What kind of generation doesn't stick it to the Man, but to Taylor Swift instead? David Lowery is a mathematician, musician (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven), songwriter and producer. He also teaches business at the University of Georgia. "Congratulations!," Lowery wrote two years ago in a widely read post — "your generation is the first in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it …
Possibly IT will eventually all be outsourced. I don't see many "typesetters" left in employment. Jobs change, supply and demand changes. Sometimes an area reaches post scarcity.
No reason or right to steal (copy/take/distribute without permission) though. But it may mean that users/customers/others remove the need for our services, as artists or workers in specific jobs/hobbies.
So I get he's saying follow the money, that google plays a part in providing revenue to those who are making copyright infringment possible. That I don't have a problem with.
What I have a problem with is how Google is expected to determine what is and isn't piracy, and to be judge, jury and executioner at the will of $plantiff who feels hard-done by. I fail to see how this is Google's problem. If a plantiff, in this case a songwriter, finds their copyrighted work on a website, then they need to go through the legal process to get it removed from that website, just like any other member of society with a gripe against someone else abusing their property. If that is too difficult, ineffective or inefficient, that is too bad - this is the real world. Time to lobby for better laws, but moaning that google is stealing all their cash - no, get lost. It's nothing to do with them.
Google provides a search function, and acts as a middleman for advertisements. Nowhere in those descriptions do I see "law enforcement" coming under their remit. Nor should it.
Music is a bloody difficult product to sell, like many intangibles. It's extremely easy to copy, whilst being difficult to contain and package in such a way that you can monitise it, and this has been the case LONG before the internet, even if the internet has made these flaws an order of magnitude easier to exploit.
As such - if you want to be in the business selling music, good luck to you. But don't expect the law or society to bend over backwards to accomodate you just because you sell something that is easily stolen and very hard to protect. Those are your problems. Don't like it? Get out of the industry. The arts have never provided a certain, solid, reliable income stream, and if the internet made the risk:reward ratio more unnatractive, then investors in that art, whoever they may be, must pay the consequences.
Plenty of artists have found ways of adding value that mean they get paid without relying on people paying an arbitary sum for a string of bits. Does it mean fewer people will be able to make music? probably. Society has already made up it's mind that it doesn't value music as much as it did - time to face that tune for what it fundamentally means for the industry. This may be harsh, but that's the real world. No one owes Taylor Swift a living but Taylor Swift. If 500,000 plays on Spotify only makes as much money as selling a T-shirt, then you're probably better off selling more T-shirts.
For hundreds of years musicians have survived by touring the country and playing for tips. If they were lucky and talented they could get patronage from a wealthy supporter of the arts. All that is happening is that we are returning to this tried and tested model.
The generation that screwed this system up was once again the baby boomers who funded the creation of giant music companies and fuelled the egos of self entitled singers and musicians who believe that because they can write 2 catchy songs per album and sing in tune should be excessively compensated for life. Fuck em.
"We are also drowning in crap because of this system."
I think the converse is true; these days great musicians are less valuable to "music" corporations than average musicians who look good and can endorse products. This is because music has been devalued and the corporations have to supplement income from record* sales with other sources of income (X-Factor anyone?). IMHO this is why we have a proliferation of boy-bands and singer-songwriters and no "proper" bands; because they cost more to support in the early stages of their career. The "crap" to which you refer has been developed to survive in the current music economy where money comes from TV talent show viewer-voting and then, if success is indicated by the viewer-vote, from concert tours and product endorsements.
Yes, there are new bands out there, but they aren't making headlines and their share of the, reduced, market for music is getting squeezed out by acts that fit in with the New Music Economy.
* record means CD, vinyl, paid downloads or whatever.
self entitled singers and musicians who believe that because they can write 2 catchy songs per album
Won't somebody think of the poor drummers?
Yeah. Tried and tested models that have survived for years. Like serfdom. And monarchy. Or colonialism. Let's go back to them.
What we really need is a model where music doesn't get made unless you can get a rich sponsor to give you board and food for six months. And you write stuff that either panders to their ego, or about god or something. Something that they can play to their rich pals and won't upset the bishop.
We need a system where musicians can only make music that will earn coins in a city street, or will work well in a live setting. Forget about anything too subtle, quiet or complex; if it won't fit in the transit van, or tour for 300 days a year, it doesn't get made.
Excellent ideas, all.
"And you write stuff that either panders to their ego, or about god or something. Something that they can play to their rich pals and won't upset the bishop."
And exactly what do you think Record companies are?? Rich patrons that pay musicians to play what they want to sell. The more things change the more they stay the same.
"For hundreds of years musicians have survived by touring the country and playing for tips."
Good luck doing that now, back then they were one a very few sources of entertainment; and if we won't pay fractions of a pence for the artists cut of a digital download what chance do they really have of making a living like this?
"If they were lucky and talented they could get patronage from a wealthy supporter of the arts."
So if they appeal to a few rich people, they're OK?
"All that is happening is that we are returning to this tried and tested model."
By "tried and tested" you mean one that gave us a limited range of folk-songs and a small number of classical composers? What about Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones and everything else since the 1940's? I can't see the next Billy Bragg coming from aristocratic patronage.
What he said (Jonathan 29). Fuck em.
It is pretty clear that most of the Internet wants to vote with its feet to *not* subsidize the greedy fucks who want to set themselves up as gatekeepers for information.
All of existing content and the means to reproduce it rests on the work of millions of individuals and has been almost all entirely bought and paid for. The last idiot who sat down at a piano wants to capture the entirety of this value for themselves and they are willing to do this at a cost of putting cultural material, including educational material out of the reach of *most* people.
