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Sharing Still Doesn't Hurt
Robotech_Master writes "Eric Flint has posted two new Prime Palaver rants. The first one is a continuation of the one that was mentioned here on Slashdot the other day, about the Free Library, the e-book, encryption, and you:'One thing you have to understand about this whole controversy is how much of it is sheer hot air. Many authors and most publishers, when they address this issue, give people the impression they're at risk of losing their shirt through electronic "piracy." That's pure hogwash[...]' The second is a response to the idea of boycotting Harlan Ellison for his anti-piracy stance (and I imagine some Slashdot faces will be red over some of what he has to say!)." We linked to Ellison's rant last year.
To draw a connection to boycotting a dead creater to boycotting a living creater is spurious, at best.
You have 0 chanve of getting Wagner to change his views, or even take a closer look at them, because he's dead. You have nearly 0 chance of getting HE to re-think his position, but nearly 0 is not 0, and if enough people do it, maybe he'll actually try to put a story onto the baen library to see if it works.
I won't buy anything new from Ellison. No I won't boycot him, but I sure as hell will see that no money I spend ends up into his pocket. His thinking is draconion, and feeds right into the corporate misconception. Fortunatly I have a library card and easy access to a used book store.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Zero minus zero equals zero. Read the rant, learn the phrase. Seriously. RIAA types and the IP-martial-law crowd still won't get it (because they can't conceive of anything from which they can't get a percentage), but the average person understands that going to a public library and reading a book is not theft, and neither is 0 - 0 = 0.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Here's my true story about how sharing is good.
I'm a young guy (20 years old). When Prince (aka, "The Purple One," "The Artist Formally Known As Prince," etc) was just getting started up, I was very young and not too interested in music. I knew who Prince was, however, and I remembered that.
However, I didn't know who Morris Day was -- an artist who, in my view having heard him, is superior to Prince.
Now, about a year ago, I saw the movie "Purple Rain". In that movie, I saw the story of Prince and Morris Day competing at a local club. They showed several songs of each artist. As it turns out, in reality, Prince and Morris Day were actually in the same band and good friends, but the movie is a dramatization which sets them up as being enemies.
Anyways, in this movie, they showed Morris Day performing the song called "The Bird". I thought that song was really fun and great, so I looked it up on Amazon, and looked for Morris Day on Google. So I found out this was a real guy, and he had a alot of songs before he unexplicably quit the music industry.
I thought cool. But I'm not going to buy an album by a guy just because he had one good song. So I downloaded Day's album's off from Grokster and LimeWire. Turns out, almost all of the guys music is good -- some real great songs, like Jungle Love, Fishnet (Black Pantyhoes), Color of Success, Get It Up, The Walk, 777-9311, etc.
That's how I found out about Morris Day. And that's how I found out his songs were good. And that's why I've bought a few of his albulms. In short, he made money because of file-sharing. Of course, if he had sucked, he wouldn't have made money; but he also wouldn't have lost any either.
The general point that can be taken here is that almost all people who download tons of stuff from LimeWire/Kazaa wouldn't have bought it anyways. I have about 40Gigs of songs. Do you really think I would have actually gone out and bought 40Gigs worth of songs if it weren't for file-sharing? Of course not, that's absurd. So in short, the artists who's songs I've downloaded haven't lost anything because I wouldn't have paid them anyways. Some gain alot, because I like them enough to buy their albums.
In fact, everyone gains. Before file-sharing I wasn't an avid fan of music. Now, I am. All kinds of music too. I even watch M-TV once in a while, something which I never did before.
In fact, I'd venture to say that the interest in music today is higher than its EVER EVER BEEN. And that's accounting for the size of the population.
So, how exactly is it that artists and the music industry loses from this?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Of course, it could be argued that if there was no money to be made in the arts then only those who truly love them will produce them. This would create a situation in which only the highest quality works would be produced. So what if copyrights were abolished? Take the above statement and change the word arts to software and you'll see my point.
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
Eviscerate The Damn Middlemen
/.ers out there who don't buy CDs because they don't want to support the RIAA need to be aware that some labels are artist-owned and you should be going out of your way to support those. There are even some labels that are responsible and great to work with. Rory Block has recorded 10 or 15 albums with Rounder records, and the first few were done without even signing a contract. No, I couldn't believe it either when I heard it, but it's true. Some labels really exist to support the musicians.
I was with you up to here. Labels serve a very important purpose: they let us know which artists are worth listening to. I don't know about you, but I don't have time to wade through piles of indie crap hoping to find something I like. Most of the good musicians out there, I (and most everybody else) am aware of because a major label spent money in putting them in the limelight. That said, I can't fathom why an artist would stay with a label after they've made it big (and their contract's out). But I'm sure they have their reasons.
Someday Soon
It's already happened. Ani DiFranco built up Righteous Babe records all on her own, after developing a huge and loyal fan base by touring her ass off. Aimee Mann started her own label after getting screwed by a major one. Incidentally, all you
As an aside, anyone turned off by Ani should check out Revelling/Reckoning. Her politics still (and probably always will) annoy me, but the music is truly amazing. Just about everything about Aimee Mann is good, and Rory Block can play the old-time country blues like nobody's business.
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