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Wilco on P2P, Digital Music and the Internet
Saint Aardvark writes "As if Wilco wasn't the coolest band in existence anyway, Wired has an interview with them about their relationship with P2P, the Internet, and their fans. For example, they were contacted by fans who'd downloaded A Ghost Is Born before it was released. Lead singer Jeff Tweedy explains, 'They wanted to send money to express solidarity with the fact that we'd embraced the downloading community. We couldn't take the money ourselves, so they asked if we could pick a charity instead -- we pointed them to Doctors Without Borders, and they ended up receiving about $15,000.' Many other choice quotes make this a fascinating read."
Now RIAA will attack them for condoning piracy...
It's not wrong to make a living as long as you're ethical about it. Phishing or spamming may be a way to make a living but it's not ethical. And neither is suing your fans or restricting the sharing of published information such as music. And before someone goes "blah blah blah, how will there be an incentive without all the $$$ that comes from restricting people", just remember that the entire Renaissance got along just fine without copyright laws.
If you were only interested in that particular song, maybe you could have bought it from iTMS or even the single. If you bought the single, you would get some rare tracks!
no one is saying "traditional musicians" are evil. this is an example of something that should be obvious. the internet is a new distrubution channel. just because someone can get your music for free on P2P doesn't mean your going to go broke and not be able to make a living. if anything you'll get more exposure and make more money. i'd never heard of wilco before yankee hotel foxtrot. now they're even bigger.
"Oh, dear. She's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot. Well, that's love for you." - Professor Farnsworth
Too bad they don't put out good music. Granted, it sounds better than the crap TMBG puts out, but this stuff is pretty whiney and simplistic. It makes me want to drown each member of the band in a tub of acid.
Now, if they did that for all the albums they stole...
These people just downloaded the music from the Internet. They didn't steal CD's from a music store.
Yes, that's what I'm trying to get to. If you think that piece of shit in the toilet isn't worth $10, you shouldn't have paid for it, or eaten it without paying.
However, if you think $10 is fair price to buy the initial 10 minutes of juicy, tender chewy feeling in your mouth, then you should've paid for it, not eaten it for free and backed up your action by suggesting its final destination in the sewer.
I can't see anyone can get away with going into a movie theatre, watched a movie without paying and said "Hey, there were empty seats anyway, so what's the harm that I just went in and watch it for free? I didn't sit on the seat, and I even bought popcorn from your counter!"
Or jumped onto an empty bus for a ride without paying, and since it doesn't cost the bus company any more by carrying zero or one passenger, are we all entitled to free bus ride provided it's not full?
In certain area (intellectual property in particular), maybe it's more about if the receiver benefits from the service, not if the provider suffers any cost.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
they're alt.country. go pick up some Uncle Tupelo. oh, and buy a clue while you're out.
just remember that the entire Renaissance got along just fine without copyright laws
Wasn't the Renaissance all about patrons supporting the artists so they didn't starve? I don't think there was much marketing done once an artist found someone to feed him. Add to that the fact that Gutenberg didn't make his printing press until the Italian Renaissance was apparently underway, and copyrights didn't seem all that necessary. Even the later northern European renaissance wasn't exactly the deluge of popular media that exists today. Much of that was either rich guys with time to ponder things trading ideas or, again, people with patrons/sponsors suporting them while they thought about things.
Works during the Renaissance tended to be either hard to reproduce or of severely limited interest to most people.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
given the dismal % yield on most charity soliciting, getting 15000$ form total strangers is a good showing. This is just an anecdote from the war raging between copyright holders, major labels and file swappers but it does make me think: The size of the market if you include all who file-swap and download must be vastly greater than the market that only counts those who buy CD's or are on the fence about a CD purchase. If a band could get a few pennies/track each from the larger market and nobody was peeing away millions on promotion, it just seems possible they could earn a living by their art and not soak their fans in the process. If downloaders thought of themselves as "supporting the band's future work" rather than "buying this song" ,which they could just as easily swipe, maybe they'd pay a little and not mind. Is that the paradigmn shift thats gnawing away at the mass marketing of music as we now know it? Given the huge exposure potential of freely available streamed samples, why would you need to spend on poromotion anyway? For years we have had shareware vendors giving away one version of a program in hopes that users would be pleased enough to pay for a better version. How similar is that model to what Wilco is doing?
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Stop trying to treat music like it's a tennis shoe, something to be branded. If the music industry wants to save money, they should take a look at some of their six-figure executive expense accounts. All those lawsuits can't be cheap, either.
and
Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator.
People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property.
I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic.
I think people are disgusted at the RIAA (and the music industry in general) not only because they trod all over the rights of listeners, but because they don't serve the needs of artists either. Whether you're a musician, fan, retailer or broadcaster, the industy is out to screw you. Unfortunately, it's also a cartel that does everything it can to quash channels that are more favorable to musicians and their audience.
If you actually want to broaden your musical horizons, try to find some Slim Cessna's Auto Club or any of Jay Munly's solo work.
Now that shit's original.
Except the record company dropped them because Wilco wouldn't make music the way they wanted. That means Tweedy and the rest of Wilco were free to do whatever they wanted, including streaming the album on the Internet.
But I mean, come off it man. You sound like those silly MPAA trailers before movies.
I guess I should know better than to feed the trolls.
-Alex
"But I mean, come off it man. You sound like those silly MPAA trailers before movies."
He's correct. I know it's fun to engage in a little schadenfreude when we read of record companies laying off hundreds of people -- that will teach the greedy bastards for overpricing CDs! -- but while it's enjoyable imagine those hundreds of people to be Mercedes-driving executives with cocaine addictions, the reality is that it's usually Mary in IT or John in promotions or Fred who sweeps the floors.
To be clear, you don't owe Mary or John or Fred a job. It's the record company's job to deal with the effect of piracy. If you want to get that CD on Kazaa, go for it, but if you're doing so to avoid buying it, it will ultimately mean less money for Mary or John or Fred.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.