Slashdot Mirror
Download Only Song to Crack the Top 40
nagora writes "The BBC is reporting that next week's UK music chart may have the first sign of the end of the recording industry as we know it. From this week (7th Jan, 2006), all downloaded music sales are counted in the official UK chart, not just tracks which have had a physical media release. Now, an unsigned band called Koopa is poised to enter the top 40 without any old-world recording, distribution, or production deals. Band member Joe Murphy says "If someone comes along and gives us an offer, we'll talk to them." before continuing on to add the words the recording industry has been having nightmares about since the introduction of the mp3 format: "If we can get enough exposure and get in the top 40 by the end of the week, do we necessarily need a large label? Probably nowadays, no you don't." Is this finally the crack in the dam we've all been waiting for to wash away the entrenched monopolies of 20th century music production? Or just a sell-out waiting to happen?"
...keep moving forward by working to repeal laws that instill any form of anti-market monopoly, such as copyright. I promote and produce for a few bands in the Chicago area, and I've worked hard to get them to repudiate monopoly. The bands that do make more money! Why?
Small bands want their music out their -- the CD sales aren't where the cash cow is. Live venues can be very lucrative for even a small band -- getting 300 people to a show can net you $1 a beer or $2-$4 per head. Also, you can upsell your new fans on items they can't easily copy, such as T-shirts, autographed posters, etc. My brother's band Maps & Atlases just received a major article in Guitar Player, and they're moving forward with picking up sold-out shows, all without any representation. They do just fine on cover charges, new T-shirts every month or so, and autographed screen-printed show posters. If they can do 50 shows a year (1 a week), there's no reason that each of them can't make a very respectable 5 figures a year, after expenses.
Sure, CD sales account for some profit, especially on tour, but there is little reason to think that a band needs a label just for radio exposure or MTV. Both are great for the rare groups that can break 50,000 albums a year or sell out to 3000+ crowds -- and the chance of being one of those bands is so rare that it is almost impossible. Even worse, the labels utilize the force of copyright against even the bands that "succeed" by wrapping up all their future income in the form of residuals and management fees.
If you're a small band that wants to make it big -- tour. If you're a medium-sized band that is starting to form an audience -- get a street team. If you're a large band, make more products for your consumers to buy that isn't easily copied. Sometimes that 5 minutes you spend with a fan is worth a lifetime of them wanting your products, even if they get the easily-copied products for free.
The best form of marketing is piracy -- if you're part of the 99% of the artists out there who can't get into the big industry because you have no clout or nepotism pull.
Is it easy either way? NO. Simple laws of supply and demand will show you that most artists won't cut it -- it is very easy to get into the market (financially). The skills can mostly be learned. The production tools are getting cheaper and cheaper. There is a near limitless supply of people who want to get into the market. Surely, few are talented, but the simple fact that there is SO MUCH SUPPLY and so little demand means that most bands will make nothing (or worse, lose a ton of time and money trying). Still, the web will surpass the radio and MTV as the prime networking engine, and I do believe that collaborative filtering engines such a CRITEO will really take off when more small sites start utilizing them to get their microcosm of users to collaborate on what they like and don't like.
Sidenote: If any bands are out here that are interested in trying this theory, and have any touring experience beyond a few local shows, hit me up with an e-mail, we have some money to invest in those who repudiate copyright in exchange for the free promotion that torrents and fileshare offers.
Congrats to KOOPA for proving that you don't need might -- or force -- to be more than a starving artist.
If we can get enough exposure and get in the top 40 by the end of the week, do we necessarily need a large label? Probably nowadays, no you don't.
I'm sure some burly men in suits from the RIAA would have something to say about that. You wouldn't want anyone to get hurt, would you?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Is this finally the crack in the dam we've all been waiting for to wash away the entrenched monopolies of 20th century music production? Or just a sell-out waiting to happen?
Yes.
Unfortunately, now that they've gotten this extra publicity due to not being part of a big label, the results are largely meaningless. Much as I'd like to say that this signals the end of the big labels, this almost proves that you do still need them for the halo of hype that surrounds the industry. When a song or album is hugely successful for no reason other than the quality of music, then we will finally have moved on from the artificial reality created by the big music labels.
