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Say That Again

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Nov 15th 2004 9:01am





Musicians Who Understand The Internet

from the a-list? dept

Perhaps we need to put together a list of musicians who actually understand the internet. We've written about the band Wilco and their willingness to embrace the internet before, but Wired News is now running an interview with front man Jeff Tweedy talking about how useful the internet is as a distribution mechanism and how badly the recording industry is missing the boat. "A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work. Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator. People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property. I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic." There is also the next step, though, of realizing that as music is freed up, it becomes an input that can be used for other commercial opportunities, opening up possibilities for other areas of commerce. The trick is to stop thinking about music as an end-product to be sold, and focus more on how it can be a larger part of something else (a different product, a social experience, etc.).

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  1.  
    identicon
    me, Nov 15th, 2004 @ 10:00am

    I'm just a caveman lawyer, but...

    Law of supply and demand. If the supply is infinite(drag-drop-copy), the demand will plummet accordingly. I don't know anyone who buys cd's anymore...DVD's are next...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    TDavid, Nov 15th, 2004 @ 1:57pm

    Re: I'm just a caveman lawyer, but...

    I still buy CDs, but the purchases are definitely way down. I have a monthly subscription to Napster to listen to music that way. I think the flexibility of buying the CD and ripping it to whatever format I need is still a good reason to pay for an overpriced CD, but if they start doing more of what Velvet Revolver did with blocking ripping of the CDs, that would all but eliminate my CD purchases.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Nov 15th, 2004 @ 2:54pm

    Re: I'm just a caveman lawyer, but...

    Caveman Economist? If the supply is infinite, the price will drop, I'd think.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    euman, Nov 16th, 2004 @ 12:56am

    Re: I'm just a caveman lawyer, but...

    I buy way more CDs than I used to and I have a subscription to eMusic. I like to own the "thing" - most people like stuff rather than some virtual entity they can't touch.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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