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Is music really worth this much? I mean, its intrinsic value to society? It's normally used as the backdrop to a party, or exercising, or some other such thing,

Is music really worth this much? I mean, its intrinsic value to society? It's normally used as the backdrop to a party, or exercising, or some other such thing, but really, $150,000 per song? Why can't we put a clamp on the problem of every random artist thinking they've created something that lasts a few minutes and has more value than most people make in a year? The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain. This would do away with many industries that serve almost no purpose for society, other than to attempt to extract value where no value has been created. The conventional way for artists to make money should come from performance.

s73v3r 11y ago
Those are punitive damages. So it's not just the value, but there's also a punishment in there. If you only had to pay the 99 cents or whatever per infringement, then no one would care, because you wouldn't have to pay much if you got caught. "The conventional way for artists to make money should come from performance." Who are you to say how someone else should make money?
jMyles 11y ago
I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment of the value of music (I think it might be the most valuable contribution our species makes to the universe), but I do agree with your solution.
- eugenekolo2 11y ago
  As somebody who enjoys music every day, attends live performances, and keeps up to date with some music blogs. I think it's an over assessment to call music the most valuable contribution our species makes to the universe. Nevermind the fact that we have no clue what our contribution is at all in the universe. Music is good, it's shaped societies, and the like, but so have many other things, and I don't think our species would've died off without music. TBH I think most people would barely notice after a little bit if music just disappeared.
- Natsu 11y ago
  I see music as emotion in the form of sound, but I can't say that I think it's of any grand importance to the universe. Though I suppose that there's some slim chance that our radio emissions (many of which are music) might be noticed by other stars after some number of years.
JonFish85 11y ago
Why shouldn't a musical artist be compensated for continuing enjoyment of their work? If their song continues to be listened to by people, and someone is profiting off of that enjoyment, why shouldn't the artist get at the very least a percentage of the money?
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  I continue to enjoy my Macbook, and even make money using it, but I don't keep paying Apple. I'm sure those artists don't continue to pay Fender for the instruments they use to make the songs, etc. I don't necessarily disagree with you, just thinking out loud.
  - mathetic 11y ago
    Well, if you go to your local store and buy the album, you can listen to it as many times as you want and not keep paying the artist.
  - akerl_ 11y ago
    I don't think anybody is arguing that you should have to pay continuously for ownership of a song you bought. But if we extend the Macbook metaphor to Spotify's case: a Spotify user didn't buy a Macbook, they're paying a subscription fee for the freedom to use a wide variety of computers, and the subscription service compensates the computer manufacturers based on how many users choose to use their model. This incentivizes creators to create good things, so that users pick their creation, so that they have income.
- pyre 11y ago
  When a contractor builds an addition on my house that addition could be enjoyed by people for years and years, yet that contractor was paid a one-time fee. Do you find this unfair?
  - JonFish85 11y ago
    When you pay the contractor (or, to the other reply to my parent comment, to Fender), presumably it's very clear what you're paying for. You're exchanging dollars for a very specific good/service. When you "buy" a CD/MP3/what-have-you, you're buying a license to that song, not "the song", which would be much, much more expensive. In fact, it's difficult to figure out how much the song is worth up-front, which is why there are generally licensing deals. That way the artist gets compensated according to how well the song does: if a lot of people like it, they make a lot of money. If nobody likes it, they make no money. Seems fair to me. I guess a more accurate analogy would be if you designed a specific type of product and paid a carpenter to make it. Then you see him open a store that sells that item to a million people for 10x what you paid him, even though he directly ripped off your designs. He's profiting off of your work & ideas, with no compensation to you. Obviously this assumes that it's a novel idea, etc, but I think it's a bit more accurate.
fletchowns 11y ago
> It's normally used as the backdrop to a party, or exercising, or some other such thing This is way off. Music changes peoples lives. It defines generations. To many, it is one of the most important things in the world. > The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain. No way, artists deserve to be paid for their works.
- blhack 11y ago
  >This is way off. Music changes peoples lives. It defines generations. To many, it is one of the most important things in the world. Sure, but you can't discount that for most people, the majority of time spent listening to music, it is being used as a backdrop. I listen to music while I'm driving, while I'm working, while I'm working out, etc. I certainly also spend time sitting down and really taking time to appreciate the music as an artform, but the majority of time it's just in the background. I think that's what the parent is saying.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ssalazar 11y ago
  >> The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain. > No way, artists deserve to be paid for their works. I agree, but the fair market value of a digitized recording is evidently close to zero and in general too low to sustain an artistic career save for exceptional cases. The era in which a musician could support himself or herself via selling recordings has basically been a blip in the history of music. We can try to sustain this blip, which appears to be a sinking ship, or we can reinforce traditional models like patronage (e.g. Patreon, NEA, private endowments, etc.) and live performance.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > No way, artists deserve to be paid for their works. Unfortunately for the artists, what they value their work at (living income) and what the market does (close to zero) is drastically different. You can't will music to be worth something because you're nostalgic over times gone by.
