Bands market to whoever is listening.
You think Radiohead decided to exclude under 30's?

The lack of politics in music has everything to do with the audience and nothing to do with artists. In recent decades, artists selling a lighter lyrical message have prospered, whereas artists selling a political message have struggled.
I also find it funny that artists such as Radiohead and NIN are being spoken about as radical/political.

Well to be honest Trent was the most accessible artist from an indie scene that had been growing for a long time (example Wax Trax). Basically a pretty boy in an indie scene that the majors decided to give a shot. Would consider him 20+ years detached from the indie scene. Or anything relating to developing artists.

Also don't forget that Radiohead and NIN made their name from major labels. Sorry know this has more to do with what Kaoz and I was discussing. Just your post made me think about it.

Why do people confuse the free software movement with pirates? It is free as in speech not always no money paid.
I am an advocate of FOSS, I still buy all my music.

yes they were. (at the forefront in their time) all of them. top of the charts, stadium tours, every one. giant pop/rock stars.

and a big to all the rest of that hysterical nonsense.

get a hold of yourself dude.

(and no, i'm not getting into a "who can look up wiki pages faster" "gotcha" race with you.)

Free culture (in Lessig sense) is the extension of the free software concepts to other forms of media. If you read Lessig's book "Free Culture, Free Society" he explains this pretty clearly. Obviously it's not the same idea as piracy. But it's fair to say that these communities have negative views on many of the excesses of copyright, especially copyright duration and digital locks (ie. DRM, and laws that protect it). It's very common to see arguments for the expansion of fair use to cover things that are typically illegal today. It's obviously not black and white though.

It's also worth noting that copyleft licenses use copyright itself to subvert the the typical intentions of copyright though share-alike clauses. IE, it turns the "you can not share" of a typical copyright license to "you must share". I've heard it copyleft called "putting copyright on its head", which seems pretty accurate.

The two quotes above are a decent response to chrisso's comment on free information, free culture, and Jimmy Wales/Wikipedia. Free culture is not a movement that advocates for the abolition of copyright or commercial works; it instead presents a case for the publishing of materials under a form of "some [or no] rights reserved" licenses. As freetard mentions above, and as I have pointed out previously, the CC licenses are empowered by copyright law. I don't even see mainstream free culture as an anti-copyright movement, per se; it's possible to stretch the ideals of free culture and suggest that such freedom should apply to all works universally, but I don't think it's right to characterize the foundation of the mainstream free culture philosophy as being so uncompromising in its reach. Free culture can very much exist alongside commercial culture.

i think in your convoluted quest towards whatever it is you're trying to prove (which i'm still not sure about?), you've forgotten the original point you were trying to make. (which was a contradiction to begin with )

the beatles have had more #1 hits than anybody: they were the definition of "chart music" in their time. they were a commercial radio machine. and yet you hold them in such high esteem despite this egregious offense?

so are you saying all those catchy #1 singles had nothing to do with their massive sales? (because according to you music that was "too commercial" was the downfall of the music industry... so that would be a little counter-intuitave...) or are you saying that in their particular case it's ok that they were totally commercial? (because you like them, so they get a free pass from the logic of your argument) or what?

I wasn't actually being serious with the deserves to die comment.

And I think you misread what I said - I've said plenty of times that the current state of affairs with the local industry is nowhere near what it was in the 90's (the second great peak of Aussie pub rock).

Having said that, if you're a top musician, there is still a lot of work out there, and you can make a comfortable living off of it, but it's definitely tougher when talking about a band, as opposed to an individual musician.

I will accept the confused tag though - just call me the Nigel Tuffnel of the forum.

How do you define 'top musician'?

But Wales is actively supporting a british student who was earning thousands of dollars a week by promoting unathorized television downloads.
And if you read many of the interviews Wales has given, he admits to being driven by free information culture.
I never said he was acting against copyright, I'm saying his personal mission colours everything he does and says.

By the amount of work they get I guess, which doesn't really answer your question lol

I'm talking more about top shelf session musos, that sort of stuff. I know a ton of great musos around the Sydney scene that make a very comfortable living off of a combination of session work and live work (be it their own gigs or with touring acts, tv shows etc).

