Slashdot Mirror
Can Newspapers Save Local Music?
impaler writes: "Roblimo has posted a great piece over at NewsForge about how the Washington Post and other newspapers are hosting MP3 download sites for local musicians and how the sites are actually very popular. An interesting read." Just because the "music industry" works a certain way right now doesn't mean that all change is bad; Bruce Springsteen is apparently finding that he doesn't need much beyond a lock and key to keep the Internet hordes from passing around his albums before they're released, and the musicians on the Washington Post site seem to like being there.
Have you no shame?
Don't you make $100K a year working with
computers?
Come on, drop some of that cash on new CD's.
I mean, unless you actually live in NY, Chicago, LA, etc do you really read your local newspaper or watch your local news program? If no, why do you expect local music hosted by these entities to be worth a crap?
mp3.slashdot.org ...
You've clearly missed the point, all bands start out as local bands, only blind dumb luck gets them to stardom, ..that or they're created. Otherwise do you think Backstreet Boys, NKOTB or N'Sync would've ever seen the light of day? No. This gives musicians everywhere an avenue to be heard on the cheap, by everyone, what more publicity could one ask for? It's a great idea and I'm thrilled to see it in action.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Think about it - nearly every major market has at least one "free" newspaper, and most markets do have some smaller newspaper, not owned by conglomerates (like Canwest/Global here in Canada) that could put forth, gasp, an original viewpoint, a cutting edge playlist, and even just good recommendations for new music, unlike any radio station (college stations excepted) or any major venue.
Now, will we have to worry about ClearChannel buying up North American newspapers if this catches on?
ed
and the musicians on the Washington Post site seem to like being there.
How could they not like this? It's pretty much free advertising... and being on this site means less chance of being passed around P2P..
1) All musicians started out as local bands.
2) Just because a musician is popular doesn't mean he/she is good. (ie: britney spears)
but most importantly,
3) You need to stop reason to techno.
While the music industry scrambles to keep albums off the Internet before they reach stores, one highly successful artist has managed to skirt online piracy with a surprisingly low-technology solution.
The artist, Bruce Springsteen -- who has released six CD's of material in the Internet era, with another album on the way this month -- has thwarted prerelease file-sharers not through digital protection or online policing, but with an old-fashioned lock-and-key approach. In the weeks before a release, his albums barely see the light of day, frustrating not only downloaders but even music critics and other industry insiders who cannot put their hands on his work.
On July 30, Mr. Springsteen will introduce "The Rising," his much-awaited first studio album with the E Street Band since 1984, on Columbia Records. But even as Mr. Springsteen's camp plans extensive promotions, from premieres of different songs on America Online to a live appearance on "Today" from Asbury Park, N.J., few people outside his inner circle have heard the album.
Recording labels usually ship dozens or hundreds of albums to radio stations, journalists and others involved in the industry months before they go on sale. Mr. Springsteen's organization, on the other hand, sent out fewer than 10 copies as of early July, and only a handful more will join them 14 days ahead of the store date -- if at all, according to a spokeswoman, Marilyn Laverty of Shore Fire Media. Insiders who do obtain advance copies do not distribute them, said Gary Graff, a music journalist at Reuters who has interviewed Mr. Springsteen on several occasions. He said no one wanted to anger the Springsteen camp. "That's almost the best weapon they have," he added.
Mr. Springsteen's success battling online piracy is an outgrowth of his longtime fight for strict control of his work, which has seen him battling bootleggers in court both at home and abroad.
As a result, Mr. Springsteen's prerelease work has been conspicuously absent online. In 1998, he issued the four-CD set "Tracks"; last year, he released the double album "Live In New York City." None of those complete discs were available online before they were available in stores. Indeed, no more than a handful, if that, of the 84 songs on those sets were distributed ahead of time.
By contrast, a scan of the WinMX file-trading network last week turned up complete or nearly complete albums by Linkin Park and Filter, which are not scheduled for release before the end of the month.
Though Mr. Springsteen's core audience is older than most Linkin Park fans, his catalog is still popular -- and once his albums are released, they are as easily traded online as those of any other artist.
