This is getting a little out of control (RIAA)

[loudmusic25]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

Would it be a "hate crime" if they were Creed CDs?

LMFBO! x10

[bunnerabb]

If data were a product, there would be no problem.

It's not.

A vinyl record is a product. You can't cost effectively copy it, it plays on one type of interface, one at a time and it's got a 1:1 buyer / owner ratio.

If your records go up in smoke, you replace them along with your stove and your rugs and your plaster goat.

You have to.

They have weight and mass and they're not fireproofed.

Data isn't a product.

It's a mathematical simulacrum and it can be losslessly copied over and over and distributed for free.

And that's why you can fit a $20,000,000.00 film on a sector of your hard drive and burn twenty copies for your friends.

You're not buying a license, you're buying a product. A CD is a product.

Unlike your stove and your plaster goat, the contents of it can be losslessly reproduced.

So people do.

And that, in economics, is called littering.

The man isn't some bloated ****** in a suit trying to stop the music.

The man is some bloated ****** in a suit who watched Silicon Valley install faucets on his brewer's vats.

The man is shitting his pants and if recording music or making films pays your bills, you should be, too.

[joelpatterson]

In a rare burst of seriousness, here I go:

You guys with your zillion-dollar consoles working with Pere Ubu in the morning and Ladysmith Black Mombasa in the afternoon, I got no advice. Other than to say the idea of Britney Spears being able to afford a limousine, much less a house or a sailboat in Capri, given the tenor of what she does, is laughable and indicative of a true scam at work.

In my world, the people who buy the CDs I make are ON the CD! This is what CDs are about today: state-of-the-art recordings of YOUR group, your little chorus or volunteer orchestra. It's about the novelty and achievement and pride of transcending the treadmill of live performance that vanishes once it's over--nowadays you can have a permanent record (that, if necessary, sounds "better" than it really did, given the wonders of multi-band compression and editing and so forth.)

If I sell *ONE* CD of the high school pop concert/talent show that quite naturally gets ripped and finds a WIDE distribution in mp3 form (which is the rule, not the exception) I feel fine--much better that everyone wants to hear it, wants to have it.

What I am really selling is my ability to capture your concert--the CD duplication is gravy.

Bunnerabb has eloquently laid out the parameters of this new world. The genie is out of the bottle, baby.

[lhm1138]

Originally Posted by videoteque

So we agree there are other business models???

Big record labels offered artists visibility and keep for themselves most of the cake. They controlled the music business.

Now an artist have to work on music and on visibility. Play live, create a nice MySpace web, publish works online, etc. Forget that once there were big labels and do it all by themselves or get help from friends/family/fans. The key word is "networking".

Where do they find the time to actually write music, and develop their craft, then? Jacks of all trades, masters of none. That seems to be the zeitgeist of our era, multi-tasking, doing three things at once and doing none of them well.

Unfortunately, Jamie Matrix is right, this hurts the indies and - most importantly - the small labels that are hands-on and grassroots, and interact with the artists on a one-on-one basis....hurts them a lot more than the majors, because what they make in sales goes right back into operations. I see it over and over again, small labels closing shop because they can't move units, they send out some promotional discs and some ****** puts it up on a torrent site or Russian mp3 site, or a few people buy the disk and next thing you know it's a free for all brute-force download.

[trippy]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

In a rare burst of seriousness, here I go:

You guys with your zillion-dollar consoles working with Pere Ubu in the morning and Ladysmith Black Mombasa in the afternoon, I got no advice. Other than to say the idea of Britney Spears being able to afford a limousine, much less a house or a sailboat in Capri, given the tenor of what she does, is laughable and indicative of a true scam at work.

In my world, the people who buy the CDs I make are ON the CD! This is what CDs are about today: state-of-the-art recordings of YOUR group, your little chorus or volunteer orchestra. It's about the novelty and achievement and pride of transcending the treadmill of live performance that vanishes once it's over--nowadays you can have a permanent record (that, if necessary, sounds "better" than it really did, given the wonders of multi-band compression and editing and so forth.)

If I sell *ONE* CD of the high school pop concert/talent show that quite naturally gets ripped and finds a WIDE distribution in mp3 form (which is the rule, not the exception) I feel fine--much better that everyone wants to hear it, wants to have it.

What I am really selling is my ability to capture your concert--the CD duplication is gravy.

Bunnerabb has eloquently laid out the parameters of this new world. The genie is out of the bottle, baby.

exactly...a record is a record. Only that concept got lost about fifty years ago.

[bunnerabb]

Originally Posted by trippy

exactly...a record is a record. Only that concept got lost about fifty years ago.

About 25, actually.

Vinyl was still selling quite well around 84.

[Bravin Neff]

I think he meant "record" in the original sense of that word, not in the sense of vinyl.

[bunnerabb]

Originally Posted by Bravin Neff

I think he meant "record" in the original sense of that word, not in the sense of vinyl.

Ah... Okey doke.