Of course, the RIAA would never agree to legitimizing downloads like that...at least not until several more management changes happen and they get someone in their leadership who's actually owned an iPod.
...making artists *believe* that they (the record labels) are the only way to make it big. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
The header should be 'Download-Only Song to Crack the Top 40'. When I first read it, I thought it was a request to download the only song ever to get into the Top 40. Which doesn't make sense for several reasons. :)
-Shippy
Well, at least I told a young BMW-driving yuppie from a major label. It was back in the mid 90's. "Adapt or die" I said. "Hah! You don't know what you're talking about," he repied. "We filter out all the crap music you don't want to hear!"
Yeah, right. I now repeat: Adapt or Die!
SLM
main() {1;}
poop.
Having sampled some of the music, I must applaud them on truth in advertising.
The song is Blag, Steal, and Borrow and they have a Video, if you wish to hear the song.
Zing!
Probably slim, considering the lyrics of the music being anti-sellout...
Unless they're REALLY hypocritical, which is always possible I suppose.
From this week (7th Jan, 2006), all downloaded music sales are counted in the official UK chart.
2006!
From my understanding, the arctic monkeys played a bunch of shows, and got a cult following of sorts. Some of their fans started bootlegging the shows and sharing them so successfully that there would be sing alongs to the choruses of "yet-to-be-released" songs.
If you believe the hype, they didn't set up their myspace page, people posted it on their behalf.
If you believe all of this, then the grassroots movement is alive and well in the UK.
Or else it could just be a form of "guerilla marketing". Either way, the band, and their manager(s) get paid.
I'm suspicious, this seems like it could be a manufactured media phenomenon. Their song includes lyrics about getting into the charts. Their logo is a parody of the UK's age-rating logo. Their site is really slick, it's all a bit too knowing for their "underground" image.
Their whois points to a local web design/media branding firm, maybe they just laid it on a bit thick. From their myspace:
"Listen to KOOPA and you realise that this is not that watered- down, manufactured sound designed to impress your younger brother, little sister and please your parents."
Hint: it's not cool to say you're cool.
On they other hand they supposedly come from my home town (Colchester, UK), and are gigging here tomorrow. Might as well check them out for real...
How they sound just like every other pop punk boy band on the major labels for the last decade.
But they're not bad. That song "Hold" is pretty catchy.
http://www.myspace.com/koopa (easy place to hear their stuff)
Not a bad independent achievement though. Hopefully other genres will follow.
Internet or not, the one thing that bands don't have is the marketing engine to consistently push their songs they way that the major labels do. The real break through for internet-only unsigned bands is when internet-only/word of mouth advertising is enough to get them into the Top 40 consistently, and on top of the record label pushed songs.
It's great that this band has made it to the top on their own, but how many other homebrew bands will be able to do this? If they are just an anomaly, then it doesn't mean much. I'm not holding my breath until this starts happening more often.
Download Only Song to Crack the Top 40
It can't be the only song to crack the top 40 - there had to have been 39 others there already! And besides, you didn't give a link to the song, so how can I download it?
Er, no wait. That's not right at all. I'll tell you what - I'll just grab a spare hyphen from my giant bag of them here, and you're free to use it wherever you like in the headline that makes it mean what you intended.
That green slime had it coming.
Clearly, this is not a good millenium to be a business whose profit model consists of controlling access to information channels.
First they came for the travel agents, but I did not speak up because I am not a travel agent.
Then they came for the stockbrokers, but I did not speak up because I am not a stockbroker.
Then they came for the newspapers, but I did not speak up because I am not a newspaperman.
Then they came for the record labels, and there was great rejoicing.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
"If we can get enough exposure and get in the top 40 by the end of the week, do we necessarily need a large label?"
No - if you've got $25-$50K laying around to get a few thousand cd's printed, and have a marketing team ready to burn shoe-leather talking the stores into putting the cd's on their shelves, and a management & accounting firm to press the retailers for your receipts.
Or - hire some grunts to run a print-on-demand setup, and a flunky to run a website and take orders paid by paypal while you cut tracks for a 2nd cd.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
One TOp 40 song does not mean anything.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I keep reading these articles and it always seems to come down between greedy, callous, paranoid record labels on one side, and greedy, sanctimonious, flippant music fans on the other side, with the bands in the middle trying to figure out how they can be rich and famous and retire at age 26. It's all self-serving bullshit on all sides.