While his approach clearly prevents his work's being swapped before release, how it affects sales is unclear. Take the case of the rapper Eminem. His latest album, "The Eminem Show," was scheduled to be in stores on June 4. But in the weeks leading up the release, the disc was already available in MP3 form on file-sharing networks like Kazaa. Afraid of losing sales, Interscope Records took the extremely rare step of bumping up the release to a Sunday, May 26, rather than the usual Tuesday release.
And when SoundScan released its figures for the week ended May 26, "The Eminem Show" had sold nearly 285,000 copies, and the disc had shot to No. 1 on Billboard magazine's albums chart.
"Within less than a month, he had the biggest-selling album of the year," said Geoff Mayfield, Billboard's director of charts. "So if he did lose sales to people copying the album before it was released in stores, he still wrapped up some pretty significant numbers since it came out. It's hard to say how much damage it did to that album."
Some music executives think prerelease exposure could actually be beneficial. "If you're trying to have a hit song and really have a phenomenon, the momentum of huge word-of-mouth and media exposure may be worth creating or risking a leak," said Danny Goldberg, former chief executive for the Mercury and Warner Brothers labels and current chief of the independent Artemis Records.
And for someone like the 52-year-old Mr. Springsteen, who has more fans near his own age than his children's, prerelease distribution might actually help him generate sales with a younger demographic.
"The Springsteen crowd now, if you wanted to reach them, then you do it at Starbucks and the supermarket," Mr. Graff said. "Young people, you put it where they spend their time, which is online."
Stacey Herron, music analyst for Jupiter Research, said she thought Mr. Springsteen might sell more albums to younger listeners if he reached them through file-sharing. But Mr. Springsteen is not going quite that far with his arrangement with America Online that allows him to reach the digital set while still maintaining a modicum of control.
AOL is introducing four songs from "The Rising" over four weeks before July 30, but those songs are being streamed, not posted for downloading.
Still, it can be difficult to keep the reins tight in cyberspace, even for Mr. Springsteen. A week before the second promotional track was released, an enterprising fan uncovered the file on AOL by guessing its likely name. Within two hours, the song had been converted to an MP3 and distributed.
Ms. Laverty would not comment on the AOL promotion, nor would Mr. Springsteen's managers and representatives of Columbia, a unit of Sony.
An AOL Music spokeswoman, Ann Burkart, said she was unaware of the advance distribution of the second promotional song, "Lonesome Day." But she did add that the promotion's first single, "The Rising," was streamed 755,000 times in 48 hours, putting it among the five most popular songs of AOL's Listen First campaign since it was begun earlier this year.
If it won't boot, Fsck it!
"reason" was supposed to be "listening"
I guess I should stop erading \.
Sleeman beer is doing an ad series based on the fact that their bottles don't have labels. They have hosted a bunch of bands which aren't signed to labels on their website and are using them in commercials.
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
In Philadelphia, venues like the Grape Street Pub do much more than promote their own shows. They are trying to build a thriving original music scene in philly, especially with the compilations they sell and put out on the web.
Local music magazines are also much better at promoting local musicians to the people who will actually come out to see them. Origivation is a good example for Philadelphia.
Ben Garvey
Acoustic Rock : http://www.bengarvey.com
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
"You mean," I ask, "you guys sell CDs through your Web site, and play concerts, and don't have a major record contract, and you manage to make a living as full-time musicians?"
"Yes, we're making a living, Cliff says. "We're all full-time musicians."
What's this? You can share your music AND make money. And I thought the RIAA was telling the truth. But really, I think that song-sharing is a great idea. A lot of times, I'll download the music just to see if I'd like to buy the CD; and more often then not, I do. Also, I think that it makes the artists look very favorable when they actually let you download their music, so you are more apt to want to support them over a group who tries to destroy and user with a ripped, illegal version of their song.
My other sig is an import.
In the UK, one sunday paper (Sunday Times?) recently gave away an Oasis CD with every purchase. Half the songs were playable on a CD player, and half were PC-playable four times, before they expired. Imagine if CD giveaways were integrated with MP3.com-like portals.
This would be a great way to promote new music, since CDs are cheap to manufacture and small enough to package with a newspaper. It would be great to see the newspaper websites host local artists' music, and then their distribute songs.
One of the arguments in favour of Free(dom) music is that artists can promote themselves with free distribution, then earn their feed by doing live gigs. Newspapers are an excellent mechanism for alerting people to upcoming events. They could play an integral part in reinventing the music industry by promoting small artists and helping them sell tickets.