You want us to pay you for the rest of your life for work you already did and whose work-product was largely the work of others -- all of it already manufactured, in existence and paid for. You want me to endorse the rising police state, treacherous computing, the dismantling of national sovereignty via things like the TPP and criminalization of civil trespasses. You want me to endorse *increasing* the reach of things that have enabled copyright tolls to harass people's grandchildren?
Something approaching a hundred million devices contain open source code written by me. Billions of devices are running code written by other open source authors. Chances are pretty good that if you watch cable television your set top box will be running code written and donated by me. You are welcome.
If every single person and entity responsible for creating the myriad of devices and software that you use every day were to belly up to the trough like you are, it is a pretty safe bet that copyrights would be *net* negative for you.
You want a free pass and have the rest of society pay you for the rest of your life because the work you do is somehow better than the work the rest of us do. I say that if you had food on the table while you had the luxury of pursuing your art, you have already been compensated well beyond what most of the people in the entire world will ever get. You want me to support a legal apparatus and repressive invasive laws that invade privacy, infringe fundamental liberties and bar people from education and access to their own culture so that you can pick and choose who among your seven *billion* fellows is worthy enough to access your ever so precious work? Here is my answer:
No.
If you disrespect your craft so much that you want to withhold your work, that is your right. Stop producing it or keep it private or whatever. Don't expect me to help you destroy billions of dollars of value so you can get a few thousand more than you deserve. I wish to remain a net contributor, thanks.
Fuck you too....little pissant, wet behind the ears, whiner. We boomers didn't create what you think, the asshole music companies just happened to find these bands and monetize their efforts through sales of the only media there was back then, vinyl records and concert tickets. If you had any brains you would have done it too.
WHO are you gonna get YOUR pathetic derivative music from now? The streaming service pirates that don't even pay the musicians, thats who. At least the record companies paid better and the artists made real music back then.
You self rightous, millenial generation misfits that can't get a job and support yourself are not worth the powder to blow you all to hell. Almost none of your so called popular music is even written by the artist anymore. And they can't even sing, they use autotune and studio musicians.
All you twerps know is how to consume, you don't know how to produce anything, all you do know is how to whine endlessly and wait for the handouts that you think you must be entitled to.
Re: "Fuck you too....little pissant, wet behind the ears, whiner. ... If you had any brains you would have done it too. ... don't even pay the musicians ... blah blah"
I got my first full-time job almost fifty years ago. I have been practicing my craft for just shy of forty years. The first decade or so was used to keep body and soul together as I put myself through school. I am still working for my living and expect to keep on doing so until I cannot. If I never worked again the net difference in value between what I was paid and what I produced would make me a net contributor indefinitely into the future. This would not even be a discussion if one of us was not whining and asking for special treatment and its not me. I am asking that you and your ilk take no more than your fair share of the pie. In return, I will continue to be a net contributor even though I have long since paid my dues. My work is in active use all over the world and I am happy to have made the contribution. Being able to practice my craft and make a modest living is reward enough.
You might gain some clarity of thought if you spent more time looking at the arguments themselves rather than attributing their entire meaning and merit to their provenance.
My work is governed by the copyright regime as well. I would abolish copyrights in a heartbeat. They provide no net benefit to me and they actively harm the rest of the society. I care about that.
I am all for musicians making a living while they practice their craft. I object to putting in place a mechanism that is net destructive of value in order to do so. We would be better off paying musicians to sit home and do nothing rather than take on the onerous burden of a copyright regime that prevents *most* of the people in the world from accessing *most* of their culture. At least if we did that we would not even be obliged to pay distributors and music industry moguls more than they need to live so *they* can *continue* to ply their trade as gatekeepers to things they actively contribute to destroying.
In your vision, we lock up most of the world's knowledge and cultural artifacts. We pay people to actively prevent others from accessing things. That is not just net destructive of value. It is monstrously and unconscionably net destructive of value. For people in the bottom half of incomes in the world, it entirely disbars them from education. A similar patent regime threatens to lock up the world's food supply. Heavens.
In your vision, the work of a tiny minority of artists affords them a grand living in perpetuity whilst impoverishing the majority of artists. Some musicians get a net benefit while the vast majority of the world, including musicians suffers a net loss. A significant number of our best and brightest are spending a good portion of their working lives paying off loans needed to buy their education. I spent a decade paying off student loans and that was back when school was a hell of a lot cheaper. An uncomfortable chunk of that was spent on books and the majority of that cost was due to the copyright regime -- and that was before the copyright regime went entirely insane.
Re: "If you had any brains you would have done it too."
To the extent there are any empirical facts to decide, you are simply wrong in your assumption. All of the material I have produced in the last couple of decades was either 'for hire' in an environment that allowed nothing else or when it was up to me it was open sourced. Unlike you, I do not equate basic decency with a lack of intelligence.
Re: "millenial generation misfits that can't get a job..."
I am a boomer and even I hate the boomer generation. They are the quintessential 'free lunch' generation -- so entitled they are unable to even recognize how entitled they are. Especially those who are in their sixties now, lots of them only had to graduate high school to get fast-tracked into management in a world where fat pensions were something of a norm. They entered a job market that had a shortage of labor. The people you are so quick to disrespect came into a marketplace where a Masters degree is pretty much required to have much of a chance and even then they have to start below the bottom in unpaid internships. When they finally do get paid work the lion's share of their disposable income goes to pay off crushing debt from student loans. Part of those loans, BTW, goes to pay off the copyright vampires that you support.
A distressing portion of my generation are entitled semi-literate thugs who spend what little of their time they actually 'work' getting in the way of people actually doing stuff. I don't care if the rest of us support them, but I find it distasteful that they wish to destroy most of the value in the world in the process of taking a grotesquely disproportionate share because, well, they are special and reality does not apply to them. If they were better at math they might appreciate just how unfair they are.
