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But I never read the agreement!

I also don't have a copy with me, but on the Microsoft Y2K update cdrom's that they mailed out (I don't know what you have to do to get on that list) the wrapper of the cdrom said that by using the cdrom, I agreed to the terms and conditions of the license agreement, stored on the cdrom! These are clearly catch-22 situations, and oughta be illegal - except for UCITA, which makes them binding.

Did anyone notice that mp3.com already owns mp4.com?

Their legal troubles will never end!!

--

Now that means if I posted my abstract-electronica track Metallica Ate My Napster, I'd get black-banned. Now that's progress.

1. The difference between quality in mp3s and in CDs is roughly equivalent to the difference in quality between recorded cassette tapes and tapes purchased from the band. (I think Lars' whole bootlegging argument is invalid)

2. No one mentions that *very* *very* few people will actually download an entire album in mp3. (theories: the entire CD sucks [not worth $15], it's a pain in the ass to download an entire album on a modem, most of the mp3s floating around are mp3s that are offered free *anyway* from places like mp3.com)

3. Very few people have the ability to play those mp3s anywhere but their computer (which likely has rather shitty sound anyway). Which means they are probably going to buy the CDs that they really want (car, home stereo). I know there are people who hoard hundreds of mp3s, but I also know that most people can't afford more than a few CDs each month. Basically this leads me to believe that the only usefulness of mp3s is as a sort of demoware. I personally own about 30 CDs. Whenever I have a party the only music we listen to is on those CDs. Three of the CDs (Bloodhound Gang, Ayub Ogada, the Ataris) I only bought *because* I heard some mp3s of their music. Before I did any buying I download as many mp3s from each artist(s) as I could, which allowed me to chose which album I wanted (which wasn't necessarily the album with the original song that caught my interest).

4. Someone is thinking, "yeah, but you can record mp3s onto CDs." True as that is, recording CDs is still an imperfect solution. It's not as good as buying CDs. The CDs I've created only work on about ½ of the CD players out there, they're this nasty green color, and they don't have the liner. This is still a problem for the RI though, and I don't know what else to say about it.

Whoa there... I don't think just because MP3.com hasn't generated a mega-platinum supergroup in their less than a year of (public) existence their business model deserves to be written off as a failure. Several of the artists on MP3.com are actually already making enough to live off of through their MP3.com earnings and most are garnering far more exposure than they would be otherwise. It is very important to realize that this is just the beginning, though. You need to give the service and community a few years to mature before you can begin comparing it to traditional promotional channels. If MP3.com sustains their tremendous growth for the next couple of years I'm pretty certain it will be a far more powerful ally for artists than record companies in their current incarnation.

I just put a couple MP3's up, and forgot about 'em. Last week, I got a fan letter.

I think your statements shows how weak his point about young artists is. I don't doubt that there was only 1 non-label artist download on Napster in 48 hours, because Napster is not a good forum for finding artists you haven't heard of. Try mp3.com, instead.

But his point was that young artists need record labels in order to be heard. This is so wrong. What are your chances of getting signed by a record label? From your comments, I would bet you would agree they are slim. But by circumventing classic (archaic) record labels you got heard, which is more than any record label would have done for you.

So he is wrong to think that classic labels are needed by young artists. And he said himself that as soon as they get out from under their currect contract with a record label, that they will be looking at internet distribution ideas. This obviously spells doom for classic labels.

Other than that point, however, I think he was surprisingly articulate and I can certainly understand his position. Whether or not trading music should be illegal, it currently is, and by law, Metallica should be able to seek some kind of relief. Whether or not what Napster as a company is doing is illegal or not remains to be seen...

BTW, I kept referring to 'classic' record labels, because places like mp3.com and labels like GoodNoise "get it", and fulfill some of the roles of record labels that are still needed.

I just put a couple MP3's up, and forgot about 'em. Last week, I got a fan letter.

I think your statements shows how weak his point about young artists is. I don't doubt that there was only 1 non-label artist download on Napster in 48 hours, because Napster is not a good forum for finding artists you haven't heard of. Try mp3.com, instead.

But his point was that young artists need record labels in order to be heard. This is so wrong. What are your chances of getting signed by a record label? From your comments, I would bet you would agree they are slim. But by circumventing classic (archaic) record labels you got heard, which is more than any record label would have done for you.

So he is wrong to think that classic labels are needed by young artists. And he said himself that as soon as they get out from under their currect contract with a record label, that they will be looking at internet distribution ideas. This obviously spells doom for classic labels.

Other than that point, however, I think he was surprisingly articulate and I can certainly understand his position. Whether or not trading music should be illegal, it currently is, and by law, Metallica should be able to seek some kind of relief. Whether or not what Napster as a company is doing is illegal or not remains to be seen...

BTW, I kept referring to 'classic' record labels, because places like mp3.com and labels like GoodNoise "get it", and fulfill some of the roles of record labels that are still needed.

Yeah, my friends' band is on there and they seem pretty happ with it (I was the one who encoded the MP3s on my UltraSPARC and uploaded them to the artist site).. They've been playing together for 6-7 years or so and are as good or better than STP or Rob 'Smooth' 's band IMHO ;)

There are ways...
Your Working Boy,

It's very very simple. One of the -- when we monitored Napster for 48 hours three weekends ago, we came up with the 1.4 million downloads of Metallica music, there was one, one downloading -- one! of an unsigned artist the whole time. You can sit there and talk about how this is great for up and coming artists or for unsigned bands, but a big counterargument that nobody gets is, me and you could form a band together, and we could like, make a demo and then we could put it up on Napster. Who is going to give a fuck? Nobody's going to care, because they don't know anything about what sets my and your band out from the gardener and the guy who cleans my pool's band.

Thank you Lars for backing up my suspicions with hard data. For a while now on Slashdot I have heard people justify Napster by saying that it is a way for unsigned artists to get recognition and it has always seemed like B.S. to me. Napster is primarily a search engine, meaning that people already now what they are looking for when they use Napster. People who maintain that Napster will somehow free the unsigned artist fail to realize that there already is a service that does this and as at yet it has not created any house hold names nor spawned any artists who have quit their day jobs to pursue music fulltime with the revenue from MP3 sales. It is abundantly clear now that besides good music, an artist needs good promotion, music videos, radio airplay, etc. or else the artist will wallow in obscurity despite being extremely talented and having their song on the internet either via Napster or MP3.com.

The upshot of this is that record companies will probably never really fade away and instead will always be necessary maybe in a different form but ever present. Good knows that without record companies all of the really successful bands today would be much less successful (especially the Britney's, Backstreets and N'syncs of this world).

That doesn't seem right at all.... I constantly am getting stuff from bands with avante garde names or if I hotlist someone with similiar music taste, you can find some unsigned bands as well.

And there is no bigger rush for myself, then the occasions when I type "bratwurst orange" and see my music up for trade. It's great. Uh, so check out my band too.

