The Double-Dip Mentality

[kandrathe]

Korn was not the first artist in such a situation. Prince comes to mind, so much so that he couldn't even use his name while under contract with Warner Chapell.

Korn vs RIAA

Steal this video! KORN releases anti music biz video

My reading of the official Korn position was that, disputes aside, they(Korn&Sony) are victims of piracy under the old model. Korn wants to embrace the new model, but they are unsure how to prevent "the kids" from just stealing their work.

As for Sony vs Korn, I addressed that earlier as no different that any employer/employee contract dispute. I have a hard time feeling sorry for rich people arguing about how to cut the pie. I think it is a misread to suggest Korn advocated wholesale piracy of music.

[Doc]

Korn was not the first artist in such a situation.  Prince comes to mind, so much so that he couldn't even use his name while under contract with Warner Chapell.

Korn vs RIAA

Steal this video! KORN releases anti music biz video

My reading of the official Korn position was that, disputes aside, they(Korn&Sony) are victims of piracy under the old model.  Korn wants to embrace the new model, but they are unsure how to prevent "the kids" from just stealing their work.

As for Sony vs Korn, I addressed that earlier as no different that any employer/employee contract dispute.  I have a hard time feeling sorry for rich people arguing about how to cut the pie.  I think it is a misread to suggest Korn advocated wholesale piracy of music.
[right][snapback]99991[/snapback][/right]

So whatsisname saying "Steal everything that isn't nailed down" on tv was somehow misunderstood? And the whole "Steal this video" thing going on with "Ya'll Want a Single?"

Whatsisname said it best. "We used piracy as a means of negotiation."

That is a very strong statement no matter how you slice it or try to water it down.

And yes, the whole thing with Prince was sickening. If only you knew.

A big company like Sony not only controls the music of the artist, but their lifestyle as well. Hair, how much they weigh, all these little personal details. And can do horrible things to an artist. Horrible things. And they can do so legally.

[Occhidiangela]

And yes, the whole thing with Prince was sickening. If only you knew.
[right][snapback]99992[/snapback][/right]

Were you involved with TAFKAP and his problems?

Motown had a few disputes. IIRC, either Little Richard or James Brown had a massive suit against them not too long ago over issues in the 60's. Details fuzzy.

Occhi

[Doc]

Were you involved with TAFKAP and his problems?

Motown had a few disputes.  IIRC, either Little Richard or James Brown had a massive suit against them not too long ago over issues in the 60's.  Details fuzzy.

Occhi
[right][snapback]99994[/snapback][/right]

No, I wasn't involved, but read about them.

I was actually frightened to read about the image factories controlling how much somebody weighs and enforcing it by starving them to maintain the projected image.

And some, but not all, of the so called hospitalisations due to complications from anorexia has nothing to do with anorexia, and everything to do with how the image factories force people to lose weight at any cost and keep a certain image that the company wants to sell.

Add to this arm twisting for abortions, intentional drug addiction to maintain control, and practical brainwashing of some artists to keep them on a short leash... The whole industry sickens me.

And I was reading about MoTown a few weeks ago, and how they tried to "whitebread" their artists. Straighten their hair and bleach their skin a bit to make them appeal to the white folks, who had more disposable income.

Made me start wondering about Michael Jackson. He started off as a young black boy with MoTown, and wound up being an old white woman.

Sick.

[jahcs]

I also recall Pearl Jam bucking the trend regarding concert tickets and the prices vendors like Ticketmaster were charging.

The music industry gets you coming and going. :P

[Occhidiangela]

Made me start wondering about Michael Jackson. He started off as a young black boy with MoTown, and wound up being an old white woman.
[right][snapback]99996[/snapback][/right]

Mr Jackson's pre "Thriller" appearance was no obstacle to his making plenty of dough. :D Fame has its hazards.

I read your characterization of these various "artists" as victims of some conspiracy. (Am I reading something into that?) My take is that some of them are victims of their own egos and greed. That said, agents and star makers, clever people, have been playing talented and naive people like cheap banjos for a very long time. Greed knows no ethnicity, no color line, no nationality. ;-)

What might Public Enemy have said, lyrically, about the damage greed can do? Perhaps something like:

"Fight the Power!
Fight the Power of Greed!"