There is no music industry unless someone, somewhere pays for the music, and there better be a fair number of someones to make the money worthwhile, at least for the winners of the game. You can and will get inspired amateurs willing to work for nothing, or for gig money, but you won't get the explosion of creativity that comes from lots of talented people working their butts off for years trying to reach stardom.
If I buy this CD with my USA credit card and my USA address, will it count towards the total tally?
:P.
If it'll help get them in the top 40 without major label backing, I've got two bucks (or whatever 77 pence is in dollars nowadays), but I don't really like the song very much
Game... blouses.
a download would be the only song to crack the Top 40.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
I read recently that in the UK some artists who cater mainly for older clientelle were making it into the charts. The reason being that their aged fans did not know how to download their songs. Other more web-savvy younger users were downloading so many songs from their favourite artists that they no longer needed to by their albums, so the artists who were actually popular just didn't make the charts anymore.
This move to include download sales is not just a natural progression to indicate popularity of artists, but a commercial necessity for the music companies. How can they promote a platinum-selling artist who has only really sold a handful of albums?
Of course, if they really want to gauge the popularity of artists, they could also start to look at how many people are searching for their music at BitTorrent sites or on Limewire. Eventually this will also have to go into the mix if they want an accurate gauge of what people want to listen to.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
Generally, I can see a few roads this can walk down.
The first, and obvious one, is that some label approaches them, dumps out a sack of greenbacks and they grab it. Who wouldn't? It's one of those win-win situations. The bands makes good money, the studios do too (and they keep the business free from the stain of non-labeled success), sure, the customer loses in that deal, but then, who cares 'bout him?
The less obvious, more the 'deamer' version, is that the label approaches them and receives the finger. That would get them a ton of exposure for sure, and probably quite a few people who'd just buy their stuff, whether they like it or not, just for the sake that they told the label to count to four in binary with their fingers. I could see the RIAA to respond with a lot of red tape and pulling out some songs to claim they are copying something and make them spend more time in court than in studios to silence them.
And then there's of course the possibility that the labels themselves see the new venue of selling content without the expense of pressed CDs. I predict a botched job, as usual, but I'm almost certain they'll try to copy the idea.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know this is a difficult concept to get your head around, but there are some people that do not download music. There are some people that do not have access to the Internet for entertainment.
The question for this band is "Can you live without these people?" If the answer is yes, then they are headed in the right direction.
So far, the answer has been a resounding "No way".
If it got to the top 40, if I was them, I would totally make a recording company meet to talk over dinner at a fancy restaurant and pretend to be interested then say I'll be right back then get up and moon them and run out on the bill. I think their popularity would drop simply by selling out so they're right, they don't need some big, greedy, money whores breathing down their necks telling them what to do and where to go and all that BS.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
This has been tried a few times before but this time by a band with a good enough song to make it. I hope they don't sell out and that they make the top 10. That would cause major heart problems throughout the RIAA. More power to this band and I hope they make it.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
"Is this finally the crack in the dam we've all been waiting for to wash away the entrenched monopolies of 20th century music production? Or just a sell-out waiting to happen?" No pressure.
Take away copyrights, and any employee can leak your source, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Not yet. I think the Slashdot crowd massively underestimates the impact that experienced producers and recording techs have on music quality and popularity (not that the 2 always go together). Then of course there's good management and yes, marketing.
Of course there will be times when a band/artist gets enough right to make the charts (or even just a decent living) independently. However, there's an obvious problem with this idea that bands should just record their own music, put it out there and then allow market forces to pick the best stuff.
What if they can't afford a decent studio, or don't have the discipline to do enough takes until the sound is right, or the drummer sucks? Good production has turned a lot of bad music into good. An artist can be incredibly gifted musically but that doesn't mean they know the best way to record their music, or the point where a guitar solo stretches from cool to self indulgent wankery.
I think the tide will turn, but it needs to involve more people than just the artists themselves. I think we'll need to see a bunch of small to medium level labels dedicated to talent scouting, production, recording tech, management and marketing before the biggies start to get squeezed.
