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Piracy is a really huge part of it. Nothing is free. Pay for it or it finds someone who will pay for you. ... And If neither occurs, you won't get it at all. I

by api 12y ago

Piracy is a really huge part of it. Nothing is free. Pay for it or it finds someone who will pay for you. ... And If neither occurs, you won't get it at all. I've started to become increasingly convinced that huge scale piracy really did harm the quality of popular music. You can find some good obscure music today, but the average quality seems to have hugely declined in some objective way. Art is no more free than code, and good art really does cost more than bad art for all kinds of reasons... Fewer can make it, and quality takes time and sustained focus. Having some talentless tart squall into an auto tuner to a cliched catchy melody is cheap. Finding an Elizabeth Fraser and paying them to practice for 40 hours a week under the supervision of a professional choral voice instructor while you coach the band on composition in a recording studio is not. Why invest in a product nobody will pay for? Funny how when I bring up the issue in the context of software everyone agrees. Of course people have to get paid somehow and of course polished products cost money. But on every forum including this one, nobody gets how there could be any relationship whatsoever between the quality of art and its ability to be financed. I think this comes down to one of the greatest myths about art: that it comes from some automatic and magical place and people either have it or they don't, and that artists make art solely out of duty to the muse. Like anything else art is a skill and doing it well requires practice, research, focus, coaching, even peer review, and all of that takes time during which many people including the artist must be supported. There is a component of inspiration but raw inspiration without the rest of it results in rough draft quality work that is only of value to the artist themselves. Piracy undermines the ability to finance art just like it does in software. What's one of the first questions a VC asks about? Defensibility. In other words how will you protect your ability to monetize the value you create. You think investors only ask that question in software?

debaserab2 12y ago
Art is subjective, code is not. Good code is testable. Good art is not testable. Top40 music is palatable to many and is the exact result of what you describe: practice, research, focus, coaching, and peer review on a massive financed scale that "startup" bands could never afford. Yet despite that, the indie music scene has never been more vibrant and alive than it is today. Instead of a small number of bands/groups producing music that all indie fans like, there's a huge pool of artists each producing their unique sound based on their own personal values of how music should be produced (including things like practice, focus, peer review, and other things not mentioned like experience, personality, and culture). That, to me, is art -- not a rehearsed manufactured production but an embedded experience unique to the artist you are listening to. That's what you heard in popular music until the mid nineties. The lack of quality popular music is not due to lack of craftsmanship.
- gglitch 12y ago
  The financial costs a young artist or group incurs to bring one or a few albums into the world are slim, but the cost in time is great, especially if they're also trying to keep food in their bellies by touring. But here's the thing - who can afford to do that for their whole careers? I think part of the costs parent is describing have to do with making art as a viable lifetime career, meaning, providing for healthcare and retirement. Sure, it's easier than ever for college-age people to put out some records, but if anyone is to make art a viable profession, money has to come from somewhere, and enough of it to make it viable as a living.
  - api 12y ago
    That's exactly what I meant: a viable profession. I also disagree with the OP about cost vs. quality. The key difference comes later when you're managing the artist. If the artist has talent then they also have a certain amount of leverage in the relationship. If you make them feel like a slave then they have an ultimate trump card: turning off the juice. (The "Atlas Shrugged" maneuver?) A talentless piece of meat plus auto tune gives you total leverage, which means risk mitigation and a more controllable product. Right now the environment in the music industry is one of extreme risk aversion, which is something you see when the bottom falls out of an industry. You've arguably seen a much more risk-averse tech industry since the 2001 crash. I think my points about piracy fit into a broader critique of the concept of "free" that I've been thinking about and that I've heard others talking about. Unlike previous critiques it's more of a liberal/progressive critique.
tomp 12y ago
I don't know about the music, but Avatar, one of the most pirated movies of all times, was also one of the most financially successful. It seems like making quality movies still pays off.
- api 12y ago
  Citing a single example isn't evidence. Also movies have been less affected than music, which got the brunt of it due to Napster's VC-funded normalization of bulk music piracy. Movies have their theater runs, while musicians can only get live revenue by touring (which is hard work).

by api 12y ago

debaserab2 12y ago

Art is subjective, code is not. Good code is testable. Good art is not testable. Top40 music is palatable to many and is the exact result of what you describe: practice, research, focus, coaching, and peer review on a massive financed scale that "startup" bands could never afford. Yet despite that, the indie music scene has never been more vibrant and alive than it is today. Instead of a small number of bands/groups producing music that all indie fans like, there's a huge pool of artists each producing their unique sound based on their own personal values of how music should be produced (including things like practice, focus, peer review, and other things not mentioned like experience, personality, and culture). That, to me, is art -- not a rehearsed manufactured production but an embedded experience unique to the artist you are listening to. That's what you heard in popular music until the mid nineties. The lack of quality popular music is not due to lack of craftsmanship.

gglitch 12y ago
The financial costs a young artist or group incurs to bring one or a few albums into the world are slim, but the cost in time is great, especially if they're also trying to keep food in their bellies by touring. But here's the thing - who can afford to do that for their whole careers? I think part of the costs parent is describing have to do with making art as a viable lifetime career, meaning, providing for healthcare and retirement. Sure, it's easier than ever for college-age people to put out some records, but if anyone is to make art a viable profession, money has to come from somewhere, and enough of it to make it viable as a living.
- api 12y ago
  That's exactly what I meant: a viable profession. I also disagree with the OP about cost vs. quality. The key difference comes later when you're managing the artist. If the artist has talent then they also have a certain amount of leverage in the relationship. If you make them feel like a slave then they have an ultimate trump card: turning off the juice. (The "Atlas Shrugged" maneuver?) A talentless piece of meat plus auto tune gives you total leverage, which means risk mitigation and a more controllable product. Right now the environment in the music industry is one of extreme risk aversion, which is something you see when the bottom falls out of an industry. You've arguably seen a much more risk-averse tech industry since the 2001 crash. I think my points about piracy fit into a broader critique of the concept of "free" that I've been thinking about and that I've heard others talking about. Unlike previous critiques it's more of a liberal/progressive critique.

tomp 12y ago

I don't know about the music, but Avatar, one of the most pirated movies of all times, was also one of the most financially successful. It seems like making quality movies still pays off.

api 12y ago
Citing a single example isn't evidence. Also movies have been less affected than music, which got the brunt of it due to Napster's VC-funded normalization of bulk music piracy. Movies have their theater runs, while musicians can only get live revenue by touring (which is hard work).