The Music Piracy Poll!

[sheldonm]

For what it's worth, it's not you, Chuck. The younger generation has a sense of entitlement to things they haven't earned (or pay for).

Like Joe G said in another thread..."I think it all ties into the attitude, especially prevalent in America, that you can get something for nothing."

But that's why I make a distinction between "home-copying" (which is to say, you borrow a CD from a friend and make a copy) and downloading. In the case of home-copying (at least in my case) it's an issue of exchange. I'll let you copy a CD (that I bought and paid for) if you let me copy one of yours (that you bought and paid for). In this case, we've BOTH paid for music and are allowing one another to share in it. You don't let *everyone* share in your music, just your friends. In the case of file-sharing services, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world can share in your music. These are people you've never met. And while you are getting something from them, it's not the same kind of "friendly exchange" that I'm talking about. Illegal file-sharing does seem to be an example of a "something for nothing" mentality. But the kind of sharing that I do is something else entirely. The same way I'd invite a friend to share in my food and drink, I let my friends share in my musical bounty (and with 2000 CDs, it's bounty indeed). Frankly, in most cases, I burn copies for friends because I'm too stingy to let them borrow my CDs themselves. "You want to hear [insert name of CD]? I'll burn you a copy."

...you both bought one but got two~~~ Not really picking on you, just poking fun!!!

m~

[Soulstation1]

FWIW

i do need to replace my cdr of think w/ the new rvg edition

[Jim Alfredson]

The solution to see who is "right" is simple: Go spend $10,000 making a record (which is very inexpensive these days), press 1000 copies, and try to just break even, while giving away copies to all your friends and telling them, "Hey, I don't mind if you copy it for anyone."

I'm not spending that kind of money, but I've been doing

close to what you said for years now. Friends and business acquaintances both.

If making money directly from your first CDs is the goal, then this is sheer folly.

This is not the purpose of making CDs.

As I said before, your CD is your "business card."

When you spend $10,000 on recording CDs, you can't think,

"Damn, I better sell a lot of CDs!" If you actually did make money -

hell, break even - you'd be considered an overnight success, -

it'd be great if that actually happened, but it's quite foolish to expect this.

Maybe, but I figure jazz listeners have more scruples than the average consumer. Perhaps I am wrong. I am not naive enough to think that people won't copy the disc, but I would tend to hope that they would think twice about it since it's not a "big corporation" getting shafted, it's a hard-working band that put up their own money to make something that you're enjoying.

Jim, if your band was doing some old boring "bar-band" crap,

then I'd say that spending $10,000 making a record would be a waste

(of course, there's some real crap out there, so, who knows...),

but when you get signed (I predict: after your next CD),

Why would I want this band to be signed? So we can go into debt to a record company forever and not make any money on CDs because people would rather take something for nothing?

it's at that time that you say, "Damn! That was money well spent!"

...and not because you got your money back on either

This Is the Place or ...Boogaloo Sisters, but that

both of those recordings were great enough to perk up the ears of

listeners/broadcasters/et al. all over the US (and, soon, elsewhere)

thereby getting you the gigs that you might never have gotten.

THAT'S where the 10 Grand goes!

I realize that, but when this is all you do and you're helping to support a family with a small child and every month is a game to see if we're going to pay all the bills on time... well, it's pretty easy to get a little frustrated with owing over $8000 on your last recording and thinking, "Gee, it would be nice if people wouldn't copy this if they liked it and instead would just buy a copy for their friends. Hell, it's only $9 on iTunes to download it. What is $9 these days?" But instead people like to rationalize their behavior with hundred word essays on why copying the band's CD for a friend is actually helping the band.

I see it both ways. And I know it can't be stopped, so I deal with it. But until you've put your ass on the line in a creative endevour like this, and spent a small fortune to make music for other people to enjoy, only asking them to pony up a pittance for that enjoyment and some refuse to do that... well, it takes the fun out of it.

[Rooster_Ties]

WORD!!

[marcello]

You have to support this music, for christsakes!

Edited January 24, 2006 by marcello

[connoisseur series500]

Interesting discussion.

I don't burn cds. I don't know how, nor do I want to know how.

But then that's a generational thing, I think. I don't imagine the recording companies are concerned about people of my generation.

I have a friend who can burn cds, and we made some great compilation discs, which was a lot of fun to make and listen to.

Maybe the future is for the recording companies to pay a flat sum to the artist taking into account that it would likely be further disseminated through downloads and burns. Sounds rotten actually, but maybe that's how it will go.

I am personally very empathetic towards Jim and his profession. Despite financial demands, he and his band stick to the highest standards in making their music. I deeply admire and appreciate him for that. In some awful way, the great artists have always been accompanied by hardship, financial or otherwise. Perhaps it is the price of the muse, I don't know. I just hope Jim and his crew prove the exception to this.

[rostasi]

Fucking totally missed the point and it doesn't look like it's gonna change.

OK, no more "hundred word essays."

but, lastly, concerning this quote:

You must also take into consideration the guy like Chuck who spent his life in the industry, recording, promoting and whatever else that goes into it and then someone takes his work, copies it and passes it on....