As an aside, my side project, XIR (xir is recursive) has banned me for making a song called "kill everyone who works at mp3.com" bad taste? sure, but it was obviously a joke and I put it in the comedy genre and deleted it when they put it on hold, but now XIR is no more on mp3.com

If an artist decides that they want to release their music in the MP3 format, they would most likely choose to put it on their own website

And how many will a typical 10 MB website hold? Two?

Oh, you mean the legal part of MP3.com.

But you know what? Having that cassette turned me into a fan I subsequently purchased the following LP and even went back and bought the one I'd taped previously. So that band (Love Tractor in case you're curious) benefitted from my "illegal taping", despite their plea that I refrain.

Is this anecdote illustrative of anything? Personally, I think so. Music is a great promotional tool. The motivation should be on expanding distribution, not restricting it. If I were a recording industry executive, I'd be looking at shooting ahead of the rabbit rather than trying to create obstacles. I'd be embracing the technology as the viral marketing tool than it is. In the short term, I wouldn't be worried about eroding profits, taking solace in the fact that people with -56K connections aren't too enamored with spending 15-30 minutes downloading a track...assuming they know how to access it in the first place. I'd be a fool to characterize college campuses as dens of rampant MP3 trading rather than viewing them as fertile ground for cultivating future fan bases. Even so, there's a much larger population out there that is still uninitiated or unaffected by the lure of "free music online". In the meantime, I'd start building a strategy to embrace and exploit this coming wave. I'd strive to make my retail product better than the freely exchanged product; adding multimedia content, including extended liner notes, enclose coupons or promotional giveaways...the creative possibilities are numerous. Make the retail product something worth spending money on. Use the free MP3 (or whatever digital format you like) to promote the product. It's like a huge listening station where you are trying to hook listeners into wanting more and better. If the music is disposable, then it won't stand up to this model, but then that's a good example of natural selection isn't it? Might cut down on the ephemeral successes of future Milli Vanillis and Spice Girls. If the music is in demand, then you have more sales and more profit.

Oh yeah, and I wouldn't gouge my customers with unsupportable product pricing and then blame things like My.MP3.Com and Napster for flat sales.

For a change of pace, scrounge through the heaps of amateurs at MP3.Com and see what gems you can find. Building fans. Here's a small "station" of World Beat music I've created -- Outside the Box. Make your own; share with friends. MPPP may be in the tank but I think they're doing a lot of things right.

"...was just a freight train heading your way." (in the form of a technological and social change your sorry dinasaur ass couldn't be bothered to adapt to).

I thought I was the only one so consiquent in my disgust. I used to have a couple of Metallica CDs ... not any more. They made pretty cool frisbies before shattering against the brick wall of my building, adjascent to the dumpsters.

The one (count them, one) metallica mp3 I had (with the SF symphony, singing the exact same song
I already had recorded on my VCR) has been deleted, with prejudice. In this respect, Metallica may have achieved its goal. However, the money this has netted them (exactly $0) doesn't even beigin to offset the money they've lost in future CD sales (including older Metallica stuff I used to have on my "to acquire" list).

Oh, and I reused the videotape to record an episode of "Sliders." I am now, most happilly, metallica-free, and am surfing mp3.com and elsewhere for my music needs.

The RIAA and their lackeys could have held on a few years longer, if they weren't actively pushing their erstwhile fans and customers toward vastly more palitable alternatives such as mp3.com. Through their actions they have considerably shortened their window of oppurtinity to adapt and survive the coming changes, a situation which is entirely their loss (and the consumers' gain).

Good riddence to Metallica and all those of their ilk.

I have to shrug and cheer on the napster kiddies- even though they're being dumb- honestly, there's lots of good music out there _already_ being made by people who understand this stuff. The big record companies, the MTV bands, are just locked in a sick codependent relationship and it's dumb to support it at all. People are frothing at the mouth over the 'right' to download metallica for free but... why Metallica, exactly? What have they done, what has Dre done that's so great? Open your mind, listen to other music- there is SO MUCH music out there of all kinds and people still fixate on what they are fed, like Windows users.

Still, whatever: never try and teach a pig to sing, etc.

The last time I posted to an mp3 thread on Slashdot, someone or other pulled me aside (in ASCII) and said, basically, "Give it up- people don't want to listen to you because you AREN'T metallica, you're wasting your breath". And certainly I've seen some evidence of that. But I've also occasionally seen a person or two like what I have to say, or like the music I pointed them at. Turns out I had some decisions to make- am I doing it to beat Metallica, or am I doing it for me, because I make music like some slashdothackers write code?

I chose the latter.

So, I went quiet for a bit, rather than arguing loudly that I ought to be listened to seven times in every mp3 thread. And since the last time I posted, I cut an entire new album, "Cirrus", which is the anti-metallica ;) it's ambient music, with more of an edge to it than your usual musak ambient stuff, done with a synthesizer I took apart and hacked with the electronics of. I finished up the "Dragons" album, and made the CDs of both Cirrus and Dragons available (they're $5.99: a previous poster thought all CDs should be under $5. I'd do that in a heartbeat but $5.99 is as low as mp3.com will allow me to go- still beats $17, doesn't it?), and "anima" is still there, and "Extended Play" and "Hard Vacuum" (I wish the confounded site would put anchor points in so I could have these links refer to the spots on the page where the songs are) and I even went back and put up 700x700 cover jpegs of all my covers. This lets you see what the CD will look like a little better- and can also be used if people want to just download the songs and the cover and burn the CD themselves (which I am happy to let people do- that's why I'm making it so easy to do).

And, after about two days of rest, I'm going back into the studio to do yet another album. These days I prefer to just DO MUSIC rather than bitching about Metallica. If you think my music sucks, check again in a week and I'll have done something else. Check again in a month and God knows what I'll be up to. If you haven't checked in a week or a month, there's new stuff. It's like any form of art (or indeed the art of programming)... you learn by doing, not by arguing about it.

These days I get really crappy page stats, the idea of 'push' marketing totally failed me. When I stopped pushing, people stopped showing up. So I'm giving up and going with 'pull' like I should have all along- just plain trying to do good music, lots of it, huge amounts of it with something in it for just about anybody. Every now and then I'll mention that somewhere (like I'm doing now) but don't expect a recurrence of the BUY MY ALBUM stuff- that was fun but the time I spent doing it was time not spent doing more music.

...just as the time Lars and Metallica and Dre are spending attacking their own listeners is time that they're not spending making more music.

Sorry guys- not optimal. You may be on top of the heap now, you may be in a position to turn the screws on your fans and squeeze money out- I'm in no such position- but check back in ten years and we'll see who's better. You keep right on playing with lawyers and I'll keep on playing guitar and bass and programming synthesizers and stuff... and I can only say, in all honesty, I don't think I will ever, ever need or want to be as stupid and shortsighted as you are being.

Get back to the music- or get pushed out of the way. It might take a while- that's OK, I and a legion of hipper mp3-oriented indie musicians have all the time in the world, and we're not tied up with perverted entertainment industry contracts like you guys are. Enjoy your glide back to the bottom, 'cause there's plenty of air beneath your wings but there's no power in your engines. (heh, thinking in aircraft metaphors- as it happens the next album I'm doing is on the theme of cool WWII aircraft :) ) Cheers, all the slashdotters who've checked out my music- and all the slashdotters who haven't and won't :) 'cause we're all in the same boat, really, aren't we?

