Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Media Companies Target CBC's Free Music Site
silentbrad writes, with bits and pieces from the Globe and Mail: "A number of Canadian media companies have joined forces to try to shut down a free music website recently launched by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., claiming it threatens to ruin the music business for all of them. The group, which includes Quebecor Inc., Stingray Digital, Cogeco Cable Inc., the Jim Pattison Group and Golden West Radio, believes that CBCmusic.ca will siphon away listeners from their own services, including private radio stations and competing websites that sell streaming music for a fee. The coalition is expected to expand soon to include Rogers Communications Inc. and Corus Entertainment Inc., two of the largest owners of radio stations in Canada. It intends to file a formal complaint with the CRTC, arguing that the broadcaster has no right under its mandate to compete with the private broadcasters in the online music space. ... 'The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing,' said Stingray CEO Eric Boyko, whose company runs the Galaxie music app that charges users $4.99 a month for unlimited listening. 'There is a cost to everything, yet CBC does not seem to think that is true.' ... The companies argue they must charge customers to offset royalty costs which are triggered every time a song is played, while the CBC gets around the pay-per-click problem because it is considered a non-profit corporation. ... Media executives aren't the only ones who have expressed concern. When the CBC service was launched in February, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers said that when it set a flat fees for the more than 100,000 music publishers it represents, it never envisioned a constant stream of free music flooding the Internet."
Run for your lives!
It seems like the media groups would make more money (longterm) and have a better public image (which means more customers and more willing customers) if they embraced and advertised for CBC. Of course, then again, I suppose the lawyers wouldn't make any money and it's less immediate profit. Wouldn't want to think ahead.
... what the hell, guy?
I am having a hard time even understanding what the hell is going on here. Of course the CBC has a right to compete with private broadcasters... that's sort of what they do. The CBC is there to ensure that people will still have free access to the best in broadcast media, for free, forever, and as far as I can tell the only music that's available for free download is music that the artists have said they're ok with the CBC offering.
The problem is... where?
So now that I've got my initial reaction out of the way...
12.0 Why is there advertising on CBC Music?
Advertising is the primary means that allows us to fairly compensate the artists we play on CBC Music. We signed an agreement with the Audio-Video Licensing Agency (AVLA), which represents over 1,000 music labels. We are very excited to report that through this deal, all artists registered via AVLA will be paid for having their work broadcast on CBC Radio 2, CBC Radio 3, and our 40 web radio stations.
Another reason we've decided to pursue advertising on CBC Music is that, in the current economic climate, CBC cannot afford to have a large new service like CBC Music that isn't self-sustaining. This revenue stream not only allows us to survive, but also helps us to grow and continue to expand CBC Music.
Emphasis added.
So I'm not sure of the full legalities of it, but according to the CBC Music FAQ, they have acquired the right to stream all the music on their site.
What's the problem? My guess is that these are companies that refused to sign, and they're bitching about the fact that they couldn't get the price they wanted for their music. Excuse me while I shed a tear or two.
"The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing." In other words, if you haven't paid me and my friends to listen to music, you can't listen to it at all. What an asshole.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
they are using non-profit status to gain a competitive advantage over the rest of the market.
FTA they pay lower royalties and get other concessions for having this status. This is out of the spirit of non-profit and in this case the industry does have a reason to be upset
... is when the birds sing."
He picked a particularly ironic example.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
I am so freaking sick of private companies who believe the only way to protect their profits is to legislate against other organisations threatening their market share. And I'm sick of governments and courts indulging them. Take it as an opportunity to better your services and provide something that CBC (or whoever you're whining about) doesn't - there are hundreds of ideas out there. You may actually surprise yourself and become more successful than you ever imagined.
The free market is WONDERFUL, until something happens that the fat cats, criminals and freeloaders of Big Content have their business interests threatened. The stench of hypocrisy is unbearable.
If they can't compete with free, then they can either 1) do something else where they CAN make money; or 2) eat shit and die.
Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers- or SCAMP. Ha, bet they didnt think that through.
I say, let the music flow!
The music must flow!
(yes, it's a Dune reference, deal with it)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Except...that the media companies are asking for more restrictions and regulations, not less. And the media companies don't innovate, they take innovative work from one group of people and show it to another group of people, and charge high prices for the service. A service that's no longer required.
The real problem is that while innovation is hard, distribution is not anymore. Someone at the CBC realizes this; the media companies, which insist on charging high rates for distribution, have not.
Personally, I think what the CBC is doing is daring, and has a lot of potential to help connect Canadian musicians with audiences. Perhaps this can be a replacement for the obsolete CanCon laws, that currently mandate all those radio stations to play a certain percentage of Canadian music (regardless of how good that music is).
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Don't you think?
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
“These actions further distances the corporation from its mandate, while placing it directly on a collision course with private broadcasters who can only rely on advertising and subscription revenues to sustain their services,”
Isn't one of the mandate of the CBC to promote Canadian art and culture? The CBC does a lot more to promote quality Canadian content then any other broadcaster on that list.
"The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing." That guy has probably never been on the internet before... You know, the place where a bunch of bands are releasing their music for free because they love what they do?
The CBC is already paying royalties, apparently these guys just want them to pay MORE royalties.
From the article:
"In Canada, SOCAN applies different formulas for determining how much money it collects from various music-laying services, according to Paul Spurgeon, the group’s vice-resident of legal services. The formula tends to take into account the service’s Internet-based revenues, as well as the number of page impressions, or hits, the service gets. However the ratios are significantly different for various types of services, such as commercial or non-commercial radio stations."
Sorry, but "innovation" is not hard. Implementation can be hard , but innovation is simply the process of an idea.. and perhaps validation of the idea given the materials at hand.
The article points out how complex and unfair the way music is licensed. That is what is wrong with the implementation, not that thousands of people have come up with ways of innovating music in the digital age and how to turn a profit from it.
If the Music and Video industries could come up with fair ways of getting content to users at reduced prices, pick a service and it could be done.
People are quick to bash Napster as "ewww, they are evil pirates". Is it so much that they are evil pirates, or more that most of what was being traded was only available when people turned physical media in to digital to share? Or is it that some digital content is not affordable?
As again the article points out, many people iTunes as the only way to get in to digital music. What if you or your family can't afford an iPod, iPhone, MAC or PC to connect to the internet? Or if it costs so much they can't afford to download anything?
It's easy to excuse shit policies and laws in the name of innovation. Especially when the PTO has the rights to patent even the dumbest fucking ideas.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not to mention the fact that the data seems to show that they stand to gain by promoting, rather than condemning, contemporary distribution models.
I don't think it's protecting their assets so much as defending a particular, ideological view of art which is ultimately just a little blip in the historical trajectory of human creativity and how we share and experience it.
.: Semper Absurda
The private broadcasters are upset because CBC is broadcasting free music. Shocking. I mean, it must be wrong / illegal if it goes against the streaming business model of the private broadcasters. I just don't get it. If CBC has rights to that music, they can do whatever they want with it. Just because it may cut into the profits of other distributors, I don't see the leap in logic that makes music intrinsically monetized. Would this be like Napster (or some other pay-to-listen service) suing a radio station for streaming their station live?
Have you looked at the music on offer? A lot of it is stuff that the other play-on-demand sites wouldn't bother providing because it's too obscure.
Distribution is not the only thing media companies do. They also provide financing for new musicians (try to get loan from bank for your new band), marketing, experience in the markets and connections in the industry. The latter two are usually ignored by geeks who think they are not skills or necessary but in the real world they are.
Distribution is only small part of what they do. Do remember that every new musician or band is already free to go without record labels if they don't want these services. However, most of them do, voluntarily. I don't think we should be telling them that are not allowed to use services provided by record labels.
Well, that justifies everything! Everyone does it, so it's okay!
