TMBG on DRM

scootr1 writes "John and John from They Might Be Giants speak to Newsweek about, amongst other things, digital rights management. My favorite exchange? 'How would you eat, then?' 'That's my problem.' When are record companies going to realize that DRM isn't going to help them sell more of the bad music that dominates the airwaves?"

Comments

Thanks TMBG!

[garcia]

I just saw TMBG last weekend. Great show. I thought I had kept up with their more recent work, but I was obviously wrong. I only recognized several of the songs that they played. I was actually embarrassed to have mentioned to a friend that told me of the show that I was a "fan".

The show was great. Even the songs I didn't recognize were great. My only complaint was that they were a bit loud and my left ear is still ringing seven days later).

I support TMBG like I would any other band that supports the freedom of music. They allow their live shows to be traded freely (according to FurthurNET) and I was happy to purchase two tickets to see them and help them.

They were a lot of fun and I really love their comment in the NewsWeek article:

Record companies are certainly scared.
They should be scared. They're hemorrhaging dough.

Damn straight they are. I have said it 1,000 times here before. While the music companies complain about them losing money they are losing it because they sponsor shit music and treat their customers like shit. At least there are bands, who support freedom of music, that care about their fans/customers. While it might not mean much to TMBG they just made their percentage of the $30 ticket prices I shelled out for them and I was thrilled to do it.

Perhaps we need more bands that love their fans to speak out against the RIAA. Maybe then other bands will see how you can survive for 20+ years by caring for your fans and them caring for you back. I'm pretty certain the RIAA doesn't think about THAT when they come up with contract terms for their cookie cutter noise machines.

Re:Thanks TMBG!

[proxima]

I just saw TMBG last weekend. Great show. I thought I had kept up with their more recent work, but I was obviously wrong. I only recognized several of the songs that they played. I was actually embarrassed to have mentioned to a friend that told me of the show that I was a "fan".

I felt the same way when I saw them very recently, but they were promoting songs from their new album which just game out Tuesday this week. Don't feel too bad, I suspect most people in the audience didn't know more than half of the songs they played.

I have to say, though, having mostly listened to "Flood" and other CDs of that era from them, that their concert was significantly louder and more "rockish" than I had expected. Apparently they are typically like that in concert, and their new album reflects that tendancy.

On the other hand, they played "Older", which has to be one of the strangest songs I've ever liked. They (well, John Linnell at least) looked pretty bored playing "Birdhouse in your Soul" and "Particle Man". I guess you can't fault them for getting sick of the same couple songs over 14 years.

As a final note, I thought their ticket prices (we paid something along the lines of $20-25, don't remember), T-shirt prices, etc. were all very reasonable. You get a sense that they were really excited to be releasing a new CD and enjoyed playing new music.

Re:Thanks TMBG!

[BrianB]

i saw them about two years ago touring with a *gasp* real band. Quite a change from when I saw them on tour after they put out Flood with just John and John.

Anyway, the really neat thing was they pulled out a radio and started running through the dial. It was the real deal, you could hear all the crappy local stations. When they came across a song, the band picked up and started playing it. It was very amusing, but also, it showed some real musicianship to be able to do that.

That's what's missing from the music scene these days, pure musicianship.

The bad music...

[thephotoman]

What the labels need to do to get more circulation isn't DRM, but instead to oppose legislation that allows media giants to buy up radio and television stations son that such stations can back those artists who push the messages that those companies want the people to hear.

This era in music is so depressing because the bands that are out there for the music are being drowned out by the bands out there for the money and sex, which is what the corperate machine would like to have people hear, in order to push a less-regulated business world into the mass mindset. This country suffers from severe groupthink, as has been demonstrated several times. The media companies want this. We, the music fans, just get screwed.

For What It's Worth...

[Greenisus]

My stuff doesn't have DRM. But then again I'm no TMBG.

Re:Bad music?

[GTRacer]

I was just talking with a colleague about this... I mentioned that people pirate because bad music dominates the airwaves. How is someone supposed to know if they're gonna like a CD if it's never played? Our top-40 station plays a short rotation that I bet I could get on a dozen or so CDs. What about the 200 other discs at BestBuy?

Radio used to be great for artist exposure. Well, it still is, for sufficient values of $artist as determined by the RIAA...

GTRacer
- Needs an in-car MP3 changer BAD!

Re:Concerts.

[Saeger]

> How would you eat then?

Concerts. It's how artists make their real money anyway....