I have to shrug and cheer on the napster kiddies- even though they're being dumb- honestly, there's lots of good music out there _already_ being made by people who understand this stuff. The big record companies, the MTV bands, are just locked in a sick codependent relationship and it's dumb to support it at all. People are frothing at the mouth over the 'right' to download metallica for free but... why Metallica, exactly? What have they done, what has Dre done that's so great? Open your mind, listen to other music- there is SO MUCH music out there of all kinds and people still fixate on what they are fed, like Windows users.

Still, whatever: never try and teach a pig to sing, etc.

The last time I posted to an mp3 thread on Slashdot, someone or other pulled me aside (in ASCII) and said, basically, "Give it up- people don't want to listen to you because you AREN'T metallica, you're wasting your breath". And certainly I've seen some evidence of that. But I've also occasionally seen a person or two like what I have to say, or like the music I pointed them at. Turns out I had some decisions to make- am I doing it to beat Metallica, or am I doing it for me, because I make music like some slashdothackers write code?

I chose the latter.

So, I went quiet for a bit, rather than arguing loudly that I ought to be listened to seven times in every mp3 thread. And since the last time I posted, I cut an entire new album, "Cirrus", which is the anti-metallica ;) it's ambient music, with more of an edge to it than your usual musak ambient stuff, done with a synthesizer I took apart and hacked with the electronics of. I finished up the "Dragons" album, and made the CDs of both Cirrus and Dragons available (they're $5.99: a previous poster thought all CDs should be under $5. I'd do that in a heartbeat but $5.99 is as low as mp3.com will allow me to go- still beats $17, doesn't it?), and "anima" is still there, and "Extended Play" and "Hard Vacuum" (I wish the confounded site would put anchor points in so I could have these links refer to the spots on the page where the songs are) and I even went back and put up 700x700 cover jpegs of all my covers. This lets you see what the CD will look like a little better- and can also be used if people want to just download the songs and the cover and burn the CD themselves (which I am happy to let people do- that's why I'm making it so easy to do).

And, after about two days of rest, I'm going back into the studio to do yet another album. These days I prefer to just DO MUSIC rather than bitching about Metallica. If you think my music sucks, check again in a week and I'll have done something else. Check again in a month and God knows what I'll be up to. If you haven't checked in a week or a month, there's new stuff. It's like any form of art (or indeed the art of programming)... you learn by doing, not by arguing about it.

These days I get really crappy page stats, the idea of 'push' marketing totally failed me. When I stopped pushing, people stopped showing up. So I'm giving up and going with 'pull' like I should have all along- just plain trying to do good music, lots of it, huge amounts of it with something in it for just about anybody. Every now and then I'll mention that somewhere (like I'm doing now) but don't expect a recurrence of the BUY MY ALBUM stuff- that was fun but the time I spent doing it was time not spent doing more music.

...just as the time Lars and Metallica and Dre are spending attacking their own listeners is time that they're not spending making more music.

Sorry guys- not optimal. You may be on top of the heap now, you may be in a position to turn the screws on your fans and squeeze money out- I'm in no such position- but check back in ten years and we'll see who's better. You keep right on playing with lawyers and I'll keep on playing guitar and bass and programming synthesizers and stuff... and I can only say, in all honesty, I don't think I will ever, ever need or want to be as stupid and shortsighted as you are being.

Get back to the music- or get pushed out of the way. It might take a while- that's OK, I and a legion of hipper mp3-oriented indie musicians have all the time in the world, and we're not tied up with perverted entertainment industry contracts like you guys are. Enjoy your glide back to the bottom, 'cause there's plenty of air beneath your wings but there's no power in your engines. (heh, thinking in aircraft metaphors- as it happens the next album I'm doing is on the theme of cool WWII aircraft :) ) Cheers, all the slashdotters who've checked out my music- and all the slashdotters who haven't and won't :) 'cause we're all in the same boat, really, aren't we?

I have to shrug and cheer on the napster kiddies- even though they're being dumb- honestly, there's lots of good music out there _already_ being made by people who understand this stuff. The big record companies, the MTV bands, are just locked in a sick codependent relationship and it's dumb to support it at all. People are frothing at the mouth over the 'right' to download metallica for free but... why Metallica, exactly? What have they done, what has Dre done that's so great? Open your mind, listen to other music- there is SO MUCH music out there of all kinds and people still fixate on what they are fed, like Windows users.

Still, whatever: never try and teach a pig to sing, etc.

The last time I posted to an mp3 thread on Slashdot, someone or other pulled me aside (in ASCII) and said, basically, "Give it up- people don't want to listen to you because you AREN'T metallica, you're wasting your breath". And certainly I've seen some evidence of that. But I've also occasionally seen a person or two like what I have to say, or like the music I pointed them at. Turns out I had some decisions to make- am I doing it to beat Metallica, or am I doing it for me, because I make music like some slashdothackers write code?

I chose the latter.

So, I went quiet for a bit, rather than arguing loudly that I ought to be listened to seven times in every mp3 thread. And since the last time I posted, I cut an entire new album, "Cirrus", which is the anti-metallica ;) it's ambient music, with more of an edge to it than your usual musak ambient stuff, done with a synthesizer I took apart and hacked with the electronics of. I finished up the "Dragons" album, and made the CDs of both Cirrus and Dragons available (they're $5.99: a previous poster thought all CDs should be under $5. I'd do that in a heartbeat but $5.99 is as low as mp3.com will allow me to go- still beats $17, doesn't it?), and "anima" is still there, and "Extended Play" and "Hard Vacuum" (I wish the confounded site would put anchor points in so I could have these links refer to the spots on the page where the songs are) and I even went back and put up 700x700 cover jpegs of all my covers. This lets you see what the CD will look like a little better- and can also be used if people want to just download the songs and the cover and burn the CD themselves (which I am happy to let people do- that's why I'm making it so easy to do).

And, after about two days of rest, I'm going back into the studio to do yet another album. These days I prefer to just DO MUSIC rather than bitching about Metallica. If you think my music sucks, check again in a week and I'll have done something else. Check again in a month and God knows what I'll be up to. If you haven't checked in a week or a month, there's new stuff. It's like any form of art (or indeed the art of programming)... you learn by doing, not by arguing about it.

These days I get really crappy page stats, the idea of 'push' marketing totally failed me. When I stopped pushing, people stopped showing up. So I'm giving up and going with 'pull' like I should have all along- just plain trying to do good music, lots of it, huge amounts of it with something in it for just about anybody. Every now and then I'll mention that somewhere (like I'm doing now) but don't expect a recurrence of the BUY MY ALBUM stuff- that was fun but the time I spent doing it was time not spent doing more music.

...just as the time Lars and Metallica and Dre are spending attacking their own listeners is time that they're not spending making more music.

