DJ Shadow: classic or dud?

And then of course you can release your little bedroom album over the internet and market it yourself, but it's most likely not going to reach as many people.

if people like it, it's gonna reach a whole lot more people than it would have 20 years ago.

I know firsthand and from friends that money DOES affect people's drive to make music and get it to people. I'm not claiming that I or any of my friends are entitled to that money or entitled to get our music out there. I'm just saying that the less money is available from music, the more you have to work, the more you have to reconsider whether you can tour, the less energy and time you have to work on your album, etc.

i think this is very true. i mean of course music will still be made if artists aren't making money, but, you know... its an investment of time and effort from the artist, and besides the fact of whether or not that DESERVES renumeration (hint: it does), after a while doing this stuff for little or no money gets wearing. i'm nostalgic for people like blast first's paul smith, for example, who pressed up the Walls HAve Ears Sonic Youth 'bootleg' because he believed that Thurston Moore shouldn't have to work a day job between making music, that he should be able to make a living from music.

scout, the samples question is an interesting one, and the holes in shadow's logic are pretty obvious, but i don't think its completely analogous and i don't think it invalidates shadow's point on this specific issue.

music is kind of boring anyway

not as boring as comedy

if only there was some way of stopping stand-ups from getting paid

its an investment of time and effort from the artist, and besides the fact of whether or not that DESERVES renumeration (hint: it does)

does every investment of time and effort from every artist in the world deserve remuneration? does every garage band deserve to earn money? where does this 'deserve' come from?

if i invest time and money in making a cake, and you consume that cake then i deserve remuneration, don't really see why it should be different with a song?

better question - why do people 'deserve' to be able to download peoples' music for free?

* music that hasn't already been offered by the artist for free, obvs

And then of course you can release your little bedroom album over the internet and market it yourself, but it's most likely not going to reach as many people.

if people like it, it's gonna reach a whole lot more people than it would have 20 years ago.

― iatee, Saturday, January 9, 2010 12:35 PM Bookmark

Is there any evidence of this? Every wildfire internet phenomenon seems to turn out to have paid publicity people behind it.

Stevie, no, agreed, it doesn't make his points invalid, just slightly hypocritical. "I want to be paid for my music, but I've decided by my own reasoning that it's ok not to pay others for theirs.". Further on in that interview he talks about the birth of sample clearance, and clearly enjoys the "fuck the man" mentality of it, the fact that it shook things up. He now just looks a little like your Dad telling you that this is just noise, not like back when he listened to Elvis. It's ok to rail against the man when the man's making you, a poor aspiring dj, pay to use someone elses work. But it's totally NOT ok to rail against the man when the man wants you, some poor kid who can't afford $20 per cd you want, to stop downloading music. I now he has a fair point somewhere in there, but he just sounds very much like the wrong man to be (added to the list of millionaire musicians) making it.

"I’ve been keeping up with the whole sample legalities, and I’ve always been very pro-sampling. You know, back when it was really cool for all the rook fixtures and the pillars of the of the industry to diss it…I’ll never forget this MTV report on sampling in, like, ’89, when all the things were going down with De La Soul and the Turtles. It was just so hip-hop. They were the underdogs going up against these bloated rock and roll mindstates. And as a result, I got really rebellious, and just sort of took the stance of, "Fuck it. I’m just gonna use it.""

Is there any evidence of this? Every wildfire internet phenomenon seems to turn out to have paid publicity people behind it.

I dunno I'm sure you can find plenty of ilx/pitchfork favorites that didn't

Even so, attacking his own hypocrisy is kind of an easy way out of the issue. (xpost)

I dunno I'm sure you can find plenty of ilx/pitchfork favorites that didn't

― iatee, Saturday, January 9, 2010 12:51 PM Bookmark

I'll bet you can't. Pitchfork isn't just going to listen to everything that comes across their desk, and they're certainly not going to say "Wow, here's some dude in his bedroom with no label and no distribution. Let's put it on "best new music" even though he doesn't tour and the only way you can get it is from his myspace page."

better question - why do people 'deserve' to be able to download peoples' music for free?

because there are a lot of 010101010s out there and author of a certain portion of those 010101010s would only be harmed by download X if you come in with the assumption that somebody would otherwise be giving them money - which I think is a pretty naive assumption in 2010.

today there's more music being recorded than ever before in history. combine that with distribution costs going down to zero and we have a glut. if billions of oranges were suddenly available everywhere and anywhere and there were oranges on every corner of the street...the price would drop down to zero...and I wouldn't have pity for anyone who then decided to go plant an orange orchard w/ the intention of making money.

an orange is pretty much like other oranges. if/when newspapers all die out, we'll still have bloggers. just almost all of them will be shit, or otherwise won't have the resources to do the job.

but hey it's a "new business model" granddad.

does every investment of time and effort from every artist in the world deserve remuneration? does every garage band deserve to earn money? where does this 'deserve' come from?

