Ming the Mechanic:
Recording artists on downloads
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 Recording artists on downloads2002-07-09 21:16
5 comments
pictureby Flemming Funch

There's a showdown going on between a greedy monopolistic music industry and its customers, which it (RIAA, the recording industry's organization) seems to consider consisting mostly of thieves. And there are luckily some courageous artists who are willing to provide some alternative views about this as well. Most recording artists, except for the huge stars, are getting a very short end of the stick themselves. See Courtney Love's speech where she does the math. And now Janis Ian has some rather intelligent things to say about the subject of downloads and CD copying, making the well-researched and rational argument that most recording artists and authors benefit from the increased exposure, rather than being bereft of any profit.


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5 comments

9 Jul 2002 @ 21:32 by magical_melody : Very interesting MIng-Thanks!
I will come back to read more later. I have been feeling that the downloads do infact help sales and help us to really get a feel for what we want to buy. I have really good feelings about the direction this is all going. I once attended a talk with Thomas Dolby, and he said that the internet is simply going to take awhile to get popular enough for artists to really benefit and sell their work. This was about 1.5 years ago when he was here in town, and he said that you've got people that are not familiar or hooked up yet with the benefits of the net, and there needs to be much more education about all of this so that people begin to start tapping the incredible potential inherent within the world wide web network. The other smart thing he said, was that you need to make your site very user friendly and entertaining for people to visit your site, cuz they surf fast and if you make it difficult, their outta there. I know that has been my biggest complaint when visiting sites to do business. Some are so poorly designed and have zapped my time, and then I failed to execute the desired outcome in not being able to access a function and complete a process. Web design is not something to be taken lightly. It was a very interesting talk, and I love Thomas as a performer as well. He's brilliantly creative and very entertaining. Loved the song: She Blinded Me With Science.  

10 Jul 2002 @ 02:43 by scottj : If there are any thieves in the
so called "entertainment industry" it is the megabuck rip-off big business phonies who, having packaged their third rate "talents" then use any and every form of underhanded emotional mind control they can come up with to extract the maximum amount of value from the sons and daughters of materialist man. With tactics which range from blatent pædophilia to glorification of gratuitous violence these people don't just steal people's money they steal their minds.

The debate over the protection of intellectual and artistic property rights is complete and utter bullshit.

In a civilised society -- and there are plenty of example throughout history -- the artist gives his art freely and is rewarded and supported in his / her work in return. Art should never come within an exchange economy as it makes whores of the artists and creates the flourishing pimping industry we see today.

The internet offers the opportunity for People to change that and right now there is a battle going on with the lieing hypocracy of the entertainment industry. Who will win? Well that depends on the buying public doesn't it? It really is up to us.  

10 Jul 2002 @ 04:29 by ming : Art
Yeah, I think art doesn't even really belong in an exchange economy. But even if it is there, the thing the music industry mainly doesn't get is that people are driven by what they want and how easily they can get it. And that if they can't deliver it to them in a desirable way, the playing field has been leveled enough by the Internet so that somebody else will. I'd like to handpick what tunes I want to listen to, after checking out what is available. I'd like to mix and match them as I want. CDs aren't a useful media for me. And I don't want to spend $15 and wait two days to get a CD with 15 other songs than the one I want. I want to be able to choose it in the next minute and have it delivered in the next 10, and I don't want to have to pull out my credit card and type in a lot of numbers and my address. I don't care if it costs 1 dollar, but I don't want all that hassle. If I have a choice I'd probably prefer to get the song from a place where I'm sure that it is in the right quality and not cut short or something.  

1 Aug 2002 @ 03:21 by songmaker : Music to maintain the Dreams
I've been a songwriter and a composer for more than 40 years, I've never felt that my creations should be a marketable commodity. I write of futures to build of dreams to dream, I perform to bring new realizations to people who too often feel not even hope. I speak about changes and love and understanding, unity, collaboration and cooperation. These items are priceless, they are the result of living amongst people, of exchanging ideas and finding solutions to everyday problems. I have been gifted with the ability to represent new possibilities and rekindle old broken dreams. My greatest desire is for all mankind to have free access to the messages and healings.
So I guess it has become obvious that I feel this kind of creation to be dedicated to the greatest good of all Life. And, free of charge :-)
with Love and Harmony  

29 Apr 2016 @ 00:02 by Sunshine @188.143.232.32 : XHSkBvmAWLJKO
That saves me. Thanks for being so sebsenli!  

Other stories in
2004-02-28 18:00: Verisign sucks
2003-11-03 15:02: Jews
2003-04-21 14:45: Smoking guns or not?
2003-04-04 15:00: War and Comedy
2003-01-31 15:23: Personal responsibility versus law
2002-11-23 20:21: War is Fun
2002-11-19 23:22: Digital Rights Management
2002-08-26 23:27: Corporations
2002-06-26 19:50: Product Secrets
2002-01-16 21:50: The Man Who Bought the Internet


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