No reason why these things couldn't be done with free software either.
Newspapers are struggling to keep readers and stay relevant. I see this as a Good Thing. It provides a good service and it's a way to get more eyeballs on their ads, without resorting to charging for internet content, registrations, etc.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Being in an indie band for the past 4 years (www.snoozerland.com) I can say that napster and other file sharing programs have helped our record sales alot. Not that we are selling millions of records but napster helped boost our sales outside Canada. (Actually untill napster we weren't selling any records outside Canada!). It also brings people into the clubs in the cities you've never been to before when you tour.
Thanks to file sharing we're hitting the states for the first time in September when our new cd is released and we also will have two songs on an upcomming movie sountrack.
What record companies have forgotten is that word of mouth is a very powerful thing
Snoozer.
My area is significantly smaller than NY, Chicago, LA, etc.
But we've got a pretty good local music scene (and pretty good local news, for that matter).
I bet if you went out and actually listened to some of the local acts, you might find some pretty good shows. I've found that local acts tend to have excellent stage presence.
Also, the big acts of today were yesterday's local acts, and some from much smaller areas than NY, Chicago, LA, etc. IE: The Tragically Hip, arguably one of the biggest bands to come out of Canada, and quite successful on the world's stage, came out of Kingston, Ontario. I suspect that NY has suburbs bigger than Kingston....
Sure, there's a lot of junk in a local music scene, but just because of that don't discount all of it. Maybe you're just going to the wrong places to experience it.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
Newspapers usually cover news in a local area, so I can understand why "local bands" are an interest. I just wonder how well it will catch on. Businesses don't usually do something that isn't in the interest of profit. With the songs being put up for free, it will only work if they use the popularity of the music downloads to attract more advertisers (who like to see higher circulation).
Or they will require a log-in with a valid email address amd give you all the spam you can eat.
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
USA Today, June 27, 2000 "For more in-depth information, check...another good reference: 'MP3 For Dummies' by Andy Rathbone." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Wow! This is great news! Think of the vast sea of unknown music as Open Source, and the tiny-by-comparison but hugely more hyped body of popular music as Closed Source. There are many parallels.
Wider exposure for local musicians is the kind of the thing the Internet was supposed to be all about. And it's a necessary step toward eradicating the music industry.
Every city has a paper, every city has local bands. It's a great match. And when the RIAA sues ostensibly for , the paper already has lawyers who have defended the first amendment before.
Could it be that local bands can afford to share a few songs since it is very unlikely that many people have ripped their entire CD. This being the case, the listener must buy the CD to hear any more songs.
word.
Can Newspapers Save Local Music?
A better question should be can local music save newspapers. When I used to buy a paper, I typically did so to look for something in particular; classfied ads, movie listings, the latest electronic store ads, even the comics. Occasionally if I had a few hours to kill, I'd actualy read the news.
But the net has given all of those things to me for free, and a heck of a lot faster. So newspapers have to find new ways to bring in revenue. I don't (and currently won't) pay for a local newspaper online, but I would if it were to provide new avenues of information like local band MP3s. This is such a great and fantastic idea.
If my local newspaper were to still provide the news and information I want online and add mp3s from local bands (and who knows what else), I'd have no reservations about plunking down $15 a month for it.
The Internet is generally stupid
only blind dumb luck gets them to stardom, ..that or they're created.
.... A newspaper doing something like this is actually very good not only for the musicians, but also for the people living there, as it makes a much more satisfied culture.
So you're telling me bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, got big out of pure luck, no talent involved?
Ok, maybe you mean currently: what about Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Dream Theater, Radiohead.
Not all bands get big because of pure luck. The bands who do won't be remembered in five years (ie: NKOTB (for those you didn't realize it New Kids...)
Regarding everything else you siad, agree completely, this has got to be one of the greatest ideas. It'd even be helpful if they'd list local shows of all kinds of different types of music. In my hometown, I used to go see the local bands, and had made many friends through the shows, but since I've moved, I don't know what's around here, or where the shows are
I see the emphesis being placed back on local bands, which will then be scouted by professionals from a bastardized version of the recording industry and put on tours designed to make money rather than sell albums. MTV and commercial stations will have to go back to (gasp) making their money off ad sales like everyone else.