― iatee, Saturday, January 9, 2010 5:43 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

um, well, yes, if people are listening to their music.

cf your other post:

if people like it, it's gonna reach a whole lot more people than it would have 20 years ago.

this "deserve" comes from a pretty well-established custom that you shouldn't get something for nothing.

I'll bet you can't. Pitchfork isn't just going to listen to everything that comes across their desk, and they're certainly not going to say "Wow, here's some dude in his bedroom with no label and no distribution. Let's put it on "best new music" even though he doesn't tour and the only way you can get it is from his myspace page."

a quick google suggests 'clap you hands say yeah' as a pretty clear example of this.

because there are a lot of 010101010s out there and author of a certain portion of those 010101010s would only be harmed by download X if you come in with the assumption that somebody would otherwise be giving them money - which I think is a pretty naive assumption in 2010.

so your argument is, because you wouldn't be willing to pay for the physical item anyway, you should be allowed to download the 0101010s for free because the artist can't lose a sale that wouldn't have happened in the first place??

yeah that sums it up pretty well actually

would rather be naive than quite so shockingly 'entitled'

welcome to america

no, you're welcome to america

i mean jesus when did ilx become a load of douches saying "yeah we take shit for free but what you going to do its capitalism/america/the internet what you going to do"

i know i know, since day 1

have you paid for every single song, movie and tv show you've watched on your computer?

/listened to

to be quite honest, not *every, no - i get send review copies of a lot of stuff, because peeps wants me to write abt it.

so yeah i'm part of the big bad machine i guess

but you know if someone said 'hey, i wasn't going to buy a copy of that black flag book you slaved over for 18 months anyway, so its alright if i steal a copy right?' i would be pretty fucked off tbh

how about movies and tv shows?

that's not logic that's larceny

xp

have not downloaded movies and tv shows, though i have watched youtubes that probably weren't uploaded by the copyright holders

did you pay for photoshop and every single program on your computer? are you that one person out there who really did pay for every single thing on your computer?

i don't have photoshop, and yeah i paid for my copy of word.

"don't sweat it man everybody does it"

yes: i usually wait to pay full-price for the boxed-set dvd of tv shows that are shown for free.

i've downloaded some music for free (esp during ilx's great ysi phase) but it's intellectually hard to defend. now i don't. i think the one movie i've downloaded was michael moore's 'roger and me', not on dvd. so with the odd exception i don't feel too bad -- but, as i say, it's intellectually hard to defend and im a terrible hypocrite whose views should not be heeded.

did you pay for photoshop and every single program on your computer? are you that one person out there who really did pay for every single thing on your computer?

― iatee, Saturday, January 9, 2010 6:12 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark

i stole the whole computer.

they were a rich family and bad things happen to people all the time.

but you know if i was savvy enough to swipe computer programmes off the net, etc, i'd at least admit i was being a cheap cunt, not come up with some bullshit justification for how i "deserved" to have it for free because bill gates is rich and hey fuck it man i wasn't going to give him my money in the first place

I'll bet you can't. Pitchfork isn't just going to listen to everything that comes across their desk, and they're certainly not going to say "Wow, here's some dude in his bedroom with no label and no distribution. Let's put it on "best new music" even though he doesn't tour and the only way you can get it is from his myspace page."

a quick google suggests 'clap you hands say yeah' as a pretty clear example of this.

― iatee, Saturday, January 9, 2010 1:02 PM Bookmark

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah had the same publicist as David Bowie, which might also have something to do with how David Bowie just happened to show up at their shows, which in turn was pretty much the thing that broke them

did they have the publicist from the start?

What does "from the start" mean? They had the publicist when they got big.

i'd at least admit i was being a cheap cunt, not come up with some bullshit justification for how i "deserved" to have it for free because bill gates is rich and hey fuck it man i wasn't going to give him my money in the first place

i mean correct me if i'm wrong but this arguyment wouldn't stand up in court, not even in this place you call 'america'

so the publicist wasn't what made them big

i mean correct me if i'm wrong but this arguyment wouldn't stand up in court, not even in this place you call 'america'

well we're not having a legal argument right now. if we were, I would say yes, you are right, it is illegal to download things.

No, I mean they had the publicist already before they got big.

I mean sorry but you're really fucking naive to buy into this "a million hands across the internets" stuff. It's just a publicity line.

perhaps you should campaign to have the laws changed, your argument is clearly water-tight i don't see how anyone could reasonably object
xp

they were the first thing that came up w/ google search for an example. I don't know anything about them beyond that and I don't think this strain of the argument really matters cause publicists cost money and if the money is disappearing we won't have to worry about them anymore.

perhaps you should campaign to have the laws changed, your argument is clearly water-tight i don't see how anyone could reasonably object

when more people disobey a law than obey it, yeah, maybe it's a law that is gonna have to be changed one day.

But that's exactly the fucking point - it costs money to get people to notice your music.