The only solution would be some kind of state-run economy like Soviet Union had and what China has now.
That's a nice false dilemma you set up there.
Perhaps this is false nostalgia - but even from reading history with the gilded age and robber barons, I don't seem to remember a time when industries were so, well, unafraid of being called on their bullshit.
I mean - yeah, the meat industry has had bouts of defending deadly safety conditions leading to not infrequent outbreaks and deaths, and the tobacco industry flexed historic levels of political and legal muscle lying about their products and covering up science they knew to be true for decades - but they really did seem to at least fear being caught in a direct lie.
It just doesn't seem that the music industry even cares about what they're saying - they just mix accusation, whole new concepts of honorable ownership they just made up a sentence ago, and blatant grabs for control as if it were a newly uncovered biblical virtue, and they the new prophet.
The rhetoric borders on empire, or isolated dictatorship in terms of brazen doublethink-style selective "morality" that just amounts to everything belonging to them, under all circumstances.
There's opportunistic jerks in all groups - it's kind of an intrinsic part of everything from game theory to classic social power studies in psychology - it's a basic part of how we explore and interact with eachother.
It's just crazy that in so many nations, so much of the population ends up standing aside, so these particular jerks can be such horrible bastards on such a constant basis, and they're still allowed to buy themselves such a voice in and over our lives - right to the heart of the houses of power.
They're a small parasitic part of the music industry - not a very big industry in the first place. Most other industries dwarf them. Why are they allowed to keep ramping things up seemingly without limit? At what point does this Napoleon meet his Waterloo?
Ryan Fenton
Ideas are easy good implementation of said ideas is hard. Offering consumers a reasonable service at reasonable price should be easy with current copyright laws it's not. I don't want socailism I want to be able to pay $5-$10 dollars a month to access all (most) music from any device without being locked into some moronic DRM scheme. It's not that hard.
I don't think we should be telling them that are not allowed to use services provided by record labels.
I don't think that the record labels should be allowed to dictate the copyright laws of our country to the point of regulating technology development, and I think that's a far greater and real threat than that of new musicians not finding experienced people in the music industry who want to help them succeed in exchange for a paycheck.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Shouldn't they be allowed to freely express their opinion like everyone else? Or is freedom of speech only allowed when it doesn't go against your own thinking?
I don't want socailism I want to be able to pay $5-$10 dollars a month to access all (most) music from any device without being locked into some moronic DRM scheme. It's not that hard.
That's too bad because in capitalism every person and company should be allowed to freely state their prices on services and products. What you want fits more into socialist system.
He didn't say anything about restricting speech. He said they shouldn't be allowed to dictate the copyright laws of our country.
They don't do that through speech, but through bribery.
If they're complaining about having to compete with a more advantageous cost structure established by the non-profit for royalty requiring songs, I take it there would be no objection to the CBC streaming public domain and Creative Commons licensed content? (I'm assuming Canadian law doesn't mandate royalties be paid for any playing of any content, but that's an assumption - somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.)
On a broader scale, I sometimes wonder if we need to have a public conversation about the fundamental motivation for allowing and promoting non-commercial activity, and what kind of society we really want to be. As I understand it, non-profits get treated differently because they are (theoretically) providing some benefit to society at lower cost than would be necessary to an organization performing the same service while trying to make a profit at the same time. Lower cost means greater public benefit for the same resources committed, and that greater public benefit is valued more highly by society than the specific lost opportunity for someone to make a profit.
In principle, if you disapprove of non-profit activities, couldn't it be argued that the very existence of ANY non-profit is unfair competition to some potential for-profit company? Do people who think this way see any value in anything that isn't tied to profits? Are municipalities that want to provide public internet to all at low cost as a utility (information becomes just like power and water, not an unreasonable analogy given the way our society currently functions) doing something wrong? Are libraries ruining the commercial market for books and other consumer media? Are museums wasteful institutions because they lock up artifacts that could otherwise be immensely profitable as commodities being bought and sold in the art and collectibles markets? Is public schooling a bad idea because it competes with private schools that would otherwise be able to pick up the business? Where and how do we draw this line?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Our government recently handed the CBC a massive funding cut. Rogers, Cogeco, ... these are big companies with enough legal muscle to drown competitors in legal fees.
Proposing things to and supporting politicians with same views as you is not bribery. If they were bribing the police to bust you, then you would have a case. But it's not the same, and also, you are allowed to do the same.
The group, which includes Quebecor Inc., Stingray Digital, Cogeco Cable Inc., the Jim Pattison Group and Golden West Radio, believes that CBCmusic.ca will siphon away listeners from their own services, including private radio stations and competing websites that sell streaming music for a fee.
It's called competition, get used to it.
I have programs like RarmaRadio and RadioSure and there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of music sites that have free music. I mean, any kind of music. And they're not pirate stations or anything like that.
Does Canada block those online music sites at the border? Or do these guys just pretend they don't exist?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I have a theory about people like you... You use the word "Socialism" in the same way that a 4 year old uses "Shit". You really have no idea what it really means, you just know that it gets a rise out of people. The Fox News talking heads are even more guilty of this, labeling President Obama a Socialist because he is slightly less of a Capitalist than they themselves. If you want to see examples of Socialism, look to a history book. What you are seeing is a government subsidized means of distributing music. If you are a citizen of the United States, I may remind you that we are rather Socialist as well. Unless you want the free-market to determine what roads we drive on, whose houses burn down, and which kids get a decent education please go shove your divisive partisan drivel into the nearest Fox News comment section, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
they are a government funded network, we're already paying for it with out taxes!
Sorry, I cry foul. While I'm not up on the Canadian side, good for them to shake up the field. After all, the big Corps "buy" politicians, so why not throw a little leverage on the Free Music side for once!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Oh BS. These asshole have no problem when it's CBC radio broadcasting jazz or Classical, which it's been doing longer than any of the guys have been around. If they had a problem why didn't they go after CBC 20 years ago?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Just protecting their gravy train, you mean.
The dinosaur media companies think people will still pay a premium for something that they know costs peanuts to make, because physical CDs and cassettes are no longer necessary.
Sorry, guys, you had it good during your reign. It is five minutes to midnight. Evolve or die.
A lot of artists under the Canadian system never see royalties - not that there is much from CBC play anyway. Middlemen tend to eat the royalties leaving artists with the crumbs. Nothing new - musicians have been screwed by business for decades, probably going on a century now.
I *love* the idea of CBC music - especially as lots of independent music is on there. Very few people under a certain age listen to the horrible big-media radio stations that are broadcast. And I love the idea that Canadian artists are featured - the quality of musicians in Canada is generally a lot higher than the U.S.
HOWEVER, the CBC Music site is an implementation mess. Sure they have a dedicated iPhone app, but iPhone is down in 3rd place popularity in Canada. Just try to use the thing on Android and watch your mobile device choke on the layers and layers of Flash badness. The site is horrible. But it should fail for the right reasons, not just because big media wants to kill it and force me to listen to Nickelback instead.
The problem there is that the financing, marketing experience etc aren't really necessary either; these days it's perfectly possible to do all that yourself, or source it from your manager instead of from your distributor, and still earn a living. The hype and marketing and financing of the big super-groups and performers isn't about music at all, and studies have shown that people who want music aren't consuming their product. At it's best it's about providing a multi-platform, multi-media marketing message that feeds and feeds on the big media industry Product. At worst, it's spending a lot of money polishing turds. Most big record-label promotion is about scrabbling for a sliver of attention from people for whom music is a background thing. Katy Perry isn't big because of her music, and people don't consume her music. They consume Katy Perry. And her bosses use Katy Perry to sell other product, like So You Think You Can Dance and whatever's passing for Super Music Video Hits of the Super Music Video Stars, but mostly they just use her to sell more eyeballs to more advertisers. And even this is probably not self-sustaining. Don't forget that Justin Bieber was a Youtube sensation before he was a mega-star. Big Media needs the digital age, but the digital age doesn't need Big Media.
