trouble is, no matter who says what to condemn the entertainment industries or who says what in defense of ‘file sharing’ with as much genuinely corroborating evidence to back it up, nothing will change. the entertainment industries are going to continue allowing those that were born in the 1930s to dictate what is done now and how it’s done, instead of adapting to the present day and are going to continue forcing as many websites as possible to close, using whatever method it deems necessary. the fear they appear to have of competing and of the way the Internet encourages that competition is astounding. to then use those who seem to be part of their own personal judiciary to stifle that competition is disgraceful!

Yeah, congratulations on covering all bases.
One is pirated (EI-P)
One is a pirate (Bull)
And one benefits from the ‘kickstart’ her established record label gave her.

I’m pretty sure copying Bram Stoker is illegal, and if it isn’t, it clearly should be.

Bravo to all these great artists! It was both interesting and enlightening to hear their viewpoints, and I want to say that I really appreciate the honesty, integrity, and sincerity that each and every one of them has brought to the world of art.

Also, shame on the hecklers for belittling these artists for being brave enough to innovate. Trying something new is scary enough by itself without being bullied for it at the same time.

If I’m against anything it’s people trampling others to satisfy their own needs.

Amanda Palmer is genuine and hard working. One swallow does not make a summer however.
EI-P doesn’t appear to want his work taken without him being asked.
Good luck to the guy. He’s genuine too, so people who want to support him should buy his music instead of sharing it before it’s even been released.

Dan Bull and ‘integrity’ don’t go in the same sentence.

After trying to parse the original post (difficult), I might actually agree with whatever this drivel was trying to say.

I really do not have the patience to deal seriously with this kind of lazy crap.

I suggest that all ignore the poster from this point on.

If you are too lazy to actually use sentences, with at least an attempt at punctuation, you do not deserve a serious response to your post — so I will give you a Fez final response:

(“I said good day!”)

I saw people complaining on the other thread about Dan Bull pirating Cubase, well that is the perverse side of monopolies those greedy people will say he is a horrible person when in fact a monopoly is to create a scarcity of options, when you can’t find anything else anywhere you are forced to pay up and be subject to rules in detriment of your own needs.

This is exactly why one guy put fire on himself and died in the Middle-East starting a revolution there, because the authorities that be took his way of living by taking away his fruit cart which he used to make a living, in the same way IP laws do the same thing everyday to a lot of people and that is why nobody will ever respect that.

I make the majority of the money in my household, but when my wife really wants something, she takes extra shifts to get it. She could easily ask me, and I would gladly get it for her. It is in her nature to achive goals on her own. She is a strong independant woman. Its one of the many qualities that attracted me to her in the first place.

So kudos to Amanda for wanting to do it on her own.

I have also noticed that when she does get things on her own, she enjoys it much more knowing she worked hard and achieved a goal.

Ah, but she’s NOT doing it on her own — she’s just taking money from her fans. You call that “hard work”? For shame. There are people who are struggling just to make ends meet.

“I thought the definition of being in the music business was accepting/taking money from people who consider themselves your fans.”

It’s one thing when you’re making money touring, album sales, merch, etc. and quite another when you’re asking for money. It would be understandable if she was a minor artist with poor financial backing …but she’s not. What, she can’t hit the record button on her DAW without $200,000 or something?

No, it cannot, because, as was said several times before, she’s not poor. Quite the contrary. What’s next, are you going to get suckered into donating towards some rich dude’s sports car because he’s handing out ‘perks’ like a signed glossy photograph?

Those are nice perks for just a buck, I’ll give you that. Regardless, she could’ve made the album just fine without all that money. She’s not straphanded for cash. And promoting the album is no problem, especially when you’re established (word of mouth alone would suffice) plus the internet at your disposal.

You made up that he downloaded a different more expensive product.

He specifically wrote he downloaded ‘industry standard software costing thousands of pounds’. Cubase doesn’t cost thousands of pound, nor is it industry standard.
Pro Tools is the industry standard DAW, Ableton and Logic are pretty standard for urban/dance music. And yes, Reaper is every bit as functional as Cubase.
Here’s the thing you all can’t get your heads around.
You don’t need software costing thousands of pounds to record and release superb hip-hop.
If you want to work digitally you need a computer, basic interface and a DAW (Reaper $60). You need a sampler, hardware or software, and a microphone.
That’s it!
As ‘beatz’ are fundamental you might want a sampling drum machine, but that’s a luxury as Reaper and a software sampler can play that role.
So once again, Bull is operating on off the backs of abusing other young workers, when he DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO.