Re: "Almost none of your so called popular music is even written by the artist anymore. And they can't even sing, they use autotune and studio musicians."
Honestly, that is just willfully stupid. Who gives a fuck how people make things of beauty that amuse their fellows? Who are you to say that your obviously narrow parochial view of art is better than anyone else's? For my money, you demonstrate that your taste is likely worse than most.
Re:"All you twerps know is how to consume, you don't know how to produce anything, all you do know is how to whine endlessly and wait for the handouts that you think you must be entitled to."
OMFG!!! Are you kidding? This would not even be a conversation unless you were asking to be paid for work long since produced and paid for. It is you who is asking for the handout and you have the cheek to ask for a handout grand enough to support you for life. Worse, you are asking us to take the money away from the mouths of babes and worse still, your regime requires us to destroy most of what we have so that nobody gets to enjoy it. I am, evidently, one of the twerps you refer to and I seriously doubt that if you even live another century that you have much hope of producing as much as I have already behind me.
If you were better at arithmetic and had more experience actually working in recent years you would realize that the generation you are disrespecting is not just productive, they are significantly more productive than you ever were and they do that under crushing burdens in uncertain times in a world half gone to hell from injuries done by the boomers.
I honestly don't give a fuck if you and your kind never work again and we continue to support your sorry asses until you die of boredom. I *do* give a fuck that you won't just quietly live off the fat of the land but insist that we salt half the earth to increase the value of crops being grown on your behalf even when it means others starve to death.
Africa actually exists and the people there are real. Personally, I think we should be helping our fellows in the bottom half of the world, but at the very least we should get out of their way and let them read a few books and maybe listen to a little music.
@btrower
"If you were better at arithmetic and had more experience actually working in recent years you would realize that the generation you are disrespecting is not just productive, they are significantly more productive than you ever were and they do that under crushing burdens in uncertain times in a world half gone to hell from injuries done by the boomers."
I am reminded of a comic.
If you're a boomer (which I doubt), you don't speak for those millenial generation fuckwits. But you certainly meet the requirements to be a fuckwit freetard.
Musicians, writers and artists deserve credit and payment for their work and the system in place is called "copyright" not freetardism. If you want to give away your lifes work for free, go ahead but your altruism might get confused with stupidity.
Come up with a system that isn't communism? Not from a freetard! I used to be a hippie until I got hungry and cured THAT misconception. Grow up, it's way past time or do you still live in your gramma's basement?
My mother didn't raise no fool, but yours did. Buying into the "education" trap for instance. Learn how to DO SOMETHING and MAKE SOMETHING, don't learn how argue about inconsequential esoteric shit that does not matter. Schools are lying to you to get you pay their tuition. THATS how you end up with student loan debt. Art History Masters degree my left ball.
Masters and Doctorate degrees are WORTHLESS if you don't know anything else practical to provide a foundation under them.
Most people that educated can't paint their house or fix their computer or put in a furnace, they are HELPLESS FOOLS.
However, I will take their money from them all day long because poor "undereducated" me actually KNOWS how to do that stuff and quite a bit more. If I don't know something, I was taught how to find it and learn without a "teacher" feeding me propaganda and bullshit. They don't teach that anymore, they just regurgitate whats on the next test per the next trendy curriculum proposed by the next wonk.
I am not "entitled" to anything besides that which was legally contracted with me like social security or reasonable renumeration for the work performed.
You freetards think you can just steal the work of others and face no consequences. THAT's "entitlement".
You should find a good doctor and calm the fuck down, you got too much vitriol and self loathing.
Re: "If you're a boomer (which I doubt)"
I am totally going to take that as a compliment. My generation really let the world down and your attitude of selfish entitlement is certainly much more aligned with the current boomer culture than mine is.
Re: "you don't speak for those millenial generation fuckwits"
No, I don't. They speak eloquently enough for themselves. I was defending them from my position as a 'boomer' (I am exactly at the center of the baby boom) because you seem to think voices from some other generational camps are somehow less worthy of consideration. Our ages do not help or hinder our arguments any more than our shoe size. You think it is important, not me.
Re: "But you certainly meet the requirements to be a fuckwit freetard"
That is a pretty ugly way to put it, but it is consistent with the nature of the rest of your arguments. I will also take that as a compliment since clearly you have decided that people interested in a world of free information and open-handed sharing are 'freetards'.
Attacking your opponent rather than their arguments is a desperately lame sophist trick. It indicates to more thoughtful people that you have nothing beyond antipathy toward those who disagree with you. Put more simply, you don't have an argument. You merely have a desire that you wish to force upon others by any means possible. Good luck with that. As I said in an earlier comment it is pretty clear that the Internet has voted 'with its feet'. Those votes, BTW, are attached to real people who may well rise up and finally put their demands into legislation. They are not, in case you missed it, voting for you.
Re: "Musicians, writers and artists deserve credit and payment for their work"
I think that everyone has a right to a place in the sun 'going in'. I don't make a special distinction for members of your union. You can expect objections from the rest of us as you continue to press for advantages none of the rest of us enjoy; particularly when those advantages come at such a horrendous cost. The mechanisms used to enforce your desires are the mechanisms of tyranny and all decent people have always opposed them.
I don't think you are as bad as you sound. I think that you honestly do not follow the argument properly because you have limited yourself to one narrow point of view, have characterized anybody who disagrees with your point of view as an enemy and you have a profound desire that a view that (you imagine) benefits you be correct.
Despite my optimistic assessment, you seem to pretty clearly be happy enough with pressing for advantage without respect to any collateral damage it may entail. It is not nice to cause gratuitous harm to others. It is, in my opinion, the very bottom of morality to create great harm to others to gain a small advantage for yourself.
