; Braxton at that point had already gained a worldwide reputation, with gigs and recordings in North America, Europe, and Japan. Gee, maybe if he'd come up with a "Braxton World Tour '73" logo and sold World Tour t-shirts at the concert halls, that phone bill wouldn't have been a problem! These individuals I've mentioned (and perhaps thousands of others) don't have any misconceptions about music being a "hobby" - they've spent a hell of a lot more time studying, formulating, practicing, rehearsing, and flat-out working than many of you will ever do in your chosen fields.
I'm getting a little tired of these "Let Them Eat Cake" arguments (i.e. "free your music, and the money will follow"). I respect and understand the arguments and rationales for Free Software, but it doesn't necessarily scale to all fields of endeavor. Is the sheet music equivalent to the source code, or is the recording equivalent to the source code? That simple question should tell you that there isn't a one-to-one correspondence. In the art world, a JPEG can't compare to the "hard copy" of an actual painting or sculpture - so there's no problem with having that JPEG freely distributable on the Web; there will, if the work in question is good, be someone out there who will want to purchase that actual painting or sculpture. With music - or, more specifically, a recorded work of music - the MP2/MP3/MPEG-4 digitized version can be "CD quality" if the bitrate is high enough and the source material is recorded and encoded well. That means there's less of an incentive to buy the "hard copy" version.
Those of you who write code for a living, how would you like it if your compensation came this way: you get paid a few cents each time someone runs your code, no matter how large or small that code was. If that doesn't bring in enough cash to buy all those nice toys, well... there's plenty of McJobs out there; maybe you're "just not working hard enough". Maybe you can supplement your income by selling screensavers and mouse pads with the wonderful logo you've designed for your shared library? Can we please put an end to these ivory-tower solutions for "helping" musicians in the digital age? I'll have a hell of a lot more respect for Ram Samudrala [ram.org]'s Free Music Philosophy once he's spent a few years making a living solely through music-making.
Fin du rant. Thanks for stopping by.
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CS grads need to become better musicians (Score:1)
Then of course, the restriction to 10MB per song is a CS major's dream come true because it cuts the download time for listeners, but how much classical music is deliberately written to accomodate file sizes?
The idea of freely hosting music is a great idea, but unless CS degree programs start requiring music training, the implementation isn't going to be musician friendly.
"...not just a string of digital 1s and 0s..." (Score:1)
You can either buy it or spend your money elsewhere.
"...free everything frenzy..." (Score:1)
I think the free everything frenzy is based on people without the means to get anything any other way.
I think the second someone discovers they can make some money off some program they wrote or a song they penned or even a story they were about to post they lose their evangelism. They have a stake in things.
Music and Software (Score:1)
no money leads to little music (Score:1)
The way I see it... (Score:1)
Imagine for instance, that we allow free redistribution of the music, and that very little of it is actually sold.
Imagine, for instance, that the artists make their money from tangible goods that come as a result of their popularity.. Selling concert tickets, T Shirts, Merchandising their craft.
Certainly, if I had a lot of music from an artist, I would want to support them in many ways, especially if I knew most of my money was going to him.
Let's cut out the record companies and allow really great music to thrive. I'd like artists to make money from something physical they give me, not just a string of digital 1's and 0's.
Do you think it could work? Do you think people who were really good could still live off their music? I think so.
the end of money??? (Score:1)
Money is abstract mediated exchange. Profit comes from an unequal exchange. Inequality here implies a power differential. Excepting extortion, this comes from scarcity. How much of scarcity is real nowadays, and how much has been engineered? (grain mountains, one-generation-only seeds, legal mini-monopolies thru intellectual property, etc.) And, how much scarcity need continue, with technologies to come? It does seem quite easy to enforce false scarcity, when backed by a monopoly control over something.
Power differentials seem inevitable. So, any exchange system will become unequal. Any unequal exchange system will of necessity flow into its least-energy form - abstract money. Hence the death of communism - they still wanted to keep exchange, partly because of an unfortunate addiction to the concept of work.