6stringmerc 11y ago
Interesting questions you've asked, conflating a couple different issues, but worth flexing some thought to respond to, I think. 1. The $150,000 per song is a punishment amount, directly attributable to "willful infringement" which is, from my understanding, a pretty obvious bar to clear. Sharing a file on a mix CD and giving it to somebody for their birthday? Willful, but not really the intent of the law. Setting up a CD duplication shop and bootletting new releases to sell on street corners? That's the point of the very high dollar amount punishment. Society has basically determined that punishing infringement is supposed to cost a lot of money, so that would be a deterrent. 2. This is a completely fabricated problem, as not "every random artist" thinks their art is worth $150,000 per song until it's willfully used in an infringement format. Artists are pretty well aware that society thinks songs should basically be $0.99 to keep or very cheap to listen to through a retail/customer facing streaming service. However, if we substitute "every jackass record label" then you've got a much more valid point about the copyright system, because of how the record industry works. 3. Let's make a deal - we can abolish copyright on recorded music if you agree to abolish copyright on written computer code. After all, if you believe that the only time a musician should make money should come from performance, then I submit the only time a programmer or company should be paid for their software is during the hours it was created. I'm all for copyright reform - limiting the ability to sign away rights to "no value" middlemen / hucksters like record industry conglomorates & putting very short protections on the created works (lifetime of artist only, impossible to transfer to outside corporation for renewal beyond artist's lifetime), but going that extreme is not preferable. I think my phrasing about music vs. software is really rough, but it's a tempting argument to hash out - if you want to throw out my baby with the bathwater, then I'm going to make sure yours is going along for the ride as well.
- icebraining 11y ago
  3. Let's make a deal - we can abolish copyright on recorded music if you agree to abolish copyright on written computer code. Where can I sign?
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Right under the part where you pledge $100 billion in funding to take on the legacy RIAA and Tech Industry heavyweights! I know this is a joke-style response, but it's intended to show how hard any kind of change might be. It's tough!
pjbriggs 11y ago
This assumes that music is a strictly performance medium. Some artists make great music but are either uninterested in or unable to put on worthwhile performances. Music belongs lots of places and not all of that music is the type that belongs in performances. This belittles game and film composers writing anything on spec, artists who do sell beats and samples to more artists who then perform them. I think the conventional what for musicians to make money is certainly performance but music and music artistry are a far broader field.
delecti 11y ago
If a musician chooses not to perform publicly, are you arguing that they have by default created nothing worthy of compensation? Damages per copyright infraction are certainly excessive, but your proposal seems to swing too far in the opposite direction.
mortenjorck 11y ago
It's normally used as the backdrop to a party, or exercising, or some other such thing Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the attitude that, institutionalized, is destroying arts programs in schools across the US and meaningfully degrading the cultural literacy of our society. I have nothing against those who simply don't connect deeply with the arts, but I take umbrage with the suggestion that the arts lack societal value. Centuries of music history (and art history, and literary history) offer far more profound benefits than mere backdrops and distractions, and that history is still being written.
joslin01 11y ago
> Today, music seems like something you just put on for background music. It's rather sad how little cultural value music gets these days while a handful of billionaires churn out #1 pop hits every other week. ~50 years ago, musicians sparked the hippie movement which was largely a protest against the Vietnam war. This would soon transform into the angry 80s where the advent of electrical music created more industrious, louder, and often-angrier music. Then came the apathetic 90s where bands like Nirvana dominated with their "don't care" attitude. Today, we have nothing. The last great band was Radiohead and yes I listen to a TON of music and love many bands, but I'm sorry Pink Floyd, Beatles, Dylan, etc.. were not just a backdrop to a party or exercise. They actually had something to say besides bitches, money, and sex.
- codyb 11y ago
  I think this downplays the movement which spawned hiphop and rap. It comes from the ghettos of America alongside graffiti, drugs, materialism, the drug war, gangs, single parents, delapidated housing. A lot of rap is spoken history, people speaking how they feel, what they see, what their life is like. Rap conveys the desires of the American urban youth, a desire for power, to escape, to join the degenerate holders of power and wealth in their chase for ever more money, cars, houses, and women. And all through history people have been espousing about "bitches, money, and sex", just because it's in ebonics doesn't make it any less valuable as a means of expression or artistically. It's easy to dismiss what comes from the ghetto, and yet often they are rapping about their very existences. And we all need to come to grips with being a part of a society which has fostered such lives and attitudes. Of course there are club bangers too, and not every song is ever going to be full of meaning and depth, but I think discrediting an entire movement of music for the nostalgia of the hippies prior is a bit disingenuous.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    You could say that Rap Started out as a modern take on Folk Ballards
  - joslin01 11y ago