Sorry guys- not optimal. You may be on top of the heap now, you may be in a position to turn the screws on your fans and squeeze money out- I'm in no such position- but check back in ten years and we'll see who's better. You keep right on playing with lawyers and I'll keep on playing guitar and bass and programming synthesizers and stuff... and I can only say, in all honesty, I don't think I will ever, ever need or want to be as stupid and shortsighted as you are being.

Get back to the music- or get pushed out of the way. It might take a while- that's OK, I and a legion of hipper mp3-oriented indie musicians have all the time in the world, and we're not tied up with perverted entertainment industry contracts like you guys are. Enjoy your glide back to the bottom, 'cause there's plenty of air beneath your wings but there's no power in your engines. (heh, thinking in aircraft metaphors- as it happens the next album I'm doing is on the theme of cool WWII aircraft :) ) Cheers, all the slashdotters who've checked out my music- and all the slashdotters who haven't and won't :) 'cause we're all in the same boat, really, aren't we?

I have to shrug and cheer on the napster kiddies- even though they're being dumb- honestly, there's lots of good music out there _already_ being made by people who understand this stuff. The big record companies, the MTV bands, are just locked in a sick codependent relationship and it's dumb to support it at all. People are frothing at the mouth over the 'right' to download metallica for free but... why Metallica, exactly? What have they done, what has Dre done that's so great? Open your mind, listen to other music- there is SO MUCH music out there of all kinds and people still fixate on what they are fed, like Windows users.

Still, whatever: never try and teach a pig to sing, etc.

The last time I posted to an mp3 thread on Slashdot, someone or other pulled me aside (in ASCII) and said, basically, "Give it up- people don't want to listen to you because you AREN'T metallica, you're wasting your breath". And certainly I've seen some evidence of that. But I've also occasionally seen a person or two like what I have to say, or like the music I pointed them at. Turns out I had some decisions to make- am I doing it to beat Metallica, or am I doing it for me, because I make music like some slashdothackers write code?

I chose the latter.

So, I went quiet for a bit, rather than arguing loudly that I ought to be listened to seven times in every mp3 thread. And since the last time I posted, I cut an entire new album, "Cirrus", which is the anti-metallica ;) it's ambient music, with more of an edge to it than your usual musak ambient stuff, done with a synthesizer I took apart and hacked with the electronics of. I finished up the "Dragons" album, and made the CDs of both Cirrus and Dragons available (they're $5.99: a previous poster thought all CDs should be under $5. I'd do that in a heartbeat but $5.99 is as low as mp3.com will allow me to go- still beats $17, doesn't it?), and "anima" is still there, and "Extended Play" and "Hard Vacuum" (I wish the confounded site would put anchor points in so I could have these links refer to the spots on the page where the songs are) and I even went back and put up 700x700 cover jpegs of all my covers. This lets you see what the CD will look like a little better- and can also be used if people want to just download the songs and the cover and burn the CD themselves (which I am happy to let people do- that's why I'm making it so easy to do).

And, after about two days of rest, I'm going back into the studio to do yet another album. These days I prefer to just DO MUSIC rather than bitching about Metallica. If you think my music sucks, check again in a week and I'll have done something else. Check again in a month and God knows what I'll be up to. If you haven't checked in a week or a month, there's new stuff. It's like any form of art (or indeed the art of programming)... you learn by doing, not by arguing about it.

These days I get really crappy page stats, the idea of 'push' marketing totally failed me. When I stopped pushing, people stopped showing up. So I'm giving up and going with 'pull' like I should have all along- just plain trying to do good music, lots of it, huge amounts of it with something in it for just about anybody. Every now and then I'll mention that somewhere (like I'm doing now) but don't expect a recurrence of the BUY MY ALBUM stuff- that was fun but the time I spent doing it was time not spent doing more music.

...just as the time Lars and Metallica and Dre are spending attacking their own listeners is time that they're not spending making more music.

Sorry guys- not optimal. You may be on top of the heap now, you may be in a position to turn the screws on your fans and squeeze money out- I'm in no such position- but check back in ten years and we'll see who's better. You keep right on playing with lawyers and I'll keep on playing guitar and bass and programming synthesizers and stuff... and I can only say, in all honesty, I don't think I will ever, ever need or want to be as stupid and shortsighted as you are being.

Get back to the music- or get pushed out of the way. It might take a while- that's OK, I and a legion of hipper mp3-oriented indie musicians have all the time in the world, and we're not tied up with perverted entertainment industry contracts like you guys are. Enjoy your glide back to the bottom, 'cause there's plenty of air beneath your wings but there's no power in your engines. (heh, thinking in aircraft metaphors- as it happens the next album I'm doing is on the theme of cool WWII aircraft :) ) Cheers, all the slashdotters who've checked out my music- and all the slashdotters who haven't and won't :) 'cause we're all in the same boat, really, aren't we?

I have to shrug and cheer on the napster kiddies- even though they're being dumb- honestly, there's lots of good music out there _already_ being made by people who understand this stuff. The big record companies, the MTV bands, are just locked in a sick codependent relationship and it's dumb to support it at all. People are frothing at the mouth over the 'right' to download metallica for free but... why Metallica, exactly? What have they done, what has Dre done that's so great? Open your mind, listen to other music- there is SO MUCH music out there of all kinds and people still fixate on what they are fed, like Windows users.

Still, whatever: never try and teach a pig to sing, etc.

The last time I posted to an mp3 thread on Slashdot, someone or other pulled me aside (in ASCII) and said, basically, "Give it up- people don't want to listen to you because you AREN'T metallica, you're wasting your breath". And certainly I've seen some evidence of that. But I've also occasionally seen a person or two like what I have to say, or like the music I pointed them at. Turns out I had some decisions to make- am I doing it to beat Metallica, or am I doing it for me, because I make music like some slashdothackers write code?

I chose the latter.

So, I went quiet for a bit, rather than arguing loudly that I ought to be listened to seven times in every mp3 thread. And since the last time I posted, I cut an entire new album, "Cirrus", which is the anti-metallica ;) it's ambient music, with more of an edge to it than your usual musak ambient stuff, done with a synthesizer I took apart and hacked with the electronics of. I finished up the "Dragons" album, and made the CDs of both Cirrus and Dragons available (they're $5.99: a previous poster thought all CDs should be under $5. I'd do that in a heartbeat but $5.99 is as low as mp3.com will allow me to go- still beats $17, doesn't it?), and "anima" is still there, and "Extended Play" and "Hard Vacuum" (I wish the confounded site would put anchor points in so I could have these links refer to the spots on the page where the songs are) and I even went back and put up 700x700 cover jpegs of all my covers. This lets you see what the CD will look like a little better- and can also be used if people want to just download the songs and the cover and burn the CD themselves (which I am happy to let people do- that's why I'm making it so easy to do).

And, after about two days of rest, I'm going back into the studio to do yet another album. These days I prefer to just DO MUSIC rather than bitching about Metallica. If you think my music sucks, check again in a week and I'll have done something else. Check again in a month and God knows what I'll be up to. If you haven't checked in a week or a month, there's new stuff. It's like any form of art (or indeed the art of programming)... you learn by doing, not by arguing about it.

