Meet the new boss

[DSOP]

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/201 ... onsidered/

The existential questions that your generation gets to answer are these:

Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?

Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?

Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?

This is a bit of hyperbole to emphasize the point. But it’s as if:

Networks: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!

Hardware: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!

Artists: 99.9 % lower middle class. Screw you, you greedy bastards!

Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!

[Josiah]

I think I might have mentioned it before, but as an active musician for hire. There's no way in the world any of us, or at least myself anyway, could buy every song or CD that a song is on that we have to learn for cover bands, wedding bands, churches, variety gigs etc...

I wonder how David Lowery would respond to that?

[DSOP]

The way it used to be done is, the leader of the band would give you a cassette tape of all the songs to learn, or charts. But sharing music between musicians for the purpose of learning songs is not the big problem anyway.

[circh bustom]

Not to purposely be argumentative, DSOP, but isn't that worse? By the bandleader giving 3-10 musicians a copy of music that only one person paid for, so they can learn the tunes and then make money off those tunes, that seems worse than some 16 yr old kid downloading a song from a pirate website just so he could listen to it while banging his girlfriend. Im not saying your wrong, but why is that acceptable?

[Josiah]

The way it used to be done is, the leader of the band would give you a cassette tape of all the songs to learn, or charts. But sharing music between musicians for the purpose of learning songs is not the big problem anyway.

That's generally how it is for me. CD's or skydrive's, whatever with the mp3's of the music. Or just a list and I have to go find the tracks myself.


circh bustom brings up an interesting point.

However "in theory" venues that employ cover bands are supposed to be paying ASCAP fee's or whatever to have cover music, per song, blah blah blah

I do know most the churches I've played for actually pay the fee's for using P&W songs. I highly doubt bar's, weddings, and so forth are however

[DSOP]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but why is that acceptable?

It's not "legal" either. The only reason I don't feel that it's the same, is that cassette tapes are of inferior quality to the original records. And usually, it would be the same cassette that was passed around, not multiple copies. Plus, we're talking about an infinitesimally small case here. Please read the whole blog posting above. To suggest that musicians sharing music, in order to prepare to perform that music, is a big problem, is ludicrous to say the least.

[circh bustom]

I understand its only a small part of the problem, it was just a thought that popped into my head.

[langmick]

Hey, Communism is like sharing what you have.

So share away...capitalism sucks anyway. Oh yeah, corporations suck, except when they give you a check.

This just goes to show that you reap what you sow...artists bitch about the evils of the United States' development of trade and capitalism, but then want lots of money.

Go figure. It just falls from the sky.

[deseipel]

The way it used to be done is, the leader of the band would give you a cassette tape of all the songs to learn, or charts. But sharing music between musicians for the purpose of learning songs is not the big problem anyway.

That's generally how it is for me. CD's or skydrive's, whatever with the mp3's of the music. Or just a list and I have to go find the tracks myself.


circh bustom brings up an interesting point.

However "in theory" venues that employ cover bands are supposed to be paying ASCAP fee's or whatever to have cover music, per song, blah blah blah

I do know most the churches I've played for actually pay the fee's for using P&W songs. I highly doubt bar's, weddings, and so forth are however

From what I hear ASCAP is pretty methodical about getting bars and DJ's to pay ASCAP fees. I don't doubt that clubs try to get around it though, as it's probably a couple grand per year in fees.

[drumnhands]

[quote="circh bustom"]I did read the whole article, and in some ways it does seem like bands are doing better. They also seem to be doing it all by themselves, which was the battle cry of the independants for the longest time. Im not sure what to make of this. When the record companies were assuming all the risk, they controlled the money. Pretty much rightly so. They "shared" profits from one artist, with another artist. not doing as good. That sounds wrong to me. Now, artists do not have to share with other artists, they have more control over the path they take, but this guy is still upset that there is a middleman? Does he want everybody to have their quote]

It seems odd to me that in an industry that is predominantly liberal minded, that the idea of someone who works hard and is successful has to share the rewards of that hard work with someone not as successful is somehow unsatisfactory or unfair. I am of the mind that it is, you should be paid for the work that you do, not what someone else did. I also have a problem with the "free download" unless it's provided by the creator(s) of the music. You like it, you wnt it, you buy it, they get paid for their hard work and creativity. If someone else has skin in the game it's up to the parties involved to negotiate the split, but on't complain about it after the fact. Much like the pro athlete that wants to negitiate their contract for "over-performing" 9to me that's not possible. You sign a deal to perform at 100% and the results are what they are).