4 ms·

Lol what? So musicians shouldn’t get value when people play their music? I guess you’d have them starve? Same with all the others?

tomc1985 5y ago
Look at all these terrible attempts at controlling, and just how well they work. In every sector you have a cadre of elites and a much larger cohort of have-nots. Musicians don't starve, they put on concerts and experiences and sell merchandise. In many ways music has already given up ownership of the music itself, because they let Spotify/Apple Music/et al eat their lunch. Fractions of a penny per-play is like nothing for 99% of musicians.
tenebrisalietum 5y ago
No. Musicians should get value when they play their music to a person or audience willing to pay. If they are starving they should find another job.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  That would mean that there's no value in creating the music. Only in reproducing it. People would have even less incentive to create new stuff instead of redoing old stuff. That is definitely not what I, as a listener, want.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Except that people create music all the time despite their knowledge that they won't get paid for it. There will also always be a paying market for composing, say, the soundtrack to a movie where it has to reflect the narrative and events in the film. For example, the Bugs Bunny cartoon music was performed while projecting the cartoon on a screen, so the musicians could match the timing. The music was very much customized to the cartoon.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    There already exist multiple lifetimes of existing music. The world won't be worse off if that rate of growth slowed down significantly.
  - ramblenode 5y ago
    Most musicians don't make music for its monetary value, but because of personal fulfillment. All but the most successful 1% of musicians would find greater monetary value doing something else for the amount of work it takes to get to that level. > People would have even less incentive to create new stuff instead of redoing old stuff. In fact, I speculate the opposite might be true. How many big pop artists go into semi-retirement by their mid-30s once they've dropped off the charts? Why keep making music when you can comfortably collect off all your past hits? Certainly there's no economic incentive to keep working once you can collect sizeable rents.
- bhelkey 5y ago
  I believe OP wants musicians to be compensated for the music they create because they believe that this will improve the quality of the music that is created. I am sure that if there are no incentives to creating new music some people will still do it. Just like I am sure that if there are no incentives to creating new books some people will still write. Or movies will still be created even without funding. That being said, I enjoy having access to blockbuster movies, AAA video games, books by professional authors, and songs by professional song writers. I prefer to live in a world in which those things can exist. For those things to exist, they need business models that can support them. I would choose a world with high quality professional content over a world in which everything is free.
  - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
    I didn't say musicians (and I did mean creatives in general) shouldn't get paid. However, I'm not sure an entitlement should exist whereby the act of me acquiring or listening to a recording of a performance--for/on my own devices, in my own home, etc.--results in an obligation for me to pay the artists. If your business model ultimately depends on controlling what people do in their homes or personal space, or personal devices, then it's bad. Would you buy a book if you had to pay each time you read it?
WalterBright 5y ago
> So musicians shouldn’t get value when people play their music? People will pay $$$$$ to hear the original Beatles give a live performance. They will pay $ to hear a cover band play the same music, even if the cover band is better. Reframe the issue as recorded music being advertising for the live concert performance, where the money will be made. Many bands have already figured that out that's where the real money is these days.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > People will pay $$$$$ to hear the original Beatles give a live performance. They will pay $ to hear a cover band play the same music, even if the cover band is better. The novelty of having musicians rise from the dead for a concert does help there.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    If Paul and Ringo hired a couple others to fill out the quartet, I bet the tickets would sell fast at a very high price. P.S. That Greta Van Fleet singer didn't want to be compared to Robert Plant. What an idiot. There's a guy who sounds like Plant in his youth - what an incredible opportunity he is just throwing away. He could enlist the help of Plant & Page and create a new Zep songbook. Everybody wins - especially me, because there's only so many times you can play Dazed and Confused. Note that Adam Lambert who joined Queen to fill in for sadly absent Freddie Mercury has done very well indeed.
ramblenode 5y ago
Most musicians are not making their money from copyright but from performances. Only a tiny % of musicians ever get a record deal. Of those with record deals, the vast majority of the earnings goes to the record label and not the artist. Earnings from copyrighted musical works probably follows a pareto distribution--something like 90% of earnings are accrued by <10% of copyright holders. So the copyright regime rewards, in order, 1. music distributors, 2. big name artists, and finally 3. most other artists who receive only token earnings. Music was an idyllic vocation before records and long before copyright. There are many ways to support the arts other than copyright. Grants for public theatres, music education, and street venues would be more egalitarian and benefit more musicians than a copyright regime.

