Meet the new boss, David Lowery tackles the internet and the past while Ted Lucas gets past around

i am late to this thread and am surprised this para was not commented on:

But I didn't illegally download (most) of my songs. A few are, admittedly, from a stint in the 5th grade with the file-sharing program Kazaa. Some are from my family. I've swapped hundreds of mix CDs with friends. My senior prom date took my iPod home once and returned it to me with 15 gigs of Big Star, The Velvet Underground and Yo La Tengo (I owe him one).

the last sentence and arguably the second-to-last contradicts the first.

well yeah, she basically doesn't understand what "illegal download" means

My senior prom date took my iPod home once and returned it to me with 15 gigs of Big Star, The Velvet Underground and Yo La Tengo (I owe him one).

would all of those band's catalogs, at say 256k, even equal 15 gigs?

maybe she meant live bootlegs?

i assume those are just some of the bands whose music her boyfriend copied for her.

it's a bit bizarre that somehow to her copying 1,000s of songs en masse off an iPod is somehow better than downloading off a torrent site or whatever. the kids of her generation have really made rationalization into an incredibly subtle art.

no subtlety about it

Not enough time spent disparaging Canadian rappers imho.

pour one out for rollie pimperton

and Buck 65!

Maestro Fresh Wes

did Wes ever post on ILX?

Man I wish

"subtle" was kind of ironic, she just uses some tortured logic to ease her conscience, that's all.

xposst Yes: her understanding appeared to be that it's only illegal downloading if you do it from a file-sharing service. It's not illegal downloading if you copy 11,000 songs, laboriously, from other people's CDs.

Uh isn't that basically a correct assessment?

No

So burning a CD is illegal downloading (regardless of the # of songs)?

Illegal copying, I think the owner of the original can make backup, but not give it to another person

Or were you being pendantic about the word ”downloading”?

^^^

I am being pedantic, but I sorta rankle at the idea that this is all settled law like we can point at every activity and be like "yeah this is all the same and clearly wrong and illegal and people who do it are disgusting savages", etc.

cracker david lowery

http://oi47.tinypic.com/2wozlsg.jpg

well the bottom line is that either way she is getting a boatload of music for which nobody has been compensated.

you can decide on the ethics of that but to imagine they are profoundly different things is, like i said, kind of tortured logic.

Everyone copies the odd CD. I'm sure David Lowery does. But the time and effort that she put into copying several thousand songs off CDs – if she's being truthful about how she accumulated her music – rather puts the lie to her claim that she only wants music that is convenient and instant and backs Lowery's assessment that what she really wants is not to pay for anything.

“Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive”-Stewart Brand

To be honest, per Lowery's point I had never heard the latter half of this quote before, either. Full 1985 quote:

"Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine - too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, 'intellectual property', the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better."

Nuance is your best entertainment value.

"backs Lowery's assessment that what she really wants is not to pay for anything."

Hmmn no Lowery's assessment is really that she doesn't want to pay for mp3s and that she really really should because it's the right thing to do according to him. He acknowledges that she is likely paying (at least indirectly for quite a bit)--it's just that all of that money is going to Apple or Motorola or AT&T or whomever and very little (possibly none of it) is going to Yo La Tengo.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/travis-morrison/hey-dude-from-cracker-im_b_1610557.html

Dismemberment Plan singer on how he used to listen to music for free in the old days (and how this is the same as the NPR intern). I don't buy all of his argument

we've been discussing the Lowery piece (and the Huffpo response) on this thread: The RIAA Armageddon has begun

but that one's kinda gone to shit so maybe we should just resume the convo here

That thread is all over the place.

And now of course it's just frogbs.

i'll take some blame for the haywire nature of that thread. i'm easily distracted...