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
There can be real value in big labels. What if, say, the Beatles had tried to make it without a label. Would they be able to succeed today? Maybe. But part of what made them so great was the contributions made by folks like their producer George Martin and the various sound engineers they worked with. They added real tangible value to the music, especially as the Beatles started wanting more complex arrangements. They might not have ever come together if not for the recording label that employed Martin and the engineers. On the other hand, today we have so much great music technology that it's much easier to make a whole wonderful recording without leaving your bedroom. But you still have to know how to use that technology. Some bands do. Some do not. For those that do not, the labels may still offer some benefits. That said, some of the labels also seem to offer other things that aren't necessarily beneficial to the artists...
And now? With the .mp3 format and the internet and the whole "information age," what big independent act is around to follow in those footsteps? Koopa? Sure, there are independent "jam" acts all over the place trying to fill that void (Umphrey's McGee, Gov't Mule, Tea Leaf Green, String Cheese Incident as well as smaller acts like Soldiers of Jah Army and The Bridge) but, even with the help of the information age and the internet, have yet to really take off.
"...do we necessarily need a large label? Probably nowadays, no you don't." No, you don't. The Dead proved that over 30 years ago. Also proved you don't need the internet or any fancy information age form of communication, either.
Don't get me wrong. The most powerful way (especially for independent musicians) to get your music out is word of mouth. And sure, cell phones and the internet and sites like the Internet Archive all help, but likely it will still take a friend to tell you they saw [insert band here] and really liked them for you to do anything about it or to take notice of said artist. Great, so bands have websites and people can go there and possibly download music, or buy their CDs, or read all about them. People still need to have some motivation to go to that website.
Take away copyrights, and anybody can take proprietary software and crack the shit out of it, ending up with a heavily commented disassembly that others can build on as if it were source.
What about photography? Does photography for hire, such as wedding photography, need copyright in order to function?
Doesn't this infringe on marks owned by Nintendo and Chamillionaire?
Personaly, I do buy music. From Amazon.com, cdbaby.com, and um, maybe, "other sites", all paid for. No "free downloads" for me. Sometimes friends "give" digital music to me... in which case, *I* didn't copy it. (What do you call music you didn't violate the copyright to obtain, but didn't exactly pay for either? Accessory to some tort?)
Anyhow, the point is, that I have spent plenty of money on live performances and recorded music, HOWEVER, there is nothing special about music that makes it any different than any other business. Of course musicians should *market* themselves, and other *stuff*, if need be, if that is how they choose to make a living.
Otherwise, waiting tables is boring, but steady work.
Even for "signed" artists, it is almost a fluke to make a killing. I suspect the current, and future, generations will do just as well as independents as "label" artists, as far as licensing goes. If you have the rare one-in-a-million hit, you'll get paid.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Plagiarizing from works already in the public domain is legal. That's one of the things that makes a work public domain: you don't have to say who did it first or where it came from when you borrow from it. It can be unethical, but it is legal.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Unfortunately, now that they've gotten this extra publicity due to not being part of a big label, the results are largely meaningless. Much as I'd like to say that this signals the end of the big labels, this almost proves that you do still need them ...
A pigopolist, tries to sooth himself after a terrible night. "Yeah, that's it, it's a novelty thing - a one hit wonder," he croons to himself, "Now that one band has sold a lot of records without the help of a big publisher, it will never happen again because no one cares."
Five minutes later, he realizes it's over. The thought comes like thunder and there's no escape, "The "signing hype" was all made by the big publishers to help obscure the poor quality of the signed. No one cared to begin with ... and oh shit, they don't need a big publisher to suck up all the sales."
Time to polish the old resume. There's going to be work, it's just going to be different. Some of your old never made it buddies might be able to quit waiting tables.
Maybe now the "hype" won't be about who's signing with who or who's got the biggest billboard in L.A., maybe, just maybe the hype will be about who's got the best show or the most interesting music. That's something you can't do with a computer program in a central office, or an add campaign. No one's listening to radio anymore because the internet radio stations blow the locals away, so does your own collection for that matter. A couple hundred songs in heavy rotation is no longer a commercial success. Music TV, murdered by the music companies lost it's audience a decade ago.
