Article on music business and downloading

[agny]

Brian Marshall, Rosanne Cash, and several others on my Twitter feed passed this along today, an interesting read. It's by David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/201 ... onsidered/

"Emily:

My intention here is not to shame you or embarrass you. I believe you are already on the side of musicians and artists and you are just grappling with how to do the right thing. I applaud your courage in admitting you do not pay for music, and that you do not want to but you are grappling with the moral implications. I just think that you have been presented with some false choices by what sounds a lot like what we hear from the “Free Culture” adherents.

I must disagree with the underlying premise of what you have written. Fairly compensating musicians is not a problem that is up to governments and large corporations to solve. It is not up to them to make it “convenient” so you don’t behave unethically. (Besides–is it really that inconvenient to download a song from iTunes into your iPhone? Is it that hard to type in your password? I think millions would disagree.)

Rather, fairness for musicians is a problem that requires each of us to individually look at our own actions, values and choices and try to anticipate the consequences of our choices. I would suggest to you that, like so many other policies in our society, it is up to us individually to put pressure on our governments and private corporations to act ethically and fairly when it comes to artists rights. Not the other way around. We cannot wait for these entities to act in the myriad little transactions that make up an ethical life. I’d suggest to you that, as a 21-year old adult who wants to work in the music business, it is especially important for you to come to grips with these very personal ethical issues...."

It's long but an interesting read, and many of the comments are interesting too.

LA Times covered the back and forth:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_b ... ritic.html

[abw1987]

Couldn't agree more with this article. Seems like pirates try to justify their actions as part of some greater cause, when really they just want to make themselves feel better about stealing music.

[psycosquirrel789]

Isn't there supposed to be some massive government crackdown on piracy starting July 12?? I think I read that one CNET. Apparently Comcast, Verizon and others will start to monitor downloaded content. They will send out up to 5 warnings and throttle your internet - after that then you face legal issues.

I could have it wrong but that was the gist. Anyone hear about this?

[abw1987]

I have no idea.

I used to illegally download music and movies back in college, before I had really taken the time to think that it was wrong. My senior year when I moved off-campus, I got a call from my ISP (a small, regional company) about them having detected piracy activity on my connection, and that if it happened again they would shut down my connection and provide my info to the content owners.

Maybe this will be a similar effort, on a much broader scale?

[Andy92]

I use Spotify to test out albums and buy the ones I enjoy listening to the most.

[psycosquirrel789]

That's interesting. I didn't even know it was legal for them to monitor an account like that.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/03/ ... g-july-12/

But yes, July 12 I guess that's what will be happening. I'm assuming it's to scare people off. They can't honestly expect to sue the millions of people downloading files. Which company has the time or money to go after millions of people? It'll be interesting to watch this play out. Expect slow throughput on July 11th haha

[psycosquirrel789]

I use Spotify premium. I stand by that service 100%. 10 bucks a month for virtually all music - such a great deal. I don't know why Apple doesn't jump on the subscription music thing.

But I'll confess, the reason I use it is because I just don't feel like dealing with the viruses, low bit rate and searching issues. Not because I think it's wrong to steal music. That is the fundamental problem. If you're under 20 you most likely have no issue stealing. They need to change the public opinion and it's not going to happen. It's to widespread to contain at this point.

[abw1987]

Did anyone here ever get a Zune Pass? That seemed like a great deal. $15/month for unlimited music, plus you got to keep 10 tracks a month (so the effective price of the subscription was really $5/month).

I think they got rid of that part, so now it's just a regular $10/month subscription.

[Andy92]

Never had Zune Pass, but my brother has Spotify Premium (and I use the free version with adds ). We even bought an Onkyo receiver with a Spotify app so we could link his account to it. I'm a big fan of Spotify, but I still buy some physical CDs since I'm only using the free version. Plus there are some albums I like not on Spotify.