response 24 of 134:

Feb 8 23:55 UTC 2001

Don't forget to demonstrate that you are a true Grexer, by entering
gratuitous, hypocritical personal attacks.

response 26 of 134:

Feb 9 00:22 UTC 2001

Look - if it gives you and scott your jollies to take potshots, perhaps
you could at least start a new item rather than demolishing this discussion.

response 28 of 134:

Feb 9 03:45 UTC 2001

I don't want to. Aaron's hurt my feelings. *sniff*
(BTW, isn't #24 a gratuitous personal attack? Let's think about this. IF Aaron
is a true Grexer, then #24 is hypocritical (according to its text). But Aaron
is saying that all Grexers make personal attacks, ergo his making a personal
attack and his being a Grexer makes #24 [as a personal attack]
non-hypocritical. Therefore Aaron is not a true Grexer, by his own definition.
Therefore #24 carries the implication that he does not make personal attacks,
which makes #24 hypocritical, which makes him a true Grexer. Of course, we
could resolves this by concluding (a) or (b):
(a) Non-Grexers sometimes make gratuitous, hypocritical attacks or
(b) Aaron's an asshole
shall we vote on which we prefer?)

Oh, anyway, back to the topic. Ken, that's an awfully broad statement.
Personally, I would think that BMG has been given a lemon and would like to
make some lemonade. That is, it sees these potentials:
(1) Continue its legal assault on Napster. While they have the law on their
side, technically, they appear to have public opinion against them, and I do
think they have morality against them. The RIAA has attempted to portray
themselves as Defenders of Art, and I think that the masses have bought that
padlum even less than they've bought Napsters Defenders of Freedom mantle.
A case COULD be made that Napsterites are only interested in the altruistic
growth of Disadvantaged Musicians, but the bandwidth sucked up by Metallica
alone casts a pall on that argument. But with the kind of attention that the
RIAA has been giving to tripe like Britney and B*Boys, no major music label
can claim that they're just Standing Up for the Boys. They're in it for the
cahs, and they're willing to exploit the law as much as they can, even if it
means fucking ethics over.
(2) Be the first to partner with Napster. I think the goal was to make it look
like BMG was the lone sheep, the one who truly WAS interested in the Art, and
a marraige with Napster would show those cute little kids that BMG is willing
towaver in its capitalist tracks enough to embrace the little guy, to give
them an opportunity to grow. See, BMG isn't like those OTHER labels, which
are just interested in money. BMG **CARES**. It saw the PR mess that the RIAA
lawsuit has created, and decided to cut a plea bargain. And it can't lose,
either, or so it thinks: If the other labels come on board, then they were
the Trendsetters. if the other labels go on to win the suit and Napster is
banned for ever and always, problem solved without having become part of the
Man, the Bad Guy themselves. If Napster is barred from distributing all but
BMG's and independent (read: some folkie who sings in Irish pubs, and some
hacker who bangs on a Casio in his basement) music, then hey, BMG has its own
little machine all pre-fabbed. And they're probably right about the possible
outcomes.

response 30 of 134:

Feb 9 06:24 UTC 2001

(I don't agree with all of what he's saying, but I think Paul is really 
smokin' in this topic.  Hysterical laughter at the first part of #28.)

response 32 of 134:

Feb 9 07:05 UTC 2001

Traditional music retailing strikes me as the wrong user interface at this
point.  Since the music is already stored as digital data, and computers are
capable of playing it, it seems pretty logical that when I want a particular
piece of music I should be able find it on line and download it.  That's what
I do with any other digital data I'm looking for.  In contrast to that, having
to go out to a store and buy a CD, or find it online and wait for the CD to
be delivered strikes me as awfully cumbersome.  Still, that tends to be what
I do, both because I have ethical qualms about taking something without paying
for it, and because my computer's sound isn't all that good.

I've played with Napster a little bit, mostly to figure out what a piece of
music was before going out to a store to blindly look for it.  Napster's
interface is pretty nice.  I search for some keywords, find the song in a
list, and click on it to download.  Even with cost not being a consideration,
it's considerably easier than going out to a physical store and buying
something.  However, beyond the interface, Napster in its current form kind
of sucks.  It's got its nice efficient search functionality, but once you
decide to download something you're often pulling it off the "server" through
somebody's 14.4K modem.

I'm interested in seeing what the record companies do with Napster.  If they,
as I've seen implied, keep Napster functioning as is from a technical
standpoint, but restrict the music there to music from participating major
record labels, I expect that to be the end of Napster.  The selection will
be less, it will cost something, and it will still be slow.  I think something
Napsterlike could be made to work well, though.  The server and client
functionalities should be separated, such that the servers, rather than being
end users' PCs, will be well connected servers belonging to the copyright
holders or authorized distributors.  Users would have accounts with the
directory service -- probably direct credit card billing would be the way to
handle it -- from which they could be charged some small amount of money for
each file they downloaded.  The money, post-commission, would be passed on
to the distributor.  Ideally the protocol would be an open standard, and the
setup fees would be sufficiently small, so individual artists and small
distributors could offer their stuff through the service as well.

