9 ms·

Save Music, Save the Archive

355 points by m463 2y ago

echelon 2y ago
AI is going to kill the recording industry soon enough.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  AI's going to kill artists. The "recording industry" will persist Example: https://old.reddit.com/r/musicindustry/comments/1ao87z5/spotify_making_their_own_ai_music_under_fake/?rdt=51584 https://old.reddit.com/r/musicindustry/comments/1ao87z5/spot...
  - PradeetPatel 2y ago
    I've noticed a similar trend on YouTube and Bandcamp too. Sadly, I personally know a few people who are engaged in those activities in my business school class. The usage of generative AI has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for the creative industry, leading to an influx of AI generated products that are easily consumable and can be used to generate revenue. Until the platforms begin to regulate AI art, which I don't see why they would, we can expect to see more of them in the near future.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      > The usage of generative AI has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for the creative industry, The use of generative AI should also mean that the name "creative industry" should be changed to just "industry".
  - dartharva 2y ago
    Man, I wish music recommendation systems were social and crowd-sourced like they used to be before internet streaming. These "intelligent" recommendation and scrobbling systems are tiresome.
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      Still can be! I haven't used an ai playlist in years. Bandcamp, playlists made by friends, and full albums via word of mouth
- romanobro56 2y ago
  Yeah let’s just let the biggest labels back AI “artists” whose trainings completely comprise of real musicians’ work
- dangus 2y ago
  Why AI is tech's latest hoax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuBCk8XMC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuBCk8XMC8
  - ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
    AI is just another tool for creative and skilled people https://youtu.be/W5JlXCo3Rb4 https://youtu.be/W5JlXCo3Rb4
    - dangus 2y ago
      And that's why it's a hoax. It's a tool with limited use cases just like every other tool, but the industry has treated it like an all-encompassing revolution in the way companies will operate moving forward.
      - ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
        That doesn't make it a hoax just overhyped.
        dangus 2y ago
        It absolutely is a hoax, because a number of companies are doing shady things like: - Selling products based on AI capabilities that do not yet and/or will never exist in the product - Adding "AI" to the name of product lines with very little core functionality based on AI - Rebranding non-generative algorithms as AI (e.g., SQL queries and if statements == AI) - Changing the name and/or domain name of the company to imply AI capability I look at companies with heavy trend-based advertising like C3.ai, who changed their name from a previous trend (C3.IoT), and then IBM that rode marketing waves related to Watson/Watson Health, IBM Blockchain, and now AI, and these are companies who are part of the disingenous "hoax" companies.
lolinder 2y ago
> Lobbyist organizations should redirect their power into making the government appropriately tax streaming platforms to fund artists, rather than side with monopolistic corporate players. Sorry, what? We're talking about streaming platforms here that have contracts with record labels that have contracts with musicians. If those contracts aren't paying musicians enough, why is the solution to impose a new tax on streaming platforms specifically to pay musicians? From the page they link to: > The Living Wage for Musicians Act would tax providers’ non-subscription revenues and add a small fee to the price of music streaming subscriptions. DSPs like Spotify offering interactive music streaming services would pass their taxed revenues and royalties to a non-profit collection and distribution fund, that would in turn pay artists in proportion to their monthly streams. Isn't this what these contracts are supposed to already be doing? If the numbers aren't making sense then the contract needs to renegotiated. If musicians don't have enough power to renegotiate then the government can and should address that. But why would the solution be to use the taxation power to do the job that royalties are already supposed to be doing? This feels like a classic case of addressing the symptoms (musicians aren't making enough money) while failing to address the actual problem (musicians have no power to negotiate for what they want).
- ozzsama 2y ago
  >This feels like a classic case of addressing the symptoms <...> while failing to address the actual problem Or even worse, simple virtue signaling.
- x-complexity 2y ago
  To solve this issue, copyright needs to be permanently tied to the person who made the work, and can never be transferred. Not allowing copyrights to be transferable grants significant leverage to the artist, whilst also allowing works to enter the public domain via the author's eventual death (or earlier if copyright expires in 20 years as it originally should have).
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  I just want a streaming service where all the money I pay (minus some fee) goes to artists I listen to. Right now the biggest portion of what I pay for music streaming goes to Taylor Swift and I don't even listen to her albums.
deleted 2y ago
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WalterBright 2y ago
The future of pay for musicians will be live performances, not recorded music. Recorded music will just be marketing for the live performances. The smart musicians, like Taylor Swift, figured that out. Her latest tour brought in what, 2 billion dollars?