Welcome to the long tail. There's something for everyone and it's going to be a lot harder to push trash. People are not going to stop singing and dancing, the party is moving on and it's getting better.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You can get a CD delivered anywhere in the world from quantities of 1 for $4.50, counting shipping and production costs. There are businesses which specialize in this sort of thing and they're much, much better at it than your grunt at the garage band or small shareware developer. I use cd-fulfillment.com for my shareware business (which doesn't generate even a handful of requests for a CD in the average month), and they just invoice me for about $4.50 x number of CDs sent at the end of the month. I do the data entry (address & etc) by hand but if I were a decent volume operation (like, say, an indie band with a local fan base who ordered a couple of CDs every day) I'd just tie it directly into the paypal order processing. Marginal work required after paying a programmer to set the system up: zero. It just runs like a self-replenishing CD vending machine. You go back to what you do well: playing music or making/marketing shareware, and let the CD guys deal with the boring print&ship end of the business and Paypal deal with the credit cards, where you cannot possibly add any value to what they do.
Now, if you have $50k lying around to front, you can probably do better on a cost-per-CD basis. Really, though, since your gross margin on IP is pretty much always going to be sick I'd suggest spending the $50k on getting more sales rather than eeking out a few more dimes per sale.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
That band has the most confusing website I've ever seen (no wonder you linked to the fan site and not the band's site). Do they release uncopyrighted music? Where can I find some downloads? Thanks.
Kidding aside. If one band succeeding is a "crack in the dam"? Then one misspelling on slashdot is the fall of western civilization.
does that considers only the music that is bought? Consider a Free MP3/MPEG (read amature Pr0n) being downloaded by zillions of geeks - should this make it top of the charts? interesting. hmmmm.
Eclipse PDE and Me
in the Berne convention, copyrighted works are those "novel creations of the mind". So, if I come with exactly the same expression as you, even if I didn't know your work, the first to come up with it is the copyright owner.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
The chart has been based on singles sales since it was introduced. But who actually buys singles on physical media anymore? Judging by the shelf space allowed in record shops, they must account for a very small portion of total record sales. And it's not surprising. They're as expensive as an album to manufacture and sell, so will end up costing more, and they're less convenient for most people.
So clearly these must be bought primarily by collectors and hardcore fans. It's hardly surprising that download sales are so substantially more important to position than physical media sales.
The rules started last week.
Several singles whose CDs are not on sale anymore cracked the top 75 including "Mad World" from Donny Darko, a former number 1 which is now used in the Gears of War ad which at #58 made its first chart appearence for 3 years.
Despite what the story says, it is NOT all downloads which count. If you look at the chart rules (http://www.theofficialcharts.com/docs/NEW_Single_ Chart_Rules_2007.pdf, there are very stringent conditions on a downloaded track being counted for the chart. Amongst these are the minimum dealer price of £0.40 per track. This will immediately preclude any tracks released under Creative Commons etc. It also only seems to apply to track downloaded from 'official' online retailers.
At the moment, only download purchases count towards the top 40. Lets see if they get round to counting songs that are downloaded for free too.
;-D
That way, bands would be given the incentive to provide at least one good song from every album as a free download in the hope of hitting the charts; the consumer can only win!
It's also be nice if they tweaked the rules to exclude downloads with restrictive DRM from counting towards chart success...
Maybe?
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
I just hope that the group's name won't be changed to Bowser when the song is officially released in America.
Didn't "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley (who did have a record deal) get to No. 1 (UK) last summer on downloads only? So is the January 1st date that the article is referring to 2006? (which, according to the summary is last week. Man, 2005 dragged on and on.)
Stupid people think it's cool. Smart people thinks it's a joke; also cool.
called Chartbomb thats trying to do something similar
they announce 3 'singles of the week' (not quite sure how they pick 'em) that they try to get into the top 20. sometimes they've already been released, but dont think they got enough attention, and sometimes its someone unknown, trying to break the market.
they link to them on the iTunes store for downloading, not sure about others.
its an interesting idea, and they seem to want to sway people away from 'mainstream music'. dunno how well it'll take off though
FTFA: "But bands who sell songs themselves through approved download services are now eligible."
