Slashdot Mirror
Music Industry Attacks Free Prince CD
Mike writes "You might not like Prince, but he's planning on giving away a free CD in a national British newspaper. Harmless publicity, right? The music industry disagrees. Executives are practically going insane over the idea and are threatening to 'retaliate'. 'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday,' said Entertainment Retailers Association spokesman Paul Quirk, who also said it would be 'an insult' to record stores. Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?"
The more bad press you give us, the more ammunition bands have to never sign with you in the first place. Keep it up, you're doing a better job at killing yourselves than we music lovers could ever do!
Prince should just open his own online store. Publicly announce he is no longer a member of the RIAA, and start selling his music online via his own channels. I'm sure he is rich enough to give them the finger.
This just shows what a bunch of scumbags music companies really are.
cd pub
more beer
So an artist decides to share his music and give it away. Where to start with the ensuing anguish by the industry?
If the RIAA and music industry could be anthropomorphized, they'd be that crazy uncle anybody would keep up in the attic.
"Perception of value"... that just about says it all, doesn't it?
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
In the public mind, digital music already is rapidly approaching zero economic value, and this scares the crap out of the Music Industry.
Of course they are pissed at Prince - his action reaffirms the value of digital music in the public mind.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
That's just nuts. Good for Prince.
"The executive with an attitude like this should know that his outlets will soon be The Buildings That Used To Be Record Stores"
Fixed that for ya.
A-Bomb
even trying to act like anything but common thugs anymore. A musician should be able to do anything they want with their music.
Should make for utterly gripping testimony in the antitrust lawsuit under Sherman Act Part One.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
They will only make him stronger.
Let the "industry" expose themselves for the idiots that they are. They're well on the way to irrelevance. Why would anyone want to slow them down?
Most people don't even think inside the box.
But, if that is the case, you are insane. Seriously. Okay, the current stuff isn't that good, but if you don't like Prince, you probably don't actually know much about him. If you learn about this musical genius, who, unfortunately gets lumped in with a lot of talentless 80s hitmakers (I hope you read this, Madonna), you will, at least, respect him.
I'm just sayin'.
It's like a magician revealing his tricks and the music execs not liking it. How much does it actually cost to produce music? Maybe not as much as we think.
If he's going to give it away why doesn't he put it on the net for download?
Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?
It depends. If he signed a legally-binding contract specifically saying he would allow some company to distribute his music, then he can't give away his music. The company poured their resources into making him a famous artist. Having made their investment, it's reasonable for them to expect Prince to honor his half of the contract.
This would hurt the record stores because there is an alternative for computer users with internet and they lose the business of non computer users that would have gone to their store and potentially purchased other albums. I don't beleive iTunes would refuse to carry his music and Prince could start his own label if he wanted to.
To actually answer the last question, "Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?". No.
Just as Prince can do what he wishes with his business, so can they. They might just be shooting their own foot, but it is their right to do so.
once he signs the record deal, the music no longer belongs to him. which sucks, but that's the biz.
-- build a man a fire and he'll be warm all day. set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Q: "Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music..."
A: If the music sucks then I think the answer is quite clear.
What a loon.
He *is* known as Prince. For a time, he wasn't, because his label owned the name. However, he is now, and has been for some time, known as prince.
They would never want to lose out on the money he would continue to generate with his old albums. Sounds like they want to make an example of Prince to prevent other artists from doing the same. Large revenue loss to make it worth it.
We could of our own free will send Prince $1 for each free CD he gives us!
Do RIAA execs throw chairs?
Disclaimer: I love Prince's work, have seen him live many times, and his guitar is amazing and every bit as good as Eddie Van Halen or Eric Clapton, who yes, I've also seen live.
We're going to party like it's on sale for $19.99 !! Thank you, come again!
... Paul Quirk, who also said it would be 'an insult' to record stores. Record stores? If the recording industry is genuinely interested in record stores (as opposed to on-line sellers of bit-streams or supermarkets selling just the top 20), why has yet another chain of decent record shops closed today in the UK? Perhaps he really means "a danger to my company's profits".Everybody know him, he doesn't need record labels. He really doesn't. He understands that.
I would imagine that the record labels are actually more fearful of other artists like him coming to this realization.
Do you have ESP?
Didn't you all know that no individual owns anything they create anymore? Prince is a slave to the record companies, he just doesn't know it. In the age of employer/employee inventor's clauses and non-compete agreements, this sort of thing doesn't surprise me at all.
That's not to say I agree with it. Personally, I think Prince should be able to do with his music whatever he wants.
I don't care for Prince's music, but...
He's the only high profile "artist" who is openly attacking the corporate musical monster.
Good for him.
Corporate death to the music controllers!
Go Prince!
Why do you think he used a symbol for a bunch of years, because some music company owned the name "Prince" and he could not use it (or not inexpensively). There is an interview with Kevin Smith where he relays that the artist is pretty bitter of the recording industry.
The thing is that a lot of these DRM tactics are not the doings of the actual artists but of the recording industry which has rights to specific recordings (exmaple say Joe Cocker's recording of "With A Little Help From My Friends"), and if that particular recording is popular they (the record company) want to squeeze every last penny out of it's use. Which sometimes means strategically limiting wide distribution (which probably won't benefit the singer's career) in order to bring up the demand as it is not so obtainable and thus the price.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
From TFA:
>The eagerly awaited new album by Prince is being launched as a free CD with a national Sunday
>newspaper in a move that has drawn widespread criticism from music retailers.
>.
>.
>.
>Prince, whose Purple Rain sold more than 11m copies, also plans to give away a free copy
>of his latest album with tickets for his forthcoming concerts in London
Clearly, Prince gets it. Digital Content is no longer an object to sell itself, as it has no value anymore, but is merely an attraction to attract consumers to purchase other things.
I think this is the mainstream start of the beginning of the end for people who have traditionally sold digital content to consumers. Those days are rapidly drawing to a close. With content so easily copyable, it's economic value is virtually zero. So there is no place for selling digital content to consumers anymore.
BUT, you CAN sell your digital content to an advertising firm, who will use it as flypaper to attract consumers to buy physical things.
This is precisely what Prince is doing. He isn't giving away his content for free. he's sold it to a newspaper company that will give it away to get people to buy (physical) newspapers, and he's giving them away to people who buy physical tickets to his concert.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
record stores are dead.
Thanks for your time,
Reality.
I mean really, if people want Prince music they will still pay for it,and that means people will sell it. Probably online.
If he wants to give it away, more power to him, it's his music, jack ass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
if you were facing extinction
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Isn't this a pretty good example of the RIAA or at least the ERA operating as a defacto monopoly in the music business, and using unfair business practices to dissuade /retaliate against fee market competition.
This is the stuff of anti-trust lawsuits, and if De Beers is not allowed to operate inside the U.S., maybe these people should also be sanctioned.
=======
Science -- Sealed, Delivered.
"Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?""
Shouldn't an artist expect his customers not to distribute his music over P2P networks? Oh, wait we're taking about what's in YOUR interest.
Whether or not an artist should be allowed to give away his music has nothing at all to do with whether or not an artist should expect other people to refrain from doing so.
If I wasn't so anonymous and cowardly, I would mod you offtopic. I hope someone does. This article has nothing to do with copyright infringement or p2p filesharing.
Incidentally, what is your actual opinion on the original question? Do you think that artists should not be able to give their music away for free if they want to? And why?
'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores.
Sure. Feel free to stop selling one of the more successful artists in the business. I'm sure that will encourage customers to come running to your store when they're looking to make a music purchase.
Also, in case you haven't figured it out, Mr Quirk, Prince has figured out the dirty little secret of the music industry - he doesn't need you any more. In fact, he's been doing quite well ever since he told the music industry as a whole to get bent. In case you haven't been paying attention for the last few years...
So you mean to say that it's morally reprehensible to give away that which you own? Can you comprehend how nonsensical your position is? Prince giving away his music has NOTHING to do with P2P networks. This is about one artist choosing to give away his music and that scares the music industry for some reason. If you decided to give your mother $20 for a cab ride somewhere and I threw you in prison because you didn't demand repayment or charge your mother interest, wouldn't you be pissed off? Of course you'd be pissed off -- because that $20 was your to do with as you damn well pleased. The same principle is at work here.
Is it me or did the RIAA become the record industry's "Nazi Industrial Strike Force".
Legally I don't think Prince can do this if his records are licensed. His distributor may seek to sue. On the flip side, he can always re-do a re-mix like release of said songs and release those worry free. I do believe though that if he went the ASCAP way though, he is legally bound to his distributor...
With ASCAP and BMI control somewhere in the neighborhood of 98% crap, it all depends on copyrights at this point... Two copyrights associated with a song, one that covers the song itself another that covers a particular of the song. E.g. author of a song might hold the copyright on the words and music - person who performed the song might hold a copyright on the actual recording... To perform said song - the performer would need the permission of the holder of the copyright on the song itself. In order to distribute a recording of that song - distributor would need the permission of the holder of the copyright on that recording.
So it all depends on how Prince laid this out (copyrights). Judging by who he is, he likely is the copyright holder of both which means he pulls weight... However, he is to some degree imposing on the distributor's TERRORTORY so its likely they'd want to fight him and tie some money up knowing damn well they'd lose. In this case, if they took say a 10mill hit from his antics, tying him up in court cases in which the amount of legal fees amount to what they perceived to lose... They'll likely like that anyway. They're nothing more than rich, selfish crybaby bastards anyway
Infiltrated dot Net
Might The Artist Formerly Known as Prince then become, in response, The Artist Formerly Giving A Flying Fuck?
If, for example, I buy 10 CDs and give them to 10 friends, isn't that legal? It sounds as if this is essentially what Prince is doing.
Unless he burned millions of CDRs off his personal computer and plans to provide those.
Records? Who the hell wants to buy Prince's records??? I mean, what, oh look! he went to the doctor in 1983... and this record says he was given a traffic ticket. And this record is the one Asscroft and Co. made when they heard he was going to be on the Super Bowl show... Records... sheesh... And as for record stores... people buy records? I want CDs, MP3s and iTunes :) And I don't need no stinkin' store for that... Let the RIAA hacks crap themselves... the floodgate has burst and there is nothing they can ever do to get back the manipulation known as radio/video play that they once had. I would love to see what "retaliate" means for them.
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
Tm
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The one does not equate to the other. In one case, it is with the copyright holders permission, in the other it is expressly against it.
The copyright holder has the right to decide how their works are made avalible to the public, and at what cost. The public has the right to say 'thank you' or 'fuck you'. Other holders of other copyrights do not have any say in it.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
The music industry disagrees. Executives are practically going insane over the idea and are threatening to 'retaliate'.
Well "the music retail industry" isn't exactly "the music industry". Or is this just a convoluted slashdot attempt to somehow blame the RIAA?
- Doctor, doctor! Our patient is having a heart attack!
o I see... Well, plug the machine in and give him a few high voltage electro shocks.
- But doctor, won't he die sooner then?!
o Exactly.
He may well be giving it away because it contains political songs that would get kill-9'd by the recording executives anyway. It might just contain a song that clearly says "Fuck you RIAA". I've never really paid that much attention to Prince before, but... now I'm curious, and I want hear the music.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
That should be formally aveilable in record stores that are now closed. Does anyone actually go to a record store, or does everyone go to wal mart or buy off amazon. And if there are no places where on can go for music, and the radio stations are paid to play, and aggressive ad campaigns are not open, then what is an artist to do? And the music associations do not seem to be doing anything. They negotiated with the likes of walmart and made the widely commercially available stuff most similar to state controlled chinese television.
Prince has music that is very well made. Good lyrics, good rhythms, just not always accessible. So if he is going to get new fans, when the reality is that most radio will not play him, then this is a good option. Not to mention the free publicity. His albums are usually pretty well put together, with minimal filler, so many will enjoy it.
OTOH, I see images of AOL, with many CDs in the landfill.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Should these guys really be calling attention to the illegal actions an illegal monopoly may be taking in the future?
> Shouldn't an artist expect his customers not to distribute his music over P2P networks?
...pervasive piracy hasn't done in games yet.
Nope. Music consumers have been getting music "for free" for as long as music recorings have been available. That ship sailed a long time ago. Nevermind digital. This "music is free" idea predates vinyl.
Artists need to realize that P2P networks are logically equivalent to radio and lending libraries and adapt accordingly.
Produce something worth owning and don't be an ass and people might actually buy your stuff even if they don't really have to.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Do they get a free download of the CD?
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
That's the funniest joke I've read all year !