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  Only for the most successful ones. But I guess that is the future we are headed to: a cutthroat industry where there are a few successful musicians that give us the illusion that music is still created by people, and the rest of them out of a job anyway because of AI.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    There's also the wedding band business, and people hire live musicians for parties all the time. It's a supply and demand thing. There are so many musicians, the idea that they all can make a living doing it is simply not realistic. Only a very few will, regardless of whether they make a few pennies off of streaming or not. Having the government pay them through taxes is a terrible idea. I know many people who are musicians. It's always a side gig. I know artists, too. No money to be made there, either. Maybe a few pennies at the local arts&crafts fair.
    - adamc 2y ago
      I've known several musicians over the years. Things are steadily getting worse.
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        There are also more and more musicians (because the cost of making professional quality music has declined drastically). The Law of Supply & Demand again is in play. More musicians => less pay for each.
        2y ago
vouaobrasil 2y ago
> The music we make today is valuable, and it’s time for the industry to treat it that way and invest in working musicians by paying fair royalties for streams. They do treat it that way. They use the economies of scale and their skill at exploitation to steal it without paying a fair amount for it. By "fair", I mean an amount that would be paid if the industry were collectively owned by musicians. But the key here is that in global capitalism, an amount of money is not proportional to the value you bring to others any more. Instead, it is proportional to how effective you are at growing the existing power structure itself, which is an emergent phenomenon of global, high tech capitalism. Studios are akin to large corporations who extract raw materials for cheap from economically-poor countries. They exploit and short change the people who live there for enormous profits. Extracting "raw materials" as music is much the same phenomenon. Therefore, in order to truly solve this problem, large corporations such as music industries must be taken down, and not negotiated with. So, my advice to musicians is not to negotiate, but to create and sell your music directly. Start a Patreon and take orders yourself.
- csallen 2y ago
  I get your point, but I think this is overly cynical. The fact of the matter is that simply creating a product/service (or in this case, a song) is valuable, sure, but is typically only of limited value. Millions of people sing and write songs every year that nobody listens to or pays for. That fact predates evil executives and greedy companies. In fact, it's been the case for the entirety of mankind's history. The ability to take a song, popularize it enough for consumers to want more of it, package it in a way that consumers will pay for it, and distribute it widely enough that a large number of consumers will pay for it, is very difficult. And very valuable. It's the difference between the 0.01% of music that makes money and the 99.99% of music that doesn't. Of course the people who are skilled at doing that are going to be able to demand and extract large fees. This is true in every industry, not just art/music/etc. For example, lots of people make software and games. But improving it to the point of wide desirability, packaging it up, marketing it, and selling it on a marketplace where it successfully out-competes with other software and games is very difficult. The difference is that in most industries, the creators of the products themselves have taken on the responsibility for packaging, marketing, and selling their creations. Artists have largely outsourced this work to others. You may argue that they've been collectively hoodwinked, and I would partially agree. But it's also true that some of the richest and most powerful businesspeople of our generation are successful musicians (Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Dr. Dre, Madonna, Beyonce, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Drake, etc.)
deleted 2y ago
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daft_pink 2y ago
Is there anyway they can just compromise on not infringing on the musician’s copyright instead of bankrupting the internet archive?
- duxup 2y ago
  What is the Internet Archive's current position on all this? The Internet Archive's "National Emergency Library" seemed legally almost suicidal. It made me wonder who is calling the shots there and what their rationale is. Are they looking to cut a deal on this topic?
  - mdp2021 2y ago
    > legally almost suicidal A typical consolidated radical device to raise awareness.
    - duxup 2y ago
      I “awareness” is all to often the last excuse for genuinely poor choices.
      - mdp2021 2y ago
        How do you know which is which. Public suicide is often the last resort of calling attention. If you are asking "Why would they do that?" the answer can be that it is an act of protest so that the public rises. The latter (hope in a public rising for an ideal) will probably be the bad bet, the «poor [judgement]». Sometimes it comes out of despair.
        duxup 2y ago
        Was it an act of protest intended to get into ... a guaranteed loss legal battle? Even I, someone inclined to take up the banner of IA thought the whole thing raised serious questions about their decision making as an organization. That's not a good thing.
WalterBright 2y ago
