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It's crazy to think music in America was actually commoditized before being distributed and consumed in recorded form. Back before record labels there were she

It's crazy to think music in America was actually commoditized before being distributed and consumed in recorded form. Back before record labels there were sheet music publishers. Instead of a phonograph or a CD player, people owned pianos and vocal chords. When the latest smash hit came out, you went and bought the sheet music and performed it yourself for your friends and family. That was the American popular music industry. So it's worth asking, is the thing of value here the actual sheet of paper with the music written on it, or the grooved metal cylinder, or the vinyl, or the mp3? Obviously yes, to some extent. But imagine if you were around in the 1850s and one of your buddies stops by and bangs out "Old Folks at Home" on the piano, totally by heart. And maybe after a couple of times, you kinda figure it out yourself. And then you go to somebody else's house and do the same thing. Is this the 1850s equivalent of peer-to-peer file sharing? You start to realize, a song has been bound to a physical object for so long, we've begun to confuse the music -- the actual information -- with the physical object that holds the information. Maybe back in the 1850s there were renegades who ran around teaching people Stephen Foster songs and the publishing companies took a hit and sent the sheriff after them. It seems ridiculous but that's basically what's happening today with the RIAA and file sharing.

superuser2 14y ago
I have never understood the idea that only "objects" can have value. 1) I'm paying for a formal education, not the books and the audio of the lectures. Those are often available for free, but the formal seal of approval of a university (not the sheepskin + ink) has market value. 2) I pay for The New Yorker, not the pages it's printed on. 3) A startup pays its programmers for software, which is really just ideas. 4) A company pays for the design of its building, not the drafting paper and pencils. 5) A company pays a manager (at least theoretically) for leadership, not for the transferring of ink to post-it-notes and calendars. 6) Millions of people pay for iPhone apps, which are not physical goods. 7) I'm paying (through insurance) for medical advice, not the negligible fraction of square footage I occupy while sitting in my doctor's office. -- Buying recordings is a voluntary transaction. If you don't find them valuable, don't participate. But you are still no more entitled to the sound of an artist's voice than your employer/customers are entitled to the value you provide. Open Source is cool. Public broadcasting is awesome. Band Camp is amazing, and I agree the mainstream record label cartel is nasty. I hope we move away from it. But just as hating Walmart doesn't make shoplifting okay; disapproval of the music industry doesn't make piracy okay. Yes, the witch-hunt is too much, but wherever did we get the idea that intellectual creation shouldn't be worth anything?
- jimmytucson 14y ago
  I'm so bad making my point on the internet that I sometimes say the opposite of what I'm trying to say. What I should have said is, music has been bound to a physical medium for so long that people confuse the thing of value with the object that holds it. So I agree with you... sort of. But I'm curious: what is your opinion about the guy who doesn't buy sheet music and just memorizes the songs and teaches them to people? Do you feel he is in some way guilty of piracy?
  - superuser2 14y ago
    The guy who memorizes songs and teaches them to people, at least the ones I know, don't have the mentality of "I want this song but 99 cents is too much and information wants to be free," he says, "I love this and I want to publicly engage with it." In the modern world, he's a YouTube cover artist, which I support wholeheartedly. Just as there is nothing wrong with burning a friend a CD for her birthday, or playing your iPod at a private party. This doesn't threaten artists or deprive them of money you otherwise would have handed over, it just creates new ways to promote and engage with the artist's creation. See also Spotify, music blogs (IMHO not really piracy, but shouldn't be done without the artists' permission), radio, Pandora, last.fm, etc. Pirate Bay is the guy who prints his own scores of someone else's work and leaves thousands of free copies on the street outside the sheet music store.
- hxa7241 14y ago
  Value and price are different things. Abstract objects -- i.e. informational goods -- certainly have value, it is just that they have practically zero price now. Price, and paying for things, is a way to regulate how limited resources are shared out. But abundant things do not need a price -- there is plenty for everyone. The idea that creative work be paid for through copies of it is only an artificial convention. It was just a pragmatic economic arrangement to make it possible to pay for one thing by paying for another. In the end, we need to pay for scarcity -- creative effort and resources -- but should allow abundance -- copies of informational-goods -- to be free. That recognises the value of abstract/informational-goods by maximising the value that everyone can get from them.

superuser2 14y ago

I have never understood the idea that only "objects" can have value. 1) I'm paying for a formal education, not the books and the audio of the lectures. Those are often available for free, but the formal seal of approval of a university (not the sheepskin + ink) has market value. 2) I pay for The New Yorker, not the pages it's printed on. 3) A startup pays its programmers for software, which is really just ideas. 4) A company pays for the design of its building, not the drafting paper and pencils. 5) A company pays a manager (at least theoretically) for leadership, not for the transferring of ink to post-it-notes and calendars. 6) Millions of people pay for iPhone apps, which are not physical goods. 7) I'm paying (through insurance) for medical advice, not the negligible fraction of square footage I occupy while sitting in my doctor's office. -- Buying recordings is a voluntary transaction. If you don't find them valuable, don't participate. But you are still no more entitled to the sound of an artist's voice than your employer/customers are entitled to the value you provide. Open Source is cool. Public broadcasting is awesome. Band Camp is amazing, and I agree the mainstream record label cartel is nasty. I hope we move away from it. But just as hating Walmart doesn't make shoplifting okay; disapproval of the music industry doesn't make piracy okay. Yes, the witch-hunt is too much, but wherever did we get the idea that intellectual creation shouldn't be worth anything?

jimmytucson 14y ago
I'm so bad making my point on the internet that I sometimes say the opposite of what I'm trying to say. What I should have said is, music has been bound to a physical medium for so long that people confuse the thing of value with the object that holds it. So I agree with you... sort of. But I'm curious: what is your opinion about the guy who doesn't buy sheet music and just memorizes the songs and teaches them to people? Do you feel he is in some way guilty of piracy?
- superuser2 14y ago
  The guy who memorizes songs and teaches them to people, at least the ones I know, don't have the mentality of "I want this song but 99 cents is too much and information wants to be free," he says, "I love this and I want to publicly engage with it." In the modern world, he's a YouTube cover artist, which I support wholeheartedly. Just as there is nothing wrong with burning a friend a CD for her birthday, or playing your iPod at a private party. This doesn't threaten artists or deprive them of money you otherwise would have handed over, it just creates new ways to promote and engage with the artist's creation. See also Spotify, music blogs (IMHO not really piracy, but shouldn't be done without the artists' permission), radio, Pandora, last.fm, etc. Pirate Bay is the guy who prints his own scores of someone else's work and leaves thousands of free copies on the street outside the sheet music store.
hxa7241 14y ago
Value and price are different things. Abstract objects -- i.e. informational goods -- certainly have value, it is just that they have practically zero price now. Price, and paying for things, is a way to regulate how limited resources are shared out. But abundant things do not need a price -- there is plenty for everyone. The idea that creative work be paid for through copies of it is only an artificial convention. It was just a pragmatic economic arrangement to make it possible to pay for one thing by paying for another. In the end, we need to pay for scarcity -- creative effort and resources -- but should allow abundance -- copies of informational-goods -- to be free. That recognises the value of abstract/informational-goods by maximising the value that everyone can get from them.