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
is as it is and ever will be. One day soon, the phrase "I got it for a song" will have it's meaning back. It's not that talent is worthless, it's that it will not remain a centralized commodity three companies can manipulate and artificially limit. That it was is the real quirk.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I saw Prince live 2 or 3 years ago and everyone who walked in the door was given a copy of his newest album. I recall it sucking, but the gesture was cool.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I'm sure lots of local stores and nearly unknown electronic stores would love to have the shot at this, although, I suppose iTunes would eat up most of the market, which is maybe what RIAA is really afraid of. Surely it would by DRM free since there is no cost. Could you imagine putting DRM on a free file? I'm not a Prince fan although he's got some good music, but I hope he makes out like a bandit giving his music away free and other artists take notice. Of course, I think Prince is one of the top 20 concert drawers in the world, so the income from the CD is chump change to him. This will garner him great goodwill with fans, which makes him more money, and the corporate suits less. The dominoes are starting to fall.
For electronic distribution, he can probably go to any retailer on the web, and they can absorb the bandwidth costs in exchange for the free publicity. RIAA shouldn't really be allowed to retaliate against stores that carry this for the same reason MS can't charge different amounts to different OEMs for carrying Linux, so I think most retail stores will make this available as an almost free loss leader to get people in the door (they'll still have to pay to get their copies and make some space available in the rack).
By record stores does he mean the record stores that are dwindling away at a massive rate since 2000, such as the late Tower Records? If so, the more insulting thing is ignoring the customers who are choosing to not drive downtown to buy $18 albums anymore when they can sit on their computer at home and buy tracks for $1 each. The consumers have been insulted by every record exec opening their mouth since they first shutdown Napster.
"The one does not equate to the other. In one case, it is with the copyright holders permission, in the other it is expressly against it."
*sigh* Are you intentionally missing the point? Or is this just the way slashdot regularly operates.
I'm not sure if it's HIS music. He may perform on recording, but how about everyone else? Did he hire them or did his record company? Who mastered it? Who were the audio engineers in charge of it? Are they his employees or his record companies? Is he giving away pressed copies of the same thing in stores or are they his B-sides and rough-draft tracks?
It didn't have to be this way. He could have dropped his record company, published and released it on his own with all rights and privilages thereof. Including giving it away for free. If he's abusing the access he has to record company resources to produce pet projects and give them away, The Suits have good reason to be mad and what Prince is doing isn't legit.
In other news, I can't BELIEVE I'm actually on that side of a Music Industry vs. Anyone discussion.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Just a few more years.
m oney/2007/06/24/cnfopp124.xml
e.g. FOPP
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/
Why would any artists care about music stores these days anyway? Oh they have gone into administration btw, just announced on the news 22 seconds ago.
Deleted
I have very strong feelings on this issue and I'm very impressed with Prince's intentions here.
The day music started becoming easily traded online was the day music became monetarily worthless. The cat is out of the bag and will never go back in. Whether this is immoral is irrelevant because the morals have been rewritten for the 21st century. The music industry's only hope is to embrace this fact and make their money from "NOT music" - albums with nice art, books, t-shirts, concerts, and other services and widgets that are related to music and cannot be duplicated.
I highly respect artists like Prince who give their music away for free and allow people to purchase it after the fact. I also highly respect artists like Nine Inch Nails who release their songs and samples under a Creative Commons license to allow fans to remix their works. It's going to happen whether the industry likes it or not, so why not embrace it today and show the world you're a pioneer full of good will?
If anyone is interested I blogged on this topic last week. I spoke primarily about DJ Amber from San Francisco who sells CDs for cheap but also gives the same music away for free in MP3 format. For $10 she sent me a beautiful CD, autographed, within a week of sending her the money via PayPal. I had the pleasure of dealing with the artist personally and all my money went directly to her.
The internet empowers everyone but those who fight it. RIP music industry.
Now they're going to start researching genetic modification to bread a super race of humans with out ears!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
not only in the studio, but as a marketer as well. His Musicology tour in 2004 was the highest grossing act that year in the US. He gave away the associated album to every ticket holder who came in the door. He is smart enough to know that as a musician, your money is made on the road, not off of album sales. To a touring artist, the record is there primarily as a promotional tool to get tickets sold. Him giving away his newest record is just another way to get fans in the seats. Good for his fans, good for his revenue, while allowing him to still maintain full integrity (not letting your label railroad your fans - look up Trent Reznor's recent debacle with his new album in Austrailia). What more could a recording artist ask for?
They spelled my name correctly, right?
Then its alllllll good.
Cha - Chiiinnnng!
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?
If you're asking this question, then you don't understand who you are really dealing with.
The music industry thinks they own ALL music. Not just the RIAA affiliated bands - all music, EVERYWHERE. My proof? SoundExchange. They are demanding royalty fees for all music streamed over the net from net radio - and get this - from EVERYONE. Doesn't matter if you're a member or not, they will collect on your behalf in preparation for the glorious day you elect to join the Borg. Until then they're happy to bill people for all music, everywhere.
The music industry thinks it owns all music. Everywhere. If there was a way to drill a tap into your head and bill you every time you think of a song, they'd do it.
So yeah, Prince, having the audacity to make a song and give it away clearly goes against everything these morons believe. I wouldn't be surprised to see them ban him completely.
In response - we, the public - should buy every single thing Prince makes. After he releases it over the net independently. Money straight to the artist with no insane middlemen. This could be where it starts.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You know... a threat like that sounds startlingly like something one might hear from a monopoly. To me they're just screaming "break us up, break us up NOW!!!" I'm pretty sure if there were NOT a monopoly, a threat like this could not be made...
Digital Content is no longer an object to sell itself, as it has no value anymore, but is merely an attraction to attract consumers to purchase other things.
Heh, well I've got a bit of a vested interest in this... but I don't think digital content has no value - just because you can get stuff for free doesn't mean you have to.
It seems to me that most people who 'consume' an musician's work do it via recorded works, only a small fraction will attend gigs or buy T-Shirts (how many do you need?). So I'd say those recorded works should be what you charge for.
Swimming against the current, I know.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Stagest of grief.
Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
-"F*** you Napster! Woooo!"
Anger (why is this happening to me?)
-"F*** you 'Prince'! Ha-ha!" "FTW? You want to GIVE away a CD? Not on my turf!"
When do we see the next three?
-Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
-Depression (I don't care anymore)
-Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)
This is truly brilliant. Think about it... radio stations PAY to play music. And here, the newspaper will PAY to distribute this music. Both scenarios result in free music for consumers, but there are still cash transactions going on behind the scenes. Prince is a smart business man.
giving away Prince's music for free. That would teach him.
Oh, wait....
Greetings,
This is really nothing new for Prince. He is a true artists, you may not like his music, but his goal is simply to spread his art to as many people as possible. A few years ago he did something similar which garnered him the all time CD sales record. He sold an album, for $75 - $150, and with each album a person bought, they also received a concert ticket, so while the sale was officially for the CD, the true cost was for the concert.
Contrary to what the RIAA wants you to believe, artists do not make their money on CD sales, in fact most artists actually lose money on their first two albums and over 90% of them never get their second album which leaves them in debt to the RIAA for life. Instead artists make their money on concerts. If you don't believe me, you are welcome to read the blogs of the Magnatune founder and his wife, the band Wilco, the singer Courtney Love, and the band Liquid Blue. There are many others with similar blogs, interview comments, etc.
"Individuals are smart, people are stupid" -- Tommy Lee Jones as "K" from Men In Black
>> The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores.
I don't get it, doesn't Prince own his own music?!? Somehow, that statement makes no sense. All Prince is doing, in a sense, is finding another way to get his music out there. He'll never lose the option of not having his music in a mom and pop record store, and even if he does, he can sell his product thru his website, for instance. Why are the labels thinking from an old school perspective?!? I guess NoFX were correct, Dinosaurs Will Die!!!
Prince gets it, and the RIAA executive gets it as well. That's the beauty of it.... both see the future of music, see what the intrinsic value of a music (or any art) recording is, and see who's going to be out of business if things continue this way.
Personally, I love this development. Prince again shows that he understands the music business far better than nearly any artist or executive out there, and the music executives are shown quaking in fear. And, like others pointed out, I'd love to see how the exec's statement will be spun at the next anti-trust/download damage hearings. Nothing like being caught red-handed threatening artists with black-listing and openly stating that a music recording has close to zero inherent value.
I need to make it a point to see Prince in concert - gotta support gusto like this.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Person interested in Prince as a long term brand strategy: "But come on - customers love to get free stuff!"
Music Industry: "What the fuck does what customers want have to do with anything?"
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Clearly, Prince gets it. Digital Content is no longer an object to sell itself, as it has no value anymore, but is merely an attraction to attract consumers to purchase other things.
The question is which other things, really. It's a legitimate question, despite the fact that some of the people who are asking it (the labels) are asking it for the wrong reasons and coming to some dubious conclusions.
See, it's *always* been the case that you had to give away some music. Broadcasting is the only way to create a large market for recordings. Give away some music... to create the desire to purchase more music. That's always how it's worked.
The advantage the labels had before is that they were the only ones who could distribute recordings. So, when you wanted what you heard, you had to go to them. So, there's no guarantee that when the desire to get more music kicks in, they'll be the ones people turn to. People have other choices now. The big labels have lost control. What are they selling now? And why will people buy from them?
The entire industry simply isn't used to asking that question, and many of them think they're entitled not to have to think about it, and that's the basic problem.
But I think it's a legitimate question.
Tweet, tweet.
and your treble are belong to us!
Its not his content and he does not own it. The RIAA does and they wont sell your product unless you hand them full copyright rights to them.
So in essence they own all his material and yes its illegal and unethical for him to do so.
I guess this comes to show they have a monopoly because no record company will let you own your rights to your own music. This is why the Beetles created their own label.
http://saveie6.com/
The only reason for the execs to be angry is if they signed a contract with him thinking incorrectly that it guaranteed they could invest heavily in promoting the album and get the return on that investment through album sales. Having the album given away cuts into that revenue. If it was a violation of the contract, there'd by a lawsuit. Since there isn't, they must've made a mistake. And I know all too well how angry I get at everyone else when I make a mistake.
Expect to see changes in future contracts with all artists to close this loophole.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
Prince gave away Musicology albums to people who purchased tickets to his tour. Because he could claim that the CD was "purchased", he was then able to count those copies as part of the "albums sold" when the Billboard list was compiled. My guess is this isn't him thumbing his nose at the record and distribution companies, like the anti-RIAA crowd would lead you to believe. Given his history and the circulation of the newspaper, it's far more likely a ploy to, once again, get higher on the Billboard list than his true audience would get him.
If he was just interested in getting many people to freely hear his music as possible, he shouldn't have signed away his IP rights to Columbia. He could have kept on self-releasing albums - I seem to recall he charged for those, though. And that they were all total self-indulgent crap.
Really there's no reason to fault the music executives on this one. I guess you could fault the mere fact that they exist, but if Prince felt that way, why did he (re) sign up with one? He has the means to keep living and recording indefinitely, he basically writes, records, and produces the albums himself. He could just stay in his Purple Palace and release everything he does on bittorrent.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Almost. There is one final bit of value that people will be willing to pay for: finding what you want. Most people won't want to spend hours sifting through all the rubbish to find the one MP3 copy that doesn't sound like crud. Most people won't want to go through the work of discovering unknown musicians. They'll pay for someone else to filter the content and recommend certain musicians and certain digital recordings as being superior.
What the equilibrium price is for this service, I don't know. I suspect it is lower than the current price, in general, but potentially much higher for especially good "editors" whose for-you tailored recommendations are outstanding. As far as I can see, this is the only remaining way anyone can hope to charge money for digital copies of music.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
We wouldnt be so darned crazy if they let us out of the damned attic!
Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?
1. I don't think Prince is particularly afraid of retaliation.
2. I don't think anyone who would actually be concerned with said retaliation is anyone the industry would want to retaliate against.
File any retaliation under moot.
Many many years ago, the president of the Solo Cup Company (they make paper cups and plates) had a wife who had aspirations as a singer. She wasn't very good, but he tried to jump start her career by including copies of her records in packages of his paper cups. I think I still have some of them. Wouldn't surprise me if they were collector's items now.
Somewhat fewer years ago, Wordperfect gave away a demo CD with a demo version of Wordperfect 6.0, and the rest of the CD filled with original music.
Musicians give music away all the time. Did the music industry scream over either of these? No. Then why over this? Because Prince's music sells, and the others really didn't.
Real musicians see music as an expression of art. They make it for their own purposes, and they'd do it even if they didn't get paid (as long as they can eat). I know plenty of indie bands that are happy to "cover their expenses". The music INDUSTRY, OTOH, sees music as a commodity to be sold, like soap. If someone gives away free soap, then real soap makers sell less, and they lose money.