This won't be anywhere near as lucritive as the current music monopoly, but that's life.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I'd vote for a reference article caching server first.
Slashdot.org does not provide this service for reasons listed in the FAQ. That said, you can usually use Google's cache to read the text of a story once the page has been slashdotted.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Some pretty heavy spin Timothy is applying to that story. It reads more like -- In order to avoid having his new album widely available through file sharing services, as recently happened to Eminem, distribution of Bruce Springsteen's new album is being tightly restricted. As a result, few reviewers or radio stations have heard it.
Of course, Springsteen can get away with that. (Or is he completely washed up now, anyway? I lost interest in him 15 years ago.) For less prominent artists, handcuffing their publicity efforts is a major issue.
Not that I'm losing sleep over this either way, but the Slashdot writeup is a 180 distortion of the NYT article.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
For example, you are not allowed to distribute the music over a LAN. This means that I could not use my Rio Receiver to play the music over my hifi system. You are also not allowed to use the music to construct any kind of database. This probably rules out most fancy players that create nice indexes of your music. It may rule out all hardware based players as they will create a (small) database of the music stored internally to the player. It certainly rules out using JReceiver as my music server.
I understand that they want to restrict the use that people make of the band's music, but it does seem a little over restrictive.
Guess I'll have to stick to clips from here.
The requested URL
If you read the linked article about pre-release copies getting spread on the internet, it talks about Eminems (sp?) album being available a month ahead of time. Even though it was highly traded online...guess what? When it was released in the stores hundreds of thousands (OK a couple hundred thousand) people still decided to buy it in the dirst couple of months. So how many record sales were lost do to the "pirates" VS. The pre-release mp3's actually helping sales by letting people know what they were buying? Imagine if the record industry were the car sales industry saying "you can't test drive a car before purchase". Sure some customers may decline to buy the car based on having test drove it....But if it is a good car -- the test drives may actually increase sales of said automobiles. I think the RIAA is just scared of how many of the "crappy albums" will not get sold if people actually have a chance to here them before purchase. Or how important is it if people are trading MP3's from a back catlog album that has already sold 14 million copies. There were many cassettes from the 70's-80's that never were made into CD's in the states that were pressed to CD in Japan. Now I have purchased the cassette and LP -- they have made there money from me -- if they knock down my door for downloading the mp3's made from the Japanese CD's...am I allowed to throw the tapes and LP's in there faces and say, "if you would release your back catalogs on CD in the states -- I would be the first in line..."
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
That rather defeats the purpose of karma. Also, can't you selectively decide what bonus to give to non-anonymous posts you read? I think so. Thus, the ability to post non-anonymously at 0 would be useful.
Should I post this anonymously, to avoid losing more karma? Ah fsck it, I'll post at +2, just to burn the points of those who insist on modding down to -1.
You could've hired me.
Here is a good example: The Synthesis
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
You mention bands that are... let's see THIRTY YEARS OLD! Quite different situation then!
Then you mention bands that between them have probably sold less than the prior mentioned dogsh*t bands. Can you say niche?
I lived in Rochester from 1992-96, and one of the only stations I ever listened to was 90.5, WBER
Granted, I've never listened to a lot of radio in general... I always thought a lot of it was crap even before ClearChannel began borging every station in sight. But WBER is an entirely independent station and as such plays a very eclectic mix of music, including local bands. --At least, that's how it was 6 years ago. I haven't listened in a while.
The Tragically Hip, arguably one of the biggest bands to come out of Canada, and quite successful on the world's stage, came out of Kingston, Ontario. I suspect that NY has suburbs bigger than Kingston....
Hell, as a former Kingston resident, I suspect that NYC has pizzerias bigger than Kingston. Incidentally, Sarah Harmer is also from Kingston, or at least got started playing there. She's great, I can't believe Nelly Furtado got the Juno instead of her. You'll be hearing more about her in a few years...
Freedom: "I won't!"
n/t
I read this story and was wondering, does anyone know a good PHP solution for hosting musician content? I'm looking for something that can allow musicians to upload their music, and automagically add their upload to the
library.
Either that or something custom written. We could probably afford $200 bucks to anyone that could write such an app as well as some free adspace in the print rag. Any takers just reply to
toqer @ pacbell dot net
Thanks!
