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Band Invites Music Copying
R C writes "The BBC is currently running a story about the band Carbon Silicon, including former members of The Clash and Generation X. The report claims that the band is encouraging fans to download tracks, demos, and works in progress from their website . Talking of re-capturing the culture of recording a tape to lend to your friends, they believe that the free availability of their music won't affect sales, and that the availability extra material like tracks in development will attract and engage even more fans."
A new rock group featuring former members of The Clash and Generation X has taken a novel approach to the issue of piracy by urging their fans to copy their music.
Carbon Silicon make all their recordings freely available online, and actively encourage bootlegging or filming of their gigs.
They even attack the current waves of litigation surrounding illegally copied music in their song Gangs Of England, which includes the line, "if you want the record, press record".
"What we're talking about here is fans who are sharing music," Tony James, formally of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Generation X - who formed the group with ex-Clash guitarist Mick Jones - told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme.
"It's just like you did when you were young, when you made a cassette of your favourite tracks you'd love, and would give it to a friend and say 'listen to this.'
"Everyone's going to say, 'hang on - if they've got it already, why are they going to buy the record?' But what we find is actually, people really like buying the records."
Demos online
The music industry has been grappling with issues of piracy over the last few years, in particular since broadband became popular.
Artists who have backed anti-piracy campaigns, include Metallica, Tatu and Peter Gabriel.
But James said that he considered the internet to be the "most exciting thing that's happened to rock and roll".
In particular, he pointed out that people could now record songs in their bedrooms and make them available to the world, and new artists no longer needed "a label, or a manager, or a BBC Radio playlist".
Carbon Silicon use their website to show the development of their songs. Demos are put on the web so people can track how they came together.
"We feel that it's almost like if I could go and watch Lennon and McCartney in the studio making Sgt Pepper, and watch them on the internet making that record, that would be a really exciting thing," James explained.
"So I think what we'll see in the future is people will pay to be there - to be part of the creative process. That's a really exciting thing.
"Our ideas of copyright, and what constitutes a record, will change in the future."
That's why the Creative Commons was conceived. Check it out here
Wow! Too bad Nobody else does this!
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Like the Grateful Dead? And all the bands that followed their lead, giving us over 1000 different bands with music on the Internet Archive's Live Music Archive, and thousands more that allow their music to be legally traded on the Etree Torrent server?
Ok, so you may say that's just live music, but if you want studio music, there's the Internet Archive (again) with Netlabels and Open Source Audio. I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing the news here.
Link here. They've only got about 6800 recordings so far, but it's only going to get bigger.
I remember The Offspring tried to give away an album in 2000 as mp3s on their website but had the idea shot to shit by their record label.
Sony Forces The Offspring to Cancel MP3 Giveaway.
Huh, that's pretty strange, I've seen it last week. I like to watch it every so often to affirm to myself how creepy this administration is.
Basically, the video has Donald Rumsfeld being interviewed by some talkshow type people. I don't know what show they're from. They ask him about stating that Iraq was an imminent threat to the US and, presumably, the rest of the world. He says that he never said or wrote that, and that someone else in the administration must have. They then confrot him with two specific quotations by himself explicitly using the words imminent threat. All he can do is sputter and act all abashed--like someone with an iron grip just latched onto his balls and called him on the spot. Fade to black. It's quite hilarious, really.
I imagine that it'll be back up, but I'll try to find a live copy of it. It's too good to be lost. Maybe archive.org has a copy... I'll reply when I find it.
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