Slashdot Mirror
Ideas for a Recording Industry Alternative?
icewalker asks: "There has been a lot of news (here, here, and here) lately about music, copy protection, and other related issues. What I find interesting is that there are literally thousands of free bands out there that are more than worthy of listening too. Free as in they have not sold their souls (not to mention music rights) away to the devils of the music industry. But how does one get to listen to these pioneers of music? The solution could be sites like mp3.com (until the mp3 royalties are forced). But what people want is a locals only site that streams, guess what, the music from free local bands only. Not just for your community but local bands from all over the US (and the world). We need a site that collects these bands and we need a streamer that plays them. No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves. Make it so that the artists can hopefully sell their own CD's or single songs from the same site. Anyway, mix and bake at multiple bit rates and you have a solution to the copy protected CD (I haven't bought one yet from an Indie Band). The big guys go down because they can't compete with free, better than great music on the web with a low cost distribution. So, where is this utopia? Oh! And dump the necessary registration required to listen (are you listening mp3.com?)."
mylocalbands.com is trying to do this.
If only there weren't as many bad indie bands as their are bad mainstream bands.
Any system that allows consumers to purchase songs one song at a time (at a low one-song price), rather than as expensive packages (like CDs) that contain unwanted songs at a high price, will go a long way toward helping small artists get recognition.
Do the artists have to sign some contract to help support the service provided to them?
Isn't this where the music industry started?
Anything you say will be held against you.
Sign me up to be a "local band from all over the US (and the world)."
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
Campaigns against general purpose PC's are the best way to control intellectual property. You can instead sell a device that only plays what you allow it to play, which no-one can hack into. Then you allow the device to download from certain sites on the internet, store music in a popular format like OGG, and put in so many features that the user is perfectly happy to give up the ability to play illegal copies in lieu of the features.
With a business model like this, you could find revenue from several different sources. Especially when starting out, who would want to advertise on a web site, or a streaming site where "unpopular" artists are played? Perhaps to start out, one would charge a small fee from the artists themselves to help with the upkeep of the connection and the servers.
Beyond that, as the site becomes more popular, replace it with streaming advertisements, advertisements on the site, and keep a minimal fee for the artists (consider it an investment fee - we'll play you, but there is no guarantee the listeners, or the DJs will like you).
Could this be the new radio?
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
http://www.somesongs.com
Good stuff, cheap. Er, free. Click the "Top Songs" link on the right-hand side to see the songs that have the highest rating. Or any number of other options. It's a cool site, ad-free, for the love of music.
There are a bunch of other sites for finding interesting songs, if you have time to listen to a lot of stuff. They aren't "official", they're all amateur, but they're lovingly crafted with your entertainment in mind. There are links to a bunch of them on http://www.songfight.net
Maybe a slashdotter or two will find somebody new whose music speaks to them.
I had to smile as I read this, because it sounded exactly like I did a few years ago. I decided to try and "discover" some obscure bands that were better than the tripe being played on the radio.
It's the conventional wisdom that we hear so much and that we'd all like to believe--mainstream, big-label music sucks, and all the interesting stuff is being done by small, independent artists--but the fact is that it just isn't true. Independent artists tend to be extremely lo-fi, very unpolished, and more often than not, just plain unoriginal. You definitely can't dance to it. Yes, a lot of mainstream music is shit. But that doesn't mean that everything else is worth hearing. There is a small handful of independent artists who have created enough of a following to find success without losing their artistic integrity, but 99% of them are just the folks who couldn't cut it. The music just isn't there.
Fortunately, we do have big-label artists worth hearing. Eminem is always perceptive and interesting, and Tori Amos is dependably good. Most big music stores let you listen to CDs before you buy, so just head over to the New Releases and poke around until you find that happy medium: a big-name, mainstream musician that you like.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
But what people want is a locals only site that streams, guess what, the music from free local bands only. Not just for your community but local bands from all over the US (and the world).
You can't have it both ways. Local bands, or somewhere else's local band? Every band is local somewhere.
At any rate, mp3.com had for years - and I presume they still have - charts and artist lists sorted by region, so that you can just listen to "local" bands. They already tried exactly what you're talking about.
We need a site that collects these bands and we need a streamer that plays them. No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves. Make it so that the artists can hopefully sell their own CD's or single songs from the same site.
Um, mp3.com for years. Have you even looked at it?
The big guys go down because they can't compete with free, better than great music on the web with a low cost distribution. So, where is this utopia?
Um, did you cut and paste that from mp3.com's prospectus from a few years back? It's all been said (and done) before. And look where it got them, and their share price.
Oh! And dump the necessary registration required to listen (are you listening mp3.com?).
Sheesh, just make up a fake email address and you're done in 10 seconds.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how this ill-informed "idea" made it to slashdot.
Epitonic does this, they are free, have a portable music box that you can listen to from anywhere and lots of streaming stations that cater to any musical taste. And, most of the stuff is indie, as the big artists are probably not even allowed to use the service even if they wanted to.
This utopia exists.
It is called besonic.
It has been online for over two or three years (previously known as Riffage), and has a gigantic list of music online for free, as well as albums available for download from thousands (believe me, there are a lot) of bands from all over the world.
The great part about besonic is that just to be an Artist is free (you can post your own music completely free, charge euros - 'cause that's their currency - for albums, everything.) - the only thing that costs is the albums (that can also be sent in cd form to your home address) and a full artist service, with a custom web site and everything.
Can't believe nobody's heard of it here. Then again, I'm big on music and recording and everything...
Spaceman40
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Yeah, sounds great. You just left one part out. Who's gonna pay for all this? The bandwidth alone is going to be astronomical.
There were a bunch of dot-bombs with this idea, and they all burned through their funding without ever having a hope of turning a profit.
How am I going to know if I like a band's music enough to buy the whole CD? I gotta download the songs and listen them to a while before I'm gonna be willing to plunk down my hard earned cash and buy their product. If they're gonna give their music away, they just need to use the existing P2P networks, not create a new one.
mp3.com has a lot of bands in various levels of quality. How do I find one that I like? Sure CowboyNeal could make a site with his picks, but what if I don't like his kind of music.
.Mac subscription would give me a service like this).
I think the problem of matching a band with an audience that likes their music is the key problem for internet music distribution to solve. If a band that 99% of the people on the net hate can reach the 1% of people that likes their music, they can still be a success. And this 1% of people will be very happy to finally find a band that they like.
So far my strategy for find music that I like is to find a local band that I like, then do a google search for any positive reviews for the band I already like... then I look and I see what else the reviewer recommends and go try their music out. This has let me find a few great bands that will probably never get played on the radio: (Breech, OO-Soul, and Powder) This works, but it takes a long time to find new music.
I'd love to have a site where I can easily find more bands and buy their mp3's to download directly into my iTunes. And maybe even have their shows added to my iCal. (I wish my
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
I seem to recall that Napster tried something like this when they were trying to prove that their software was more general-purpose than trading copyrighted files. They didn't have too much success with that business model. I don't think any centralized scheme would work without a revenue stream that relied on selling bits.
Check out my homepage for equipment sales.
How about a co-op record label that is owned and operated by the artists, who retain rights to their work, collect and distribute their own royalties, manage their own management team, are independent of the RIAA, and allow people/customers to do what they want with the purchased music. This would make the RIAA and the record labels it represents irrelevant. Yes?
"Just because you have a collection of porn of a particular girl does not make her your girlfriend", KingJoshi.
Ah, the utopia expressed in that old Coke commercial rears its head here.
Free as in they have not sold their souls (not to mention music rights) away to the devils of the music industry.
It seems those "devils" have made rich people of a number of musicians. If those musicians aren't trying to change the system, why are you? Translation: it can't be that bad if the old hands (Stones, Petty, that folk chick that had an article in USA Today, heck, even McCartney) haven't risen up and thrown off the shackles of the master's contract. I'm quite sure that as onerous as the contracts may be, not a single one says "for life".
...who have made success (in money sense too) only by having their music downloadable. I think the music industry will follow, when they realize it's still the same business undependant of the media used to deliver the goods. (some) music will never be free, it's still a profession - but restricting the used media, size and price of the product is the thing that we should work on. So, maybe next time when you see your favorite artist offering something over internet you should actually buy it and not just talk. (I myself am a dinosaur and like fiddling with LPs and CDs - having a concrete item is part of the music for me :)
Sorry, but that's the most retarded thing I've ever heard. Is mp3.com supposed to be a non-profit org?
They are berely keeping afloat. Great, lets give away the bandwidth, promotion, ads, everything for free. At the end of the quarter some magic stock market fairy will bump the stock value up and we'll all live happily ever after.
Sorry pal. It doesn't work that way.
If you live near a smaller liberal arts college that operates a student radio station, give that a try. Chances are good that you'll be exposed to a lot of music you wouldn't have heard otherwise.
We have on of the best independant music stations here in Seattle. KEXP
http://www.kexp.org/
It originated in 1972 at the University of Washington. It is now in a partnership with the Experience Music Project, aka Paul Allen.
From their site:
"KEXP regularly programs an innovative, eclectic mix of alternative rock, hip hop, electronic, roots & blues, world & reggae, jazz, and more.
The station also offers a number of specialty shows that focus on particular styles of music, along with some public affairs programming on weekend mornings."
This isn't exactly what you are looking for, but it comes close. They have free player streaming formats, Real, Windows, MP3, and an extra bonus. Uncompressed audio at 1.4MBit/sec. They were the first station in the world to do this.
They have archived live performances, archived specialty shows, and complete real-time playlists.
