What Counts as Music and Why?

The Importance of writes "There has been much discussion about compulsory licensing schemes. Most of the debate has been about music. But what happens when any file can easily be converted into a sound file and back again? Can shareware authors convert their software to digital music and get paid for sharing it? Can pornographers get paid for turning images into sound? Scott Matthews has written a program (Ka-Blamo) that does the conversion. LawMeme looks at some of the issues. This raises the question, what should count as music and why?"

Comments

Stop.

[Izeickl]

Trying to be clever and inventing some idiotic scheme like converting some program files into a sound file and calling it music. Crap like this just makes people look foolish rather than actually bringing up a thought provoking argument and discussion.

Re:M$ Music

[Doomrat]

Ooh, you wrote MS with a dollar sign instead of an S, and suggested that Microsoft are evil. Looking for a +5, Funny are we? You are a pitifully fucking awful person.

Re:Hey, Guess What? You Have To Use Judgement

[shweazel]

So some judge is going to rule on every file that shows up on a P2P network? Yeah right.

This is like a judge ruling on the definition of art, or love. Anything he comes up with would be completely meaningless. I suggest you listen to the music of Oval. This guy started out by playing scratched & mangled CDs by other artists and recording the results, and plenty of people think it's music. It could easily be argued that this is not far at all from encoding software as music. Point is, any creative sound can be music, and no one's arbitrary judgment can change that.

Re:A Challenge

[pyrrhonist]

I can see where this thread is going, so as a service to the community, I've created a handy list of Metallica album complaints for all the die-hard Metallica fans who have been disappointed by one or more of their albums over the years:

• St. Anger SUCKS! It's obvious that they've lost it. This album sounds so stale, I'm surprised there isn't an ode to Geritol on it.
• S&M SUCKS! Only a bunch of poseurs would play with an orchestra! Classical music SUCKS! Sissy long-haired crap!
• Garage Inc. SUCKS! Cover songs SUCK! Write something original! Masharemdadadoodoomada, my ass!
• Reload SUCKS! More like Rebload!
• Load SUCKS! After a fucking five year hiatus, you'd think they could come up with something better than this puerile heap of noisome dung. This album blows.
• Metallica SUCKS! They SOLD OUT to the man, man. This album is proof!
• ...And Justice for All SUCKS! Cliff Burton was the band! One is so overrated. Metallica will never be the same.
• Master of Puppets SUCKS! Why does everyone think that this is a classic album? This is a hollow attempt at a musical style that better bands had attained years before, and it should be discounted as pure crap.
• Ride the Lightening SUCKS! Sophomore albums SUCK! If you can't say what you need to say on your first album, you shouldn't say it.
• Kill 'Em All SUCKS! It's pretty obvious these guys will never amount to anything.
• Every album SUCKS! Once Mustaine left the band, they went right down the tubes.

*ducks quickly before he gets modded down by people who weren't even alive when Metallica's first album came out*