Occhi

[Doc]

Mr Jackson's pre "Thriller" appearance was no obstacle to his making plenty of dough.  :D  Fame has its hazards.

I read your characterization of these various "artists" as victims of some conspiracy.  (Am I reading something into that?)  My take is that some of them are victims of their own egos and greed.  That said, agents and star makers, clever people, have been playing talented and naive people like cheap banjos for a very long time.  Greed knows no ethnicity, no color line, no nationality. ;-)

What might Public Enemy have said, lyrically, about the damage greed can do?  Perhaps something like:

"Fight the Power!
Fight the Power of Greed!"

Occhi
[right][snapback]100009[/snapback][/right]

Ah, but he made Thiller, bleached his skin considerably, put on a lot of makeup to look even lighter, shot the album cover, and then sold more records than he knew what to do with. Also, the powers that be got Michael to get rid of his afro and his nose... You will notice that he had his nose narrowed on the Thriller cover. He crossed that "white wall." Barry Gordy did the white bread treatment on Diana Ross back in the 70s to clean her up... And sure enough, more white folks bought her albums. Barry Gordy was good at that. Taking poor black folks from the streets of Detroit with hopes and dreams, snaring them in contracts that are pretty much selling their souls, and then he would "scrub the black out of them." Fix their hair, refine them, voice lessons to correct black pronounciations, accents, and consonants, and put them through a sort of finishing school to make them appeal to the white audience as much as possible.

And Public Enemy did write a song about greed. Almost everything they sing.

[Occhidiangela]

Barry Gordy was good at that. Taking poor black folks from the streets of Detroit with hopes and dreams, snaring them in contracts that are pretty much selling their souls, and then he would "scrub the black out of them." Fix their hair, refine them, voice lessons to correct black pronounciations, accents, and consonants, and put them through a sort of finishing school to make them appeal to the white audience as much as possible.
[right][snapback]100017[/snapback][/right]

Ross and Jackson were already successful and well off by the time you say they "went Gordy." As to trying to broaden one's market appeal, perhaps "whatever it takes to make the next fifty million" is the price some folks will pay.

Any number of actresses color their hair -- Cameron Diaz, anyone? Deborah Harry? It allegedly increases their appeal. (In Harry's case, it provided the name for her band.

Bob Dylan was able to attract an immense audience with a lousy voice and an ugly mug. Could it be he was more about substance than image?

Occhi

PS:The Actress Formerly Known As Blondie

[whyBish]

With the web, direct distribution is possible. Many artists offer direct over the web services, easily paid for. Artists many have probably never heard of. Artists need to break away from Sony and like distributors that take to much of a cut and form their own independant platform for selling their music.[right][snapback]99849[/snapback][/right]

And so we end up with what? Individual artists need their own website (which they will 99% get some company to provide since they lack the skills) The website would be standalone so wouldn't be found without a central index type site (i.e. a distributor proxy), so they would need to pay for distribution. And promotion, how would you get to know that their music existed??

There is a good reason why these artists *willingly* sign up to labels in the first place. They don't have the expertise in marketing and distribution. If they did, they wouldn't need to sign up now, would they?

[whyBish]

Your average worker is stuck in a system where the corporations benefit from any windfall and adulation for a successful product, not the worker.
[right][snapback]99870[/snapback][/right]

Or put another way:
Your average worker willingly signs up to work for a corporation because it provides the worker with a reliable income and shelter from all of the risks associated with the investment the corporation is undertaking (apart from redundancy).

Your average worker is not stuck in any system at all. If they wanted to participate in the "windfalls" of success then they should also be prepared to participate in the negative income of failure.

[whyBish]

T.J.Miller the designer, or guy on the assembly line works just as hard, is probably smarter, and probably has to think about his job harder than she does.  So, since Britany is not self made I see no reason why those who made her, packaged, marketed her shouldn't get their wage.
[right][snapback]99936[/snapback][/right]

I must have missed a post of yours somewhere because you seem to be saying that you should be paid based on how "hard" they work and think.

