Much of the good recorded music (most pop pre 1980) was recorded by people who were playing live 6 nights a week. Since midi and protools pop music has been made by programmers - we literally have machines that do that now. I like modern sound sculpture music, but the lack of live music means the dying off of a skill set. Without hours on the bandstand, there is no Louis Armstrong, Bird, Motown, Beatles. "Unplug the jukebox, do us all a favor That music's lost its taste Try another flavor Live music"
Sufficently chagrined I've been searching again. Still getting nothing - I'm guessing PEBKAC (or a corrupted iTunes which I really doupt) I'll look into it. Sorry for the waste of bandwidth.
I've spent some $ on iTunes. Hate the DRM, not a huge fan of mp3 (vinyl: new thing the cool kids are into), but.99 is just right for an impulse buy.
However,
The search engine blows. Having to find a Kelly Clarkson song for a young student (she's 10) I couldn't type Kelly Clarkson into the search. Had to go to the pop charts and follow a diffent hit. Get it together or have google do the indexing.
> Gosh, in the good old days, the popular bands all wrote their own music
Actually that started with rock and roll, which was a later period of the good old days. Before Beatles/Buddy Holly etc songs were usually writen by writers and placed with the singers / arrangers / bands. Of course, then you played 250 dates a year and could stay in tune. Kids these days hear digital / read:protools pitch as in tune and it's not (opinion from Donald Fagen) We've been in the age of sound sculpture for 15 - 25 years depending on how you date it (midi or protools or Mutt Lange)
I've always found it interesting that a 'hack' is an insult in music, probably from writing (hack writer), usually meaning someone who plays standard stuff and not very well. A hack in IT refers to a code workaround, and can be good or bad. A hacker (you get the drift...)
(As a long time green) my main problem with nuclear power has always been what I used to call the Chernobyl factor: That the bureaucratic culture that thrived in the Soviet Union and unfortanutly is alive and well at FEMA doesn't have the moral or professional responsibilty to be entrusted with the power plants. A 'china syndrome' jumps off and the suits in charge would run around covering their own asses rather than taking care of business.
> How can I tell whether a song that I have written is in fact "other peoples music"?
The judge decides in the pretrial. If you're a musician, you've decided well before.
>transforming a copyright into a patent on a given melody
It sort of is. It's hard for the holder to win those suits, however.
>If there's nothing to prevent music publishers from going lawsuit-happy,
Revenue model. None of this is changed by digital media. It's always been a game to compare melodies. Every songwriter I know has written at least one song, realized it was a rewrite (and said 'doh'). Paul was said to have played 'Yesterday' (refered to as 'scrambled eggs') to his friends saying: "I have to have lifted this. What is it?"
>That's one way of putting it. With electronic distribution, it's easier for a small-time recording artist to inadvertently get the attention of a representative of an overly litigious music publisher.
With electronic distribution, it's much easier to be an independent music publisher. There have been "overly litigious music publishers" since, probably, sheet music.
>what if your music is in a genre that appeals to people who are less likely to have Internet access at home?
What were your chances of getting signed in the previous era? Then, as now, you sell your disks from the stage.
> have shown themselves to be unafraid of suing individuals
Music publishers have never been afraid of suing anyone. Individuals now have a seat at the table.
You're mixing this argument up with digital distribution of other peoples music. If I sell you a download for.99 and you share it, then we have this argument. I, personally, don't care, as you giving it to someone interested is probably good for my business. The RIAA may have other opinions.
>if you write your own song and end up having copied something subconsciously, you often don't know whom to contact or even that you need to contact somebody at all.
This is different compared to 1996 how? You're saying because it's easier for me to distribute music, it's easier for me to get in trouble distributing music.
If what you are arguing is that, having watched their revenue model disappear, the majors must transform themselves into frivolous lawsuit machines (see: linux, software patents etc) we shall see.
