Slashdot Mirror
Indie Artists Support Peer To Peer
dpilgrim writes "Alex Veiga at the Associated Press has a good story on indie artists voicing support for file sharing networks. While not a new topic on Slashdot, it's great to see musicians speaking out about the value of p2p as an alternative channel for reaching audiences. Choice quote from Veiga's article, on what it's like to pass muster before a mainstream media company: "For Sananda Maitreya... online music distribution gives him the freedom he says he lacked when he was signed with a major label in the 1980s under his former name, Terence Trent D'Arby. Back then, Maitreya recalled, committees had to sign off on any music released. 'The Beatles could not have faced that criteria and come up with anything other than the most mediocre, conservative music,' said Maitreya.""
Now if only someone ever listened to what the artists said...
Or to indie artists in general.
I'm not sure that the Beatles are a good example here. By the time they started doing really revolutionary stuff on Revolver, they'd already had 10 #1 singles. I'd suspect that any artist who reached that point would have a lot more freedom in what they did.
My userid is prime!
I'm still waiting for you to get to the part where P2P solves the problem of artists needing money.
For an Indie artist P2P is essential for helping to distribute their art to the public. They usually do not have the means to host a web server for themselves for listeners to download MP3's. Several websites exist for independent artists to share their music such as SoundClick and (the late) mp3.com which is nice when a potential fan already knows the artists' name and music. However in order to get introduced to the indie artist a listener must find his music somewhere. These days it definitely won't be on the radio or MTV, so that only leaves word of mouth or a BitTorrent amongst illegal ones on a P2P website somewhere. Speaking about Indie artists, check out DZK, a talented artist I never would have found if not for P2P.
- Cary
--
Anyone from Fairfax County or Northern Virginia?
I personally own about 47GB worth of music in MP3 format. I will never buy the album now. I got more music then I know what to do with before napster closed the virousa hole.
Would I have bought the CD's otherwise. Yes, a lot of them. No to some of them.
I am sure that the most downloaded artists need all the help they can get. I mean without p2p I woudl have never heard of Eminem or Britney Spears.
At least recogonize that in some cases p2p is detrimental to artists and I will have a fuck of a lot more respect for you.
This from the perspective of an "indie" musician:
P2P distribution + web advertising = no more requirement for RIAA to promote and sell your album for you.
ProTools = no more requirement for RIAA to supply you with a "professional" recording studio
ProTools + P2P distribution + web advertising = no more RIAA requirement PERIOD.
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
Also it takes the control of popular culture out of their hands. I recently downloaded an album from a cool south american folk/electronica band. Is that *EVER* going to be on MTV, VH1 or Clear Channel? I think Not
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Most want some tracks shared, but others kept for CDs.
It's misleading to say that musicians favor P2P without considering what portion of their catalog they'd like to be shared.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Exactly. The P2P piracy "crisis" has never really been about intellectual property rights, or compensation for the artists, it's really about preventing the artists from finding easy and reliable ways to get directly to their listeners. In short, it is about control, but not control of the music, control of the artists themselves. Some artists did get it early, some got a snow job from their labels and bought it.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Yes, and now that we have legal music services like iTunes and Napster, what's the point of P2P piracy again?
.99 a song, how can anyone justify P2P piracy anymore? If nine bucks for an entire album is still too much, then clearly your incentive for piracy is not a "communications movement" to "empower the individual," but is basic human nature--wanting something for free so you don't have to pay for it. Even chimpanzees in social experiments will try to swipe a banana if they learn they don't have to give something back in return.
.99 for a song that we know has been provided (illegally) to us for free on a P2P network. Just admit it, you know?
Even indie artists like those mentioned in the article could easily offer their music for free on iTunes. In fact, iTunes offers free downloads weekly, which is the same "free advertising" Slashdotters love to reference in these discussions.
At
Sorry to be so harsh. I guess I just tired of the whole "we're so noble" act. Just admit what's going on. We're pirating music so we don't have to pay people for it. Because we're lazy and don't feel like stepping foot in a store and paying money. And we're too cheap to go to iTunes and pay
It's always "the evil RIAA" with no mention of the human beings whose music you're actually taking and depriving revenue for because you want it for free.
It's not the artists music when they are RIAA backed. It's the RIAA's music and no matter how much the RIAA claims that they have nothing but the artists' best interests in mind they prove time and time again that they only have their own best intentions in mind.
Now, when there is a GPL violation it is sometimes by a corporate company (i.e. a company that distribute SOHO routers) that is using GPL'd software to drive their product w/o giving credit where it is due. The Slashdot community gets pretty pissed off when the corporations shits on the little guys.