So burning CDs for friends is theft? And illegal?

theft is usually illegal bruh

in terms of the actual law? yes

xp

that ted lucas album is cool

"in terms of the actual law? yes"

Is fair use is actually clear on this? Or have there been changes to the law in the past couple of years that have clarified? It's clearly illegal to sell the aformentioned CDs, but actually making them and giving them away I don't believe is settled law (regardless of the stance of the RIAA).

fair use by nature is not clear. it's a four tier test to determine if something reaches it. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

like you could make a copy* for classroom use, only use it in the classroom, and you'd be okay. making a copy of a cd and giving it to a friend? much less ok when it comes to fair use.

*as long as the original album was purchased legitimately

Right, but I don't think there is a law on the books that allows for prosecution of a person for burning a CD and giving away (now obviously if you burn a WHOLE ton of CDs and give them away that's a different matter.)

Man if you want some histrionics:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120619lowery

Right, but I don't think there is a law on the books that allows for prosecution of a person for burning a CD and giving away (now obviously if you burn a WHOLE ton of CDs and give them away that's a different matter.)

Well yeah. A single CD no big deal, a ton of CD's would be.

(10) You are a major part of the problem.

ned
YOU are part of the problem

how does that make u feel, as a man

Feels fuckin' AWESOME, bro.

Is the 'DJs post your mixes for download' thread currently in SNA illegal?

"I think the owner of the original can make backup"

i don't think this is legal, but have never heard of anyone getting hassled for it.
also those bmg/columbia house deals were probably just as bad for artists as spotify.

"i don't think this is legal, but have never heard of anyone getting hassled for it"

If you can find me a law I am happy to be proved wrong.

you can make a backup

you can't make a copy and give it to a bunch of people

Again what law is that breaking?

it has something to do with bypassing copy protection -- might be DMCA? there doesn't seem to be a minimum hurdle as to what constitutes copy protection so it makes every kind of copying illegal.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/43338/hey-internet-girl-everyone-had-something-to-say-this-summer/

honestly that article is a few 100 (1,000?) words adding up to nothing. what the article calls condescension and sanctimony i'd call debate. frankly emily white's post was so unreflective and took such a preening tone that i think she deserved a little condescension, even if it's not necessarily the best debate tactic.

what's especially weird about the article is that it doesn't even provide us any sense of whether the woman who inspired this whole debate has been changed by it. does she regret anything she wrote? have her opinions shifted, or made more complex? is she sticking to her guns, and if so, what are her counterarguments to e.g. mr. lowery?

even tolstoy in his grave said "TLDR" when he saw that article.

Everyone had something to say this summer about NPR intern Emily White and her generation's attitude toward music—everyone, except Emily White

It's weird that the internet responded so forcefully to someone who apparently never wrote a thing about herself or her generation's attitude toward music. It must have all been started by a picture or her or something.

i do feel a little bad for her insofar as she is young and did something foolish (as we all do, particular at that age) and thanks to the interwebs she can't just bury it or walk away.

but by most measures bowing out of a debate after setting it off is kind of a crappy move. it suggests that she hadn't really thought about her ideas enough to try to back them up in an open forum.

good luck getting a job as a music coordinator btw--it's not like the people who would hire her for such a position are indifferent to issues of intellectual property. she'll have to walk back her written opinions if people will take her seriously as a job candidate.

according to the article she was barred by NPR from responding. Sure.

the article is very strange--the internet was wrong about her because...she's really passionate about music?

if anything that just makes her more of a hypocrite.

They're doing a chat

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2012/10/16/wednesday-chat-with-emily-white-and-lindsay-zoladz-about-streaming-piracy-and-um-emily-white/#more-80996

Amateurist should send in his questions:

what's especially weird about the article is that it doesn't even provide us any sense of whether the woman who inspired this whole debate has been changed by it. does she regret anything she wrote? have her opinions shifted, or made more complex? is she sticking to her guns, and if so, what are her counterarguments to e.g. mr. lowery?

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Thursday

"i do feel a little bad for her insofar as she is young and did something foolish (as we all do, particular at that age) and thanks to the interwebs she can't just bury it or walk away."

For some reason I am not thinking this is going to harm her in any real long term way.

That piece did not require 3600 words.