Something I don't think anyone has thought of. The conventional idea is a band makes a CD of their songs, mastered to perfection, stamps out CDs and streams, and that's it. The exact same audio, let's call it the "radio edit". I hear the song on the radio, it's exactly the same. I can tell when a performer is lip syncing, because no singer sings a song the same way twice, and I know the radio edit. It's burned in my brain. But, I discovered that when real bands, like Fleetwood Mac, play a concert, they play their old standards, but in a different way every time. I bought their concert CDs, because hearing different versions of the same song makes it fresh and fun again. So my idea is, why don't bands produce a dozen or so "radio edits" of their better songs? I bet they'd increase sales, especially to people like me. I suppose they think they are doing that with the "remastered" edits, but those all stink. Sing it again, Sam!
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  I would have a great time selecting the edit which best fits the mood of the playlist I'm making.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    I also like the imperfections in the live versions. They're more human and less plastic that way.
- rectang 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    The deadheads were more of a cult than a business model. I know that Jimi Hendrix seems to live on and on as his estate finds alternate cuts of his songs and releases album after album. They seem to have done well with this, but only pursued it out of desperation after he died. Do you not find it enjoyable to hear live performances of a song because it's different than the radio edit? Why not take more advantage of that?
deleted 2y ago
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paxys 2y ago
How many artists are on the other side and want their copyright to be respected? I guess they are not "real musicians" because the internet doesn't agree with them?
- rectang 2y ago
  This is a tech forum. If you find musicians here, they will be downvoted into oblivion because their positions are unpopular and the HN rules encourage downvoting for disagreement.
  - hughesjj 2y ago
    Indie musicians love tech. "Sound cloud rapper" was a whole genre. Bandcamp brought so many indie artists into the mainstream who never would have been found without it. Historically, musicians made most of their money off of concerts and merch (especially merch at concerts). Established musicians definitely rallies against streaming/digital downloads when it first came out, but some newer artists have embraced it given it cuts out the middle man and you don't necessarily need to suck up to labels to get any "airtime" and thus reach.
- internetter 2y ago
  The record labels do not speak on behalf of any musicians, the only people they serve is themselves
  - rectang 2y ago
    The record labels fight tech, which as an industry is substantially more abusive to musicians than the labels. The Archive provides a valuable service, but if they're gonna die on this hill I'm going to fight them alongside my allies of convenience the record labels.
  - paxys 2y ago
    That's a fantasy constructed by people who want to keep idolizing their favorite musicians. Labels do exactly what the musicians signed with them want them to do. Heck the vast majority of record labels are owned by musicians.
excalibur 2y ago
If it's important to cumgirl8 and Couch Slut, it's important to me.
- Vaslo 2y ago
  This comment should be at the top. Many of the signatories are ridiculous.
  - Sabinus 2y ago
    Many are left-leaning artist stage names, what do you expect? This is HN, we don't really need witticisms at the top of the comment section.
    - dingaling 2y ago
      Surely if the cause is important to them they should sign with their legal name. If I signed an ink-and-paper petition as CuddleBunny227 it would be rightly disregarded and stricken even if I insisted that was my username on Reddit. Does that change if it's "on the Internet"?
      - a2128 2y ago
        If CuddleBunny227 is your stage name that you release music under and people know you as, you should probably use it so people recognise the name. It's ultimately a personal choice of whether you wanna doxx your real name or not, and many online artists prefer not to, in which case putting both names alongside would be unacceptable
block_dagger 2y ago
Open source projects like Relisten [1] depend on the Internet Archive for long term storage of legally recorded concerts from artists like the Grateful Dead, known for their unique concert experiences. This is an invaluable public service for millions of music fans and a boon to American history and culture. [1] https://relisten.net https://relisten.net
- krick 2y ago
  Look, don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of copyright violation. But every time something like this pops up my instant reaction is that Internet Archive are inflicting this on themselves. They are aiming to provide storage service for legally recorded concerts? Great. This should be a separate project, partnered and advertised, but formally unrelated to IA "backup the internet" thing. They are aiming to be a huge online library that allows you to "legally" borrow books? Great, let it be another separate project. Internet Archive has enough problems on its own, there's no need to keep loading all sorts of obviously dangerous initiatives on top of it.
  - brians 2y ago
    I used to agree. But—Part of what they’re working towards is a demonstration that librarians are gonna do stuff like this, and shouldn’t have to do defensive organizational engineering about their archival projects.
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      What does this mean? Credibility doesn’t fall from the sky… it has to actually be earned by someone or groups of someones. Usually in the course of their decisions and activities. Librarians don’t magically start off with an unlimited amount of it, such that they can completely ignore these considerations, and experience no consequences. Even if they truly are all the most amazing, wonderful, honorable people on Earth, their credibility would still be depleteable.
      - card_zero 2y ago
nadermx 2y ago
