6 ms·

You've never had free music (unless you stole it). Radio and YouTube are free due to advertisements. All of your other examples are either public domain or a

You've never had free music (unless you stole it). Radio and YouTube are free due to advertisements. All of your other examples are either public domain or a business paying to play music for you.

kazinator 11y ago
I don't think the liquor store pays the guitar bum loitering in front. :)
ghshephard 11y ago
The United States and Canada allowed free music (for personal use) if you wanted to tape it off the radio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act. I believe a portion of the cost of blank tapes was allocated to recording artists to cover this costs, so perhaps it wasn't entirely free...
- stephengillie 11y ago
  The funds were allocated to recording companies, not directly to artists. Which means the artists rarely saw any of that money - the percentage of that payment to which they were entitled rarely rounded up to 1 cent.
discardorama 11y ago
> You've never had free music ... Radio and YouTube are free ... So which one is it: was music free or not?
- stephengillie 11y ago
  Free. When an ad comes onto one radio station, you switch to another without ads. Redundant array of independent radio stations. Advertising is damage. So advertisers coalesce their ad timing, so the damage happens on all independent channels simultaneously, so you turn off the radio for several minutes, maybe switching to Pandora or another stream. When Youtube plays ads, you mute it and goto another tab, and keep watching a different video. When the ad is done (such nice ads for telling you their duration), you simply return to the tab and watch your content. There's always another service that's looking to hook you before they advertise. So you can just switch between them.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    If everyone did that, advertisers wouldn't make money. That only works because most people do listen to the ads.
    - stephengillie 11y ago
      Then maybe everyone would find a less invasive monetization means.

You've never had free music (unless you stole it). Radio and YouTube are free due to advertisements. All of your other examples are either public domain or a business paying to play music for you.

kazinator 11y ago

I don't think the liquor store pays the guitar bum loitering in front. :)

ghshephard 11y ago

The United States and Canada allowed free music (for personal use) if you wanted to tape it off the radio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Home_Recording_Act. I believe a portion of the cost of blank tapes was allocated to recording artists to cover this costs, so perhaps it wasn't entirely free...

stephengillie 11y ago
The funds were allocated to recording companies, not directly to artists. Which means the artists rarely saw any of that money - the percentage of that payment to which they were entitled rarely rounded up to 1 cent.

discardorama 11y ago

> You've never had free music ... Radio and YouTube are free ... So which one is it: was music free or not?

stephengillie 11y ago
Free. When an ad comes onto one radio station, you switch to another without ads. Redundant array of independent radio stations. Advertising is damage. So advertisers coalesce their ad timing, so the damage happens on all independent channels simultaneously, so you turn off the radio for several minutes, maybe switching to Pandora or another stream. When Youtube plays ads, you mute it and goto another tab, and keep watching a different video. When the ad is done (such nice ads for telling you their duration), you simply return to the tab and watch your content. There's always another service that's looking to hook you before they advertise. So you can just switch between them.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  If everyone did that, advertisers wouldn't make money. That only works because most people do listen to the ads.
  - stephengillie 11y ago
    Then maybe everyone would find a less invasive monetization means.