It would have been nice to note that the song internet porn that Roblimo mentioned was by a group called Da Vinci's Notebook, a really cool male "a cappella" quartet out of Virginia/Washington DC. (Not truly a cappella, as they occasionally use insturments.) Very cool, and I was lucky enough to be told by a bunch of my music pals that they were a kickass group and that I needed to see them in concert.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
You are stealing money from the music industry!!!
Sincerely yours
Hillary Rosen
God DAMN i hate that paper and their forced registration. Anyone who links to that worthless rag should warn the reader where he is going.
Where is jacob nielson when you need him???
I think that's the station he was refering to.
I haven't lived in Rochester in for over 2 years, but WBER playlist seemed not all that different from the commercial "alt-rock" station in town. It did announce concerts, but never played any of that music except during an indie rock showcase specialty hour.
Damn I miss the Bug Jar.
If you're in a band (or have friends that are) and use Andromeda to stream MP3s (PHP or ASP) and would like a steady flow of traffic, please let me know. -Scott
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Here's the deal:
I've never heard of snoozerland (until now). I've never heard any of their songs. How am I supposed to find snoozerland on a file sharing network when I don't even know it exists? WHY would I search for snoozerland if I don't know it exists? WHY would I search for snoozerland besides something with more name recognition?
Filesharing doesn't help get the word out about your band. It only helps get the music out to those who already have the word and care about hearing your music.
For instance, you say: "(Actually untill napster we weren't selling any records outside Canada!)". As I stated above, how could napster help you sell records outside of Canada when no one outside of Canada knew about your existance?
Wouldn't 'net radio or sites like MP3.com be more influential for fledgling bands when a filesharing system?
(I'm not trying to poop on your parade here. Just presenting a line of thought. It's cool that you are now experiencing greater success because of MP3s and the 'net, I'm just saying that I'm not sure how important a factor filesharing was to the bands success due to the natue of filesharing systems.)
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
this is very encouraging news, considering that for the past two months I've been working on a site dedicated to the local music scene in my area. (Columbia, MO)
Basically I'm creating the most extensive site regarding music in the area - (not a challenge, unfortunatly)
The heart of the site is the local album and show reviews which can be submitted by registered members. I am trying to create a sense of community, because, quite frankly, our scene sucks. (especially for being a major university town)
There's no "I" in Linux.. err..
nearly every major market has at least one "free" newspaper, and most markets do have some smaller newspaper, not owned by conglomerates
Ok, be very very careful about this statement. Most "free press" newspapers are owned by conglomerates: Village Voice Media Inc. (which owns the Village Voice, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, Cleveland Free Times, Nashville Scene, and OC Weekly) or New Times Media Inc to name a few.
Actually here is a list of Alterno-conglomerates and don't be surprised if your fave local paper is in there.
For the last few years "local alternative" papers have been eaten up by these conglomerates (and have minority members like Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Weiss, Peck, & Greer.)
Of course these papers deny or eschew their corporate ownership with their witty commentary and flippy attitude. But in the end it is still corporate homongenization.
Sidebar: Maybe I'm a little pissed about this since my favorite local paper has just gone down the crapper the last few months due to an "editorial change". What has this meant? 1) New oh-so-cool-but-not-self-conscious-like format redesign 2) removal of any enjoyable entertainment content 3) features that are just bastardizations of two year old stories (the IBM-Nazi Germany connection), poorly written/argued (the current one on Maven/Queen Bee girl socialization behavior that starts out on the topic, switches to a completely different topic to prove its point against the former) or insulting (like how the WNBA should support its lesbian fan base more 'cause "we all know female atheletes are dykes"... good job at reinforcing 19th century stereotypes Cleveland Free Times!). Oh and then they whine and mince at the local big paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Um, hello? What, were you fired from there or something? Didn't return your calls? Anyway: tell someone who gives a damn and don't waste ink on it!)
Summary: Just because it is Propaganda you like doesn't mean it ain't Propaganda. So read a lot of different stuff and make your own choice.
What is music when you despise all sound?
http://www.real-local.com
No mp3's though...
How is it that you think when a band gets uploaded to a site like the ones mentioned that it cuts down on the chances of being passed around on a p2p network? And also, how is this automatically a bad thing?