    > I think discrediting an entire movement of music for the nostalgia of the hippies prior is a bit disingenuous. Which I'm not doing though your straw-man argument was nice to read. In fact, I've often spoken the very same things you are. This is 2015 though and I'm afraid to tell you that most rap is not what you're talking about. The last great album that does exactly that is Illmatic in my opinion though you hear Kendrick's latest stuff and that's on-point too. You don't get a moral blank check for growing up the ghetto. It's fine to rap about what you know, but it gets to the point of absurdity for most rappers who only know how to talk about bitchs. Am I supposed to stand aside and rally behind the virtues of big butts shaking on the TV 24/7 -- because it's from the ghetto and I just don't understand? You're not seeing the full picture and though I enjoyed your tangent, I do not enjoy being written off as a nostalgic hippie. The hippies I'm apparently nostalgizing about were singing about ending the war -- what popular songs do that? What popular songs stop and make you think the way "Time" did by Pink Floyd? No, the time when rappers actually rapped were more back in the day. I'll close out with one of my favorite verses by Big Boi that is basically what you're trying to say: But they be making it seem That my music and crime are a team But I'm speaking the truth not dreams So what in the fuck they mean My lyrics ain't clean
hellbanTHIS 11y ago
I don't know about abolishing copyright but charging $10 for a digital album is ridiculous. A buck for 10 songs sounds about right to me. You can't make any money playing live though, unless you're in Pearl Jam you're basically scraping by as a glorified beer salesman and it's a pretty shitty existence.
- sosborn 11y ago
  > I don't know about abolishing copyright but charging $10 for a digital album is ridiculous. A buck for 10 songs sounds about right to me. I hate this argument so much. It assumes that the value of the work is simply in the physical reproduction and not in the artistic expression. If it is too expensive for you then sure, don't spend your money on it, but what right do you have to say what something like that is worth?
  - learc83 11y ago
    >but what right do you have to say what something like that is worth? About as much right as every other person who participates in the market.
    - sosborn 11y ago
      On an individual level sure, but there is no need to prescribe "acceptable" levels for an entire industry on behalf on everyone else.
  - hellbanTHIS 11y ago
    I meant to say that's about the price it needs to be to get people buying music again. It's gotta be well within the impulse buy range.
vpeters25 11y ago
> The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain. I think that is a little extreme but I agree the system is way out of hand, specially in duration of copyright terms. Copyright was supposed to allow artists to earn a living off their craft instead of relaying on being sponsored by the local nobility. It is not supposed to make you rich.
- chillingeffect 11y ago
  exactly. the ideal system would be lots of artists making middle-class salaries (e.g. $35k - $90k) and producing content meaningful to smaller groups, but we have a handful of multi-millionaires making prurient content and local artists getting next to nothing. it's really prescient of the larger loss of the middle class. If only people wouldn't spend money on cheesy, raunchy music and distribute their spending more evenly to smaller-time, more interesting artists... but I don't know how to raise the level of discourse around that. I would love to hear a wider variety of music on the radio!
fucking_tragedy 11y ago
Is software really worth that much? I mean, its intrinsic value to society? It's normally used as the backdrop to a business process, wasting time or sharing cat pics, or some such thing, but really, a $51Billion valuation? Why can't we put a clamp on the problem of every random developer thinking they've created something that lasts a few minutes and has more value than most small countries make in a year? The entire system of copyright and software licensing needs to be abolished, and any software that is written instantly becomes the public domain. This would do away with many industries that serve almost no purpose for society, other than to attempt to extract value where no value has been created. The conventional way for developers to make money should come from becoming thought leaders on Twitter or maybe playing a few shows down at the bar.
- neocraftster 11y ago
  This is a false equivalence fallacy. Developers solve problems that businesses run into, whatever they may be, not just pump out code. Also, the solutions they come up with make use of a massive public domain of previously solved problems, like on stack overflow. If software had the same culture of copyright that music has today's technology would be equivalent to what we had in the 80's. The open source community is a glaring example of why you're analogy is so flawed, because there are many developers who believe open access to information is a good thing and that their skills are still valuable even if their work isn't copyrightable, and they do more than just believe this, they live their lives that way.
ianamartin 11y ago
I disagree with most of what you say here for reasons already spelled out in the comments here. But I agree with this, for very different reasons than yours: > The conventional way for artists to make money should come from performance. I've played violin professionally from the time I was 8 to present (36). I've only once participated in a professional recording for a couple of reasons. 1. Putting out a recording is even more difficult in the classical world than in the pop/rock/hiphop/whatever-is-accessible-right-now world. The market for classical violin soloist recordings is big enough to support about 15 or so string players at any given moment. So you have to be that good, and have those connections, and everything that goes into that. It's a very tiny world, and if your parents didn't live in the right music-centers of the world when you were a chile and couldn't afford 100k+ for an instrument and $300-500/hr for the right teachers, you are never going to be in that group. Lots of people fall into that category, and still don't even make it close to the top. Or not even as close to the top as I did coming from Podunk, TX. You can fund a recording yourself now. Especially now that I make literally 5 times my best income from a year working as a violinist doing software development. But how are you going to market it? Who is going to buy it? It's a vanity project, that I've never had any interest in. I know this is stretching the limits of on-topic-ness, but bear with me because of point 2: 2. Making a recording can do some good things for you. It can make money, for one thing. But it can also do some bad things for you. Namely, it really wrecks the economics of your competition. Since the advent of recording technology and the post-production work that goes into every recording, you end up sounding