But that's actual hard work! Artists would be forced to keep on working, like a plumber or a programmer, in order to continue earning a living. That's just absurd!

Artists (read: LABELS) should naturally have the Right To Profit(TM) from artificially scarce old "intellectual property" for life+(next_copyright_extension) years.

--

Re:Sorry. No way.

[cpt kangarooski]

DRM isn't bad. If a vendor produces DRM products and you have a problem with that, don't buy them. It's just another option available to content producers and distributors. It has value, and it has its place.

DRM is bad. While we may have difficulty making it completely illegal, I think it would be perfectly appropriate to grant copyrights only to those artists that don't use DRM, and to revoke their copyrights if they ever do use it.

But, to then bypass DRM and download it is criminal activity. DRM is a lock to the content. It's illegal to pick locks on people's houses, but I don't see anybody here advocating picking houses in order to steal THEIR contents, why is music any different?

That's precisely why DRM is bad. Music _IS_ different. We grant copyrights, but those copyrights are limited in scope; it is perfectly legal to engage in fair uses of music. It is perfectly legal to reproduce music within the scope of AHRA. It will be perfectly legal to reproduce music for any purpose we arbitrarily make legal tomorrow. And the Constitution requires that copyrights expire -- so when the term is up, anyone can do anything with the music and it is totally legal.

These sorts of limitations that benefit the public are a significant difference as to ordinary personal or real property. Copyright is expressly and deliberately designed to benefit the public -- not the artists, not the publishers. DRM interferes with that, because it is a lock that does not ONLY protect against illegal uses, while allowing ALL legal uses, and because it does not magically evaporate when the copyright expires, and because the law can change all the time, and DRM already applied to a work will not.

I would rather have the law be the ONLY protection on works because it is the only one that can even slightly be trusted to fulfill the public interest and incorporate those limits are as necessary for the public to be the most satisfied.

Using DRM is like putting up a wall around a public park; maybe the park is only open at certain hours, but the wall closes it off all the time, and is therefore intolerable. It needs to be destroyed.

Stealing bad music?

[WoodstockJeff]

While I'm against downloading music, I can see why some people do it... Lack of perceived value of "albums". They're not stealing the bad music, just the stuff they want.

My solution to only liking one or two songs on an album is to set my price point for buying it lower... I won't buy it at full price. Others just download the song(s) they want. I have one song in my MP3 collection that didn't come from a CD I own - it was encoded from an HBO concert, because I didn't want to spend $18 for the two-CD set the song is found on, which was full of, well, CRAP.

Even the artists themselves are realizing that they've been selling albums that consist of one or two songs, plus filler. This information was gleaned from the recent Frontline show, "How the Music Died".

Re:Why do Slashdotters like TMBG so much?

[jht]

OK - I'll go after this troll.

Speaking for myself, I like TMBG because they're interesting. Their music is well-produced and crafted, their song lyrics can range from nonsensical to literate, and they sing about topics ranging from nightlights (Birdhouse in Your Soul) to obscure presidents (James K. Polk). Interesting music that is well done will catch my interest, regardless of the genre.

They also usually produce catchy hooks regardless of the material, treat their fans with respect, and put on a tremendously entertaining live show as well. TMBS are fans of technology (Dial-a-Song, their wax cylinder recording for the Edison Museum), like Slashdotters are, and they used to tour with just backing tapes for a rhythm section. The musicians they've worked with on records have been a virtual "who's who" of the "alternative" genre, so their skills are obviously appreciated by their peers.

And finally, they've managed to keep at it for about 20 years now, making a decent living in the music biz without becoming the type of band/people we all rant about here online. I've met them both on a couple of non-concert occasions over the years, and a good friend of mine actually was a classmate of theirs in high school. I also worked a little bit with a band (Mark Cutler & Useful Things - I did the design and CD booklet for their first album as a favor to another friend who produced their record) back in the late '90s whose drummer had played with John Linnell in another band (The Mundanes) before TMBG. Nobody (including me) who I've ever seen to meet either of them have had a bad word to say about them - even the ones who aren't nuts about their music. From all accounts (not just the few I mentioned), they're a couple of good guys who make music for a living.

So that's at least part of why I like TMBG - my cousin first put me on to them back in '86 or so, and I've been buying their albums, going to the occasional concert, and downloading their live shows ever since.

Re:Eat food?

[Temsi]

You're joking, right?

Here, I'll say it... and my face is as straight as they come.

MoveOn.org is NOT motivated by their hatred of Bush.

