Re: [rumori] FW: Regarding the Changes (for MP3.com artists)


From: Paul Smith (postalscaleATyahoo.com)
Date: Fri Dec 13 2002 - 17:05:16 PST


Using you entire email as a guide, I still don't see
where we agree. You say that bands should get over
the idea of getting bandwith without paying for it and
I disagree, in the case of MP3.com. By adding on a
bandwith fee [essentially, that's what it is] to the
"fees" [not an actual fee, I suppose, but close] that
are in the form of sharing CD sales profits with
MP3.com, it is double dipping, which you did not
address.

Additionally, I think that it benefits the
music-consuming public as a whole to have access to
the full range of music available, and if this fee
kills off some unpopular bands' sites, then that has
hurt the music-consuming public. [I would suspect
that it hurts the bands themselves as well.] I do not
suggest that bands just add that fee onto their host
of other costs as you suggest. It is possible for
profitable bands on MP3.com to cover the site's costs,
and if they currently can't, then they should, as I
suggested, find ways to do so. Not just for
altruism's sake, either, by the way. If MP3.com can
keep the APPEARANCE of a free zone for all types of
music, as their public perception was before, then
they can continue to cultivate their percieved
"anti-corporate record label" image, which I'm sure
helps them from a PR standpoint, ultimately leading to
more CD sales.

--- Steev Hise <steevATdetritus.net> wrote:
>
> The most important thing I see here is a sort of
> wake-up call
> embodied in this Jianda Johnson person's letter.
> Like she said,
> years ago (and still), bands didn't (and don't) mind
> paying $20 a
> month, and a lot more, for all sorts of things:
> photocopying
> fliers, taking out ads, gas for driving to gigs.
> beer at the
> gigs. whatever. hell, how much do musicians spend on
> their
> instruments and supplies (guitar strings, drum
> sticks, blank cds,
> etc etc)?
>
> But here we are in this absurd situation where no
> one would
> consider paying anything for anything on the
> internet. There's
> this expectation that everything is free on the
> internet.
>
> Well, there ain't no free lunch. The last 6 or 7
> years of Net
> Cornucopia and Irrational Exuberance were just a
> tremendous loss
> leader for late capitalism. Now the party's over.
> Get used to
> it, and take an intelligent look at what you're
> getting for your
> money.
>
> I'm not trying to sell MP3.com or anything. I've
> always thought
> and said that using them can be a bad idea, for all
> sorts of
> other reasons. But there are advantages to them as
> well, even for
> $20 a month. And I also am not meaning to dis
> anybody here -
> yeah, it sucks to get something for free for a long
> time and then
> have to pay for it. But I'm just saying, let's be
> realistic.
>
> Of course this links in quite nicely to the recent
> thread about
> cost of server bandwidth, etcetera etcetera. People
> running their
> own sites and servers, like Detritus and
> Sensoryresearch, are
> making an attempted end-run around the corporate,
> not-really-free
> internet, and yet, as we've discussed, that's not
> cheap to do
> either.
>
> So the internet reveals itself to be really not that
> different
> than any other media distribution channel. To
> distribute material
> in any large quantity, one needs correspondingly
> large funds.
> One big difference though, is in what a panelist at
> the New
> Gatekeepers conference I was just at called
> "normative
> expectation": people have come to expect things for
> free on the
> internet. And there's the myth that things can be
> free. But
> they're not really free. Someone is paying for it
> somewhere. It
> may be cheaper than printing a book or pressing a
> CD, and
> distributing the same. But it costs something. Yet
> most internet
> users have no willingness to pay even a paltry sum a
> la
> micropayments, or subscribe to anything. The
> exception is
> probably pornography (and interestingly enough, i
> believe the
> throttle software i use was originally written for
> the needs of
> the web porn industry).
>
> So, the more popular you get, the more of a
> "problem" you have,
> unless you are part of the mainstream major media
> company world.
> It's still true: Freedom of the Press, for whoever
> owns a press.
>
> And if you're totally obscure, but not dedicated
> enough to your
> own art to invest even a paltry sum in getting it
> out to people,
> then, well, frankly, maybe you should stay obscure.
> who said you
> were entitled to free fame and fortune?
>
> I mean, how much is enough? What is "fair"? Should
> the government
> come down from on high and give every budding artist
> a free
> guitar, 3 gigs of diskspace and a recording
> contract? Fuck, we
> can't even get governments to clean up all the
> unexploded bombs
> and landmines they leave in all the countries they
> blew the fuck
> out of. Did you know it takes about $15,000 to fund
> a 24-person
> de-mining team in Afghanistan for one month? And
> that there are
> somewhere between 640,000 and 20 million landmines
> in
> Afghanistan?
>
> So, if you choose not to be a Premium Artist at
> mp3.com, maybe
> consider sending the $20 to Adopt-A-Minefield
> instead:
> http://www.landmines.org
>
> Or even better, if you pay taxes in the U.S. maybe
> take the money
> you're paying in taxes every year to fund the
> military, and
> withold that. Take $240 a year from that to pay your
> MP3.com
> bill, and give the rest to Adopt-A-Landmine or some
> other charity
> of your choice.
>
> Here I am ranting.. am i being a jerk again? I
> apologize in
> advance. Bring on the flames.
>
> best,
>
> smh
>
> Steev Hise, Technical Thug
> steevATdetritus.net http://detritus.net/steev
> *Recycled Culture: detritus.net *Recordings:
> phonophilia.com
> *Want Peace? Stop Paying for War:
> warresisters.org/wtr_menu.htm
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
> "You'll be happy to learn I grepped the entire
> source tree for
> GOTOs and swear words! Let's review."
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
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=====
Total List of Lowriders in National Commercials:
1. 1984; Burger King; "Drive Thru"
2. 1998; Chi-Chi's "Celebration"
3. 1999; Amoco "Feels Good"
4. 2000; VW "New Beetle/Dreams"
5. 2001; Rally's "You Gotta Eat/Big Buford"
6. 2002; Chevrolet "We'll Be There/Remix/Heritage"

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