Yes, I DO take this into consideration!

...and I'm eternally grateful to those who turned me on to Chuck's label in that very way

(and the BYG, and the ICP labels, and....), because if they hadn't,

I wouldn't have gone out and BOUGHT every fucking NESSA recording ever made!

and I never would've had the enormous respect for him and his work

and shown it by getting others to discover his label too!!!

Just amazing....absolutely amazing that this idea just goes ZOOOOOOOOM

over so many heads of a group of people who can take apart the solos of various musicians,

but can only see this issue as a "ugh, you have my music...ugh, you steal..." simplicity.

Damn right, music's hard work - and especially for a non-Pop musician...all the more reason to think

very carefully before you plop down those thousands of dollars for your recordings.

Damn, if you're concerns are feeding your family and you just can't wait -

that you gotta have your return NOW -

then maybe you don't have any business spending thousands of bucks

you can't afford to spend if you're not willing to let your CD do it's business!

I need a place to go where there's not a bunch of

paranoid backward thinking grandmas.

waste of time...

goodnight.

[marcello]

You must be a exception, my friend, because the jazz reccording business is in the worst shape ever and others do not go out and buy everything after they hear a artist. They just don't buy at all and are satisfied with what was given to them.

The numbers don't lie. Maybe you should talk to some label owners, but I wouldn't do it face to face.

[.:.impossible]

You must be a exception, my friend, because the jazz reccording business is in the worst shape ever and others do not go out and buy everything after they hear a artist. They just don't buy at all and are satisfied with what was given to them.

The numbers don't lie. Maybe you should talk to some label owners, but I wouldn't do it face to face.

"Everybody" I know is also an exception then. I think the bigwigs refer to it as "viral" marketing. I don't think the jazz recording business is in the worst shape ever because of the advent of the CD-R. It is a convenient and short-sighted scapegoat though.

[Jim Alfredson]

No reason to get pissy, rotasi. I'm just trying to explain the concerns from someone who has done three CDs now (two organissimo and one Root Doctor, totaling over $25,000) and is trying to make a living without having to resort to a day job.

As Sangry said, "Function, scale, intent, and discretion." At this point in my career a CD is indeed a business card of sorts and is used more to spread to band's name than anything. However, I would certainly hope that someone, upon playing the disc for a friend, would not copy it for that friend and instead say, "You know, these guys are struggling, you should really buy this if you like it and help the band out."

Again, I know this shit happens and there's nothing I can do about so I hope that you are correct and that people will come to our shows because they like our music, regardless of where they got it from.

[AllenLowe]

it was a truism in the old days (I'm talking 1960s-70s-80s) that people who did home taping also spent the most money on buying music. I am not sure that this is still true (as a matter of fact I doubt it) - are there any verifiable statistics here?

[marcello]

I think you're right Allen.

There is a big difference because most computers have the ability to quickly make copies that are of a high quality (or exact copy) of the original, with less hassel as in the past.

At any rate ( in reply to ...impossible ) again, I suggest that you call up your favorite label owner and ask them what they think about the matter.

One thing that they will tell you is the state of retail sales is dismal, and that internet and downloading, have not taken up the slack, much less added anything much to their operating accounts. One of the things that helps keep them solvent (or scratching a living) , especially for the smallest labels, are direct online orders.

This from personal expierence dealing with the owners of Sharp Nine, Sirocco, MaxJazz, Plametto, Omnitone, Origin, and many others. All small labels struggle to make ends meet.

[RDK]

Function, scale, intent, and discretion.

Words to live by.

Oh I get it now! Duh. And here I thought Jim was talking about sex.

[rostasi]

filesharing: not just for pirates

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

filesharing: not just for pirates

Damn! That is GOOD!

MG

[.:.impossible]

At any rate ( in reply to ...impossible ) again, I suggest that you call up your favorite label owner and ask them what they think about the matter.

One thing that they will tell you is the state of retail sales is dismal, and that internet and downloading, have not taken up the slack, much less added anything much to their operating accounts. One of the things that helps keep them solvent (or scratching a living) , especially for the smallest labels, are direct online orders.

This from personal expierence dealing with the owners of Sharp Nine, Sirocco, MaxJazz, Plametto, Omnitone, Origin, and many others. All small labels struggle to make ends meet.

Maybe the music they are releasing just doesn't appeal to that many people. I'd love to see their sales numbers pre-internet compared with their sales numbers now. All small labels have always struggled to make ends meet.

Look, I agree that file-sharing and the internet are factors that all labels need to come to grips with. In fact, I think they are, right now, the single biggest factors that labels need to come to grips with. If they don't, they will continue to see declining revenues decline, but not because people are stealing music. Because they are missing the single-most effective direct marketing tool available to their companies.

Most labels no longer rely on vinyl lp's as their cash cow. They may still offer them in limited runs, but most of their output is in a CD format, much to a small minority's dismay. The generation after mine could care less about format. Then again, they could care less about Sharp Nine, Sirocco, MaxJazz, Palmetto, Omnitone, Origin, etc. Come to think of it, aside from this board, I can probably think of five people other than myself that know any of those labels by name.