Re: "If you want to give away your lifes work for free, go ahead but your altruism might get confused with stupidity."
I consider it a privilege to be able to give back. Most people are pretty good. They are happy with sharing, finding common ground and helping those less fortunate with no expectation of reward beyond the joy that comes with giving. They don't confuse basic human decency with stupidity. If you consider decent people 'suckers', I hardly care what you think about me.
Re: "Grow up, it's way past time"
I am pretty sure that greedy self-interest is more a sign of immaturity than concern about others and a desire to help. You would be better served, I think, if you spent less time worrying about who is making the argument and more about the argument itself.
"... or do you still live in your gramma's basement?"
My wife and kids and I live in a beautiful five-bedroom Victorian 'century home' that we own, thanks for asking. Most of the disastrously disenfranchised generation you disrespect so much likely have no reasonable hope of living in such a place. Unlike you, I do not consider myself better than others for living in my fine home. I consider myself lucky. You might want to go a little easy on the gratuitous insults to younger people since you will soon be dependent upon their good graces in your old age. They may well be living in their grandmother's basement due to the cruelly unfair circumstances we have left them with. I would not be prodding that particular bear if I were you. It might well fight back.
Re: "My mother didn't raise no fool, but yours did. Buying into the "education" trap for instance. "
Okay, so your (presumptive) lack of education was a choice. Fine. Not all of us think that education is a bad idea. Our educational system sucks, but even for an autodidact like me it is necessary for some things.
Re: "Learn how to DO SOMETHING and MAKE SOMETHING"
Not that it makes me particularly virtuous, but I can make almost anything. I spent years working in factories and I was formally trained to use just about every tool there is. I was trained in a commercial laboratory and although I am rusty I could manufacture just about any ordinary chemical compound with the right lab equipment. I suck at music, but I taught myself to play the piano and guitar a little bit. I make stuff for a living (software among other things) and I have done so for decades.
My capabilities and the privilege of using them to make a living has been a particular blessing. I was fortunate to be born into a time when these things were possible and to have been born with the advantages and abilities to make the best of it. The people that you so extravagantly disrespect have been in many ways cruelly disadvantaged and your pouring salt in their wounds is particularly ungracious.
You have already had more than most of the people who have ever lived, but apparently it is not enough for you. I have a feeling that you will never be content if you can't count your blessings already. Most of the people in the world would probably be glad to trade places with you.
Re: "inconsequential esoteric shit that does not matter"
It matters because people like you are lobbying to have the police arrest people's kids for sharing music. You, whether you understand it or not, are arguing in favor of an already out of control police state. You wish to make it against the law to read, see or listen to certain things that you decide are off limits. You want all of the benefits of society and more besides but you wish not to contribute. It is consequential only because you make it so.
Re: "Art History Masters degree"
You sort of weaken your point a little by deciding that one type of artistic endeavor is somehow unworthy. You live by the sword you die by the sword. If I were you I would not be too quick to create a rationale that could be so easily turned upon you.
Re: "Masters and Doctorate degrees are WORTHLESS"
Lots of people I know have all types of degrees and they make perfectly good use of them. My wife, as it happens, has a Doctorate. It is not nearly as trivial as you seem to think. She does work that is hugely appreciated and she sure would not be able to do it without the PhD. Maybe you are not satisfied with your degree or maybe you don't have one, I have no idea, but it does not sound like you really know what you are talking about here. It is time consuming, difficult and expensive to get a doctorate and it is an accomplishment worthy of respect.
Re: "Most people that educated can't paint their house or fix their computer or put in a furnace, they are HELPLESS FOOLS."
In my case, I built all my computers here. Does that count? I am going to go out on a limb here and say that a majority of people with doctorates could paint their house if they really had to. I don't know about putting in a furnace. Does that come up a lot? I would be willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of people are not able to compete with someone who puts in furnaces for a living and I think it is easily even money that this applies to you as well.
Re: You freetards think you can just steal the work of others and face no consequences. THAT's "entitlement".
Oy. You do not own the air or the view from a hill. You do not 'own' the world's ideas. We cannot 'steal' from you things you do not properly own. If you want to keep your dazzling creations a secret, be my guest. I am one of the people who is working hard to make it possible for you to keep your secrets private if that is your wish. The tools and ideas I will make freely available as open source and I would be pleased if others get some benefit from them.
This is over long and is really just 'for the record' for my own amusement, so I am not expecting it to be read or responded to. Of the things I did not address here, let me just say that I disagree with you.
Oh yea -- I apologize for my comment earlier about 'math'. It was not very gracious. For what it is worth, I got my degree as an adult student, so I do not disrespect people who did not get one. Most people are pretty horrible with numbers and I don't disrespect them. I sometimes get testy when people are attempting to push bad math and broken arguments as if it somehow is just a matter of opinion. It is not.
I asked the audience if they really wanted to live in a country that does this to its fellow citizens to benefit a few very wealthy corporations.
Isn't that pretty much how a capitalist country rolls?
Why not remove all of the DoJ stuff and ask about the rich and the people with money (and the job-for-life public service employees) if they feel right about having to pay for those who are poor and don't have money (re. ObamaCare). It is a rather different set of responses, to the point where I strongly believe that if a Republican wins the next election (as they are likely to do), one of the first changes will be to get rid of ObamaCare. Do you really want to live in a country that does this to its fellow poorer citizens to benefit the wealthier ones?
Balls Trevor, Crony Capitalism is the result of excessive socialism in government where governments have excessive power to regulate and control markets. Hence it becomes more valuable to "farm" government contacts and influence than to satisfy consumers and have to compete. Why compete when you can get your competitors regulated against; or why try to make your products more valuable so you proper when you can simply get your cronies who have fiat power in government to give you favours, subsidies, and protection.