That AC doesn’t know that answer to those questions because he/she has never used any of that software, never played and instrument, never sang or performed or recorded. He/she is a cubicle employee behind a desk. If not, he/she would do like other artists and identify themselves.

Wouldn’t it be great for you if that were true. Sadly for you it isn’t. You don’t seem to be able to handle someone with more music experience than Bull telling you he’s wrong, so you can only seek to persuade yourself and others that person (me) has no clue what they are talking about. In fact it’s you (and Bull) who have no clue.

What do you think selling anything is, if not leeching off the fan base of their cash.

The crazy party that believes others should never copy without permission is the one that is wrong, the laws are wrong and now everybody is seeing that.

It all seems to make perfect sense to you guys, but only if you can eliminate the other young workers from your mind .
I’m not even arguing about whether it’s stealing, or copying, or sharing.
The cold hard fact is the music software workers don’t get paid unless we support them by buying the product.
If you download the software against that company’s wishes, you are not financially supporting a small business, primarily made up of a few, young innovators in the same generation as Bull.
In effect, you’re happy to see people put in the work to create something useful for you, but you are unwilling to support their efforts.
You may be ok with that. I’m not.

This is a vanity project; nobody REQUIRES $200,000 in order to produce and promote an album, yet she’s already got around half a million. She didn’t close the Kickstarter project after meeting her goal, neither. Meanwhile, other smaller acts are getting maybe a couple thousand for funding their albums and promotion. Why does she, someone who’s well-established and financially secure, require all that money, and how come she didn’t shut it down once she met her desired goal (ridiculous as it was)? I smell greed.

Um, just so you know, “music software workers” don’t get paid royalties.

I absolutely know that.

They earn the same salary whether people buy the software or not.

Except most aren’t simply employees. Most music software is created and sold by the same person, i.e. young entrepreneurs.
You’re ripping off young people with innovative ideas who have put their own money into realising those ideas as a product. So no, they don’t get paid whether the product sells or not.

Michael is right.
No ‘indie’ artist would even consider an album budget of $200,000.
All but the biggest mainstream acts are working in home studios of some sort or other. With drum and keyboard programming being the basis of much music these days, it’s crazy to spend commercial studio money programming when you can do it at home.
Even vocals and final mixing are often done in home style studios.
So that leaves real drums, orchestral instruments and maybe some guitars.
Where I live, commercial studio prices have been slashed in half over the last 12 to 24 months.

Good for her and good for them. They both seem to want to help the other out. And this is a bad thing because of . . . ?

Quote:

The cold hard fact is the music software workers don’t get paid unless we support them by buying the product.

Just so you know, being able to copy something is not the same thing as not supporting that thing.

Red Hat is making a lot of money and everybody can copy, distribute, and modify the software why do people pay Red Hat or any other open source project for that matter?

The way I see it, being able to copy is a good thing for the young minds because they keep what they used to create something and if they move on from a company they can use that knowledge for their advantage, it is also a good thing for anyone trying to make a tool, better for programmers that will be hired to implement things that weren’t there, everybody wins in that case, but with proprietary crap, the worker gets nothing, users get the shaft over and over again and people keep paying a handful of people for doing that instead of doing what they need.

Open source gives you the ability to change something, if you are not capable you hire someone who is and implement that for you so you are creating a local market not one distant from your local community how is that bad in any way?

You may be ok with monopolies I am not, I recognize what they do, they funnel all the resources to the hands of a few who in time become lazy and don’t want to work anymore, that is the only thing it does all the while locking the means by which others make money it doesn’t incentivate anything and you are ok with that?

Copying is not a problem, is the solution.

I can’t see how in any capacity copying something takes away another person ability to sell anything unless he is incompetent which means he didn’t deserve to be in the market in the first place.

Copying at worst limits your market share, it doesn’t stop your from dominating it or becoming a millionaire, IP law on the other hand only empowers the burocrats that create nothing an leech off of others who really create something.

It may have been useful in the past, that is not true today, maybe a century ago it was something that was good, it is not today.

Quote:

In effect, you’re happy to see people put in the work to create something useful for you, but you are unwilling to support their efforts.

Yes I am very happy and grateful that people creates things that I can use, I also am happy to have created things that people do use, and that is fair and just, I create they use it, I compete with my own creations while copying others and learning from their successes and failures. I support the projects that I like with work and money, being able to copy doesn’t stop that and you wanna know why?