Musicians are finding that they don't need the promotion power of Big Media, they can do the promotion themselves. They sell less product but the margins are much much higher, and if they're any good their customers will pay more for the product.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Proposing things to and supporting politicians with same views as you is not bribery. If they were bribing the police to bust you, then you would have a case. But it's not the same, and also, you are allowed to do the same.
Actually, in Canada it is bribery. Our Elections act is quite clear on that point. It's illegal for a candidate or party to accept funding from an entity who is not a citizen of the country (and unlike the US, corporations are not citizens). Additionally, there is a limit to how much an individual can give, per year, to a given candidate/party.
Violating the elections act can get a candidate's election results invalidated, and carries significant fines, in the case of a corporation giving money to a candidate. Lest you think that they'll find some way to hide the funding, their finances must be submitted to the elections officer, there is a limit to how much can be spent on elections, and their financial returns are a matter of public record, and can be searched by anybody.
The "All Lightfoot" channel alone is definitely worth fighting aboot!
Oh I agree, I'm on side with the CBC on this one, but not because of the free market argument.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
FREE music site as in the music on it is free , all cbc does is put it all in one place
its the same crap microsoft wants you to think aobut linux , the fact is linux gives the world far more vaule cause you get the job done wihtout paying and then can put more cash into other areas of the economy
SCAM all the listed companies are the worst , im surprised BCE , bell canada isnt on it ....yet
I assume you meant to respond to StevenBielberg? For the record I know what socialism is and if applied properly it can be good. I just see no reason to use it here.
I'm Canadian and would never have heard of this without them whinning... Yeah for me!!! I'm going to be recording to CDs (which I pay a tax on so it's legal for me to do this) like there is no tomorrow! No more money for those asswipes, I got free and legal music 100% now!
And yet the Conservatives (Currently in power in Canada) have been found 3 times to have breached these exact same laws (and fudging the elections finance submissions) and nothing has happened (barely even made a blip on the News).
Unfortunately, there are MANY ways around these rules and way too many ways to bend them, thus neutering those laws.
They also have this tendency to fuck artists over, which is why even very big acts have to haul their thieving asses into court over unpaid royalties and other contract breaches. Anyone who praises record companies should review Robert Fripp's multi-year campaign to get Universal/UMG to provide accurate royalty figures and explain how King Crimson songs had got onto Universal-affiliated download services width out the rights holders' permission (and again being unable to report sales).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I think that might be enough meth for one day.
A service that's no longer required. ... The real problem is that while innovation is hard, distribution is not anymore.
That's not entirely true.
Perhaps distribution is easy, but promotion is still expensive (perhaps more so now). You may argue that people should be playing locally, but to achieve global fame one needs very, very expensive promotion.
You would probably refer me to a number of self-published successes (like Louis CK)? Well, for some reason every one of those self-publishing successes was first made famous by the very media companies that you are claiming to be irrelevant
P.S. Yes, media companies are keeping too much, but there is still at least one service they do provide. Whether you think it is worth it, is another question.
And in capitalism there's the other side of the blade where as a Consu...excuse me... CUSTOMER! I can refuse to pay for what I consider to be over priced garbage and opt for a service that prices more to what I personally value. If there is no such service...well, Music isn't such an integral need as food, shelter, clothing, or fuel, is it? Those that are blatantly overpriced deserve to Die in the free market. Thusly, IMHO, The Big media deserves to Die if it cannot conform to what the public is obviously stating that they desire.
And the media companies don't innovate, they take innovative work from one group of people and show it to another group of people, and charge high prices for the service. A service that's no longer required.
While I certainly don't support media companies, this is certainly not restricted to media companies. Tech companies don't innovate either, their employees do.
Not when the speech comes with a little something under the table...
Lobbyism is bribery, period. It doesn't matter how much you dress it up it's still the same thing, people using money to gain more power than they're legally entitled to.
I have to agree. If record companies are so evil, why are bands so keen to get record deals? Because they know it's their best chance to get their music heard by the widest audience, and have all the support and experience the record companies bring.
If distribution is so easy, where are the popular bands that made it by doing their own internet distribution? Because I don't see any. (And bands like Radiohead who were signed to a major label for years, don't count.)
Couldn't it also be that they feel its unfair to have to compete with a government funded agency?
Just askin. I couldn't find any clear statement on the site as to the source of their funding.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Perhaps this can be a replacement for the obsolete CanCon laws, that currently mandate all those radio stations to play a certain percentage of Canadian music (regardless of how good that music is).
Oh dear, Canada has a Nickelback quota?
Actually, I would advise you to read up on socialism as well. Funding roads with taxes or even medical care doesn't necessarily have anything to do with socialism even if socialists tend to favor use of taxes to benefit society as a whole. Even Adam Smith saw that the market wasn't well equipped to handle many things and favored some degree of social welfare. This is more like social liberalism.
Socialism is an ideology striving for a society where the working class (where the working class is essentially everyone who actually has to work for a living rather than live off of capital returns, i.e. capitalists) owns the means of production, where the surplus value generated by employees does not benefit a tiny class of capitalists but instead the employee and his fellow workers. Right wingers like to complain about welfare cases, well capitalists are essentially the biggest welfare cases in existence. The only difference is that the those living on welfare receive their money from taxes and can barely survive on it whereas the capitalist class receives theirs from ownership of capital and can live in luxury off it in addition to the political influence that capital brings with it, and this is very much enforced by the state and the threat of violence. In most cases when it comes to the really wealthy the wealth is passed down through generations and it only grows in each generation due to the fact that capital itself generates capital. /Actual socialist
They did state their price, and their conditions for that price. CBC just found a new way to use what they payed for, and now the companies want to alter the deal.
Will you marry me?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
The CBC is government funded.
Not sure I see the relevance, though. Should libraries be shut down because they cut into Amazon's profit? Ridiculous.
Commercial radio is so god-awful here, all I listen to is CBC 1 (no commercials, mostly interviews and talk programs, news). Sure beats the alternative of 60% commercials, 40% of the same twenty songs repeated and dumb DJs hurr durring.
Socialism is the Big Lie. It promises things will be better, and more just, if only the government meddles a little bit more, if only they have a little more power. The problem is governments don't give up power, so it's always a little more, and a little more. And power corrupts, so the meddling tends to wander a bit further from the interest of the citizen each year - just a bit.
And standards of living do go up at first, because while Socialism doesn't require deficit spending, in practice it usually involves that. And unless things are poorly run indeed, spending more then you make will of course raise your standard of living, for a while. And when the bill finally comes due? That's the next leader's problem.
When a country has a natural source of wealth, such as significant net oil exports, the whole system can work fairly well. When there's extra to go around, that doesn't have to be taken from whoever produced it (and thus the government doesn't need ever increasing power to take and take), it seems to work OK.
But otherwise it's all based on a simple misconception: that the pie is of a fixed size, that it's all a zero sum game, and so diving the pie is the key to raising one's standard of living. But that's just not true - the rate of technological advancement is almost all that matters. And giving a vastly unfair share of the pie to those who drive technological advancement makes everyone much better off in the long run. (Technically, it would be possible to do that in a Socialist system, but it's so far from how any actual Socialist system works that it would need a new name).
Unfair and divisive to disparage Socialism? Only possible from ignorance? That's just arrogance talking.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
'The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing,' apparently doesnt hold in the US. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/02/26/2141246/youtube-identifies-birdsong-as-copyrighted-music
Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
Hey Canada, I don't hear music companies down here in Australia jumping up and down complaining about commercial-free ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission)-broadcast radio services such as http://abc.net.au/triplej, the ABC's commercial-free music video program http://abc.net.au/rage or free on-line streaming services such as http://triplejunearthed.com/.
