Posted by
emmett
on from the more-artists-for-napster dept.
schtum writes: "As reported on NME: Public Enemy's Chuck D has become the first high-profile artist to come out in support of under-fire website and MP3 software provider Napster You can read Mr. D's original statement here."
"Mr. D" fits right in here on Slashdot, I like that DIME-WARNER reference.
It's good to see an artist who understands that the problem isn't the sanctity of copyright, it's the corruption of the music industry. Now that an alternative exists, no one wants to help support an institution so foul that some people would even go to illegal means to do so.
Personally, I've been thinking of signing up for one of those music clubs--"11 free CDs for the price of 1!" Assume shipping and handling, and ~15 for a CD, and it comes out to between $2-3 for each CD. I consider that to be a fair price. It's way above manufacturing costs, and still mostly profit. The problem I'm having is finding enough CDs that they offer, that I actually like. But I could at least fill out my collection some, since I haven't been buying anything new for a while. (once it started getting over $14, I said "fuck it", and only bought used stuff...)
Re:(somewhat OT) Free AC/DC, Blink, Limp Bizkit MP
by
Hrunting
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· Score: 3
I'm sure precedent has already been established somewhat. Back in the early days of British radio, there was heated dispute about whether radio could play songs off of records. The BBC would actually bring in big acts to record sets so that they could play them on the radio. These weren't acoustic versions or even live versions, but full-fledged recordings (perhaps you've seen some of them in the, ironically, music stores -- Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, etc.) that sounded great and were produced, mixed, etc. etc. etc.
So, basically, radio has gotten to the point where it can do whatever it wants (besides swear, apparently). The RIAA recognizes the important role that radio plays in establishing pop hits and in marketing new young hits. It's not about to destroy that relationship by doing stupid things like telling radio to stop releasing music that can't be accurately owned by the studio (hence studio and live recorded tracks).
Read the liner notes to Jimi Hendrix's BBC Sessions dual CD sometime (don't let the store owner catch you opening the case, though, heh). It's extremely enlightening.
Re:Get with the program, people... (napster sucks)
by
Dr.+Sp0ng
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· Score: 3
Napster is big news these days. Anyone mentioning napster is guaranteed to plenty of free publicity.
True, but read on...
As far as I am concerned, this is nothing more than a publicity stunt to get his name in the papers, and to sell more albums.
I doubt it - Chuck D is very vocal against the RIAA and released a few songs free on the internet awhile back (1998?) They weren't mp3's, but this was before mp3's became so popular. They were some self-playing Windows programs or something like that. The RIAA quickly made him take them down, and he posted something on his web site encouraging people who had downloaded the songs to spread them as much as possible.
To be honest, I never tried napster until two days ago, and that was only to see what all the huballoo was really all about. I must say that I was extremely disappointed. There were many artists who were not even listed in the database. When I found artists that were listed, there were usually many copies of just a very small set of unique tracks.
This is because of the sheep-like behavior of most people in this country - they all listen to the same goddam songs. What's listed in Napster is what is available on people's computers who are currently logged on to Napster.
And then when I went to download those that I was actually interested in, I discovered that most of the sites were down or otherwise unavailable.
Wierd - I've always had pretty good luck with songs being online when it says they are.
I found the whole excercise basically a waste of time. Time that would have been better spent earning a living and then just buying the CDs that I want to hear.
Hahaha what did you expect? Napster is just a big waste of time, if you're spending a significant amount of time on it. But if you're just looking for a particular song or small group of songs, it definately pays off to check Napster first before going out onto web sites to find them, because if they're there it's much easier to find them than searching online (and don't even try to tell me that scour.net [which I haven't used in months, but last I checked only 1 out of maybe 5 songs listed was actually there] is better, because it's not)
You "didn't notice any of his songs available for download on his web site" because he's been locked in battle with his record label for years over that. Public Enemy tried to release a record for free on the internet, and their label made them remove it.
When he says he's all about free music, he's the only artist I know who really means it. He's trying to educate with his music, and he sees it as a soapbox, as free speech. For a brief period in the late 80's, a lot of people called it "edutainment" with a straight face. Chuck ended up feeling handcuffed to his record label, though, because:
If you give speeches for a living, and you decide that you want to stand on the corner and talk about politics to a group of people, you're allowed to do it.