Let's assume that the internet archive loses this. What happens?
- faeranne 2y ago
  The sought damages is $621 Million. Internet Archive reported having about $7 Million in assets and $30 Million in revenue (for those who accidentally read over that, revenue is before factoring in costs, which for IA budgets around $37 Million annually as well.) (EDIT: in 2022. I've been rewriting this a few times and forgot to re-add that part in the final comment) If the suit is found in favor of UGM and enforced at full effect (not impossible, but Hachette v. Internet Archive was not either), then IA will be on the hook for the full $621 Million. You can guess how that ends. But even if they don't enforce at full effect (and given Web Archive has been successfully used to provide evidence against UMG and Sony multiple times now, they have a pretty strong incentive to get it burned down), a sizable portion of the 400,000 recordings are from disks that quite literally broke down after capture. Those disks are the last copies of those recordings. Ever. Should UMG and Sony succeed, it is a very safe assumption, given they already confirmed they don't have those recordings (and based on that, don't want them), that those recordings immediately become lost media.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >a sizable portion of the 400,000 recordings are from disks that quite literally broke down after capture. Those disks are the last copies of those recordings. Ever. Somewhere, there was a critical failure of risk assessment and management.
    - faeranne 2y ago
      As I mentioned in a sibling comment, the entirety of IA's existence is a "critical failure of risk assessment" now. Their existence forces companies to deal with the one competitor they can't beat, their past selves. The question we begin to ask here is "This is the only place that was able and ready to accept and preserve these otherwise permanently lost works. Do we let copyright ensure the destruction of itself, or is culture and history more important?"
loeg 2y ago
What dumb litigation minefield did IA do to itself this time? (The other obvious recent example being the illegal book lending.)
ozzsama 2y ago
>Make streaming services pay fair compensation Others have probably pointed it out already but if it happens, streaming services are very unlikely to survive. They are not profitable even today. To make things worse, AFAIK there is research that basically says that streaming services will never generate money for their investors. Spotify can only afford to pay its musicians "unfair" compensations. Otherwise it will be forced out of business.
- pjerem 2y ago
  Well, if that’s the case, that only means it’s not a profitable business and that it must close.
doright 2y ago
Just an interesting observation: There are a lot of netlabels that host their releases on IA. Some go back all the way to the early 2000s: https://archive.org/details/netlabels https://archive.org/details/netlabels https://archive.org/details/monotonik?sort=-downloads https://archive.org/details/monotonik?sort=-downloads
udev4096 2y ago
It's funny how they think internet archive is the only place where "linux ISOs" are stored which tells me how out of touch these lawsuits are. There are thousands of private trackers, usenet indexers, etc whose sole purpose is to provide an insane and gobsmacking collection of "linux ISOs"
eleveriven 2y ago
What really stands out is the call to refocus on living artists rather than endlessly monetizing back catalogs. I think that’s where the industry’s priorities need to shift
futureduck 2y ago
The entire copyright thing needs to stop. It is preventing great music from being made or at least released publicly. I understand that some musicians get nice royalties and this is their full-time thing, but most of us get close to nothing from streaming and barely break even from record sales. I'd rather get nothing and be allowed to sample and remix everything.
- 9dev 2y ago
  Im pretty sure Beyoncé and Taylor Swift disagree with you, and that will always settle the debate.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
    So make copywrite a 10 year prevention on duplication, with exemptions if the original artist abandons widespread sales/profits/access
  - lukan 2y ago
    Because pop stars are secretly in charge? I don't think their opinion matters much, but rather of those people who hold their rights.
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
      Beyonce and Swift are outliers who do own most of their own catalog, probably why they are billionaires, labels are merely given publishing rights
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - 9dev 2y ago
      That's besides the point. The handful of big pop stars tilt the scale so massively that the interests of whomever is financially representing them will always guide the direction of the music industry as a whole. And that ensures copyright is going to stay.
- 2y ago
Amekedl 2y ago
Face the sin, save the E.G.O.
laserbeam 2y ago
Whenever I ask a musician at a concert how to best support them, they tell me to buy a tshirt instead of a CD. That is bonkers.
mwinatschek 2y ago
I love the Internet Archive in its current form, but let’s assume that a court rules it can’t operate as it does now. Why couldn’t it adopt a system similar to YouTube’s ownership claim? For example, if the Internet Archive hosts a song owned by Universal, the company could claim ownership of that song and receive a share of the revenue each time it's streamed. To help cover costs, the Internet Archive could introduce a paid plan, like YouTube Premium, for 10 bucks a month. While this might not be the perfect solution, it would at least be better than a world without the Internet Archive.
- cess11 2y ago
  Because the purpose of libraries is to destroy organisations such as Universal and the faith they represent.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