So the download services people have control over who can, and can not, be sold on their system. So it isn't a win for the "little guy" at all, since he still has to have his worked accepted by a large corporate money making enterprise.
It's just a different one to normal...
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6244461.s tm
A major record seller immediately decided to drop the top 40 and use its own version (not including downloads).
They can see the threat - and they're prepared to meet it head on.
But then, in another famous song (#9 Dream), Lennon wrote:If you imagine there's no heaven, will you find yourself continuing to believe in spirits, souls and magic? Will adopting pantheism in place of more established religions really help?
"Download Only Song to Crack the Top 40" is a bit ambiguous.
Paraphrased, it might be:
"you can download the only song to ever crack the top 40".
Please use hyphens when necessary:
"Download-Only Song to Crack the Top 40"
Thanks to great coverage from the BBC.
I have done so to listen to great musicians and orechestras.
I will not pay for DRMed stuff of the same artist (so better they don't put lame DRM or lame "any copying" mechanisms on their CDs). Fortunately classical music has not gone down this idiotic path.
Copyright helps squat most musicians. Most of them make a living from performances and other related activities (talks, personal presentations, advertisment, etc). Only a selected few make actually any money of CDs or printed music.
Good musicians will make a living from music alone, but at the end people have to make ends meet, and we the public don't value music and other forms of art to highly by itself, then it is just fair if musicians and other artists get different sources of income revolving around their art.
This idealized, naive (frankly idiotic) view of the world where arts exists for art's sake is fine in the realms of fantasy, but does not apply to the real world and its daily nitty-grittyness.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
First of all, most bands, even well known, with a record lable behind them, make more money from their tours and live presentations than from CDs.
And with the internet being the ideal mechanism to distribute your music, it stands to reason you would invest that money into old media instead of several months of presence online.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I wish I had mod points today, as you answered this excellently. The most pressing benefit isn't in how we can take those now-public-domain works and wrap them up into something new that can make a profit. It's how public domain works can benefit our culture as a whole.
Will they or won't they?
I sat through the late '70s-mid'90s watching band after band start out "stickin it to the man" on an indy only to sign with the majors and become watered down drones.
The Clash sang it best in"Death or Glory":
"Every gimmick hungry yob,diggin gold from rock n roll
grabs the mic to tell us he'll die before he's sold.
But I believe in this and it's been tested by research,
He who f##ks nuns,will later join the church."
Steve Albini previously of "Big Black",now a bigtime producer and industry insider had the most relevant observations.Lenghthy but worth noting.
The Problem With Music
by Steve Albini
Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed. Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says "Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim again, please. Backstroke". And he does of course.
Every major label involved in the hunt for new bands now has on staff a high-profile point man, an "A & R" rep who can present a comfortable face to any prospective band. The initials stand for "Artist and Repertoire." because historically, the A & R staff would select artists to record music that they had also selected, out of an available pool of each. This is still the case, though not openly. These guys are universally young [about the same age as the bands being wooed], and nowadays they always have some obvious underground rock credibility flag they can wave.
Lyle Preslar, former guitarist for Minor Threat, is one of them. Terry Tolkin, former NY independent booking agent and assistant manager at Touch and Go is one of them. Al Smith, former soundman at CBGB is one of them. Mike Gitter, former editor of XXX fanzine and contributor to Rip, Kerrang and other lowbrow rags is one of them. Many of the annoying turds who used to staff college radio stations are in their ranks as well. There are several reasons A & R scouts are always young. The explanation usually copped-to is that the scout will be "hip to the current musical "scene." A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative rock and roll experiences. The A & R person is the first person to make contact with the band, and as such is the first person to promise them the moon. Who better to promise them the moon than an idealistic young turk who expects to be calling the shots in a few years, and who has had no previous experience with a big record company. Hell, he's as naive as the band he's duping. When he tells them no one will interfere in their creative process, he probably even believes it. When he sits down with the band for the first time, over a plate of angel hair pasta, he can tell them with all sincerity that when they sign with company X, they're really signing with him and he's on their side. Remember that great gig I saw you at in '85? Didn't we have a blast. By now all rock bands are wise e
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
For what it's worth, I went straight to iTunes, listened to a few of their excerpts, then purchased the song that's poised to make the top 40 (Blag, Steal & Borrow.) I guess that qualifies this article sort of as a slashvertisement, but whatever. I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is. I don't necessarily agree with the "eradicate copyright" argument, but I'm very interested in supporting alternate distribution channels. Because of iTunes, I have very little incentive to download music in violation of copyright. $0.99 is a price I'm willing to pay for a single that I like.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
I'm going to download the source to Media Player Classic. I'll make some changes to it, give it a new name, and sell a binary. Only the binary. My new video player is closed source. Yes there is no copyright on it, but it's still closed source. How are you going to get the C++ source to my changes?
