5 ms·

I've worked on numerous music recording projects. In many cases, I did everything by myself. In one case, I hired (and learned from) some of the very best in th

by tjr 16y ago

I've worked on numerous music recording projects. In many cases, I did everything by myself. In one case, I hired (and learned from) some of the very best in the industry, and between my partner and I, incurred approximately $20,000 in costs... and had an awesome time doing so. But even when I do everything myself, I'm using high-end equipment and software that I've paid thousands of dollars for. It's not free of charge for me to be able to record music. And even if I were to deem those to be irrelevant sunk costs, to assume that my recordings ought to be free of charge just because they easily can be copied suggests that my time and expertise is worthless, if nothing else. [Edit: of course, I'm just some random guy on the internet, and certainly not nor attempting to be a full-time musician. I'm presently content to make money building software, and any income that results from my music is just a bonus. Full-time musicians surely feel even more strongly about such matters.]

krschultz 16y ago
Exactly. I'm not a muscian (I'm freaking terrible at anything involved with music), and I have no stake in this game. But software development is the same freaking business model, but for some reason we don't collectively take a stand against piracy.
- tjr 16y ago
  As a professional software developer, I've given my software work away free of charge, e.g., as a volunteer for Project GNU. I see nothing wrong with that, but I think it ought to be my own choice if I want to spend time working on something and then make it available free of charge, or if I want to sell copies of it. Likewise, I see nothing wrong with musicians giving away copies of music free of charge (and I've done so), but it should be their choice.
  - gnosis 16y ago
    It's very simple. If you don't want the music you created to be available free of charge, don't release it! It's absolutely your choice. If you want to keep control of it, keep it private. But once you (by your own choice) make it available, don't be shocked or surprised if people share it without sending you money for every copy. The system we have for paying artists is clearly broken. It has been for a very long time. The digital revolution is just putting the final nails in the coffin. But even before filesharing on the internet, artists were getting screwed left and right, and very very few could make a living creating art. Now it's clearer than ever that we have to find some other ways to compensate artists for the work they do. Some suggestions that I've heard along these lines are: - Put a PayPal (or choose your favorite non-evil payment system) icon prominently on your home page and ask for donations. - Release your music for free, but ask for money so that you can work on your next album. Don't release your next album until you've gotten enough of a payment to make it worthwhile. If you're good and have developed a large enough fan base, this should be quite a reasonable business model. - Give away the music for free, but charge for live appearances (make money touring). - Make it clear to your fans that you are giving away your music for free, but need them to chip in by buying tangible merchandise like t-shirts. Ok. None of these are perfect. And they all work best when the artist is already well known and has a large fan base. But relatively unknown artists have always struggled to get by, and filesharing does not change that equation. At least with all of the suggested payment methods above, the artist gets to keep a lion's share of the profit, instead of begging for pennies on the dollar when going through the established record company system.
    - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
      >It's very simple. If you don't want the music you created to be available free of charge, don't release it! If you don't want your car to be stolen then don't leave it in the street. If you don't want to be run over then don't walk anywhere. ... Seriously, if you one day forget to lock something up do you really think people should be free to help themselves to it? If you don't like the current music regime, don't buy music from those who've established it and maintain it. If you want free music then only get tracks that artists are giving away as free and/or licensing with free-gratis licenses.
      - r0s 16y ago
        > If you don't want your car to be stolen then don't leave it in the street. A car is a locked(presumably) metal box, it would be more apt to say: "If you don't want your cds stolen, don't leave them in the middle of the street"
      - gnosis 16y ago
        "If you don't want your car to be stolen then don't leave it in the street." There are a number of underlying assumption in your analogy. - The first is that, like the car, the music you create is owned by you. - The second is that, like the car, the music you create can be stolen. - The third is that it is as unethical to share music as it is to steal cars. All of these propositions are very debatable. "Seriously, if you one day forget to lock something up do you really think people should be free to help themselves to it?" I think you're missing my point. I wasn't trying to be a moral arbiter regarding the ethics of sharing music. I was merely trying to say that in the world we live in, you'd have to be pretty naive to release your music to the public with the expectation that people wouldn't share it without compensating you for it. If your goal is to keep your music from being shared, your best bet is not to release it at all.
