The Music Piracy Poll!

[AllenLowe]

it was a truism in the old days (I'm talking 1960s-70s-80s) that people who did home taping also spent the most money on buying music. I am not sure that this is still true (as a matter of fact I doubt it) - are there any verifiable statistics here?

[marcello]

I think you're right Allen.

There is a big difference because most computers have the ability to quickly make copies that are of a high quality (or exact copy) of the original, with less hassel as in the past.

At any rate ( in reply to ...impossible ) again, I suggest that you call up your favorite label owner and ask them what they think about the matter.

One thing that they will tell you is the state of retail sales is dismal, and that internet and downloading, have not taken up the slack, much less added anything much to their operating accounts. One of the things that helps keep them solvent (or scratching a living) , especially for the smallest labels, are direct online orders.

This from personal expierence dealing with the owners of Sharp Nine, Sirocco, MaxJazz, Plametto, Omnitone, Origin, and many others. All small labels struggle to make ends meet.

[RDK]

Function, scale, intent, and discretion.

Words to live by.

Oh I get it now! Duh. And here I thought Jim was talking about sex.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

filesharing: not just for pirates

Damn! That is GOOD!

MG

[.:.impossible]

At any rate ( in reply to ...impossible ) again, I suggest that you call up your favorite label owner and ask them what they think about the matter.

One thing that they will tell you is the state of retail sales is dismal, and that internet and downloading, have not taken up the slack, much less added anything much to their operating accounts. One of the things that helps keep them solvent (or scratching a living) , especially for the smallest labels, are direct online orders.

This from personal expierence dealing with the owners of Sharp Nine, Sirocco, MaxJazz, Plametto, Omnitone, Origin, and many others. All small labels struggle to make ends meet.

Maybe the music they are releasing just doesn't appeal to that many people. I'd love to see their sales numbers pre-internet compared with their sales numbers now. All small labels have always struggled to make ends meet.

Look, I agree that file-sharing and the internet are factors that all labels need to come to grips with. In fact, I think they are, right now, the single biggest factors that labels need to come to grips with. If they don't, they will continue to see declining revenues decline, but not because people are stealing music. Because they are missing the single-most effective direct marketing tool available to their companies.

Most labels no longer rely on vinyl lp's as their cash cow. They may still offer them in limited runs, but most of their output is in a CD format, much to a small minority's dismay. The generation after mine could care less about format. Then again, they could care less about Sharp Nine, Sirocco, MaxJazz, Palmetto, Omnitone, Origin, etc. Come to think of it, aside from this board, I can probably think of five people other than myself that know any of those labels by name.

My point is is that format is not the problem.

[JSngry]

Yeah, if we killed the Internet, then everybody would get to liking 50th-generation Hard Bop jazzmusic & Sharp Nine would be large. Yeeeeeeeeeaaaahhhhhhh.....

OmniTone's a good label, but very much a niche one. Same w/Palmetto. But the niche is only going to get so big. They should be trying to grow the niche, and offering downloads vs insisting on hard copies seems like a good way to control minimize overhead, and maybe free up some fundage for promo. Didn't/Doesn't Palmetto actually offer "bonus material" as free downloads? Smart idea, that, but it's just a start.

Those other labels, I don't know squat about. Have heard about them by name, seen ads, etc. But I'm thinking that since that's as far as it goes, there's been nothing there that I care about. That's not the label's problem, but it's not mine either.

[rockefeller center]

Something happened along the way

what used to be happy was sad

something happened along the way

and yesterday was all we had.

Cheers!

Edited December 7, 2006 by rockefeller center

[Neal Pomea]

I'm much more interested in what is "right" than what's "legal" but under the current system the only chance to get what is "right" is to use the legal system. Sadly that costs more than most of the "victims" can afford and they just lose. As Alexander has demonstrated, this does seem to be a "generational thing" and that scares the shit out of me. It is bad enough the world is in creative doldrums but to have the potential audience think the product is their "right" is really scary.

I am not so sure that it is generational. By putting artistic creation in the public, by publishing, it has by definition been put in the public domain. What did you think public domain means? That was the understanding in the U.S. in common sense terms by the generation of the founding fathers. You can look at the foundations of the Enlightenment philosophy if you like. Being made public means being in the public domain. Those were the facts understood by the founding fathers in the U.S.

I think too many misconceptions are being read into the concept of the public domain, as though you could have an ownership conflict between Owner Public Domain vs Owner Sweat of His Brow Artist/Publisher/Engineer. It's like a law suit between a fact and a person! Public domain is NOT a right like a private owner's right to their property. It is more like the absence of property rights. It's more like a fact. If anyone asserts that public domain is the public wresting ownership from a private owner, I would disagree on the facts. The private owner is only a private owner by statutory grant, not in fact.

An artistic creation is like an action or a word one utters. You cannot make it private once it is out there. And you can only assign property-like rights for so long, in my opinion.

That said, now that artists and their families, publishers and their families, and engineers and their families, are economically dependent on this long-wayward trend of copyright protection, what can we do? We cannot cut loose these people. I do not see any reasonable proposals for addressing this. It is not as though special compensation is awarded creators as wards of the state, or like beneficiaries of Medici-like patrons of the arts. Is there a new model forthcoming? I don't see any reason why copyright as currently configured should be the social instrument of providing economically for the creators/performers/publishers/engineers of music etc.

Ok, I meant that with a pretty good will. Guess it'll go over like a lead zeppelin.

Edited December 7, 2006 by It Should be You

[Alexander]

I'm much more interested in what is "right" than what's "legal" but under the current system the only chance to get what is "right" is to use the legal system. Sadly that costs more than most of the "victims" can afford and they just lose. As Alexander has demonstrated, this does seem to be a "generational thing" and that scares the shit out of me. It is bad enough the world is in creative doldrums but to have the potential audience think the product is their "right" is really scary.

I am not so sure that it is generational. By putting artistic creation in the public, by publishing, it has by definition been put in the public domain. What did you think public domain means? That was the understanding in the U.S. in common sense terms by the generation of the founding fathers. You can look at the foundations of the Enlightenment philosophy if you like. Being made public means being in the public domain. Those were the facts understood by the founding fathers in the U.S.

I think too many misconceptions are being read into the concept of the public domain, as though you could have an ownership conflict between Owner Public Domain vs Owner Sweat of His Brow Artist/Publisher/Engineer. It's like a law suit between a fact and a person! Public domain is NOT a right like a private owner's right to their property. It is more like the absence of property rights. It's more like a fact. If anyone asserts that public domain is the public wresting ownership from a private owner, I would disagree on the facts. The private owner is only a private owner by statutory grant, not in fact.

An artistic creation is like an action or a word one utters. You cannot make it private once it is out there. And you can only assign property-like rights for so long, in my opinion.

That said, now that artists and their families, publishers and their families, and engineers and their families, are economically dependent on this long-wayward trend of copyright protection, what can we do? We cannot cut loose these people. I do not see any reasonable proposals for addressing this. It is not as though special compensation is awarded creators as wards of the state, or like beneficiaries of Medici-like patrons of the arts. Is there a new model forthcoming? I don't see any reason why copyright as currently configured should be the social instrument of providing economically for the creators/performers/publishers/engineers of music etc.

Ok, I meant that with a pretty good will. Guess it'll go over like a lead zeppelin.

No, no...you make a lot of very interesting points...