Open source depends on copyright. Without it the source will completely ripped of by the scummers and nothing could be done about it. Some developers are fine with that, others are not.
Copyright is necessary, though I do feel it should expire with time. In the past I said 20 years plus an optional 20 year renewal. Some in this thread suggested something similar but with 30 years. Both are a good idea.
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Job Opportunity
Major record label seeks Perl programmer with expert skills in curl scripting.
record exec: *snorts line off the Bentley dash* "Dude, I can't believe they fell for this, we'll scan a number one for anything we release now for the low low cost of $0.99 per sale" "I was so sick and tired of tracking those scan sheets over a fax machine too."
It's a smokescreen. Deep pockets will buy their scans even more than they do now with radio payola.
Decca rejected the Beatles and the problem is not with recording equipment or personnel (Come back when you've read all eleven pages!). The problem is with finding talented bands who are willing to put the work in. Often a band doing it themselves is a cop-out, there's a huge amount of work that needs to be done before they step foot in a studio and they're trying to short-circuit the process.
The Beatles put the work in before they even approached a record label, they did hundreds of gigs in Liverpool and 6 months in Hamburg without label backing. They were ready for a studio (insert Ringo joke), most bands today want to start recording after 3 months of weekly practice. Let's put it this way; 50 years ago, the though that the engineer may be a better vocalist, guitarist, drummer and bass player than the respective band members they're recording was unheard of.
I'm failing to see what value record labels provide to anyone in the face of online marketing and redistribution. Let's leave the last word on record labels to Mr Steve Albini
Yeah, right. I now repeat: Adapt or Die!
Then perhaps you should adapt your slang. The word 'yuppie' died out by the late 80s.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It really looks like this is the case, except they didnt even bother with waiting for X amount of downloads.
If you look at the number of views of their videos on youtube, (less than 1,000) the number of plays on their myspace pages, (less than 20,000) and the level of activity in the forums on the bands official website, (less than 100 posts) then it appears the only way they could hit even the top four hundred is by means of this BBC news article.
+4 Insightful? What are you mods thinking? Just because copyright disappears doesn't mean you now magically have all of the source code for a binary executable. It just means you can "pirate" binary-only/proprietary/"closed source" programs without fear of legal consequences. Free distribution of a proprietary program doesn't suddenly make the program not proprietary.
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
What about this: Download-only Single Becomes UK Number One
Didn't Gnarls Barkley's "Crazty" hit #1 back in April? I guess the distinction was that"crazy" later had a physical single you could buy. This isn't the first download-only song to break the Top 40. Rather, it is the first download-only song to hit the Top 40 that did not have a follow-up physical CD. Or something to that effect.
Summary: Not as big as the headline suggests, still important.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Really? I can download the only song in the top 40? But shouldn't there be 40 of them?
...and then the Slashdot effect pummeled their server.
I'm sure an ugly girl who gave out free BJs would get a hell of a lot more business than ones sittin' around waitin' for a marriage proposal, too.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It'd be a relatively simple matter to bribe some employee into leaking all the rest of the source code. The reason that only a few bits have been leaked is b/c of the high risk of serious consequences (which would not exist if there were no copyright) for everyone involved in the leaking.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Actually, there are no such things as natural rights. Or, if you want to argue it the other way, everything one could ever wish to do is a natural right and government is an agreement among people to protect some rights at the expense of others.