much more perfect and amazing on the recording than you do in real life. Every recorded performer since the 70s has been using this technology, not just people who never got famous like me. Itzak Perlman is one of the greatest violinists to ever live. He's up there with Heifetz and Paganini. He made one of the definitive modern recordings of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo Violin. But even he averaged 4 edits per measure in post prod for that iconic recording. In one of the hairiest parts of the d-minor partita, he had over 32 splices in one measure. That recording isn't an accurate representation of what he does live, which is--or was (he's getting fairly old now and doesn't sound so great live, but whatever)--amazing. Making recordings like that leave you competing on quality with yourself. A competition you will always lose in a live performance. In addition, I think that making recordings the way that we do today is a terrible marketing move for most artists who are trying to make it that way. You are taking demand away from yourself by providing a cheaper alternative to hearing you that costs far less. Why would you do that? To motivate people to come show up at one of your shows where you will, by definition, let them down because you are not quite as perfect and amazing in real life as you are after post-prod? I can see why people do this in certain realms, but I think it is, in the long run, a disservice to yourself and to musical artists in general as a general way of doing things. It would be really interesting (although, I admit this will never happen in our lifetimes) if some high-profile groups just stopped recording and were only willing to take money by performing. Tons of caveats about this idea. The most obvious of which is, "How do people get to be high profile without albums?" And I say fair enough to that. Don't really have an answer. I think that recording technology has caught musicians just as flat-footed as the internet and eCommerce caught brick-and-mortar shops. The difference, though, I think is that musicians haven't really figured out how badly they are being marginalized and disrupted. Now we have a few winners every year who win really really big, and the distribution of profits is getting really skewed. I can only assume that creation of new hit pop songs that sell millions of albums will become algorithmic at some point. That's to the detriment of all art.
ianamartin 11y ago
I disagree with most of what you say here for reasons already spelled out in the comments here. But I agree with this, for very different reasons than yours: > The conventional way for artists to make money should come from performance. I've played violin professionally from the time I was 8 to present (36). I've only once participated in a professional recording for a couple of reasons. 1. Putting out a recording is even more difficult in the classical world than in the pop/rock/hiphop/whatever-is-accessible-right-now world. The market for classical violin soloist recordings is big enough to support about 15 or so string players at any given moment. So you have to be that good, and have those connections, and everything that goes into that. It's a very tiny world, and if your parents didn't live in the right music-centers of the world when you were a chile and couldn't afford 100k+ for an instrument and $300-500/hr for the right teachers, you are never going to be in that group. Lots of people fall into that category, and still don't even make it close to the top. Or not even as close to the top as I did coming from Podunk, TX. You can fund a recording yourself now. Especially now that I make literally 5 times my best income from a year working as a violinist doing software development. But how are you going to market it? Who is going to buy it? It's a vanity project, that I've never had any interest in. I know this is stretching the limits of on-topic-ness, but bear with me because of point 2: 2. Making a recording can do some good things for you. It can make money, for one thing. But it can also do some bad things for you. Namely, it really wrecks the economics of your competition. Since the advent of recording technology and the post-production work that goes into every recording, you end up sounding much more perfect and amazing on the recording than you do in real life. Every recorded performer since the 70s has been using this technology, not just people who never got famous like me. Itzak Perlman is one of the greatest violinists to ever live. He's up there with Heifetz and Paganini. He made one of the definitive modern recordings of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo Violin. But even he averaged 4 edits per measure in post prod for that iconic recording. In one of the hairiest parts of the d-minor partita, he had over 32 splices in one measure. That recording isn't an accurate representation of what he does live, which is--or was (he's getting fairly old now and doesn't sound so great live, but whatever)--amazing. Making recordings like that leave you competing on quality with yourself. A competition you will always lose in a live performance. In addition, I think that making recordings the way that we do today is a terrible marketing move for most artists who are trying to make it that way. You are taking demand away from yourself by providing a cheaper alternative to hearing you that costs far less. Why would you do that? To motivate people to come show up at one of your shows where you will, by definition, let them down because you are not quite as perfect and amazing in real life as you are after post-prod? I can see why people do this in certain realms, but I think it is, in the long run, a disservice to yourself and to musical artists in general as a general way of doing things. It would be really interesting (although, I admit this will never happen in our lifetimes) if some high-profile groups just stopped recording and were only willing to take money by performing. Tons of caveats about this idea. The most obvious of which is, "How do people get to be high profile without albums?" And I say fair enough to that. Don't really have an answer. I think that recording technology has caught musicians just as flat-footed as the internet and eCommerce caught brick-and-mortar shops. The difference, though, I think is that musicians haven't really figured out how badly they are being marginalized and disrupted. Now we have a few winners every year who win really really big, and the distribution of profits is getting really skewed. I can only assume that creation of new hit pop songs that sell millions of albums will become algorithmic at some point. That's to the detriment of all art.

