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I'm not entirely sure what point you're making so if you could clarify that would be helpful, but if I assume that by "we should let the firms making the unnece

I'm not entirely sure what point you're making so if you could clarify that would be helpful, but if I assume that by "we should let the firms making the unnecessary product(s) disappear" you mean: record labels provide no value... then my response is as follows: Record labels provide a lot of value, they provide the funding to produce albums, to go on tours, they provide the marketing experience and reach to take a band from small to big. Labels don't just take a chunk and provide no value, otherwise why would anyone sign? Labels provide a lot of value: value that (apparently) nobody on the internet understands. Justin Bieber is a great example, he was a dumb kid on Youtube singing songs and had a small fanbase, he could have continued alone to make songs and maybe sell them on Bandcamp and maybe make a few thousand $, instead he chose to sign with a label and today is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more. He is a global brand. Would Justin Bieber be worth $xxx,xxx,xxx today if he stuck it alone? Has any independent musician ever done that before? The value of labels is clear. People don't need labels now to build a following, that much is true, but that doesn't mean labels should not expect the same protections that other business types get. If a label has a product they should have reasonable expectations of control over that product, this includes making it illegal to steal that product.

bediger4000 14y ago
All right, I'll restate my point, which is: if technology renders some product(s) unnecessary, we should let the firms making the unnecessary product(s) disappear, rather than distorting markets, changing laws and reducing civil liberties to keep the markets-as-they-currently-exist. I really don't follow music much, I have a tin ear, as they say. I merely see Music-production-as-big-business doing a lot of things (lobbying, propagandizing, maybe even comment trolling) that seem, well, authoritarian, totalitarian and not for the general good. Specific laws that promulgate what I see as a false-to-fact concept, "Intellectual Property" mostly have the backing of music and movie production companies, and pharmaceutical companies. Those companies appear to me, an outside observer, to be less than helpful to the general populace. If they need to drastically curtail civil liberties for success in the market, let the companies fail.

bediger4000 14y ago

All right, I'll restate my point, which is: if technology renders some product(s) unnecessary, we should let the firms making the unnecessary product(s) disappear, rather than distorting markets, changing laws and reducing civil liberties to keep the markets-as-they-currently-exist. I really don't follow music much, I have a tin ear, as they say. I merely see Music-production-as-big-business doing a lot of things (lobbying, propagandizing, maybe even comment trolling) that seem, well, authoritarian, totalitarian and not for the general good. Specific laws that promulgate what I see as a false-to-fact concept, "Intellectual Property" mostly have the backing of music and movie production companies, and pharmaceutical companies. Those companies appear to me, an outside observer, to be less than helpful to the general populace. If they need to drastically curtail civil liberties for success in the market, let the companies fail.