355 points by m463 2y ago

echelon 2y ago

AI is going to kill the recording industry soon enough.

AlexandrB 2y ago
AI's going to kill artists. The "recording industry" will persist Example: https://old.reddit.com/r/musicindustry/comments/1ao87z5/spotify_making_their_own_ai_music_under_fake/?rdt=51584 https://old.reddit.com/r/musicindustry/comments/1ao87z5/spot...
- PradeetPatel 2y ago
  I've noticed a similar trend on YouTube and Bandcamp too. Sadly, I personally know a few people who are engaged in those activities in my business school class. The usage of generative AI has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for the creative industry, leading to an influx of AI generated products that are easily consumable and can be used to generate revenue. Until the platforms begin to regulate AI art, which I don't see why they would, we can expect to see more of them in the near future.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    > The usage of generative AI has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for the creative industry, The use of generative AI should also mean that the name "creative industry" should be changed to just "industry".
- dartharva 2y ago
  Man, I wish music recommendation systems were social and crowd-sourced like they used to be before internet streaming. These "intelligent" recommendation and scrobbling systems are tiresome.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    Still can be! I haven't used an ai playlist in years. Bandcamp, playlists made by friends, and full albums via word of mouth
romanobro56 2y ago
Yeah let’s just let the biggest labels back AI “artists” whose trainings completely comprise of real musicians’ work
dangus 2y ago
Why AI is tech's latest hoax: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuBCk8XMC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOuBCk8XMC8
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  AI is just another tool for creative and skilled people https://youtu.be/W5JlXCo3Rb4 https://youtu.be/W5JlXCo3Rb4
  - dangus 2y ago
    And that's why it's a hoax. It's a tool with limited use cases just like every other tool, but the industry has treated it like an all-encompassing revolution in the way companies will operate moving forward.
    - ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
      That doesn't make it a hoax just overhyped.
      - dangus 2y ago
        It absolutely is a hoax, because a number of companies are doing shady things like: - Selling products based on AI capabilities that do not yet and/or will never exist in the product - Adding "AI" to the name of product lines with very little core functionality based on AI - Rebranding non-generative algorithms as AI (e.g., SQL queries and if statements == AI) - Changing the name and/or domain name of the company to imply AI capability I look at companies with heavy trend-based advertising like C3.ai, who changed their name from a previous trend (C3.IoT), and then IBM that rode marketing waves related to Watson/Watson Health, IBM Blockchain, and now AI, and these are companies who are part of the disingenous "hoax" companies.

lolinder 2y ago

> Lobbyist organizations should redirect their power into making the government appropriately tax streaming platforms to fund artists, rather than side with monopolistic corporate players. Sorry, what? We're talking about streaming platforms here that have contracts with record labels that have contracts with musicians. If those contracts aren't paying musicians enough, why is the solution to impose a new tax on streaming platforms specifically to pay musicians? From the page they link to: > The Living Wage for Musicians Act would tax providers’ non-subscription revenues and add a small fee to the price of music streaming subscriptions. DSPs like Spotify offering interactive music streaming services would pass their taxed revenues and royalties to a non-profit collection and distribution fund, that would in turn pay artists in proportion to their monthly streams. Isn't this what these contracts are supposed to already be doing? If the numbers aren't making sense then the contract needs to renegotiated. If musicians don't have enough power to renegotiate then the government can and should address that. But why would the solution be to use the taxation power to do the job that royalties are already supposed to be doing? This feels like a classic case of addressing the symptoms (musicians aren't making enough money) while failing to address the actual problem (musicians have no power to negotiate for what they want).

ozzsama 2y ago
>This feels like a classic case of addressing the symptoms <...> while failing to address the actual problem Or even worse, simple virtue signaling.
x-complexity 2y ago
To solve this issue, copyright needs to be permanently tied to the person who made the work, and can never be transferred. Not allowing copyrights to be transferable grants significant leverage to the artist, whilst also allowing works to enter the public domain via the author's eventual death (or earlier if copyright expires in 20 years as it originally should have).
AlexandrB 2y ago
I just want a streaming service where all the money I pay (minus some fee) goes to artists I listen to. Right now the biggest portion of what I pay for music streaming goes to Taylor Swift and I don't even listen to her albums.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

WalterBright 2y ago

The future of pay for musicians will be live performances, not recorded music. Recorded music will just be marketing for the live performances. The smart musicians, like Taylor Swift, figured that out. Her latest tour brought in what, 2 billion dollars?