If governments are relatively weak, cronyism is less valued; "free" markets ("" because some fuckwit will want to say there are no truly free markets, granted, so what) and competition are what gives consumers power and benefits. YOU get to chose, not some government crony.
Randian bullshit. You spout religion that isn't backed by evidence. Remove government and you get warlords. Have a minimalistic government and you get chaebols: essentially corporately. They are all thoroughly corrupt.
Anarcho-capitalism is the religion of sociopaths unable to feel compassion for others. Nothing more.
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*Very* much playing devil's advocate here, as from what I've read of Ayn Rand I don't remotely share (nor like) her philosophy of life.
However, if she had been forced to pay into a social security system she disagreed with for most of her life, it could (quite reasonably) be argued that she was entitled to get back in benefits of something she had previously subsidised with her own money. In fact, she could still complain that the system/government required her to be "entitled" to get- what she would argue was- her own money back in the first place.
As I said, that's not a position I agree with, I'm just pointing out that- in this specific case- she's not been hypocritical with respect to *her* stated beliefs.
Arguably, it may have been an error of judgement in that it apparently legitimised the system she disagreed with, and gave her enemies something to use against her.
I am a left libertarian by nature. I believe strongly in civil and individual rights, but also that A) humans aren't rational actors and B) a truly free market is a myth. As such, I believe in a balance between "things the state should be doing" and "things individuals should be doing".
In my view, things like "a social safety net" and "public health care, education and emergency services" are exactly the sort of thing the state should be doing. Taking care of public utilities and natural monopolies. And I agree 100% that if you pay into that system for your whole life that it should be available to you if you need it.
But it is a form of mandatory insurance. This is because people are not rational actors. There are always those who will choose not to have insurance to cover their health care, education, vehicle, etc...then demand that society "do something" when they are injured/need to be retrained/get their vehicle smashed up. History has proven over and over that this group of people will never make a rational decision and, to be blunt, there is no reason for society to pick up the tab just because they're cheap bastards.
By the same token, the state has no business telling us what we can and cannot do about the overwhelming majority of crap that it has land-grabbed over the past 75 years. Who you can and can't sleep with? What the fuck? That is no business of the state.
Similarly, what religion you delude yourself with (or don't), or which piece of shiny crap you buy is nothing the state should be poking it's nose into. The list goes on.
Randian bullshit is a religion, no different from any other. It is not grounded in fact. It is filled with nothing more than faith. The idea that "people are rational actors", for example, has been disproven over and over and over and over again. Yet Randians demand that we base all our economic and social policy off of this lie.
This is no different than trying to use the state to enforce any other religion on people.
A proper nation is one governed by evidence-based legislation. Not religion. And the job of a government is to serve it's people. All it's people. Not just the few, not the elite. Not just the lucky, or the privileged or those who make exactly the right series of choices at every juncture in life.
All it's people.
That means that we must give up some amount of control over our income in order to collectively provide for our society. There is decades of evidence that this produces wealthier, healtiher, more stable nations than anarchism or Randianism.
Now, if you want anarchism, go to Somalia. They do it right there. If you want pure Randianism, try Kansas. The Christian Science Monitor has a truly fantastic look at the results of it's governor's pure Tea Party Randian governance here.
Short version: Randianism is based on faith and provably doesn't work. So a rational libertarian will study the evidence, find the points of minimum government required to achieve an optimally stable and universally beneficial society and then push to see that society built. One that intrudes the least necessary on the life of the individual, but provides for the whole of society.
Nations have gotten very close to perfecting this balance without ruinous economic hardship for the state or the individual. So it isn't impossible. But it requires reliance on evidence and not faith.
"Randianism" is a religion, true, and it is in the same way that this is. (And this and this and this.)
Like the examples above, Randianism works. It's just that it works to advantage the rich few at the expense of the less-fortune multitudes.
When Mitt Romney pushes pushes for less regulation and less tax for the rich, he's not doing it with some misguided 'faith' that it will produce some sort of optimal society but the knowledge that it will make him and his wealthy mates and wealthy corporate backers . . . more wealthy!
It is faith for those who, like the members of Benny Hinn or Creflo Dollar or John Hagee or Pat Robertson's 'ministries', are have been sold the idea that making rich people richer is better for them because it will increase their own wealth.
That this - demonstrably - doesn't occur is irrelevant because it does what it is supposed to do.
The fundamental wonder of the Tea Party is that they manage to convince large swathes of people demand a society that is not in their best interests and would make them worse off. Do not make the mistake of transposing their delusion/gullibility onto the people pushing the agenda.
(Not that you, Trevor, were doing so.)
The Republicans probably lost any hope of that by going for the low hanging fruit in this election instead of holding their horses and waiting for 2016 because they don't understand strategic patience, and mistake it for weakness, cowardice and indecisiveness.
Last time they had a majority in both houses (plus the presidency to make it even worse) it lasted for two whole years and was an unmitigated disaster, Bush would have let them do whatever the hell they wanted and they did absolutely nothing. Noone talking about the midterm even so much as mentioned that to my knowledge.
I don't particularly care for Romneycare/Obamacare, and most people really don't if they have to deal with it. I'm on the left and I don't like it. If I wasn't Tricare eligible I'd paying twice to four times as much for roughly a quarter of the benefits I had on my last non-Tricare policy. Its great. I recommend it to everyone.
Well, no. They can't. You can find pirated material because your brain is tuned into how to identify pirated material in subtle ways that an algorithm can't.