Sure, many MoveOn.org members hate Bush and what he stands for. But it's not like he hasn't given them ample reason.

MoveOn.org is motivated by their members' common love of personal and social freedom. Something Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft at al are systematically and carefully trying taking away from anyone whose opinion differs from theirs ("you're either with us or against us" remember).

I guess if you only have a "half a brain" your view may be a little skewed. I have a whole brain, and I know the truth.

FYI

[vlad_petric]

itunes is DRM-ed. And it's sold 100 million tunes.

DRM, if kept to a minimum, isn't so bad - it merely prevents people from filesharing the music they just bought. The fact that RIAA is evil doesn't justify IP theft (which filesharing pretty much is).

Struggling artists

[RealProgrammer]

My sister and her husband are aspiring Country&Western artists/songwriters. Yeah, I know, but that's their dream.

They're having trouble getting people to buy their music. Yeah, I was shocked, too. I suggested that they give it away. They didn't like that idea -- no money in it.

"Why not?", I asked, "No one wants to pay for it. Why not generate some demand?"

I think they're afraid the first song they give away might be the one that would have made them filthy rich if they'd just held on to it.

Re:Struggling artists

[thisissilly]

So, direct them to Creative Commons, walk them through picking a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. That means that people can freely download and listen to their music, but not use it for commercial purposes. When their music takes off and becomes wildly popular, they will still be able to license it to record companies, commercials, movies, and so on.

A story, if I may...

[Chordonblue]

..about the greatest man I ever knew - Lawrence Hess. You probably never heard of him, but that's not unusual - there's a lot of musicians you've never heard of. The difference here, is that Lawrence was the single most talented one I've ever, and probably will ever meet (and I've known many). Not too many musicians have the distinction of being in The Boxtops, or Ripley's Believe it or Not - he was.

What does this have to do with DRM/Music Labels? I'm getting there.

Back when I was an aspiring musician I was introduced to Lawrence and invited to one of his shows. He was a always-smiling, one man band. Lawrence embraced any technology related to music and getting the sound he wanted. He'd sit, surrounded by 4 or 5 keyboards with a little Steinberger guitar slung over his shoulder. Having played in bands for years, he decided that he could be his own band - one that wouldn't make mistakes, one that would always show up on time and not be intoxicated.

Every bit of his music was sequenced by him - and he used his own bizzare midi settings (I think as to confuse anyone who might try and steal a few of his backup discs). His voice was one of those given to you by God himself - an impossible, deep range.

But he was unlucky in a few other areas. You see, Lawrence wasn't much to look at - physically. He stood no more than 5'2", and always managed to look somewhat disheveled. He also had Type I diabetes - had it since childhood. It eventually killed him at 35 years in 1998.

In short, Lawrence was hardly MTV material - he simply didn't look the part. But... He was a musician's musician - a master. He had a great local following and he managed to meek out a decent existance right up until weeks before he passed away.

Now, here's the point to all of this. Lawrence didn't bitch that he wasn't a star. Sure, he would've liked more exposure, but he did what he did because it was all he knew how to do. Being a musician doesn't mean you have to starve, but certainly aren't any guarantees. If you suck, you suck, and no amount of promotion by a label is going to change that fact. If you want to eat, you have to prove yourself to people.

Lawrence's fans would travel from miles away to see him perform. He always kept the venues and customers happy wherever he played. He didn't expect the RIAA or anyone else to bail him out - he did it for the sheer love of music.

What I personally took away from his death was that although I enjoyed playing and singing immensely, I could in no way live the life he had chosen. I simply wasn't that good (well, few are!) and so I stayed in the computer field where I think I've done fairly well for myself.

I guess I just get a little pissed off when I hear about DRM and/or musicians spouting off about piracy - especially when it's world famous musicians who should have the least to complain/worry about.

I paid 13 dollars

[Kredal]

The songs that you buy are in regular un-DRMed, easy to transfer or put on CD or put in iPod or put anywhere (including kazaa or whatever) MP3 files. On the download page, they ask you nicely not to share the songs on P2P services, but they don't force you not to by locking the songs to your computer with DRM. I like their approach. Sure, I could have illegally downloaded it all, but I like TMBG, and I want to see them make more music, so I'll support them any way I can.

Rush just came out with a new mini-album called Feedback. I looked for it on iTunes, but couldn't find it, so downloaded it from bittorrent. But I kept looking for it on iTunes, and as soon as I saw it, I paid for it. Totally worth the 8 bucks.

Support artists!