tomc1985 5y ago

Look at all these terrible attempts at controlling, and just how well they work. In every sector you have a cadre of elites and a much larger cohort of have-nots. Musicians don't starve, they put on concerts and experiences and sell merchandise. In many ways music has already given up ownership of the music itself, because they let Spotify/Apple Music/et al eat their lunch. Fractions of a penny per-play is like nothing for 99% of musicians.

tenebrisalietum 5y ago

No. Musicians should get value when they play their music to a person or audience willing to pay. If they are starving they should find another job.

wccrawford 5y ago
That would mean that there's no value in creating the music. Only in reproducing it. People would have even less incentive to create new stuff instead of redoing old stuff. That is definitely not what I, as a listener, want.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Except that people create music all the time despite their knowledge that they won't get paid for it. There will also always be a paying market for composing, say, the soundtrack to a movie where it has to reflect the narrative and events in the film. For example, the Bugs Bunny cartoon music was performed while projecting the cartoon on a screen, so the musicians could match the timing. The music was very much customized to the cartoon.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  There already exist multiple lifetimes of existing music. The world won't be worse off if that rate of growth slowed down significantly.
- ramblenode 5y ago
  Most musicians don't make music for its monetary value, but because of personal fulfillment. All but the most successful 1% of musicians would find greater monetary value doing something else for the amount of work it takes to get to that level. > People would have even less incentive to create new stuff instead of redoing old stuff. In fact, I speculate the opposite might be true. How many big pop artists go into semi-retirement by their mid-30s once they've dropped off the charts? Why keep making music when you can comfortably collect off all your past hits? Certainly there's no economic incentive to keep working once you can collect sizeable rents.
bhelkey 5y ago
I believe OP wants musicians to be compensated for the music they create because they believe that this will improve the quality of the music that is created. I am sure that if there are no incentives to creating new music some people will still do it. Just like I am sure that if there are no incentives to creating new books some people will still write. Or movies will still be created even without funding. That being said, I enjoy having access to blockbuster movies, AAA video games, books by professional authors, and songs by professional song writers. I prefer to live in a world in which those things can exist. For those things to exist, they need business models that can support them. I would choose a world with high quality professional content over a world in which everything is free.
- tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  I didn't say musicians (and I did mean creatives in general) shouldn't get paid. However, I'm not sure an entitlement should exist whereby the act of me acquiring or listening to a recording of a performance--for/on my own devices, in my own home, etc.--results in an obligation for me to pay the artists. If your business model ultimately depends on controlling what people do in their homes or personal space, or personal devices, then it's bad. Would you buy a book if you had to pay each time you read it?

WalterBright 5y ago

> So musicians shouldn’t get value when people play their music? People will pay $$$$$ to hear the original Beatles give a live performance. They will pay $ to hear a cover band play the same music, even if the cover band is better. Reframe the issue as recorded music being advertising for the live concert performance, where the money will be made. Many bands have already figured that out that's where the real money is these days.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> People will pay $$$$$ to hear the original Beatles give a live performance. They will pay $ to hear a cover band play the same music, even if the cover band is better. The novelty of having musicians rise from the dead for a concert does help there.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  If Paul and Ringo hired a couple others to fill out the quartet, I bet the tickets would sell fast at a very high price. P.S. That Greta Van Fleet singer didn't want to be compared to Robert Plant. What an idiot. There's a guy who sounds like Plant in his youth - what an incredible opportunity he is just throwing away. He could enlist the help of Plant & Page and create a new Zep songbook. Everybody wins - especially me, because there's only so many times you can play Dazed and Confused. Note that Adam Lambert who joined Queen to fill in for sadly absent Freddie Mercury has done very well indeed.

ramblenode 5y ago

Most musicians are not making their money from copyright but from performances. Only a tiny % of musicians ever get a record deal. Of those with record deals, the vast majority of the earnings goes to the record label and not the artist. Earnings from copyrighted musical works probably follows a pareto distribution--something like 90% of earnings are accrued by <10% of copyright holders. So the copyright regime rewards, in order, 1. music distributors, 2. big name artists, and finally 3. most other artists who receive only token earnings. Music was an idyllic vocation before records and long before copyright. There are many ways to support the arts other than copyright. Grants for public theatres, music education, and street venues would be more egalitarian and benefit more musicians than a copyright regime.