There are also a number of 'community' radio stations in Australia that have blanket licenses to permit them to broadcast copyright work as they please. None of these have had a particularly negative effect on the Australian music industry -- quite the contrary, you have a much better chance in Australia as an independent musician getting your music heard than in Canada or the US, and this has arguably led to the much more dynamic and thriving music culture in Australia.
The for-profit labels seem content to wait for new artists to become known through these non-commercial, ABC-funded arenas -- Triple J, rage and so forth -- then approach them for commercial distribution and concert promotion. Many big international Australian acts gained their start this way.
Maybe the Canadian music labels need to look down under, and stop being dinosaurs. Having the public broadcaster promote music has contributed heavily to Australia becoming the international force in music that it is today.
One of my favorite people is a person who goes on and on and on about the dangers of socialism and communism. Yet, he sends his crop (which is insured by a mutual) to the local coop, and the proceeds go into his account at a local credit union and his home is covered by a neighborhood association with reciprocal covenants (basically everyone in the NA owns a piece of his home and can tell him what to do with it).
I'm sorry but that's totally ass about hat. Implementation is simply the process of an idea. The idea is the hardest part of creativity. Once an idea is spawned the generation process (aka implementation) can flow easier but it needs that initial spark, innovation is definitely not easy...
The purpose of human society is to provide the best possible services to the majority not to fucking enrich a psychopathic minority. If a service is best provided by a non-profit government agency, then that is the appropriate medium for provision of the service.
Forget the insane bullshit that a service should only be provided by the most corrupt most greedy organisation that can tilt laws in it's favour and and, pay for the most PR=B$ (marketing lies for profit).
"JUST TELLING" human society is for the benefit of the majority not so that a psychopathic minority can prey upon the majority.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
If a candidate runs on a platform of copyright reform by reducing terms and increasing fair uses I would vote for that candidate.
So, every thing provided by the government then?
Every person with a job works for the government.
Clue: been tried. FAILED.
Time for you to move on.
Unless you want the free-market to determine what roads we drive on, whose houses burn down, and which kids get a decent education...
Please? Public services are shit for the prices taxpayers pay. We'd be better off paying for things ourselves through voluntary non-profits run by sharp people that live off of being transparent and efficient. Look at how private crowd funding is taking off compared to one size fits all government solutions.
You don't? You mean you don't see how the CBC is cutting and gutting into new business startups, that they're exceeding their funding mandate by doing this either? Libraries are far different from what the CBC is pulling.
Om, nomnomnom...
Its a big lie because it has been used as a way to keep dictators in power. Stalin used it as a way to force farmers into collectives, providing for the government's selfish agenda before they could have share to live off of. It was a way to starve people off to make them desperate so they would be much more likely to give in..
Implementing socialism for certain functions that we absolutely depend on would be a benefit (As we do now in the United States with energy and medicare) if was put into the hands of the people for the people. Once you allow selfish people to consolidate power it always ends up corrupting the system, regardless of what kind of system it is.
You really dont understand what socialism is, you just heard things about it and repeat as if its fact like 90% of the rest of the sheep in this country. Governments are run by people you dont blame the system for its problems you blame the people who are running it, and ultimately the people who put them their in the first place. Which is, unfortunately us. We dont have enough people in the world who want to understand what is happening behind the scenes. And this is why there is so much corruption in the world today. People tend to want to be controlled by others because they dont want to take real responsibility for there life.
The companies bringing this forward, Quebecor and the like, aren't what I would refer to as 'new startups'.
CBC's mandate is to freely inform and entertain Canadians, in a sustainable manner.
They also provide financing for new musicians,
As somebody who was involved in the underground music scene in Saint John's, I can say that the record labels are useless to new musicians. The best way for new musicians to finance themselves is to play all-ages shows, sell merchandise, and apply for (small) grants from the government. All the labels do is engage a high-risk high-return advertising machine, and work the musicians to the bone.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
You may argue that people should be playing locally, but to achieve global fame one needs very, very expensive promotion.
Hopefully, in the future, band managers will be able to buy promotion on an as needed basis in a fluid market place. No need for the label.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
You don't? You mean you don't see how the CBC is cutting and gutting into new business startups, that they're exceeding their funding mandate by doing this either? Libraries are far different from what the CBC is pulling.
Almost EVERY single radio station is owned by Chorus/Rogers or is planned to be owned by Chorus/Rogers. Even the college radio stations are being bought. In my mind, all CBC is doing is modernizing. Price is not the only thing to compete on... what about News/Traffic humorous enjoyable adverts, morning shows and proper exclusive programming?!? I remember turning on the radio at a certain time to hear the on-going history of new music or could change the station during commercials or news... since Chrous/Rogers has been buying all the stations Canadian radio has gone to the shitter and they have every right to be scared that they will no longer be able to synchronize the commercials on every radio station at the same time and playing almost the same content commercials programs and morning shows.
Chorus / Rogers are complaining because free streaming by CBC threatens them by giving listeners options, something they figured they could work around by buying everything.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
And a Bieber quota.. yes.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
Obama is "slightly less Capitalist" than Fox News just as South Korea is "slightly less Communist" than North Korea. Ridiculous statement!
Have you ever lived overseas where you had to pay to send your children to school?? I currently pay about $12k/yr for schooling of my daughter.. Shes in grade 1. If I had 2 kids, I'd pay $20k/yr! The schooling not even great, it just average compared to what we have in Canada. What about healthcare?? Here, a broken leg is ~$3k if you don't have private insurace. Canada, everyone has insurance (mind you here you are in and out of the hospital in ~2 hours vs 1day). There are rarely voluntary non-profits when profit can be made.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
And CBC 2 has regular concerts with less well-known Canadian artists. All you get from the Rogers/Chorus networks are the Top 40 artists; there's no other nation-wide network like CBC.
Guess they shouldn't have banned Creative Commons music from their station then? They can lie in the bed they've made. This is exactly what happens when you try to negotiate with these groups.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Right wingers like to complain about welfare cases, well capitalists are essentially the biggest welfare cases in existence. The only difference is that the those living on welfare receive their money from taxes and can barely survive on it whereas the capitalist class receives theirs from ownership of capital and can live in luxury off it
Barring disability, anyone can become a worker or a capitalist. Similarly, a worker doesn't have to work for a capitalist. Do you think IBM can survive if every IBM employee suddenly quits? Since they don't quit, why is it so? Maybe, perhaps, there is a mutually beneficial arrangement somewhere?
I was a worker for many years, now I am a co-owner of a very small business. Do you know what my current windfall from the "ownership of capital" is? It's negative, "red" as they say in accounting. And it is supposed to remain so for at least a few years. Many startups fail, thus never recovering the invested money. I'm hoping for a positive return, but I'm taking large risks with my money, and I may never see it again. Are you willing to mortgage your house, for example, to invest into your own startup? If not then you are a worker.
The worker never receives the large benefits that a company owner may have. On the other hand, the worker is not sharing the risk either. The worker is guaranteed his salary, hell or high water. That's the deal. If you want you can join an existing startup - many would gladly give you a thick batch of shares (that are worthless at the moment) in exchange for your free labor (which is very valuable.)
The society gives capitalists certain incentives (fewer and fewer every day) because the society needs both workers and capitalists. Imagine what would happen to the workers if there is no business to get a job at - or what would happen to business owners if they can't get employees. Capitalist's job is riskier, so the potential benefits are larger. Worker's job is easier, but he eats every day.