vouaobrasil 2y ago
Only for the most successful ones. But I guess that is the future we are headed to: a cutthroat industry where there are a few successful musicians that give us the illusion that music is still created by people, and the rest of them out of a job anyway because of AI.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  There's also the wedding band business, and people hire live musicians for parties all the time. It's a supply and demand thing. There are so many musicians, the idea that they all can make a living doing it is simply not realistic. Only a very few will, regardless of whether they make a few pennies off of streaming or not. Having the government pay them through taxes is a terrible idea. I know many people who are musicians. It's always a side gig. I know artists, too. No money to be made there, either. Maybe a few pennies at the local arts&crafts fair.
  - adamc 2y ago
    I've known several musicians over the years. Things are steadily getting worse.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      There are also more and more musicians (because the cost of making professional quality music has declined drastically). The Law of Supply & Demand again is in play. More musicians => less pay for each.
      - 2y ago

vouaobrasil 2y ago

> The music we make today is valuable, and it’s time for the industry to treat it that way and invest in working musicians by paying fair royalties for streams. They do treat it that way. They use the economies of scale and their skill at exploitation to steal it without paying a fair amount for it. By "fair", I mean an amount that would be paid if the industry were collectively owned by musicians. But the key here is that in global capitalism, an amount of money is not proportional to the value you bring to others any more. Instead, it is proportional to how effective you are at growing the existing power structure itself, which is an emergent phenomenon of global, high tech capitalism. Studios are akin to large corporations who extract raw materials for cheap from economically-poor countries. They exploit and short change the people who live there for enormous profits. Extracting "raw materials" as music is much the same phenomenon. Therefore, in order to truly solve this problem, large corporations such as music industries must be taken down, and not negotiated with. So, my advice to musicians is not to negotiate, but to create and sell your music directly. Start a Patreon and take orders yourself.

csallen 2y ago
I get your point, but I think this is overly cynical. The fact of the matter is that simply creating a product/service (or in this case, a song) is valuable, sure, but is typically only of limited value. Millions of people sing and write songs every year that nobody listens to or pays for. That fact predates evil executives and greedy companies. In fact, it's been the case for the entirety of mankind's history. The ability to take a song, popularize it enough for consumers to want more of it, package it in a way that consumers will pay for it, and distribute it widely enough that a large number of consumers will pay for it, is very difficult. And very valuable. It's the difference between the 0.01% of music that makes money and the 99.99% of music that doesn't. Of course the people who are skilled at doing that are going to be able to demand and extract large fees. This is true in every industry, not just art/music/etc. For example, lots of people make software and games. But improving it to the point of wide desirability, packaging it up, marketing it, and selling it on a marketplace where it successfully out-competes with other software and games is very difficult. The difference is that in most industries, the creators of the products themselves have taken on the responsibility for packaging, marketing, and selling their creations. Artists have largely outsourced this work to others. You may argue that they've been collectively hoodwinked, and I would partially agree. But it's also true that some of the richest and most powerful businesspeople of our generation are successful musicians (Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Dr. Dre, Madonna, Beyonce, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Drake, etc.)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

daft_pink 2y ago

Is there anyway they can just compromise on not infringing on the musician’s copyright instead of bankrupting the internet archive?

duxup 2y ago
What is the Internet Archive's current position on all this? The Internet Archive's "National Emergency Library" seemed legally almost suicidal. It made me wonder who is calling the shots there and what their rationale is. Are they looking to cut a deal on this topic?
- mdp2021 2y ago
  > legally almost suicidal A typical consolidated radical device to raise awareness.
  - duxup 2y ago
    I “awareness” is all to often the last excuse for genuinely poor choices.
    - mdp2021 2y ago
      How do you know which is which. Public suicide is often the last resort of calling attention. If you are asking "Why would they do that?" the answer can be that it is an act of protest so that the public rises. The latter (hope in a public rising for an ideal) will probably be the bad bet, the «poor [judgement]». Sometimes it comes out of despair.
      - duxup 2y ago
        Was it an act of protest intended to get into ... a guaranteed loss legal battle? Even I, someone inclined to take up the banner of IA thought the whole thing raised serious questions about their decision making as an organization. That's not a good thing.

WalterBright 2y ago

Something I don't think anyone has thought of. The conventional idea is a band makes a CD of their songs, mastered to perfection, stamps out CDs and streams, and that's it. The exact same audio, let's call it the "radio edit". I hear the song on the radio, it's exactly the same. I can tell when a performer is lip syncing, because no singer sings a song the same way twice, and I know the radio edit. It's burned in my brain. But, I discovered that when real bands, like Fleetwood Mac, play a concert, they play their old standards, but in a different way every time. I bought their concert CDs, because hearing different versions of the same song makes it fresh and fun again. So my idea is, why don't bands produce a dozen or so "radio edits" of their better songs? I bet they'd increase sales, especially to people like me. I suppose they think they are doing that with the "remastered" edits, but those all stink. Sing it again, Sam!