Now, the RIAA is a corporation (convicted of price fixing none-the-less) that is shitting on the little guys in two different arenas. Both the artists (their monetary share of the profits are nil) and the consumers who purchase the music distributed by them.
I think that's the personal justification most Slashdotters use. But then again I'm speaking for a large majority in general terms.
Does this mean you feel guilty when you hear a song on the radio? The whole point of "indie artists support P2P" is to find better promotional distribution now that the musical community has outgrown the limits of clamped-down radio. Major labels have always had a stranglehold on radio distribution, but now we're in a world where smaller artists and labels have the power, technology and distribution to receive just as much attention as the artist who suckles at ClearChannel or MTV's teat. P2P is a way to get people to hear imperfect copies of songs - much like radio, but with more control. Does this create freeloaders? Sure, just as cassette tapes did in the 80's, but even if it's to a grander scale, the tape-to-purchase ratio of the 80's is nowhere near the mp3-to-purchase ratio of today - you can make some serious money from downloaders, oftentimes through ticket and merch sales even more so than album sales. "Most artists have not given their permission" - that's not the case, because if someone releases a CD, they want it promoted. They want to be heard so they can make some goddamn money. Consider P2P distribution a "marketing expense" and it makes complete sense. It costs less to seed a torrent and give away a few free copies of an album than it does to whip up a huge batch of flyers, for crying out loud!
Well, it really depends. You might have the copyright on your movie, but have you carefully checked all your audio to make sure you're not using anything copyrighted, or can even hear anything copyrighted? Made sure any buildings or artwork that appear aren't copyrighted? Better not have used a coke can or a t-shirt with a cool design - all those are probably copyrighted. Got releases from every identifiable person in your flick?
This has even made me a little scared when it comes to just sharing family home movies online! You can get sued for just about anything these days.
You are completely wrong. They want P2P shut down so SONY/BMG et all are the ONLY way to buy music.
Music labels are obsolete, heres whats going to happen, itune like stores are going to start selling music from indie bands, and they will bypass the music industry all together. THAT is what they are afraid of.
You've been drinking the RIAA koolaid.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Well, let's clarify this. It's not the RIAA's music. The RIAA is just a representative lobbying body for a group of record labels. The record labels are who, to some degree based on the contracts the artists sign, own the copyrights to this intellectual property.
Now, read that again. "Contracts the artists sign." I see a lot of people vaguely describing evil actions against artists on the part of the RIAA, like some big conspiracy. Yet, artists willingly sign their contracts. Obviously, there are specific cases of business deals gone sour between artists and record labels, JUST LIKE IN ANY INDUSTRY. And nobody's claiming the record labels are these innocent little businesses who are in it for the music (though there are some).
But to keep regurgitating this non-specific meme of the evil RIAA hurting artists doesn't actually SAY anything. It's a convenient justification made in Slashdot posts to end a discussion thread. "I copy music, but the RIAA is the evil one because they hurt artists!"
It's a double-standard. GPL code is regarded as intellectual property whose license should be followed. But copyright infringement of media content that someone doesn't feel like paying for is okay.
I've already somewhat addressed this before.
.99 per song and $9 an album. I've seen magazines on my newsstand more expensive than that. I just don't see a valid justification anymore now that iTunes is such a huge success. People should put their money where their mouth is and show the music industry that consumers want to spend their money on digital formats.
1.) Artists willingly sign their contracts. There are "entertainment lawyers" who make sure to go through and balance out contracts for both parties. Record labels do a lot of stuff to make an album successful, from manufacturing and advertising to booking appearances.
2.) Music sells now for as cheap as
Permit me to generalize as well. You are right that it's a personal justification. Me, I'm a down-to-earth kind of guy. Yes, I've pirated music. I'm not going to sit here and claim it's some social movement against the evil corporate-controlled world. Slashdot makes itself look like such a ridiculous community with such opinions.
The vast majority of P2P piracy is nothing more than:
1.) People wanting stuff for free so they don't have to pay for it.
2.) People knowing what they do is ethically wrong, so they seek bad guys to shift blame to. "The RIAA made me do it!"
The ignorance of basic human nature and perception when it comes to the justification of copyright infringement on P2P networks is what kills me. It's so phony. People should just admit what they're doing. You're copying music so you don't have to pay for it. You don't want to shell out--not even $0.99 goddamn cents.
It's like this guy I saw during lunch in hi
If the government tries to outlaw this technology OR try some method of controling it directly. It's an anarchist technology and the type of thing over-controlling fascist governments hate. I don't think it will ever be fully controlled but it may be forced underground. Anyone else think the world is getting to be too much like "The Matrix"?
