RE: <nettime> Terror in Tune Town

["ingrassia/colovini" <ingrassia@arnet.com.ar>]

> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: Øivind Idsø
> Enviado el: Jueves, 27 de Julio de 2000 08:33 p.m.
> Para: microsound
> Asunto: [microsound] Re: More on Napster
>
>
> anechoic wrote:
>
> > yesterday Napster was ordered to shut down its operations...what do the
> > people on this list think about this?
>
> There's a lot to be said about this, actually, but just a few superficial
> notes on the subject (I'm sure there are objections):
>
> * the most annoying part of the RIAA/Lars Ulrich argument is "we're losing
> money". They aren't, of course. The free market (pun intended) that arises
> out of the Napster platform is a market based on exactly that:
> it's free. In
> other words, if people were interested in the music they're
> downloading, but
> had to pay for it, a very large part of this market would be
> erased...because people can't afford to be part of it. And so the market
> that RIAA wants to exploit for even greater profit margins would evaporate
> by the very move that's supposed to eliminate and compensate for their
> so-called 'losses'...together with the marketing effect that the Napster
> community represents, or might represent.
>
> * analogies are very popular within the MP3 discourse, and one of the most
> common is: "Downloading from Napster is just like walking into a record
> store and stealing a CD." The correct analogy should be: "Downloading from
> Napster is just like walking into a record store to borrow a CD,
> go home and
> copy it, and then return the original to the store about one hour later."
> The implications of the difference between these two analogies is quite
> fundamental; the first one ignores the non-materiality of MP3
> sharing, while
> the second one acknowledges it. This kind of stealing is quite different
> from stealing a pack of cigarette, I think, since you're stealing what we
> today call "intellectual property" -- and just that. This is where the
> discussion concerning said intellectual property, what it is, who
> should own
> how much of it etc. begins.
>
> * (un)necessary elaboration on the above: once a clone of a CD has been
> made, the thing that's being stolen is the artist's profit and the
> production costs for the recording. The jewel case, distribution, the disc
> itself, the profit margins of the label, the many channels/middle men
> between production and retail, the cover art etc. is still intact
> and hasn't
> been touched by the MP3 pirate (promotion is a grey area :) .
>
> *  once the music has been liberated from corporate conglomeracy it should
> be possible to design a kind of pay-pr-download interface; since
> everything
> else besides recording costs (in the case of home recording this factor is
> very often very small) and artists profit has been eliminated the
> price pr.
> CD should be reduced drastically. I would gladly pay fx. $3-4 pr.
> CD, which
> makes for a considerable (potential) income for most artists as
> compared to
> the average royalty % s/he receives today -- pay with VISA, download, burn
> the CD yourself. Sidebar: the normal price for a CD in Norway is $22. Of
> course your average teenager/student/whatever can't afford to buy several
> CDs a month (like s/he wants to) with a price like that.
>
> * Napster has been quite useful for tracking down recordings that aren't
> easily available anymore
>
> * Lars Ulrich in a BBC interview concerning Napster, sitting in
> front of his
> gigantic pool, saying "we're losing money". Again: they aren't. They're
> losing an audience. Big difference. Lars should care.
>
> * maybe this is Utopia speaking from deep within my idealistic self, but
> still: knowing that the tens of thousands of people that were downloading
> "my latest CD" (yes, this is definitely Utopia speaking) for free via
> Napster would NOT get to listen to it if they had to pay $22, I
> would go for
> the Napster part. Are we making music first and foremost to make money, or
> are we making music first and foremost to (in lack of a better word)
> 'communicate'? This is naive, I know, but still; why is that you don't
> charge your friends for a copy of your own music?
>
> > personally I think its really sad...
>
> Me too.
>
> /Øivind/

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