        pbhjpbhj 16y ago
        I wasn't aiming for a perfect analogy but it stands up better to scrutiny than you assume also. The car is owned by you just as the music is - you can assume that music can not be owned, but the sorts of arguments that work there also work for cars (which is fine by me, I've got a communist streak in me for sure). The important point is that you are in control of the car except for forced use against the law (in most jurisdictions) just as you are in control of the music excepting illegal (OK tortuous) use. I wasn't saying that the music could be stolen, just taken in a way that is against the law. Equally the car can be "borrowed" it can be taken without denying you use - we still find it illegal even if your car is taken against your will when you wouldn't have otherwise be using it (perhaps this is wrong but I wasn't expanding the locus to consider alternate legal/societal structures). This speaks then to your final point. You deliberately scope the use of copyright works without permission as "sharing" because this is almost always used in a positive sense. Well taking your car without asking is also sharing if you wish to spin it that way; I didn't say they damaged the vehicle, you still can have it later when you wish to use it. For sure the analogy breaks down but not as badly as you portrayed. You may have been attempting to withhold moral judgement but your tone conveyed the sense that the onus is with the creator of artistic works, the copyright holder, to hide their work and not with the public to not rip off that work. Note that we as a society (at least those countries that are democratic and signed up to Berne Convention and TRIPS IP provisions) have made a deal that we will protect creators of artistic works from being ripped off and ensure they get paid fairly as long as they will release their works to the public domain after a given period but before that we will enable them to enforce a monopoly on control of those works. This deal has been sullied over time by big business but it's still in place. Yes, if no one can be trusted to keep to their promises or indeed to obey the law then it's naive to assume the law will be obeyed. I'm not at that place where I assume everyone in a democracy is so uncivilised and self-seeking that they care nothing for the rule of law.
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  > for some reason we don't collectively take a stand against piracy. You're assuming we want to 'take a stand.' You're assuming 'taking a stand' would actually do anything. You haven't said what 'taking a stand' actually _is_, other than some vague idea of 'doing something!1!1' I, for one, will be very sad if our industry tries to 'take a stand' against piracy. It's a fool's errand.
- rmc 16y ago
  But software development is the same freaking business model, but for some reason we don't collectively take a stand against piracy. Free Software/Open Source. There is a large amount of software developers who have a completly different attitude from the music industry towards people digitally copying stuff.
- TheCondor 16y ago
  The complexity of software changes the equation dramatically.. When you buy a piece of software, outside of games and certain embedded apps, you're typically investing in the longer term life of the product. You expect the owners to update, fix and enhance the product. Free software takes that to the extreme, you pay for support and nothing else. There might be some other exceptions but whether or not it's a conscious part of the decision you sort of expect it. The SaaS model also takes it to the extreme, there are often some other value-adds for doing things in the cloud but a big one is they are constantly improving your apps. Back in the day there were more efforts to fight piracy and there were copy protection schemes and all that ilk. Books and music are in kind of a funny space, the costs of production have fallen through the floor; you can literally buy a computer and some fairly in-expensive equipment and record good quality recording. If you have a little more money you can do a completely professional top of the line recording.. Second, the industry is completely built around selling a finished commodity, you buy the book or the CD and it's done, there is no more business. Third that comodity is very easy to pirate. With music it seems like they could put concert tickets in with the CD or coupons to get them more cheaply or buy other merchendise, that caters to a fairly small market though. Some other sort of value-add that justifies the expense seem like the only options with the industry as it is. Maybe they could not distribute recordings and make a subscription radio service that played the content exclusively (that seems lame though, but people didn't like the idea of SaaS or pay per cycle in the old days either) Personally, I bought the pick-axe book a handful of years back, read it, did some stuff, put it on the shelf. Then the 2nd edition came out, I bought it, unfortunately life and other things got in the way of that one so it just sat on the shelf. Now there is a 3rd edition.. I'd have paid maybe $15 more the first time around if I got some free upgrades, I'd have probably paid $15 more the first time AND paid $5-10 for an upgrade when it came out. The $40 or $45 each time though.... It doesn't feel like you get that much. I'm not going to pirate it but I can't say that I don't see why people would.