Because I fucking can’t do everything by myself inside society and achieve a great standard of living, I can survive sure, I can do a lot, but I still need others to work to free my time so I can do other things, what I don’t need is somebody with a sense of entitlement saying he owns a piece of knowledge or that nobody else can do it because he did it first or forcing ridiculous rules that nobody ever will ever fallow and trying to call anybody who disagrees with it a criminal, well they are not, the real criminals are people like you.

From Kickstarter:

What happens if a project reaches its funding goal before time expires?

Nothing really. Projects continue to accept pledges until the funding deadline. There is no option to end a project early.

http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/creating%20a%20project#ManaYourProj

So how exactly is Amanda supposed to close the Kickstarter campaign?

You’re argument isn’t even an argument but rather one of those lame ‘You’re just jealous or something’ retorts.

“I’m not really sure what you’re saying here. Kickstarter is exactly the business model of ‘get[ting] a small loan from a financial backer who typically wants it back + interest.’ People contribute to her Kickstarter campaign, fully aware of what money it’s already raised, and get certain things back from it depending upon how much they contributed. What’s the problem?”

The fact that she asked for $200,000 from her fans and is allowing it to spill over. BTW, it’s not a loan, it’s a donation.

“Leaving aside the fact that it’s not true, let’s assume for the sake of argument that it is. So what? Plenty of rich folks have been artists. You’re saying that they shouldn’t be artists, that they shouldn’t raise money to produce their art. You can belive that all you want, but Amanda’s fans won’t listen – they actually know better, and realize that every artist needs support from their fans.”

You continue to conflate *earning* financial support with *asking for* financial support. My issue is two-fold: she’s already capable of both producing and promoing her own work and she’s well-off as it is. It’s akin to a wealthy person begging others to pay for his project because he doesn’t feel like doing so himself.

“That leaves out all art, since nobody needs art to eat. You’re really suggesting that art is worthless? I’m not.”

Now you’re twisting my words around. I never said that art was “worthless” — I said that it was not a necessity. You don’t need art in order to survive like you do food, water, oxygen, etc.

“Here’s where you’re confused. Her album is not already finished. She’s raising money for its production.

Even the most ardent ‘artist-haters’ here on Techdirt (and yes, that should be in quotes) would admit that this is exactly what most workers do.”

Except for the people who refuse to have success handed to them. Apparently some artists just expect everything to be handed to them, much like a major label suit expecting X artist to generate him profit.

“This is pre-production, so every dollar she earns will make a better album. The people who contribute are making sure that no expense is spared making an album that will be of the highest quality possible.”

Once again, who requires $200,000+ in order to click ‘record’ on a DAW?

“And if you think making a pro-level album does not take hard work (as muh as any ditch-digger or computer programmer), then you don’t know jack shit about creating music.”

Poor analogy. Ditch-digging doesn’t generate much income and is far more tiresome than sitting back and deciding,” Hmm, I wonder if I should add a drum fill after the second chorus…”

“Every single independent artist who thinks they can ask that much. If indie artists believed they could ask for more and get it, then trust me, they would. And nobody would blame them if they did. Certainly not me, or any other artist I know, that’s for sure.”

You really don’t know much about recording music, do you? Today it costs next to nothing to record your own music. The only things which cost money are equipment, instruments (+ treatment when necessary) and the session musicians, which is optional. And even so, that still doesn’t cost no $200,000.

“So is everyone else who makes music, especially if they have a day job (which Amanda did, for many years). Are you saying that once an artist becomes successful, they should take a day job to pay the bills? That’s what you’re implying, at least for all those musicians (like myself, and until recently Amanda) should be required to do.

Or are you saying that anyone who wants to record an album should fill out a form listing all of their family’s assets, and be denied unless they’re ‘needy’ enough?”

You make it sound as if she’s in the poor house. My point is that she’s an established artist who’s essentially taking donations from her fans as if she were poor. I already know you’d say something like, “Good, she deserves it,” which you’re free to believe. But… isn’t Kickstarter supposed to be for financing artistic pursuits and such which otherwise would never get off the ground?

“Seriously, who cares? Every single artist I know is ‘capable of supporting themselves.’ If they weren’t, they’d be dead. So no artists deserve anyone’s money, then? Seriously, that seems to be what you’re saying, and I just can’t get behind that.”

There’s a stark difference between being self-sufficient and being well beyond self-sufficient yet asking for more money. But oh well. If people want to hand money over to someone who’s wealthy, so be it.

Now if you told me that her rich husband is paying for laws to create monopolies or strength the ones he already have, now that I would dive head in first and bash her anyway I could.

