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Absolutely agree. The creation of technology that allowed people to scale their work is the key. With a single song/album that was sold in stored as well as b

Absolutely agree. The creation of technology that allowed people to scale their work is the key. With a single song/album that was sold in stored as well as being able to be played via FM radio and television, a single person could be known throughout the country (or even worldwide). That was never possible before. Prior to that, you always had to basically perform in person, which is a labor-intensive process and therefore pricier than just paying for the album and having it forever (and could also re-sell it). The number of people who could afford live performances historically is far less. To add another point on top of yours - something else to consider is that music used to be considered free. Or stated another way - without ownership. Society was the owner historically. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know the reason why this was the cause, but I've heard it talked about by historians in documentaries. I suspect it has to do with what you said - that wealthy people funded their artistic endeavors and society as a whole owned the result. Or that they weren't bankrolled by a rich person but instead collected money from passers-by on the streets as they performed. This also speaks directly to the concept of "traditionals" with no known authors.

marssaxman 8y ago
We're seeing a return to this model in DJing, where the boundaries between performance and playback have largely disintegrated, and the difference between "making new music which repeats familiar refrains" and "pasting together bits of existing recordings to make a new piece of music" has completely dissolved. There's a complex body of compromises with copyright law which is allowing this to happen, but what's essentially going on is that everyone is silently agreeing not to get too wound up about it and we're going back to a model where music is a shared, linguistic experience, and music makers copy, echo, reframe, and reply to each other in a giant collective conversation. It's a much more interesting, relaxed experience than the hard-edged, scarcity-driven model of specific recordings with specific ownership that prevailed through the end of the 20th century.

marssaxman 8y ago

We're seeing a return to this model in DJing, where the boundaries between performance and playback have largely disintegrated, and the difference between "making new music which repeats familiar refrains" and "pasting together bits of existing recordings to make a new piece of music" has completely dissolved. There's a complex body of compromises with copyright law which is allowing this to happen, but what's essentially going on is that everyone is silently agreeing not to get too wound up about it and we're going back to a model where music is a shared, linguistic experience, and music makers copy, echo, reframe, and reply to each other in a giant collective conversation. It's a much more interesting, relaxed experience than the hard-edged, scarcity-driven model of specific recordings with specific ownership that prevailed through the end of the 20th century.