Muffin <muffin@signmytits.com>
WROTE
I'm reading this thread alongside reading Cory Doctrow's "down and out in
the magic kingdom" [
http://www.craphound.com/down/ ] and can't help
wondering how Whuffle would affect this all ... Goes with my idea of a
distributed collaborative A&R system to replace record labels too ...
-----
Hola,
I haven't read this book (yet), but I am interested in the last line of your post. I had a couple of questions as to how you envision this. Would you have say an artist who wants to publish their music, and thus make it available as a downloadable information costing something? Who would control it, or oversee its operation? I could see this sort of thing working maybe on a smaller scale, where labels actually become the means for peoples self-distribution (ie. labels set up webspace for artists to upload and represent their stuff). but that would open a new can of worms--a label (or other online music dist.) wouldn't want a bigot, for example, to be associated with their label, so it would be a moderated thing. and a label might not like the music of artist X, and not want to be associated with it.
Labels are neat.
I like well designed art-objects, and don't mind that there is a label that makes and distributes it. And I like vinyl as a medium for music, as does a fairly large audience of electronic music efficienados. Or having a cd in your hand--that tactile sensation of placing it into a decoder and being able to hear it through speakers, it still amazes me. Not to say listening to streaming audio isn't a good concept. But some projects don't seem to make as much sense removed from their packaging. Others don't make sense outside of performance (by a dj or the musician). Would the artist be able to have thier music be made on a per-item basis in some big factory and shipped to the consumer amazon-style? People who are familiar with vinyl-pressing know that this isn't practical for records. So I think there will be a lingering community that will continue to embrace record lps (and thus labels) as long as we have oil to press them.
Perhaps as a way to augment the current distribution system, there could become some public domain where artists could make a living producing their music. I think that some would argue that this (paradigm) allready exists in some sense (for example mp3.com). Or were you thinking somewhere completely off my raidar? Don't think that I'm trying to be critical of what you said, I just am curious about your ideas. Sorry if this post is really broad or off-topic.
-Geoff
http://dickandjanerecords.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org
For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org