by tjr 16y ago

krschultz 16y ago

Exactly. I'm not a muscian (I'm freaking terrible at anything involved with music), and I have no stake in this game. But software development is the same freaking business model, but for some reason we don't collectively take a stand against piracy.

tjr 16y ago
As a professional software developer, I've given my software work away free of charge, e.g., as a volunteer for Project GNU. I see nothing wrong with that, but I think it ought to be my own choice if I want to spend time working on something and then make it available free of charge, or if I want to sell copies of it. Likewise, I see nothing wrong with musicians giving away copies of music free of charge (and I've done so), but it should be their choice.
- gnosis 16y ago
  It's very simple. If you don't want the music you created to be available free of charge, don't release it! It's absolutely your choice. If you want to keep control of it, keep it private. But once you (by your own choice) make it available, don't be shocked or surprised if people share it without sending you money for every copy. The system we have for paying artists is clearly broken. It has been for a very long time. The digital revolution is just putting the final nails in the coffin. But even before filesharing on the internet, artists were getting screwed left and right, and very very few could make a living creating art. Now it's clearer than ever that we have to find some other ways to compensate artists for the work they do. Some suggestions that I've heard along these lines are: - Put a PayPal (or choose your favorite non-evil payment system) icon prominently on your home page and ask for donations. - Release your music for free, but ask for money so that you can work on your next album. Don't release your next album until you've gotten enough of a payment to make it worthwhile. If you're good and have developed a large enough fan base, this should be quite a reasonable business model. - Give away the music for free, but charge for live appearances (make money touring). - Make it clear to your fans that you are giving away your music for free, but need them to chip in by buying tangible merchandise like t-shirts. Ok. None of these are perfect. And they all work best when the artist is already well known and has a large fan base. But relatively unknown artists have always struggled to get by, and filesharing does not change that equation. At least with all of the suggested payment methods above, the artist gets to keep a lion's share of the profit, instead of begging for pennies on the dollar when going through the established record company system.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >It's very simple. If you don't want the music you created to be available free of charge, don't release it! If you don't want your car to be stolen then don't leave it in the street. If you don't want to be run over then don't walk anywhere. ... Seriously, if you one day forget to lock something up do you really think people should be free to help themselves to it? If you don't like the current music regime, don't buy music from those who've established it and maintain it. If you want free music then only get tracks that artists are giving away as free and/or licensing with free-gratis licenses.
    - r0s 16y ago
      > If you don't want your car to be stolen then don't leave it in the street. A car is a locked(presumably) metal box, it would be more apt to say: "If you don't want your cds stolen, don't leave them in the middle of the street"
    - gnosis 16y ago
      "If you don't want your car to be stolen then don't leave it in the street." There are a number of underlying assumption in your analogy. - The first is that, like the car, the music you create is owned by you. - The second is that, like the car, the music you create can be stolen. - The third is that it is as unethical to share music as it is to steal cars. All of these propositions are very debatable. "Seriously, if you one day forget to lock something up do you really think people should be free to help themselves to it?" I think you're missing my point. I wasn't trying to be a moral arbiter regarding the ethics of sharing music. I was merely trying to say that in the world we live in, you'd have to be pretty naive to release your music to the public with the expectation that people wouldn't share it without compensating you for it. If your goal is to keep your music from being shared, your best bet is not to release it at all.
      - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