s73v3r 11y ago

Those are punitive damages. So it's not just the value, but there's also a punishment in there. If you only had to pay the 99 cents or whatever per infringement, then no one would care, because you wouldn't have to pay much if you got caught. "The conventional way for artists to make money should come from performance." Who are you to say how someone else should make money?

jMyles 11y ago

I wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment of the value of music (I think it might be the most valuable contribution our species makes to the universe), but I do agree with your solution.

eugenekolo2 11y ago
As somebody who enjoys music every day, attends live performances, and keeps up to date with some music blogs. I think it's an over assessment to call music the most valuable contribution our species makes to the universe. Nevermind the fact that we have no clue what our contribution is at all in the universe. Music is good, it's shaped societies, and the like, but so have many other things, and I don't think our species would've died off without music. TBH I think most people would barely notice after a little bit if music just disappeared.
Natsu 11y ago
I see music as emotion in the form of sound, but I can't say that I think it's of any grand importance to the universe. Though I suppose that there's some slim chance that our radio emissions (many of which are music) might be noticed by other stars after some number of years.

JonFish85 11y ago

Why shouldn't a musical artist be compensated for continuing enjoyment of their work? If their song continues to be listened to by people, and someone is profiting off of that enjoyment, why shouldn't the artist get at the very least a percentage of the money?

Domenic_S 11y ago
I continue to enjoy my Macbook, and even make money using it, but I don't keep paying Apple. I'm sure those artists don't continue to pay Fender for the instruments they use to make the songs, etc. I don't necessarily disagree with you, just thinking out loud.
- mathetic 11y ago
  Well, if you go to your local store and buy the album, you can listen to it as many times as you want and not keep paying the artist.
- akerl_ 11y ago
  I don't think anybody is arguing that you should have to pay continuously for ownership of a song you bought. But if we extend the Macbook metaphor to Spotify's case: a Spotify user didn't buy a Macbook, they're paying a subscription fee for the freedom to use a wide variety of computers, and the subscription service compensates the computer manufacturers based on how many users choose to use their model. This incentivizes creators to create good things, so that users pick their creation, so that they have income.
pyre 11y ago
When a contractor builds an addition on my house that addition could be enjoyed by people for years and years, yet that contractor was paid a one-time fee. Do you find this unfair?
- JonFish85 11y ago
  When you pay the contractor (or, to the other reply to my parent comment, to Fender), presumably it's very clear what you're paying for. You're exchanging dollars for a very specific good/service. When you "buy" a CD/MP3/what-have-you, you're buying a license to that song, not "the song", which would be much, much more expensive. In fact, it's difficult to figure out how much the song is worth up-front, which is why there are generally licensing deals. That way the artist gets compensated according to how well the song does: if a lot of people like it, they make a lot of money. If nobody likes it, they make no money. Seems fair to me. I guess a more accurate analogy would be if you designed a specific type of product and paid a carpenter to make it. Then you see him open a store that sells that item to a million people for 10x what you paid him, even though he directly ripped off your designs. He's profiting off of your work & ideas, with no compensation to you. Obviously this assumes that it's a novel idea, etc, but I think it's a bit more accurate.

