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David Lowery On the Ethics of Music Piracy
New submitter Mystakaphoros writes "Musician David Lowery (of Cracker fame) takes NPR intern Emily White to task for her stance on paying for (or failing to pay for) music. Quoting: 'By allowing the artist to treat his/her work as actual property, the artist can decide how to monetize his or her work. This system has worked very well for fans and artists. Now we are being asked to undo this not because we think this is a bad or unfair way to compensate artists but simply because it is technologically possible for corporations or individuals to exploit artists work without their permission on a massive scale and globally. We are being asked to continue to let these companies violate the law without being punished or prosecuted. We are being asked to change our morality and principals to match what I think are immoral and unethical business models.'"
Bimbo Newton Crosby. Know how much Cheap Trick gets from iTunes for their back catalog? That would be ZERO, the middlemen take every cent. Or how about the fact that Meatloaf had to file for bankruptcy TWICE because using Hollywood Accounting the record company claimed that Bat Out Of Hell I, which has the record for longest time on the top 200 BTW, and this before the age of piracy, made NO MONEY and therefor he didn't deserve shit for one of the biggest selling albums in history.
As someone who makes music and hopes to actually make a living from it I have to say FUCK THE MAFIAA as the current system is so damned rigged for the middlemen it is about like trying to win 3 card monty, its a total scam. living a hop, skip, and a jump from two major music centers I've held the actual contracts in my hand, got to see what actually happens. i've seen artists that sell more than half a million copies of an album they 1.-recorded on their own time with their own money and 2.-promoted themselves with no help from the record co get handed a BILL for $50,000 for the "privilege" of giving them a half a million in sales! I've seen bands have to break up and never work together because the "standard deals" for new artists are so damned skewed that unless they sell Britney numbers right out the gate they LOSE MONEY and they LOSE THEIR SONGS whether they sell Britney numbers or not!
So Cracker, who last i heard was working as a producer and thus being a middleman himself, can frankly kiss my ass. The system DOES NOT WORK for anybody but the leeches, PERIOD. As a final note, know what Metallica gets for all their MAFIAA ass kissing? 89c an album. That's it. they practically blew the record execs and the greedy fucks won't even give them a whole dollar. Fuck the MAFIAA and the quicker they DIAF the better, it'll be a better world without them
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
We can only hope. A world without Beebers is a dream.
Why do musicians think the last 80 years is the norm? The world is returning to the norm. They will get paid by audiences for live performances. Instead of a very few getting paid mega bucks, many will make a living. Sucks to be a 'studio band' (e.g. Guns and Roses) that can't play live.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Kind of, but not really. It takes time to build a house just like it takes time to make art. Just because it costs very little to copy the final product does not automatically mean that there wasn't some investment of time and effort on the front end. Copyright law seeks to recognize that original time and effort.
Most of the pro-copying arguments I've seen involve this logic: "It costs me almost nothing to copy this thing, therefore it has no value and the creating artist deserves nothing for it". I've seen it dressed up a lot of different ways but it usually boils down to that, and it's a logical fallacy. If it were true, then people wouldn't recognize a difference between listening to static, and listening to music.
Whether or not intellectual property has value can be argued all day long, but that's not at issue here. What is at issue is whether or not an implementation of an idea has value. Most people confuse those two things, simply because the music they interact with is so easily manipulated. We must be very careful to recognize the difference between a thought, and something created from that thought. Creation has value, the only question is how much value, and how to recognize it.