[whyBish]

What if the intention of the product(music in this case) is personal use?  How would it change the music industry?  Well, if I were a musician I would stop selling digitally recorded music.  Since the first person who obtained the music could legally distribute it to the world for free (personal use), preventing the musician from ever getting compensation for their work.
[right][snapback]99937[/snapback][/right]

A part of the reason behind the sharp shift towards MMOs over the last while is from the obscuration of part of the IP from the customer (i.e. the serverside code/data)

Unfortunately for music / video / books these are not 'interactive media' so there is no possible way of securing them from copying (e.g. even with the most sophisticated cp system, if it comes out of my speaker in the end, I can copy what comes out my speaker)

If software piracy became enough of a problem for the software industry to worry about, rather than using easily bypassable cp schemes, they could shift to making all such interactive software follow such a client server model, not just MMOs (with obvious issues of having server computing rather than client computing, plus latency, plus resistance to not being able to use it offline)

[whyBish]

A big company like Sony not only controls the music of the artist, but their lifestyle as well. Hair, how much they weigh, all these little personal details. And can do horrible things to an artist. Horrible things. And they can do so legally.
[right][snapback]99992[/snapback][/right]

Or put another way:
artists willingly sign up with big companies like Sony, and agree to image based criteria, so that they can access big company expertise and branding.

It seems that there are some people on this board that think an artist / employee is an unwilling participant in their side of the contract.

[Doc]

Or put another way:
artists willingly sign up with big companies like Sony, and agree to image based criteria, so that they can access big company expertise and branding.

It seems that there are some people on this board that think an artist / employee is an unwilling participant in their side of the contract.
[right][snapback]100088[/snapback][/right]

Some times they are. Several incidences of strong armed abortions... Sickening.

[Fragbait]

Hi,

My personal imagination of the ideal compromise between the rights of the producer of intellectual commodity, in the following called 'creator', and the rights of the persons who benefit from it, be it personal or commercial, in the following called 'user':


User buys commodity to use it, and doesn't yield a profit from leasing it to others - legal. Note that this includes commercial use, e.g. as a disc-jockey for his work (visitors want to dance in a disco, don't pay specifically for hearing the records. If they specifically pay for the use of the commodity (DVD-screening, Cinema etc.) the case is different), and non-commercial use at performances or group usages (parties etc.).

User backups commodity that he bought (1 backup) - legal.

User lets friends and family members use commodity that he bought - legal.

User lets friends and family members use backup of the commodity that he bought (temporarily) - legal.

User lets friends and family members use backup of the commodity that he bought (not only temporarily) - illegal.

User backups commodity more than once - legal.

User lets friends and family members use backups of the commodity that he bought (more than one backup, and not only temporarily) - illegal.

User uploads backup of the commodity he bought online, so that others can download it (for free or not) and use it for free (without control whether they are friends and whether it's temporarily) - illegal.

User uploads backup of the commodity he bought online with the purpose of letting friends of his use this backup temporarily and the assurance that no strangers have access to the backup (via password-protection, member-login or other adequate methods) - legal. Notice the difference to the case of mp3-exchange with strangers.

User uploads backup of the commodity he bought online with the purpose of letting friends of his use this backup, not only temporarily, and the assurance that no strangers have access to the backup (via password-protection, member-login or other adequate methods) - illegal.

User downloads backup of others (for free or not) to use it temporarily (e.g. as a preview to test whether the purchase of the commodity is worth it) - legal. Notice however, that the act of uploading to a site where 'strangers' can download things (for free or not) is considered illegal, see above.

User downloads backup of others (for free or not) to use it, not only temporarily - illegal.

User converts the commodity he bought to another format, and uses the converted backup (e.g. buys cd but has only a cassette deck in his car, thus converts the media) - legal.

User converts backups of commodities he bought to any format (e.g. wants to save space and converts the backups to lesser quality) - legal.