My band uploaded our mp3s to mp3.com a while back, and let me tell you we were all ecstatic the day we found out we were being passed around (in small doses) on kazaa.
The best reason to do something (like making music or art) is because you love to do it. Not because you are a greedy bastard only in it for the money.
I mean, the money is nice too but that's what day jobs are for. I dont plan to quit mine.
no soup for you
It will be nice to have a counter example to the arguement that distributing commercial music on the internet boosts sales. no matter the result, it will be nice to compare his cd sales to those of artists who aren't so tight on their work.
Springsteens secrecy over his album will give a nice statistical counter example to those whos albums are freely available on file sharing networks...
come to think of it he has gotten less and less popular.. but that can be attributed to alot of factors, not necessarily just that he's so tight on his music.
i hope we get to see the raw sales statistics. it would be a shame if they are not available to contrast them in an analytical paper or something.
They mention how 'successful' springsteen has been because of his tactics, but in reality, he is catering to a whole different audience and has been for a while. People in the generation that primarily listen to springsteen are not the ones using p2p networks.
Even if he did send out a ton of pre-release albums, you can bet there wouldn't be that many passing around on p2p networks like there would be if a new Limp Bizkit album was out.
Saying that tactic is an effective anti-piracy strategy would be like saying the new Charlie Pride encoded CD they just released was effective because you don't see it on the p2p networks either.
By that logic, I could say a computer monitor will keep tigers away as a natural repellant, I mean has anyone ever been attacked by a tiger while reading something on your screen?
The fallacy in the logic of this article is astounding, especially since it came from the NYT.
-S
-Sternn
as amatter of fact, i'm building a webcast station for local artists. I about about 20-30 local bands in my area that are interested and more are signing on. I'm keeping the URL private (/. effect and all), but i encourage everyone to do what they can to support local music. If you care to join me, click on my site above, then you can contact me from there.
thelikesofwhich.com
No, I was talking about the Nerve 95.1. I'm about 30 miles southeast of Rochester and I can't pick up WBER.
I'm a DC metro resident, and this is the first time I've heard of this. This is a great idea in theory, but the audience for this already has its ways of finding the local bands.
/. every website in the DC music scene.
:)
I'm not going to drop URLs here just because I'm not out to
If you're interested in the local scene, just check out the listings in the free "alt" paper. That will get you names of a few venues and bands. Go there for a night and see if you like the place . Find its website and periodically check its show schedule. From they, try to find the sites of the bands that play there. The chances are good the band has a few mp3s available to DL. If you like them, go see them. Talk to people there, get recommendations for other bands to catch. And check out the merch table.
One of the best venue in DC is Fort Reno. Its a free outdoor concert series. Its purpose is to showcase local punk/indie/whatever bands.
Oh. I noticed Barcelona has a few mp3s on the Post. They would definitely appeal to the slashdot audience. "Shell Account" is a good song.
That's how it would be if RIAA ran the car industry, and it's a darn good thing that they don't - not just for the customers but for the car makers. Think of all the impulse buys they would lose if potential customers couldn't walk through the lot, seeing, touching, smelling the new car smell . . . . Now, it's true that car dealers have problems with theft off the lot, and they'd have less theft if they kept the cars locked away from potential buyers. But such measures would cut heavily into their sales, so they don't dream of trying it. In most business sectors, the sellers of quality merchandise understand intuitively that knowledge of the product sells the product. Contrast this to the shady used car dealer trying to pass off lemons as good cars -- that's the guy who won't even let you kick the tires, much less test drive.
The counterintuitive, myopic policies of RIAA and its marketing-machine clients stem from their shady used-car dealer psychology. The RIAA machine clearly recognizes that quality music will sell itself to informed listeners. Music that sells itself doesn't need an RIAA machine, so RIAA necessarily becomes the enemy of both quality music and informed listeners, to preserve its own existence. That, in and of itself, explains why the trash the big labels put out keeps getting inexorably worse. If sites like the Washington Post succeed in convincing a critical mass of musicians that they are better off without the RIAA machine, no Fritz Hollings, Bono amendment, or anything else can save this dinosaur industry that exists solely to hard-sell crappy music to malleable children and teens. To speed this day along, I will be making a point of visiting the site, listening to the downloads, and purchasing CDs of bands that I like.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
Every artist/band in your post sucks, mmkay?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I am broadcasting the local bands from Chicago on www.goonsquadradio.com. All local chicago artists are invited to participate!
