5 ms·

While you are correct on the tactical level, with this I do not agree: > The National Emergency Library was a serious lapse of judgement - a moment of madness

by ta20230318 4y ago

While you are correct on the tactical level, with this I do not agree: > The National Emergency Library was a serious lapse of judgement - a moment of madness amongst a backdrop of widespread Covid madness. NO! It was a moment of sanity prompted by an exceptional situation in an absolutely insane world, a world that pretends to value property yet undermines property using IP. It is IP that is the real madness. It is IP that is used to suck every drop of life out of culture the same way Exxon sucks oil out of the ground. And it is IP that is used to bind people when other measures are not effective. I get that the thought that the world is absolutely insane and absurd may not be a popular idea in the startup space which relies on a blind optimism, but IP is simply part of the cancer afflicting this world. You are correct that it was a tactical mistake that endangered the rest of the project but the values that prompted that decision are some of the values that should guide us in building a better world if we want to stand any chance of avoiding a Black Mirror like dystopia on the path towards which the world is very much on.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
But sadly, going to argue about it in a room with a mandatory dress code from the 19th century is not going to overturn pre-digital norms.
orbisvicis 4y ago
I strongly agree. My taste in classical music in my formative years calcified around the 1940s mainly because I couldn't easily obtain sheet music any more modern. I think it's crazy that I lack appreciation, taste, and exposure to nearly a century of music (with some exceptions) simply because of copyright law.
- alexvoda 4y ago
  Maybe video game music might catch your interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWgLe-jQjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWgLe-jQjc
  - orbisvicis 4y ago
    Such a coincidence that I was just recently listening to the Persona 5 (then Baccano) soundtrack but that's as close to big band as I get. While copyright is the main culprit, there are others. Electronic aspects reduce the chance music can be played with your acoustic instrument. Composers like Varese anticipated challenges in reproducibility and instruct their readers to record their own samples so that no two performances will ever be identical. Of course that very action shifts the performer to a more active role: from musician to conductor. The closest I can approach are pieces for prepared piano, such as the music of Franghiz Ali-Zadeh. The newfound electronic diversity also pushes composers to invent their own notation, such as Ianis Xenakis, George Crumb, and even as far back as Henry Cowell. Last but not least classical is a highly curated genre. Which contemporary composers will be remembered a century from now? The current contenders are sufficiently popular to swap for their sheet music (the exceptions I mentioned). I have no trouble obtaining the minimalist works of John Adams, Philip Glass etc. I still blame copyright to a large degree. Copyright enforcement suppresses the sheet music trade which reduces discoverability and renders the entire genre static, preserving the status-quo of established artists. You hear stories of Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt debating and inspiring each other across Victorian drawing rooms. Copyright suppresses the modern equivalent. Contemporary music notation is unfamiliar and alien due to lack of exposure, which once again is exacerbated by copyright. As for electronic music, I'd like to imagine that composers are free to share their samples alongside their sheet music - like source code samples to a computer science textbook - but I doubt it. It's ironic but your video shows how less regulated public meetups are compared to virtual meetups. Show up to a jam session, grab a fake book, and start playing. Totally illegal online though.
    - alexvoda 4y ago
      > As for electronic music, I'd like to imagine that composers are free to share their samples alongside their sheet music - like source code samples to a computer science textbook - but I doubt it. Tracker music is exactly that. Also I do agree that the concept of open source should be spread to other fields. Sharing just the mastered recording or the final picture is equivalent to sharing just the binary for software.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

But sadly, going to argue about it in a room with a mandatory dress code from the 19th century is not going to overturn pre-digital norms.

orbisvicis 4y ago

I strongly agree. My taste in classical music in my formative years calcified around the 1940s mainly because I couldn't easily obtain sheet music any more modern. I think it's crazy that I lack appreciation, taste, and exposure to nearly a century of music (with some exceptions) simply because of copyright law.

alexvoda 4y ago
Maybe video game music might catch your interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWgLe-jQjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKWgLe-jQjc
- orbisvicis 4y ago
  Such a coincidence that I was just recently listening to the Persona 5 (then Baccano) soundtrack but that's as close to big band as I get. While copyright is the main culprit, there are others. Electronic aspects reduce the chance music can be played with your acoustic instrument. Composers like Varese anticipated challenges in reproducibility and instruct their readers to record their own samples so that no two performances will ever be identical. Of course that very action shifts the performer to a more active role: from musician to conductor. The closest I can approach are pieces for prepared piano, such as the music of Franghiz Ali-Zadeh. The newfound electronic diversity also pushes composers to invent their own notation, such as Ianis Xenakis, George Crumb, and even as far back as Henry Cowell. Last but not least classical is a highly curated genre. Which contemporary composers will be remembered a century from now? The current contenders are sufficiently popular to swap for their sheet music (the exceptions I mentioned). I have no trouble obtaining the minimalist works of John Adams, Philip Glass etc. I still blame copyright to a large degree. Copyright enforcement suppresses the sheet music trade which reduces discoverability and renders the entire genre static, preserving the status-quo of established artists. You hear stories of Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt debating and inspiring each other across Victorian drawing rooms. Copyright suppresses the modern equivalent. Contemporary music notation is unfamiliar and alien due to lack of exposure, which once again is exacerbated by copyright. As for electronic music, I'd like to imagine that composers are free to share their samples alongside their sheet music - like source code samples to a computer science textbook - but I doubt it. It's ironic but your video shows how less regulated public meetups are compared to virtual meetups. Show up to a jam session, grab a fake book, and start playing. Totally illegal online though.
  - alexvoda 4y ago
    > As for electronic music, I'd like to imagine that composers are free to share their samples alongside their sheet music - like source code samples to a computer science textbook - but I doubt it. Tracker music is exactly that. Also I do agree that the concept of open source should be spread to other fields. Sharing just the mastered recording or the final picture is equivalent to sharing just the binary for software.