That's my grand vision for online music distribution.  I don't expect those
actually doing online music distribution to follow my idea for how they should
do it, and I'm not sufficiently motivated, or expecting enough support from
the major record companies, to make it worth doing myself.

response 34 of 134:

Feb 9 14:52 UTC 2001

brighn, I guess I did ask *far* too much of you. I don't know why I 
bothered.

response 36 of 134:

Feb 9 18:58 UTC 2001

The record industry is notorious for playing shell games with profits, 
so as to deprive artists of their royalties. A typical record industry 
contract, particularly for a first album, is carefully contrived to 
allow the record company to "lose money", no matter how many copies are 
sold.

response 38 of 134:

Feb 9 20:55 UTC 2001

Jane Siberry, the wonderfully quirky Canadian artist, who has been running
her own label for several years, now, recently updated her webpages with a
not about her forays into the Napsterverse, and her 'solution' for Napster
Musician Care. It's an interesting viewpoint, and can be found here:
http://www.sheeba.ca/napsterSweet.html

response 40 of 134:

Feb 9 21:59 UTC 2001

#39> Hm. OTOH, if you could just buy, for instance, BNL's "Pinch Me" for
$1.50, and you dislike the rest of the songs you've heard, then what impetuc
would you have to purchase any other BNL stuff? This example is based on an
experiment that's been tried and failed a few times in record stores: Allow
consumers to select "mixed" albums with their 12 favorite tracks. 

What you're saying is basic economics: The price of an object, theoretically,
is that number that will result in the highest profits for the seller. But
that principle has been functioning on the music industry for years. The
result? The prices we have now. I don't see how on-line music sales would
mitigate that at all. The only thing it COULD do is lower the price SLIGHTLY
because of the packaging and the lack of a middleman -- they could charge
"wholesale" prices, because that's what they're getting now anyway. But that
would be balanced by a need to increase per-song prices to justify "filler,"
which would still need to be produced for those people who still choose to
buy full-length CDs. Plus, as many musicians have said (an example is PSB's
liner notes on their B-sides collection), filler and b-sides are the place
where many do all or most of their experimentation. The lead tracks are so
the album will sell, and (at least for some) the filler is where the art is
made. Allowing people to only purchase the singles, in this model, would be
a disservice to music, not a service to it. [Other filler, of course, is pure
crap.]

response 42 of 134:

Feb 10 00:09 UTC 2001

I'm truly confused. Has anyone seen how most musicians -- at least, of the
sort that major music chain stores sell -- live? Granted, most of the
"starving artist" sorts don't make much money, but they also don't have
contracts with BMG or Geffen. At the risk of sounding like "Look at that
faggot, that's they way to do it, get your money for nothing and your chicks
for free": Sting has a ranch in England, last I heard. Trent Reznor wanders
around in high-tailored suits. Rap stars nearly OG on a regular basis [ref:
I'm Gonna Get You, Sucka]. How can someone, with a straight face, say, "The
fact that most musicians will never get a penny of that eighteen bucks -- not
one cent"? Most musicians with Major Recording Contracts and serious airplay
are hardly strapped for cash.

Whose line have you been buying, Ken? The rap star with the gold tooth and
the crystal cane and the Benz telling us how Geffen ripped him off and made
him eat Alpo?

response 44 of 134:

Feb 10 01:21 UTC 2001

News item:  the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has announced that its
decision on the injunction for an immediate Napster shutdown will be
delivered on Monday.
 
Brighn seems to have mistaken polygon for me -- happens more often 
than one might think -- but also seems to have a rather odd idea
that a major label contract means the musicians are well off.
This one's been bashed down so many times I'm not going to bother
arguing with it: look up the Steve Albini and Courtney Love 
essays, for starters.

response 46 of 134:

Feb 10 05:03 UTC 2001

Re 42-45.  There is some theoretical royalty amount per unit sold,
sure.  But all promotion costs are deducted from that, and only a
very few acts net anything at all.  See the essays Ken mentioned.

response 48 of 134:

Feb 10 15:22 UTC 2001

I think it is relatively easy to see why somebody, looking at the U.S.
media and entertainment industry, would believe that every artist with
a major label contract was rich. That's the image that the media wants
to convey. By the time a new superstar is really getting attention, they
are usually on to a big money national tour, or a second record contract,
which can put them squarely into that "rich" category. Nobody points out
that it is the exceptional artist who inspires a bidding war for a first
record, and that most have to sign contracts which will provide little
or nothing even if the album becomes a smash hit.

There are exponentially more bands than the record companies are capable
of promoting, and most of those bands want a record contract. "Take it
or leave it" may not sound that good, but if the artist is savvy enough
to understand the contract, the artist is probably also savvy enough to
know that the odds are strong that a choice to "leave it" will not be
followed by an offer from a different company. (There are rare souls who
have the savvy and ego to say, "Thanks, but I'll make more money selling
my albums out of the trunk of my car than I'll make from this contract,"
and who actually get a better offer. The now-forgotten M.C. Hammer, for
whom that was literally true, being a case in point.)