I could go to a used record shop and buy a CD for $5-$10 legally, but my favorite one down the block just went out of business, along with most of my other favorite ones. Don't tell me it's gone because of file sharing--it has a lot more to do with WalMart. So I download the track, and then go and pay for a concert ticket when the band comes to town. Usually I can by a copy of the cd at the show for $10, which I'm fine with.
Fact is, as long as music prices reflect huge marketting budgets that mean the stuff on the radio can't compare in quality to the cashless musicians who play at the bar down the road, I don't see a need to spend money on full priced CD's from the big labels.
As for the arguments that few musicians agree, i think that if you polled only the quality musicians you'd find a different story. And besides, bands like The Grateful Dead have been allowing fans to freely tape and distribute their concerts for almost 40 years. In the Dead's case, they'v made a hell of a lot of money in the process.
If you want to make a legal argument against file sharing, be my guest, you'll probably be correct. But please, quit the moralizing. I've done my part in supporting the arts financially through concert tickets and the CD's I do buy. More importantly, I've supported the arts by demanding quality and fighting the marketting monster that is the true threat to the future of music. I've fought it by covering my ears to top 40 garbage, and to complaints of those who shovel it in my direction.
> Most want some tracks shared, but others kept for CDs.
And the ones people want to share are...wait for it...the ones you buy the CD for.
It's almost like they want you to *pay* for the music.
It is quite a bit cheaper to produce your own music now than it used to be:
$500 - 1.4 GHZ P4 computer w/24bit soundcard - parts built by myself - I was able to find some good deals - for example I spent $10 for the case.
$75 - 24bit compatible multitrack recording software (N-Track)
$99 - good quality condenser mic
$79 - good quality cardoid mic
$25 - two mic stands
$30 - enough DIN cable to choke a horse (for connecting the mics to the mixing board)
$50 - decent 6 channel mixing board
$30 - misc other gear (RCA cables etc...)
$60 - BOSE computer speakers (excellent sound quality and onboard amp and 2 inputs - for mixing down your stereo master).
----
$948 - Total (not including instruments - I assume if you are a musician you already have your instrument).
So, for about a grand you can have your own home recording studio that can produce as good sound quality as any professional studio out there. Of course, you have to spend the time to learn how to properly record sound - but there are books out there you can buy that take you through it in detail - from how to properly set up an acoustic environment to microphone placement to setting recording levels and how parametric equalization works etc...
Recording ain't cheap for those who can't or don't know how to do it themselves. Those who can do. They are doing it today and going indie, or even posting their tunes for free if they are not interested in the business side of music. http://music.myspace.com has a good selection - and there are other sites as well that allow users to post their MP3 recordings for download and/or streaming.
With the sorry state of pop music today, more and more people are finding a viable alternative online via free downloads and sales of independently produced music. With the closure of traditional outlets for advertising certain genres (Rolling Stone is reporting that Clear Channel is closing down a large number of Rock stations in favor of urban/hip hop formats - at the same time as we are seeing a renewal in interest in Rock! Where will Rock artists go to get exposure? I think it will be the web - and in a big way due to the lack of air-time in the traditional form).
Anyway, I believe the traditional big record labels are going to be around in the future, but they are not going to be as 'big' as they once were - and quality music that is not spoon-fed vanilla pop will be more and more a web phenomenon.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
hmmm ... you also have neglected to study ethics.
first there are two conceptions of right, legal and universal. Legal rights are simply those protected by the law, a while universal right is defined as a permision to perform a certain action coupled with others obligations of non-interference.
while in this case it sort of supports your quasi point that we tend to over use the term rights, and to expand our conception of rights to anything we feel we should be permitted to do. Most of these actions do not also imply obligations on the part of others not to interfere.
For instance in the case of file sharing:
If one were to believe that filesharing was a Right then there would be obligations on the part of musicians not to interfere with that right. Which would seem to imply that they actualy had an Obligation to supply you with their music. Which is certainly not the case. If I as a musician don't want the world to hear my damn music I think I have every damn (actual right here) Right to do with the music I've produced as I please. This make sense. I have produced the music, I there for that permission to do with the music as I please, and no one better get in my way.
now how does this aply to the music industry? What have the actualy done in the production of the music? anything? have they contributed at all? (not really... small production stuff) but the music is still (in my humble ethics opinion) the property of the musician. Where they should still have the right to control their music as they see fit. Of course record labels wouldn't really exist if this was the case.
The Gpl does a pretty good job of this. In a twisted convulted mess of terms.
anyways I just thought I should clear up some terms.
Anders
I've spoken about distaste for pirating here in the past, but as the manager of an indie rock band, I'll also swear by P2P as a promotion mechanism.