This perception is wrong-headed, but everyone is listening to the wrong people, with the wrong point of view. The sooner we give music back to real musicians, the better.
>>I don't get it, doesn't Prince own his own music?!?
Unfortunately, contracts usually--if not always--give all the artist's songs to the Suits. Paul McCartney has tried for a while to buy his songs back from Michael Jackson, who bought the company that owned his copyrights. So I'm fairly certain that Prince is doing this by himself.
Esoteric reference.
Do you think maybe that's why Prince started his own record label?
It is his content and he does own it.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I've known posters not to RTFA before, but apparently, this guy didn't even read the intro paragraph right here on slashdot !
Back on topic, I see two possible outcomes of this kind of action; the music industry will successfully lobby congress into imposing severe restrictions on the Internet Music Trade and we'll all be screwed by it, or conversely, the music industry model, as it currently stands, will disappear almost all together. That could also be hurtful if it deflates too rapidly, but with attitudes and actions like this, they're only shooting themselves in the foot.
It doesn't seem likely that it can continue to lamely limp along as it has for a whole lot longer, harassing musicians and music lovers alike.
The thing is, people who are accustomed to having money and power like to give up neither; those two things are at least as addictive and destructive, if not more, than heroin.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
"What's a record store? Was there really time music could only be purchased in such places?"
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
unless you lack faith and imagination and optimism
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You can't take the sky from me...
An executive in an organization of Record Stores, is threatening Prince that he'll convince the Record Stores to stop carrying Prince. He can do this even if Prince has all the rights in his own music; Prince can't force anyone to carry his music. But I doubt this organization has the power to get all its members to boycot Prince, and those mom and pop stores probably aren't even a member.
This story has nothing at all to do with the Music labels or the recording industry.
welcome our existing greedy self-proclaimed overlords of all music.
Like him or not, he deserves the title for standing up for music
Quote from TFA: "It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career,"
how have they been "supporting him"? Did they sell his records at a loss? Oh wait, they were charging a markup and making a profit! Looks like they were supporting themselves by selling products that people want to buy.
Nonsense. Let the guy do what he wants- it's his music.
It's not his if he signed a traditional contract. The label takes ownership of anything they create during the contract's run.
But, if he wants to fight the big guys on this, more power to him.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
He is no longer "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince", he is now "The Artist Formerly Known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince".
My business faces ruin. CD sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago. Revenue is down and costs are up. My store has survived for years, but I now face the prospect of bankruptcy. Every day I ask myself why this is happening.
I bought the store about 12 years ago. It was one of those boutique record stores that sell obscure, independent releases that no-one listens to, not even the people that buy them. I decided that to grow the business I'd need to aim for a different demographic, the family market. My store specialised in family music - stuff that the whole family could listen to. I don't sell sick stuff like Prince, and I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of.
The business strategy worked. People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase records without profanity or violent lyrics. Over the years I expanded the business and took on more clean-cut and friendly employees. It took hard work and long hours but I had achieved my dream - owning a profitable business that I had built with my own hands, from the ground up. But now, this dream is turning into a nightmare.
Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Prince is mostly to blame. The statistics speak for themselves - one in three discs world wide is given away by Prince. In the newspaper, you can find and listen to hundreds of dollars worth of music in just minutes. It has the potential to destroy the music industry, from artists, to record companies to stores like my own. Before you point to the supposed "economic downturn", I'll note that the newspaper store just across from my store is doing great business.
A week ago, an unpleasant experience with Prince fans gave me an idea. In my store, I overheard a teenage patron talking to his friend.
"Dude, I'm going to buy a newspaper to get the Prince CD."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."
I was fuming. So they were out to destroy the record industry from right under my nose? Fat chance. When they came to the counter to make their purchase, I grabbed the little shit by his shirt. "So...you're going listen to Purple Rain, punk?" I asked him in my best Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry voice.
"Uh y-yeh." He mumbled, shocked.
"That's it. What's your name? You're blacklisted. Now take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked. Cravenly, they complied and scampered off.
So that's my idea - a national newspaper blacklist of Prince fans. If somebody cannot obey the basic rules of society, then they should be excluded from society. If Prince fans get their music for free, then the music industry should exclude them. It's that simple. One strike, and you're out - no reputable newspaper store will allow you to buy another newspaper. If the Prince fans can't buy the newspapers to begin with, then they won't be able to get their free CDs, will they? It's no different to doctors blacklisting drug dealers from buying prescription medicine.
I have just written a letter to the RIAA outlining my proposal. Suing Prince fans one by one isn't going far enough. Not to mention Prince fans use the fact that they're being sued to unfairly portray themselves as victims. A national register of Prince fans would make the problem far easier to deal with. People would be encouraged to give the names of suspected Prince fans to a hotline, similar to TIPS. Once we know the size of the problem, the police and other law enforcement agencies will be forced to take the Prince fans seriously. They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Prince fans?
This evening, my daughters asked me. "Why do the other kids laugh at us?"
I wanted
Parent is a (realitvely well executed) Troll. Please mod accordingly.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Clearly, Prince gets it. Digital Content ... is merely an attraction to attract consumers to purchase other things. ...
He isn't giving away his content for free. he's sold it to a newspaper company that will give it away to get people to buy (physical) newspapers, and he's giving them away to people who buy physical tickets to his concert.
And what's particularly subversive about this is that it is an RIAA-less distribution model that may work for other, less established, artists as well.
With the major labels the bands mainly make their money from tours and spinoffs, essentially nothing from record sales and airplay (thanks to RIAA's creative accounting). So bands have little to lose by just focusing their efforts on the tour - using the recording as a value-add for ticket purchases and finding other ways to give it away as advertising, in substitution for industry-controlled airplay.
Prince's action just showed the music-making world a business model that is doable by any competent band and which entirely cuts out the old-school industry while perhaps matching or exceeding the band's returns under the old system. No WONDER the RIAA exec was foaming. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?"
And shouldn't software developer's be able to give away their works without fear of corporate retaliation??
The answer to both questions is "Yes!" Unfortunately greedy corporations will never leave either of us (recording artists and software developers) alone.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
That is a more accurate analogy, but quite a bit less clear-cut from an ethical point of view.
It's just as inethical, because if that person went through the work of designing and creating those items so that they were unique to him/her and planned to sell them for a living, you coming along and making a copy to give away free to everyone does two things:
1.) Makes you a huge asshole.
2.) Deprives him/her of a career.
It's just as inethical, if not more so. At least if you're physically stealing something, the person can get it back and have that value returned to them. Infinite digital copies floating around on P2P networks don't ever go away.
Would you accept it if an employer used source code you wrote and didn't give you a paycheck for it, and their justification was that they're not stealing anything from you because you still have your copy of the code?
People that get called on stealing GPLed code typically are making money off it by doing so eg. bundling it with some piece of hardware, or sticking it into their proprietary software that they sell.
Most pirates don't sell the music they pirate.
This is about the 5th time you've posted the same kind of message in this thread alone. Ok, we get it, you're against the copying of music. A lot of people aren't. You don't like them. We understand.
Life goes on.
The executive who made demands with menaces could well become the executive who used to be on the outside of prison walls. (Unless this was said at Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park, is on extremely thin ice. The fact that Prince is a wild eccentric is actually an added bonus in Britain, where that is often valued far above all else.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Unless he had legal obligations to distribute it through a label, he should be free to choose. For example, I believe artists sign deals with companies to record say five albums, which will be distributed. After those five, for example, he would be free to do as he likes.
Go Prince (or whatever your name is this week), go!
The problem with the music industry is that they believe that just because they have made profits in the past that they are now somehow entitled to make them.
Well, too bad. In free market capitalism you don't have the right to make profit. What you have the right to do is sell or not sell. Market forces determine the price of something. If the RIAA wants to make more money on music, then they need to withhold some of what they produce (I use the term produce loosely) in order to increase demand for it. Of course, no one would miss any of the watered-down cookie-cutter garbage that plagues the modern music industry, so demand for it would never increase - an unfortunate situation that the RIAA created for itself by engaging in content control and price fixation.
A word of caution to any business owners out there. You need your customers more than they need you. There will always be someone to provide consumers with what they need, so it wont mater if your company went extinct because you tried to cling to inefficient and disingenuous business models. Sue 1,000 people. Sue 10,000 if you want. All it will affect is the length of your epitaph.
And no one will miss you.
Inserting [insert witty signature here] here does not constitute a witty signature.
>Almost. There is one final bit of value that people will be willing to pay for: finding what you want.
>Most people won't want to spend hours sifting through all the rubbish to find the one MP3 copy that doesn't sound like crud.
I don't know. It is already trivially simple to find music to download for free. I've heard you can go do a search for "The Eagles", for example, and download to top 5 highest-available-seed-count versions of "Hotel California", for example, and have pretty good confidence that you'll have an acceptable copy in 5 minutes or less. Generally, the more people who are seeding it the better the copy is.
As technology progresses, this will only get easier.
>Most people won't want to go through the work of discovering unknown musicians.
>They'll pay for someone else to filter the content and recommend certain musicians and certain digital recordings as being superior.
Web 2.0 web sites, like Digg, and Slashdot, already do a great job of filtering and recommending content. It's not hard to envision a Digg-like website that filters and recommends music, or videos.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
1. There are enough Slashdotters who don't like the GPL for exactly that reason: You can't just copy the code and build something new out of it, and then distribute it without disclosing not only the code you took, but also all the code you wrote solely by yourself (and which according to normal copyright you won't have to distribute). (Yes I know, there is always LGPL and also the "interface code" trick.) Those people tend to be in favor of the BSD License.
2. People who defend the GPL normally argue that copying someone else's work, earning money either with it or a derivative work of it and not giving something back is unethical. That's a different type of fish.
I guess you missed the word "ethically" in my signature. I know you're attempting the tried-and-true "it's not theft because you're not physically taking anything" canard, but then why do all Slashdotters refer to "stolen GPL code" all the time?
Equivocation. Likely because the people who talk about "Stolen GPL Code" aren't the same people who talk about piracy. If you're going to argue with someone, argue on the merits of their arguments, not the arguments of others.
And he obviously didn't miss the word "ethically". His point was that ethically, piracy is not like stealing, since piracy is not like stealing in its essential character. Indeed, he came up with an analogy to piracy, and showed that stealing and piracy are ethically very different.
You'll probably feign
After all, I am strangely colored.
That ridiculous. It's like saying that murder is unethical regardless of the circumstances.
If you go kill someone for the hell of it, of course it's unethical, but if you kill someone through unavoidable accident, there's not really any unethical aspect to consider.
Likewise, if you go download a CD because, hey, you'll save some money, then of course that's unethical, but if you go download a CD because, hey, you appreciate the song, but not to the point where you'd ever buy it, the record labels are left with no loss of profit, and you're left with a song you'll hear once in a while and perhaps grow to like enough to follow the artist and perhaps buy another of their CDs.
I don't see any logical reason for why something that incurs no loss, hinderance or anguish, neither financial nor personal, should be considered unethical. Do you?
No, what they're saying is that Prince is somehow incarcerated! All proceeds from these "Free Prince" CDs go towards paying off his lawyer fees. Please ignore the fact that "Kevin" has been scratched out and "Prince" is penciled in.
S.
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
an industry battling fierce competition from supermarkets and online stores
Huh? Does that word mean something different in Englandland?
I seem to recall a few years ago Prince went on tour and gave away a copy of his new album "free" with every ticket sale. The purpose of this was to game the music charts -- every one of those CDs was counted by Nielson Soundscan as a sale, causing the album to debut high up on the billboard charts. I think there's at least a possibility that this is a similar stunt.
This is one thing that I was wondering that you managed to put perfectly. It seems that the future focus of music is going to be in the DJ's/VJ's and those who focus on presenting the content. The content may be easily distributed and replicated these days, but it takes taste and a feel for ones audience to be truely great at setting up shows, mixed cd's, etc.
Hopefully we'll start so see more music "packages" become available, where artists with similar target audiences hook up with a talented DJ/VJ type person (not necessarily those labels specifically), and include different lineups of their songs. I do not mean the "OMG SUPER PARTY HITS 335.4235475236452364 2007 EDITION" cd's you see on infomercials, but ones created with the direct input of the artists involved AND such talent. We've seen that a true fan will purchase multiple versions of the same music and be happy as long as there is a reason to (IE: remixes, live version, even _specific_ live versions).
Music seems to be a lot like food, except for the "we die without it" part not being quite literal. And as many chef's know, presentation is everything. Good taste, insofar as it applies to a similar target audience, definitely DOES have value.
