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Sunday, February 11, 2007

BLINDNESS

That's the only thing I can think of - they must be blind.

"buying a cd is the same thing as buying unprotected mp3s there is no difference almost everyone rips the CDs to get the songs on their iPods and other digital music devices"

Geez....so many wrong things going on here.

The person who wrote that knows where to put periods, commas, and which words to capitalize, but he neglected to do so. Why? Because he is no longer concerned with such conventions.

He is no longer concerned with such conventions.

Conventions like right vs. wrong.

A compact disc is NOT the same as a mp3. Not nearly. Not remotely. There's a huge difference between an aiff and a mp3.

The main difference is in size. One can easily be sent about the ether, the other is a bit more difficult to e-mail, download, whatever.

What we are talking about, after all, is a sense of entitlement that has swept the users of technology. Since they are the very web they worship, they feel that anything that the technology allows is morally acceptable.

Technology does not have inherent conscience.

It's up to us to be the conscience, and the loudest voices are saying: give it to me the way I want it, free of cost, or I'll just be forced to steal it.

That is unacceptable.

I don't care what you do with something once you've bought it - I just want to make sure you bought it AND the proper percentage went to the person who made it.

What is value when effort is taken out of the equation?

Is convenient better?

And, finally, to Papa Robbie -

It's cool to say screw the system, screw the bastards, they screwed us for years - all true, BUT I think in time you'll miss that system, because those bastards were the only friends we had.

Certainly by the mid eighties it was over, but for a time, twenty to thirty years, artists were nurtured by labels, when they weren't busy trying to screw Ray Charles, they were providing him with a platform in which he could, and did, develop his art, enriching us all.

Nobody does this now.

Rock is Dead.

Comments:
i know it's hard to imagine, but i firmly believe that when the music is free of drm, it will be bought by more, not less people.

that's my point. not that it should be free.

i believe that freeing the music of drm is artist friendly because i have watched this play out in the technology world over the past 15 years and now the same things are happening in the entertainment world.

when you make something hard to buy and hard to use, less people buy it.

the music business is transitioning from one format to another. they can't seem to embrace the new format and the rules by which they must operate in the new format.

but some have made the transition. most indie labels release all of their music in unprotected mp3s.

and many are doing very well while the majors are suffering.

it's counter intuitive, but making things easier to buy is right, not wrong.

sorry about the lack of capitals. i never was much for convention.
 
So you are happy to trade convenience for quality - fine, but what about those of us who want to retain the quality of music?
 
Corporations are no good for music. I'm all for independent labels, but you're taking a Stockholm Syndrome stance here. Screw the system.
 
Rightbackatyou,

While I strongly feel that the album is more than the data stored as dots and dashes on it, to say the indies are doing just fine is NOT an apples to apples argument for your posit. The biggest difference being the indies DON'T own or distribute 50 years of the best music ever made. I gotta $100 bucks says that if they had fifty of their artists selling better than 10K units a week they'd feel a lot different about copy protection.

I agree with Jackson with regard to doing with it what ever you want once you've purchased music. I think you should be able to play it on anything you'd like, but unfortunately far too many use this opening to post their music collections to be had by others for free and that's just the hard truth. It is morally reprehensible that kids, much less adults participate in such activity, but that's the sorry state of affairs in this country. Technology moving to fast has created this entitlement mindset. Ask a random kid on the block what he thinks a CD or vinyl collection of 2,000 discs is and he'll more than likely respond with an egregiously low number. Why? Because to him, he could replace it for nothing quickly. It might be that you thing this is a good thing, I vehemently think it’s EXCATLY the wrong thing. Music: something I get for free. That’s the prevailing mindset of what Jackson calls the “technocommies” of which Bob Lefsetz proudly claims to be a member of.

I just don’t understand how more don’t see it this way. Back in the day, a record was celebrated. Owning it meant something. It represented who you were. Now, it’s a service you get for $12.99 a month. Sorry, but I just don’t see how that’s better. In fact, it’s sad. It’s exactly what has killed rock and roll.
 
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