But if you're a musician, and you make music for a living, your label doesn't allow you to create songs for fun (or whatever reason) and not give them a cut of the profits. It doesn't even matter if the label has nothing to do with the production or distribution of the music - they still want a piece of the action.
You can make a case for the labels: they have an investment in your success, and they put a lot of advertising dollars into getting your name out there. By releasing stuff for free, you're devaluing their investment and reducing their ability to recoup their costs.
So anyway, that's where Chuck is coming from. He sees the potential of Napster to distribute music as a real freedom-of-speech thing. He wants to bitch about the system, and this is the only way a lot of small artists are going to be able to do it. Of course, in reality, the small artists really just want to get paid....
Given your comments: And then when I went to download those that I was actually interested in, I discovered that most of the sites were down or otherwise unavailable. Perhaps a better understanding of what napster is and how it works is in order.
These aren't "sites" in the normal sense of a 24/7 web site, they are OPC (Other Peoples' Computers). These OPCs pop on and off-line all the time. If you happened to do your search when 20 other people each had a copy of the same song, they will show up in your search. You're relying on the kindess and generosity of other napster users to share a lot of files for long periods of time.
Given this arangement, it's in your own best interest to share a lot of your own MP3s for a long period of time, thus making the searching and downloading of your files an enjoyable expierence for other users (and vise-versa). On any given night, there can be over 4000 users sharing 1,500 GB of data. If 4000 people all got on napster and shared one MP3 file (like I_want_to_be_a_cowboy___neal.mp3) it would loose it's interest very fast.
The old saying "You only get out of it what you put into it" applies in this case.
As for "There were many artists who were not even listed in the database." This is partly due to the small search result of 100 responses to a search queary. I would agree that as the user base grows, and duplicate files increase, there is almost as much noise as signal. However, I like the small search size for legal reasons. I don't want other users (read RIAA lawyers) to be able to pull down every single user name and slap a seace and desist order on them.
P.S. Have we gotten so spoiled that the ability to quickly search and download positivly *any* song our hearts could desire from 2Tb of music on a distributed world wide network for free...Sucks? _______________
Re:Chuck D's strong and original opinions
by
FreshView
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· Score: 3
NOOO!!!
NOT A DIFFERENT OPINION FROM THE SLASHDOT CONTINUUM.
Those, like all other opinions are entirely valid and subjective. There is no reason to argue over them.
-- --------
"All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away"
--Spiritualized
Re:Take the power back
by
Chris+Johnson
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· Score: 4
Recording studios are like guitars: people will buy them and use them for the sheer joy of making music.
My recording studio cost money, and for commercial work I'll charge $75 an hour for it, which isn't even that high of a figure.
For people who are on my side in this mp3, open source, freedom to express thing, I'll literally let them use my studio FREE. If you are going to be releasing all your stuff as mp3s free (NO holdouts) and will allow purchase of your CD to be strictly voluntary (as mine are- nothing is withheld from the free downloads or will ever be), then I will be delighted to work with you for free. You merely have to call me, email me, set up a time and get yourself to Brattleboro, Vermont. (I obviously can't gallivant all around the country recording people for free!) As to other costs, hell, I can probably throw in the tape if that's a problem. (New Maxell XR-S Black only please).
As to how downloading an mp3 supports an artist? DOWNLOAD MINE and find out!! Please? Do I have to _beg_ people to listen to the artform I've been doing for almost 20 years? Do I have to tantalise people with the studio of which the 'anima' album is a good demonstration of the sounds I can get? It's not like this is crud- nearly broke top 20 in Instrumental Rock with _no_ promotion, up against much more established artists such as Carmine Appice, Dweezil Zappa, Richie Sambora and Brian May (all of whom I beat in the charts, in various combinations) and Wolf Hoffman (who I haven't beat- yet). It's not like it can be less expensive because I've been a slashdot-reading, GPL-using, linux-booting creativitysharing geek for years, and the CDs I have up there are all the minimum of 5.99 that mp3.com will allow (think about THAT for a minute. That's presumably the price at which they are still making some money- how much lower than the mainstream is that?) and there's nothing that I won't freely GIVE to someone who doesn't have the money or just wants to be given stuff.