What is the alternative? Gifts. You don't expect recompense, and neither does anyone else. The problems: who will run the sewers? and, how to prevent someone extorting exchange? For the former, are there people who would like to do that? Do we have enough vocations to fill all the slots? Fot the second, only competition can provide protection - by preventing monopolies, no-one can get leverage to force re-commercialisation.
The biggest problem: how to transition, without pain? Now that, I'm working on...
I like MP3, but I buy CDs... (Score:1)
I think the music business is missing out on a great opportunity to gain exposure for artists and music via the net by not embracing the MP3 format. Is there any PROOF that the availability of MP3 pirate tracks hurts sales? Did Madonna's Ray Of Light flop because a few tracks got pirated all over the place?
Sure, some people would download 'free' MP3s, listen to them a few times, and never buy the album...but I really believe this would be the exception, rather than the rule...people like that wouldn't be buying the CD in any case.
Free, but not free (Score:1)
I'm not a composer, but if I would write music, I would release it for free in the sence that anyone could copy it, redistribute it, take it apart, put it together, distribute enhanchements etcetera.
I hope there are composers out there who thinks like me and will release more music to the public in this way.
the end of tangible goods (Score:1)
Article on MP3 Rave by Bowie (Score:1)
Salon [salonmagazine.com] is carrying today an article [salonmagazine.com] echoing Davie Bowie [davidbowie.com]'s raves about MP3 and the culture it allows.
Ha det!
--algebraist
ram samudrala (Score:1)
This is real, REAL selfish... (Score:1)
Certainly, if I had a lot of music from an artist, I would want to support them in many ways, especially if I knew most of my money was going to him.
Please explain something...why is it that you don't feel like you should have to pay an artist for his/her music? If it doesn't provide enough value for you pay for it, what value lies in your desire to listen to it?
In its physical form, you're right - it's nothing but a bunch of 0's and 1's. But you've completely overlooked all the resources necessary to produce the music in the first place.
Ultimately, if good artists can sell a CD's worth of material over the net in MP3 format, charge about $5 per download, this is more than generous. Anyone who can't pay $5 for an MP3, doesn't really deserve to listen to it.
Hold on.. (Score:1)
What's exposure without revenue? Granted, some people that listen to pirated music may end up buying it. But how many don't? If someone is really serious about supporting their favorite artist, paying for the music they listen to is one way to do it. Stealing from them isn't.
Re: (Score:1)
Free, but not free (Score:1)
the end of tangible goods (Score:1)
The idea that all music should be free because it is only 1's and 0's is interesting. But why does everyone think that the remaining "tangible things" like t-shirts, concerts, etc... are going to remain tangible?
I foresee a day when t-shirts can "download" a pattern off the net, and reconfigure their dye to the appropriate band's logo. Nothing tangible there, just 1's and 0's. So should this be free, too?
I also foresee a day when some simple virtual reality and haptic interfaces will allow anyone to "feel" like they're at a concert. All they will be getting is a bunch of 1's and 0's from the net. Nothing tangible there, either. So I suppose concerts will also soon be free.
In the end, if you consider that 1's and 0's should always be free, you are cutting off every possible source of income for musicians (and any other field that is later attacked by this free-everything frenzy).
Free music today may sound great. But if you follow that path, as amazingly hippy and altruistic as it may sound, you may very well cause an end to music altogether...
the end of money??? (Score:1)
What exactly does that mean? Money is simply a way to perform exchanges of property through a common, accepted intermediary. A dollar is no more evil than a pound of hay used as a unit of property. Money is no more evil than the concept of property itself.
If what you are preaching here is some variant of John Lennon's "Imagine," then maybe I'll just step out of the discussion, because this is getting a little bit too off-topic for me. There are some realities that we all must deal with, and imagining a world with no possessions, no right to own, etc.. is quite a bit off today's world. Free Software works today because it's starting to make business sense, not because it's the "right thing to do."
So... not quite (Score:1)
I'm saying that free software didn't come into the spotlight until it made business sense to a number of organizations, i.e. RedHat saw they could make money by supporting Linux, IBM saw that Apache worked well and would attract customers to other IBM products by supporting it, etc...
In general, free software works because there are definitely other avenues for making money: support, customized software, etc... This is very specific to software, and cannot be generalized to every other field.