If an artist is A) not super rich, B) on an indie or self-owned label, and C) his records are available where you live, is there any excuse for downloading them instead of buying them?

john, if the gov't is willing to sponsor musicians finnish-style - is this still removing the 'profit motive' and thus their drive? (shouldn't you be eatin?)

the great social-interest story underpinning this whole discussion is our commendable and relatively new belief that "musician" should not in fact be a distinct and non-privileged class category in itself, something like carnies if we thought certain specific carnies were geniuses

j0hn can't afford to have supper cuz of you iatee >:(

wait why is that commendable again?

you missed it, upthread I told him I am giving him a million dollars

also I want to meet the beatles / beethoven of carnies

xp M@tt: He can afford supper, but only because of the babies he makes as sperm donor.

tho I hope john doesn't blow the whole million on one dinner

i'm illegally downloading john's recipe right now

whadayagonnado, the market has pretty clearly dictated that making music is not worth subsistence level wages - as supply is far outstripping demand. More people want to make music then pay other people to make music, ergo, music is worth less (worthless?)

an interesting comparison to the music industry is the sports industry - where the performers (ie, athletes) have a similar relationship to the audience, in that lots of people in the audience enjoy playing sports (in a similar way that music hobbyists enjoy making music). And yet the sports industry - by sheer power of spectacle and completely vomitrocious advertising subsidies - still manages to pay people bajillions of dollars to do something most "regular" people consider "fun", something they might do in their spare time. If musicians are interested in maintaining the economic promise of their industry, I recommend they model their business/professional practices on pro-sports as much as possible.

many x-posts

I am stealing J0hn's sperm tonight (from the sperm bank.)

will Ramones of carnies do?
http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x9/blackcanary2000/14093667_114618721007.jpg

I recommend they model their business/professional practices on pro-sports as much as possible.

by which I mean, get really comfortable with the American Idol model.

http://www.astronerdboy.com/comic-strips/images/toons/ZippyStillLife.jpg

^^^the John Cage of Carnies

xp Shakey: your sports model is a more dire reality than the current one, in that there are even fewer people above the top level making money.

More people want to make music then pay other people to make music, ergo, music is worth less (worthless?)

you're saying there are more musicians than music consumers in the world?

I don't think we're interested in everyone having their own musician slave.

but there's certainly more new music to be consumed than number of hours any human being wants to consume music?

xp iatee: certainly more than they're willing to pay for.

Matt - I haven't done any detailed demographic studies but it certainly seems to me that WAY more music is being produced than there used to be, but by

all industry indications fewer people are buying physical products.

x-post

there are more pro-level musicians (in terms of skill) than pro-level athletes, surely?

okay that was worded weirdly, but generally I agree w/ shakey about the supply thing. at the moment, there's more music available than total hours a human being is going to live.

xp Shakey: your sports model is a more dire reality than the current one, in that there are even fewer people above the top level making money.

hey, I didn't say it was a GOOD model (certainly not in terms of aesthetics or masterpieces or whatever), but obviously one musical product people WILL pay to see, one that goes hand-in-hand with direct corporate sponsorship, is the mass media spectacle of competition.

it's sort of a weird thing, i mean it's not strictly a commodity. like all the old music made still exists the same as it did.

it's not like i can eat a pork chop from 1928.

there are more pro-level musicians (in terms of skill) than pro-level athletes, surely?

depends! baseball and basketball you can make $ outside of the highest leagues. but if you're a 'almost good enough to be on the raiders but not quite' football player...

I would love to see WIlliam Hung take Pete Rose's place in the Hall of Fame.

John, in my opinion, art is something you choose to do, work is something you have to do. Making art is a privilege, making money from your art is a bonus. That's just my opinion.

(what I'm trying to say is 'pro-level' depends on the league systems, rather than any set level of skill)

pro sports uses academic institutions to recruit from and train their talent. Those academic institutions also make big money from sports teams - that structure isn't present in the same way in music, except perhaps in classical.

yeah I was just about to say - if you paid college football and basketball players - who are essentially 'pro' in every sense except they don't keep the money the make - the numbers would sure be different...

my larger conclusion with the sports analogy has to do with what people will pay for (and particularly pay ridiculously over-inflated salaries for). Audiences will pay to see an overpaid athlete do something normal people do as a pasttime if involves a) an aggressive level of competition, b) a massive spectacle, and c) a token degree of regional prejudices.