And all I'm really asking in return is for people to DO THAT- download the mp3s, what, do I have to PAY people to listen to music that's not off the major labels? If this is not supporting the artist then WHY are 90% of the songs on the mp3.com artist boards "Please download my song, I want to be in the charts, I want to be heard"? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be an artist supporting the mp3 revolution and feel like anybody is listening, is accepting what you're giving?? It's like that scene in Cryptonomicon- "Accept one of our free army tanks! They get 2000 mpg and go 500 miles an hour playing quadrophonic stereo with air conditioning!" and everybody wants the station wagons:P
I _beg_ people, follow those links, download my mp3s paying me nothing. If people desperately want to pay me they will eventually get their chance but for now I ask _nothing_ more. If you don't like people who rant on slashdot, go there and download somebody _else's_ music out of spite- as long as it's not "Rolling Stones Interview" or something! Do you know how irritating it is to have some rock dinosaur major label appendage open an account at mp3.com alongside you, put out some _soundcheck_ or radio station promo and then instead of using the medium (like Chuck D.!) and putting the whole album up, putting up the ONE TRACK (like Robby Krieger) and withholding the rest, or putting up INTERVIEWS (Robby, the Stones, the Eagles) so then you end up having some rock dinosaur's PRESS CONFERENCE beating you to death in the charts and staking out the top places for weeks on end? A _press_ conference? That's like listing IE service packs right alongside Freshmeat packages, complete with hit ratings. I don't know how better to express how insulting and damaging this is. "Gee, Martha, looks like many more people like and enjoy the latest NT service pack than this new linux program- looks like we should be running that!" feh.
And then I come here and read the question "And how does downloading an mp3 support an artist"? Yeesh, stand aside for venting- I apologize for freaking right out at you, because you meant no harm and surely were trying to encourage people to support artists _more_ than that. But, man! If you had any idea how badly I wanted people to just plain hear what I'm doing with this wizzy new studio I've built, how I want to be supported and respected for how seriously I'm taking the new paradigm- rather than ignored- "Oh, he has all his songs available for download, he must suck if he's not on a major label or at least trying to sell his albums by forcing people to buy them in order to get every song!" "Oh, he has all his programs open source, they must suck if they're not proprietary or at least crippleware that will shut itself off if you don't pay for it!" Can't you even see the parallels? Wouldn't you want Linux to 'be higher on the charts'? Is it so hard to understand that music operates on a similar economy of respect and status, and is equally hard to bullshit about, and is equally threatened by a totally hostile and corrupt culture that's got most people unaware there is even a better, more open, more community-oriented way?
*sigh!*
So maybe my only answer is the sheer desperation and intensity of this rant. _Please_ go to mp3.com (or some other indy-artist site if you prefer another one) and download some artist who is _not_ signed to a major label and polluting the music charts with _interviews_ and crap like that. If you do nothing else, at least take what's being given. There's damned good stuff out there. I happen to think my stuff is good stuff, but I've heard _lots_ of other acts who had terrific music up there- and I can be pretty certain that they would _all_ love to be heard, if nothing else. Half of them beg constantly in the artist bulletin boards _just_ to be downloaded, and that includes damn good artists whose music I really liked.
Please go and listen to us rather than questioning whether mp3 will help us... and listening only to major label shite! Thank you. -chris
Like Breaking Out of Bondage
by
waldoj
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· Score: 4
To so many artists (TMBG), their relationship with their label is like that of an indentured servant and their master. Though the servant is grateful for what they receive, the indignities of day-to-day living could never make up for it.
To artists that have such awful contracts, each time that a song of theirs is transferred via Napster must feel like a small victory, a mini-uprising. Naturally, the artist can't cheer this on, nor can they even really acknowledge it. It's a rare gem like Chuck D that is willing to cheer on the revolution.
-Waldo
(somewhat OT) Free AC/DC, Blink, Limp Bizkit MP3s
by
Evro
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· Score: 4
My favorite radio station, NYC's 92.3 K-Rock, has AC/DC doing You Shook Me All Night Long acoustic (performed live in the studio with some guitar that had just been laying around, from what I gather), as well as a song from Blink 182 and one from Limp Bizkit. You can download these songs for free from their site. They aren't the highest quality, but at least it's something. I wonder what kind of legal hoops they had to jump through to get this up on their site?
