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Author Topic: Piracy  (Read 2829 times)

aramis

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« Reply #45 on: November 02, 2009, 01:27:43 PM »
Quote from: ggroy;341776
How much of this is subsidized by benefactors of some sort?

In particular, a benefactor looking for a tax deduction.


The vast majority of 17th to 19th century classical music was one-upsmanship amongst the european wealthy. Opera was commercial. The rest was religiously motivated.

Classical symphony-orchestra music practically requires a semi-professional organization; it's moderately difficult music, and requires large numbers of performers-technician.

On the other hand, despite having majored in music for 4 years, I perform almost out of psychotic need, rather than any chance for profit. When i sub in music, I get to have fun, and seldom notice the time whiz by until the end of the day, at which point, I'm looking back wondering where the time went.

Kids are musical beings. It's damned hard to keep them from being musical. It's also nigh-universal; every culture uses some form of music, even if only in religious expression.

Haffrung

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« Reply #46 on: November 02, 2009, 02:21:54 PM »
Quote from: RPGPundit;341747

I'll tell you this: if the record companies ceased to exist tomorrow, the next White Stripes, or Polyphonic Spree, or Magnetic Fields, would still be here. The next Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana would not.
Are you still seriously suggesting that the demise of the fucking record companies would be a bad thing?



Maybe the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana sell a lot of records because there's a genuine demand for their music. And maybe Magnetic Fields are relatively unknown because there isn't much of a demand for their music.

Blame record companies all you like. But they give the market what it wants. Some people just have a hard time accepting that because they can't accept their own preferences are not widely shared.

Quote
And the Beatles would never have bothered with that rock n' roll music if they didn't KNOW they'd become millionaires.


The Beatles were ferociously ambitious. All they wanted was to become huge pop stars. Before fame hit, they say to each other, almost daily "Where are we going to? To the toppermost of the poppermost!" And they stepped over a lot of people (Pete Best anyone?) and sold out without hesitiation (doffing leathers and the swearing on stage in exchange for suits and ooh-ahh!) in order to reach the top. John Lennon himself remarked that you have to be a bastard in order to make it in show business, and the Beatles were the biggest bastards of all.

Without that remorseless ambition, without the professional management that they sought out, and without the professional expertise of George Martin, the Beatles would have been simply a dance hall band that caused a sensation in Northern England for a couple years.

Quote from: RPGPundit;341747


You see, the problem with your premise is that the only people who become musicians exclusively to make money are the people who shouldn't be in the music industry in the first place. And most of those aren't musicians at all, they're the parasites in the record industry.



I couldn't disagree more. I know a lot of musicians. And people who have talent but only average ambition get nowhere. Take the example of Feist. When she was my buddy Kris' roommate here in Calgary, you wouldn't have thought she'd be the one to become a huge pop star while he languished in obscurity. Sure, we could all see that she was talented, but so is my friend Kris. However, talent alone doesn't get you far. You need that relentless, burning ambition to overcome obstacles, rivals, and set-backs and shove your way to the top of the heap. Every pop musician that rises to prominence - every one - has an eye on the prize the whole way. Any who don't simply give up.

Sure, lots of people go into music purely for the joy of it. And you and I have never heard of them.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2009, 02:29:29 PM by Haffrung »
 

Haffrung

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« Reply #47 on: November 02, 2009, 02:31:11 PM »
Quote from: Ian Absentia;341774
And this is why capitalists consistently fail to understand the arts (and craft).  Somehow arts and crafts thrive in the absence of profitable markets.



Then why do so many of those who work in the arts (here in Canada anyway) require government subsidies?
 

Buceph

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« Reply #48 on: November 02, 2009, 03:31:49 PM »
Quote from: Haffrung;341806
Then why do so many of those who work in the arts (here in Canada anyway) require government subsidies?


Are you genuinely asking why people like free money?

Haffrung

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« Reply #49 on: November 02, 2009, 03:46:48 PM »
Quote from: Buceph;341818
Are you genuinely asking why people like free money?


I'm asking why all of the arts associations say public funding for the arts is a necessity.
 

Buceph

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« Reply #50 on: November 02, 2009, 04:06:14 PM »
Quote from: Haffrung;341822
I'm asking why all of the arts associations say public funding for the arts is a necessity.


Because there were two types of art in history.* Craftsmanship, which was simply being the best mason, or blacksmith, and art as we know it. In the past craftsmanship as art was usually the best most people could afford, they'd in some way acquire a magnificient piece of furniture, or a great saddle for a horse. It might have been because they knew the craftsman or were owed a favour, or it might have been because the craftsman was simply inspired. However this craftsmanship did extend to some of the finer arts, storytellers or musicians would compose work and travel around jobbing. They'd want to, but would never really expect to become true artisans. A painter might make simple works for cheering up homes, or representing families, but they'd never, or rarely be the true masterpieces we recognise as art.

The other form of art, as we know it was for the rich. Patrons who could afford to pay the best to create the best. This was the preserve of the rich, and although it would funnel down to the lower classes, it was because of the rich that it was propogated.

Why do we pay taxes you ask? First it was protection money, to fund wars and armies and the parties of the nobles, but then it was recognised that some of the charities private citizens with more than they had to survive engaged in were also beneficial. Beyond the preserves of practicialities that were needed for the actual commerce, and thus lifeblood of a society. However, this is where a big "left v right" divide comes up.

