free music

[unclej]

free music sites like napster have been in the news a lot lately because of some pending legislation and i was wondering how many of you use them...if you do use them do you feel that there's anything wrong with it or do you feel like since it's available it must be ok...

my stance? i have 65-70 copyrighted songs in my catalog...you're not going to find any of them on any of the sites but you may some day...and if you did and you copied them you would be taking money out of my pocket...it's called stealing...

 

[Starblayde]

I see nothing wrong with having 'free' music on my comp... Music is made, I download it, if I like it i recommend it to friends and word of the artist spreads and eventually the artisit will make more money.

Freedom of the net

 

[JazzManJim]

Well, it's not stealing, legally.

The courts have yet to make a definitive decision on downloadable music that overturns the Sony Decision made in the 1980s (as I recall). That decision said that a person who owns a recording may copy the original and give it to another person, so long as they do not charge the other person.

The courts have been having a hard time with the perplexing problem of how to tell if a digital recording is an original, a first-generation copy, or an 11th-generation copy. Given that any burden of proof on a legal case is on the prosecuting side, that makes legal enforcement nearly impossible.

It's firmly in a legal grey area into which the Napster, et. al., cases have only begun to delve.

For me, I have at least 200 mp3s on CD and my hard drive. Most of them are pieces of music for which I can't find original recordings (yeah, look hard to find a quality copy of any music by Meade Lux Lewis. I have, and they sound very bad) or songs that I have already on cassette tape. Some are not. Perhaps 10-15 percent of what I have are songs for which I refuse the exorbitant price of an entire CD for one song (or, for that matter, one CD single).

I have no problem doing this whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, anything I can do to hurt the record companies is a good thing (and don't give me that crap about taking money from the musicians. They get a shits worth amount of money from everything they sell. I'll be more than happy to compensate them directly and have done so more than once).

 

[BigDawg69]

Jim's right I have to agree fully with the man. As a collector of more than 15 gigabytes of mp3's I find the free trade a wonderful way for an artist to express themselves. Are you an artist, or a businessman? Do you do it for art, or for money?

 

[unclej]

i had a rush of customers and had to sign off for a while so i didn't stir up as much shit as i had intended...i'm actually pretty ambivalent about the whole thing...there's no such thing as high speed data transfer out where i live so the only time i ever tried to download anything from napster it took 45 minutes to get one song...never tried again...

bigdawg...i do it for art and am fortunate to make part of my living at it but only on a local level so i'm really not going to be hurt by napster or anyone else...

i download lyrics and tabs all the time and there's probably not much difference between that and the real music...like i said, i was trying to start some shit but had to leave and i still haven't made up my mind about the whole subject so we can now let this thread die a peaceful death of boredom....

 

[JazzManJim]

Jim's right I have to agree fully with the man. As a collector of more than 15 gigabytes of mp3's I find the free trade a wonderful way for an artist to express themselves. Are you an artist, or a businessman? Do you do it for art, or for money?

Well, there are folks who do it for both. They need the money to freely produce their art, and the best way for them to earn that is by selling their art.

Having said that, there are perhaps a gazillion better ways for the musician, than by using the large music companies.

I've actually sent checks directly to the groups, care of their management companies. That's seemed pretty successful, if not a bit outlandish.

See, I believe that artists should be compensated for their work. But buying CDs does very little in the way of compensating an artist and much more with compensating an organization that has repeatedly and without remorse exploited and abused artists.

 

[Spinaroonie]

(and don't give me that crap about taking money from the musicians. They get a shits worth amount of money from everything they sell).

Actually, that may no longer be true...

Under the Digital Mellinium Copyright Act, all the recording industry has to do is pay the artist for their time in studio.

 

[unclej]

right on again jmj...i did everything but master my two cd's, recording, mixing, art work and actual production...i sell them at gigs, at my store and at a friends store...i get all but my friend's little markup...sell to a big label and you get peanuts by comparison...

 

[sunstruck]

I work in radio, community radio but still. lol. We pay yearly copy write fees, so I don't feel at all guilty downloading music, speically since through talking to other people on sites like Audiogalaxy I have found incredible artists that I I never would otherwise have heard of and given them air time they would not otherwise have received. Spreading the word and ultimately making them money.

When people call in to get info on new artisits I never direct them to the free sites, I direct them to the artisits website, or wherever else you can buy the CD.

 

[JazzManJim]

right on again jmj...i did everything but master my two cd's, recording, mixing, art work and actual production...i sell them at gigs, at my store and at a friends store...i get all but my friend's little markup...sell to a big label and you get peanuts by comparison...

See, that's cool. And with a little creative marketing, you can do even better at it. I mean, you won't make a gazillion dollars, but not many musicians ever do that. Those who do are backed by a humongous marketing machine, and make more of their money not from their recordings, but from endorsements ont he side.

Keep it up. And tell us who your group is and what you play! This is the thing I want to know! I love good music, regardless of the type.

 

[amelia]

don't mind me...

i'm just kind of following jmj around today...

 

[JazzManJim]

Re: don't mind me...

i'm just kind of following jmj around today...

Me? How did I earn this honor?

<gives you a butt wiggle>

 

[unclej]

god, i just had this vision of a little girl in pigtails following jmj and being followed by her garden gnome...

jmj...don't know how the others in the group would feel about putting our name out here but we do mostly my original music...blues, texas folk, some swing...i play guitar, banjo and flute on stage and am in various stages of learning the mandolin and fiddle....fiddle's kickin' my ass...pm me if you're interested and i'll figure out a way to get you a copy of my latest cd...

 

[JazzManJim]

god, i just had this vision of a little girl in pigtails following jmj and being followed by her garden gnome...

PM has been sent.

Whoa. amelia in cutoff jeans and pigtails skipping along behind me, her beasts bouncing jauntily under the tied halfshirt she's wearing, a little bit of sweat on her upper chest, her...

Wait...wait....stop stop stop stop.

I have finals in two days. I can *not* get diverted.

 

[amelia]

Whoa. amelia in cutoff jeans and pigtails skipping along behind me

however did you guess that

 

[JazzManJim]

however did you guess that

I so didn't need confirmation of that. Didn't you read what I just posted? I can't afford the kind of distraction that you provide.

 

[amelia]

I so didn't need confirmation of that. Didn't you read what I just posted? I can't afford the kind of distraction that you provide.

 

[JazzManJim]

You, young lady, are in such trouble, just as soon as I've taken my last final. Oh yes...