My point is is that format is not the problem.

[JSngry]

Yeah, if we killed the Internet, then everybody would get to liking 50th-generation Hard Bop jazzmusic & Sharp Nine would be large. Yeeeeeeeeeaaaahhhhhhh.....

OmniTone's a good label, but very much a niche one. Same w/Palmetto. But the niche is only going to get so big. They should be trying to grow the niche, and offering downloads vs insisting on hard copies seems like a good way to control minimize overhead, and maybe free up some fundage for promo. Didn't/Doesn't Palmetto actually offer "bonus material" as free downloads? Smart idea, that, but it's just a start.

Those other labels, I don't know squat about. Have heard about them by name, seen ads, etc. But I'm thinking that since that's as far as it goes, there's been nothing there that I care about. That's not the label's problem, but it's not mine either.

[rockefeller center]

Something happened along the way

what used to be happy was sad

something happened along the way

and yesterday was all we had.

Cheers!

Edited December 7, 2006 by rockefeller center

[Neal Pomea]

I'm much more interested in what is "right" than what's "legal" but under the current system the only chance to get what is "right" is to use the legal system. Sadly that costs more than most of the "victims" can afford and they just lose. As Alexander has demonstrated, this does seem to be a "generational thing" and that scares the shit out of me. It is bad enough the world is in creative doldrums but to have the potential audience think the product is their "right" is really scary.

I am not so sure that it is generational. By putting artistic creation in the public, by publishing, it has by definition been put in the public domain. What did you think public domain means? That was the understanding in the U.S. in common sense terms by the generation of the founding fathers. You can look at the foundations of the Enlightenment philosophy if you like. Being made public means being in the public domain. Those were the facts understood by the founding fathers in the U.S.

I think too many misconceptions are being read into the concept of the public domain, as though you could have an ownership conflict between Owner Public Domain vs Owner Sweat of His Brow Artist/Publisher/Engineer. It's like a law suit between a fact and a person! Public domain is NOT a right like a private owner's right to their property. It is more like the absence of property rights. It's more like a fact. If anyone asserts that public domain is the public wresting ownership from a private owner, I would disagree on the facts. The private owner is only a private owner by statutory grant, not in fact.

An artistic creation is like an action or a word one utters. You cannot make it private once it is out there. And you can only assign property-like rights for so long, in my opinion.

That said, now that artists and their families, publishers and their families, and engineers and their families, are economically dependent on this long-wayward trend of copyright protection, what can we do? We cannot cut loose these people. I do not see any reasonable proposals for addressing this. It is not as though special compensation is awarded creators as wards of the state, or like beneficiaries of Medici-like patrons of the arts. Is there a new model forthcoming? I don't see any reason why copyright as currently configured should be the social instrument of providing economically for the creators/performers/publishers/engineers of music etc.

Ok, I meant that with a pretty good will. Guess it'll go over like a lead zeppelin.

Edited December 7, 2006 by It Should be You

[Alexander]

I'm much more interested in what is "right" than what's "legal" but under the current system the only chance to get what is "right" is to use the legal system. Sadly that costs more than most of the "victims" can afford and they just lose. As Alexander has demonstrated, this does seem to be a "generational thing" and that scares the shit out of me. It is bad enough the world is in creative doldrums but to have the potential audience think the product is their "right" is really scary.

I am not so sure that it is generational. By putting artistic creation in the public, by publishing, it has by definition been put in the public domain. What did you think public domain means? That was the understanding in the U.S. in common sense terms by the generation of the founding fathers. You can look at the foundations of the Enlightenment philosophy if you like. Being made public means being in the public domain. Those were the facts understood by the founding fathers in the U.S.

I think too many misconceptions are being read into the concept of the public domain, as though you could have an ownership conflict between Owner Public Domain vs Owner Sweat of His Brow Artist/Publisher/Engineer. It's like a law suit between a fact and a person! Public domain is NOT a right like a private owner's right to their property. It is more like the absence of property rights. It's more like a fact. If anyone asserts that public domain is the public wresting ownership from a private owner, I would disagree on the facts. The private owner is only a private owner by statutory grant, not in fact.

An artistic creation is like an action or a word one utters. You cannot make it private once it is out there. And you can only assign property-like rights for so long, in my opinion.

That said, now that artists and their families, publishers and their families, and engineers and their families, are economically dependent on this long-wayward trend of copyright protection, what can we do? We cannot cut loose these people. I do not see any reasonable proposals for addressing this. It is not as though special compensation is awarded creators as wards of the state, or like beneficiaries of Medici-like patrons of the arts. Is there a new model forthcoming? I don't see any reason why copyright as currently configured should be the social instrument of providing economically for the creators/performers/publishers/engineers of music etc.

Ok, I meant that with a pretty good will. Guess it'll go over like a lead zeppelin.

No, no...you make a lot of very interesting points...