Ice Cream has no bones.
I assume Prince is releasing the CD on his own.
If that's the case, companies, who attack him, should be charged, since they display the behaviour of organized crime syndicates.
AS long as you're not under contract then you own it. There's the rub of course. Artists have trouble getting to superstardom like Prince is now without the crutch of the record industry. So, he's now officially biting the hand that once fed him. He's of course also biting the hand that fucked him over, but one could argue that he was just being snobby back then too because he did sign a contract with his own name, and he probably read it before he decided he hated it... Anyway, now I think it's cool that he's doing what he is, but things aren't always so cut and dry as the folks here seem to think.
Speak for yourself.
You're just going to end up ruining it for everyone else when the government notices the lucrative market for free CDs and applies a whopping 300% tax. I hope you're happy now.
why do all Slashdotters refer to "stolen GPL code" all the time?
Um, because you are a liar with an agenda? I've never used those words. "All Slashdotters" is plain wrong. Again, you are taking what you feel and putting it in words you know to be wrong in order to generate an emotional response. That's lying. But feel free to continue. It appears to make you feel better. But I don't think you would know what "ethics" are if they bit you on the face.
Learn to love Alaska
add tortious interference to the list of charges against the recording cartels.
e
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interferenc
I should clarify 2.
GPL actually acknowledges that just copying a work and using it for yourself should be completely free. And that's pretty in line with the argument that nothing is stolen by just making a copy for yourself.
Pop star George Michael said the same thing to BBC radio in 2004, talking about his impending retirement from commercial music.
Frankly I don't see why not. Once you've got "enough" money why not sell-out entirely to your own creative impulses? It's certainly better then wearily pumping out material you're no longer interested in just because you've become accustomed to life as a hamster on a pop-star wheel.
I thasnk Mr. Michael, Prince, and every other artist for sharing their talent with us. If their non-commercial expressions discomfort trade cartels and music store chains then so be it, artists have no obligation to support music industry chattel. Perhaps the record stores would like to have parents stop singing non-commercial lullabyes and birds be required to have performance licenses.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Fear is the mind killer.
Music Industry : Who are you and why aren't you giving us money yet?
Sems to be about the only thing they care about.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Wait a minute. The article says that Prince will be "giving away" copies of his CD to subscribers of the newspaper. Nowhere did it say he was giving his music away to the newspaper. Who's to say they didn't pay him a handsome sum for the privilege of being able to distribute this CD? It's a great promotion for the newspaper itself, copies of which will surely fly off the shelves in a way that print newspapers haven't been doing in a long time.
Breakfast served all day!
In 1989 my band made a vinyl record and pressed a 1000 copies. There are 920 or so copies still within our control. I've been giving some thought to setting up a MySpace page and providing free downloads of the band's works and writing and recording some new songs.
Mr. and Madam Record Company executive, this is your chance and time is running out. Sign me to a record deal now before I give away more of my music. Your industry needs you!!!!
How do you propose musicians and song writers pay for rent and food?
I would truly appreciate an answer to this question.
Hehehe. You're funny. People who defend copyright have no business talking about ethics.
...why do all Slashdotters...
ALL slashdotters?? That's even funnier.
A troll you are indeed.
What?
This seems to be a popular opinion, but why? I mean ... yeah, I don't really care for his current stuff that much either. But why not? He's certainly no less talented than he was when he wrote "Purple Rain." The music doesn't sound drastically different than his older stuff, yet it's somehow not as appealing. Where did he take a wrong turn?
(He does seem to be into guitar-wank a little more than modern audiences prefer...)
Breakfast served all day!
Do you work for the RIAA? A double agent perhaps? That said... I agree this has nothing to do with the RIAA, but when someone says "music industry" most think of the greddy assbags that sue granny's and 12 year olds. That is the picture they have painted for the whole "music industry". /clap RIAA
Now then, if they weren't such ignorant douchebags they would figure out that the web is the future of content delivery. Not only is it more profitable but you have a larger customer base. I for one AM WILLING TO PAY FOR MY MUSIC!!! I had Napster for quite a while, canceled it when it kept telling me I can't play my DRM plagued shit WMAs... and tech support was as helpfull as ... "overseas" tech support... The only people downloading music are broke ass college kids( or a large majority ) that wouldn't buy it in the first place, so in theory no sale is lost there... If this were the 80s they would be sharing/copying tapes... which mind you I used to do :) . I would give someone else's left nut to get a music service where I can buy music online, DRM free, at a reasonable price!
That my friend is why the RIAA is being mentioned here...
Eye for an eye and half of the world will have just one eye!
Exactly which record stores are going to retaliate?
Tower?
Sam Goody?
Wherehouse?
Kudos to Prince for continuing to embrace alternative ways to get his music in the hands of the listeners.
Just another brick in the RIAA wall.
It seems like they're in self-destruct mode.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The publication that Prince is really distributing his CD's with is called the Watchtower. Maybe he thinks people will read it now.
> This is about the 5th time you've posted the same kind of message in this thread alone.
Yeah, he just spooged out half a dozen inflammatory messages, saying pretty much exactly the same thing, inside of fifteen minutes; then dropped off the thread entirely. Hmmmm... there's a word for people like that.
> k, we get it, you're against the copying of music. A lot of people aren't. You don't like them.
If I were into betting, I'd bet that he doesn't actually give a rip one way or the other. Right now, he's probably sitting back, reloading his userinfo page, and laughing at all the biters. (Heh... which includes me now, I guess.)
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
If you don't like it enough to buy it, then either you don't like it, or they are charging too much for it. I find it usually to be the second thing. When I look at most CDs, I think, yeah, that's a pretty good CD, but I don't really think it's worth $15. Probably closer to $5. So I end up not buying it. I get my music off eMusic because that's where the cost of the music is actually worth it. 30 cents for a song is definitely worth it for me. I will never buy off iTunes because $1, or $1.29 for non-DRM is way too much for a single song, and not what I consider a good deal.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Your employer does not pay you for your code - your employer pays you for the time you spent creating the code. It's a very, very different situation.
That ridiculous. It's like saying that murder is unethical regardless of the circumstances.
Murder is always unethical. Homocide, on the other hand, need not be.
If you go kill someone for the hell of it, of course it's unethical, but if you kill someone through unavoidable accident, there's not really any unethical aspect to consider.
The first is murder. The latter is "just" homocide.
After all, I am strangely colored.
As a member of a band going to meet with Recording Producer a week from tomorrow, I have a very different opinion on that.
I'm of the opinion that if people support us by buying our music cd's, merch, etc..., I'm grateful. FANS do not have to shell out shit. No BAND is entitled to ANYTHING. Period. If you write music that people like, listen to, they will come. Some will support you, moneywise with merch., others will come for the show.
Now, if some fan buys a cd of ours, and goes home rips it to mp3, and starts distrubuting it, oh well. Since technology has progressed to the point where content duplication and distribution occurs at the rate of seconds WORLDWIDE, it is an exercise in futility to try and combat such a force. The upside of that is this. MORE PEOPLE are listening to our music. Why would I stop OTHER people from being exposed to our music? Its likely that if they dig it, they'll come see the show, which if you've ever been in a band, yes merch. is where you make the money, but alcohol sales and people paying cover will greatly influence your guaruntee with the club, and probably get you another gig there.
That being said, If one day in the near future I do a music search on the p2p network, and ANY track of ours comes up, I'll probably shit myself. And probably download it just out of amusement.
Again, BANDS are entitled to NOTHING! The only thing that matters is the music. The merch, the show, the look, the attitude, it is all just gloss around the music. As a band, we get that. Next week when we meet the Producer, I'm not going in with any illusions. I expect us to NOT get a deal, and him just tell us some likes/dislikes about our music.
I used to think Prince was just a musically talented, cooky pervert. Now I think he's a musically talented, cooky pervert with the right attitude about his work. I guess he got sick of dealing with rent-seeking record companies in order to finally publish all those hundreds of his legendary unrecorded songs to make all those aging artist-formerly-known-as-Prince-worshipping gen X'ers happy. That's so cool.
Just because he is giving away CDs for free doesn't mean he is giving away his copyrights, so it doesn't automatically make it legal for anyone else to distribute the contents of the CD via, lets says P2P or streaming.
If the copyright notice on this free CD says that anyone can copy and distribute, that is a different matter alltogether.
I wonder if anyone would question that "shrink wrap" agreement?
Lots of artists have themselves a place at the MySpace where music can be sampled and you can get exposure. And lots of folks happily pay to get those little CD disks that they can put in their collection. There are all sorts of ways to keep playing music and get paid for it but then there are lots of musicians who are less successful doing that and become music teachers, or bus drivers or whatever. Just cause you want to make a living doing it is no guarantee that you can make a living doing it.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
this stuff is just to insane to be real... the whole RIAA / MPAA thing.. ..
I no longer believe in it..
I now believe both are controlled by the pharmaceutical companies for the sole purpose of irritating, confusing, & annoying Americans so the pharmies can sell us more Valiums and shit to keep us calm.
It has to be...
On a side note... back in the early 90s prince release an interactive CD-ROM that allowed you to move through his mansion Myst style, watching his videos and clips in different rooms. -That was something the RIAA should have taken notice of back then and copied. Perhaps then with material like that people would be more willing to buy a phucking CD... assholes!
Kill your TV
(...)
--
Piracy is ethically no different from a mob looting a store whose locks were broken. Apparently.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I think he meant "all true Scotsmen"...I mean "Slashdotters".
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
with a game of basketball. Suits against blouses.
music from Prince as his prime was before my time.
Now I'm looking him up and may get something. He probably is getting his money's worth.
Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?
Sure. And I should be able to get along with people even if my hair and clothes are unkempt and there's a really, really great guy inside me, they just need to take the time to see that.
Oh, wait. There are unwritten rules about this kind of thing. You can do whatever the hell you want. Just know that if you go outside the bounds of "normal" behavior that nobody has to meet you on that field.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
Ok, this may be considered flaimbait for a couple of reasons: (1) it goes against /. tendencies to rake corporations over the coals and (2) I am posting AC.
The record stores and recording industry have the right to cry foul here.
Analogy: Thermaltake (www.thermaltake.com) sells their power supplies on newegg.com. If you go to their "virtual store" they just point you right back at their channel partners / distributors. If all of a sudden they were to start offering their power supplies directly from their site at lower prices (or maybe giving them away) wouldn't you expect newegg.com to get pissed and break contract?
I realize that this is a new album and that the industry and stores probably dont have agreements in place to cover the new product, but the analogy still holds. If Prince wants to give his stuff away for free then that is his right, but it is also the right of the recording industry to decide they dont want to distribute his music through their channels/stores.
-AC
Here's the difference:
Stolen music becomes more free.
Stolen code becomes less free.
What we care about is the freedom of information. The law is just an expedient to secure that freedom. When the law becomes injurious to that freedom we must break it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Would you like some pancakes?
Trent Reznor has pretty much already done this, stating that after his next album, he's done with record companies.
Most artists already record their music using a laptop, and have no technical limitation keeping them from distributing their music online. So why do they need a record company at all? The recording industry is outdated, and has failed to re-define its role in a useful way. We're now seeing the beginning of its death.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls.. but consider that he's on stage 5 while you are stuck somewhere between 3 and 4.
Copyright holders have long ago broken their social contract with the people, nothing produced today will ever become public domain during your (or your children's, or possibly not even their children's) lifetime as per the original social contract that gave birth to copyright.
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
If you don't like it enough to buy it, then either you don't like it, or they are charging too much for it.
True enough. When the marginal cost of producing another unit is essentially zero, "too much" is anything greater than essentially zero.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
...after Kevin Smith convinced me that Prince is a douche, I have to now go and side with the asshat (Prince, not Kev)?
Argh. Irony is... err... ironic.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
I don't understand why the music companies are upset. If a customer takes the time to actually goto a real music store (which is becomming almost antiquated), and they pick up the free CD, they are probably actually going to buy a CD of another artist or something. duh
Lane Myer: I have great fear of tools. I once made a birdhouse in woodshop and the fair housing committee condemned it.
How dare you link to my website as your own? You jerk.
This is all part of a gradual decline in the value of music. It is now so cheap to make that people give it away anyway, unsigned artists have mp3s all over the net.
The music giants want to keep the price and cost of music high since they spend so much money hiring expensive producers, remixers and video producers.
Prince is well known for cranking out much fast, he can record and mix and album in a week. So it's no wonder he can give away a CD.