Anyway, this is a sign, I guess, that some people at least have a clue. I mean, AC/DC's been around for what, 25 years? If they can come around and see the benefits of distributing a promo song for free, even if it's low quality, there may yet be hope for the industry. Of course, for every AC/DC there's a Ricky Martin and an N-sync whose contracts would never let them do anything like that. And there are far more Ricky Martin-esque filler type bands that need the quick buck than proven ass-kickers like AC/DC, so maybe the industry as a whole is doomed--but we can still have hope for the quality bands of today.
He did, and the label stopped them cold!
by
isaac
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· Score: 5
PE was one of the first major acts to put free, full, downloadable tracks online (not in MP3 format, unfortunately, but as self-playing executables. I'll forgive them for this lack of cross-platform savvy, given that this was in 1998, early in the MP3-era). The tracks lasted all of a few days before their label ordered them removed, under legal threat; thereafter, Chuck D posted a message on the website exhorting fans who had managed to download the tracks to spread them far and wide. He's a long-time fan of downloadable music and a longer-time critic of the RIAA!
-Isaac
-- I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Chuck D spoke today at a conference I went to called "Music to Whose Ears" put on by the law journal. He was the keynote speaker, and raised a few good points in the measly 20 minutes they gave him:
Unlike when CDs came out, the "new" media is in the hands of the consumers, not the record companies. That means that the companies don't have the consumers by the nose: no more paying $18 for a CD that costs The Internet allows music to be globally produced and globally heard. Instead of having 5% of the music out there being heard, the other 95% has a better chance, due to the fact that it costs very little to produce and promote music on the Internet. MP3.com is free. In the Record Company's world, to promote a CD costs millions, including thousands for magazine ads, radio play, and the like. So, with the Internet, there are fewer barriers, which enables more music to be produced and heard.
Chuck D says Napster is a Good Thing. For the past decade or so, the record company's have been forcing consumers to pay large amounts of money, often without giving them a chance to hear it first. Not all CDs are in the little listening kiosks. With this new media, you can actually listen to the music and decide whether to consciously support the artist with your money or not.
The record companies cannot be allowed to win. The jacking of the consumer cannot be allowed to go on. Instead, the Internet will force them to come up with new paradigms of selling, and force the courts to come up with new paradigms of copyright protection. Maybe record companies will become what they should have been all along, collectively owned by the artists with profit sharing, instead of management getting the big bucks at the expense of artists.
Chuck D had a lot more to say (and said a lot more) but I think this is the gist of it. It was an incredible little talk, but I wish they'd given him more than 20 minutes. All in all, Chuck D showed the knowledge and insight that made PE so far ahead of its time.
The way the music business works
by
K8Fan
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· Score: 5
Steve Albini wrote an article some of your may be familiar with, but others may not. The famed producer details exactly how a new band can sign a contract, record an album, have a hit and tour...and wind up oweing money to the record company and spend a year making a third of what they would have if they had spent the same amount of time working at a convenience store.
It's a lovely answer to those who argue that Napster and free distribution are a worse deal than they have currently. Read this and you'll see it's not possible to have a worse deal than you'll get from a major record label.
-- "How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure"
Charles Crumb
Chuck D's strong and original opinions
by
ContinuousPark
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· Score: 5
Wired Magazine has this interview with him. This is from March 1999. Also, kind of offtopic, but did you know his position on the MS trial "When someone comes along and dominates an industry, of course you get a whole bunch of losers screaming, hoping somehow they can beat 'em down. Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. Bill Gates is Michael Jordan" and on software pirates: "To the pirates, I say the more the merrier. Success comes from the fans first - if someone is going to pirate something of mine, I just have to make sure to do nine or ten new things. I mean, you can't download me" You might want to check Public Enemy's website too.
--
"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams".
Elias Canetti
Slashdot Mirror
"Mr. D" fits right in here on Slashdot, I like that DIME-WARNER reference.
It's good to see an artist who understands that the problem isn't the sanctity of copyright, it's the corruption of the music industry. Now that an alternative exists, no one wants to help support an institution so foul that some people would even go to illegal means to do so.