Copyright note: remember Micheal Jackson used to get sued all the time some guy who sent a demo once to a label which he and a lawyer thought sounded like Billie Jean. When you submit a screenplay to an agency in the film biz you sign a piece of paper saying: Even if we steal this you can't sue. To protect them from IP problems. Say I find out you have a movie in production (Diehard in a webdesign firm) so I dummy up a script, submit it, and claim you stole it.
> They can still sue you for $30,000 (maximum statutory damages for non-willful infringement under US law), and can't the Court garnish your wages to pay the damages?
This is different than 1996 how? All this applies to reproducing CDs, which is how we, the Unsigned, did it pre-net, or indie produced vinyl. The overall level of lawsuit frenzy maybe higher (across society) but that's a different issue. They could always sue me, it's just fundamentally easier for me to play the distribution game independently.
> "the arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work, and shall not be subject to protection as a derivative work under this title, except with the express consent of the copyright owner."
Yes. You contact the publisher and say I intend to cover this. AFAIK that's same as it ever was.
>Point being that independent recording artists who self-publish or who use local microlabels or smaller Internet labels run a huge risk because they are more likely to lack the resources to defend themselves in a court of law against an accusation of subconscious copying.
Key phrase being 'lack the resources' - if I sell 1,000 down loads and keep $900 what are they suing me for? $900 doesn't buy many lawyers. Not a huge risk, there is no damage besides the actual sales. If I sell (really large number) of downloads I have money to be sued for but also money for defense.
>Which skills, and revalued in which way? Did you refer to revaluation up, or revaluation down?
Actual playing skills revalued up. The music business, as it used to exist, wasn't very good for the majority of players by the end. The 90s were more about having a law degree in terms of cash flow. As a player, it's better for me now.
"My Sweet Lord" was ruled subconcious plagarism to be polite to Harrison. Lennon commented 'what was he thinking'. The melodies are the same (He's So Fine). All Things Must Pass sold a lot of records == $ to sue for. If I track "she's not blind" (to the tune of) and sell 200 downloads no one's coming after me. It's not worth the paperwork. (If I wanted to protect myself I'd just pay the publishing = 9 cents per or something)
My guess is the publishing companies will come after you for outright fair use covers but, as a moral issue, I'd pay the publishing if I wanted to record Toxic (I don't).
The 'cult of amateur will fail' reference reminded me of discussions I've had with a few journalists lately. Incredibly bitter about the change in information flow. Typesetting as a skill is no longer in demand. With access devalued everyone's a blogger and everyones opinion is equal. There is a near-luddite resentment to the death of their old media model, job skills and way of life.
I point out to them that, as a musician, 2006 is better for me than 1996. If I were a music biz lawyer, a recording engineer, a touring soundman, a publicist, a music critic, a record store clerk/owner, I'm looking at the end of my industry. As someone who actually plays a few instruments and writes my own music - selling downloads, paypal, p2p and home proTools have radically improved my outlook.
Is there an equivalent potential advantage for 'information filters'? adsense? blogging? Forecast cloudy, ask later.
wikipedia is such a change that, like digital music, it will intitially destroy jobs and wealth. Like myspace, it seems destined to mutate. However, like p2p, paypal, ebay, mapquest(sort of) and google, wikipedia was inevitable. If it didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent it.
Gates once stood up at a do-gooder tech conference (saving Africa with wifi or some such) and said: These people don't need computers, they need security, clean water and medicine. Bash Gates and MS for their ugly tech all you want, and I do, but he ponies up cash for real health problems. I honestly doupt MS is worried about market share in the Sudan.
You're not creating a content economy by making your advertising an anoyance. This 'blink tag' mentality doesn't work when everyone can provide content. How many of you, googling the capital of faroffistan, type 'wiki'? No ads, obnoxious loaders, browser crashing javascript.
Now that content is a two (multi?) way stream we have to go back to a pre-electronic mindset. Some of the greatest paintings of the 19th century were sold to hang in restaurants. Now that's good advertising.