Plus, how do you know something's pirated? I might write a song and just put it up on a file sharing site. How's Google to know that's not legitimate?
Ultimately, thwarting music piracy is nearly impossible. Even if you remove all piracy online, kids will just come to school and send each other songs via Bluetooth.
What these people can never seem to grasp is that sales are about money and people's moral beliefs. Do you have the money to buy an MP3? Do you think artists should be rewarded for their work? You are not going to convert people who don't tick those boxes into buying. They will not resign themselves to having to pay for it. They will find a way to get hold of it. If I saw a pirate result for an album before Amazon, I'd still buy it from Amazon.
The only thing you can do is to screw up the people who will pay. If an album's not available, some people will find it somewhere and rip it.
Until the 19th Century, the only source of a stable purple dye was a rare shellfish imported from the Middle East. Then a young chemist by the name of William Henry Perkin accidentally invented Artificial Mauve. Suddenly, everyone could afford to wear purple -- but the cash value of the shellfish that had been the sole source of purple dye plummeted.
My contention is, making music is no longer a viable means of earning a living.
When the distribution of music was limited by technology to radio stations and record companies, who effectively controlled the price, you could earn a living singing. The Internet has played Perkin to the former music distributors' shellfish merchants.
If you don't like the idea of people listening to your music without paying you as much for it as you want, then use the only weapon you have. Withdraw your labour! Go on strike! Stop making music!
Maybe someone will listen to that .....
Have you actually looked at how much profit record labels and streaming services actually make?
There's a hell of a lot of money to be made in music, the problem is that the big companies aren't interested in providing a living wage to musicians. It's not helped by the fact that the amortisation groups that are supposed to distribute royalties are actually working on behalf of the record labels. In some cases musicians aren't seeing a single cent of the royalties paid by radio stations and streaming services. Famously 30 Seconds To Mars were actually sued for $30M by Sony for "losses" from their biggest selling album. These losses were incurred via inflated "costs" for the use of Sony's recording equipment and marketing. It's a classic example of how big companies can stitch up the content creators. Oh, they're due a $1M royalty cheque? Quick, re-release the album and charge them $1.5M in "marketing" costs.
Nice analogy. But unless Perkin had found a way of giving people the merchant's seafish, for nothing, against the merchant's wishes, it doesn't really ring true.
If the internet believes it can do music better, without involving the music industry, then why doesn't it? Right now it appears to love the music industry's output, but just doesn't believe in paying for it.
>>"Until the 19th Century, the only source of a stable purple dye was a rare shellfish imported from the Middle East. Then a young chemist by the name of William Henry Perkin accidentally invented Artificial Mauve. Suddenly, everyone could afford to wear purple -- but the cash value of the shellfish that had been the sole source of purple dye plummeted."
Bad analogy is bad. You can't see the flaws in it yourself? Honestly? We're not talking about an alternative creator of music, we're talking about people taking the same creator's content but not paying them.
It amazes me how some people can focus solely on distribution costs and methods as if music, films and software were just a natural resource that arose to be harvested, and talked as if they were fighting some evil monopoly over the right to gather it themselves. Rather than taking the efforts of people who made it without compensation.
We need a “change of venue.” I believe the Turtles have shown us the way in their victorious lawsuit against SiriusXM over Sirius stiffing pre-1972 artists on performance royalties.
Missing in all this loquacious outpouring is a reasoned argument why any artist or their descendant should be expected to be paid for anything that happend more than 40 years ago.
Yes, that "punctuated equilibrium" should be changed. Better coypright for only 15 years, how is that?
I am not getting roylaties on my mainframe code from back when either.
>>"Missing in all this loquacious outpouring is a reasoned argument why any artist or their descendant should be expected to be paid for anything that happend more than 40 years ago. Yes, that "punctuated equilibrium" should be changed. Better coypright for only 15 years, how is that?"
I would happily bet a considerable sum of money that if I survey the top 50 songs or movies from The Pirate Bay this month, that all of them were produced in the last fifteen years. Certainly for movies and if not all then very nearly all, for songs, as well.
Point being that what you have written is irrelevant for most piracy today.
"I would happily bet a considerable sum of money that if I survey the top 50 songs or movies from The Pirate Bay this month, that all of them were produced in the last fifteen years. Certainly for movies and if not all then very nearly all, for songs, as well"
So I take it you don't disagree with his point about copyright being too long? This, I believe *is* his point.
>>"So I take it you don't disagree with his point about copyright being too long? This, I believe *is* his point."
I suggested that the most popular things being shared by far are recent / current media. Look on Pirate Bay and you're going to see Guardians of the Galaxy, not Forbidden Planet. The latter will be there, but way, way down. I know perfectly well what is point is, what I'm saying is that it's a separate argument not relevant as a counter-point to critics of piracy.
In the words of Noddy Holder. "To you it's a Xmas song. To me it's my pension". If you wrote a best selling song and someone did a cover of it I'd bet you'd want your bit of the profits regardless of how long ago you wrote it.
Copyright is about right in the UK. It enables an artist to benefit for their lifetime and then their dependants to benefit for a while afterwards. What isn't right is the American way of "oh, it's coming up to Walt Disney's anniversary of his death again, quick, let's lobby for another 10 year extension to copyright to stop China making Mickey Mouse knock-offs".
It seems simple enough
1. Don'tLearn to sing. Instead rely on electronics to change your croaning to something hald decent.
OR
1. Lean to play Air Guitar and Mime and rely on the Session Musicians to actually produce some sounds.
2. ?
3. Profit!
There fixed it for you.
Now I'm off to listen to some 1960's Dave Brubeck Sessions.