Personally, I've been thinking of signing up for one of those music clubs--"11 free CDs for the price of 1!" Assume shipping and handling, and ~15 for a CD, and it comes out to between $2-3 for each CD. I consider that to be a fair price. It's way above manufacturing costs, and still mostly profit. The problem I'm having is finding enough CDs that they offer, that I actually like. But I could at least fill out my collection some, since I haven't been buying anything new for a while. (once it started getting over $14, I said "fuck it", and only bought used stuff...)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I'm sure precedent has already been established somewhat. Back in the early days of British radio, there was heated dispute about whether radio could play songs off of records. The BBC would actually bring in big acts to record sets so that they could play them on the radio. These weren't acoustic versions or even live versions, but full-fledged recordings (perhaps you've seen some of them in the, ironically, music stores -- Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, etc.) that sounded great and were produced, mixed, etc. etc. etc.
So, basically, radio has gotten to the point where it can do whatever it wants (besides swear, apparently). The RIAA recognizes the important role that radio plays in establishing pop hits and in marketing new young hits. It's not about to destroy that relationship by doing stupid things like telling radio to stop releasing music that can't be accurately owned by the studio (hence studio and live recorded tracks).
Read the liner notes to Jimi Hendrix's BBC Sessions dual CD sometime (don't let the store owner catch you opening the case, though, heh). It's extremely enlightening.
Napster is big news these days. Anyone mentioning napster is guaranteed to plenty of free publicity.
True, but read on...
As far as I am concerned, this is nothing more than a publicity stunt to get his name in the papers, and to sell more albums.
I doubt it - Chuck D is very vocal against the RIAA and released a few songs free on the internet awhile back (1998?) They weren't mp3's, but this was before mp3's became so popular. They were some self-playing Windows programs or something like that. The RIAA quickly made him take them down, and he posted something on his web site encouraging people who had downloaded the songs to spread them as much as possible.
To be honest, I never tried napster until two days ago, and that was only to see what all the huballoo was really all about. I must say that I was extremely disappointed. There were many artists who were not even listed in the database. When I found artists that were listed, there were usually many copies of just a very small set of unique tracks.
This is because of the sheep-like behavior of most people in this country - they all listen to the same goddam songs. What's listed in Napster is what is available on people's computers who are currently logged on to Napster.
And then when I went to download those that I was actually interested in, I discovered that most of the sites were down or otherwise unavailable.
Wierd - I've always had pretty good luck with songs being online when it says they are.
I found the whole excercise basically a waste of time. Time that would have been better spent earning a living and then just buying the CDs that I want to hear.
Hahaha what did you expect? Napster is just a big waste of time, if you're spending a significant amount of time on it. But if you're just looking for a particular song or small group of songs, it definately pays off to check Napster first before going out onto web sites to find them, because if they're there it's much easier to find them than searching online (and don't even try to tell me that scour.net [which I haven't used in months, but last I checked only 1 out of maybe 5 songs listed was actually there] is better, because it's not)
You "didn't notice any of his songs available for download on his web site" because he's been locked in battle with his record label for years over that. Public Enemy tried to release a record for free on the internet, and their label made them remove it.
When he says he's all about free music, he's the only artist I know who really means it. He's trying to educate with his music, and he sees it as a soapbox, as free speech. For a brief period in the late 80's, a lot of people called it "edutainment" with a straight face. Chuck ended up feeling handcuffed to his record label, though, because:
If you give speeches for a living, and you decide that you want to stand on the corner and talk about politics to a group of people, you're allowed to do it.
But if you're a musician, and you make music for a living, your label doesn't allow you to create songs for fun (or whatever reason) and not give them a cut of the profits. It doesn't even matter if the label has nothing to do with the production or distribution of the music - they still want a piece of the action.
You can make a case for the labels: they have an investment in your success, and they put a lot of advertising dollars into getting your name out there. By releasing stuff for free, you're devaluing their investment and reducing their ability to recoup their costs.
So anyway, that's where Chuck is coming from. He sees the potential of Napster to distribute music as a real freedom-of-speech thing. He wants to bitch about the system, and this is the only way a lot of small artists are going to be able to do it. Of course, in reality, the small artists really just want to get paid....
What's your damage, Heather?
These aren't "sites" in the normal sense of a 24/7 web site, they are OPC (Other Peoples' Computers). These OPCs pop on and off-line all the time. If you happened to do your search when 20 other people each had a copy of the same song, they will show up in your search. You're relying on the kindess and generosity of other napster users to share a lot of files for long periods of time.