        I wasn't aiming for a perfect analogy but it stands up better to scrutiny than you assume also. The car is owned by you just as the music is - you can assume that music can not be owned, but the sorts of arguments that work there also work for cars (which is fine by me, I've got a communist streak in me for sure). The important point is that you are in control of the car except for forced use against the law (in most jurisdictions) just as you are in control of the music excepting illegal (OK tortuous) use. I wasn't saying that the music could be stolen, just taken in a way that is against the law. Equally the car can be "borrowed" it can be taken without denying you use - we still find it illegal even if your car is taken against your will when you wouldn't have otherwise be using it (perhaps this is wrong but I wasn't expanding the locus to consider alternate legal/societal structures). This speaks then to your final point. You deliberately scope the use of copyright works without permission as "sharing" because this is almost always used in a positive sense. Well taking your car without asking is also sharing if you wish to spin it that way; I didn't say they damaged the vehicle, you still can have it later when you wish to use it. For sure the analogy breaks down but not as badly as you portrayed. You may have been attempting to withhold moral judgement but your tone conveyed the sense that the onus is with the creator of artistic works, the copyright holder, to hide their work and not with the public to not rip off that work. Note that we as a society (at least those countries that are democratic and signed up to Berne Convention and TRIPS IP provisions) have made a deal that we will protect creators of artistic works from being ripped off and ensure they get paid fairly as long as they will release their works to the public domain after a given period but before that we will enable them to enforce a monopoly on control of those works. This deal has been sullied over time by big business but it's still in place. Yes, if no one can be trusted to keep to their promises or indeed to obey the law then it's naive to assume the law will be obeyed. I'm not at that place where I assume everyone in a democracy is so uncivilised and self-seeking that they care nothing for the rule of law.
steveklabnik 16y ago
> for some reason we don't collectively take a stand against piracy. You're assuming we want to 'take a stand.' You're assuming 'taking a stand' would actually do anything. You haven't said what 'taking a stand' actually _is_, other than some vague idea of 'doing something!1!1' I, for one, will be very sad if our industry tries to 'take a stand' against piracy. It's a fool's errand.
rmc 16y ago
But software development is the same freaking business model, but for some reason we don't collectively take a stand against piracy. Free Software/Open Source. There is a large amount of software developers who have a completly different attitude from the music industry towards people digitally copying stuff.
TheCondor 16y ago
The complexity of software changes the equation dramatically.. When you buy a piece of software, outside of games and certain embedded apps, you're typically investing in the longer term life of the product. You expect the owners to update, fix and enhance the product. Free software takes that to the extreme, you pay for support and nothing else. There might be some other exceptions but whether or not it's a conscious part of the decision you sort of expect it. The SaaS model also takes it to the extreme, there are often some other value-adds for doing things in the cloud but a big one is they are constantly improving your apps. Back in the day there were more efforts to fight piracy and there were copy protection schemes and all that ilk. Books and music are in kind of a funny space, the costs of production have fallen through the floor; you can literally buy a computer and some fairly in-expensive equipment and record good quality recording. If you have a little more money you can do a completely professional top of the line recording.. Second, the industry is completely built around selling a finished commodity, you buy the book or the CD and it's done, there is no more business. Third that comodity is very easy to pirate. With music it seems like they could put concert tickets in with the CD or coupons to get them more cheaply or buy other merchendise, that caters to a fairly small market though. Some other sort of value-add that justifies the expense seem like the only options with the industry as it is. Maybe they could not distribute recordings and make a subscription radio service that played the content exclusively (that seems lame though, but people didn't like the idea of SaaS or pay per cycle in the old days either) Personally, I bought the pick-axe book a handful of years back, read it, did some stuff, put it on the shelf. Then the 2nd edition came out, I bought it, unfortunately life and other things got in the way of that one so it just sat on the shelf. Now there is a 3rd edition.. I'd have paid maybe $15 more the first time around if I got some free upgrades, I'd have probably paid $15 more the first time AND paid $5-10 for an upgrade when it came out. The $40 or $45 each time though.... It doesn't feel like you get that much. I'm not going to pirate it but I can't say that I don't see why people would.