Maybe I know some different ones, but the ones I know are largely working on cover band gigs. Playing out 5 to 7 nights a week just to keep afloat. Doing the 'Idol' grind. Doing the musical theatre grind.
Coming from the UK, I see the top players here as poorly paid, and doing less creative/original work, but more cover music, mindless tv and teaching.
You wouldn't see this in the UK or USA:
‘Bob Dylan Night’ The 50th Anniversary Tribute Dates Announced - Music News, Reviews, Interviews and Culture - Music Feeds

Since you are repeatedly referencing this case counter to the forum rules, I will address it only briefly: Jimmy Wales started a petition (235,000 signatures at present) on the change.org petition site calling on the UK Home Office to block the extradition to the US of a 24-year-old English student.

It is a complicated political matter quite aside from the nature of the site that O'Dwyer operated (which itself hosted no infringing content), because many believe that the US is bullying the UK in demanding that O'Dwyer be extradited on the basis of a controversial charge, despite never having set foot in the United States. Now, as an American, I don't know why all you foreigners bother getting so uppity about relinquishing your citizens to us in answering to our laws -- which rightfully have a global reach -- so frankly I think that Wales and the rest of the several hundred thousand petition signatories are wrong on this one, but to each his own (as long as each is an American!).

(Warning: sarcasm may have preceeded this disclaimer.)

For the record, I have absolutely no interest in fighting freely given information - shared.
Wikipedia is great. Free downloads (music and software) are great.
When people start sharing stuff they don't have permission to, or link to unauthorized stuff they don't have ownership of, that's not so great.
That's all I was saying.
Jimmy Wales can be as obsessed with free information all he likes, as long as that doesn't impinge on my freedom to control my own information. And I'm guessing that's where the conflict lies, because his personal belief powers him to fight my point of view. I'm not fighting his rights, he's fighting mine.

that's what seems to get glossed over in a lot of these discussions.

One can maintain complete control over one's information so long as one keeps one's information private. Upon publication, however, one relinquishes that freedom: the work, from that point onward, belongs eternally to the public. Under our system of copyright law, the public grants back to the creator a temporary exclusive monopoly on the distribution of that work based on the economic theory that the creator may benefit from this distribution as an incentive to publish future works. We should all know this, of course; I make mention of these obvious truths only to give context to the discussion of what control a creator has over the content of their publishings: it is a public matter up for public debate, because the public owns all works ever published, and it is so that Jimmy Wales and anyone else has a right to advocate for however they believe these works should be treated.

An individual who disagrees with the public consensus on the treatment of these works, as embodied in the form of democratic law, is not entitled to therefore subvert it, but the laws themselves, if they are just, must always balance the dual competing public interests of allowance for the access of a work against the incentives which promote further creation and publication.

These are simply thoughts and facts on the subject, as raised, of controlling information; it is a tricky (but fascinating) topic, and is always worth contextualizing.

So that goes for all the downloaders and copiers then?
Because at the moment, under current democratically legislated copyright law, I can control the price I sell my work for, where and when I sell it, and it even gives me the right to withdraw it.
So you seem to be more hardcore about copyright than I am, but never miss an opportunity to argue with me on this forum.

Out of curiosity, which of my my remarks would you say describes a position "more hardcore" than you would hold?

(To your following comment left out of the quote above: if I disagree with something you write, I can tell you that it isn't out of spite [as indeed I have told you via private message some time ago, following a similar expression of concern]; don't take it personally, for I would not likely intend it so.)

More hardcore than my view:

What we have is millions of individuals who (supposedly) disagree with the law and who are subverting it.
The democratic consensus is to uphold current copyright law. I'm not a copyright evangelist and wouldn't have written what you wrote, but I do strongly think if people aren't happy with the way entertainment is delivered, or it's price, they should act to change copyright democratically, not 'subvert' the law based on their own situation (often financial).
So I give you The Pirate Party Australia. I applaud their desire to amend copyright through democratic means. However, they can't get enough support (minimum 100 voters) to even register as a legitimate party for a bi-election in one of our major cities. We are pretty sure that more than 100 people in a city of several million have in all likelihood infringed copyright, right?

So it's sort of ironic that you feel strongly that 'individuals should not subvert' copyright laws, and yet we are almost always on opposite sides of this debate.

