Chris Ruen has written a pretty intense and scathing article about the acceptability of piracy on Tiny Mix Tapes, The Myth of DIY. The viewpoint isn’t anything new, but coming from an artist and member of a community that targets the industry more the consumer, it’s somewhat arresting, and at least, really well written. An excerpt: Read the full story

Maybe you’ve heard that Rapidshare, everyone’s most/least favorite multi-petabyte hoster, was ordered to remove $34 million worth of content, and faces a potentially huge fine by order of a German court.

Could this injunction be painted as a victory of the small, artisan download blog (ahem) versus the corporate feed farm of file sharing? Probably not, but it’s interesting to consider it that way. Users have pointed out that with the passworded files and zip archives uploaded to Rapidshare, filtering the infringing content would be pretty much impossible.

I don’t mean to suggest that smaller blogs are more policeable, because they’re obviously not, but at least knowing where your music comes from is a rare thing these days. And if Rapidshare had been able to figure out where the offending files came from, the users might be penalized instead of the system.

Not that that’s any better, though. I still don’t see any of this having an impact until there are individual police who post up in people’s living rooms, watching for inconspicuous mp3 hand offs.

By now you’ve hopefully seen the Guardian’s recent study that proved music “pirates” are ten times more likely to buy music than people who don’t download music illegally. The good folks at Discontent tipped us off about this article in their lovely review of Kissing/Samba Party.

But damn, ten times more likely? Does this have to do with vinyl? Casettes even? I don’t know, but maybe this has something, even peripherally, to do with the fact that ISPs just aren’t joining the RIAA’s crusade.

I’m on the promo list for a bunch of anonymous PR companies who send me the most inane emails, often as if they’re the artist themselves. I searched for “genre” and “seamlessly” in my inbox, only drawing from the last two months:

…heaps of genre bending cello playing..

…they’ve been making forward thinking, genrebreaking music for nearly two decades…

…Evading the pitfalls of a genre controlled mix…

…he seamlessly blends different genres…

…seamlessly, the instruments collide…

…seamlessly and unequivocally…

…transitioning seamlessly from dreamlike moments of psychedelia to bursts of powerpop spontaneity…

…they seamlessly destroy traditional barriers…

my name is AMANDINE I am 22 and I hope you will like my music!

and finally:

The idea behind the album The Go 2 Man is simple: “It’s who I am,” Jigg says. Bigg Jigg got the nickname The Go 2 Man because he always has what the people need.

I’m sure real writers’ inboxes are alot funnier than mine :p

Microfinancing, perhaps the hottest economic trend, has made its way to music over the last few years. You’ve probably heard of Sellaband. The service asks you to chip in for an artist on varying degrees to help them get enough money to record an album. Your reward for doing so is a copy of the album and the feel good you get from the experience.

I’ve also worked for Calabash Music’s Tune Your World campaign, now The Hector Fund, a microfinancing project designed to help artists from around the world create music.

The folks over at the music snob brought this topic up a few weeks ago, and seem to really covet it as a truly new model for the industry, a way to cut the middlemen and have fans interact directly with the artist.

I feel more and more negative writing on this blog, but from my experience, I just don’t think microfinancing works. It might be a question of the model’s nuances… Sellaband spends part of the $50,000 dollars that you raised to get an A&R person. What! You get 500 or more fans, “believers,” who love your music, then you need a suit to tell you what you should record in hopes of making you a pop star? I don’t know about that.

Ultimately though, Sellaband rests on pretty much the same assumption that any other new music monetizing agent does: that people are willing to buy music when they get it for free. Yikes, this is not business. This is charity! And don’t get me wrong, the idea of consumers supporting a band monetarily, especially bands who absolutely couldn’t afford to make a decent recording, is terrific. But treating it as method of business, as a model for all genres and applications, seems really treacherous.

My friends and I often joke that when everyone who is over 30 right now dies, music as an industry will either only release music on CDs that are completely unrippable, or cease to exist. I honestly want neither to happen. But microfinancing as a business model (not as an artistic or philanthropic one) seems to throw oil on guilt trip fire of buying music.

