Music is free, and so are we.
Hang out for a few minutes and I’ll tell you why Grooveshark may be more ethical than Spotify. Brief History Lesson By suing Napster and its kin out of existence, the music industry elite created a “soft landing” for its multi-billion dollar business of selling access to recorded music. They couldn’t kill so-called music “piracy”…
“We are the music while the music lasts.” – T.S. Eliot In modern-day song sharing — what we think of as “music” — there are three participants: musicians, listeners and industry. When music first originated, there was little if any separation between musician and listener. Certainly, there was no business of music upon which to…
We focus too much on how much money musicians or the music business are making to gauge the state of the music world. We should really be looking at the relationships shared by the key players.
Trying something a little new this week… a video blog. I hear a lot of people say we need to “save the music” by preserving the old business models of the music industry. “If there are less career opportunities for musicians,” they argue, “surely there will be less good music.” I call shenanigans on this…
Since Napster was sued out of existence in 2001, the record industry has ruined digital music time and time again. The result has been to stifle innovation and creativity as the industry dug its own grave with respect to consumer support. We will never really know just how much music and culture suffered from their…
Thanks to the hundreds of readers who made yesterday the most-visited day for my blog yet! And a big thanks to QuestionCopyright.org for their kind words about the article everyone was reading. If you haven’t checked out their site, it’s great. As you can imagine I’ve been getting a lot of feedback, both positive and…
Note: This was posted as a response to David Lowery’s Letter to Emily White, which was in response to her article “I Never Owned Any Music to Begin With”. White is an intern at NPR’s All Songs Considered, Lowery is a contributor for The Trichordist, a technology and ethics blog. As a musician and huge…
Music evolved alongside language and culture over millions of years to form a universal method of communicating emotion. For most of our species’ history, music’s primary purpose was to unify communities. Over time, various forces conspired to make music’s primary purpose entertainment. Chief among these was the music industry, which subjugated and exploited cultural evolution…
Several weeks ago I attended the Rethink Music conference in Boston. I can honestly say it felt like I downloaded the entire music industry in 48 hours. A non-stop parade of executives and managers concisely detailed the challenges they faced in the digital music age. In panel after panel, their guarded optimism shone like a…