User gives away these converted backups to others (for free or not), not just temporarily (whether they are friends or not) - illegal. This case obviously refers to the exchange of mp3-files, via the internet or not.

User temporarily gives away these converted backups to others (for free) - legal, as long it is assured that the length of time is temporary.

User temporarily gives away these converted backups to others (yielding profit from it) - illegal.



So the essence is:
- You may backup things you bought.
- You may let friends of yours use these backups temporarily.
- You may not let them use the backups permanently.
- You may not gain profit from the usage of your backups by others. (You may not derive profit from leasing the commodity you bought to others.)
- You may use your backups and convert them.


This seems logical since you paid for the commodity, and thus are entitled to use it yourself in almost any way you want, as long as you don't derive profit from it.
Distributing a backup of sth. is severly restricted, i.e. it must be temporary and that has to be assured.

Well - it's just the way I would like to have it handled.

Greetings, Fragbait

[gekko]

And so we end up with what?  Individual artists need their own website (which they will 99% get some company to provide since they lack the skills)  The website would be standalone so wouldn't be found without a central index type site (i.e. a distributor proxy), so they would need to pay for distribution.  And promotion, how would you get to know that their music existed??

There is a good reason why these artists *willingly* sign up to labels in the first place.  They don't have the expertise in marketing and distribution.  If they did, they wouldn't need to sign up now, would they?
[right][snapback]100084[/snapback][/right]

They sign willingly because they know that if they don't, they will never have the kind of success that the big companies can provide them with. However, in doing so they frequently sign contracts giving away far more of their rights than they should (this is not only true with musicians, but they are one of the most common groups targeted in this way).

Two things are happening to change this:

One: it's becoming easier to set up and maintain a decent looking website to promote and sell your own music. In addition, free online groups such as the podsafe music network are creating new ways to promote your music. I listen to a half dozen podcasts regularly, and most of them feature 2-3 songs on every show. Those songs are provided free for podcasters just for this purpose. If I like a song that I hear while listening to the MacCast or A Foot In The Crease, they kindly give me a link to purchase that song or album, or just to find the artist's webpage to find out more.

Two: the iTunes music store is dominating the online music industry so thoroughly they can begin to cut out the middlemen. Suddenly independent artists can deal directly with iTunes and get a much larger cut of the profits (particularly since Apple created the iTunes store hoping it would break even and help sell more iPods). Much as thousands of companies have sprung up around the popularity of the iPod, so can independent artists flourish under this new system. It's not limited to iTunes, either (although it is until someone takes a decent chunk of the market away from Apple). Online music stores featuring independent artists tend to be cheap, offer consumers the ability to buy single songs or entire albums, and tend to give a larger chunk of profits to the artists.

gekko

[kandrathe]

User buys commodity to use it, and doesn't yield a profit from leasing it to others - legal.

Contracts, which determine the use of another's property, are leases which the Lessor(owner) enters into with the Lessee. Non-profit giving away of someone elses copyrighted works seems to abuse the rights of the creator (owner/lessor). Imagine if you had a beautiful 3 bedroom townhouse to lease, and your tenant against the provisions of the lease, sublet the two rooms to other families. Leases usually specify how many individuals can occupy an apartment and similarily, EULA's are a form of lease agreement.

User backups commodity that he bought (1 backup) - legal. User lets friends and family members use commodity that he bought - legal.

What is the purpose of a backup? Loss prevention, so "sharing" your one backup with anyone defeats the purpose of the "backup"(copy). How do I get a proof of friendship sticker? Your scheme is a bit vague and unenforcable.

User lets friends and family members use backup of the commodity that he bought (temporarily) - legal.   User lets friends and family members use backup of the commodity that he bought (not only temporarily) - illegal.

Temporarily means? This loophole would put a person in violation of the law after a due date. Say applied to video tapes, I would be in big trouble for all the over due tapes I've paid for in my lifetime.