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
I would have a great time selecting the edit which best fits the mood of the playlist I'm making.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  I also like the imperfections in the live versions. They're more human and less plastic that way.
rectang 2y ago
[flagged]
- WalterBright 2y ago
  The deadheads were more of a cult than a business model. I know that Jimi Hendrix seems to live on and on as his estate finds alternate cuts of his songs and releases album after album. They seem to have done well with this, but only pursued it out of desperation after he died. Do you not find it enjoyable to hear live performances of a song because it's different than the radio edit? Why not take more advantage of that?

deleted 2y ago

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paxys 2y ago

How many artists are on the other side and want their copyright to be respected? I guess they are not "real musicians" because the internet doesn't agree with them?

rectang 2y ago
This is a tech forum. If you find musicians here, they will be downvoted into oblivion because their positions are unpopular and the HN rules encourage downvoting for disagreement.
- hughesjj 2y ago
  Indie musicians love tech. "Sound cloud rapper" was a whole genre. Bandcamp brought so many indie artists into the mainstream who never would have been found without it. Historically, musicians made most of their money off of concerts and merch (especially merch at concerts). Established musicians definitely rallies against streaming/digital downloads when it first came out, but some newer artists have embraced it given it cuts out the middle man and you don't necessarily need to suck up to labels to get any "airtime" and thus reach.
internetter 2y ago
The record labels do not speak on behalf of any musicians, the only people they serve is themselves
- rectang 2y ago
  The record labels fight tech, which as an industry is substantially more abusive to musicians than the labels. The Archive provides a valuable service, but if they're gonna die on this hill I'm going to fight them alongside my allies of convenience the record labels.
- paxys 2y ago
  That's a fantasy constructed by people who want to keep idolizing their favorite musicians. Labels do exactly what the musicians signed with them want them to do. Heck the vast majority of record labels are owned by musicians.

excalibur 2y ago

If it's important to cumgirl8 and Couch Slut, it's important to me.

Vaslo 2y ago
This comment should be at the top. Many of the signatories are ridiculous.
- Sabinus 2y ago
  Many are left-leaning artist stage names, what do you expect? This is HN, we don't really need witticisms at the top of the comment section.
  - dingaling 2y ago
    Surely if the cause is important to them they should sign with their legal name. If I signed an ink-and-paper petition as CuddleBunny227 it would be rightly disregarded and stricken even if I insisted that was my username on Reddit. Does that change if it's "on the Internet"?
    - a2128 2y ago
      If CuddleBunny227 is your stage name that you release music under and people know you as, you should probably use it so people recognise the name. It's ultimately a personal choice of whether you wanna doxx your real name or not, and many online artists prefer not to, in which case putting both names alongside would be unacceptable

block_dagger 2y ago

Open source projects like Relisten [1] depend on the Internet Archive for long term storage of legally recorded concerts from artists like the Grateful Dead, known for their unique concert experiences. This is an invaluable public service for millions of music fans and a boon to American history and culture. [1] https://relisten.net https://relisten.net

krick 2y ago
Look, don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of copyright violation. But every time something like this pops up my instant reaction is that Internet Archive are inflicting this on themselves. They are aiming to provide storage service for legally recorded concerts? Great. This should be a separate project, partnered and advertised, but formally unrelated to IA "backup the internet" thing. They are aiming to be a huge online library that allows you to "legally" borrow books? Great, let it be another separate project. Internet Archive has enough problems on its own, there's no need to keep loading all sorts of obviously dangerous initiatives on top of it.
- brians 2y ago
  I used to agree. But—Part of what they’re working towards is a demonstration that librarians are gonna do stuff like this, and shouldn’t have to do defensive organizational engineering about their archival projects.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    What does this mean? Credibility doesn’t fall from the sky… it has to actually be earned by someone or groups of someones. Usually in the course of their decisions and activities. Librarians don’t magically start off with an unlimited amount of it, such that they can completely ignore these considerations, and experience no consequences. Even if they truly are all the most amazing, wonderful, honorable people on Earth, their credibility would still be depleteable.
    - card_zero 2y ago

nadermx 2y ago

Let's assume that the internet archive loses this. What happens?

