Music

Music / Web — No Comments
26
May 10

Limewire is Begging for a Second Chance

In case you missed the news, Limewire is begging the music industry for a second chance.  You know, after they stole from it for a really long time.

What do you think? Should the music industry forgive and forget, instead taking this opportunity to try to monetize the immense userbase of Limewire users?  Is it even possible to convert them to paying customers?  Or are Limewire users just going to move on to another service?  Seeing as how it takes years for the music industry to stop a service like Limewire, maybe another can hop in for a bit (maybe dupe a few users) and make a couple million $. Or, perhaps due to the precedence set by this case the next one will fall all that much faster.

It will definitely be interesting from here on out.

Intellectual Property / Money / Music / Web — 1 Comment
16
May 10

Jaron Lanier’s Right: The Web Needs Some Scarcity

If you’ve been paying any attention to my recent Twitter updates, you can probably tell from my constant updates that I’m really digging reading You Are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier. I’m a little over halfway through, but so far it’s an excellent look at how Web 2.0 and open/free culture are not only damaging our society, but destroying our importance as individual human beings.  It reminds me a bit of Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur, and whether or not you agree with the premise, I strongly recommend reading it.

What I want to discuss here, however, is from one single paragraph of the book.  It’s found at the bottom of page 102 (of the hardcover) and is part of Chapter Two, “What Will Money Be?” in a section labeled, “Pick Your Poison.”  In it, Lanier says the following:

“It is a common assertion that if you copy a digital music file, you haven’t destroyed the original, so nothing was stolen.  The same thing could be said if you hacked into a bank and just added money to your online account. … The problem in each case is not that you stole from a specific person, but that you undermined the artificial scarcities that allow the economy to function.  In the same way, creative expression on the internet will benefit from a social contract that imposes a modest degree of artificial scarcity of information.”

The reason I’ve deemed this specific quote worthy of its own write-up is this: it’s one of the most eloquent and comprehensible explanations of why everything on the Internet should not be free. Continue reading →

Intellectual Property / Music / Technology / Web — 2 Comments
13
May 10

LimeWire Has Officially Been Deemed Illegal (It’s About Time)

LimeLimeWire has finally been found illegal, liable for copyright infringement, a bunch of thieves, etc.

The news of this has been all over the web (WSJ has one of the best pieces of coverage), but I think Patrick Ross of the Copyright Alliance has one of the best responses to it on their blog.

I left my thoughts on the Copyright Alliance’s site, but thought it was worth sharing here as well. So, consider this my official response to the news.

“This is one of the best pieces of news I’ve seen reported in a long time. It’s about time this happened. I remember a few years ago, I was talking to some people I knew and found out that they don’t ever buy music – instead they only download from Limewire (or did at the time). The thing is, when I told them that what they were doing was illegal, they had no idea. Their response was “but I bought some pro version and a plan.” It was only after explaining to them that it still was unlicensed and nothing went to any of the artists or creators that they saw just how misled they had been.

Limewire’s entire business plan was built around the theft of copyrighted materials, and as you said, they were just fine with that. It’s good to see that the Judicial System has stepped up and given them the smack they so deserve.”

It’s about time.

Life / Music — No Comments
11
May 10

20% Of May Sales for Starving the Artist to be Donated to Tennessee Flood Relief

Working in the music industry, I’ve spent some time in Nashville, and I know what a great city it is. It, and Tennessee in general, are home to the greatest songwriting and music community in the world – as well as millions more magnificent individuals. This is why, when I heard the news and saw the footage of the destruction from the recent flooding, I felt it important to give to help out this area and people in need.

Since my new book focuses quite a bit on the plight of musicians and songwriters, I thought it would only be fitting to try to help out by giving 20% of all sales of Starving the Artist throughout the month of May to Tennessee Flood Relief. So, not only will $2 of every paperback sold and $1 of every Kindle download sold go toward helping this treasure trove of our heartland, but by reading the book hopefully respect of the value of what this community of songwriters and musicians creates for us will grow as well – helping them to flourish in the aftermath through their hard work and creativity.

Of course, if you’d like to donate directly you can do so as well. Donate to the American Red Cross online here, or text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

Again, $2 of every paperback and $1 of every Kindle edition sold throughout the month of May will be donated to the American Red Cross for Tennessee Flood Relief.

Get the Paperback

Download it on Kindle

Intellectual Property / Music / Publishing / Technology / Web / Writing — No Comments
5
May 10

My New Book: “Starving the Artist” Is Now Available

If you’ve been following my updates here or on Twitter, you are likely aware that over the last nine months or so I’ve been working on a new, nonfiction book, discussing the value of creative works.  The book, Starving the Artist, focuses on how in today’s Internet age where information can be transferred for a negligible amount of money (basically for free), the underlying creation that makes up the music, movies, books, art and other types of media that we enjoy, is being viewed as something that should be free as well.  A lot of this comes from the thought process that the actual cost of a product should be determined in great part to the physical cost of the packaged good, as well as the general philosophy of those that argue “Information should be free.”

The full title of the book is Starving the Artist: How the Internet Culture of “Free” Threatens to Exterminate the Creative Class and What Can Be Done to Save It.  It’s not a book about copyright law or an argument that “free is evil” – instead it’s a discussion of our current state of how we value other people’s work and creations, and how it should not be up to us as consumers to decide whether or not we want to pay what the creator is asking (if they are asking for anything at all). In some ways it’s a response to Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price and tangential to Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur.

Continue reading →

Music — No Comments
27
Aug 09

Joel Tennenbaum and Jammie Thomas-Rasset Were Not Fined for Downloading Music

With the news about the recent decisions in both the Joel Tennenbaum case and the Jammie Thomas Rasset case, there has been a lot of uninformed complaining going on. The biggest error among the misinformed is this: they think people were fined for downloading music.

They weren’t.

In most articles you’ll read online, the act of downloading is the focus, like this one over at Gizmodo.  I understand that a lot of people online like to steal music, and that they’re upset that some people got in trouble for it – but the fact is, they’re wrong about what the people got in trouble for.  The people (Tennenbaum and Thomas-Rasset) got in trouble for downloading and distributing music.  They were found to do so willingly, and while knowing that to do so was illegal. Continue reading →