May Man wrote: # # Practically, did the "tax" on blank tapes ever "work"? Of course not. # Metallica and Eminem did not see meaningful revenues. The tax # vanished into the maw of the government, the RIAA and ASCAP # bureaucracy, and the pockets of the shake down artists. I once asked a musician here in NYC what became of the money. Yeah, the local unions got it. ("shake down artists"?) That's as close as it got to the musicians. Yet another thing that should be put online for integrity: its distribution.
On Wed, 14 Feb 2001 George@Orwellian.Org wrote:
May Man wrote: # # Practically, did the "tax" on blank tapes ever "work"? Of course not. # Metallica and Eminem did not see meaningful revenues. The tax # vanished into the maw of the government, the RIAA and ASCAP # bureaucracy, and the pockets of the shake down artists.
I once asked a musician here in NYC what became of the money.
Yeah, the local unions got it. ("shake down artists"?)
That's as close as it got to the musicians.
Yet another thing that should be put online for integrity: its distribution.
Of course, the actual "starving musicians", the ones who can really use the money, will never see it either way. The bigger groups will argue that since they are more popular, they deserve more of it. By the time they get done feeding at the trough there will be nothing left. The things I find most interesting in the way of the non-traditional music distribution channels are the things I *cannot* buy. -- Bands from countries that do not speak english. (I have found some great stuff from China, Sweeden and Finland, for example.) -- radio shows not being distributed for various reasons. (Copyright vagueness, lack of interest by the owners, or general lack of interest by the record companies.) Try finding copies of "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" for example. -- Things being censored by way of copyright. (The owner is preventing it from seeing the light of day for some reason or another.) This does not happen as much in music, but does happen alot in movies. (A local theatre shows a number of movies withdrawn due to copyright or other legal threats on a regular basis.) -- Bands you will hear no other way. (Bands not to the taste of some corporate middle manager.) Of course none of these things even gets mentioned in the rush to squeeze even more money out of the music-buying public. Of course, later this sort of tax will be extended to the software industry with Microsoft getting the lion's share of the money. alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
Alan Olsen wrote: [...snip...]
The things I find most interesting in the way of the non-traditional music distribution channels are the things I *cannot* buy.
-- Bands from countries that do not speak english. (I have found some great stuff from China, Sweeden and Finland, for example.)
That's the trouble with all you suburbanites. A three hour drive to the shop & then all you can get is Metallica & Puff Daddy. Over here in London there are maybe ten shops in a short lunchbreak's stroll of my desk where I would be able to buy vast quantities of non-English-language music. I bet the same is true of New York or Paris. You guys just need to get back to the big city :-) Ken Brown
On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Ken Brown wrote:
Alan Olsen wrote:
[...snip...]
The things I find most interesting in the way of the non-traditional music distribution channels are the things I *cannot* buy.
-- Bands from countries that do not speak english. (I have found some great stuff from China, Sweeden and Finland, for example.)
That's the trouble with all you suburbanites. A three hour drive to the shop & then all you can get is Metallica & Puff Daddy. Over here in London there are maybe ten shops in a short lunchbreak's stroll of my desk where I would be able to buy vast quantities of non-English-language music. I bet the same is true of New York or Paris. You guys just need to get back to the big city :-)
I live in portland, OR. Not exactly small, but to find anything interesting is difficult to say the least. (There are a few places, but the selection is limited and usually quite expensive.) Then again, some of the things I have found on the net you can't buy even there. For example, I have seen at least 40 episodes of "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" available on the net. There are about eight available on tape in England. (According to Amazon-UK.) Personally I see the whole unauthorized copying issue as a reaction to the excesive prices charged for music. Think of it as "market forces" at work. (What other option is there? People have been so indoctrinated into the idea of having music available 24 hours per day, that can't think of having anything less than the full fix.) Interestingly enough, I have seen studies quoted that people who download alot of music also buy alot of music as well. (I know I do.) I am willing alot less gets spent on "product bands" though. Maybe that is why the record companies get so pissed about it. alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
Alan Olsen wrote:
Personally I see the whole unauthorized copying issue as a reaction to the excesive prices charged for music. Think of it as "market forces" at work.
exactly. it's not so much that the market has become illegal, it's more that the legal walls have been moved, and are still moving. but then again, laws become irrelevant if the market forces are strong enough. lawmakers have been trying to make drugs or prostitution or religion illegal at various times over the past 5000 years or so and the success has always been pretty much zero. with the new technology, we'll just add a few more areas, that's all. the law can move out of the way or get shoved aside (as in prostitution laws, which are largely ignored even where they still exist). of course, in the short term, there'll still be lots of victims and the inquisitors will get rich before they're seen for what they really are.
At 10:25 PM 2/14/01 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:
The things I find most interesting in the way of the non-traditional music distribution channels are the things I *cannot* buy.
Using the search mechanisms, you can find groups in a genre you are interested in. For instance, 'industrial' will find files whose names include that label. An interesting problem for Napster et al: if they have to control the indexing of files that are claimed by Content Corporations, they can't just use the name of a band. Because you can label your own, public-domain music with their "proprietary" labels, e.g., "Joe's Band ---better than Metallica" (Also many files are 'covers' of other songs.) And watermarking the files won't work. So implementing the control that the courts will require, without being heavy-handed, is not nearly as easy as the courts might imagine.
participants (5)
-
Alan Olsen -
David Honig -
Georgeï¼ Orwellian.Org -
Ken Brown -
Tom