I guess the same thing happened to horse-shoe installers when cars arrived to cities. People just stop visiting them because there was new technology and they were not part of the picture anymore. I bet there was some resistance, but futile.
>Nowhere did it say he was giving his music away to the newspaper.
You must have missed the part where I said:
>This is precisely what Prince is doing. He isn't giving away his content for free. he's sold it to a newspaper company
>that will give it away to get people to buy (physical) newspapers, and he's giving them away to people who buy physical
>tickets to his concert.
Further, from TFA:
>The paper, which sells more than 2m copies a week, will be ramping up its print run in anticipation of a
>huge spike in circulation but would not reveal how much the deal with Prince would cost.
Since they would not reveal the cost, it is implied that there was, in fact, a cost.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Never liked his style. The record industry is stuck in the 1950's. Doom and retaliation are like the UK gov banning the Sex pistols.
My choice - my own music http://www.myspace.com/22ndcentury which is free to download for everyone, not just /.'ers. Style is sort of soundgarden, pistols, ramones, acdc. don't think I'll pay for CD pressing for all though as it is environmentally a very bad idea. mp3 downloads are better.
duane
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
How would one show support for an artist that is giving their music away for free?
I definitely don't want to buy anything from the music stores..
So what would be a good way to support him on this, without feeding the mouths that are so upset..?
The article seems to say that this is a promotion for The Mail On Sunday and that this is costing them some undisclosed sum of money. The CD will be available for free (as in beer) to readers in the newspaper but Prince will be getting paid (probably quite well).
This will probably put The Mail On Sunday in the hands of many who don't normally read it and the Prince CD in the hands of many who would not have bought it - a good promotion for both parties. The intended result being increasing Mail readership and sales of Prince's back catalog.
The record stores can't see past the possible loss of sales of the new CD to see the benefit of the promotion - they will also alienate customers who miss the promotion and wish to purchase the CD.
Congratulations, you're a nit-picker. You obviously knew what I meant.
To follow in your footsteps, it's actually "homicide", and homicide is defined as "an act of murder", so your "correction" means precisely the same as the word you "corrected".
Let's see. I've bought the Beatles "Abbey Road" now twice on vinyl, once on 8-track (I know, I know....), once on cassette and twice on CD. If I'm licening the music to play in perpetuity, why oh why do I have to pay full price every time (cost of media + license fees) when I have already paid the license fees? Oh yes - to keep record companies in business. I'd be happy to pay for the cost of media and distribution - but no way should I have to keep on paying the licensing fees over and over and over again.
Prince: Loved "When Doves Cry" - rest of your stuff is OK. But I *really* appreciate what you are doing. It's good business to give away CD's and make money via merchandizing, concerts and other CD's that will be sold. Giving your CD away will encourage many more people to listen to you.
Record Company Execs: "We have seen the enemy and it is us"
Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
Homocide is sooo gay.
You mean "homicide", you asshat!
I've written here before about the music industry, so this latest screed from them comes as no surprise. Just a couple of years ago, David Bowie was sued by his own record company for offering for free online a song that the company had rejected for inclusion in his new album.
An artist usually has a lot more material at one time than would be feasible to include on an "elpee's worth of tunes." Some of it would have been B-sides to singles (except the industry deliberately killed the single format), some of it would be stylistically incompatible with the elpee; many reasons for the surfeit of material.
Much of this extra material is "passed on" by rec-execs. They don't want it because in their opinion it isn't marketable.
The artist should then be free to offer this material any way they want to; for free, in cereal boxes, etc. When your own company sues you for providing your own music for free because you want to...
This is what's wrong with the Industry and accounts for the death of free radio, the rise of mp3 and p2p nets and the whole plethora of alternatives that cause the Suits to whine into their Beluga.
Fuck them. Good for Prince. Even if I wasn't a fan of his (but I am) I'd support this move/fight 100%.
that person went through the work of designing and creating those items so that they were unique to him/her and planned to sell them for a living
The vast majority of artists would not be upset in the slightest to know there are infinite digital copies of their work floating around the world. In fact, they would be quite flattered, and would look forward to the increased demand for paid live performances and other product sales that would be sure to follow. The small minority who would be upset about it are already rich enough to live out the rest of their life in comfort. I don't think they have been deprived of anything that could be considered ethically significant.
I think the AC makes a valid point. I also think he draws a wrong conclusion. If you make a knock-off of something a merchant creates either the original isn't valuable in itself, or the original will retain its value (or it could do both). Take the situation of knock-off designer bags. The original bag still sells for as much (arguably more - due to increased visibility increasing desire) while the people both buying and selling the knock off are also benefiting.
No number of obnoxious people on E! claiming that knock-offs "dishonor the brand" is going to make it true, just as no number of people calling copyright infringement theft will make that true. The difference is that fashion designers, along with artists, have figured out a viable business model, whereas the RIAA has not. Designers and artists understand the value of having an original prestige item and charge for it, the secondary market doesn't harm them at all. OTOH the RIAA fails to understand that something easily copied cannot be a mass consumer good. They're trying to have it both ways. They'd be better off selling albums for $3 and concert tickets for $50 (sort of how the MPAA is slightly more relevant due to the value of a movie screening) or sell authentic original CDs for $200.
Companies have found ways to be successful in spite of (sometimes because of) knock-offs, generics, reproductions, or piracy basically forever, why the RIAA seems so intent to buck this trend is beyond me.
Admitted collusion to retaliate against an individual by an organized group? I think that's against some law somewhere, isn't it? Nah -- I must be mistaken -- it must be legit, or surely the kind, gentle, and benevolent music industry wouldn't even consider it!
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
It's easy, and fun! Here we go:
It ain't SoundExchange that's deciding they should collect those royalties, it's the *government* deciding they should, and it's actually not a bad idea.
Of course it's not a bad idea - if you're the one collecting the checks. And just because the government says it should, that doesn't mean it represents what the people want. Let me introduce you to a concept called a Lobbying Group. Just because you can lay down big bucks and effect a change in the legal system does NOT mean it's what the people want. It's what the industry wants, and they are radically different things.
They can simply sign some forms and demand their cheque.
It's as simple as that! No...actually it's more like this. You must join to collect your money. Resistance...is useless.
It is, as it happens, *particularly* good for the small and independant artists, as radio stations would have a hell of a time tracking down and dealing with every random garage band they decided to play.It is, as it happens, *particularly* good for the small and independant artists, as radio stations would have a hell of a time tracking down and dealing with every random garage band they decided to play.
Provided of course that the band in question actually wanted to get paid. Some of us make music just because we like it, you know. It was art before it was a business. Some folks think of it still as art. Not everything amounts to a "cash flow opportunity".
Without compulsory licensing, I'd bet the vast bulk of college, independant, and web-based radio stations would shut down completely, thanks to the overhead of negotiating licensing deals.
And yet, these are the exact same groups compulsory licensing are shutting down. Wow, what a surprise! The people who promote indie music are the ones being nailed, all the while the shill says that these are the people he's trying to help.
Sure, pal. Sure.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I didn't make any ethical claims. I just showed why Overly Critical Guy's rhetoric was flawed. But thank you for thinking of me. Your kind consideration is warmly regarded.
After all, I am strangely colored.
I think the decision is simply what the industry guy said: to punish Prince.
Let's be serious; his actions to protect his music and his innovative move to change his name surely generated hostility in the corporate music world towards him...
The BBC released the set of Beethoven symphonies, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, for free download a couple of years ago. Music industry spokespersons criticised this as "destructive" to the music distribution chain and forced the BBC to curtail the experiment.
This is just the latest spat of a turf war.
I don't particularly "like" Princes music, and I haven't purchased a popular music CD for a decade or so but I'll certainly be buying the newspaper on Sunday to access the free copy of his CD and to upset the hidebound music industry and its distribution chain!
No doubt spare copies of the CD will turn up in charity shops over the next few weeks, consigned there by the usual demographic of the paper in question...
Since when can record companies control music and artists that they don't own the rights to?
When record companies cry.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
On the one hand, free Prince album. On the other hand, buying The Mail On Sunday, a vile, loathsome and utterly detestable right-wing rag, the Fox News of British newspapers. What to do?
Meh, fuck it, I don't like Prince that much.
You must think in Russian.
Stolen code becomes less free.
What we care about is the freedom of information. The law is just an expedient to secure that freedom. When the law becomes injurious to that freedom we must break it. The GPL equivalent for music would be giving it away with the sheet music, and allowing others to redistribute it or modify it as they pleased, so long as they also distributed the modified sheet music with it. Would you be happy with a "music license" like that? (Also note the parallel here, what if you only modify the binary/mp3 and not the code/sheet? Do you have to create code/sheet to match your modified binary/mp3 and distribute that, too?)
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Call to action: AOL employees, please, one of you, sneak some Sony-BMG music onto the trial CDs.
American Heritage
Homicide
http://www.answers.com/homicide
1. The killing of one person by another.
2. A person who kills another person.
Murder
http://www.answers.com/murder
1.The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.
Merriam-Webster
Homicide
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/homicide
1 : a person who kills another
2 : a killing of one human being by another
Murder
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/murder
1.The crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought
I need to practice my spelling, you need a better dictionary. I'd rather be in my position than in yours.
After all, I am strangely colored.
I don't care for Prince's music much, but this bold move has made me a fan. When is the free CD coming to the US? More importantly, how do I send him money directly as a show of thanks?
Have you driven a fnord... lately?
You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later.
...we don't understand...
The problem isn't pirating, unauthorized sharing, or anything like that.
The problem is that managing the licensing and distribution of music has become unmanageable. Instead of fighting it, musicians such as yourself should be embracing it.
Make your music. *Encourage* people to download it. Pay particular attention to the IP addresses that download your music-- if you see a city near you that seems particularly active, *go there* for a concert. Use the technology to make yourself *more* valuable, not less.
Exposure is the key to success in the music business. The RIAA constituency gets to determine who gets exposure, thereby determining who is successful. Sure, there are occasionally those who are surprisingly popular, but they usually become mega-hits because of exposure after the record label recognizes they are selling well.
The RIAA is not only not your friend, they are actively your enemy. They record labels don't want thousands of bands that sell a total of one billion records. They want one artist who sells a billion records.
Fuck that. Start exposing yourself. (No, not that way! Gah!)
It's a lot more likely to help you than the RIAA is.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
being in the music biz doesn't just mean being the guy getting all the tang. at some point you have to decide if you want to continue to be a starving artist, or you want to be an artist with a roof and electricity :).
so you give lessons, open a studio, play sessions, write and sell the songs, help new bands get started, etc. there are a thousand ways to get paid in the music industry that do not involve selling physical meadia. hell i post all my stuff online to give away anyway. i would rather more ppl hear my art than less. but then i gave up on the songs i write / perform paying for my living a long long time ago (IM OLD)
-.no
Thing is, record companies never controlled the stores anyway. It was the stores that had a market demand and asked the record companies for their product. Over time, it became a symbiosis where the companies realized they could make more money selling fewer bands or only adequate quality, or one hit wonders. But, even at this point, they only had control over the stores in so much as there was still a market the store's needed to fill and the record companies had something they could fill it with. The real problem now is that there is no market for music so stores are going out of business. The record companies are trying to keep to business as usual because without the stores they have no direct route to customers (in their eyes). The reason they screwed up digital distribution is because they never dealt with customers directly in the past. They have no idea what the market really wants or is. That's why it's taken a consumer company like Apple to take over the role that old brick and mortar stores used to fill. They essentially created their own market.
it's his music and he should be able to do this if he wants to.
if the RIAA tries to block this legal use of his material, they should be investigated.
I guess surveilance devices are OK with you, since they are making information about you more free (as in: available to more people)? Especially when the sensitive information taken ("recovered from your oppressive grasp") from you ("which you would jealously withold from the public, you evil @#$%@#$%!!!") is leaked ("freed") to the general public? And the same goes for leaks of personal information from banks to the public, because they make the information completely free?
I'm from the first camp, but let me take this discussion one step further into the "Off topic" area and argue the second camp's point of view back.
:P), you don't sink to their level and break the rules as well.
Not so long ago (it's still in my RSS feed) Marcus and Theo of the OpenBSD project were accused (mainly Marcus) of "stealing" GPL'ed code and porting it into the OpenBSD project. Regardless of how you feel about the whole fiasco, I'm pretty sure they weren't planning on making money off of the GPL'ed driver code.
Sure, people can argue all they want about the possibility of BSD code being close sourced by an entity that will make money off of it, but I bet you a $1000 dollars that if I were to close source a GPL project and give it away for FREE (without even an ads supported site), I'll have the author knocking on my door the next day demanding the enhanced (or not) source code.