Assuming for the moment that I don't care and that I went and heard the sample off the myspace page anyway: (flame intended for Apple not parent)
Shouldn't this be crossposted to 'Apple about to lose market share'? I glanced at the iTunes home page and didn't see: Switch to UK store. It may be there but you've now lost the people who:
Are still a little confused by this interweb. Will google 15 minutes for 'javascript bug safari 1.3.2' and null for Englands latest pop sensation
Got it exactly wrong. The curve, whether or not you like Kurzweil, is headed up. The interesting part is the next 'fracturing of the equilibrium' will, as usual, be military. It took from 1905 to 1944 for the last one to reach the common man. Now we're at the mercy of Moores' law so instead of 39 years... 39 minutes?
If you do a little reading you will see that Marx never advocated a Communist state - his was a 19th century theory of history.
How many Marxists does it take to change a lightbulb? None. The staff at the library change them.
Bakunin, a contemporary of Marx, correctly predicted the failures of the Soviet Union and Maoism.
>Communism has been responsible for more pain and suffering than any other form of government in the history of men.
The breakup of Africa was done by the colonial powers, the destabilization of China was done by the British. The wholesale slaughter of 'native' North Americans was done by mother nature with a helping hand from the Europeans. The slaughter of the indians in Guatemala was bought and paid for by United Fruit Company. Not to defend the Stalinist scumbags (or insane Maoists), but history has enough blood to go around. Ronald Reagan, for instance, sent death squads into Central America to rape nuns. And he was fighting 'Communism'.
Slashdot Mirror
He signed the deal he can't beat it.
Wonder about the deal the A Bros signed.
Us little guys go through smaller cos and they take 10c leaving lots to the artist.
'they' want to dumb the world down.
texting, mtv, php
it's all a plot
pretty soon you'll need a license to shell
This Island Earth
Lots of plot!
Much of the good recorded music (most pop pre 1980) was recorded by people who were playing live 6 nights a week. Since midi and protools pop music has been made by programmers - we literally have machines that do that now. I like modern sound sculpture music, but the lack of live music means the dying off of a skill set. Without hours on the bandstand, there is no Louis Armstrong, Bird, Motown, Beatles.
"Unplug the jukebox, do us all a favor
That music's lost its taste
Try another flavor
Live music"
Sufficently chagrined I've been searching again.
Still getting nothing - I'm guessing PEBKAC (or a corrupted iTunes which I really doupt)
I'll look into it. Sorry for the waste of bandwidth.
I've spent some $ on iTunes. Hate the DRM, not a huge fan of mp3 (vinyl: new thing the cool kids are into), but .99 is just right for an impulse buy.
However,
The search engine blows. Having to find a Kelly Clarkson song for a young student (she's 10) I couldn't type Kelly Clarkson into the search. Had to go to the pop charts and follow a diffent hit. Get it together or have google do the indexing.
> Gosh, in the good old days, the popular bands all wrote their own music
Actually that started with rock and roll, which was a later period of the good old days. Before Beatles/Buddy Holly etc songs were usually writen by writers and placed with the singers / arrangers / bands. Of course, then you played 250 dates a year and could stay in tune. Kids these days hear digital / read:protools pitch as in tune and it's not (opinion from Donald Fagen) We've been in the age of sound sculpture for 15 - 25 years depending on how you date it (midi or protools or Mutt Lange)
I've always found it interesting that a 'hack' is an insult in music, probably from writing (hack writer), usually meaning someone who plays standard stuff and not very well. A hack in IT refers to a code workaround, and can be good or bad. A hacker (you get the drift ...)
(As a long time green) my main problem with nuclear power has always been what I used to call the Chernobyl factor: That the bureaucratic culture that thrived in the Soviet Union and unfortanutly is alive and well at FEMA doesn't have the moral or professional responsibilty to be entrusted with the power plants. A 'china syndrome' jumps off and the suits in charge would run around covering their own asses rather than taking care of business.
All these issues predate Unix.
> How can I tell whether a song that I have written is in fact "other peoples music"?