fletchowns 11y ago

> It's normally used as the backdrop to a party, or exercising, or some other such thing This is way off. Music changes peoples lives. It defines generations. To many, it is one of the most important things in the world. > The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain. No way, artists deserve to be paid for their works.

blhack 11y ago
>This is way off. Music changes peoples lives. It defines generations. To many, it is one of the most important things in the world. Sure, but you can't discount that for most people, the majority of time spent listening to music, it is being used as a backdrop. I listen to music while I'm driving, while I'm working, while I'm working out, etc. I certainly also spend time sitting down and really taking time to appreciate the music as an artform, but the majority of time it's just in the background. I think that's what the parent is saying.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ssalazar 11y ago
>> The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain. > No way, artists deserve to be paid for their works. I agree, but the fair market value of a digitized recording is evidently close to zero and in general too low to sustain an artistic career save for exceptional cases. The era in which a musician could support himself or herself via selling recordings has basically been a blip in the history of music. We can try to sustain this blip, which appears to be a sinking ship, or we can reinforce traditional models like patronage (e.g. Patreon, NEA, private endowments, etc.) and live performance.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
> No way, artists deserve to be paid for their works. Unfortunately for the artists, what they value their work at (living income) and what the market does (close to zero) is drastically different. You can't will music to be worth something because you're nostalgic over times gone by.

6stringmerc 11y ago

Interesting questions you've asked, conflating a couple different issues, but worth flexing some thought to respond to, I think. 1. The $150,000 per song is a punishment amount, directly attributable to "willful infringement" which is, from my understanding, a pretty obvious bar to clear. Sharing a file on a mix CD and giving it to somebody for their birthday? Willful, but not really the intent of the law. Setting up a CD duplication shop and bootletting new releases to sell on street corners? That's the point of the very high dollar amount punishment. Society has basically determined that punishing infringement is supposed to cost a lot of money, so that would be a deterrent. 2. This is a completely fabricated problem, as not "every random artist" thinks their art is worth $150,000 per song until it's willfully used in an infringement format. Artists are pretty well aware that society thinks songs should basically be $0.99 to keep or very cheap to listen to through a retail/customer facing streaming service. However, if we substitute "every jackass record label" then you've got a much more valid point about the copyright system, because of how the record industry works. 3. Let's make a deal - we can abolish copyright on recorded music if you agree to abolish copyright on written computer code. After all, if you believe that the only time a musician should make money should come from performance, then I submit the only time a programmer or company should be paid for their software is during the hours it was created. I'm all for copyright reform - limiting the ability to sign away rights to "no value" middlemen / hucksters like record industry conglomorates & putting very short protections on the created works (lifetime of artist only, impossible to transfer to outside corporation for renewal beyond artist's lifetime), but going that extreme is not preferable. I think my phrasing about music vs. software is really rough, but it's a tempting argument to hash out - if you want to throw out my baby with the bathwater, then I'm going to make sure yours is going along for the ride as well.

icebraining 11y ago
3. Let's make a deal - we can abolish copyright on recorded music if you agree to abolish copyright on written computer code. Where can I sign?
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Right under the part where you pledge $100 billion in funding to take on the legacy RIAA and Tech Industry heavyweights! I know this is a joke-style response, but it's intended to show how hard any kind of change might be. It's tough!

pjbriggs 11y ago

This assumes that music is a strictly performance medium. Some artists make great music but are either uninterested in or unable to put on worthwhile performances. Music belongs lots of places and not all of that music is the type that belongs in performances. This belittles game and film composers writing anything on spec, artists who do sell beats and samples to more artists who then perform them. I think the conventional what for musicians to make money is certainly performance but music and music artistry are a far broader field.

delecti 11y ago

If a musician chooses not to perform publicly, are you arguing that they have by default created nothing worthy of compensation? Damages per copyright infraction are certainly excessive, but your proposal seems to swing too far in the opposite direction.

mortenjorck 11y ago

It's normally used as the backdrop to a party, or exercising, or some other such thing Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is the attitude that, institutionalized, is destroying arts programs in schools across the US and meaningfully degrading the cultural literacy of our society. I have nothing against those who simply don't connect deeply with the arts, but I take umbrage with the suggestion that the arts lack societal value. Centuries of music history (and art history, and literary history) offer far more profound benefits than mere backdrops and distractions, and that history is still being written.