Heck, some people (Referencing an AC.. brilliant!) argue that Google is unethical because they [allegedly] didn't distribute the GPL license (which any kid in kindergarten can find online in under 10 seconds) with their GSAs despite the fact that the source code is available on code.google.com.
Copying music is (in my opinion) exactly like copying GPL code and not adhering to the license. You may not like the rules but you have to play by them.
The music guys want money to allow you to obtain copies of their songs, the GPL guys want credit and source code enhancements back.
Rules are rules, and no matter how low your "enemy" is (not GPL in this sentence, spare my Karma
GBTW.. GBTW... GBTW...
If you can't mod them join them.
As Prince is one of the best guitarists in the entire world, and as he's had numerous top 10 hits, with many of them still on mp3 players around the developed world, the music industry can kiss his ass. If they decide not to carry him in record stores, he will have the option of retailing his own new material as he chooses. When demand rises for his stuff, they'll be forced to carry it anyway because they're motivated by money, not spite.
Ah yes. It's evil only when you are making money doing it. By the way, try taking GPL'd code, bundling it into your application and distributing it as freeware but in binary form, but refusing to provide the source code. I don't think that GPL crowd would take to it kindly.
If you sold your soul to the devil, there is no way to get it back.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I think that Prince is doing a great thing. This will sell more Prince CD's.
Geeks strike again 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
So, how does this compare to the all so popular way of promiting other products like Coca-cola by bundling each bottle with a free download from iTunes? Industry doesn't seem to mind that...
Don't be crazy anymore!
the fact is, RIAA should have nothing at all to say about this, and the fact they are jumping up and down about it says volumes about their lack of respect for the public and artists rights.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
This should be a decision for Prince to dicide, of which he wants it to be released.
Sounds like someone at Sony BMG doesn't want pancakes.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
I know lots of people who copy my GPL work, earn money with it and don't give anything back. They're called users.
As long as you're not going to distribute my work, you can do what you like with it, including making copies.
I think I know what you mean, but I thought it would be a good idea to clarify!
Pirate Party UK
The copies of stolen code are less free than the original code, but the original code is still there and still GPL'd.
"Oh, wait. There are unwritten rules about this kind of thing. You can do whatever the hell you want. Just know that if you go outside the bounds of "normal" behavior that nobody has to meet you on that field."
Yup excellent way to avoid the vast asshole conspiracy. I keep hair down to my middle back and wear whatever is on top in the drawer. Not exactly unkempt but kinda threatening in a large wild human manner.
Works for me.
Fuck the GPL crowd, fuck their impotent rage, fuck their bulging neck veins and quivering chin-blubber. Let them whine and stamp their feet; no one can hear them in their basements. They can use their pudgy fingers to type out point-by-point rebuttals into a semen-encrusted keyboard. They can stain their t-shirts with cheeto dust and boob sweat. They can piss into another Mountain Dew bottle and cry themselves to sleep. Fuck the GPL crowd. I fully support GPL "thieves."
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
That's absurd. If you want to argue that their not paying you directly for the code, then they are paying for your ability to write code in a timely fashion. Most employers couldn't give two shits about your time. They value your productivity. Try coding really slowly for an extended period and telling your employer that they are "paying for your time spent creating code."
Security guards aren't paid for their time sitting in the booth. They are paid for their observation and availability on short notice (get there in seconds vs. traveling from a remote location). Many of them suck at it (largely because they think they are being paid for their time) and cause the average wage (i.e. worth) to drop dramatically.
This sig was generated randomly by one million monkeys with Speak 'n Spells. . .
Why the -1 score? I thought he was being funny... he (or she) made me laugh.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Wow that was some insightful bullshit! Oh wait - it was just bullshit, my bad.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Likely, his/her employer pays him/her to particpate in the activity of writing the code. Very likely under a contractual arrangement where it is agreed that the code written belongs to the employer. That's standard practice in most commercial settings.
The point of the GPL is to respect the owner's wishes. The point of copyright is to enforce the owner's wish. The point that file sharers make is the hell with the owner's wishes. Nope same fish.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Saying you don't like Prince's music is like saying you don't like Mozart; it just doesn't make any sense. The same people would call a Britney Spear's tune "music" next to a work of art created by a master musician, song writer and performer like Prince. A strange (maybe different) fellow but a master none the less.
Why all these analogies I see over and over? Is it so difficult to understand? It's simply taking someone's intellectual property without consent. The fact that it's easy to do and difficult to prevent shouldn't make it hard to understand nor justify its doing.
Actually it was the politicians that rewrote the social contract. Sure, it was lobbying by Disney but it was also the silent apathy of their constituents. So technically the copyright holders have not broken any social contract.
The other question that begs being asked is: Why is it so important for Mickey Mouse to become public domain? Or more importantly any Brittney Spears song?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Then why don't these supposed majority of artists just go ahead and give it away like Prince appears to be doing? Oh yea, They rather have the money. If they say otherwise they are trying to appeal to their demographic by spreading bullshit that they know they won't actually have to live up to. Then again, these majority of artists are (1) not successful nor an artist of a major label OR (2) they are a work of fiction used to try to justify an argument for file sharing.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Such a threat suggest that competition in the music industry isn't fair anymore.
I'd like to see Antitrust Investigation on that matter...
Hopefully EU Comission may take on that?
(PS Sorry, if I don't really expect US officials to take fair competition too seriously nowadays...)
"It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career," ERA co-chairman Paul Quirk told a music conference.
does he mean "supported" to mean making money from running a retail outlet? That's rich.
The problem being that your assumptions are based on the knock off being of inferior quality and not an exact digital reproduction. When talking about songs, each digital copy of a song in the wild lowers the value of the authentic song file. Why pay for something you can get for free?
Oh but the artist should perform at concerts to make his money! Well that was simplistic and quite frankly unfair. Why should a musical artist be forced to make money by touring? Why can't his song be a commodity like any other work of fiction? When E-books are shared, do you expect the book author's main source of income being from performing public readings?
To be fair, I am mostly irritated by the idea of giving an artist (or ticketmaster) a valid reason for charging even more money for a concert. It would be nice if a concert ticket remained within the economic means of an average teenager/young adult.
I was led to believe that an artist tours to promote their album...
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Why is it so important for Mickey Mouse to become public domain? Or more importantly any Brittney Spears song?
.. it is their bread and butter, to continue the analogy :)
The way those questions are phrased leads me to believe your position is that if something has no value (specifically artistic value) to you, it has no value to anyone. Everyone has different likes and dislikes, especially when it comes to art.
Sooner or later everything old is new again. Old ideas are constantly remixed and fused with new ideas to create something bigger and better, and this is how our culture develops and grows.
Artists of all types need material to work with, and Starving artists (those who do it for the love of the craft, and not for the money) need public domain material
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
I usually download music for free...why should I pay $12 for a CD so that the artist can get fifty cents and the suits get all the rest? I don't think so. I will happily buy music from an artist's website or go see them on tour when they get most of the money or at least a respectable share of it. But I have to power to punish the music industry for their evil practices and I use that power often.
Some artists have been forced to hand over copyright on songs with 2-3 second samples in them.
And using samples from more than 3 songs in your own song will normally mean that you'll have to pay up more money than you earn every time the song is sold.
Not that I'd want to sample Britney, but you get my point.
What?
Most rock groups suck if they are are still playing after 25 years. Iron Maiden is still good. If you use to like Iron Maiden in the 1980's, check out their new CD. They don't sell as many CDs anymore, but I guess they don't need to when they can sell 250,000 tickets to a single concert. Like Prince, they could tell the record companies to get bent and laugh all the way to the bank.
"Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
Ah yes, the old "real artists make all their money off of merchandise and live performances" myth.
the real problem is that artists under our system don't make money at all for the most part. File-sharing has little to nothing to do with it...a decrepit, draconian, music industry does.
I faced the same situation dude, in a niche even less popular than yours: classical music.
I saw the writing in the wall when I was 25. It was either a life of privations, little gigs and meagre salaries or the opportunity to earn good money with my mad hacker 5ki115.
I decided for the later, with the money I have made I bought a nice piano, go to any concert I feel like it and in general enjoy music very much as a listener and amateur player.
Such is life, you seem to have accepted it, people should live in reality, not in Wishfuland.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Its been pointed out before but the Moniker "formerly known as prince" was forced on the purple rocker by his record f$#@%%^^&ing company. He was sick of them and their ways, but they insisted they owned his name and they had the money to "make him suffer" which is all record companies know. I despise record companies, I will never buy a record from a third party (knowingly ) ever again.
Its all they know how to do, restrict access to music and attack listeners and punish musicians.
If the industry was fish they would be poisoning rivers, seizing bbq's and sinking fishing boats.
Drive these suits into the poor house, add them to the list.
So sick of the bastards that run so many industries in the world.
How you do it, is up to you, that is what entrepreneurship is all about.
Gigs, tours, teaching, commissioned work, flipping burgers.
Artists are not entitled to an easy living, neither are they entitled to make a living based in a flawed business model based in copyright nonsense.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"They essentially 'ban' anything not very popular - hey, I realize you can't stock everything but when they don't carry music that I want I do look elsewhere"
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First they said that it was to protect the financial well being of the artists.
Some artists spoke up and said the greatest threat to their financial well-being is the record companies. Some decided to publish their work themselves. Some give it away for free. Now it isn't about protecting the artist but about protecting shops who sell musical information on old fashioned hard media in little boxes? Who owns these outlets? Can it be any more obvious that it is all about protecting the business model, practices and profits of the increasingly redundant an unneeding recording industry?
But only as long as it is convenient and they see it as an investment of some kind or get something else in addition to the music itself.
If you do annoy me with DRM nonsense you can kiss goodbye to my disposable income. It is that simple.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yet another example of Why the Recording Industry Doesn't Get It.
Music as music has been around for thousands and thousands of years, but music as a bunch of salable mass-produced physical artifacts is less than a century old. If your business model is failing, it doesn't mean the Big Bad Pirates are stealing from you. It's not an attack on Music Itself. Make no mistake: they are not defending artists, which they treat as indentured servants. They're defending their threatened business model.
"I love this story. It shows just how insane the current system of ownership for creative work has become. An artist who wants to give his work away for free is considered to be attacking the industry. Well, what exactly is "the industry" if not a system put in place so artists can be rewarded for creating music? At least, that was the original idea. Who the hell is some music executive who believes he has some special claim on the work of someone else?"
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"I want to see the entertainment/industrial complex completely collapse."
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"Then, I want the current model of intellectual property to fall apart."
.ycavirp ot thgir eht esol ll'uoy nehT
"if you go download a CD because, hey, you'll save some money, then of course that's unethical"
Why?
I agree with the rest of your post. Great post indeed.
Same here - a very funny post!
Slow Down Cowboy!
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I won't buy anything from the first, second or third tier of record labels, period. If I want to hear the music, I'll download a copy, and if it's any good, I'll go see the artist when he comes to town.
Ooooooooh, you are cruel. That's just rubbing their noses in it. "Yeah -- I liked the CD I ripped off so much that I decided to come along and watch the advert."
Wait....
No....
You didn't think that artists made money out of live tours?!?!?!?
Oh, I'm sorry: I thought you were joking. Here's how it goes. Artist releases CD; artist goes on tour; ticket prices pay the costs of putting on the tour. The artist makes his money when people who came to see him live go out and buy his CD.
Tours are a marketing scheme. If no-one buys CDs, there will be no tours. You are not supporting the artist by downloading his music from an illegal torrent then going to see him live. OK, so if you buy a CD, several middlemen get a cut. Unless you know the guy's address and can pop a tenner in the post, buying a CD is the only way to support him.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Prince will do just fine without the record stores. He's already internet-savvy, he's been leveraging it for years.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Good point. Incidentally, nothing prevents a copyright holder from prematurely "donating" the work to the public domain once they feel it's appropriate.
So what? You're arguing that everyone has a right to be a parasitic hack.
Mike Mills has made it clear that he thinks file "sharing" is no different than stealing a record. Madonna flooded p2p networks with fake mp3s that said, "What the fuck are you doing?". Jack White chewed out a radio DJ that helped slip a pre-release album on to the internet. That's three examples right off the top of my head that counter your impression of recording artist attitudes.
If I know someone is a serial murderer, but the way I got the evidence is inadmissible in court, would it be unethical for me to commit premeditated murder?
He could if he had an iPhone. It cures cancer too.
Murder is the intentional killing of a human being with malice aforethought.
An unavoidable accident lacks the malice aforethought (``premeditation'') element. It is therefore not murder.