The judge decides in the pretrial. If you're a musician, you've decided well before.
>transforming a copyright into a patent on a given melody
It sort of is. It's hard for the holder to win those suits, however.
>If there's nothing to prevent music publishers from going lawsuit-happy,
Revenue model. None of this is changed by digital media. It's always been a game to compare melodies. Every songwriter I know has written at least one song, realized it was a rewrite (and said 'doh'). Paul was said to have played 'Yesterday' (refered to as 'scrambled eggs') to his friends saying: "I have to have lifted this. What is it?"
>That's one way of putting it. With electronic distribution, it's easier for a small-time recording artist to inadvertently get the attention of a representative of an overly litigious music publisher.
With electronic distribution, it's much easier to be an independent music publisher. There have been "overly litigious music publishers" since, probably, sheet music.
>what if your music is in a genre that appeals to people who are less likely to have Internet access at home?
.99 and you share it, then we have this argument. I, personally, don't care, as you giving it to someone interested is probably good for my business. The RIAA may have other opinions.
What were your chances of getting signed in the previous era? Then, as now, you sell your disks from the stage.
> have shown themselves to be unafraid of suing individuals
Music publishers have never been afraid of suing anyone. Individuals now have a seat at the table.
You're mixing this argument up with digital distribution of other peoples music. If I sell you a download for
>if you write your own song and end up having copied something subconsciously, you often don't know whom to contact or even that you need to contact somebody at all.
This is different compared to 1996 how? You're saying because it's easier for me to distribute music, it's easier for me to get in trouble distributing music.
If what you are arguing is that, having watched their revenue model disappear, the majors must transform themselves into frivolous lawsuit machines (see: linux, software patents etc) we shall see.
Copyright note: remember Micheal Jackson used to get sued all the time some guy who sent a demo once to a label which he and a lawyer thought sounded like Billie Jean. When you submit a screenplay to an agency in the film biz you sign a piece of paper saying: Even if we steal this you can't sue. To protect them from IP problems. Say I find out you have a movie in production (Diehard in a webdesign firm) so I dummy up a script, submit it, and claim you stole it.
> They can still sue you for $30,000 (maximum statutory damages for non-willful infringement under US law), and can't the Court garnish your wages to pay the damages?
This is different than 1996 how? All this applies to reproducing CDs, which is how we, the Unsigned, did it pre-net, or indie produced vinyl. The overall level of lawsuit frenzy maybe higher (across society) but that's a different issue. They could always sue me, it's just fundamentally easier for me to play the distribution game independently.
> "the arrangement shall not change the basic melody or fundamental character of the work, and shall not be subject to protection as a derivative work under this title, except with the express consent of the copyright owner."
Yes. You contact the publisher and say I intend to cover this. AFAIK that's same as it ever was.
>Point being that independent recording artists who self-publish or who use local microlabels or smaller Internet labels run a huge risk because they are more likely to lack the resources to defend themselves in a court of law against an accusation of subconscious copying.
Key phrase being 'lack the resources' - if I sell 1,000 down loads and keep $900 what are they suing me for? $900 doesn't buy many lawyers. Not a huge risk, there is no damage besides the actual sales. If I sell (really large number) of downloads I have money to be sued for but also money for defense.
>Which skills, and revalued in which way? Did you refer to revaluation up, or revaluation down?
Actual playing skills revalued up. The music business, as it used to exist, wasn't very good for the majority of players by the end. The 90s were more about having a law degree in terms of cash flow. As a player, it's better for me now.
"My Sweet Lord" was ruled subconcious plagarism to be polite to Harrison. Lennon commented 'what was he thinking'. The melodies are the same (He's So Fine). All Things Must Pass sold a lot of records == $ to sue for. If I track "she's not blind" (to the tune of) and sell 200 downloads no one's coming after me. It's not worth the paperwork. (If I wanted to protect myself I'd just pay the publishing = 9 cents per or something)
My guess is the publishing companies will come after you for outright fair use covers but, as a moral issue, I'd pay the publishing if I wanted to record Toxic (I don't).