Here is their current variety Top10:
Oct 28 - Nov 3, 2002
Artist- Title (Record Company)
1. Sigur Ros - ( ) (MCA)
2. Pete Krebs & the Gossamer Wings - I Know It By Heart (Cavity Search)
3. Jurassic 5 - Power in Numbers (Interscope)
4. Beck - Sea Change (DGC)
5. The Streets - Original Pirate Material (Vice)
6. Badly Drawn Boy - Have You Fed the Fish? (ARTISTdirect)
7. Mr. Lif - I Phantom (Definitive Jux)
8. Voyager One - Monster Zero (Loveless)
9. Royksopp - Melody A.M. (Astralwerks)
10. Doug Martsch - Now You Know (Warner Bros)
They do not have the ability for you to directly purchase the CD or download the song. I think the businees overhead to do this just doesn't make sense for a listener supported radio station.
HoG.
I think the original poster is looking for a good site that publicizes small indie and/or unpublished bands who expressly give their permission to have their stuff streamed.
Checking mylocalbands.com, I couldn't find a link to a stream.
I have to say, a streaming high-bandwidth ogg/mp3 stream is something I'm really looking for as an alternative to the shit playing on the big stations. I've been listening to a lot of college radio stations online that fulfill this purpose, but I'd like to see a bank of "free" and open music.
Mp3.com is nice for grabbing music to burn on CDs for long trips and stuff, but their registration system is a pain in the ass and pretty much makes them too much of a hassle to bother with regularly.
The other thing, which has been said, but I think could be further talked about, is that a good portion of unsigned bands SUCK. What may be needed is some kind of moderation system to promote good unsigned bands, in order to minimize the signal to crap ratio for the casual listener.
Also, it would be cool to have a GPL-type license for releasing music that insures the music will always be free. (Does such a thing exist?) That way, good bands that do turn to the dark side will not snatch their music out of the hands of the fans that helped get them to the enviable position of being fucked by the recording industry.
I don't see a lack of sites for independent artists to post their songs or CDs. Heck, if you're an indy band you can sell your CD at Amazon.com if you want to. As others have mentioned, there is IUMA, MP3.com and others. Finding indie bands is easier than ever.
The problem, as I see it, is how do you wade through it all? I don't have an infinite amount of time and, frankly, some indy bands are that way because they suck. I'd say most indy bands fall into that category, actually. I have found a lot of indy bands at MP3.com (and even signed, bigger-in-Europe-than-they-are-here (Blind Guardian, Lacuna Coil)) but it took a lot of time and effort to separate the wheat from the chaff and it's not something I can do often.
What I'd like is a good music recommendation engines at these sites. The one at Amazon.com is pretty good. The one at MP3.com sucks ass. It used to be that we had radio to help with this (yes, I'm old enough to have listened to radio when it didn't suck). Other than Amazon.com, are there any good recommendation engines out there?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I have had an idea to create such a service, however in the current economy it has been extrememly hard to find someone willing to put up the cash to make it happen....
The commerce side is easy, the business model is dead simple in that its profit sharing, the missing peice is start up cost. The only way to get music to be heard is to play it...and that takes badwidth over the internet...practically the only part of the whole thing that can't be done for free...shoutcasting a decent stream takes 56kb/s per connection...to cast that to more than a handful of listeners takes serious bandwidth...and serious bandwidth costs serious money...
So if anyone has say $10,000 a month for bandwidth(until the breakeven point can be reached, who knows when that will be), I can get this off the ground with a few additional resources...
Actually its more like:
$10,000 a month in bandwidth
$20,000 a month in administrative(paychecks, rent,co-location fees, etc)
+whatever it costs on a payment plan for an EMC symmetrix to store all the music.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Of course media companies, as agents, try to extract as much rent as possible from their principals -- the consumers. They try to shape our tastes to easily, cheaply copied versions of artists they know consumers already like. They try to extract as much as possible out of their existing set of artists and invest as little as possible in discovering new talent. This is just the typical kind of agency cost you have in any principal-agent relationship.
If the market were properly competitive, with a sufficient number of media companies all competing hard with each other for the attention/money of the consumers, then we'd have an optimal balance of filtering and discovering done by the media companies, and consumers would have good, reasonably priced music from interesting artists satisfying all kinds of tastes without having to invest in discovery for themselves. The problem is that I think we have a few media companies that are too large, so that the agency problem is a big deal. The media companies can afford to shirk and persist in being complacent and feed us recycled garbage over and over again simply because there are so few of them and they dominate distribution.
If we really want to solve the problem, a site offering lots of free indie music will not do the job. We need to find agents as alternatives to the media companies who can perform this filtering function and discover good talent for the consumers who can't afford to do the search themselves. That requires a trust relationship to be built up between the agents and the consumers (so we'll respect their choices), and a pay structure to provide incentive, and sufficient competition to keep the agents honest. I think that's a much harder problem and one that may not be solved by technological means alone.
Go to www.suzanz.com to check out a really good singer/songwriter who refuses to sell her soul to the record company. This site also has _lots_ of links to other musicians in the SF bay area, if her music doesn't float your boat. Oh, and buy her CD, please!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I think we should adopt a monarchic system where the only performers are jesters, bards, and minstrels, who play at the behest of the king or are summarily beheaded.
See MEME INTERVIEW
Or WARD REVIEW
Ok that's in french so maybe WARD INTERVIEW would be better? (Scroll down for English)
Or hey just visit our site
Feel free to browse and if you have ideas for how we *could* place our music on the web cheaply and easily then please please let us know!! All help credited and appreciated!
Oh and feel free to buy a nice t-shirt.. they keep us releasing... ;-)
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
This could be a change for file-sharing developers to enhance existing p2p networks, by not only integrating p2p radio, but also links to these bands websites. The end result would be a p2p file sharing network, decentralized streaming radio, and a fully integrated system for people to pay, read "tip" the artists they enjoy listening too.
Planet P - Liberation through technology.
www.enthea.org
Just to show that there's something fundamentally wrong with the way the music industry works now, let's make an analogy between the music industry and the startup Venture Capitalist business. I think this analogy makes sense because that's precisely one of the roles the record labels are supposed to fill: that of a producer. People come to you with (business plans/demo tapes), and you invest money in those you like.
:
So, if your VC was like a record label
- The VC would own 99% of the stock of the company
- The VC would fill all the roles in the startup company, except for the actual product engineering (i.e. music writing/recording). The VC acts as CEO, VP of bizdev, VP of marketing and VP of sales.
- The VC determines at what price your 'product' sell, when and where, if ever.
- You can never get additional funding from any other investors for like, seven years.
- The VC has the right to call it quits at any time.
- You may no quit. Ever. If you do, consider a career change.
Hmm, don't like the conditions. Well, you can't just keep driving up Sand Hill Road. All the contracts are the same!
DZM.
Use the site to vote on bands, sell CDs, and sell oggs cheap to people with money on account (so you can deal with the micropayment issue). For free downloads, you provide a file name to use on the P2P networks and maybe a browser plugin to let people access the P2P networks trivially to get what they want.
The hard part is not finding good music once you know what it is. The hard part is identifying what is good music by either having someone highlight featured artists (the role of the DJ) or by letting people vote and matching profiles of those who vote similarly (initializing your preferences by listing the RIAA artists that you like). A central site is the way to go for finding out what you want; p2p is the way to go for getting it.
No CARP royalty problems since these bands are unsigned and own the music themselves.
Really?
I know how to play a few instruments, I know some music theory, and I want to write some music, record it, and put it on the Internet, but I've run into one slight problem: How is it possible to write original music, when it's so hard to avoid accidentally re-inventing something you've heard ten years ago and losing a lawsuit? Especially when a large music publisher can take you down with just four notes?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I believe an effective Peer-to-Peer networking technology would be much better than any site.
The problem with sites is that sites have to be paid for. Worse, the more effective a site is at getting its message out, the more expensive it is to maintain. More hits generally means more headaches.
Peer-to-peer networks have proven their ability to share popular music efficiently. They've also proven that they generate sales by encouraging people to download and listen to bands whose songs they otherwise might not have heard.
The one element that's missing in a P2P network, that's a big part of what makes a site like MP3.com valuable, is the ability for listeners to rank and categorize music they've heard, to allow others to get recommendations.
This would be the application that would benefit artists the most, because -- for one thing -- you wouldn't have to just be limited to your own local talent. You could listen to ANYONE's unsigned talent. You could get peer recommendations. And the like. And there's no centralized server to be bought out and controlled by the RIAA. Rankings can remove the effect of poorly-encoded MP3's, and falsely made MP3's.
I hate to answer the question with another question, but I'm finished with monolithic sites; even my friend who is one of the Top 50 bands on MP3.com doesn't make nearly enough money to even quit his day job; if a site can't help the successful musicians, how can it help lesser-known bands?
So the question is -- can P2P file-sharing be a better way, and if so, how?
Cdbaby isn't a bad choice I hear. They focus on international distribution of indie bands not the localized system that the post is discusssing but they are definitely more amenable to fans than the RIAA.
My site offers my own music for free, along with the source. I also will provide links to anyone else making open-source music, but most musicians seem to be reluctant to give away their seperate tracks. The EFF lists all the music that anyone is releasing under their Open Audio License. This is partly what you're asking for, except that if you're under another license (like my Open Source Music License), or just simply giving away downloads, they won't list you. I can't seem to find the links page now; maybe they took it down?
/. does). The other benefit to this is that bands with sites are generally more dedicated, and the overall quality of the music might be better.