joslin01 11y ago

> Today, music seems like something you just put on for background music. It's rather sad how little cultural value music gets these days while a handful of billionaires churn out #1 pop hits every other week. ~50 years ago, musicians sparked the hippie movement which was largely a protest against the Vietnam war. This would soon transform into the angry 80s where the advent of electrical music created more industrious, louder, and often-angrier music. Then came the apathetic 90s where bands like Nirvana dominated with their "don't care" attitude. Today, we have nothing. The last great band was Radiohead and yes I listen to a TON of music and love many bands, but I'm sorry Pink Floyd, Beatles, Dylan, etc.. were not just a backdrop to a party or exercise. They actually had something to say besides bitches, money, and sex.

codyb 11y ago
I think this downplays the movement which spawned hiphop and rap. It comes from the ghettos of America alongside graffiti, drugs, materialism, the drug war, gangs, single parents, delapidated housing. A lot of rap is spoken history, people speaking how they feel, what they see, what their life is like. Rap conveys the desires of the American urban youth, a desire for power, to escape, to join the degenerate holders of power and wealth in their chase for ever more money, cars, houses, and women. And all through history people have been espousing about "bitches, money, and sex", just because it's in ebonics doesn't make it any less valuable as a means of expression or artistically. It's easy to dismiss what comes from the ghetto, and yet often they are rapping about their very existences. And we all need to come to grips with being a part of a society which has fostered such lives and attitudes. Of course there are club bangers too, and not every song is ever going to be full of meaning and depth, but I think discrediting an entire movement of music for the nostalgia of the hippies prior is a bit disingenuous.
- walshemj 11y ago
  You could say that Rap Started out as a modern take on Folk Ballards
- joslin01 11y ago
  > I think discrediting an entire movement of music for the nostalgia of the hippies prior is a bit disingenuous. Which I'm not doing though your straw-man argument was nice to read. In fact, I've often spoken the very same things you are. This is 2015 though and I'm afraid to tell you that most rap is not what you're talking about. The last great album that does exactly that is Illmatic in my opinion though you hear Kendrick's latest stuff and that's on-point too. You don't get a moral blank check for growing up the ghetto. It's fine to rap about what you know, but it gets to the point of absurdity for most rappers who only know how to talk about bitchs. Am I supposed to stand aside and rally behind the virtues of big butts shaking on the TV 24/7 -- because it's from the ghetto and I just don't understand? You're not seeing the full picture and though I enjoyed your tangent, I do not enjoy being written off as a nostalgic hippie. The hippies I'm apparently nostalgizing about were singing about ending the war -- what popular songs do that? What popular songs stop and make you think the way "Time" did by Pink Floyd? No, the time when rappers actually rapped were more back in the day. I'll close out with one of my favorite verses by Big Boi that is basically what you're trying to say: But they be making it seem That my music and crime are a team But I'm speaking the truth not dreams So what in the fuck they mean My lyrics ain't clean

hellbanTHIS 11y ago

I don't know about abolishing copyright but charging $10 for a digital album is ridiculous. A buck for 10 songs sounds about right to me. You can't make any money playing live though, unless you're in Pearl Jam you're basically scraping by as a glorified beer salesman and it's a pretty shitty existence.

sosborn 11y ago
> I don't know about abolishing copyright but charging $10 for a digital album is ridiculous. A buck for 10 songs sounds about right to me. I hate this argument so much. It assumes that the value of the work is simply in the physical reproduction and not in the artistic expression. If it is too expensive for you then sure, don't spend your money on it, but what right do you have to say what something like that is worth?
- learc83 11y ago
  >but what right do you have to say what something like that is worth? About as much right as every other person who participates in the market.
  - sosborn 11y ago
    On an individual level sure, but there is no need to prescribe "acceptable" levels for an entire industry on behalf on everyone else.
- hellbanTHIS 11y ago
  I meant to say that's about the price it needs to be to get people buying music again. It's gotta be well within the impulse buy range.

vpeters25 11y ago

> The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain. I think that is a little extreme but I agree the system is way out of hand, specially in duration of copyright terms. Copyright was supposed to allow artists to earn a living off their craft instead of relaying on being sponsored by the local nobility. It is not supposed to make you rich.