The USSR model artfully combines the worst aspects of communism, socialism and capitalism. The factories are not yours, so you never get any dividends on your investment - nor you can make those investments. You only get the salary; but since the state is the only capitalist in town, the state gets to dictate how much you are going to eat today. Socialism is simply capitalism with only one capitalist; one big company town from which there is no escape.
So, every thing provided by the government then?
No, only the things that citizens believe should be so provided.
In Canada, apparently, this includes streaming music.
I was a worker for many years, now I am a co-owner of a very small business. Do you know what my current windfall from the "ownership of capital" is? It's negative, "red" as they say in accounting. And it is supposed to remain so for at least a few years. Many startups fail, thus never recovering the invested money. I'm hoping for a positive return, but I'm taking large risks with my money, and I may never see it again. Are you willing to mortgage your house, for example, to invest into your own startup? If not then you are a worker.
Something to keep in mind is that small business owners like you are not capitalists in Marxist classification - they are "petit bourgeoisie". The difference is that the means of production - capital - owned by the owner of a small business is, generally speaking, not generating sufficient wealth for rapid expansion.
Simply put, you're a capitalist if your capital is large enough that you can hire a manager and retire, living entirely off the proceeds without having to work yourself - purely on the "rent" extracted from others.
The USSR model artfully combines the worst aspects of communism, socialism and capitalism. The factories are not yours, so you never get any dividends on your investment - nor you can make those investments. You only get the salary; but since the state is the only capitalist in town, the state gets to dictate how much you are going to eat today. Socialism is simply capitalism with only one capitalist; one big company town from which there is no escape.
That's precisely why a lot of Marxists argue that USSR was never socialist, except perhaps for a few years early on when it truly had factories run by their workers, but rather a degenerate form of state capitalism. As you note, the factories in the USSR were not really owned by people working in them - they were owned by the state, which exploited the workers just the same, and paid out part of what it extracted from them as salary. Soviet apologists generally claim that the state was democratic, and therefore workers were able to influence how much they were payed; but it was a sham democracy in practice with no real choices.
And there were no socialist (or self-proclaimed socialist) states that were based on any model other than the Soviet one - of all the early socialist revolutions that happened, Soviet was the only one that succeeded, and all further socialist states were backed by USSR, and, by necessity, picked up its ideology - sometimes diverging from it later, like China or Yugoslavia, but the roots were always there. So we don't really know what a "real socialism" would be like, and whether it could have worked out better.
Soviet apologists generally claim that the state was democratic, and therefore workers were able to influence how much they were payed;
Those apologists haven't set foot inside USSR's borders, as I understand. Salaries were set at the very top, in ministries, and they never changed. You'd have to be promoted to the next rung of the career ladder to get higher salary. Unions were busy gathering membership dues, and on occasion one could buy a tour (usually to the nearest retreat, for a few days.)
but it was a sham democracy in practice with no real choices.
Very much not unlike the USA, I must add. Obama vs. Romney? You must be kidding.
So we don't really know what a "real socialism" would be like
It's a True Scotsman fallacy. There will be no "real socialism" admitted until one of the attempts happens to deliver the desired results. Which means "never." You might just as well flip the Cheops Pyramid, put it on its tip and expect it to stay like that forever.
Very much not unlike the USA, I must add. Obama vs. Romney? You must be kidding.
That's twice the number of candidates that a typical Soviet ballot had.
It's a True Scotsman fallacy.
It's not, and I have already explained the reasons. There was exactly one independent experiment observed so far - the USSR. All other socialist states were propped up and/or sponsored by it, and so are not independent experiments - it's no surprise that they have shared all the nastier traits, as they were forcibly planted there from day one. I dare say that judging the theory by a single experiment - that didn't even stay within the bounds necessary to verify the predictions of said theory (Marx never believed that a socialist revolution could succeed in a country where proletariat did not constitute a majority; and it didn't in Imperial Russia, as it had 4 peasants for every factory worker) - is not a good idea.
The German socialist revolution - Luxemburgists - started with premises very different from those of Lenin. It would be interesting to see what those could have grown into. That said, I do sometimes wonder if perhaps there was some unfortunate negative selection in place there - since any attempts by socialists to take power were violently opposed by the ruling class, the only kind of socialism that actually managed to take power was the one that was more brutal than what was thrown at it. Bolsheviks were perfectly willing to wipe out whole villages if they were deemed "class hostile", and generally mass murder any political opponents, even potential ones. Others, who weren't so predisposed towards violence, were crushed by the likes of Freikorps. So we ended up with the worst of the bunch...
But otherwise it's all based on a simple misconception: that the pie is of a fixed size, that it's all a zero sum game, and so diving the pie is the key to raising one's standard of living. But that's just not true - the rate of technological advancement is almost all that matters. And giving a vastly unfair share of the pie to those who drive technological advancement makes everyone much better off in the long run. (Technically, it would be possible to do that in a Socialist system, but it's so far from how any actual Socialist system works that it would need a new name).
Firstly, countries are fixed sizes, you cannot grow infinitely without infinitely increasing the size of your resource pool simultaneously and space exploration is falling seriously out of favour so nothing looks promising on this front. Ergo, pie size is limited.
Capitalism does not work the way you seem to imagine it does, capitalism is built around capital not technology, it rewards gamblers who invest capital by paying them out even more capital than they invested, the fact that anyone else benefits from this system is a happy accident; the people without capital to invest are sorely disadvantaged no matter how clever they are since only having capital gets you capital so if you have none then it's extremely hard to get anywhere. This is the brilliant con of capitalism, it replaced feudalism supposedly improving social mobility but ultimately the aristocrats had piles of money (capital) so are automatically still on top, we just replace the source of power from titles bestowed by the king (e.g. lord, duke) to old money family fortunes; it is fairer since money is easier to get than being knighted but not by as much as the ideologues like to pretend.
Seriously, look out the window, CEOs, the board, venture capitalists and (if there's any money left) shareholders reap most of the power (capital) granted by the capitalist system; the people who do the actual work might get a measly bonus if they are lucky. You could say that this is rewarding taking the risk of investment which is exactly my point, the entire system is geared for gambling on risk, actual innovation is beside the point and only a side effect rather than a goal in itself so is only rewarded indirectly if at all.
The faults of socialism are the same of all centralised systems, which includes large corporations as well as the government, that is, it becomes bloated, lazy and so big that it is prone to internal power struggles and turf wars by incompetent fools who no-one knows how to fire (due to bureaucratic red tape and laziness). The fundamental idea of socialism, a social safety net to support people by helping them out of the holes they may have fallen in (illness, poverty [lack of education, food, shelter], etc) improves productivity and social mobility since people who aren't constantly worrying about how they're going to stay alive have more time to think about abstract long term problems (your vaunted technological innovation) but is otherwise similar to capitalism [Total control of the economy by the government is communism].
This is a choose your poison scenario, neither is ideal. Personally, I'll take socialism myself but you're welcome to your neo-feudalism laissez-faire capitalism if you really want it.
As somebody who was involved in the underground music scenes in Saskatoon and Vancouver I can only say I agree 100% with your comment.
But once it was a Gordon Lightfoot quota.
We've lost so much allong the way to the trans-national corporatization of our radio.
Do you see now that it's about control? Do you see now that those scmbags oppose free even when it's legal?
Free should be illegal. Ever. That's how they think. That's why they keep saying P2P == stealing, even when the first is a technology and the second a felony.
Finance : that would be an investment company
Marketing : that would be a marketing/PR company
Connections in the industry : that would be a specialist PR company
But you can't mix and match it's all or nothing, their studio, their sound engineer, their session musicians, etc ... all of which you pay for at the price they want you to pay ...
Besides the financing of new bands they do very little that could not be done by separate companies (most PR) ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
What the CBC is doing here looked like it was going to be a step forward. Now all of those other corporations get to shit all over it. Wonderful.