The problem with mp3.com (one of them anyway) is that they host the music, so they have to make some money somehow to offset the bandwidth costs. A site that linked to the bands' websites could be cheap and simple and maybe offset the hosting costs through ad or membership revenue (like
What would make this perfect though is some kind of rating system, maybe like Amazon's. Listeners could rate albums (or songs), so someone just visiting the site would have a better chance of finding something they really liked.
Well, hell. I'm not one to sit around whining. Send me (jcsehakatyahoodotcom), or reply to this post with, links of bands you like that let people download at least one complete album of theirs for free. It's gotta be at least a complete album because averyone and their mother gives away sample songs; look how many free downloads there are on Amazon. Include a short description of their style. I'll make a page that lists it all (in addition to open-source bands), and I'll see what I can do about making a rating system. Any help on that would be appreciated. Or just respond to this post saying it's a bad idea or someone else is already doing it and I shouldn't bother.
c-hack.com |
Go to a record store? No, not at the mall. Find a real record store. Just because a band is on a label doesn't mean it's evil. There's plenty of respectable (i.e. not members of the RIAA) labels out there. Trying to find good bands on mp3.com is looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack.
Find independent labels and you'll find good independent bands.
Any site that has a tab called MySonic or MyAnythingelse sure won't get MyTime or MyBusiness.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
There should be a way for all these good free songs to be promoted by Radio station. Or else it is never going to affect the Music Industry.
Erm, who do you think controls most of the playlists on the radio stations already? If a commercial radio "DJ" suddenly decides to start playing anything not computer-picked according to reams of realtime stats and record company bribery he's out on the street within 10 seconds.
The problem is that the bad guys control the media (and the court system and politics for that matter), which is why all "popular music" is devolving into syruppy, cookie-cutter trash suitable for a strictly defined age-group, and proven in lab tests.
Or maybe I'm just cynical?
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Unsigned bands are always willing to give away their music to get a starting and eventually get signed by a evil recording company. Why, they want and need to make money to pay their bills like everyone else. They want to make money doing what they like. So put together your site for artists and musicians willing to give away their work. But don't be surprised when most only use it as a way to showcase themselves. Starving artists all get tired of starving at some point and want to make money.
I really thought that winamp was on to something when they made it easy to publish playlists onto a website that could be viewed by everyone. What was missing was a reasonable way to listen to these playlists, besides going out and trying to download all of the songs. I can think of no better way to discover new music than to find some other individuals who have similar tastes and see what they have found.
Of course the cost of setting up a distribution, publishing, etc has ment that the music industry has evolved this way - with our now 5 or 6 behometh publishers - it doesn't have to continue to be this way - there's no reason why a band these days can't be sold through multiple competing web sites - because the cost of distribution can be so low (no stores, no trucks, no pressing plants)
Here's a statement for you: In my humble opinion micropayments are the way forward.
Why? Firstly, music is now effectively a post-scarcity commodity. That means it has a replication cost of zero, which also means it's effectively impossible to charge for it. Oops, that's the RIAAs business model down the tubes, hence the fact that they are trying to reintroduce scarcity back into music with DRM.
If we assume they fail however (and economics says they will) then what comes next? I say the ability to send small amounts of money easily and quickly to artists. I hear new music all the time, mostly off the radio. When I hear a track, I don't want to have to track down the album or (more often, for trance) single and buy it on CD, wait for the CD to arrive and then rip it, when I can just press a button and have it available right there and then. I want to be able to do this, but I also want those artists to be rewarded so they continue to make kickass tracks.
If I can send a few euros to my favourite artists, I'm happy. But it's got to be easy. Let's address a few common complaints against this system:
1) Nobody will pay. - there will be a balance between people who pay and people who don't. The system itself will find this equilibrium. At first yeah, I expect some artists will croak because it's new and people don't understand that "you, yes YOU" have to pay up to let them continue. Once there have been a few high profile failures, people would get the idea. We pay with gifts to street performers because it's traditional and a part of our culture - hopefully music tipping would become the same.
2) Artists could not make a living from it. I think they could. It depends on how long the system takes to scale up of course. To start with, perhaps artists could not make a living from it. It might take years, decades even! Look at free software. I think people, the majority of people, could be supported writing free software, by doing contract work (you want this feature, pay me and i'll write it for you) and variations. But Linux is not yet at the point where the market for that is big enough. It would be the same for music.
3) It's not technically possible. No, not yet, that's why I'm working on Genio/PingID/SourceID/whatever-the-hell-it-is-toda y: at pingid.org - digital identity is necessary to allow for low overhead financial transactions imho. It's the first step. Bandwidth is fairly simple, you can use p2p techniques or IP Multicast when it finally arrives to allieviate those issues. And of course such an economy would be decentralised anyway.
4) Who will filter out the dross. As one poster (rightly) pointed out above, quite a lot of unsigned music is rubbish. The record companies do one thing, and that's choose the best of the independant artists. Yes, they manufacture artists as well, but my point is that we need a way of filtering the wheat from the chaff. My solution to this is the reviewer heirarchy - people review tracks that enter the system in their particular musical taste. Reviewers on the next tier up read those reviews, choose the most promising tracks, and choose them, then reviewers above them do the same etc, and you end up with the top 40 of the gift economy.
I think it can work. But I don't have time to start, and it would take years to build it up. But now surely must be the right moment in history to attempt it.
One thing most of the ideas for 'what comes after the RIAA falls' ignore is possibly the most important part of why they exist. Mainstream radio stations and recording studios exist not only to sell music, but to tell the sheep-like consumers what they want. There is simply too much music out there for people to listen to it all and make an informed decision on what they like, so most people rely on recommendations - from friends, acquaintances, the guy down the pub, and (most prevalently) the radio.
Also, realize that most artists make nearly nothing from recording; most of an artist's income comes from live performances and (possibly) merchandise. With album sales providing nearly no income, we may as well throw it out entirely.
Free music is all well and good, but it provides neither an easy way for consumers to find what they want/like easily, nor an avenue for popular bands to REALLY make it big - worldwide tours, packed auditoriums, and gaggles of screaming fans.
The RIAA needs replacing with a better system; something that allows artists to get widespread exposure and consumers to get informed advice on what to buy, without all the corruption, money, and indentured servitude. My idea is for a central repository of reviews and a seeding center for free music exchange, sort of a blog-cluster and Napster root server in one.
This system would rely on a set of independent reviewers. Artists send their tracks to them, hoping that the reviewer likes it. The reviewer writes about tracks that interest them. Consumers read the reviewer's column/blog, choosing which ones they agree with, taking recommendations from them, and buying stuff from the artists.
Crapflooding could be a concern, so a fee would probably be required both from the artists (say, X dollars per track reviewed, and Y (\X) dollars for distribution only) and from the consumers (Z dollars per month for unlimited access to all reviewers and tracks).
Reviewers could be corrupted, so their reputation (and thus their audience and market) would depend on their integrity, and a reviewer wouldn't be allowed to take money (or anything else) from anybody for a more favorable review.
All tracks submitted to the service would belong to the artist, but must be freely redistributable. The main value of this service is to help artists and consumers find each other; the downloading is secondary. Plus, word-of-mouth is valuable to artists; the more people that hear their tracks and like them, the more tickets they'll sell to their next show.
The artist owns his/her/their own work. They can package it however they want - they can sell CD's/DVDa's at their shows, they can sell sheet music/tabs, etc.
The barrier to entry is low, but not zero. Anybody who's serious can try their hand at professional music, but trolls will generally be sifted out through both the review process and the cost of repeatedly submitting garbage.
I hope this gets modded up - I'd like to see what people think.
-- Hamster
i.e. people who like Lou Reed tend to like Bob Nobody, whatever. Like everything else, the problem is the start-up and organization
Yes but if your idea gains enough popularity, then the whole thing could survive off of investment capital and massive expansion. You could operate at a loss almost indefinitely. Oh wait, that's Amazon.
Stop Continental Drift! Reunite Gondwanaland!
What I was looking for was a site that had mp3's, or preferably ogg's for use in demos of the lives project
Strangely enough, I couldn't find such a site anywhere, although there seemed to be plenty of sheet music and midi files. Does anybody know of such a site, or is it simply the case that there is no public domain music any longer ?
Alternatively, if you are a musician, and would like to donate some music to the project, please contact the author at the email address on the project page.
... of "tend to be" don't you understand?
He didn't say they ALL fit that bill, just most. I tend to agree. There are some diamonds out there, though.
One of my favorite independent bands that really deserves to be picked up is Virgos. They rock, they sound like a well-financed band, yet they have a unique sound, mostly thanks to the lead singer -- Brett Hestla (touring bassist for Creed, and producer of many CD's).
I'm trying to think of what I would compare them to, but I can't really come up with a good comparison... check 'em out.
"And like that
The problem described by the author of the thread is not easy to overcome.
The main problem, as many other posters have mentioned, is the cost related to distributing music over the net outside the traditional P2P type. Why?
- Bandwidth costs money. Even by todays standards, with only a few hundred thousand people using P2P, the cost would be astronomical. Not to mention if this turned into a main-stream thing.
- Royalties. Don't just laugh of it. The work of an artist is IP, like it or not. Besides, the creative minds need food too. Who is going to pay>
- Quality. No, I don't mean quality of the files, the technologial quality, but the recording quality. If it is free, who is going to pay for the studio time and the editing necessary. And no, you can't do it yourself unless you are a professional. It is difficukt and requires quite a bit of musical understanding and feeling and takes a LOT of time.