There's some ideal that, for a culturally healthy society the talented creators should be encouraged (and let's not kid ourselves that these are plentifully available, we've all seen X-Factor trying to find a single talent from a pool of tens of thousands). As such, I'm all for elevating those few to a point of wealth and success. Those that argue that historically musicians used to have to roam the country to earn their crust miss out the fact that historically we lived in mud huts and the majority of the population were illiterate.
Both extremes of the argument (big music corps v.s the music should be free) are exactly that - extremes. I'm all for the current system being realigned, but to go to the other extreme and destroy the incentive to create is just foolish. Arguing that people will create anyway also misses the point - why should we restrict our culture to only those who happen to have the rare combination of talent and dumb pig-headedness needed to create when they are punished for doing so?
Notably the same argument goes for any intellectual work - we've mentally downgraded it's value as the supply suddenly seems so plentiful, but in doing so we're making a strong economic case for lowest common denominator work rather than brilliance. If we restrict the supply (or flood the market from a single source) we lessen the likelihood that outliers can crop up that produce something amazing.
..forget it. Buy a lottery ticket; the odds are better!
If, on the other hand, you want to make a living out of playing music and you're in a band that's at the level where it's possible then:
a) Stay away from record companies and "artist management" types
b) Do everything yourself; book commercial studio time, use commerical printers and pressers; you're not beholden to a record company then.
c) Build a fan base. Meet and greet your public before and after shows.
d) Have copies of your CDs available to sell after gigs.
e) Tour, tour and tour. Play festivals (even if you don't get paid for being low on the bill - you can still sell CDs and you'll add more fans).
f) Use Amazon, YouTube, Spotify and whoever else. You're building a reputation to get people to your live shows; some money from those companies is better than none, and at least you're getting publicity.
g) Once you've built a reputation, crowdsource. Allow fans to pre-order your next CD; you can fund the studio time from this.
Lastly; be happy you are making a living making music. You could be working in Tesco...
P.S. Jazz, folk and other musicians outside those musical areas supported by the major record companies have been living by these rules for years.
That's it, isn't it? Perform to people. Meet those people. Sell them your CDs (directly). List your music on places like Amazon for others to find (and existing fans to keep up to date if you aren't playing near them). And play. Lots. Being a musician is a job. A career even. For every sold out venue (and I'm not talking stadium size), there's a massive amount of work that has gone to make it possible.
Personally, I think the X-Factor/PopIdol way makes a mess of things. Sure, it might "discover" some talent, but it is a discovery made by the industrial treadmill. Some artists carve out a niche for themselves, others? Long forgotten.
So, basically, what Vinyl-Junkie says.
I have no problem with it. So long as we can revisit the eternal copyright extensions.
Let them get paid more for their compositions, in exchange for becoming public domain after 20 years. If someone who invents a cure for cancer or practical fusion power can only profit off it for 20 years, I don't see why songwriters or performers deserve more than that.
... how come record companies are earning hundreds of millions off the actual talent.
With the technology available now there is no need for a record company. Make your own music. Pay for your own studio time or equipment. Organise and fund your own tours. Sell your music direct to the fans. Get your own merchandise produced.
The problem with musos is that they don't want to do these type of things that everyone else has to do to operate as a business, doing P&L calculations and tax returns. Instead they turn themselves over to a record company, who do all this for them, whilst creaming a fat profit off at their expense.
So stop pissing and moaning about it and run yourselves like every other self employed business, and make your own money without delegating the non-exciting work to others.
>>"So stop pissing and moaning about it and run yourselves like every other self employed business, and make your own money without delegating the non-exciting work to others."
Why should a talented musician have to also be an accountant or a publicist or recording specialist? Shouldn't a musician be able to delegate such things if they wish and focus on their music?
I know which side I feel is worse.
Whilst there is some merit in what he says, he conviently neglects to mention that the music companies have done everything to screw over the ordinary punter for ages. Yes, they screw over musicians too when they can, but that wasn't his point.
Overall, abuse in the industry is weighted in favour of musicians, not against them.
*thumbs up* to btrower who nails it in his/her post above.
Let us face, top musicians and movie studios are now "The Man".
No worker on Wall St. is making as much as our top musicians.
And even in much lesser paid Hollywood, there are far fewer people making in excess of $5 million a year on Wall St than in Hollywood.
The military, business people? They're regular folks like us.
Also remember that the movie industry is in California because the movies studios moved there to facilitate the use of patents owned by a variety of North-Eastern US based technology companies and inventors.
For years California protected the movie industry from NY and NJ court settlements over the theft of intellectual property by movie studios from the rest of us.
twas ever thus. The guilds protected the jobs of their members and made sure no-one else could do that job. Great if you were in the guild, but difficult to work in that field if you couldn't join or were kicked out. It's why big corporations often lobby for more regulation, because it keeps others from breaking into their industry. It's also swings and roundabouts. The workers on movie sets I'm sure used to be treated really badly, but now the labour unions in Hollywood control so much that it's often cheaper to shoot anywhere else (usually Canada, which also I'm sure offers tax incentives)
If the Beatles weren't paid so excessively they'd have stayed together.
The mega mega profits of successful musicians mean they cut their careers short.
Excessive royalties mean they retire after a few years.
The Beatles, ABBA, The Mamas and the Papas, think of how many more years they'd have spent producing their art if they didn't make enough to retire on so quickly.
It makes no sense that after 5 years of effort by 4 people ABBA became the wealthiest business in Sweden.
Oh, but there are so many struggling musicians they'll say.
The rock, pop and country stars could currently take some of their 7, 8 and 9 digit incomes and share that money with those struggling musicians if they want.
They don't do that. They don't do that now and they won't do it if they have 8, 9 and 10 digit incomes either.