These days I get really crappy page stats, the idea of 'push' marketing totally failed me. When I stopped pushing, people stopped showing up. So I'm giving up and going with 'pull' like I should have all along- just plain trying to do good music, lots of it, huge amounts of it with something in it for just about anybody. Every now and then I'll mention that somewhere (like I'm doing now) but don't expect a recurrence of the BUY MY ALBUM stuff- that was fun but the time I spent doing it was time not spent doing more music.

...just as the time Lars and Metallica and Dre are spending attacking their own listeners is time that they're not spending making more music.

Sorry guys- not optimal. You may be on top of the heap now, you may be in a position to turn the screws on your fans and squeeze money out- I'm in no such position- but check back in ten years and we'll see who's better. You keep right on playing with lawyers and I'll keep on playing guitar and bass and programming synthesizers and stuff... and I can only say, in all honesty, I don't think I will ever, ever need or want to be as stupid and shortsighted as you are being.

Get back to the music- or get pushed out of the way. It might take a while- that's OK, I and a legion of hipper mp3-oriented indie musicians have all the time in the world, and we're not tied up with perverted entertainment industry contracts like you guys are. Enjoy your glide back to the bottom, 'cause there's plenty of air beneath your wings but there's no power in your engines. (heh, thinking in aircraft metaphors- as it happens the next album I'm doing is on the theme of cool WWII aircraft :) ) Cheers, all the slashdotters who've checked out my music- and all the slashdotters who haven't and won't :) 'cause we're all in the same boat, really, aren't we?

I have to shrug and cheer on the napster kiddies- even though they're being dumb- honestly, there's lots of good music out there _already_ being made by people who understand this stuff. The big record companies, the MTV bands, are just locked in a sick codependent relationship and it's dumb to support it at all. People are frothing at the mouth over the 'right' to download metallica for free but... why Metallica, exactly? What have they done, what has Dre done that's so great? Open your mind, listen to other music- there is SO MUCH music out there of all kinds and people still fixate on what they are fed, like Windows users.

Still, whatever: never try and teach a pig to sing, etc.

The last time I posted to an mp3 thread on Slashdot, someone or other pulled me aside (in ASCII) and said, basically, "Give it up- people don't want to listen to you because you AREN'T metallica, you're wasting your breath". And certainly I've seen some evidence of that. But I've also occasionally seen a person or two like what I have to say, or like the music I pointed them at. Turns out I had some decisions to make- am I doing it to beat Metallica, or am I doing it for me, because I make music like some slashdothackers write code?

I chose the latter.

So, I went quiet for a bit, rather than arguing loudly that I ought to be listened to seven times in every mp3 thread. And since the last time I posted, I cut an entire new album, "Cirrus", which is the anti-metallica ;) it's ambient music, with more of an edge to it than your usual musak ambient stuff, done with a synthesizer I took apart and hacked with the electronics of. I finished up the "Dragons" album, and made the CDs of both Cirrus and Dragons available (they're $5.99: a previous poster thought all CDs should be under $5. I'd do that in a heartbeat but $5.99 is as low as mp3.com will allow me to go- still beats $17, doesn't it?), and "anima" is still there, and "Extended Play" and "Hard Vacuum" (I wish the confounded site would put anchor points in so I could have these links refer to the spots on the page where the songs are) and I even went back and put up 700x700 cover jpegs of all my covers. This lets you see what the CD will look like a little better- and can also be used if people want to just download the songs and the cover and burn the CD themselves (which I am happy to let people do- that's why I'm making it so easy to do).

And, after about two days of rest, I'm going back into the studio to do yet another album. These days I prefer to just DO MUSIC rather than bitching about Metallica. If you think my music sucks, check again in a week and I'll have done something else. Check again in a month and God knows what I'll be up to. If you haven't checked in a week or a month, there's new stuff. It's like any form of art (or indeed the art of programming)... you learn by doing, not by arguing about it.

These days I get really crappy page stats, the idea of 'push' marketing totally failed me. When I stopped pushing, people stopped showing up. So I'm giving up and going with 'pull' like I should have all along- just plain trying to do good music, lots of it, huge amounts of it with something in it for just about anybody. Every now and then I'll mention that somewhere (like I'm doing now) but don't expect a recurrence of the BUY MY ALBUM stuff- that was fun but the time I spent doing it was time not spent doing more music.

...just as the time Lars and Metallica and Dre are spending attacking their own listeners is time that they're not spending making more music.

Sorry guys- not optimal. You may be on top of the heap now, you may be in a position to turn the screws on your fans and squeeze money out- I'm in no such position- but check back in ten years and we'll see who's better. You keep right on playing with lawyers and I'll keep on playing guitar and bass and programming synthesizers and stuff... and I can only say, in all honesty, I don't think I will ever, ever need or want to be as stupid and shortsighted as you are being.

Get back to the music- or get pushed out of the way. It might take a while- that's OK, I and a legion of hipper mp3-oriented indie musicians have all the time in the world, and we're not tied up with perverted entertainment industry contracts like you guys are. Enjoy your glide back to the bottom, 'cause there's plenty of air beneath your wings but there's no power in your engines. (heh, thinking in aircraft metaphors- as it happens the next album I'm doing is on the theme of cool WWII aircraft :) ) Cheers, all the slashdotters who've checked out my music- and all the slashdotters who haven't and won't :) 'cause we're all in the same boat, really, aren't we?

Yeah, kinda sounds like MyMP3.com doesn't it? You know, where they could determine that I actually had the CD before I could listen to the MP3?

Of course, what sounds like a rational idea to 99% of humans ends up being shut down by RIAA.

The RIAA and their members aren't going to make anything available online until they figure a way to screw you at least as badly as when you buy a CD.

I should be able to dial 064 028 067 061 and get a prerecorded message with today's News for Nerds headlines. Or dial 192 215 176 126 to listen to my playlist of unsigned bands on my hands-free phone. Or dial 216 033 238 007 and have rsynth read me my spam.

Numbers look familiar? They're the IP addresses of the respective web sites. A "phone number" for voice over IP would be a static IP address.

Demo tapes with titles like "Lars Sucks Ass?"

Or "Metallica Ate My Napster".

(It's in MP3 too...)

it's hard to vote with your pocketbook when there's no competition.

There is competition, and it's on two fronts.

First, the consumer can choose not to deal with the retailers. Just as an example, specialized places like Century Media sell for $11 per CD for things on their label, and $12 on other labels. And of course, CDs from mp3.com is even cheaper and carries a much wider variety of genres. These also have a secondary advantage in that they have a lot more selection that Best Buy. I recall browsing through Best Buy several times, and for all the CDs they had, they just didn't .. well .. have anything.

The second front of competition is one that is still just emerging, thanks to technology and The Internet. The creators of music have the option of not dealing with the big media companies. Independent production is possible now without requiring too much capital, and The Internet is capable of competely obliterating the distribution problem. Musicians have a choice of whether to deal through the big labels and retailers, or going indy and selling other ways. Up to now, that choice has been quite lopsided. But that's changing fast, and it may soon be lopsided in the other direction.