The ``just for the hell of it'' case is harder. If the killer formed the intent in advance of the act, even a small time in advance, but had the opportunity to reconsider, you probably have murder. There is no minimum amount of premeditation required, though some amount of time, enough to allow reflection and reconsideration, is required.
For the unavoidable accident, there may be ethical considerations if you acted in such a manner as to unnecessarily and unreasonably increase the danger.
Both the negligent killing and the intentional killing do produce identifiable harm to an identifiable victim, and are generally denounced as punishable evils. The injury done by the downloader of music is, in contrast, purely speculative. The case for punishing it is correspondingly weaker than the case for punishing murder or manslaughter.
Tilt at windmills. Occasionally one will fall over out of sheer surprise.
I miss the pre-Wikipedia, pre-Google days when people online held discussions based on their actual personal expertise.
People don't even bother to creatively plagiarize anymore -- just link to Wikipedia, and that constitutes an "informative response".
Prince: "I am going to put a CD in all the newspapers distributed by X for free."
RIAA: "You don't own the CD, or any of the songs on it. See here, you signed your soul and everything you produce to us. So we own it all."
Prince: " Too bad. I'm doing it."
RIAA: "So we'll pull all your stuff from the shelves. Then see how much money you get from your blood contract."
Prince: " Ooo...I'm scared." (Takes bath in money.)
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Prince can't give his CDs away nowadays.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Lots of bands are giving it away. It's reminiscent of shareware from the 80's. To see an example, check out The Bastard Fairies on Youtube.
Murder is murder, even if you are killing a serial killer. Kill three serial killers and you become one. Who knows - perhaps these guys were framed as serial killers. There's good reason why the courts do not respect vigilante actions.
Sure, why not? (We are assuming, of course, that in this new world it would be common and easy to copy a sheet music, as it is with source code). Also, the "GPL equivalent" would not force you to distribute the music sheet with every binary copy you distribute, but you would have to make it available to anyone who wants it.
This is where your analogy breaks, because a music sheet is a bad analogy for source code. For example: if you change a song, a good musician could reproduce your changes just by hearing you play it a few times, without having you write him/her a modified music sheet. In contrast, a programmer couldn't generally write the source code to a program just by seeing its binary code, except with lots of time and reverse engineering. (If it wasn't so inconvenient to do that, there would be no reason for the GPL in the first place.)
Noting that Shakespeare's plays, in his time, were about as regarded as today's sitcoms, one could imagine a similar question when William Shakespeare was alive: Why is it so important for Hamlet to become public domain?
And yet, just as one single example, without Shakespeare's works in public domain it wouldn't be possible for Neil Gaiman to write a Sandman story borrowing from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which in absolutely no way harms Shakespeare or his descendants.
(Yes, I know Hamlet has nothing to do with A Midsummer Night's Dream, but the first is more famous and looked better in the question :-))
Business model for making music in the not so distant future: 1) Produce music public wants and deliver via internet (your marketing for your talent) 2) Cut out evil record companies an RIAA (eliminate waste and no value add) 3) Go on tour and make a good living and have your freedom as an artist Just a thought....
"The Buildings That Used To Be Record Stores" are getting to be a problem. There's a big Tower Records near here that was the anchor store of its mall. (The drugstore there closed when a much bigger one opened in a mall across the street.) The whole mall may go under. There's nothing left that generates traffic.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=376 81&dict=CALD
homicide Show phonetics
noun [C or U] US FORMAL OR LEGAL
(an act of) murder:
He was convicted of homicide.
The number of homicides in the city has risen sharply.
homicidal Show phonetics
adjective
likely to murder:
a homicidal maniac
Unfortunately, your position is that you need to both practice your spelling, and find a better dictionary. I'm sure most people can agree that the Cambridge dictionary is infinitely more authoritative as dictionary of the Engish language than both the "American Heritage" and that cesspool of words they call Merriam Webster.
Because "taking" and "intellectual property" both imply that the person in question is being deprived of something. If I take your watch or your car, you no longer have a watch or a car, and this is why the idea of property rights are considered natural -- the fact that only one person can own a tangible object at any one time is a direct result of the natural scarcity of tangible objects.
Intellectual property, on the other hand, is actually nothing like property, despite its name. It is not scarce. If you think of something fun to do on Saturday, and tell me about it, you don't suddenly forget what that fun something was. This is a substantial difference.
This is not to say that ideas don't have value, but artificial scarcity -- and by artificial, I mean that it would not exist in the absence of laws created expressly to guarantee it -- is clearly not equivalent to real scarcity, which would exist even in the absence of government. If there is only one watch, clearly only one of us may possess it -- the existence of government or laws does not change this basic truth. But the song you are humming to yourself remains yours to enjoy even after you have shared it with me, and the only way you can prevent me from humming that same tune is with legislation and police enforcement.
"Intellectual property" is weasel terminology, designed to make us think that it is somehow similar to real property, when in fact it is not at all similar. Similarly, your use of the word "take", which implies transfer of a scarce good to the subject, is clearly meant to make us feel as though something has been taken from someone.
Analogies are here to help clarify what is apparently a difficult concept for some, like yourself, to grasp.
While I'm sure that the amount of expletives in your post corresponds with your arrogant and unshakable belief that you're right, I'm sorry to say to you that murder and homicide are precisely the same. What you're looking for is "justifiable homicide", but in legalese, there's also "justifiable murder".
All those expletives. If you had been right, you could take comfort in that to offset you coming off as a 14 year old. Now you don't even have that.
Through your post you managed to end up with comparing "negligent killing" and "intentional killing" to make your point.
An unavoidable accident is never the result of negligence.
Is it just me, or does the "music industry" look more and more like the mob? They'll start demanding protection money next (oh wait, they already did that with Internet Radio).
... £1.40 plus the moral sting of buying the Mail on Sunday.
I think I'd rather pay full price.
This argument does not apply to music or for that matter any digital ware because the copy retains the *exact* quality of the original. You associate a value with a Gucci original suit because you know the Gucci knock-off suit will be of lower quality. This is not true for music/movies/software copied off CDs, DVDs, harddisks, websites etc.
From what I gather, Prince had a world-wide marketing deal in place that would have distributed his CD to UK record stores, but greed inspired the UK distributors to stay out unless they could get a higher percentage. It seems like distributors everywhere else plan to get some profit by going with the deal in their regions, and the UK distributors would have got a bit of profit as well. Now they're not going to get anything. Prince doesn't like leeches trying to blackmail him like this. So everyone in the UK who gets a copy of the MAIL gets the CD. Blackmail me, will you, you putzes? Take that! Maybe he will be seen as a kind of Guy Fawkes of the music distribution system with this little bombshell, inspiring other big artists to do the same and knock the current corrupt system in the UK. But it's also a shot across the bows of distributors everywhere. Come to think of it, hasn't Paul MacCartney done something similar with his recent CD, at least in terms of bypassing the usual distribution outlets?
the information was freely available to you about yourself, the people doing the surveilance and the information about ALL people caught in the surveilance.
I think I'll write a book about it. Maybe call it "the transparent society"...
What would make that interesting is people's arguments for any inherent value of these free Prince cds over and above material, manufacturing, freight costs etc.
Hey, look at that its Accountants' New Year's Eve and i'm sounding like one...help~!
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
He is not the artist formerly known as Prince anymore, he's just Prince. I know it's fun to use that term, but it's over now. - t
means that you have a job that pays the bills, feeds you and so on.
I also take it that you enjoy doing this, it's a hobby, yes?
So you're complaining that your hobby isn't generating enough profit? I hope that question sums up my thoughts on the subject.
Touring is a part-time thing. Maybe think of it as part-time work. When you aren't touring you can do another part-time job that pays when you aren't touring. Many people have to do this and have no way to get out: they're stuck stacking shelves for the rest of their lives. You aren't. You tour when you can so your life has much more meaning than theirs. Paying the bills is all it needs to do, wanting job satisfaction AND profits at the same time is a little greedy, isn't it?
"Then why don't these supposed majority of artists just go ahead and give it away like Prince appears to be doing?"
It's due to the fact that record company contracts give them the copyrights to recordings, so artists have no more right to redistribute them than any arbitrary member of the public.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Yeah, the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary -- a dictionary meant for people learning English as a second language, which therefore can't use language that captures nuance as used by natural English speakers -- is a much better resource than a general purpose dictionary when deciding issues between native speakers.
Give it up, douche bag. If this is the best you can do, you've lost.
After all, I am strangely colored.
If the best you can do postulate a something as absurd as that Cambridge Press are intentionally misleading people and including incorrect definitions in their dictionaries, then you're obviously in over your head. Even the Cambridge Dictionary of American English returns the same definition.
If all you're good for is failed logic and personal attacks, I'd suggest you crawl back under your bridge.
In 2004 Prince concerts generated revenues of $87.4 million. I wouldn't be surprised if he has earned more money on touring than on album sales in his career, so it only makes sense for him to use free albums as a way to get people interested in a live show.
The perceived value of digital music is so low because the music industry has always sold physical media, not music. We had to pay extra when the CD was introduced, because the media was supposed to be more expensive. Result: Most people think they pay mainly for the media, not for the music, so having to pay for an MP3 doesn't make any sense when listening to the same song on the radio is free.
The movie industry is doing the same error, charging more for Blu-ray and HD-DVD than the format they are intended to replace. The consumer can only assume that the biggest cost is the manufacturing of the disc, not the production of the movie. This kind of pricing can only backfire.
Even if I was a rabid prince fan, this release won't stop me going to music shops to buy CDs. There is no way that a newspaper could give me the specific CD that I want - it just produces millions of CDs that it thinks everyone wants. If I want a certain CD, I'll do what I've always done and buy it in a shop, and not a supermarket - supermarkets don't stock CDs I like.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Small shops all over the world struggle against big retailers who can undercut their prices. Small retailers used to make a living by stocking obscure records that didn't bring in the profit/shift the volume that the big retailers wanted. Big retailers wouldn't let you bring back the CD the next day if you didn't like it. There probably aren't good music stores in the area because nobody can afford to dedicate their life to running a shop if there isn't a living wage in it.
/sleeve notes etc, that's more of a specialist thing.
I'm 40, when I was at college in my early 20s the only way to find out about the latest cool underground records coming out was to go and hang out in the local alternative record shop in our university town (Newcastle Upon Tyne). It was a social centre, you'd hang out with the same guys, you'd exchange knowledge about latest releases, the shop owner would put on new records and even though you were looking for the latest release by your favourite band, you'd end up hearing a few tracks from another band and buy that record anyway. Only the super-hardcore collectors who subscribed to very specialist record mags would have their own way of knowing what was coming out. The rest of us found out by checking out the store and hanging out there for a few hours.
Now people just browse the internet, they can access interesting random connections through stations like last.fm, and they can download new tracks there and then - no need to go to the store. Not a lot of 20 year olds have record decks. Not sure that many have CD players either, most have ipods or other mp3 players... there's no need to get the physical artefact to listen to the music. So no need to go to the record store. It's a specialist interest these days rather than something that every teenager is into. People seem happy with getting the music, there isn't such a widespread demand for the album cover
Away from major centres of population, I don't think there is the demand anymore and alas not the profit to make it worthwhile for somebody to dedicate their life to it, I am not sure many people can pay the rent and eat from running a store like that.
(Incidently, what does "B&M" mean?)
The only way a lot of small bands that go on self supporting tours only make money through merchandise. I do sound at a venue and it hurts me to pay bands their cut from the door sometimes. Even when giving them 100% w/ the venue relying on liquor sales. $600 @ $5 a head split between 3 bands w/ 4 members each doesn't go very far. Especially if they can find a place to sleep for free. They still have to pay for gas and food, not to mention the maintenance of their instruments and vehicle. Most of them try to make money by selling a few shirts and CDs which usually gets sucked into road trip expenses. A lot of bands are doing it out of their love of music and an attempt to promote themselves in hopes of getting popular enough to eventually make money and quit those jobs back home.
To Prince it seems music is more than just about the money. To the music industry it seems music is only about the money.
I don't like what SoundExchange is doing and I realise it's popular to hate them currently, but this is clearly misinformed.
> They are demanding royalty fees for all music streamed over the net from net radio - and get this - from EVERYONE.
Yes, that is true, for every station that has _opted in_ for their blanket licence. The stations *can* play music without licensing from SoundExchange *if* they negotiate a deal with each individual record company or artist (not exactly an easy job).
But there are plenty of musicians who want to hang onto the old ideals. The fact is that the general public no longer thinks that music by the big names is worth any money, let alone the unknowns. The indie unsigned musicians have a chance right now to give away downloads and help change the business. Some of us are doing so, some are still fighting the old fight. I'd rather be on 5,000 iPods than sell a small number of copies.