-The DJ
The missing piece now is promotion - how could the audience learn about a musician they would like, without spending an insane number of hours sampling music? The most direct solution would be the "if you liked this, you might also like this other thing" recommendations you'd see at video stores or Amazon, but it should also be possible to develop software to analyze submissions from artists, and play them over niche Internet radio channels with little or no (expensive) human intervention.
The middleman has reasons to be afraid.
Sing it Bruce:
"Wo Woah CHEVY, Wo Woah GIRLFRIEND, Wo Woah CHEVY, Wo Woah NIGHT,Wo Woah CHEVY, Wo Woah BEACH, Wo Woah CHEVY, Wo Wo Wo Wo ...." repeat ad nauseum... (snore....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.).
File sharing doesn't hurt musicians or performers or music lovers. File sharing only hurts the record companies. Why? it's a new form of distribution, one that they can't control. For decades, the record companies had a lock on two things: Promotion and distribution. Control these and you control it all. Now that the radio stations have taken promotion back, the record companies are screaming to Congress for redress. File sharing threatens to take a big bite into their distribution model, so back to Congress they go for redress again. The big lie here is the mantra thay say over and over and over: "We're doing this for the artists". BULLSHIT! They're doing it almost 100% for THEMSELVES! The average artist makes practically nothing from their records. There is ample evidence to this fact. The artists make most of their money in performing and merchandising. The sad (and scary) thing is that the most ignorant, clueless ones out there seem to be Congress and the courts...because they seem to simply take the RIAA and MPAA's statements completely at face value.
The article points out that Springsteen listeners also aren't all that likely to be spending time ripping mp3's and sharing files.
I think there's some merit to the point of keeping CDs secure. Obviously the Boss can pull it off. But, let's face it, how many 'Springsteen' searches are going over Gnutella?
The opposite of progress is congress
She loves music and hates the record industry. I've found a soul-mate. Maria, will you marry me?
I mean has anyone ever been attacked by a tiger while reading something on your screen?
Nope. The tiger is for defending yourself against people attacking you with fresh fruit.
Sorry, it's been that sort of day.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
I'm surprised, man. You're what, near Canandaigua? I thought their main transmitter was in South Bristol, which isn't that far away from you. Although, maybe when they were assimilated, it got moved... Have you tried their repeater at 95.5?
Utilizing magnetic schemata since
I lived in Rochester in college. Now I live in seacoast New Hampshire where i pick up radio from Portland Maine and Boston. I can't find anything on the radio as good as WBER. I miss it.
In a round about way, it does work. As far as I can tell, there are two types of mods: The kind who mod good comments up, and the kind who mod down. Not neccescarly bad comments. I've been labled a troll or off topic a number of times when there was no reason to do so.
With more trolling going on (real trolling, not what some asshat thinks is trolling), these retarded moderators use up their points faster, so they can't get around to mod down the good comments.
If you're not sure, ask Migor. He knows everything.
i saw some of the music on kazaa the other day, what is this article talking about ?
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
Posted by Enby in Waltham, Mass. (not MA; this is not the US postal service. :)
How do they enforce the 4 times?
Is it just the license you agree to, or do you have to use a special player?
It seems to me that if you played them off of a CD, then it would be awful hard to determine when you played them.
Anyone care to explain?
Moreover, the point was not to make an "excuse" for P2P, but to point out how, unlike other industries, the RIAA machine's continued existence depends on keeping the consumer uninformed. Barnes and Noble has clearly decided, like most rational retailers, that they will sell more CDs by informing the consumer. However, RIAA does not necessarily see a cent of that - I will bet my left buttock that the "Kodo" taiko drum group you discovered through Barnes and Noble's open marketing was not put out by any of the studios in RIAA's cartel. So Barnes and Noble, in effect, is putting another nail in the RIAA machine's coffin.
Does anyone know whether RIAA has taken a stand against Barnes and Noble's marketing practices, threatened any kind of legal action, or demanded royalties for songs that customers listen to in the store? Given their stance on webcasting, it seems unlikely that they would let this pass.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.