- Marketing. Who is going to pay for marketing, world wide exposure? If you want to get Joe Listener interested, you need marketing.
Bottom line, no matter what YOU think, it's all about money. The sooner you realize that, the better.
You can try to take on the recording industry, but it ain't going nowhere soon. No matter how 1337 on-line music sounds, it will not be reality for many years to come besides the feeble P2P sharing that already exists.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
I haven't used the presets in my car for months. The local college radio here is AM1190, pretty decent sound for an AM station, but the same content is available as a high-bit rate stereo stream from Radio1190.org
I realise that this isn't an alternative distribution medium, but it will hook you up with great indie and local music. (local to Boulder CO in this case)
--
The task of filtering out dreck is not an easy one. While I have found some good unsigned or indie bands at mp3.com, they are by no means usual, and the ratings system at mp3.com is so obviously affected by factors other than quality as to be nigh useless.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Bands people like, uploaded by category. Someone has to feel strongly about a release to warrant the time and effort of ripping and uploading. No better way to sample bands you've never heard or heard of sorted by genre, something nearly impossible to do with P2P.
If you really believe in free-music then you just have to bite the built and provide it and ask for donations just like everybody else (OSS, Public Radio, etc). You just have to write off anybody below 25, and assume that anyone over 25 will kick down a few bills a year for their music. (I do for NRP, and KEXP).
You run the service non-profit, and give the $ to the artists. If you track downloads per user you could ask the user how to divide the money (all user's downloads, all artists, specific artists, whatever). This does assume this service will be a central distribution point, or at least reference-count all distributed media. maybe a flaw.
Artists are responsible for their own marketing. That's the way it should be anyway. I believe that any entity that's responsible for both marketing and distribution will end up looking exactly like a record company.
Building a interest group that gets radio stations to play music from this service seems more "clean" if the group isn't affiliated Mw/ the service itself.
United Artists v2
2) the ratings system is obviously broken
3) Quality has gone into the dustbin since they got bought out by the music conglomerates.
mp3.com was a great idea, and if the original management had not done idiotic things that got them sued, it might actually have reached the point where it presented a challenge to the recording industry. In today's capital-scarce world, though, I hold no hope for such a thing to happen. In particular, not being able to pay for professional quality recordings (sorry, I don't believe mp3 quality to be professional quality) is an obvious drawback to mp3.com that would need to be remedied by anybody who set out to do what mp3.com originally set out to do -- shake up the music world.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Current practise in "patent-land" seems to be to sit on your patents until they are widely used, and then come out of the closet to claim royalties.
The problem is that people have patents on just about anything. If you're compressing audio, there is always someone who can (will!) claim they have a patent.
For example: If I understand the MP3 patent correctly, it applies to ANY lossy audio compression.
Roger.
I would pay good money for a service that consistently recommended decent new music. I'm willing to set the bar fairly low too. It seems like all the services (remember firefly? the original musicnet that mailed out CDs? I can't even find links for these people anymore) that purported to do this went out of business before I could even try to give them money. Contrast this with the MP3.com experience which, although you may find great stuff, it's a ton of work to do. This is an inherently personal service and trust has a lot to do with it.
There are a few record companies out there, such as Aware Records (John Mayer, Train), and Windham Hill that consistently produce good new music I like, such that I'm willing bet on their compilation CDs. There are a few radio stations (like 105.9 the X) that have decent new music shows I'm willing to listen to.
The bottom line is that something like this has got to happen but it's a tricky problem and no one has yet found the right business model. Please, come up with one, I'll line up to send you money.
"If you are an idealist it doesn't matter what you do or what goes on around you, because it isn't real anyway."-R.P.W.
Web sites alone are not going to cut it. PressPlay and numerous others have proved that. P2P can help, but its still only part of the answer. Once a band has had some exposure, they need a distribution channel, something that the current economics make next to impossible without the RIAA.
You want to change the economics of the music business, then come up with an easy to use station (something about the size of an arcade game) that will let a user insert there credit card, brows and sample music from its catalog, pick the album or song compilation they want, burn the CD, PROFESSIONALLY print the CD's label on the CD, print the insert and CD case, assemble it all and shrink wrap it, handing it to the customer in just a few minutes.
Now, if you ever make it this far, you still have to convince the music stores to give up floor space for this thing, get them to replenish the parts (CD's, ink, cases, inserts, CD covers, etc), the list goes on and on. Oh, and make sure you make it VERY easy for the end user AND for the store's $6 and hour stock boy to fix the 'minor problems' that will come up.
Now, you've gotten this far. You have built this widget, you spent the money to get it into stores. You signed up a large number of bands to put out music through this thing, hey, maybe you even sign a few big names, and by some miracle you have kept the price per CD down to under $10 while still making a profit for every one. You were smart enough to have built in a technical method of in-store advertising, removing much of the ongoing costs, and are now a minor force in the music business. If you get this far, you may have shot of changing the music world, but then, how long before investors start putting pressure on you to join the RIAA and become just like they are?
The Washington Post has an excellent mp3 section focusing on local bands. If you're a DC band you can Post your MP3s there. T&C seem pretty generous - you retain copyright, and just let WP distribute your songs. And anyone who has Chuck Brown available is worth doing business with, definitely.
sulli
RTFJ.
We need to find agents as alternatives to the media companies who can perform this filtering function and discover good talent for the consumers who can't afford to do the search themselves.
I guarantee that the record labels ARE doing this... after all, finding good new talent is a great for them, when they can get them on the cheap.
As a person that is a journalist that covers the music beat in Nashville, TN, I bet you there is an A&R man that is sitting in his office right now saying to himself, "DAMN! I need to find more unique, interesting, fresh talent that doesn't suck so that I can make a lot of money selling a lot of people new albums." Honestly, music is so subjective and fickle that there really is no way to know.
The real problem is for established artists. The record companies keep pumping out their next thing that sounds like the last thing because they cannot afford to deal with the fickle realities of the public. Mostly it is the fact that the public likes to know what they are getting. IT TAKES TIME FOR NEW TALENT. And why worry about it when the new Dave Matthews album comes out practically at the end of his tour.
Cmon, you know you bought it.
Why not use what we have here: 250,000 readers, 2 or 3 posters ;) and many countries and genres represented.
We don't need to serve the mp3s themselves, just link to an exciting artist that isn't signed. (No new Madonna songs, IOW. She's already got enough exposure.)
Perhaps have an artist interview once a month or more), music software reviews(mp3 and recording), some sort of voting on a /. top ten, whatever.
As long as we don't have any mp3s here, there shouldn't be any bandwidth/legal problems.
Of course - the flag icon still isn't fixed (even after I sent one in) so maybe this will fall on deaf ears. (Pun intended.)
The Jamband/Grassroots scene is one viable alternative. The scene, which has its roots in bands such as the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band, the jamband/grassroots scene is based on the principles of "tour lots, play well, allow tape trading".
Bands like Phish, Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer (three rather different artists) have become very popular primarily because of tape trading and putting on a good live show which varies night to night.
Some sites of particular interest are Homegrown Music Network and Jambase, the latter of which has a huge database of members interested in and willing to promote the bands it serves. Bands seeking to promote shows in certain cities pay Jambase to allow them access to all the members in certain zip codes, cities and states. These fans get promotional material to spread around their area, thus gaining more interest in the concert.
Another great site is archive.org's etree archive which has full concerts of lots of bands (from big names such as Dave Matthews to the unknowns like the Motet) in lossless SHN format.
Of course, the limitations of this scene is that it's basically all wrinkly old hippies noodling away on covers of Grateful Dead songs, but there are innovators such as the New Deal and Disco Biscuits, who play live, improvised trance/breakbeat house. Or Howie Day, a singer-songwriter playing Radiohead influenced songs using loops and samples to create a unique sound. OAR play (somewhat turgid) reggae-rock, and Illinois' Umphrey's McGee present us with an alternate universe of "What if Phish listened to Pink Floyd and Genesis rather than the Grateful Dead?". There's something for [mostly] everyone.
First off, there are more unsigned and indie artists out there than there are mainstream acts. That means you're comparing a small group of very well funded artists against a legion of non-funded artists and coming to the conclusion that 99% of non-mainstream artists must suck.
I really don't know where to begin with this. If you find Eminem "perceptive" then I guess you've found your proper niche. In the meantime I'll enjoy indie and local music which I think is far superior to top 40 in most instances. 99% is a pretty serious number. I can't honestly see how someone can think a large indie label like Bloodshot records or Matador *might* have one decent artist. I find that mainstream labels have much worse odds.
Obligatory epitonic.com mention.
I think this is an incredible idea. Your post just sparked a discussion with my cube-neighbor about it, we had a couple of ideas.
Say an artist logs in and signs up to list new songs. He uploads some, and they immediately show in the "New Releases" area. The first (50? 100? Function of the number of visitors?) downloads will be free, to give a baseline for popularity. From there, popularity will determine the price. The quicker those 100 $0 MP3s get downloaded, the more valuable they'll be, so word-of-mouth on the discussion boards or whatever will help give them a jumping point.
Once the artist has made it into a pay setup, he can say how long he wants it to be free, what he wants as a minimum cap for the price, etc.
The price will be continually updated, determined by the popularity over a given time period, and then normalized by the artist's preferences on price and stuff. It ends up being kind of a stock market for music. =)
I really think this is an incredible idea. If I had the time I'd be in on trying to make such a thing, but alas, I already have too much crap going on as it is... :P
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
The CBC (Canadian broadcasting corporation) runs a site call New Music Canada where hundreds of awesome canadian bands post their music. You can stream any bands songs and it usually contains links to where you can buy their cd's.
