very good point. The underlying thing here is, SOMETHING has to give.
There is a battle between labels/artists/industry vs. the Consumers. The
Producers can fight the Consumers all they want, but the battle will never
end unless a compromise is found. Let the RIAA, Metallica, etc. sue Napster
and the rest of the Consumers.....when will they realize the consumers are
the ones with the $$ to spend? Throughout time, governments have been
overthrown because the people they're governing don't like the way they're
doing it. Consumers use MP3 because they don't like the way the Producers
are running things. The Napster lawsuit is frivelous in the big picture.
They are doing it to stop MP3 trading. What they fail to realize is, to
REALLY stop MP3 trading, they'd either need to:
A) Shut down the Internet entirely, force all manufacturers to discontinue
CD-Recorders and CD-R media, break into people's homes and erase their MP3
files from hard drives, JAZ drives, CD-R, DVD-RAM, X-Drives and other
storage media, make MP3 encoding software illegal (which would go
underground anyway), stop people from driving to a friend's house with a
load of MP3, check every person's mail on a daily basis for "contraband",
the list goes on and on.
B) Stop making records, tapes, vinyl, etc. all together
C) Stop being stubborn, look at what the Consumers want, and embrace MP3
and internet technology, making it work FOR the Producer instead of against.
Two of these things are going to enrage the Consumers. One will not.
MP3 and file sharing, via physical media, internet or otherwise, is a
natural progression in Human technologies. It's inevitable, and
irreversible. We can all just go with the flow, or get trampled in the
stampede.
quoted 62 lines ----------
> ----------
> From: EggyToast
> Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 11:39 AM
> To: Jesse McCoppin; 'Jeff/Ninja Tune'; 'IDM list'
> Subject: Re: [idm] record sales and napster
>
>
> > Back to Mozart. Any money musicians made back then was given to them
> for
> a
> > live performance. There was no such thing as recording media, so the
> only
> > way they made a living was by performing. I think thats how it should
> still
> > be done. Use cheap CD's to attract people to the concert. Charge a
> > reasonable but profitable (never greedy) amount to get in, and let
> people
> > enjoy the sounds. Let them enjoy the sounds after the show as they
> listen
> > to the dirt-cheap CD. Trust me, they'll come back for the next tour.
> >
>
> well, yes, they would, although being able to tour would be a near
> impossibility, since touring is definitely not cheap. Plus, most live
> shows (especially small-name shows) don't make much money. It's usually
> to
> promote a cd or similar. I don't mean to sound "anti", but it's sort of
> backwards. I'm sure a lot of people would like to be able to perform
> live,
> but don't have the connections or the money to do it. Plus, a *lot* of
> people, especially in the idm-genre, can't perform live, since much of it
> involves bouncing tracks, recording and re-recording, etc. Sure, we could
> just be like aphex twin and play our recorded tracks with a little
> tweaking, but that's hardly a performance.
>
> i know the live show thread is probably older than the napster thread, but
> it really doesn't fit with music. Mostly, you don't go *see* a
> performance
> to *hear* exclusively, but to do both. You go to see music (despite the
> sensory paradox), and groups playing instruments badly while running
> around
> on stage hitting this is probably more entertaining to the masses than a
> guy sitting on stage, even if he's doing some light show or something.
>
> But this is all theoretical anyways, since people don't play live to make
> money - they release cd's, since they're an actual product. I think your
> idea would be an interesting situation, but it would probably have the
> same
> repercussions. Imagine that we all go see shows live, and the CD is sort
> of the "extra thing" to promote performances. Well, i'm sure people,
> thinking much like you are now, would say "well, back before this, people
> would sell cd's to make music. that way, they'd have to have a product
> ready to sell, instead of simply booking a performance. It's much better,
> because the music can reach a much larger audience and the artist can
> essentially be in multiple places at once."
>
> so it goes both ways :)
>
> cheers,
> /derek
>
>