Beh I can't log in off mobile, damn /. But this has been a complaint against the CBC in one form or another for the last 30 years when they started dictating 'OTA' if the CBC mandate is to freely inform and entertain then they can find enough primary funding and get light secondary funding like other broadcasters do. Do tell after all, who does having jeopardy, wheel of fortune and an assload of other american shows on fit into the 'culture of canada' that they like to go on about, yet bash americans over.
'The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing,' said Stingray CEO Eric Boyko
Any judge should throw out the case just based on this. When I'm playing my piano, anyone can hear it for free, they just don't want to :) ... there is plenty of free music.
But seriously, Mozart, Beethoven,
When the CBC service was launched in February, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers said that when it set a flat fees for the more than 100,000 music publishers it represents, it never envisioned a constant stream of free music flooding the Internet."
translation: We were shortsighted and blind to the obvious, therefor we'll sue you in an attempt to cover for our fuckup.
Apparently if you have £250,000 to spare you can go to dinner with David Cameroon and enlighten him on your viewpoint on your chosen subject.
Thats not bribery thats a donation to party funds that is.
Getting token jobs on boards of directors after leaving office isn't bribery either, thats just enriching a company with your years of experience on the political scene that is.
yes it isn't a duck it just walks and talks like one.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
"Experience in the market" basically means "we think your music will/will not make a shitload of money in a very short period of time", while "connections in the industry" are necessary only as long as a few guys in expensive suits decide which bands can earn them maximum profit at minimum investment (which is natural in any business but doesn't mean that they are right and the bands they reject would not become huge hits)
While I agree with most of your views I think the margins are not the only motivation. Some people are attention who... errr... hungry and will gladly accept lower margins in return for exposure in media and "respect" the studio execs show them.
I would argue that the Northern European and Scandinavian countries are successful socialist states. Obviously they compromised a lot with the capitalists and aren't anywhere near to being a pure Marxist state, but realistically that's pretty much the ideal outcome for socialism.
Being on the other side of the world, I hadn't heard of http://music.cbc.ca/ before. Cool site. Thanks to the media companies for giving them some free publicity!
Greedy greedy greedy music industry!
Taxes pay for the CBC where even the most obscure artists get free advertising at no cost to their publishers; ... yes, every unit of recording media will be used for pirating.
Taxes on recording media generate money ostensibly meant to cover royalties for the pirating that the publishers have convinced the gov't will be occuring
And the publishers get tax breaks for their role in promoting culture, blah blah blah
And the real kicker, in response to the station a**hole who stated only "bird song" is free, it ISN'T if some publisher gets the 'rights' to a recording of birds singing!
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Actually Lobbying is better than bribery. When lists like "World's most corrupt countries" and Corruption Index List are created, it makes sure countries which have legalized Lobbying will appear much lower in the list than 3rd world countries who still call it bribery.
As a resident of one of said states and a socialist, I disagree. The closest thing we have to socialism in Sweden is a few state-owned companies - for instance companies exploiting natural resources. These are however by no means worker controlled and since they've been spun off into state-owned incorporated companies where there is no democratic control or even transparency.
There was an attempt at something that could be called socialism in the 80's, called "employee funds". Part of the profits would go toward these funds which would be used to buy up parts of the company. Of course capitalists didn't like the idea and used their media ownership to whip up a firestorm about it. They weren't perfect, but it was better alternative than the current situation. They were abolished when the bourgeois came into power in 1991.
That was pretty much the last gasp of socialism within the Social Democrats in Sweden, since then the right wing of the party has almost complete control and the politics they pursued since is something of a mix between social liberalism and neoliberalism.
Jonathan Coulton was famous media whore before he became a internet musician?
The purpose of either capitalism or socialism is mostly to find some sort of way to allocate resources that are scarce. Ground, natural resources, drinking water, food, etc. The only reason that films and music are "scarce" is because we as a society purposely limit the reproduction of such through law. Laws we paid for to write, prosecuted and judged by folks who are once again paid for by us.
In order for capitalism to work there needs to be free and open competition, where companies battle it out for the favor of the customer. Not a single cartel that price-fixes its way straight up your asshole.
So yes, if the kind of scheme GP suggested is what the customer want, then that is what we're eventually going to get. After lots of kicking, screaming and bribery.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Your services are no longer required for the dissemination, enjoyment, artist compensation, contribution and access to music as it pertains to your historic, nay, archaic understanding of communications.
And for this: 'The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing,' - You can eat a dick because you're so far out of touch with reality that any nourishment should suffice in getting your brain to understand and comprehend that your pathetic, groveling, ignorant ass does not belong in my communications path.
As it were: the proverbial free-ride is over for middle-men. Business model obsoleted. Distribution mechanisms no longer required. Thank you for your prior service however your continued service is not only a burden to those you've once served but your insistence is becoming intolerable and threatens the ongoing development of global human communications - unfettered, unrestrained, unfiltered person to person private communications.
Take your god damn music and hit the fucking road.
\r
The screaming about socialism is to cover up the fascism in hopes no one will notice. You need some socialism. Get rid of social security, medicare, VA hospitals and a long list of "socialistic" services and what do you get? A disaster.
The fascist part of it is what is really scary.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
After all, if only one side is allowed to negotiate, then there is no negotiating.
And, of course, there's the route of finding a cheaper source of that work. Businesses do it all the time.
The companies argue they must charge customers to offset royalty costs which are triggered every time a song is played, while the CBC gets around the pay-per-click problem because it is considered a non-profit corporation.
If the companies want to be on equal footing with the CBC all they have to do is set themselves up as non-profit corporations as well. Problem solved!
A service that's no longer required. ... The real problem is that while innovation is hard, distribution is not anymore.
That's not entirely true. Perhaps distribution is easy, but promotion is still expensive (perhaps more so now). You may argue that people should be playing locally, but to achieve global fame one needs very, very expensive promotion. You would probably refer me to a number of self-published successes (like Louis CK)? Well, for some reason every one of those self-publishing successes was first made famous by the very media companies that you are claiming to be irrelevant
P.S. Yes, media companies are keeping too much, but there is still at least one service they do provide. Whether you think it is worth it, is another question.
What service does the public have an interest in again? Creating god-like, fame obsessed, super rich "artists" via "very, very expensive promotion"? What purpose does that serve that it requires denying non profit entities the free use of modern technology? So, people live to enjoy life, music, food, etc, but somebody wants to control certain parts of that for a psychopathic obsession with money and the public should support this why? I don't care about some psychopathic company that only cares about profit setting up a psychopathic "artist" who only cares about fame. It just seems to me a bunch of people who need mental help and I have no desire to support any of it. I'll take the free streaming music, thanks. Just looking out for my own "self interest". They/You should be able to understand that, right?
Socialism is the Big Lie.
They all work. Socialism, capitalism, communism. If everyone involved plays by the rules (*everyone*) then there are no problems. It's when people stop playing by those rules that things fall apart. We saw that with the USSR, when the political heads started extracting all the benefit for themselves, and the shortages of goods caused an underground capitalist market. We see capitalism failing in the U.S., now, because there is no more desire by the corporate controllers of some niche (like Big Media) to infuse competition into the niche - it's all about controlling your market niche and gouging your customer base's monthly payments.
They all work if everyone plays ball, they all fail if enough people stop playing by the organizational rules. Personally, I like the open market and the individual serving himself, but with the way the market is solidifying into a private collective, it seems clear a social collective is going to be necessary in my lifetime.
I was with you right up until you started talking about socialism and communism.
The fundamental idea of socialism is not a safety net, it is the worker ownership of the means of production. There are many opinion on how the means of production should be owned by workers exactly, everything from Marxism-Leninism with the state owning everything (Soviet) to Anarchism with no one owning anything and society essentially based on completely voluntary associations.
