boring tech morality issues

[wishface]

well i'm glad i finally got to hear Eat Static, Tetsu Inoue, Pagan's Mind, more Bill Laswell...that can't be bad. Good luck finding those at the local virgin megastore!

 

[newbie]

(a) People have always spent a lot on those things, they just get more for their money now and there are more options. My dad I'm sure spent considerably more on hi-fi equipment than I ever have, adjusting for inflation of course. I've spent less on music equipment recently than I did when I was a student and had to use CDs. (Note also that CDs are archival technology in themselves, a comparable cost.)

all true, but it's pointless pretending that the takeup of broadband would have been so great without napster, soulkeek or torrents.

(b) The media companies may be making a bit less money than they used to, but they are still making utterly ridiculous profits, not a lot of which go to the artists concerned (cue assorted rants on music industry, Steve Albini etc). There is no real reason why the beneficiaries of the works of artists should be the media companies to such a degree, either.

to some extent the media companies have to nurture talent, and can only reap serious rewards from a tiny percentage of the artists they promote. They live off the back of the artists, but they are not wholly parasitic, they also provide a service.

That can't be said of the broadband, storage or m3 player providers. They have no relationship with the artists yet live off them.

(c) The availability and distribution of free content is now better for artists, I would say; one doesn't have to cheat the charts, pay off radio stations etc to get exposure to nearly the same degree. Consumers need technology for this, they need broadband to download tracks and thumb drives/players to hand music to each other and so on.

Consumers need the technology, for sure. I've no idea whether 'artists', in the widest sense, are better off now that their art can be shared than when it was only available in record shops or cinemas, or on radio or television, mediums which pay artists while providing exposure.

Broadband provides exposure but pays nothing. That exposure might translate, down the line, into real income for the artists, or it might just spread pleasure and leave the originators skint.

The recent Radiohead release has got to more people by bittorrent sharing than by downloading from their official site. They're presumably rich enough, and at a penny a time the loss of income to them probably doesn't matter. Doesn't bode well for future releases direct to the consumer though.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

all true, but it's pointless pretending that the takeup of broadband would have been so great without napster, soulkeek or torrents.

Well, fewer people would have bought computers at all if they couldn't use them for music. Fewer people would have bought them if they couldn't use them for email or photos too, but email and photo senders don't get anything from providers.

to some extent the media companies have to nurture talent, and can only reap serious rewards from a tiny percentage of the artists they promote. They live off the back of the artists, but they are not wholly parasitic, they also provide a service.

In some cases, and it is certainly arguable that in many cases they are simply parasitic and take more than they provide.

That can't be said of the broadband, storage or m3 player providers. They have no relationship with the artists yet live off them.

Well, so what? They're not taking anything from the artists, they are enabling the artists to be conveniently heard. There's nothing the artists could be doing differently there.

Consumers need the technology, for sure. I've no idea whether 'artists', in the widest sense, are better off now that their art can be shared than when it was only available in record shops or cinemas, or on radio or television, mediums which pay artists while providing exposure.

Broadband provides exposure but pays nothing. That exposure might translate, down the line, into real income for the artists, or it might just spread pleasure and leave the originators skint.

The recent Radiohead release has got to more people by bittorrent sharing than by downloading from their official site. They're presumably rich enough, and at a penny a time the loss of income to them probably doesn't matter. Doesn't bode well for future releases direct to the consumer though.

Exposure pays when there is a way for people to buy online, or people might go to gigs. Releasing a whole album with an optional price I imagine is not likely to make you back the money you spent making it, let alone your living costs - for some people it might, it depends on those costs - but having songs out on file-sharing increases profile. Labels actually use it deliberately - A&Rs look for what is being downloaded, and PR release a few bits on P2P so that it gets distribution, in the same way that they try to get things played on the radio.

I would certainly say that artists are either no better off or better off when more people are able to access their art. Either people just download everything, or some of them download a bit and pay for more or go to gigs or whatever. The latter is always better than nobody having heard of you at all.