I suppose one might argue (as many have) that the MP3 explosion did represent a popular response to the problem. But that too is outside the libertarian system which, if I recall, does respect IP.

Keep in mind that there's two sides to the MP3 explosion. It's not just about disrespecting IP (as mp3.com showed prior to their dumb idea of offering the my.mp3.com service). I don't see any reason why MP3s (or something like them, such as Ogg Vorbis files) cannot be sold, and they've already proven themselves for marketing and promotion outside of the megacorps' channels (MTV, radio, etc).

(BTW, although I consider myself pretty libertarian, I must admit that I'm sometimes stumped as to how the market can fix certain types of problems. I just think that the current music situation isn't one of those cases.)

Oh, and regarding that geek cube - to my mind fluoros are okay as long as you've got natural light, but no geek cube is complete without a Bang & Olufsen phone. Block mobile interferance too.

And maybe one or two of you might listen a bit when I say 'help?'. I need some support. People don't like it when bands put their focus entirely on marketing and suppressing mp3s- but if you're not Big, if you don't have the resources, then you basically have a choice: do your art or stop doing it and promote what you have. That's a damn ugly choice to have to face. I keep choosing to do more music- and it's killing me. There isn't time to go out and harangue people to listen to it, and that's not where my heart really is anyhow...

So I'm going to ask something (which you're free to ignore, after all I have no ability to force anybody to do anything). I keep putting up new music- my techno 'Dragons' album is almost done and has several new songs added to it very recently, more very soon. Please go to http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ and poke around downloading or streaming some music. I won't try to push a single song to become a 'hit' on the 'charts' because I don't believe in that model anymore. If you can't find anything you like, even when it's free, then go away again grumbling about my pushy tactics ;) but if you find something you like, instead of going "oh I probably should get that $5.99 CD to support the artist", could you please TELL SOMEBODY?

It just wears me down to see all this constant emphasis on the manufactured stars of a dying industry. Even bad publicity is publicity- and you know, I only have so much energy to put up against the army of marketing people, lawyers, and outraged geeks all raving about and at and against and for Metallica- and I'm just not going to spend it with complete selfishness. I'm going to spend it mostly on creating my own music- and then I'm going to go hang out in the mp3.com boards and try to encourage OTHER MUSICIANS that I like, because that needs to happen. There needs to be that support- and I'm going to try to provide it for others even if I hardly get any myself. And every now and then (not every five seconds anymore o_O ) I'll run across a Slashdot article relating to music and mp3, relating in some way to my situation- and I'm going to try to get word out about what things are really like out here in the trenches.

I do hope some people who've checked out my music and liked it go and _tell_ somebody about it. There's very little I can do to make that happen, as most of my energies are _already_ focussed on making more cool music for people to enjoy... and I spend as much as I can afford on posters to put around town and stuff. Everybody seems to nod and go "that's cool" and then go back to yelling at Metallica (at least on Slashdot). Maybe you guys could just forget about Metallica for a day or two and listen to free music, music that's actually being shared willingly?

http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ

And maybe one or two of you might listen a bit when I say 'help?'. I need some support. People don't like it when bands put their focus entirely on marketing and suppressing mp3s- but if you're not Big, if you don't have the resources, then you basically have a choice: do your art or stop doing it and promote what you have. That's a damn ugly choice to have to face. I keep choosing to do more music- and it's killing me. There isn't time to go out and harangue people to listen to it, and that's not where my heart really is anyhow...

So I'm going to ask something (which you're free to ignore, after all I have no ability to force anybody to do anything). I keep putting up new music- my techno 'Dragons' album is almost done and has several new songs added to it very recently, more very soon. Please go to http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ and poke around downloading or streaming some music. I won't try to push a single song to become a 'hit' on the 'charts' because I don't believe in that model anymore. If you can't find anything you like, even when it's free, then go away again grumbling about my pushy tactics ;) but if you find something you like, instead of going "oh I probably should get that $5.99 CD to support the artist", could you please TELL SOMEBODY?

It just wears me down to see all this constant emphasis on the manufactured stars of a dying industry. Even bad publicity is publicity- and you know, I only have so much energy to put up against the army of marketing people, lawyers, and outraged geeks all raving about and at and against and for Metallica- and I'm just not going to spend it with complete selfishness. I'm going to spend it mostly on creating my own music- and then I'm going to go hang out in the mp3.com boards and try to encourage OTHER MUSICIANS that I like, because that needs to happen. There needs to be that support- and I'm going to try to provide it for others even if I hardly get any myself. And every now and then (not every five seconds anymore o_O ) I'll run across a Slashdot article relating to music and mp3, relating in some way to my situation- and I'm going to try to get word out about what things are really like out here in the trenches.

I do hope some people who've checked out my music and liked it go and _tell_ somebody about it. There's very little I can do to make that happen, as most of my energies are _already_ focussed on making more cool music for people to enjoy... and I spend as much as I can afford on posters to put around town and stuff. Everybody seems to nod and go "that's cool" and then go back to yelling at Metallica (at least on Slashdot). Maybe you guys could just forget about Metallica for a day or two and listen to free music, music that's actually being shared willingly?

http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ

What kind of grammer is that?

With very what?! Egads.

Linux Band Bratwurst Orange
Beos Band XIR: Xir is recursive

What kind of grammer is that?

With very what?! Egads.

Linux Band Bratwurst Orange
Beos Band XIR: Xir is recursive

mp3.com just got bitten by RIAA, right?

Go download some music (legally) from there and support mp3.com. I'm only just getting back in to mp3.com after not having looked at it for a while. There's some _seriously_ good music there if you dig around a bit.

Was thinking about mp3.com the other day, and, apart from the whole legally dodgy Beam-It stuff, I can see why RIAA wants to shut mp3.com down. As I said, there's a lot of really good music available for download - music that I would of previously been happy to go buy in a shop on CD. "Commercial" quality and all that. Or I can get a DAM CD for ~US$7, and the artist is still making more money than if they had a record deal with a major. And, hey, guess what? The majors aren't getting in on this new stuff.

There's already some artists who are making a decent living from mp3.com sales, etc. Look here.

The majors aren't needed any more. I would be upset if I was them.

(for a nice selection of electronic music from mp3.com, check out this link )that I have nothing to do with): http://stations .mp3s.com/stations/2/turn_on_tune_in_space_out_.ht ml)

...j

And in other news, following their glowing success in their suits against MP3 dot Com and Napstar dot Com RIAA has decided to "let it ride!", filling suits against Washington University, Necmer Soft, Inc.,The Apache Group, Netscape, and Microsoft. Only Microsoft was available for comment saying, "... this is no different than STAC...", making reference to the buyout and dissolution of STAC by Microsoft a number of years ago.

Gez. Fuck it! Let's sue the whole damned country. (*whisper*) Oh, Metallica is already doing that...

[And people say Communism and Socialism are Evil (tm).]

3) Enjoy free music from the mp3.com independant bands, rather than RIAA supported corporate music.