Personally I'm somewhere in between. I think infrastructure should be commonly owned by everyone in a society, presumably by the state in whatever form that may manifest itself, but I also want a market of cooperatively owned and controlled businesses. I guess I would fit the bill for what is called "market socialism".
Communism has nothing to do with state ownership. Communism is where Marx envisioned Socialism ending up. It's a classless and *stateless* society, this has never been even remotely achieved anywhere. Soviet called itself Communist but had neither of the ingredients necessary, they had a powerful state and they had a ruling class. The Soviet Union was really nothing more than state capitalism.
I very much agree that capitalism is essentially an outgrowth of feudalism though..
Please do go fuck yourself, Mr. Eric Boyko.
Free music has existed for over a thousand centuries without you, and will go on after you and your vicious little pack of horse thieves are long dead.
Thanks for reminding me how evil the music "industry" is. I've sort of forgotten since the Napster days how much it needs to expire. Not one more penny for music distributors. We'll give the cash to the musicians.
Sell door-to-door fake roof repairs to Alzheimer's patients, Mr. Boyko - your true calling.
"I have to agree. If record companies are so evil, why are bands so keen to get record deals? "
Weed and booze. Not the best mind sharpeners.
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
-Lifeline, published 1939
You have a very strange interpretation of what the "if ... then ..." construct is used to indicate in english.
For example, take the statement: "If a person has HIV then they should not give blood to the Red Cross." This is not the same as saying "everyone should not give blood to the Red Cross".
Or: "If a food is toxic when raw but edible when cooked then it should only be eaten after cooking', this does not mean "all foods should only be eaten after cooking".
Show me a popular artist since the late 70s that has had no problems with contracts and licensing with a media company. Every band I know of has had contract problems and starved while dealing with the companies that you allege are helping them out. Many bands during the 80s and 90s simply broke up because they were screwed so bad in the contract they could not afford to continue and the only way out of the contact was to split.
Media companies promote? Not very much any more. Most of the time there is a contract between the "Label" and a "Concert Promotion" company that also sucks artists dry. This ensures that a band makes no money for studio work or for concerts. Again, this is why bands that have longevity use private promotion, or ticket outlet promotion only. "Ticket Master presents" for example.
Every band/artist that I can think of that has had success leaves "Labels" as quickly as possible often opening private studios. They hire private engineers, private producers, private promoters, and buy their own gear or privately promote gear to get deals on gear. Every band I know of that has signed a contract has regrets and disputes. They can no longer record what they want, they record and edit to what the Media company wants. They are no longer allowed to "Jam", and can only interact with fans when the "Label" requires it. Most of the time this leaves fans and bands frustrated, bands with little money, while "Talent Agents", "Label Executives" make lots of money.
Now maybe you are sitting in a time machine. Up to the mid 70s, labels would at least give some bands a reach around on occasion. Jerry Lee Lewis is an example of someone that never got a reach around, while "The Beach Boys" were jacked off constantly. Back then, they were normally only screwed on records. Concerts were where they made their money. Now, "Labels" make sure that they make theirs on all fronts
Now there is one aspect with I failed to mention up until now. That is the "Pet Band" for a label. The pet band will receive high perks. Execs will make sure that they are wined and dined, paid well and have a lot of freedom. The pet band is what the Labels use to attract smaller bands. "See how great we are? Come talk to these guys and see how much they like us." Maybe you think all the bands are treated that way.
Do a bit of research on the subject. As an amateur drummer for 35 years, I have done a lot of reading on the subject. It's quite a fascinating industry. "Fascinating" in this case should not insinuate "good" in any way.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Problem is, these labels then turning around and telling the public that it's Illegal to obtain the products of these new musicians and bands because the consumer didn't pay the $Label for it. So yeah, new musicians and bands can go indie, but how can they compete when the big business is putting the scare into the consumer by making them think that they have to pay for everything they consume, even if it's offered for free? There's no such thing as an 'illegal download', downloading is not and never has been illegal. It is -WHAT- you download that may be illegal and that is a much more different beast, but the marketing and PR that $Labels have been pushing is scaring the consumer with carefully worded and targeted anti-ads.
It's like setting a cookie jar in front of a child and telling them they can have a cookie but only after they do their homework and turn it in. Oh, but wait, they can't even look or smell the cookie until it's done. In fact, they may as well completely forget that cookie even exists until they are given one after they've done their homework. Oh wait, now that they've done their homework they must also wash the dishes. Oh yeah, now they have to mow the yard. Now they have to wash the windows. Okay, now that they've done everything and don't even really want the cookie anymore they can have the cookie.
Meanwhile, someone else has offered the child a cookie with no strings attached. The kid just wants a cookie. So it's gone from using the cookie as a negative reinforcement (Do your homework, or no cookie), to being a positive encouragement (Here's a cookie, hey how about doing your homework?). Neither approach actually guarantees the child will do the homework, but one of them looks a hell of a lot better on whomever's giving the cookie. The Labels just want to be in control of all the cookies all the time.
Bingo! Here, in America (that cool place downstairs?) I listen to NPR for the same reasons - my girlfriend will flip through stations and we'll hear the same Usher song twice and catch the end of it on another station, of course it's then followed by about 16 minutes of advertisements for "male enhancement," car dealerships and McDownalds.
Granted, NPR isn't gov't funded (well, not 100%, mostly it's from listener contributions for local stations), but 3 mentions for some research groups an hour that takes about 1 minute? Fantastic!
There is nothing actually -wrong- with Socialism. It gets tossed around as a dirty word by those who are afraid of what giving the Social (The People) the power. Is putting the power back in the hands of those who actually deserve it (The People - Read, the entire population, not just 'who has the most money to pay for it) really all that bad a thing? Is it really better to pay and pay and pay and pay someone else for the possible and not guaranteed priveledge of doing something, vs paying a small amount for access to it and deciding for yourself how you want to recieve it?
That's one thing I will never understand about people. I see far too many comments that refer to things like 'Socialism' and 'Liberalism' as dirty words, as if Being Social (Part of a community) and Being Liberal (Being liberated - Being Free) is something to be reviled, rather than revered. How can you claim to be a free country, when a majority of those in power do their very best to make you as unfree as possible and worse yet, make you -like- it? It just doesn't make any sense to me at all.
"Inconcievable!" "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." - The Princess Bride, Inigo to Vizzini
Its a big lie because it has been used as a way to keep dictators in power ... ...
if was put into the hands of the people for the people. Once you allow selfish people to consolidate power it always ends up corrupting the system, regardless of what kind of system it is.
you dont blame the system for its problems you blame the people who are running it, and ultimately the people who put them their in the first place.
That's the whole problem right there. As the saying goes, if men were angels we'd need no government; if men were governed by angels we'd need no check on the power of government, but for men to govern men ... the single most important consideration for any system of government is what happens when bad people take the reigns of power! How it works on paper is meaningless, really.
Intellectuals seem to have a hard time getting past that, since it's fun to imagine ideal sytems and the real world is so grungy.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Firstly, countries are fixed sizes, you cannot grow infinitely without infinitely increasing the size of your resource pool simultaneously and space exploration is falling seriously out of favour so nothing looks promising on this front. Ergo, pie size is limited.
This is just completly wrong! And so many mistakes follow from it. Technology is the ability to provide a good or service at a lower cost (allowing previously unimaginable products to become commonplace). Also, remember nothing is really used up (at a human scale) - the Sun will proide plenty of power for a billion years, and all the materials are just transformed, not consumed. Given effectively unlimited free power, all modern resource constraints vanish - and plentiful cheap power is the core of technological progress.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
No he wants Netflix for music. And he wants to pay money for it. I think you just fall to see the capitalism in it.
If a service is best provided by a non-profit government agency, then that is the appropriate medium for provision of the service.