“You can’t steal a gift. Bird gave the world his music, and if you can hear it you can have it” – Dizzy Gillespie

Hey all, Casey from Flora & Fauna here. A strong personal interest of mine is the positive and negative flow between creativity, copyright, and influence. I’ve excerpted portions from a wonderful essay below. But don’t take my word for it – read it yourself:

“When you live outside the law, you have to eliminate dishonesty.” The line comes from Don Siegel’s 1958 film noir, The Lineup, written by Stirling Silliphant. The film still haunts revival houses, likely thanks to Eli Wallach’s blazing portrayal of a sociopathic hit man and to Siegel’s long, sturdy auteurist career. Yet what were those words worth—to Siegel, or Silliphant, or their audience—in 1958? And again: what was the line worth when Bob Dylan heard it (presumably in some Greenwich Village repertory cinema), cleaned it up a little, and inserted it into “Absolutely Sweet Marie”? What are they worth now, to the culture at large?

Read the full story

We posted this over at my blog, onethirtybpm, when the episode was originally released, but I’ve recently viewed it again. It’s really sparked some new ideas I have for Amazing Wow.

Anyway, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor took a series of questions voted on by readers in a 40-minute video interview by the popular news site Digg. Reznor addressed many topics, including his innovative approach to releasing music, the state of his long-shelved Tapeworm project with Tool singer Maynard James Keenan (don’t get your hopes up), and the prospects for a visual adaptation of his 2007 concept album Year Zero. You can view the whole interview after the jump.

Read the full story

The RIAA’s internet webpage, piratically my homepage, directed me to the IFPI’s (International Federation for the Phonographic Industry) annual report on digital music. Low expectations segued into mild outrage as I read. I’m not disputing their statistics about how many people download music a year. But what pisses the shit out of me is the underlying agenda, that “piracy” defeats art.

Why not just say it? Record companies are making less money. Artists are making more music. Included in the section on ISP Cooperation was a quote from an “independent label.”

“ The victim of online music piracy is the freedom of artistic expression.” — Yves Riesel, President,
Abeille Musique France, independent label

I checked out Abeillie Musique and found the feature releases to be up and coming artists like Dmitri Chostakovich and Joseph Haydn. Music piracy, not deceasment for 200 years, is surely the culprit for Haydn’s extended hiatus from the scene these days.

Furthering the agenda of police state ISPing, IFPI included a really poignant quote from the head of EMI.

“…As human beings we don’t like rules and regulations, but we don’t live in an ideal world and a free-for-all benefits nobody.” Chris Ancliff, General Counsel, EMI

I couldn’t agree more. We spend $720 million dollars a day in Iraq. The National Endowment for the Arts in the U.S. gets about $144.7 million a year.

So, as it was proposed in France, let’s let ISPs shut down citizens’ internet if they download. Let’s create an accusatory dynamic that assumes artists don’t want people to have their music. And let’s put it all under the noble umbrella of art making.

– Ben

The RIAA has been busy sending pre-litigation letters to students at many colleges and univeristies.

However, the one university that hasn’t recieved any letters is Harvard. The Recording Industry Association of America has made it known that file-sharing is wrong and against the law, but when it comes to stirring up a fight over at Harvard Law, the association seems to be beating around the bush and staying far away from Harvard.

You really have to wonder how the RIAA can seriously believe they’re in the right when they’re scared to send pre-litigation letters to Harvard just because they might point out how absurdly incorrect they are about file-sharing.

Of course it really doesn’t take a Harvard professor to tell you that free file-sharing is the future of music distribution. Amazing Wow does just that and we won’t ever guilt trip you.

I mean, unless you decide to be mean to us or call us hurtful names. Then we’d have grounds.

- Kyle

If you didn’t hear already, the RIAA is no longer sueing individuals for downloading copyrighted music. Now downloaders can get up to 5,000 songs a month without getting fined. The RIAA has set their crosshairs on ISPs instead.

As a show of solidarity with the RIAA, Amazing Wow will no longer be prosecuting those who download our releases. If you must, please limit yourself to 15,000 downloads per month. We think that’s pretty fair.