Right on! here are a couple suggestions to start:
Luxurious Fur
Sutur
(Incidentally, Sutur got the Limp Bizkit Seal of Approval on MTV. Check Sutur's homepage for the video.) Mp3 bands are just as good, if not better than all that corporate rock. Most stuff on the radio is censored and watered-down, anyway.

The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk

3) Enjoy free music from the mp3.com independant bands, rather than RIAA supported corporate music.

Right on! here are a couple suggestions to start:
Luxurious Fur
Sutur
(Incidentally, Sutur got the Limp Bizkit Seal of Approval on MTV. Check Sutur's homepage for the video.) Mp3 bands are just as good, if not better than all that corporate rock. Most stuff on the radio is censored and watered-down, anyway.

The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk

I'm in the mood to......spoof.....

linux/beos bands/songs
here and here

I'm in the mood to......spoof.....

linux/beos bands/songs
here and here

I'm just waiting for all the slashdotters out there to proclaim the loss of all privacy. I agree that in a perfect world everything would be free, but you know what? Human nature isn't perfect and will not allow for everything to be free. How many of you would work for nothing but the sheer enjoyment of knowing you helped the world out? Can we expect musicians and movie and game makers to live up to those work-for-nothing standards? There are lots of musicians such as myself who will release our music for free (here's my example), but as I'm not making money off of it I can't afford to put lots of time into the writing and recording of the music, much less into the touring. If this NetPD is what it takes to keep professional musicians writing, recording, and touring so that people can enjoy their music, then I have no problem with it.

Every other week it's something new with the Genome, with a catch, twist (puns, bleh) or something else. I'm not blaming slashdot for posting it, I'm just not sure when I should get excited now.

One of my teachers is working on protein folding, and has about 45% accuracy using nueral networks and genetic algorithms. Is there any ever protein folding news?

BEOS/LINUX BANDS Here and Here

I am a musician and have mp3s up at mp3.com (as everyone knows by now ;) ). They are free unless you really want to pay for them or get a (spiffy) CD of them or reward me for working so hard on them... and I encourage users to exchange and copy them.

BUT! This whole court case seems to be establishing that (for instance) BMG or Sony or whoever CANNOT simply take my music and redistribute it on their own online music stores- depriving me of my share of the ad-banner revenue that I get at mp3.com etc. Without this ruling they'd have the same privileges as any user- and if things went well (or even if not) I could see my music being snatched up (it's 'free' after all) and used to bring people to Sony's site, or BMG's, or whatever, in future.

That's because they'd be taking advantage of their ability to redistribute. Now it is established that somebody like that has to come to an agreement before they can _distribute_ such material on a large scale- and I have the power as copyright holder and owner of the mechanicals (which I can still sublicense- mp3.com does not ask exclusive rights to them) to define the terms under which I make these recordings available.

This does really cut both ways. I realise it doesn't do that much for listener interests (I will do what I can to make sure I at least look after listener interests) but it actually can be used right back at the labels should they attempt to start blatantly using 'free indie mp3s' without coming to an arrangement- an arrangement where the contractual power is on the side of the copyright holder and owner of the mechanicals. The labels do NOT own ALL the music in the world...

perfectly legal mp3s including some new ones hot off the sequencers

Brian couldn't be more right. This is about mp3.com's ability to use other people's music without compensation. I agreed to a contract with them and _get_ compensation (in fact, I effectively get some of the ad banner revenue, costing my listeners nothing but the anguish of having to look at yet another 'Sephora.com' ad ;) )

If you're a musician, if it's your own music, not only are mp3s legal but _you_ are allowed to set the terms. I always encourage sharing and trading of my mp3s. I also write GPLed software FWIW- including some music-related software which I need to start distributing :) I keep asking, "Does anyone want to use this?" but I'm usually asking musicians instead of geeks, and they usually don't get what the software is for (in particular, I've written a nice simple polyrhythm calculator that measures in bars/beats/ticks at 4 beats to the bar and 480 ticks to the beat :) )

Sure, I love the Castlevania remix the Minbosses have done, but they are not the only ones to love and remix video game-music. Check out www.emucamp.com/mhhg or perhaps www.mp3.com/mhhg for some more. I think the original poster called their version "metal", I'd rather name it "hard-pop".

Check out Evil Adam.

He's done a remix of Radio Free Zerg (from Blizzard), an original Terran Music theme from Starcraft, and a cover of the Demon Stalkers opening music. (anyone else remember that game?)

He also did Evil de Chocobo, but the bastard didn't add the bass line yet. Check out his website, email him, and tell him to hurry up! Grrr...

Also, Frag Music has good links/news.
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu

If you're thinking of buying some Metallica, you may want to check out the free alternatives.
There is one mp3.com artist who sounds rather like 80s Metallica with a bit of electronics (and a somewhat eccentric concept).

Bullshit!

Napster is a service. They are _facilitators_. They are not making a contribution as much as they are helping along interactions.

Metallica are a band. They create art. Sure, it may be crap art, sure they might not be able to make as good art as they used to, but let me tell you about a guy named Ernesto Cortazar and maybe you'll understand a little better...

Ernesto Cortazar is the king of Easy Listening on mp3.com. He dominates the charts, sometimes in genres that aren't even Easy Listening- he dominates the Classical charts in spite of many complaints that his music isn't really Classical- he has 11 CDs available on mp3.com, _all_ a humble and reasonable $5.99- he's earned over 29 thousand dollars in downloads alone, again on mp3.com.

Ernesto makes music that would make a Metallica fan puke! He's totally committed to Piano Easy Listening, love songs, the complete 'not even new age' approach lacking only the candelabra on the piano. But he _means_ it. That's what he _likes_. I am telling you from the viewpoint of a musician (one who's only made $54 off downloads and makes infinitely less 'easy listening' music, except for "Wood Dragon": mp3.com/ChrisJ) that Ernesto contributes more to the world than Napster, because Napster _facilitates_ and Ernesto _creates_.

By the same token, of _course_ Metallica contributes more to the world than Napster! You don't have to _like_ what they contribute, but saying they contribute less than Napster is damned insulting because Napster never wrote a song in its life! It's not _about_ contributing, any more than TCP/IP is about contributing. It's about _communicating_.

I could wish that, instead of trying so hard to tear Metallica down, you spent some of that effort trying to build the musicians who _do_ cooperate and share and communicate, up... yes, of course I say that as I'm a (and only one of the) token slashdot musician, and of course I would like to actually be able to buy strings more often and get more of the tools I use to create with. But frankly I would be nearly as happy to see you go out there and hype Ernesto, or Bassic who also makes plenty of money by, again, doing what _he_ genuinely enjoys, which is Mike Oldfield-influenced synthesizer music that's very pretty and peaceful, most of it. These people are doing things the right way, as am I... must the whole story be about tearing down Metallica, can't some of it be about building up us?

Bullshit!

Napster is a service. They are _facilitators_. They are not making a contribution as much as they are helping along interactions.

Metallica are a band. They create art. Sure, it may be crap art, sure they might not be able to make as good art as they used to, but let me tell you about a guy named Ernesto Cortazar and maybe you'll understand a little better...