To me, making music in this context sounds utterly nightmarish, but it seems like a really solid economic model.

xp iatee: they get scholarships for four years, that's about it.

also both sports and music: depend largely on beer sales

(all I mean by "carnies" is that for lots of recent history, and historically in plenty of cultures, a big part of the social and class category of "musicians" meant sort of hard-living, road-traveling people who were considered sort of disreputable in the aggregate, along with loads of other types of entertainers. obviously this doesn't count the ones who became popular or a lot of high-art and classical music, but by and large "musician" wasn't an auteur category, it was sort of a weird job/lifestyle upstanding people wouldn't necessarily want their kids to marry into.) (NB I don't know how to form a classical model of this re: Beethoven, but consider the composer versus the working musicians who played the compositions.)

sorry, massive xpost

xp nabisco - thanks for clarifying. I was kinda confused by your original post.

^^^totally agree w/nabisco - which is basically what my previous posts on other threads about musicians "being slaves in Rome", etc. were getting at. For most of human history and in most human cultures, being a musician has not been a stable, well-respected career path. Its been the province of poor itinerants for the most part.

John, in my opinion, art is something you choose to do, work is something you have to do. Making art is a privilege, making money from your art is a bonus. T

I can't really understand this at all. Making decent art is hard work; the idea that, since the results are awesome, it shouldn't be considered in the same category as work is disrespectful to both art & work

well Shakey I do think it's a commendable development that we no longer have that class of "musician" -- I would absolutely not say that since it was a marginal position in the past nobody should complain about anything now!

(I know you're not necessarily saying that either, just being clear)

it is interesting how, in Rome, actors & musicians were like the scum of the earth (actors especially) & until recently musicians had it made & actors still do, film actors anyway

we can change that

but of course the #1 most desirable station in life remains indie rock singer-songwriter

being a musician has not been a stable, well-respected career path. Its been the province of poor itinerants for the most part.

partly playing devil's advocate here, but there are other occupations you can say that about as well. Lending money and finance used to be illegal for people of the Christian faith ... that's why Jews ended up in the business. While not poor itinerants, the business was not very well-respected and it wasn't stable, as society would go through waves of needing their services and then kicking them out.

all cards on the table here, I don't expect J0hn and I to ever agree because we're on opposite sides of the professional barrier. I made a conscious decision when I was younger not to pursue music as a profession because it looked horrifyingly brutal and the odds against ever achieving any level of comfort and stability looked unacceptably long - so I found something else that I can do that society deems worthwhile enough to pay me a wage for, and I use the money I make off that to pursue my various artistic interests.

But J0hn's on the other end, as someone who did decide to pursue music as a profession and sees his livelihood endangered by social and economic pressures beyond his control - I don't really expect him to accept that lying down.

x-posts

I agree that it isn't easy to make great art (decent art could be easy to do if you're inspired or talented), but I have no idea where you're coming from with the part of your statement after the semicolon. I said nothing about that.

believe me, if i believed I could somehow obliterate MIchael Bay's profit motive through incessant downloading, I'd do it.

we can change that

lol yes by doing it ourselves, the many excellent films available on youtube demonstrate that the tide is turning against crusty old hollywood

But J0hn's on the other end, as someone who did decide to pursue music as a profession and sees his livelihood endangered by social and economic pressures beyond his control - I don't really expect him to accept that lying down.

I want to stress again that I argue this question only out of interest in the question & enjoyment in the process. When I say "I have no complaints," I am 100% dead serious - I make a living at my job & am grateful. I am just really itchy when somebody suggests that it's anything other than real work for which the worker deserves compensation.

I get way more of my entertainment from youtube than from hollywood these days!

what are your top ten feature-length youtube movies of all time

1. the breakdancing guy who kicks the baby