They also have top ten lists and various dj's that make their own program of tracks that you can stream.
http://www.newmusiccanada.com/
You've already covered this. The local newspapers should have an editor in their entertainment department whose sole job is to maintain and promote a site that puts the local bands online.
While the idea of distribution via the internet is certainly nothing new, there's a reason why it's experienced only mediocre success: promotion. /.'ers with broadband can get our tunes fix via the 'net, but we'd represent an awfully small demographic.
That's the other half of the business that often gets overlooked, and yet it's the toughest nut to crack. The record companies have a stanglehold on the radio industry, with the exception of college or publicly funded stations. No one will buy your album if they don't even know you exist - this argument is one of the more powerful that the record execs will use against you, citing hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in advertising, promotional materials, and incentives to the broadcasting industry and record stores which litter our malls and plazas.
The vast majority of music buying Americans (I can't speak for the rest of the world but I'll assume it's the same) only learn or hear of new music and new bands via the radio. Sure, those of us
I'm not trying to say that the internet distribution model is without hope, I'm only trying to point out that it's going to be difficult to move away from the traditional one.
One other reason the traditional model persists: a number of musicians still have their heads full of rockstar dreams. The visions of limosines, partying, girls, booze, drugs, and cash fuel their greed and they'll wind up selling their souls every time. Curious ethical question this poses, for who is truly to blame when someone sells their soul to the Devil for personal gain ? The Devil, or the seller ? I'd say both. For the few that actually hit the very top, the financial rewards are currently unmatched by any other music business model.
Being a musician myself, my only goals are to finish the construction of my little home recording studio, master my DAW, burn a couple CDs of my original material, put 'em up on a website, and keep the publishing rights to myself. If I don't sell a thing, I don't really care - I just want to get my songs done before I die someday.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Or at least, used to be for? Granted audiosnobs can get annoying, but it could potentially eliminate the problem.
Of course with Clearchannel dominating radio so thoroughly, and the recurring problem of payola, there are still problems. I don't think the author of the article was paying attention to the real ultimate power that radio already has over the entire music industry. That is the more serious problem.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
A very possible solution of the problem of filtering out the 'dross' would be to use moderation techniques much like we do here on slashdot.
The "music distribution site" could allow users to post "reviews" and give point ratings to individual bands/songs. A fairly powerful mechanism for locating and suggesting music that you will probably like could be made by informing the site which bands you already know you like, and then you can be given "try this" selections based on bands that were given high ratings by users who also rated your selections high.
You could try new genres of music by first listening to the highest rated stuff, and then filtering with options like "I agree with this reviewer, what else does this same reviewer recommend?"
More powerful options would let you ignore ratings by reviewers that you disagree with - and/or even meta-moderate people's reviews.
It shouldn't be too difficult to build the system in such a way that shows the preferences of "the masses", but also lets you see the music preferences of "like minded" persons.
Eventually you could have associated with your profile a list of "music mentors" - users who's ratings you consider great, and who will act as your "peers" in suggesting new music.
This seems like the ideal solution to me...
I run a site, OpeningBands.com, that seeks to promote local music like this.. The problem with streaming is that it's expensive, and somebody's got to pay for it...
So what do you do? Do you invoke "pay for play" where you have the bands in question give you a donation so you can afford the streaming?
I don't think banner ads are really making anyone enough revenue for this sort of thing, and banners don't show up on Winamp or Realplayer or other streaming stuff anyhow, so they'd only do any good on the website itself.
At least in my area, the people around here (primarily college students) don't seem too willing to shell out any sort of a subscription fee..
So, how do you pay for it then?
Right now we're providing exposure by reviewing their CDs and talking about them on our forums, as well as just providing a centralized place for everyone in the music scene around here to communicate. We also provide way more detailed concert listings than a huge site like Pollstar can do for this area - since there's lots of bars, bookstores, and other places that don't get listed...
We're hoping to eventually have [yourcity].openingbands.com websites, so if you like what you see, and you're interested, let me know.
In the meantime, we're looking for ways to raise money for streaming, but we're having trouble coming up with them...
http://www.babysmasher.com
http://www.openingbands.com
In reference to the Gift economy. His point about zero sum related to actually produce media is essentially correct. Let's quickly recap the old way of doing things, Ya know back when it was essentially vinyl disks called -- records. Now, remember that back then most of the "high" tech professional recording equipment was expensive and acually needed someone that understood how it worked and how to operate it. Hence the need for recording technicians. Recording and mastering a record became an art and this is most evident in the late 60's through the 70's. From Bob Dylan and the Beatles to Pink Floyd and Yes, etc...
If you were a musicain you generally accepted the notion that in order to have both a quality of product and any hope of national exposure that you (and your band) had to get "signed" by a major label. The major labels would "front" the band the money to do such things as buy descent equipment, pay for a modicum of living expenses, and most importantly -- pay to have the studio time, the technicians, and master work produced (and remember that most major labels had all of this and more in-house). If it was donned by the Reps that the product had at least some potential then it went to press and a more lucrative contract was drawn up (but not necessarily). Mind you that most common contracts gave the band (or single musicain) about 2 to 3 points (as in percentage) for every thing that made a profit. This was common for new bands (if you became popular you of course were in a position to barter the percentage, especially at renewal time). Well, say your album goes gold and you sell 100K+ albums, this is where you profits are made, and the tours are made to pay back the expense of the studio, etc.. (e.g. I remember RUSH during the G under P tour - Dallas/Fortworth put them over the top at the tour halfway point= lots of extra profit). So, in order to get anywhere you absolutely needed the "major labels" to really get the push (though many small labels were a starting point - the big guys made it happen). Therefore, It was the RIAA's way or the highway.
Fast foward to today. Technology such as can be bought at any descent music store and a descent computer with the right software and "who needs the major labels to produce a quality of product"? You've just save yourself a step and reduced you costs. But you still need marketing/advertising, distribution, and air time. Oops, back to the major label? Not anymore! Gee, this thing called the internet is great for people to get exposure. And hey I know a guy that builds "rad" websites! And the local recording studio will master and print/press CDs of about 1000 for X amount of money (which is considerably less then anything the Labels would offer you or lead you to believe even existed). So, now there's these web sites like MP3.com, and this.com and that.com that will let us post/upload some of your stuff. And, they include a link to our website which tell's them how to get a (professional quality) CD of your music. Ya, sum slug will buy the CD and then copy the tracks to his/her download directory and then we possibly loss potential revenue. But alot of people are buying the CD as well and were making money --- Without The Need For the RIAA Machine! Now take into account some of the ideas posted in this forum and perhaps you might, just might come to the conclusion that I see. The RIAA is most definately worried about piracy, but more over they're really worried about being cut out, circumvented, displaced, blah, blah...
So, how to cope with this? Make it impossible to play any media that doesn't have the right code/authorization embedding in it and then put this on the hardware side of all those devices that play any sort of media. Therefore any cdrom, DVD, etc... won't play if the authorization stuff isn't on the disk -- it's not authenticated and just spins down. Ya. this stuff prevents pirated ware but also forces the RIAA's "it's our way or the highway" paradigm on everyone. The musician, the consumer, the OEM's etc...
This is to me what DRM is all about. Not protecting my rights as a musician or a music listener. But forcing me to adhere to a source and product that some corporation or conglomurate has decided is the only one I'm allowed to use.
If my band sucks then the RIAA will decide, not the consumer, because the RIAA has everything figured out,... what I'll wear, what my personal bio will read like, how my hair looks, and the type of music I play. If I suck but have the right look the RIAA's machine will take care of that and I'm still a star. So much good music is obscured because the RIAA and it's label can't quite figure out which market category it fits into and I have had a few excellent musicains friends get signed and shelved (which is a way to get a band out of circulation - sign them and then do nothing - they die on the vine). I'm tired of the RIAA decide what I do and don't like, and the internet and all the present day technology makes it possible for the musician to connect directly with any potential audience -- which is exactly what the RIAA and the Major Labels don't want, otherwise they'll become obsolete and they know it!
They were very much a big label act when they came out in '69 with "In the Court of the Crimson King" on A&M Records (I think). Greg Palmer and Peter Fripp hit the big time with this album. Ian McDonald and Sinfield seemed to become minor celebrities.
Without the big label, you wouldn't heard of these guys.
But back then, the labels were a little more open to experiment with their acts. Nowadays, the artists tend to be polished and corporate. The acts don't seem to *grow*. They're hip this year and then they disappear.
Maybe that's the problem. It seems back then, an artist didn't have to go platinum every time they put out a record. Today, poor old Brittany's 2nd album didn't do as well as the first (how could it?), and now she's washed up before she's old enough to drink.
Personally, I blame MTV, but I don't think most people know what that means anymore.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I think there would be no problem at all if those times returned. In fact, some of the greatest music ever made was from those times. Maybe the destruction of the repressive recording industry would be the dawn of a new age of great music. This is especially probable given the current state of the RIAA.
"I don't believe mp3 quality to be professional quality"
No, its not. But its good enough to listen to by the computer or in your car. And if you use a high quality MP3 encoder at 192 or better, then its pretty good. I find MP3 encoded at 320 to rival the original CD. So MP3 can be pretty good under the right circumstances. At least as good as ATRACS, anyway.
On the related topic, some kids I talked to over the weekend were playing back some MP3's they'd burned off of somewhere (the kids didn't want to tell me where they got them), the quality was worse than pre-recorded cassette. Amazing what low-fidelity seems to be "good enough" for most people.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Although there are economic incentives to combine them, you can look at the problem of selling and distribution (how I get the music) separately from marketing (how I find out about it in the first place).