Isn't the position that you describe entirely in line with my own remarks? As in change the law, don't break the law? When I say subvert in the quote above, it is the breaking of the law that I speak toward -- I can only make sense of a difference between the position I express and the one that you do if subvert is somehow taken in a different context.

I don't necessarily see an irony here -- we can agree on this principle but still reasonably disagree on implications (such as the details and plausibilities of enforcement) that result from it. The subject is anything but simple, and contrary to the story presented by shallow ideologues, copyright is not simply a matter of "artist's rights;" it is a complex economic theory that can be rationally judged and debated on that basis. I, obviously, support the theory of copyright, but that doesn't mean I think that the balance (as described here) between public access and publishing incentivization is presently weighted appropriately. But it is perfectly reasonable to debate and to disagree on these matters without reducing the conversation to a caricature of either loving or hating artists and creators (note that I am not accusing you, chrisso, of engaging in this rhetoric), and thus it's not an irony that we can agree on certain facets and disagree on others.

A particularly whiney and rich musician says you can't make money off music and you guys vomit 61 pages of this ****?

Do any of you actually have any real power because if you do I would be both shocked and appalled.

You conduct yourselves like a pack of rabid dogs chewing on each others faces with toothless gums... It's like a foamy slobber fest full of ugly... Damn it... I'm ranting...


I think my holiday is over.

yes it is, and now you're contributing to advancing the conversation to page 62, well done.

the can be potential "unintended consequences" in just about anything, but we do the best we can to balance the rights of all citizens for a fair and just society. online, artists and creators have been denied all rights, and compensation is completely optional.

I think that's naive. It's about money. Wikipedia broke it's own principle of neutrality during the black out. I can never look at it as an objective source of information ever again. Every internet company has an agenda to allow the illegal exploitation of artists work, because it's just about the only thing that generates enough traffic to make advertising make sense online.

If the internet were completely legal the valuations of ad rates (and some of the largest online companies with it) would plummet like a rock. That is the truth.

I think it's great that in the days before the internet people were able to make millions apon millions of dollars for their music. Most of the music I listen to are artists who arent trying to make money anyway...they just make music for the love of creating. Thats what it's all about for me nowadays.

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einstein (emilision), i meant doing research on the topics that are actually important to the thread.

those being: 1) the decline in music sales as it relates to the internet 2) copyright (subjects of which you clearly only know what you've read on a web page somewhere, or watched a youtube video about.)

googling bits of information you want to use to derail the discussion with your childish gotcha routine does not constitute "research".

it's pretty embarrassing you think it is.

that's funny, i was about to say people like you undermine discussions with straw-man arguments and childish gotcha tactics. (or naive, if you prefer. )

i've lost all interest in discussing what you write. (i'm totally interested in what a lot of others are writing.)

at first you seemed interesting (or at least interested), then you were kind of amusing (but it was all in good fun, honest!), and now it's clear you're just a waste of time.

(i had over 30 hours of stems to print this week: a lot of sitting around bored out of my skull. and that's over now.
so this is the part where i press the mute button: ____________)

1) This is a thread discussing Billy Corgan's rant in a Youtube video. Since when did the piracy forum re-open under your prescribed "topics"?

2) Like I said, bull****ter and sore-loser; can you just mute yourself now please?


P.S. So, the internet doesn't constitute research? OK Einstein, are you a college professor? You do realise that websites are even used in theses now? Don't you? Why don't you send me the title to your recent paper in copyright? I should be able to order it into the college library here. You did study music law in college, right?

_____________

As an observer of this sub-thread, I find it amusing how someone so drawn to pedantry and condescension (reference links merely representative rather than comprehensive) can decry the use of so-called "gotcha" corrections in response to his own misstatements. It is when one is shown to be both incorrect and lacking in a suitable excuse for the inaccuracy that a "gotcha" is claimed to minimize the impact of the error.

"Gotchas" are the rhetorical embodiment of the state of being technically correct (the best kind of correct!) and those who denounce them do so only as a shield for the weakness of their own position. Consider yourself vindicated by the forfeit, emilision.

Wow this thread picked up quicker than sonic being hit with a butt plug.. In a sentence what have I missed?

Gotchas are a form of diminishing the opposing viewpoint when ideas can't.