Lets get real. There are lots of bands which can cracj top 40 easy like; Beatles, Queen, Depeche Mode. Elvis, Nirvana just to name a few. This is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. First, the music is not good. Second I havent seen an indie band with a music video which is right off the MTV production.
Conclusion: marketing hype under "lets fight the machine" to get knucklheads who wouldnt pay for shit music - pay for it just to "stick it to the man!" MAN!
Ohh and *IAA would want nothing better than for people to pay for old music. That is all gravy for them, since now they dont (for most part) have to pay any royalty at all. Yeah~ so instead the music that makes no money, they will have people rebuy the same songs every 10 years, and make more and more money. That is how the monopoly will continue.
Industry: 1 Artists: ?
Cheers
There will always be a place for marketing and hype. Bands will still need to "get the word out". Traditionally this has been done by the labels (part of their job is to get the band on the radio/TV and displayed prominently in music stores, etc), the deal being that the label gets the copyrights and a huge chunk of the profits in return for distribution and promotion. This is revolutionary because the band was able to both distribute (relatively easy) and promote (MUCH harder) without going through the traditional channels.
In order to qualify as a trade secret, it has to be a secret. If it gets posted anonymously to the net and everyone and his dog has access to it, it's no longer a trade secret.
They could sue whoever leaked it, but they'd have to know who it was, let alone prove it.
Do you know what SCM is?
The real question is, why should everyone in the world give a creator a monopoly over his work, merely because he created it? The natural state of a work is the public domain, where everyone can enjoy it.
"natural" isnt always best. It's better to go by what is best for society overall.
A few historical analysises were done, on why technology spread and developed so well in Europe, compared to China.
There were certain technologies developed in China, that were major "breakthroughs" in some areas... yet never really took off, until that technology was brought to Europe, and developed further.
The general consensus among scholars would seem to be that it was because of societal motivations, or lack thereof.
In China at the time, there was a rigid "caste" like system. Once a peasant, always a peasant, and so on. There was only minimal motivation to "better yourself".. because there wasnt much of a place to go, if you did.
In contrast, once the merchants started taking off in europe, it was seen that if you could make money, you could get somewhere. better house, better life, etc. So there was much more of a drive to innovate and "get ahead".
Without SOME form of copyright, etc, it takes away the drive to do that sort of thing.
Without that profit motivator, you are stuck with a feudal China type model, where only the people who are wealthy, and live a life of leasure, will have any incentive to tinker with the more "out there" type of things. Because if there's no profit motive to do that sort of thing.... then only people who dont need any more money... will be able to afford to do so.
Now, think about why it's a terrible idea.
When that readme file gets altered and checked back in? What do you gain from this anyway? How do you prove the administrator didn't do the leak?
Thanks to dada21 for taking time to write up all this information! It's great to read about real musicians actually making the free distribution model work. A recording contract is a means, not an end. This article made my night.
If the readme gets altered and checked back in, it has the watermark checked in with it. If you think it would be trivial to separate the watermark from the diff, you're displaying further ignorance.
Watermarks on read only files are fine, to a point. They fall apart when the various targets have physical access to each other's machines, allowing them to get files watermarked to someone else. If the system isn't perfect, it's worthless. All a defendant has to do is demonstrate a method for their watermark to be on the files innocently.
Copyright is a contract between creators and society, where we give them a short term monopoly on distributor to encourage them to contribute to the public domain.
The idea that copyright is a contract is the central problem with the way Congress keeps extending copyright. Instead of changing the terms for new works only, they extend the terms for existing works. One-sidedly changing the terms of a contract voids the whole idea of what a contract means.
The most recent copyright extension was the Bono Act of 1998, under which all audio recordings made before 1972 became copyrighted until 2067. This applies to ALL audio, including old time radio shows that had already been in the public domain for many years, and even the wax cylinders recordings made by Thomas Edison in the 1890s. I have no problem with Congress changing the law -- that's their job -- but the changes shouldn't apply only to existing works. The Bono Act was like declaring that all 30-year mortgages are now 60-year mortgages. People who have been making house payments for 29 years have no moral obligation to continue paying for another 31 years just because Congress said so.
I paid out the 0.77 just to be iconoclastic. Not a bad song. Hope the lads do well in the future (unless they are another PreFab Four).