Small bands make virtually nothing from club appearances. The money, at least at the beginning, is in merchandise- t-shirts, stickers, and CDs.
Every last one of them provides free downloads on sites such as Pure Volume or on My Space They still realize CD sales at performances and via web purchase as they chase the holy grail- the record contract.
File trading has, does, and will still work as part of a comprehensive business model. The Grateful Dead certainly did rather well considering that nearly everything they ever did can be downloaded from Archive.org.
P2P becomes dicey when a group's success is predicated on album sales, and not performance money. I don't think a lot of Steely Dan albums would have ever surfaced if P2P was a dominant medium in their period.
Most importantly though, it is still a decision that the artists must make- do they want to sacrifice the financial protection offered by copyright law or open the doors in hopes of atracting an audience. In the first, they've got a business entity whose hands are in the pot- in the latter, they are self-promoting and hoping to realize the success that brings.
If you want to see an example of how indie bands at their best work, check out Monty's Fan Club and see what a small band from Rhode Island can do with P2P and a willingness to get the music out there.
In the meantime, I'm going downstairs to get my kids to turn the damn guitars down.
befuddled (noun) 1. Unable to create a pithy sig
You're post deserves to be modded +5. Of course, that should be +5 funny rather than +5 informative.
Everyone and his brother raved about Radiohead's two albums prior to Kid A, The Bends and OK Computer respectively. And not only did they receive critical rave reviews, the music-buying public loved them too.
For example, Q Magazine's readers' poll of the top 100 albums of all time had both prominently in the top dozen or so, with OK Computer at number 1 in that chart. Of course, such a chart is pretty skewed towards recent releases but that gives you some kind of indication as to the popularity that Radiohead enjoyed before the release of Kid A.
Now, you may disagree but I think the success of Kid A had more to do with the fact that it was the much-anticipated, latest album release by one of the most popular rock bands on the planet rather than the fact that it was leaked onto a P2P network.
If you can't see that people who love an album will be very much inclined to rush out and buy the next album that the same artist releases then you really have no clue about how the music industry works.
That The Bends, OK Computer or any other Radiohead album hadn't previously been in the US top 20 is irrelevant. More relevant would be the sales figures for any of those albums (which could have been sure but steady rather than flavour-of-the-month in nature) and the number of people who'd paid to see them perform live in the three year hiatus between the release of OK Computer and Kid A.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
"not everyone has a DAW in their house--or even wants one for that matter."
And those people can continue to do business with record companies, and continue having the same problems.
Adapt or die. That goes for everybody.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
No offense, but I kind doubt you've done much DIY recording or you'd not have posted this. I'm doing DIY recordings right now with my band... That setup is nice for someone recording at home with a synthesizer or a guitar, maybe two ... but get into a band setting and that setup is useless.
... if you can find me a 6-channel (NOT 6-input!) mixer for $50 I'll buy it outright. Behringer is about as cheap as it gets for any reasonable quality, and their 6-channel is $200+
... anywhere but a studio is less than ideal. Ceiling reflections, room compression, you name it. All of that going to tape, to be modified with whatever plugins that came with the $75 recording software which, if anytning, isn't much. And if, just if, there's somone behind the wheel who knows full well what they're doing when it comes to mixing and mastering (on $60 Bose speakers) in the same room that everything was recorded in, you might get a final recording that someone might find worth listening to in a world where every "professional" track has pristene production, recording, and mastering.
... I'm doing it. Lots of people. But we spent a few grand, read up everything we can on mixing, tracked some songs just for the sake of learning how to mix, and the result is still far from even the cheap studio we went to a few summers ago. It's good enough to give to the public, and it gets us gigs, but you'd never hear something like this coming from the pros. DIY will never replace an experienced producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer, and mastering engineer on top-notch equipment in proper acoustic environments. It's more than knowing how to take levels and work parametric EQ's. Like anything else, you get what (and who) you pay for. This is no different...
First off, a 1.4GHz P4 is useless if you want to mix a whole band in realtime. Hell, if you want to mix more than a handfull of tracks in realtime. It's what we've got. Playing back all the tracks is no problem, but put more than a few effects on (even the essentials: EQ, Compression, reverb) and you can't even hit play.
A single-input soundcard is also useless. And if you want to record drums properly, you'll at least need an 8+ input box. Bare minimum that'll run you $600-700. That also means you need 8 microphones, and 8 stands. Sure, you could route all the drums through a mixing board and record them in 1 stereo track to tape, but the final result will sound like ass. Especially if you're using a couple of $99 microphones.
And do tell
Then there's the recording space
I'm not saying DIY is impossible
Who doesn't like free music?