Right now, we get this information through a few fairly coarse channels, such as commercial media (e.g. advertising, genre radio stations), and our immediate influences (bands my friends listen to).
The desire for "local music" is just a special case of more fine-grained preferences. I'd like to buy music by bands that count Pink Floyd among their influences - whether or I'm downloading an MP3 from a garage band's Geocities home page or buying a CD from Sony's latest most-advertised darling is a separate issue.
So.. I'm all for a lot more metadata being available about music.
Michael
mp3.com (biggest >1.5 million tunes, now owned by Universal Vivendi who, so far, haven't messed it up too much)
IUMA (based in the USA, but international)
Besonic (based in Germany, but international)
mp3.de (based in Germany, but international)
Soundclick (based in the USA, but international)
(Garageband based in the USA, but international)
France mp3 (based in France)
Vitaminic (free + pay - based in the USA, but international)
Washington Post (yup, the newspaper)
Online Rock (based in the USA, but international)
Peoplesound based England
mp3.com Australia (not the same mp3.com - based in Australia, but international)
Emusic (pay and not really indie per se, but smaller label and re-release oriented, based in USA)
Artistlaunch (based in the USA, but international)
mp3 Poland - (Based in Poland - mostly domestic)
Good Google will searches turn up more small sites, thousands of independent artists' sites with free mp3's, some smaller labels that have free samples, many, many links pages. The biggest problem here is that it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is some incredibly good stuff out there and a lot of crap.
Use Google - many local newspaper sites have mp3 sections for local artists and there are many mp3 sites that are specifically for local talent.
If you're not familiar with mp3.com, it can be daunting in the sheer volume of material (no pun intended). And they accept material of all (musical) quality from absolute crap to incredibly good. They have many genre-based top-40 style charts and new-release charts. Walking through those is a natural first step. One concept they have that can be a big help is "stations" - really a euphemism for fan-generated lists of tunes by various artists. The tunes can be played separately or sequentially. So, when you find an artist that you like and get to their page, click on the "stations now playing" tab. On that page could be one to several "stations" where you might find additional good material that someone else has taken the time to comb out and list. I've seen lists from 2 to 200 tunes long - this can expand your options very quickly.
I have looked for ogg sources and found precious few. Unfortunately, Ogg is still a long way from critical mass.
Sigs are bad for your health.
they should start upgrade service. e.g. BMG should allow purchase of one new CD for the return of 2-3 old BMG CDs. This will encourage people to buy more CDs and recycle old used ones. (i know many people who simply buy old CDs because they are as good as new). Since the vendor discount is higher than the resale value of CD, most people will trade-in rather than selling it. With less used CDs in the market, they can sell more new ones.
I just hate proofreading. Thanks for the correction.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
*they need help from linux coders to help make this happen on open source os.
What if you had a streamed version of a song that people could listen to and rate, coupled with a hi-fi version people could buy?
;)
Track songs based on ratings and sales. Your agent is the market - if a buncha people are buying a song, (or at least listening through the whole thing and rating it well) it must be good.
That's the real inefficiency in the record company - they invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing "talent", then see if the market agrees. Problem is the market rarely agrees, so the few successes have to support the numerous failures. You pay $18 for a good CD because of the 100's of crappy CDs sitting next to it that no one is buying.
And yes, I did just fork over my $9 to GoDaddy for the domain name.
paintball
And maybe you could search based on the "sounds like" field; so if you like, say, They Might Be Giants, you search on that and find bands that have been tagged as sounding like TMBG. Then you read the reviews to gauge quality.
Why don't you (the poster) start up the site? Once you do, you'll realize that there is a good deal of work involved plus a minimum of a business level DSL connection. However, if you charge bands a royalty for cds sold through the site, it might turn out to be a good business venture that provides an alternative to RIAA sponsored music.
Vote for Pedro
And I'll bite. :o)
The music produced by small and independant musicians can be technically every bit as good and polished as anything a record label can publish. With digital media, anyone can set up their their own recording studio and get good results. I know this because I know many people who release their own music.
This is also why the majors want to squash it. All this technology renders their banking business quite obsolete (that is after all what a record label is, a bank that speculates on distributing acrylic discs all over the world).
This is not to say that the artistic quality is uniformly great. But I'd contend that there is more good music out there than you think, try being more systematic in how you find music. Personal recommendations and Internet radio are going to be far more effective than popping random acts from mp3.com. If you like Industrial, try:
http://www.teknet.net.au/~eye/eye/
http://anax.hipdrome.org/
And major labels do not take risks on original work, they want to keep serving up the same R&B/rap sh*te in predictable volumes. (there are rap acts I like, none are top40)
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
The general idea of this is really good.
.... click happens that I wish I had on record.
.... well how about a rating system like slashdot or even better, simpler.... flash your rack perhaps instead called "Sound Your Tune"
Musicians/talent is a dime a dozen...
The music industry spends alot of money on promotion of bands that have yet to prove themselves. This results in less return for artist unless they hit it really big. The money lost has to come from somewhere.
There may be alot of "just can't cut it" talent but as someone who grew up helping band, watching many come and go as breakup and get together happens, not to mention open jam sessions and night club curcuit bands, there is those times when the right combination of talent, equiptment,
Sooo To reduce record industry cost and lost to failures, while increasing returns to artist that do generate worthwhile returns, instead of subsidizing the failures....
We have the internet to help artist and groups establish their success or failure prior to record industry signings.
If you hit a high enough level of success and popularity on the internet then as an artist or group you would have a bit more barganing power with the competition to sign you.... Like sports?
While on the record industry side, this prequalification for success will reduce cost of loses.
And we who listen... we get to hear alot of
Plenty of good free music from plenty of bands that are happy to let you listen.
The alternative to limited government is unlimited government.
How's this for an idea: implement something like NetFlix's rating system and user profiling. Any idea if it's patented? If not, the adaptive rating system would be a real asset to a music site of the sort we're talking about.
For those not it the know, Netflix is an online DVD rental place that has a decent system for rating the movies; it can learn your tastes and guess which movies you might want to rent. Here's a brief description of the system:
I think this would be really useful to a music site. They could carry all sorts of music, the punk rockers could label the indie brittney-clones as "not interested", and once they find music they like the site can reccommend new bands for them to try out. There could even be a section on new releases, perhaps organized by genre, and the site could hold off on posting a rating until enough reviewers have judged it to be a significant sample.
now, if I only knew how to code something like that...
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
What I really want to know is what happens when there are 300 bazillion new indie labels, websites, whatever spewing forth "free music" and "open music", and no central market that accepts them? I mean, do you really think that the RIAA is going to be happy competing with CD's that cost $4.95? Imagine, already we have mp3.com (albeit they are Vivendi Universal fodder now), IUMA, cdBaby, so many others - why do we need more? We just need ONE that does it RIGHT and can manage a market of all the rest! Now THAT is a utopian dream (also known as Microsoft).
I've been using mp3.com for several years and have tried this strategy. It sometimes works, but a lot of artists have grossly overrated opinions of themselves.
Go to the Artist page on mp3.com of an artist you like. Click on the link that says "Stations Now Playing"...
Agree 100% here. This is an excellent strategy. I've recommended it in previous posts and elsewhere in this thread. I also suggest the charts to newbies, but have to admit that I rarely use them - my tastes are generally not mainstream (and there's a lot of talk of artists manipulating the charts).
Here's another tactic that I use, but it takes time and dedication: Each day, check the "new-releases" in your preferred genres. Audition each tune and give it 10 seconds or so. If it doesn't appeal, move on (yes, you'll probably miss some tunes that you might like which take time to develop - listen longer if you want). If a tune seems appealing, open the artist page in a new window. Keep auditioning the new releases until you've gone through the list. Then go to the artist pages that you have open. Listen a little more. If you like something, great (if not, move on). Many times the artist will have several tunes that they previously put on their page, so you'll find more good material there.
A moderated and/or ranking system, as some have suggested elsewhere in this thread, might help. Some sites have them (like Garage Band - see my links below), but I often don't agree with other peoples' assessments and I'm looking for tunes I like, not lowest common-denominator.
For those who want more sites to check, I've listed 15 with links here
Sigs are bad for your health.
If you like Throwing Muses, try Sleater-Kinney.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
There are lots of decisions made on behalf of the artists that are not necessarily to their benefit. I think lots of Artists would go for a subscription style pay-as-you-go service. Before someone shouts "Rhapsody!" don't forget...that you first have to pay 9.99 a month for the privledge of then paying 1 dollar per song.
How about a service like they do with stocks? Send a check in for 200 dollars and you deduct "x" amount for each track downloaded. I think people would go for it! Especially if record stores could sell the equivalent of "phone cards". However in order to do that, we would need TONS of artists to band (no pun intended) together.
Getting rid of the RIAA can only be positive because they are just a middleman that is taking the artist's and our monies.
--Joey
What I don't like about broadcasts is that I have to listen to whatever is being played, even if I don't like it... and I always seem to miss the beginnings of songs that I really do like.
.Mac has a 'FreePlay Music' folder and it made me wonder if maybe Apple might be planning to go into the internet radio business... Say leasing access to a massive music library through iTunes and .Mac ...streaming the music like Jobs demoed at MacWorld... if I really liked a song and wanted to download it for my iPod, I think $.25 a song is a good price... and for that $.25 I ought to be able to use my copy of that song at home or in an iPod or burned on a CD for my car.