From the internet chat now going On:

Emily, have you changed your mind at all regarding the ethics of your ripping of your boyfriend and college radio station collection's since the response to your article?
Wednesday October 17, 2012 12:38 troublemaker
12:39 Ally Schw**tzer: (OK, obviously, the ethics issue has not petered out completely.) Wednesday October 17, 2012 12:39 Ally Schweitzer
12:40 Emily White: That access to music made the person I am today-- and I don't regret it. Because I recieved that exposure to such a wide variety of music, I am a more engaged fan. I attend more concerts, I promote more local bands, I buy more merch and I dedicate the majority of my free time to music

the Future of Music Coalition and the SF Music Tech Conference are peeved with Lowery and he's battling back.

From David Lowery

Casey Rae the Deputy Director is of The Google Funded Future Of Music Coalition
has called for a boycott of my band Camper Van Beethoven because I posted a blog
which explained why I had been banned from speaking at SF Music Tech. It
indirectly involved his organization.

According to Brian Zisk FOMC co-Founder and director of SF Music Tech it was
because I tweeted a picture showing that Google sponsors Future Of Music
Coalition.

and:

David Lowery raised two questions about the Future of Music Coalition
because they submitted testimony to congress asking that they “represent”
artists in the Copyright Reform process.

http://j.mp/126gPxF

1. Who selects your advocacy positions?
AFM, AFTRA, NARAS, Nashville Songwriters Assn, and ASCAP all have democratically
elected boards who set the organizations’ positions. Do you have members who
vote for leadership? If not, who is making those decisions?

2. Who funds your organization?
Google is listed as your first sponsor of your primary event.
http://futureofmusic.org/events/future-music-summit-2012

How much money do you get from Google? Do you think you should be taking
funding from a source many artists believe to be opposed to their interests?

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/jazz_guitar/message/129453

Cracker's lead singer and songwriter, David Lowery, has posted his most recent statements from various media on The Trichordist, reporting a mere $16.89 profit from more than 1 million Pandora plays. He said that amount is less than he makes from selling a T-shirt.
Lowery went on to specify that the $16.89 was his 40 percent cut as a songwriter, and he actually made a little more (but not much) in performer royalties. The artist also encouraged other songwriters to post their royalty statements in order to "show the world just how terrible webcasting rates are for songwriters."

Point:

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/04/david_lowery_silicon_valley_must_be_stopped_or_creativity_will_be_destroyed/

Counterpoint:

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/12/dave_allen_stop_blaming_the_internet_it_has_always_been_hard_for_musicians/

Countercounterpoint: Lowery has already responded in comments to that second piece.

Conclusion: STARTING NOT TO GIVE A FUCK which is a bad idea but Jesus H.

Has Lowery or anybody else arguing something similar made a case for what they think a good streaming rate would be? Because if there was some sort of reasonable consensus about that, then the question would be what kind of business model could be developed that would pay that amount.

I'm otherwise sympathetic to Allen's argument that current businesses like Spotify or Youtube already exist, do operate legally, and that someone who has made hundreds or thousands or millions of dollars from tons and tons of streams is probably not too unhappy about it.

That would tend to follow...

I don't need to read the Dave Allen piece to know that "It has always been hard for musicians" is a pretty stupid idea for an article.

That would tend to follow...

I guess the point being that it's a different business model and that someone making a lot of money from it now might be less inclined to compare it to what their income might conceivably be if their viral hit had been accomplished through the distribution of a physical medium.

x-post-- I skimmed the Allen piece, and read something earlier this year he had on his blog. He admits to once being anti-Spotify, but his current position is that artists only have themselves and their labels to blame if they don't like the rate that Spotify is paying them. As if some unknown band can dictate the same rate as Taylor Swift. Eh. Plus he contends sorta that since artists post stuff on Youtube they should not complain about Spotify. Perhaps I am missing something in his response to Lowery's we're doomed stance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/media/david-lowery-sues-spotify-for-copyright-infringement.html