Ernesto Cortazar is the king of Easy Listening on mp3.com. He dominates the charts, sometimes in genres that aren't even Easy Listening- he dominates the Classical charts in spite of many complaints that his music isn't really Classical- he has 11 CDs available on mp3.com, _all_ a humble and reasonable $5.99- he's earned over 29 thousand dollars in downloads alone, again on mp3.com.

Ernesto makes music that would make a Metallica fan puke! He's totally committed to Piano Easy Listening, love songs, the complete 'not even new age' approach lacking only the candelabra on the piano. But he _means_ it. That's what he _likes_. I am telling you from the viewpoint of a musician (one who's only made $54 off downloads and makes infinitely less 'easy listening' music, except for "Wood Dragon": mp3.com/ChrisJ) that Ernesto contributes more to the world than Napster, because Napster _facilitates_ and Ernesto _creates_.

By the same token, of _course_ Metallica contributes more to the world than Napster! You don't have to _like_ what they contribute, but saying they contribute less than Napster is damned insulting because Napster never wrote a song in its life! It's not _about_ contributing, any more than TCP/IP is about contributing. It's about _communicating_.

I could wish that, instead of trying so hard to tear Metallica down, you spent some of that effort trying to build the musicians who _do_ cooperate and share and communicate, up... yes, of course I say that as I'm a (and only one of the) token slashdot musician, and of course I would like to actually be able to buy strings more often and get more of the tools I use to create with. But frankly I would be nearly as happy to see you go out there and hype Ernesto, or Bassic who also makes plenty of money by, again, doing what _he_ genuinely enjoys, which is Mike Oldfield-influenced synthesizer music that's very pretty and peaceful, most of it. These people are doing things the right way, as am I... must the whole story be about tearing down Metallica, can't some of it be about building up us?

• Easy: point and click
• High quality- 128K but NO skips or incompletes
• Legal
• Fast- you get the music immediately.

Oh, man, what _is_ this world coming to when the above isn't a joke? To think that "I promise not to sue my own fans" is a SELLING point O_O *rofl!*

Yes! I promise not to sue you, and for an additional low low price of $5.99 I'll still not sue you, plus you can have a CD, plus I won't drive over and set fire to your house! (I don't have a car anyway :) ) oh my oh my :)

People are not going to be _coerced_ into paying something they originally got as free.

I personally have had three different CDs sold on mp3.com for $5.99 when every single track is available for free. If asked I would provide even the cover art graphics to someone who wanted to make their own copy of my CD for free but couldn't or wouldn't pay. I already make it as convenient as possible to download every single track. My guess is that at least three people (each, interestingly, choosing a different album) independently decided that they would be willing to pay $5.99 to mp3.com for the convenience of having an audio CD made for them with a nice cover and all, and because I get half of the $5.99. I assume all of these people did originally get this as free- in fact I know it, because even if they didn't _take_ it, they got the music free because I made a point of giving it to them.

It seems that my experience flatly contradicts your concept, and this makes me happy and speaks well for the ability of an artist to earn money off free artwork through access to global distribution over the Internet. It's not much money but it's more than you'd credit, and I could do better still by working to produce greater music (or more commercial, accessible music): I know an artist (Bassic) who earns over $5000 a month on mp3.com from downloads and CD sales, and one important reason for this is simply that his music is more simple and accessible than mine. He loves Mike Oldfield, I love Mothers Of Invention- who do _you_ think is going to sell more CDs? ;) but I am happy about this because I _can_ produce the music _I_ like. Nobody is forcing me to make it like his in order to sell more of it. That's the beauty of being-paid-for-free-music, nobody can bitch if I'm not TRYING HARD enough to BE COMMERCIAL. I heartily endorse it to other artists who want creative freedom.

(And yes I also still endorse going and downloading my music and buying my CDs- by now the CDs of free music sold have been anima, Extended Play, and Hard Vacuum. So _every_ _completed_ _CD_ I've done has found at least one person who liked it enough to support it with their creditcard- I get a huge kick out of that, because I never expected that _all_ of it would see CD buys. Big appreciation to whoever's doing it, and I'm still making more and still making a point of giving it to you first and foremost)

Excellent point.

I think the difference is intention. Parents don't raise children for the money. And, I would argue, artists don't make art for the money. They make it because creating something and sharing it is fulfilling and fun.

But entertainers *are* in it for the money, and the way our society works, you're allowed to charge money for most anything you have or do, and people have the choice of taking it on your terms or leaving it. What we're not allowed to do is take something on terms other than those set by the owner or creator. That's why copying MP3s feels like stealing.

There is a point past which an entertainer's demands can seem unreasonable and ignoring their terms seems okay. Imagine if the author of "Happy Birthday" demanded that we all send him or her $100 each every time we sung the song at a party. Few people would comply or stop singing. It seems that the recording industry has reached that line, and it turned out to be a lot closer to $0 than $100.

However, I don't think that the line of reasonability is actually $0. Just last night I was sitting around trying to figure the best way to give the Arrogant Worms $10 because I like their song The Last Saskatchewan Pirate. $10 for one song! Well, I like it a lot. I played it at my wedding. And the band seems cool, so why not.

If there had been a button on my Winamp that said Tip The Artist, I would have pressed it. If there had been a Paypal link on the Worm's home page, I would have used it. (Well, if they worked with Canadians anyway -- hurry up, PayPal!)

Entertainers need to concentrate on making it easy to send them money, so we fans can reward them for entertaining us. I think if it were easy for millions of people to reward entertainers voluntarily, many talented people could make a living off free music.

Where is the record industry's role in this? Well, they should stick to what they're good at -- promotion. Perhaps artists can hire them like agents, giving them 10% or more of the cut. That's probably a lot less than what the record companies are used to getting. Maybe they should start a band.

(And yes, I recognize that most performers are both artists and entertainers. Which is fine -- there's nothing wrong with getting paid for what you like to do. As long as what you ask is reasonable.)

Tim Mitchell
Yogurt

Well.. the revolution may have been happening..but as of last Friday it's pretty much been put down.

Well.. the revolution may have been happening..but as of last Friday it's pretty much been put down.

As a musician that uses mp3.com I feel like I need to say something here. This has let people hear us that would have otherwise never even heard of us. I don't see it as losing money or a waste of our time or resources. The people that listen to us are probably more likely to go to a show when we play close to them, which makes them more likely to by stickers, or shirts or cd's.

I don't see what all these huge bands are whinig about either. Sure there are going to be people that don't buy theur albums. Those people would be just as happy with a cassette or mini disc, either way it's a moral issue rather than a money issue. Almost everyone I know has an old cassette of some metallica album.

And for the money... I know that a indie band can record and produce cd's for 1 - 3 dollars per disc. At shows these are usually sold for 8 - 10 dollars. That's some helacious profit. I mean at worst that's 70%. I know that these major labels are getting a better deal on CD's. The manager at a music store that Ionce worked at told me that it was about 97 cents a CD for a major label. And the honestly want us to pay 15 - 20 dollars and NOT see if we really like the album first?