That's pretty fucking straightforward. If nobody else can do better than the government, with the massive profits that they are making, fuck them. They should be ashamed that the government is actually providing an infinitely better service.
Piracy is worng! Artists deserve to be paid!
Wait... what you mean... they are getting paid? It's been licensed? Ok well...
Competition is worng! I shouldn't have to compete to stay un business!
But... the future refused to change.
I wouldn't be sorry.. These same companies are also responsible for driving true musicians out of the field.. pushing the lowest common denominator of "art" such that it served solely as a marketing tool to induce *more* sales of "product", product which is solely designed to induce consumption of *more* product, in a vicious loop where the product and the advertising for it are one and the same.. And 'Art" for arts sake...? the money boys won't touch that, sorry... Even if they would, where could one perform anyways, now that the theatres are either alll defunct, or geared for electronic music only.. Jazz.. Blues. and Fusion..? Those of us who perform these forms are no better than those that play the lotteries hoping for the "big win" except our chances are much worse.... If however, we make a video of our art, throw in some sex and violence., or perhaps get a 3 year old to perform it, we MIGHT get lucky with a viral video.. As far as I'm concerned.. the CBC has my FULL SUPPORT!!! Go CBC Go..!
'The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing,' said Stingray CEO Eric Boyko
What an ass!!
Just Like how in the U.S. the Department of Transportation is cutting and gutting into businesses that want to create roads and charge people to use them because you know, they're Gov't funded so can undercut these businesses even to the point of providing roads that can be travelled on for free cause they can just use funds given to them and don't need to charge the users.
No i do not see how the CBC is exceeding their funding mandate. probably because i've actually you know, read it. maybe you should give that a go too.
below is an excerpt from the CBC Site which i find relevant:
"...the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as the national public broadcaster, should provide radio and television services incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains; ...the programming provided by the Corporation should: ...be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose,
it would seem that they are doing exactly this.
The Full Broadcasting act is available here
I am unable to find anything in it that makes it seem that the CBC would be exceeding their funding mandate.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
It's pretty in line with what the CBC is actually supposed to do, other than being an at-arms-length publicly funded news organization (they're not doing so well there, but that's another story). They've always competed with commercial radio, and done pretty well. CBC plays Canadian content in Canada, while commercial radio is all to eager to import content to Canada, unless a Canadian finds success outside the country. They are a not-for-profit, that doesn't mean they can't generate income or compete, just that they can pay dividends to themselves or to shareholders. There are not-for-profits competing in every sector, entertainment should not be immune. What commercial radio station (online or offline) plays as much Canadian content during peak hours? or beyond mandated requirements?
The worker is guaranteed his salary, hell or high water.
That's not entirely true. Workers are laid off or retrenched all the time in order to boost profits.
And a capitalist could become a worker too, you know. There is nothing stopping Oppenheimer or Rockefeller from picking up a shovel too, if their business fails. They just file bankruptcy and move on.
The AM band is technically crap... as in intereference and lack of stereo. You know it. My point is without the CBC pushing the private sector to be more competitive, free radio will continue to get diluted because private radio is about profit. Even for the startups. The big point is that when these AM stations get attractive to listeners, they are purchased. Sure you can argue that it's ICAN and CRTC problem... but as a tax payer, that doesn't fix my radio. The fact that people are complaing is exactly why you should be happy with the CBC.
And as for Cancon.. it may have resulted in us getting Nickleback, Billy Tallent and Bieber shoved down our throughts but it has made us one of the world leaders in English childrens programming and saved our industry.
I can't see how the CBC being so competitive while fulfilling its mandate is a bad thing.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
"The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing," He said
'And we're working on that' he thought
-- Stingray CEO Eric Boyko
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
I meant it more that a "true" socialist system would be remarkably difficult to implement properly, and that the compromise between socialists and capitalist in Northern Europe is realistically about as good as you can get. The workers don't control production, but they do get paid very well for the most part and have excellent public services, education, health care, etc. and a remarkably responsive democratic government. Coming from an American perspective where you get called a communist if you think that the government should spend more on health care and education than they do on the military, it seems like an extremely successful socialist system.
I hate how ambiguous the term socialist is. I'm politically what would probably be called a center-right social democrat in Europe (that's probably why you disagree with me). But in the US my political views are so left-wing they are almost completely unrepresented in the federal government.
I don't think it's really that difficult to implement an actual socialist system if it wasn't for the sometimes violent opposition from entrenched capitalists and the capitalist control over the media and thus public agenda. These are problems that need addressing before any real change can come about.
We may have a more equal distribution of incomes, but in terms of ownership of capital, we're almost as bad as the US: the top 1% owns about 40% of all capital while the majority of the population is indebted to the capitalist class by way of banks.
That's what I meant :)
Another reason why it's difficult is that socialism has never been shown to approach anything near the efficiency of the capitalist system. The reason why capitalism succeeded over socialism in the 20th century is because it produces wealth in far greater amounts than any socialist system that was implemented (and I mean wealth in a more neutral economic sense, not necessarily just monetary profit). That's why the compromise between socialism and capitalism that has happened in the developed world has been so successful. Most of the benefits of both systems while minimizing the negatives (to various degrees of success depending on the country).
It's not like you *couldn't* have a pure socialist system that produces that type of wealth, it's just never been accomplished yet, and even the most progressive governments tend to stick with what works. It's hard to convince people to make drastic changes when there are extraordinarily powerful interests who stand to lose a great deal *and* most people are generally doing pretty well.
I wouldn't call a system where a large part of the generated value is siphoned off as profit for the capitalist class by any means efficient, that's a myth perpetuated by the media. An efficient system would be one where the surplus value benefit the workers themselves. The main problem has always been the capitalist resistance, capitalists don't want socialism to succeed so they try their damnedest to prevent that from happening. The US has been especially active in actively opposing any form of socialism cropping up, from the attempted invasion and subsequent embargo of Cuba (driving Cuba into the arms of the Soviet Union, counterproductive to say the least) to the attempted coup of Chavez 10 years ago, the US has assassinated leaders and instigated coups against democratically elected governments all over the place.
I cannot call what we have a compromise between socialism and capitalism. What we have is a welfare system slapped on top of the capitalist system in order to try to rectify some of the catastrophes caused by the system.
It depends on what you compromise between though, I would say my stance is a pretty decent compromise. I'm not a Marxist-Leninist, i.e. I don't believe in state ownership other than infrastructure and natural resources. I would probably call myself a market Socialist, I think a market is a good thing, it's the ownership and the capital returns part that allow a small elite to obtain control over not only the economy but also governments by exploiting the work of everyone else that I have a problem with. I believe in worker and/or consumer cooperatives and similar forms of ownership. I don't have a problem with very small companies provided the employees actually receive the surplus value they themselves generate, but if they grow beyond a certain size, alternative forms of ownership would have to be implemented. Basic idea being that no one should be able to exploit others for personal profit and no one should have undue political or economic power outside of the democratic system.
But it is efficient! And it's not just efficient at generating wealth for the capitalists. It's also more efficient at generating wealth for the majority of people. The fact of the matter is that regular, working class people are far better off materially in modern capitalist societies than they ever were under communist or strict socialist governments. Especially with a strong welfare system in place to prevent the creation of inescapable poverty. But that's not a failing of socialism *necessarily*, just a failing of centrally planned economies.
That's the biggest mistake Marx made. It's not that he was wrong necessarily about where the world was headed or what could be done to fix it. It's that he drastically underestimated the ability of the capitalist system to generate wealth and promote technological progress.
And I don't think you can place all or even most of the blame on capitalist meddling for the failures of socialist states. The USSR did not fall because of the West. It fell because it had a poor economy and corrupt leaders.
Troll fail
It doesn't hurt to be nice.