User backups commodity more than once - legal.  User lets friends and family members use backups of the commodity that he bought (more than one backup, and not only temporarily) - illegal.  User uploads backup of the commodity he bought online, so that others can download it (for free or not) and use it for free (without control whether they are friends and whether it's temporarily) - illegal.

Friends? Temporary? The only thing new here is how you distribute the copies; to the internet making "Temporary" and "Friend" even more unenforcable.

User uploads backup of the commodity he bought online with the purpose of letting friends of his use this backup temporarily and the assurance that no strangers have access to the backup (via password-protection, member-login or other adequate methods) - legal. Notice the difference to the case of mp3-exchange with strangers.

I see huge violations with skirting the "Friends" law by creating phony "Friends" networks.

User downloads backup of others (for free or not) to use it temporarily (e.g. as a preview to test whether the purchase of the commodity is worth it) - legal. Notice however, that the act of uploading to a site where 'strangers' can download things (for free or not) is considered illegal, see above.

Shouldn't this "try before you buy" be a relationship between the owner and the prospective buyer(lessor).

User converts the commodity he bought to another format, and uses the converted backup (e.g. buys cd but has only a cassette deck in his car, thus converts the media) - legal.  User converts backups of commodities he bought to any format (e.g. wants to save space and converts the backups to lesser quality) - legal.

I would think rather that fair would be that when one buys an album, (say Beach Boys - Pet Sounds), that they have a right to own that album in any subsequent media format. By presenting your original cassette to the record store you would be able to obtain the CD format for the cost of making the CD only.

So my summarization of your former essences are:
- It might be fine to make a single backup things you bought for loss prevention. Use the copy and store the original in a safe place.
- You may not let friends of yours use these backups temporarily since "backups" are for personal loss prevention, "friend" is a nebulous concept and "temporary" is impossible to enforce.
- You may not let them use the backups permanently at all. If anyone uses your backups they are no longer backups, but merely copies.
- You may not gain profit from the usage of your backups by others. (You may not derive profit from leasing the commodity you bought to others.)
- You may utilize some authorized conversion agency(record store) to obtain a legal conversion from one format to another. To me it makes sense that you have purchased the lease to the property in whatever form that property takes.

[kandrathe]

I must have missed a post of yours somewhere because you seem to be saying that you should be paid based on how "hard" they work and think.
[right][snapback]100086[/snapback][/right]

Just as Joe software designer is a part of a team in producing the next hit game product, Britany Spears (the person) is only a part of the team in producing Brittany Spears (the product). The two models of creative team are opposites in some ways because in making a successful game product only the "producer" company gets the glory/profits, while in the Brittany Spears product, only Bittany Spears gets the glory, no matter how little her effort might be in obtaining it. In the music industry though, there is usually a person like Brittany Spears who does earn much more than her team mates because without her there is no product period.

[Occhidiangela]

Some times they are. Several incidences of strong armed abortions... Sickening.
[right][snapback]100091[/snapback][/right]

Memory fuzzy, but I think quite a few indie labels were started (LP days) by artists and agents who were tired of the heavy handed demands (contract or tour wise) of the major labels. I think Geffen records was one such, but I may have remembered that incorrectly.

Geffen is now part of SKG, and was in any event a major player for some years.

Occhi

[Doc]

I don't remember if it was Bob Guccione or Larry Flynt that started airing out everybody's dirty laundry about abortions. But the list showed that a bunch of people that worked hard to make abortion illegal themselves had in fact knocked up a girl and helped to get her an abortion way back long ago when it was in fact illegal, and also produced a list of people that had been forced to have abortions against their will, due to contractual slavery. Failure to live up to a performance contract would have financially destroyed them. Geffen was one of the very worst about keeping it's stable free of fetuses.

The list also cost several congressmen and senators their jobs, and their marriages. Once the list got out, it was shown that said men, and some of those men were fierce foes trying to make abortion illegal, had knocked up a mistress and then had her cleaned out to avoid any public fiasco.

As a personal aside, and while I do not remember who it was that published the list, God bless Larry Flint. No man is more responsable for making me laugh like a maniacal madman than Flynt and his wacky antics.