Music - www.richardmac.com
From the Daily Telegraph -- "A Sunday newspaper is understood to have paid the Princely sum of $1m (£500,000) to give away the pint-sized popstar's new album, in an unprecedented move that has infuriated music retailers."
How many CDs would the retailers have to shift for Prince's share to be that much? Sounds like a good deal for the newspaper and a great deal for Prince.
Yet another business model for music distribution.
--
We are the ashes of dead stars.
Just a pipe dream - Prince can't get anything moved in major record stores, which are dying anyway as Best Buy uses CDs as loss leaders to get people in the door, but his back catalog (which you will NEVER find in Best Buy, because the audience is perceived to be too limited to justify the inventory cost) gets carried in indy CD stores - the kind who buy and sell used CDs - who stage a comeback by filling a niche the majors have ignored for years. As more artists at Princes level start to see the level of support and freedom (artistically) these stores allow them, more of them allow their back catalog - which the majors deemed to unprofitable, since Best Buy and the like won't buy them, and discount them to death if they do - to go the indy route.
Okay, sorry - it's a beautiful Saturday, and I started drinking early...
Prince is finished. Long live Prince.
I haven't bought a new CD in years, and have no plans to. Prince should move to the iTunes store.
I completely agree with Prince. If he has the right to distribute his music any way he wants then go for it.
These Recording Companies are starting to sound like Bush and Fox News talking about al qaeda. Like the record companies themselves haven't pissed enough record stores off by shipping them DRM infected product that BREAKS their customers hardware.
This is the future! I can see a whole lot of opportunity for 'sponsored' album releases. Think of it. What a great way to spread your music to the entire planet. Don't need radio, don't need tv (which no one is watching anymore), don't need record companies - then tour and make ZILLIONS on the road... like it should be!
Record companies make money from selling OTHER PEOPLE'S WORK. Artist make their money on the road!
If the best you can do postulate a something as absurd as that Cambridge Press are intentionally misleading people and including incorrect definitions in their dictionaries, then you're obviously in over your head.
I don't have to postulate it. They advertise it. They specifically say they publish simplified definitions to ease the students' time learning the material. This is the purpose of a Learner's Dictionary. To help people who aren't familiar with the nuances of the language learn gain a rough working knowledge of the language.
Even the Cambridge Dictionary of American English returns the same definition.
Not surprising, since it too is a learner's dictionary. http://www.cambridge.org/us/esl/cdae/ See where it says "English as a Second Language" at the top?
After all, I am strangely colored.
No, you're postulating that they're misleading people and including incorrect definitions in their dictionaries.
They're advertising that they're including simplified defintions. Simplified defintions are not necessarily incorrect, and they certainly are not when the purpose of the dictionaries is *teaching*, which by definition requires the information to be correct and accurate. You're desperately trying to argue that a publisher as established as Cambridge Press would compromise their professional integrity and create dictionaries with inaccurate definitions for the purpose of teaching, because it's supposedly easier to teach things that are incorrect. That's just absurdly ridiculous.
You're grasping for straws here, and it's pretty sad.
Oh but the artist should perform at concerts to make his money! Well that was simplistic and quite frankly unfair. Why should a musical artist be forced to make money by touring? Why can't his song be a commodity like any other work of fiction? When E-books are shared, do you expect the book author's main source of income being from performing public readings?
You seem to have forgotten that the author's books are available in the library to be checked out and read for free. This has been the case for a long time, and somehow authors still manage to make money. It should be noted that only the really popular authors can generally earn enough from writing to not have any other kind of job, but even those generally must keep writing to continue to earn enough to support themselves/their family/etc. There are exceptions, I doubt J. K. Rowlings will need to write another book for the rest of her life for example, but most authors have to continue to write to earn money. By your logic those authors shouldn't have to keep writing to earn a living, they wrote the book once they should be paid for it forever right? Musicians have to tour and continue writing more music for the same reasons that authors continue to write -- so they can continue to earn money. I don't think that's unfair at all, they get paid for what they do, but to make a living from it they have to work at it. You know, just like the rest of the world.
The problem being that your assumptions are based on the knock off being of inferior quality and not an exact digital reproduction. When talking about songs, each digital copy of a song in the wild lowers the value of the authentic song file. Why pay for something you can get for free?
And now I can answer this question better. I buy books, even though I can get those books at my public library for free. Some books I buy new, some I get used. So why would I buy a book when I can get it free? Because I want to own my own copy, I want to support the author, etc. The same applies to music, and the success of the iTunes store proves that people will pay for music even when it's available for free. Those who are downloading and not buying anything will likely never buy anything, they just don't think it's worth money. Some will buy music in the future, they can't afford it now (teens and college students fit into this category pretty well). Some people will also buy more music because they were able to test-listen to it for free first.
To be fair, I am mostly irritated by the idea of giving an artist (or ticketmaster) a valid reason for charging even more money for a concert. It would be nice if a concert ticket remained within the economic means of an average teenager/young adult.
I don't see why this would raise the price of tickets, most artists/bands already have to make all their money from concerts because of the horribly unfair contracts the record labels force them into. If they're managing to make money from current ticket prices there's no reason (beyond inflation) that prices should go up.
I was led to believe that an artist tours to promote their album...
You were lead wrong then, sorry. This was probably true up to around the 1960s, maybe 1970s, but nowadays artists/bands must tour to make a living. Often they have to do so to pay back the record companies too. Don't take my word for it though, Courtney Love gave a great speech about it (the link is a transcription of her speech). Steve Vai has a copy of his letter up that he sent to congress about the record companies' accounting practices. Finally, Steve Albini has an an article up also telling how the contracts work in the record compani
I had not planned on buying any music this month but I feel that I may need to better acquaint myself with Prince's career work. Any suggestions on the best way "to make a statement" that better rewards Prince, avoids (least) rewards certain criminals and is recorded statistically ?
No, you're postulating that they're misleading people and including incorrect definitions in their dictionaries.
d f
I never said they were incorrect. You did. I simply said they weren't an appropriate resource to consult for the purposes of this discussion because they use simplified definitions. The definition of 'homicide' was simplified to the point of incompleteness for pedagogical purposes. I never said murder wasn't homicide. I said not all homicide is murder.
They're advertising that they're including simplified defintions. Simplified defintions are not necessarily incorrect, and they certainly are not when the purpose of the dictionaries is *teaching*, which by definition requires the information to be correct and accurate.
But not complete.
You're desperately trying to argue that a publisher as established as Cambridge Press would compromise their professional integrity and create dictionaries with inaccurate definitions for the purpose of teaching, because it's supposedly easier to teach things that are incorrect. That's just absurdly ridiculous.
No, that's not what I'm trying to argue. Your inability to comprehend basic English leads me to suspect you've used one of their dictionaries for academic purposes.
You're grasping for straws here, and it's pretty sad.
Classic Troll projection. This might prove to be useful to you: http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.p
After all, I am strangely colored.
So now you're down to arguing that the information is "not complete" instead of inaccurate. The information in the Cambridge dictionary contradicts the information from your sources. That does not constitute a lack of "completeness" simply because it is an "advanced learner's" dictionary, it means that they are directly competing. The idea that this information should be incomplete and inaccurate for purposes of normal discussion are yours alone, and while you're evidently trying to pose it as factual, it's nothing more than a perception of yours that would be favourable to your argument if it was.
I'm sure you're trying to argue this from a legal point of view, where not all homicide is murder, but from a linguistic point of view, that is just not the case. Homicide is an act of murder, and that is a perfectly acceptable and widely agreed upon definition.
The fact of the matter is that this is all stemming from you not being able to rise above your disagreement with a choice of words made insiginificant by the fact that the actual message got across, and while you can link to PDFs all day long to argue a case that you cannot formulate yourself, that, as well as your distasteful ad hominem attacks make it pretty clear that if anyone is trolling here, it most certainly and without any objective doubt, is you.
So now you're down to arguing that the information is "not complete" instead of inaccurate. The information in the Cambridge dictionary contradicts the information from your sources. That does not constitute a lack of "completeness" simply because it is an "advanced learner's" dictionary, it means that they are directly competing.
Indeed they are. And the pedagogical purpose behind a Learner's Dictionary puts makes it less authoritative than a general purpose dictionary. By the way, the OED agrees with me about 'homicide'.
The fact of the matter is that this is all stemming from you not being able to rise above your disagreement with a choice of words made insiginificant by the fact that the actual message got across, and while you can link to PDFs all day long to argue a case that you cannot formulate yourself, that, as well as your distasteful ad hominem attacks make it pretty clear that if anyone is trolling here, it most certainly and without any objective doubt, is you.
You started the ad hominem attacks. Granted, it was mild, and I shouldn't have escalated them.
After all, I am strangely colored.
You've come full circle. First you deny that you are arguing that the Cambridge Dictionary is intentionally misleading users of its Advanced Learner's dictionaries, then you're saying that their definition is in direct contradiction to the definitions from other sources, and then you claim those to be correct.
If you consider a perfectly fitting, applicable and acceptable term like "nit-picker" to describe your initial reply as an "ad hominem" attack, then you seem to be insulted by your own behaviour, and with those two glaring lapses of logic, I'm going to retire from this completely pointless discussion.
Have fun being anal about things that clearly are completely irrelevant.
Piracy is like sneaking on an airplane with empty seats (and then as slashdotters so pride themselves upon perhaps throwing a couple of bucks at airline if they enjoyed the ride.) If enough people are sneaking on, the airline is not going to keep flying.
You're such a lol-cow. I bet you won't be able to resist replying again. Especially since you're obviously wrong about my "glaring errors in logic."
Hint: The Learner's Dictionary's pedagogical purpose is to use simplified definitions to teach English as a second language.
Hint: Numbered lines in dictionary entries are distinct meanings. When you look up a word, and it has multiple entries, you are to understand that it means either the first line, or the second line, or the third line, and so on, depending on the context. That is to say, a dictionary entry can be incomplete and misleading, but still not wrong.
Hint: The lines are numbered according to the most common uses.
Hint: That murder is homicide logically follows from the general definition of 'homicide'.
Hint: The Learner's Dictionary gave a partial answer to the question of what 'homicide' might be in a context, but did not give the general answer. The Learner's Dictionary does not claim to be complete. No dictionary really does, though the OED comes close.
Do you understand now?
After all, I am strangely colored.
Prince is basically showing for the artist making money they dont need to sell cd, they need to sell tickets and when you sell tickets everything else can be sold (ie merchandise, cds, etc, etc). He is smart because that all you need to do, he isnt signed to anything. Also if you didnt know Prince has been giving his music out for free, for about a damn decade, he is a true artist, he really isnt all about the money at all. I love his music, his new stuff is good too! If you look up the most in recent times, successful tour, it was his, all that money wasnt even split to a record company do to contract, he took most of that cash to himself! Lets not forget he was one of the first to really utilize drum machines in songs, before him was sly stone but it wasnt commercial enough with "Family Affair". (I know you demo scene guys will have something to say but seriously I mean COMMERCIAL popular music, not synth drone and awkward analog drum machines making blips and hit with sid chips chirping and calling it music.)
I remember when a "crazy-like-a-fox" man named Richard Stallman wrote, in his Free Software Manifesto Article which appeared in Dr. Dobbs Journal in the 80's about making and distributing world-class software completely free of charge in an effort to foster the free and open interchange of s/w technology and ideas. The outrage and cry from the software industry was just as threatening and abusive at that time as comments from music industry executives on Prince's announcement. And what has come of all of the dire predictions from those s/w industry executives? The predictions were dire indeed only for those companies that were out of gas having nothing more to offer and who had stagnated. Their dying gasps (and money) were and still are being expended funding lawyers to find ways to buy time, stave off progress, and, in general, hinder the open sharing of s/w technology. Does this ring any bells? Can you spell Santa Cruz Operation (SCO)? There are others as well. The dying gasps of an industry that is bankrupt of ideas and likely not serving their customers or clients is best identified as such when they turn to the use and abuse of law to slow down or stop change in their industry. Write it on a rock. Distribution is changing. Old limited distribution and payment models do not suffice or serve the needs of customers or their clients but only serve the needs of a bunch of stiffs who have abandoned their first love - Music. Yours truly, Future Expressionist
Hmm, now I just re-read the quoted part of your post, and yes he does refer to "normal copyright". The point still stands that there are other licenses that allow sharing without making demands on surrounding code.
And now I was thinking GPL was a way to turn copyright inside out, since the "no, you can't hoard your ideas" ideal is currently unavailable. You understand it so much better than even RMS it amazes me.