Given this arangement, it's in your own best interest to share a lot of your own MP3s for a long period of time, thus making the searching and downloading of your files an enjoyable expierence for other users (and vise-versa). On any given night, there can be over 4000 users sharing 1,500 GB of data. If 4000 people all got on napster and shared one MP3 file (like I_want_to_be_a_cowboy___neal.mp3) it would loose it's interest very fast.
The old saying "You only get out of it what you put into it" applies in this case.
As for "There were many artists who were not even listed in the database." This is partly due to the small search result of 100 responses to a search queary. I would agree that as the user base grows, and duplicate files increase, there is almost as much noise as signal. However, I like the small search size for legal reasons. I don't want other users (read RIAA lawyers) to be able to pull down every single user name and slap a seace and desist order on them.
P.S. Have we gotten so spoiled that the ability to quickly search and download positivly *any* song our hearts could desire from 2Tb of music on a distributed world wide network for free...Sucks?
_______________
NOOO!!!
NOT A DIFFERENT OPINION FROM THE SLASHDOT CONTINUUM.
Those, like all other opinions are entirely valid and subjective. There is no reason to argue over them.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
My recording studio cost money, and for commercial work I'll charge $75 an hour for it, which isn't even that high of a figure.
For people who are on my side in this mp3, open source, freedom to express thing, I'll literally let them use my studio FREE. If you are going to be releasing all your stuff as mp3s free (NO holdouts) and will allow purchase of your CD to be strictly voluntary (as mine are- nothing is withheld from the free downloads or will ever be), then I will be delighted to work with you for free. You merely have to call me, email me, set up a time and get yourself to Brattleboro, Vermont. (I obviously can't gallivant all around the country recording people for free!) As to other costs, hell, I can probably throw in the tape if that's a problem. (New Maxell XR-S Black only please).
As to how downloading an mp3 supports an artist? DOWNLOAD MINE and find out!! Please? Do I have to _beg_ people to listen to the artform I've been doing for almost 20 years? Do I have to tantalise people with the studio of which the 'anima' album is a good demonstration of the sounds I can get? It's not like this is crud- nearly broke top 20 in Instrumental Rock with _no_ promotion, up against much more established artists such as Carmine Appice, Dweezil Zappa, Richie Sambora and Brian May (all of whom I beat in the charts, in various combinations) and Wolf Hoffman (who I haven't beat- yet). It's not like it can be less expensive because I've been a slashdot-reading, GPL-using, linux-booting creativitysharing geek for years, and the CDs I have up there are all the minimum of 5.99 that mp3.com will allow (think about THAT for a minute. That's presumably the price at which they are still making some money- how much lower than the mainstream is that?) and there's nothing that I won't freely GIVE to someone who doesn't have the money or just wants to be given stuff.
And all I'm really asking in return is for people to DO THAT- download the mp3s, what, do I have to PAY people to listen to music that's not off the major labels? If this is not supporting the artist then WHY are 90% of the songs on the mp3.com artist boards "Please download my song, I want to be in the charts, I want to be heard"? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be an artist supporting the mp3 revolution and feel like anybody is listening, is accepting what you're giving?? It's like that scene in Cryptonomicon- "Accept one of our free army tanks! They get 2000 mpg and go 500 miles an hour playing quadrophonic stereo with air conditioning!" and everybody wants the station wagons :P
I _beg_ people, follow those links, download my mp3s paying me nothing. If people desperately want to pay me they will eventually get their chance but for now I ask _nothing_ more. If you don't like people who rant on slashdot, go there and download somebody _else's_ music out of spite- as long as it's not "Rolling Stones Interview" or something! Do you know how irritating it is to have some rock dinosaur major label appendage open an account at mp3.com alongside you, put out some _soundcheck_ or radio station promo and then instead of using the medium (like Chuck D.!) and putting the whole album up, putting up the ONE TRACK (like Robby Krieger) and withholding the rest, or putting up INTERVIEWS (Robby, the Stones, the Eagles) so then you end up having some rock dinosaur's PRESS CONFERENCE beating you to death in the charts and staking out the top places for weeks on end? A _press_ conference? That's like listing IE service packs right alongside Freshmeat packages, complete with hit ratings. I don't know how better to express how insulting and damaging this is. "Gee, Martha, looks like many more people like and enjoy the latest NT service pack than this new linux program- looks like we should be running that!" feh.