faeranne 2y ago
The sought damages is $621 Million. Internet Archive reported having about $7 Million in assets and $30 Million in revenue (for those who accidentally read over that, revenue is before factoring in costs, which for IA budgets around $37 Million annually as well.) (EDIT: in 2022. I've been rewriting this a few times and forgot to re-add that part in the final comment) If the suit is found in favor of UGM and enforced at full effect (not impossible, but Hachette v. Internet Archive was not either), then IA will be on the hook for the full $621 Million. You can guess how that ends. But even if they don't enforce at full effect (and given Web Archive has been successfully used to provide evidence against UMG and Sony multiple times now, they have a pretty strong incentive to get it burned down), a sizable portion of the 400,000 recordings are from disks that quite literally broke down after capture. Those disks are the last copies of those recordings. Ever. Should UMG and Sony succeed, it is a very safe assumption, given they already confirmed they don't have those recordings (and based on that, don't want them), that those recordings immediately become lost media.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >a sizable portion of the 400,000 recordings are from disks that quite literally broke down after capture. Those disks are the last copies of those recordings. Ever. Somewhere, there was a critical failure of risk assessment and management.
  - faeranne 2y ago
    As I mentioned in a sibling comment, the entirety of IA's existence is a "critical failure of risk assessment" now. Their existence forces companies to deal with the one competitor they can't beat, their past selves. The question we begin to ask here is "This is the only place that was able and ready to accept and preserve these otherwise permanently lost works. Do we let copyright ensure the destruction of itself, or is culture and history more important?"

loeg 2y ago

What dumb litigation minefield did IA do to itself this time? (The other obvious recent example being the illegal book lending.)

ozzsama 2y ago

>Make streaming services pay fair compensation Others have probably pointed it out already but if it happens, streaming services are very unlikely to survive. They are not profitable even today. To make things worse, AFAIK there is research that basically says that streaming services will never generate money for their investors. Spotify can only afford to pay its musicians "unfair" compensations. Otherwise it will be forced out of business.

pjerem 2y ago
Well, if that’s the case, that only means it’s not a profitable business and that it must close.

doright 2y ago

Just an interesting observation: There are a lot of netlabels that host their releases on IA. Some go back all the way to the early 2000s: https://archive.org/details/netlabels https://archive.org/details/netlabels https://archive.org/details/monotonik?sort=-downloads https://archive.org/details/monotonik?sort=-downloads

udev4096 2y ago

It's funny how they think internet archive is the only place where "linux ISOs" are stored which tells me how out of touch these lawsuits are. There are thousands of private trackers, usenet indexers, etc whose sole purpose is to provide an insane and gobsmacking collection of "linux ISOs"

eleveriven 2y ago

What really stands out is the call to refocus on living artists rather than endlessly monetizing back catalogs. I think that’s where the industry’s priorities need to shift

futureduck 2y ago

The entire copyright thing needs to stop. It is preventing great music from being made or at least released publicly. I understand that some musicians get nice royalties and this is their full-time thing, but most of us get close to nothing from streaming and barely break even from record sales. I'd rather get nothing and be allowed to sample and remix everything.

9dev 2y ago
Im pretty sure Beyoncé and Taylor Swift disagree with you, and that will always settle the debate.
- hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
  So make copywrite a 10 year prevention on duplication, with exemptions if the original artist abandons widespread sales/profits/access
- lukan 2y ago
  Because pop stars are secretly in charge? I don't think their opinion matters much, but rather of those people who hold their rights.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    Beyonce and Swift are outliers who do own most of their own catalog, probably why they are billionaires, labels are merely given publishing rights
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - 9dev 2y ago
    That's besides the point. The handful of big pop stars tilt the scale so massively that the interests of whomever is financially representing them will always guide the direction of the music industry as a whole. And that ensures copyright is going to stay.
2y ago

Amekedl 2y ago

Face the sin, save the E.G.O.

laserbeam 2y ago

Whenever I ask a musician at a concert how to best support them, they tell me to buy a tshirt instead of a CD. That is bonkers.

mwinatschek 2y ago

I love the Internet Archive in its current form, but let’s assume that a court rules it can’t operate as it does now. Why couldn’t it adopt a system similar to YouTube’s ownership claim? For example, if the Internet Archive hosts a song owned by Universal, the company could claim ownership of that song and receive a share of the revenue each time it's streamed. To help cover costs, the Internet Archive could introduce a paid plan, like YouTube Premium, for 10 bucks a month. While this might not be the perfect solution, it would at least be better than a world without the Internet Archive.

cess11 2y ago
Because the purpose of libraries is to destroy organisations such as Universal and the faith they represent.

deleted 2y ago

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