You see I don’t have a problem with rich people, I don’t care that they are mostly dickheads and get strange/creepy(e.g.: the guy with a toupee – I forget his name, but he is famous – suing Ireland because they are building a windfarm in front of his property) in their old age, what I do care is when they use that power to get benefits at the cost of others inside society.

Oh, by the way, you were wrong about something.

“Here’s where you’re confused. Her album is not already finished. She’s raising money for its production.”

As it says on the signs she’s holding up on her YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TveAzAs6NAY), “Now we need money to promote, mix, manufacture, and distribute it around the world.”

No WAY does that cost $200,000, unless she’s looking to plaster full-page ads in major publications and run TV spots, in which case she’d just be lining the pockets of the corporate elites she’s supposedly rebelling against with your donation money.

Mixing/Mastering an album doesn’t cost much, maybe several hundred dollars to a grand.

Distribution is also not much of a problem. Fist there’s digital distribution which costs practically nothing. Then there’s the physicals which can always be ordered in appropriate volume to meet demand.

I call bogus on her claim to need $200,000.

“What’s your problem with it. The fans clearly want to help her, so what? If you don’t want to help her, don’t pay her. Don’t judge others who do give her money for her ‘vanity project’.”

That’s their choice, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t have the right to express a dissenting view.

“So what if her husband is richer than the president? Who the fuck cares?”

I do because it validates my point.

“First there have been the many claims from the AC-shills that people just want stuff for free, they don’t support artists, because they keep downloading shit from the Pirate Bay.

Except that here, clearly people want to support an artist, to the sum of half a million USD, and again that’s bad, because the artist is already rich enough.
You people really don’t know when to quit, do you?”

You’re lumping me in with the major label supporters even though I’m against them.

“If a large group of people are willing to spend a total of 500,000 USD on an artist, and they weren’t forced in any way, just be glad for the artist and move on. It’s not like people are twisting your arm to contribute, are they?”

No, they’re not, but that in no way invalidates my stance.

“Ever person could see that the project has reached its goals,

Have you ever even looked at a single Kickstarter campaign, because you sound like you know nothing about them.

It’s right there on the page, it states the intended goal, and the current amount raised.

If people then still want to donate, perhaps because they like a certain perk that comes with the donation (in essence you buy the perk with the donation), then they can fucking still do it. It’s not like people are being forced to give money.”

That’s true.

“And if Amanda Palmer estimated a cost of 200,000 dollars, then so be it. Production of physical disks and shipping it across the world can get expensive. And mixing and stuff like that, if you want to hire a good mixer, someone who has talent, that costs serious money too.”

Here’s where I flat-out disagree because the facts are not in line with your reasoning. If it truly cost $200,000 or thereabouts just to mix/produce an album, it would be virtually impossible for independent artists to create and sell their own albums around the world. Yet that’s not the case at all.

“You can argue left and right, point is, that she made an estimated amount she’d like to raise to finish her album and get it into the hands of her fans, and people gave her money.”

That’s true, just like I’m free to give my opinion.

“And people pay a lot of money to the rich Lady Gaga. Ever looked at ticket prices for her concerts?”

They’re a rip-off. So? Just because the major labels are crooked doesn’t automatically give Amanda Palmer a free pass.

“You apparently only have problems with people giving money to rich independent artists?”

Care to prove that assessment because I certainly do not. It seems to me you’re just grasping at straws in a desperate attempt to discredit me.

Right, mixing and mastering are indeed a part of the process, but as even you acknowledged, those things alone don’t cost much money, certainly not 200 grand.

Essentially what Amanda Palmer is doing is having her fans act in place of a label by making them pay all of her expenses, which is their choice, but I still don’t agree with it. It leaves me with a sour impression and reinforces the notion that in order to create a musical work of substantial quality requires a large spending purse. That’s how the major labels sucker people into believing just because they overspend in order to keep their artists in debt.

Anyone with the know-how can record an entire album and distribute it at no or little cost. Indeed, there isn’t much of a quality difference between what the major labels are putting out and independent artists working from the comfort of home.

What’s done is done. Amanda Palmer marketed herself to her fans and got the financial support she was looking for. No dissenting opinion will change this fact.

it’s great to see artist who are so unique and special achieving truly rare success!

it’s nice to see so many CHOICES for musicians to express themselves, and it’s nice to see so many musicians coming forward to express the desire for an ethical internet that compensates them fairly for their labor!

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/roll-call-musicians-for-an-ethical-internet/

you gloss over the fact that it’s unknown whether Dan Bull paid for the software once he started earning money with his music.

I’ve glossed over it because it’s completely irrelevant.