And then I come here and read the question "And how does downloading an mp3 support an artist"? Yeesh, stand aside for venting- I apologize for freaking right out at you, because you meant no harm and surely were trying to encourage people to support artists _more_ than that. But, man! If you had any idea how badly I wanted people to just plain hear what I'm doing with this wizzy new studio I've built, how I want to be supported and respected for how seriously I'm taking the new paradigm- rather than ignored- "Oh, he has all his songs available for download, he must suck if he's not on a major label or at least trying to sell his albums by forcing people to buy them in order to get every song!" "Oh, he has all his programs open source, they must suck if they're not proprietary or at least crippleware that will shut itself off if you don't pay for it!" Can't you even see the parallels? Wouldn't you want Linux to 'be higher on the charts'? Is it so hard to understand that music operates on a similar economy of respect and status, and is equally hard to bullshit about, and is equally threatened by a totally hostile and corrupt culture that's got most people unaware there is even a better, more open, more community-oriented way?
*sigh!*
So maybe my only answer is the sheer desperation and intensity of this rant. _Please_ go to mp3.com (or some other indy-artist site if you prefer another one) and download some artist who is _not_ signed to a major label and polluting the music charts with _interviews_ and crap like that. If you do nothing else, at least take what's being given. There's damned good stuff out there. I happen to think my stuff is good stuff, but I've heard _lots_ of other acts who had terrific music up there- and I can be pretty certain that they would _all_ love to be heard, if nothing else. Half of them beg constantly in the artist bulletin boards _just_ to be downloaded, and that includes damn good artists whose music I really liked.
Please go and listen to us rather than questioning whether mp3 will help us... and listening only to major label shite! Thank you. -chris
To so many artists (TMBG), their relationship with their label is like that of an indentured servant and their master. Though the servant is grateful for what they receive, the indignities of day-to-day living could never make up for it.
To artists that have such awful contracts, each time that a song of theirs is transferred via Napster must feel like a small victory, a mini-uprising. Naturally, the artist can't cheer this on, nor can they even really acknowledge it. It's a rare gem like Chuck D that is willing to cheer on the revolution.
-Waldo
Anyway, this is a sign, I guess, that some people at least have a clue. I mean, AC/DC's been around for what, 25 years? If they can come around and see the benefits of distributing a promo song for free, even if it's low quality, there may yet be hope for the industry. Of course, for every AC/DC there's a Ricky Martin and an N-sync whose contracts would never let them do anything like that. And there are far more Ricky Martin-esque filler type bands that need the quick buck than proven ass-kickers like AC/DC, so maybe the industry as a whole is doomed--but we can still have hope for the quality bands of today.
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rooooar
PE was one of the first major acts to put free, full, downloadable tracks online (not in MP3 format, unfortunately, but as self-playing executables. I'll forgive them for this lack of cross-platform savvy, given that this was in 1998, early in the MP3-era). The tracks lasted all of a few days before their label ordered them removed, under legal threat; thereafter, Chuck D posted a message on the website exhorting fans who had managed to download the tracks to spread them far and wide. He's a long-time fan of downloadable music and a longer-time critic of the RIAA!
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Chuck D had a lot more to say (and said a lot more) but I think this is the gist of it. It was an incredible little talk, but I wish they'd given him more than 20 minutes. All in all, Chuck D showed the knowledge and insight that made PE so far ahead of its time.
Steve Albini wrote an article some of your may be familiar with, but others may not. The famed producer details exactly how a new band can sign a contract, record an album, have a hit and tour...and wind up oweing money to the record company and spend a year making a third of what they would have if they had spent the same amount of time working at a convenience store.
It's a lovely answer to those who argue that Napster and free distribution are a worse deal than they have currently. Read this and you'll see it's not possible to have a worse deal than you'll get from a major record label.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Wired Magazine has this interview with him. This is from March 1999. Also, kind of offtopic, but did you know his position on the MS trial "When someone comes along and dominates an industry, of course you get a whole bunch of losers screaming, hoping somehow they can beat 'em down. Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. Bill Gates is Michael Jordan" and on software pirates: "To the pirates, I say the more the merrier. Success comes from the fans first - if someone is going to pirate something of mine, I just have to make sure to do nine or ten new things. I mean, you can't download me" You might want to check Public Enemy's website too.
"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams". Elias Canetti