.Mac subscription will be worth spending $100 next year :)
I'd much prefer to be able to download playlists and stream individual songs from a server and then be able to skip through any songs that I didn't like.
I think music on the net should be done as big ol' databases. Since there's not a good way to put ads in a random access database, I'd be happy to pay a subscription fee for the database... say about $100 a year (if it came bundled with features)
I noticed that
Oh well, here's to hoping that my
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
I have a market model that solev this and related issues. It is described in detail at mediAgora
In particualr, the answer to this dilemma is to reward those who promote music in a way that leads to sales by giving them some of the sale price. Details here
Once there is a way to pay the creators, and an incentive to promote sales rather than give away, the agents will emerge.
What needs to happen is to forget the RIAA labels and their 60 year old business model.
1) If you write music NEVER sell your publishing (the typial deal is 50%)
2) If your goal is to be a "Rock Star" then forget it. You're playing music for the wrong reasons.(try acting, at least you get paid)
3) Remember that music is a business too, treat it as such.(or at least get an attorney and an accountant)
4) Concentrate on each sale rather than selling a million or two and gold records. There are many people with gold records pushing brooms in Las Vegas.
5) If you're good, you will come to the attention of labels, get a lawyer who is NOT an entertainemt attorney (Not beholding to anyone) to look at the contracts. Boilerplate contracts amount to virtually indentured servitude. If they think you are worth persuing don't let them have publishing (a common practice these days)change your look or the music you want to play. (artistic control)Take a look at this contract critique.
6) Get your music out there. There are plenty of free websites like DMusic.Com that offer artists a free page to let people discover your music, link to your website, sell your cd, etc. I recently ran across an artist who has their music on over 100 free websites and has TURNED DOWN a major label contract.(and is happy she did, all the money she earns is hers)
7) When not everyone else is taking their cut before you get yours, you don't need to sell millions of CDs to make a damned decent living.
The real key is to get out of the house, go to shows, and buy the bands' CDs. The problem with record labels, websites, or whatver, even if they're free, is that they can't help but filter out a lot of stuff you'd like. There's no way to expect someone else to find this stuff for you, and hand it to you. It's like getting an education or learning a craft -- at some point you have to participate actively. If you want someone else to find this stuff for you and feed it to you, you'll get what you deserve. If you really cared about music, you'd be going to local shows, checking out what's new, and seeing local and travelling bands when they're in town. Do them a favor -- instead of blowing all your money at the bar, buy a CD, or maybe a T-shirt. That way, the money goes right to the source. The CDs are usually burned on a band member's computer, and T-shirts printed on their kitchen tables. Most unsigned bands tour at great personal expense -- what they make at a show hardly covers the gas money, let alone food, hotels, van repairs, or that big one, the cost of not working for several weeks. Show some appreciation. Get off your fat geek ass, get out of the house, and participate in life. Who knows, you might even meet some girls...
She's also established her own label, United Musicians which "is founded on the principle that every artist should be able to retain copyright ownership of the work he or she has created and that this ownership is the basis for artistic strength and true independence. United Musicians Artists have their own labels under the United Musicians banner and retain all rights of ownership to their work. By uniting and sharing resources, United Musicians Artists have a stronger organizational base from which to build and flourish in their independence."
Also in the interview, she says that "I don't believe in asking people to spend $15 on something they've never heard before. That's just unreasonable. And radio's so difficult in this country that that's not really an option." (Her latest album is streamed in its entirety from her website.)
Error:
I've had the whole online record label for indie bands with fairly distributed revenue and p2p service in the back on my head for ages. I can code and I know several other coders who could handle everything that would be needed.
I don't have the money, nor know anyone who can put up any kind of cash for this kind of service. There are a lot of resources that would be needed as the service grows, like a recording studio to get the songs recorded for bands that can't afford it, bandwidth (p2p could cut this a lot) and of course marketing and advertising. I have a lot of contacts, but not enough.
Listen, if anybody really wants to do this, then let's brainstorm. It'll take aa dedicated group of people to pull anything off.
Anyway..mail me at dtait26 *remove* @ *remove* cogeco.ca if anyone's interested in seriously pursuing this. None of my friends care about the state of the industry.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Our approach has been one in which we blatantly give away our music. Any user can download complete songs off our website. All of our music is available from our first, crappy recordings to our new and still crappy recordings. We focus our money making operation on live Gigs. Heck we give away free CDRs of our music to people who ask for it, and it says so on the website.
/. theme of Microsoft(tm) vs. the world. Quality will always stand over quantity even if the majority of persons out there don't even know where to look for quality because quantity has blinded their sight.
One thing which has really struck me with the (hopefully) emminent demise of the recording industry, as we know it, will be the return to local, community based live venues for musical groups. The playing field has begun to level itself, and I don't think there needs to be a necessary effort to control it. In fact it's the control that huge conglomerates have attempted to gain that has crushed the industry in the first place.
As a band we plan to dive head-first into the free music scene. Seeing as though we are first and foremost a live band, our recordings are nowhere near as exciting as a live performance. But when push comes to shove, if you want to carry around some bellyrash in your portable mp3 player, you are more than welcome to without our express written consent.
One way in which the recording industry has everyone trapped is no different that the consistent
eye no eye maid sum gram are miss steaks,
but I had to bring it up. Speaking as a musician, I would like to point out a different side to this whole thing. I think it would be awesome is there was open source software that could essentially create music "source code" that could be passed around the net freely. This would be FAR more interesting to both the music listener and the musician than anything that the RIAA is currently offering. A music "tarball" if you will:
-A stereo mixdown as the musician/band intended
-Multichannel audio files for each individual track, to allow for remixes and sampling
-MIDI files and custom sample libraries used in the original production for those who create their music in an electronic fashion (Using Roland, Emu or Akai samplers, not Soundblasters). This would allow the use of just some of the samples in new compositions.
-Some text explaining what the musician was inspired by and perhaps some analysis so that anyone else could do their own mix to change the mood.
-"Album art" in an electronic format meant for display on a screen as well as print.
Then anyone who gets one of these tarballs could mix, re-mix, or even incorporate the music or custom samples into new works.
Most of the Windows and Macintosh based audio sequencers and MIDI/Audio sequencers have "Project" files of some kind that usually bundle the audio and MIDI data together already. But thsy lack the extra files that would make them interesting to the end-user.
I've been thinking of doing this myself for a while and just may start working on it...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Further, I think this music distribution over the internet could be made into a combination of P2P and central website.
Let's say we set up a licensing-promotional system where composer/artist uploads a song to a website to distribute and promote. Let's say the website serves many music artists. For the promotion of the music, the people who keep up the website get half of the sales, and the artist gets the other half. Someone downloads the music and pays money for the priviledge of using the music. That's promotion, if other people hear it. I think it would be beneficial if the downloader could also post their newly downloaded music on their own personal website on the condition that they charge the very same price they themselves paid and that half of any revenue would go back to the artist. For promoting the artist, the downloader-now-promoter gets to keep half. Each person downloading from him would be able to offer the same song on their own website and get half revenue for promotion, while giving the other half back to the original artist. (yes, it is a bit of a ponzi scheme, but it would put the artist at the top of the "food chain" where they belong, and encourage more people to write music.)
Furthermore, say each song accumulated a rating of +s or -s according to whether the downloader felt they enjoyed listening to it. Let's say also that each rating was attached to the name of a website so that downloaders would be able to see what sites plussed or minused the songs. It would be an quick way to find websites to check for new songs you might like or to see what sites have taste in music that oppose your own.
-SheWhoWalksWithToesLikeCobras Please enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...
1.544 Mbps (a T-1) divided by 5000 users is going to be SLOW. I don't think that that would be worth $20. I hope I misread the previous post.
I know it sounds harsh, but the vast majority of music out there is downright pathetic, whether indie or label. And unfortunately, indie music is reliably the worst. (yes, I've tried emusic, mp3.com, iuma, etc. they all suck terribly.)
It's as simple as this, people: produce quality music and you WILL succeed. And when I say quality music, I mean single songs that take you a whole week or even month to compose--not something you scribble down in one or two practice sessions with your favorite garage band buddies. Good music, like literature, must be refined over and over and over again. The best writing is rewriting. And once you have perfected your work, do whatever you need to get a professional quality recording done. Find someone who has a fullblown home studio or find an audio engineer who can help you.
And for the record, the following music genres need not apply because they are fundamentally flawed to begin with: Punk, Ska, Grunge, most variations of Rap. Sorry, but counter-culture is worthless if it's inferior.
My favorite place for carrying on what mp3.com USED to be doing, is ampcast.com (as seen in my URL). They're very in touch with what you need to do in order to run a business of that nature. They offer the hosting and CD burn-to-order of very high quality, from Red Book uncompressed masters if you want, even including UPC codes and spine stickers if you want them (Ampcast can give people UPC codes a lot cheaper than if you went and bought them as an individual). However, if you are an artist, they charge a hosting fee- it's that or charge the listener, and I think we understand that charging the listener is a total bitch :)
Ampcast is up and running, still using a really awesome artist agreement that doesn't burn artists, and prepared to continue indefinitely- they have never run it like a dotcom, these guys can run a business. I know that I'm currently working to come up with fantastic amazing music in hopes of getting some traffic to Ampcast, because you've got to have the music or there's no point. I'd love to see them start doing some real business, for instance in the CDs they make. I helped them set up the system and you can get damn good CDs from them, for about as cheaply as anyone could do it.