chillingeffect 11y ago
exactly. the ideal system would be lots of artists making middle-class salaries (e.g. $35k - $90k) and producing content meaningful to smaller groups, but we have a handful of multi-millionaires making prurient content and local artists getting next to nothing. it's really prescient of the larger loss of the middle class. If only people wouldn't spend money on cheesy, raunchy music and distribute their spending more evenly to smaller-time, more interesting artists... but I don't know how to raise the level of discourse around that. I would love to hear a wider variety of music on the radio!

fucking_tragedy 11y ago

Is software really worth that much? I mean, its intrinsic value to society? It's normally used as the backdrop to a business process, wasting time or sharing cat pics, or some such thing, but really, a $51Billion valuation? Why can't we put a clamp on the problem of every random developer thinking they've created something that lasts a few minutes and has more value than most small countries make in a year? The entire system of copyright and software licensing needs to be abolished, and any software that is written instantly becomes the public domain. This would do away with many industries that serve almost no purpose for society, other than to attempt to extract value where no value has been created. The conventional way for developers to make money should come from becoming thought leaders on Twitter or maybe playing a few shows down at the bar.

neocraftster 11y ago
This is a false equivalence fallacy. Developers solve problems that businesses run into, whatever they may be, not just pump out code. Also, the solutions they come up with make use of a massive public domain of previously solved problems, like on stack overflow. If software had the same culture of copyright that music has today's technology would be equivalent to what we had in the 80's. The open source community is a glaring example of why you're analogy is so flawed, because there are many developers who believe open access to information is a good thing and that their skills are still valuable even if their work isn't copyrightable, and they do more than just believe this, they live their lives that way.

ianamartin 11y ago

I disagree with most of what you say here for reasons already spelled out in the comments here. But I agree with this, for very different reasons than yours: > The conventional way for artists to make money should come from performance. I've played violin professionally from the time I was 8 to present (36). I've only once participated in a professional recording for a couple of reasons. 1. Putting out a recording is even more difficult in the classical world than in the pop/rock/hiphop/whatever-is-accessible-right-now world. The market for classical violin soloist recordings is big enough to support about 15 or so string players at any given moment. So you have to be that good, and have those connections, and everything that goes into that. It's a very tiny world, and if your parents didn't live in the right music-centers of the world when you were a chile and couldn't afford 100k+ for an instrument and $300-500/hr for the right teachers, you are never going to be in that group. Lots of people fall into that category, and still don't even make it close to the top. Or not even as close to the top as I did coming from Podunk, TX. You can fund a recording yourself now. Especially now that I make literally 5 times my best income from a year working as a violinist doing software development. But how are you going to market it? Who is going to buy it? It's a vanity project, that I've never had any interest in. I know this is stretching the limits of on-topic-ness, but bear with me because of point 2: 2. Making a recording can do some good things for you. It can make money, for one thing. But it can also do some bad things for you. Namely, it really wrecks the economics of your competition. Since the advent of recording technology and the post-production work that goes into every recording, you end up sounding much more perfect and amazing on the recording than you do in real life. Every recorded performer since the 70s has been using this technology, not just people who never got famous like me. Itzak Perlman is one of the greatest violinists to ever live. He's up there with Heifetz and Paganini. He made one of the definitive modern recordings of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo Violin. But even he averaged 4 edits per measure in post prod for that iconic recording. In one of the hairiest parts of the d-minor partita, he had over 32 splices in one measure. That recording isn't an accurate representation of what he does live, which is--or was (he's getting fairly old now and doesn't sound so great live, but whatever)--amazing. Making recordings like that leave you competing on quality with yourself. A competition you will always lose in a live performance. In addition, I think that making recordings the way that we do today is a terrible marketing move for most artists who are trying to make it that way. You are taking demand away from yourself by providing a cheaper alternative to hearing you that costs far less. Why would you do that? To motivate people to come show up at one of your shows where you will, by definition, let them down because you are not quite as perfect and amazing in real life as you are after post-prod? I can see why people do this in certain realms, but I think it is, in the long run, a disservice to yourself and to musical artists in general as a general way of doing things. It would be really interesting (although, I admit this will never happen in our lifetimes) if some high-profile groups just stopped recording and were only willing to take money by performing. Tons of caveats about this idea. The most obvious of which is, "How do people get to be high profile without albums?" And I say fair enough to that. Don't really have an answer. I think that recording technology has caught musicians just as flat-footed as the internet and eCommerce caught brick-and-mortar shops. The difference, though, I think is that musicians haven't really figured out how badly they are being marginalized and disrupted. Now we have a few winners every year who win really really big, and the distribution of profits is getting really skewed. I can only assume that creation of new hit pop songs that sell millions of albums will become algorithmic at some point. That's to the detriment of all art.

ianamartin 11y ago