Your point being ... ? These skills have been revalued.
They sued John Fogarty for copying himself (and lost)
The 'cult of amateur will fail' reference reminded me of discussions I've had with a few journalists lately. Incredibly bitter about the change in information flow. Typesetting as a skill is no longer in demand. With access devalued everyone's a blogger and everyones opinion is equal. There is a near-luddite resentment to the death of their old media model, job skills and way of life.
I point out to them that, as a musician, 2006 is better for me than 1996. If I were a music biz lawyer, a recording engineer, a touring soundman, a publicist, a music critic, a record store clerk/owner, I'm looking at the end of my industry. As someone who actually plays a few instruments and writes my own music - selling downloads, paypal, p2p and home proTools have radically improved my outlook.
Is there an equivalent potential advantage for 'information filters'? adsense? blogging? Forecast cloudy, ask later.
wikipedia is such a change that, like digital music, it will intitially destroy jobs and wealth. Like myspace, it seems destined to mutate. However, like p2p, paypal, ebay, mapquest(sort of) and google, wikipedia was inevitable. If it didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent it.
Gates once stood up at a do-gooder tech conference (saving Africa with wifi or some such) and said: These people don't need computers, they need security, clean water and medicine. Bash Gates and MS for their ugly tech all you want, and I do, but he ponies up cash for real health problems. I honestly doupt MS is worried about market share in the Sudan.
Flame away, I can take it.
You're not creating a content economy by making your advertising an anoyance. This 'blink tag' mentality doesn't work when everyone can provide content. How many of you, googling the capital of faroffistan, type 'wiki'? No ads, obnoxious loaders, browser crashing javascript.
Now that content is a two (multi?) way stream we have to go back to a pre-electronic mindset. Some of the greatest paintings of the 19th century were sold to hang in restaurants. Now that's good advertising.
Assuming for the moment that I don't care and that I went and heard the sample off the myspace page anyway: (flame intended for Apple not parent)
Shouldn't this be crossposted to 'Apple about to lose market share'?
I glanced at the iTunes home page and didn't see: Switch to UK store. It may be there but you've now lost the people who:
Are still a little confused by this interweb.
Will google 15 minutes for 'javascript bug safari 1.3.2' and null for Englands latest pop sensation
Interesting to hear the audio difference between their home page and their myspace page. Myspace losing the highs.
Also interesting that when I search iTunes for gnarls barkely I get no returns (?)
Song's not bad.
Funny today, but like my hometown paper The Onion the jokes are the headlines.
Which was very strange to contemplate.
Got it exactly wrong. The curve, whether or not you like Kurzweil, is headed up. The interesting part is the next 'fracturing of the equilibrium' will, as usual, be military. It took from 1905 to 1944 for the last one to reach the common man. Now we're at the mercy of Moores' law so instead of 39 years ... 39 minutes?
(please excuse the mixed buzzwords)
'Shouldn't' this be the companies problem? MCI decided years ago I owe them money, I don't, and every two years some collection agency comes calling.
If you do a little reading you will see that Marx never advocated a Communist state - his was a 19th century theory of history.
How many Marxists does it take to change a lightbulb? None. The staff at the library change them.
Bakunin, a contemporary of Marx, correctly predicted the failures of the Soviet Union and Maoism.
>Communism has been responsible for more pain and suffering than any other form of government in the history of men.
The breakup of Africa was done by the colonial powers, the destabilization of China was done by the British. The wholesale slaughter of 'native' North Americans was done by mother nature with a helping hand from the Europeans. The slaughter of the indians in Guatemala was bought and paid for by United Fruit Company. Not to defend the Stalinist scumbags (or insane Maoists), but history has enough blood to go around. Ronald Reagan, for instance, sent death squads into Central America to rape nuns. And he was fighting 'Communism'.
I like the religious schism analogy whether or not it's accurate. Does that make Microsoft the Ottoman Empire? Apple?