Some would maintain that both the charity and practical aspect comes into the funding of art. Still others would maintain that art is owned by the people themselves, the nation (but this in general can be boiled down to charity vs practicality.) The idea that people of a country can be benefitted by art, affecting gross national happiness, or gross national enlightenment if you will.

I suppose it's collective bargaining power. I couldn't afford to get a top musician to write me the greatest song in the world, but collectively we can. This all relates to ownership of the art though (and copyright has developed as an ancialliary to that.)

People would still make art, but the nature of art is that it contains something of value to the human spirit. Naturally the rich would buy this. (Although of course some artists would hold out for what they see as integrity and only sell for the bare minimum for them to continue producing.) Unfortunately, we buy and sell things. And the reason art gets public funding, and why public funding is needed, is to keep it at the levels we appreciate, and for the people, in general. Because the diversity of art is publicly funded, simply means that art can remain of the public. However, it is not needed for art to continue, it's just that it raises the form of it. Craftsmen will always exist, and the pure arts will always exist to some degree because people enjoy themselves. But for levels we appreciate, which I presumed was couched in what you were saying in the first place, we need public funding.

*This is just from general reading and 101 type courses at University. I don't present any of this as expertise.

Tommy Brownell

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« Reply #51 on: November 02, 2009, 04:57:20 PM »
Quote from: kythri;341585
Are you?!




And the disappearance of brick-and-mortars couldn't possibly be due to online sales, or various other venues of purchase, could it?

Amazon (remember CDnow?) commands a large part of the mainstream music market, and CDBaby owns the indie market.  But yes, let's blame the filesharing.



In what fantasyland did musicians ever sit back and not tour?


The Beatles spent half their time as a band getting high, visiting spiritual gurus and making studio albums, but not actually touring.
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Diavilo

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« Reply #52 on: November 02, 2009, 06:25:15 PM »
The data seems to show that filesharers are using computers more than other people, buying CDs faster than other people and going to lots of gigs. They must then contribute to global warming more than anyone else. Time to make them stay in every night and be much more boring.
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RPGPundit

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« Reply #53 on: November 03, 2009, 02:07:52 PM »
I was wondering if someone was going to use that old deal about "toppamost of the poppamost", re. the Beatles.

But that's just the thing. Perhaps if you're not british you might not know, but they were playing on the term "Top of the Pops". They wanted FAME, the money was just a side-benefit. They wanted to be famous, as the best of the best.

The majority of musicians don't play because they want to be rich, they play because they want to be honoured for their music, to be famous, and, especially, to get laid.

I don't think that if the limits of a musician's likely wealth if he "Makes it" was a few hundred thousand dollars instead of a few million dollars, there'd be very few musicians who would stop doing what they're doing.

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Diavilo

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« Reply #54 on: November 03, 2009, 04:18:52 PM »
Top of the Pops. Better known to all teenage lads in the UK at the time as the Pan's People Show.
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Haffrung

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« Reply #55 on: November 03, 2009, 05:25:31 PM »
Quote from: RPGPundit;342000
I was wondering if someone was going to use that old deal about "toppamost of the poppamost", re. the Beatles.

But that's just the thing. Perhaps if you're not british you might not know, but they were playing on the term "Top of the Pops". They wanted FAME, the money was just a side-benefit. They wanted to be famous, as the best of the best.



Yes, I knew that.

But before I get off the subject of the Beatles, I'll throw in another anecdote about their early days:

John and Paul are 17 and their band is still called the Quarrymen. Most of their buddies have dropped out or were driven out as John and Paul demand more and more committment to the band.

They play a gig at a coffee bar in the basement of Mona Best's house, one of a regular committment of a couple shows a week, but one of the other band members can't show up this night due to illness. Mona is about to pay the usual fee out to the boy who was sick, thinking it's only fair. But John and Paul throw a fit, and demand that the rest of the band divide up the sick boy's share. People in the local rock scene remark that this was when they knew John and Paul weren't messing around.

Quote from: RPGPundit;342000


The majority of musicians don't play because they want to be rich, they play because they want to be honoured for their music, to be famous, and, especially, to get laid.



But to achieve anything more than brief, local fame, you need the infrastructure of a professional music industry. You need promoters, and radio shows, and television programs, and professional producers, and money to get your foot in the door with all of the above.

To get the fame you need to play the game. And when musicians stop playing the game (as Lennon did for a while), it's only because they already have the fame - and money.
« Last Edit: November 03, 2009, 05:28:31 PM by Haffrung »
 

RPGObjects_chuck

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« Reply #56 on: November 03, 2009, 05:58:29 PM »
There's some major problems with trying to draw any conclusions from this study.

First, if you read closely, only 10% of respondents admitted to illegal file sharing.

Second, the results were completely self-reported.

In other words, people who SAID they "pirated", also said they spent more, without any real tracking done by those who did the study.

And again, only 10% of those admitted to doing anything illegal.

So besides the problem of trying to compare e-books to MP3's, there's also the issue of whether or not one should draw ANY conclusions from a study like this.

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« Reply #57 on: November 04, 2009, 09:30:16 AM »
The "problem" you suggest (getting in the industry, playing the game) is only a problem that exists BECAUSE the current industry is laid out as it is.

If there were no music industry middlemen, then you'd no doubt have some other, different set of rules to be followed.  Maybe the Big Web-designers would be the guys who musicians would have to suck the cocks of.

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