If you look at the histories of most of the most successful acts, like the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and others, excessive amounts of money did contribute to their downfall, usually in terms of inflated egos clashing and drug problems, but I'd say the money only amplified the problems and their celebrity made it more apparent to the rest of us. Is the longevity of the Rolling Stones merely an accident? They got rich and wanted to stay rich, but they also were able to work together. Other bands wanted to stay rich, but couldn't work together.
ABBA, on the other hand, had the same intra-band relationship problems as Fleetwood Mac (most of their best songs are about break-ups and divorces they experienced in the band), but the money was far less of an issue. Mark Steyn has a great history of the band here: http://www.steynonline.com/5577/waterloo
On the other hand, a band's longevity can work against it. After all, if they keep producing new stuff, concerts will always have a tinge of disappointment if they don't perform your favourite song.
Have we properly controlled against all those less rich and successful bands which stayed together or split up? Because most of the bands I know of that didn't get worldwide recognition still split up anyway. It's something that happens routinely. I think you can actually make a pretty good case that success more commonly keeps a band together than lack of success does.
oh my god fuck off! you have no right to be paid for the rest of the life time of the universe for some sequence of 1s and 0s you happened to stumble upon, and prevent anyone else from using similar arrangements of 1s and 0s on pain of PRISON.
Just this week some innocent 20 something sent to prison longer than a murderer would be. Fucking Bullshit.
Musicians were always poor over the centuries because they couldn't do anything useful, like build or grow shit.
Now some have become rich and famous for no particular reason. Then the fight follows for the spoils.
In the hierarchy of needs, music is next to pretty wallpaper. A good for sure, but a small one.
If there weren't beeeellions involved, no one would give a flying fuck.
@David Lowery
I get it. Musicians are not *the* bad guys in this scenario. They exist in an industry echo chamber that has convinced them of something patently false. The fact that it *appears* to benefit you makes it that much harder to see the truth.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -- Upton Sinclair
The tragedy is that it is not really your salary that depends on misunderstanding why copyrights are a bad thing. It is the salary of your overlords that depends upon these lies. Repudiating copyright could set you free of them.
I think that you should perhaps care a little bit for people other than yourselves. However, even if you only care about yourselves the copyright and patent regimes cause net harm to you. There is a very great world of information out there and software and devices that can hugely amplify its value. Most of it is not accessible to you and will remain inaccessible if you get the copyright regime you think you want.
If you get your way, you may well indeed get a larger slice of the pie. But it will be a smaller pie. You may get more than others, but you get less actual pie. For some, whose share is already pitifully small, that makes the difference between life and death. That is not a metaphor. People are starving to death as we have this conversation and at least some of them would not be if we had eliminated copyrights and patents that make food and life-saving medical care beyond their means. There is, in essence, a copyright on our pie recipe and a patent on the method for the best and largest pie and since we can't afford to buy them we get a lesser pie. The only reason we can't get to those is because people are blocking the way. For you, this means a little less pie. For people further down the line it means no pie at all. Most of the people blocking the way don't even benefit. You can't move them all, but you can at least get out of the way yourself. If enough follow your example, the way will be clear and all but a few of the very worst bullies will benefit. I have no sympathy for the few nasty ones that lose if we clear the way and neither should you.
Art unseen and unheard might just as well not exist. Copyright necessarily means that we pay people to stop art from being seen and heard. Electronic storage of music means the incremental cost of a copy is effectively zero. Without copyright, just about everything would be available to just about everyone. That would be a good thing (TM).
Even if you only look to your own self-interest, copyrights are probably net harmful. A richer world for everyone means a richer world for you too. You may not see the hidden costs you pay for copyrights and patents, but they are there and you pay them along with everybody else. Maybe if you are one of the tiny handful of 'lottery winner' popular musicians whose work is hugely popular you might be a net beneficiary of copyright, but at what cost? If you are rich from your royalties then you don't need the money. If you are not, you are just another person holding a ticket. Guess what? Only a tiny few get the big prizes and you are not very likely to be one of them. For all you know, the game is rigged and no ordinary participant has any chance of winning at all.
I make software. You make music. I think both have value. I don't begrudge you a living. Heck, if you are good enough and gigs pay so little, I am completely fine that we put in mechanisms to ensure you are OK and continue to practice your art. I just think that copyrights and patents are entirely the wrong mechanism. You should not be dependent upon creating artificial shortages, impairing people's education, limiting the art available to other artists and taking things away from people to make your living. This is not a 'zero-sum' game, despite what your masters have told you. Your prosperity does not have to depend upon impoverishing others. We can all prosper if we all work together.
If we share, we increase net wealth. We don't need two hammers where one will do. Money that would have been spent had we not shared can be spent elsewhere. Instead of us each having a hammer and a bag of nails we can share a hammer and can each have two bags of nails. What if there is a third person who can afford nails but not a hammer? The hammer manufacturer insists that everyone must buy their own hammer. You may work for the manufacturer and get some benefit but for you to have that benefit everybody pays more than they should, more hammers are made than really needed, some people go entirely without and the social contract that causes others to buy an extra hammer from your company makes *everything* that you buy cost more and puts some things out of your reach. Even if you are the manufacturer this is not likely to be net positive when you tally up all the costs and benefits. However, even in the unlikely event this is net positive for you it comes at a cost the rest of us cannot and should not accept. The whole world is poorer to give you a tiny advantage at most. [I think I really 'nailed' that analogy. :)]
If everyone in the whole world had free access to the entirety of the world's art and knowledge we would end up with *more* art and knowledge, not less. Everything we made and used would be the best there is, not just the best whose taxes we could afford.
You have been sold a bill of goods by the people who really benefit from copyrights and patents. Don't be a sucker and an industry lackey. I am not your enemy. They are.
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