[Rumori] re: Songwriters Say Piracy Eats Into Their Pay

[Tim Maloney]

>I don't deny that something is happening with music and certainly 
>the tectonic plates of the industry are shifting but you fail to 
>understand that labels perform a very useful filtering process (not 
>perfect by any means I'll grant you) but at least it removes 90% of 
>the crap. And some labels are very experimental ( 
>http://www.staticcaravan.org/ )  We need to replace the old system 
>which had become corrupt but the new *has* to give musicians an 
>income, surely!

Interesting notion here, and perhaps another fundamental we should consider.

The idea that record labels are necessary to filter acts ought to be 
challenged somewhat.  In the most olden of olden days, when labels 
did not consider themselves tastemakers, a musician would have to 
find an audience to secure a record deal.  Cab Calloway and Helen 
Kane surely sold out music halls and auditoria before anyone decided 
such a popular act would make a great record.

Behind that there may have been a complicated system whereby the 
owners of music halls and other venues decided THEY were the 
tastemakers.  Someone auditioned acts for the various live venues.

Digital Tools definitely bring us all closer to the 90% crap.  It's 
almost frightening how computers have really broken down that filter 
and allowed us to hear 10,000 similar sensitive singer/songwriters on 
MP3.com, for example.  But to rely on record labels to do the 
filtering for us is a little odd, too.  It seems to me that this 
"useful process" becomes instantly corrupt by its very nature. 
Relying on an outside tastemaker will always result in relying on 
their taste to supply you with what you enjoy.  Serious enthusiasts 
always do their own looking.

Add to that a healthy skepticism about IP being treated like 
"property" that can be stolen and sold, and mix in a little of the 
notion that even the most gifted musician by necessity "steals" and 
borrows playing styles, riffs, melodies, and anything else from other 
composers and performers, and the whole thing looks rather shaky 
indeed.

Online music and downloading isn't about any of these arguments.  Of 
course it's really about money, somehow, but where is the bottom 
line?  Musicians would rather point the finger at computer users even 
when their own contracts are satanic, at best.  And labels and 
executives are counting fictitious sales they haven't even made and 
aren't likely to have made in any world.  Is it all just greedy 
scapegoating?
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