Comment 5479

By rgelderrgeld (registered) - website | Posted February 17, 2007 at 14:16:25

Ryan:

Thanks for the links to the articles, which were most interesting. I have heard the horror stories. A friend of mine from high school was involved with a band called the "Munday Nuns", whose membership in large part (and excluding my friend) went on to become the "Killjoys". Remember them?

Speaking with him, he told me his friends and former bandmates were doing anything but getting rich off their fame. The Killjoys were a fairly well-known Canadian act around 10 years ago, having signed a multi-album deal with one of the big labels.

I'm not a sophisticated music indsustry type person, but I do love my iPod and I am purchasing from iTunes pretty much exclusively for two reasons:

  1. The seamless integration with my beloved iPod; and
  2. My understanding is that it is a legitimate form of purchasing music.

It is in the latter part where I gather I am being misled, insofar as, as the articles and my friend have pointed out, artists generally tend to get "fucked". However, I am earnest in my desire to do the right thing, but wouldn't feel entirely comfortable sending envelopes with cash to artists whose music I have file-shared.

The difference between now and when we loaned each other vinyl is the ease with which music can be copied in a very high-quality fashion. If you loaned me Rush 2112 (the red one), I may grow to like it so much that I need to go out and buy a copy for myself. No need to do that in the digital age.

I understand the motives of the "Right to Tinker" movement, but in an age where file sharing is so easy, is it realistic to expect that we can enjoy such rights without killing the music industry itself? Or am I sounding like one of those middle-aged, balding hipsters who calls everyone "baby"?

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