I don't think anybody is going to construct a mega website that will become THE alternative to the music industry. There will be a vast number of small sites, each promoting a few bands or distributing a few songs as their bandwidth allows. That is evolving right now. In their midst will be a community of larger, Slashdot-like sites that offer reviews, small downloads and tons of links. That and P2P sharing will do on a large scale what word of mouth does locally. As the myth that musicians make money selling records eventually fades away, more and more bands will be distributing recordings freely for the exposure that leads to gigs, which do make money.
The watershed moment will come when somebody hits the bigtime through web exposure alone, and is playing huge venues and making tons of money without a recording contract. Of course, hardly any musicians will ever get there, just like hardly any do now. But the moment it becomes reality, the music industry will no longer have a monopoly on the fame-and-fortune carrot on a stick.
It's not as though every undiscovered band is a great band. Let's face it, most of them are worse than typical top 40 bands. But as the online community becomes more significant and people are able to find the good stuff on their own, the market for CDs will shrink. Paid music will become a minor distribution channel, and the record companies will probably claw each other to bits fighting over the scraps.
Popcorn anyone?
Peercast
I'm surprised noone has mentioned Peercast as a viable way of broadcasting music for free...I think that's one of the reasons that the peercast programmer made the program...
> The record companies play two important role -
> 1) They are distributors. This role is less
> important these days,
Not at all - this is exactly what gives them their power.
> but 2) They are arbitrators of taste. They help
> seperate the crap from the cream.
I've seen this posted a load here. Look, when it comes to music, NOBODY CAN ARBITRATE TASTE. It's that simple. Yea, probably YOU INDIVIDUALLY aren't going to like 60% of the music out there, BUT I can bet that at least 80% of the music out there IS liked by SOMEBODY.
Record firms don't pick "good" music, they can't. They pick music that will either sell now (because it's similar to music that sells now), or that they can make sell (because it can be associated with an image that matches popular culture). Even then they're often wrong. Remember how The Beatles got turned down by 11+ recording firms before one gave them a shot?
> entity. I was at the movies last week and saw a
> pre-film ad (ug!) for FREE MUSIC from COKE. No
> there is how the record companies get kicked in
> the teeth - not by Bob's web site - but by a
> commercial giant like Coke - with Millions to
> spend pushing their ideas of good music.
Except that Coke's idea of good music is exactly the same as the record companies'. Also bear in mind, they don't need or want to sell music. They want to sell Coke by looking cool in front of the filesharing generation.
The point is basically here that SOMEBODY NEEDS TO SELL THE MUSIC THAT WON'T SELL. Somebody needs to sell the music that isn't going to be wildly popular but is still going to be liked by enough people.
I want to see a website, lets call it SwellMusic, designed to bridge the gap between independent artists and music fans. The RIAA's great value is picking out good music from the junk. SwellMusic needs to do the same thing.
This is how I see it working: an Artist posts one of their better songs in the new music section, specifying which genres it fits into. Registered hardcore music fans vote on how well they like the song. Bad songs disappear. Good songs get posted for everyone to hear. Kuro5hin.org does this with stories, and it seems to work quite well (get an account and check out the moderation queue).
If the song is really good, the site should play it on the appropriate radio station (one station for each genre). Better songs get played more often. The site would also keep a chart of the most popular songs for the day/week/month/year.
If a fan takes a liking to an artist's music, they could go to SwellMusic to buy the song/CD, and download it in a lossless compression format. Or for an added fee, they could have a CD custom made and delivered through the mail. The non-profit SwellMusic would take a commission on the sale to cover their costs. The artist would determine exactly how much they charge and they would decide how to license their sample songs (public domain, OAL, allow free distribution for a limited time, etc). The artist would also decide if they will post Ogg Vorbis files of all their music, or just some select samples.
SwellMusic could also let the artist donate money to charity. When someone buys their CD, it would list where the money is going:
Great Band CD
- - - - -
SwellMusic would track all the donations to the American Cancer Society, and send them a monthly check.
Each artist should have their own section on the website. They could post comments, lyrics, decide if their fans can write comments, etc.
The site should also let artists post when and where they will play. Fans would go to SwellMusic, punch in a date and zipcode, and get a listing of all SwellMusic artists playing in the area on or around that day.
If the site generates extra money, they could use it to write open source music software, create high-quality sound samples, build up an endowment, etc.
The site should be a non-profit organization. The board members should be artists, elected by other artists.
SwellMusic would be a great source for finding independent music, and it has far more potential than I've listed here. My question is, why doesn't SwellMusic seem to exist? Isn't this exactly what the RIAA has been fearing? Why don't all the artists who complain about the RIAA, get together and form SwellMusic?
agreeded...but honestly the get off the ground stuff can be done with 3 people...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
WHAT IF...
there were a GNU or Open Music license so you could copyright music say for free distribution but commercial uses still had to pay.Well maybe even a strict GNU and its all free,whatever.
then what if people would donate server space and bandwidth so mp3s,oggs,whatever could be distributed like linux.I know we got P2P but really setting up a GNUmp3.com so you could get Band promo shots and bios would really be the way to start to stick it to the industry.Problematically though mirrors would grow to be huge.Larger than linux mirrors,because,well bands prolly wouldnt take down any songs and it would grow like a music store that copied and sold albums on the spot.Perhaps html serverspace with links to bands songs on their own server or links to grab it from P2P or both.
Imagine that, non profit internet radio stations suddenly can give the industry the finger and go about bringing in a new era of music.
I hope someone reads this.I really want some feedback,ideas and maybe some motivated people to help organize this.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
--| piracy or copyright? the third solution |---
t einer-Social.html
The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack;
and the Strength of the Pack is the Wolf.
(Rudyard Kipling)
- copyright exists to ensure musicians get paid.
- the other side is that once an artist produces something,
it goes beyond them and many benefit.
- between consumers and producers now stands record companies
- but paying artists is only a step on the way to gaining profit.
in practice, many musicians (who play instruments) starve, while
marketing bimbos (spice girls) thrive - this is wrong.
- a fundemental qualitative difference between physical and
electronic goods is - if i have an apple and give you an apple,
i no longer have an apple; but if i have an idea and give you an idea,
we BOTH have an idea. therefore you cannot treat electronic things as
if they were actually physical goods, because they aren't!
- still, you must compensate producers of the original bits.
so what to do?
> MUSICIANS ASSOCIATIONS:
- the physical distributors and merchandisers pay into the musician's
pool that pays and feeds the musicians.
- the musicians pool distributes it equitably among its active producers.
- from the pool comes more new music. which is given away for free.
unlimited digital copies for everyone, never again a dime paid for
anything that's just DATA.
- distributors get fresh music, and sell and package more STUFF.
- distributors pay back a percentage of sales back into the pool.
- so it comes back and feeds itelf (the most important part).
> RESULTS:
- so all software is free - you get mindshare from it.
- but if you make a physical whose value lies on the free music on it,
then a percentage goes back.
- but the artist is not paid direct - it goes to the musician's pool,
which doles out shares each month by percentage of overall downloads
from a service such as Napster.
> SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED:
Q: won't physical distribution go away
when we move to total digital distribution?
A: i do not believe the vision that sales of physical goods will diminish
towards zero and be replaced entirely by digital distribution.
as digital distribution goes up, the value-added of merchandising
of 'physical' stuff based around the content will go up. SOMETHING
THAT IS PHYSICAL IS SCARCE, and its value (unlike digital) lies in
that not everyone can have it. thus, collectors will pay a premium
to have something TANGIBLE and official from the band over just a
download of the song.
when anyone can get a copy of a song downloaded for free,
then the merchandisers will 'add value' to the product through
unique packaging, and by inventing desirable things to provide
in addition to 'just the data'. for example:
- you get a printed booklet and poster with your CD - looks nicer
than if you burn it yourself.
- you have all sorts of merchandise: books, fanzines, t-shirts,
it is up to the ingenuity of the merchandisers to make money
off of this stuff - and when they do - a percentage (like a sales tax)
goes back to the musician's pool, and gets divided up by percentage of
P2P (or insert your service here) downloads that month.
- i can download a copy of any of shakespeare's works TODAY FOR FREE
from PROJECT GUTENBURG - but i still go out to amazon to order a
copy. why? i COULD download it and print it myself on my inkjet
printer, but it would cost me more to download and print then to buy
a copy that's already nicely packaged by a bookseller. in essence:
the 'data' of the book is free, but i'm paying for more than just
the content, i'm also paying for the convenience (over printing on
my own inkjet), and the PRESENTATION.
> Economic Basis for Musician's Associations:
see: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/S
--
I hope you were only being "Ogre-ish" when you said this:
And for the record, the following music genres need not apply because they are fundamentally flawed to begin with: Punk, Ska, Grunge, most variations of Rap. Sorry, but counter-culture is worthless if it's inferior.
When it comes down to it, the kind of music that a person likes is highly subjective. I personally hate "classic rock" and have no idea why anyone would like it, but that's my opinion. I also think "hip-hop" is completely lame, but again... it's an opinion. In my opinion, the best form of music is electronica. (Plaid, Autechre, or even some Drum and Bass like Roni Size and Reprazent) But "Mr. Music Authority" Eminem has decreed that "techno sucks". Again... both views are opinions.
I think you would consider a particular "counter-culture" worthless only based on whatever your personal agenda is. And your choice in agenda is based on opinion. The forms of music you listed as "worthless" are only worthless to you because they don't speak to you. But they are very valuable to the people who can relate to them. Just like "Jock Rock" doesn't speak to me... It's all opinions. So... prove to me that you aren't a troll and stop stating your opinions as fact.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Just found this:
Full show recordings
Really quite amazing.