The RIAA Armageddon has begun

Lowery is like one of those American politicians who continue to insist that Americans *should* pay for health care.

Sorry I'm having my own private idaho right now, I just tuned in

OK but hey -- people also get to produce and distribute and consume video much more easily and inexpensively now than before the internet, but people who work in TV and movies and the monetized end of web video haven't had their livelihood remotely as endangered by the new reality. there could probably be some middle ground between that and what's happened with music.

Lowery is like one of those American politicians who continue to insist that Americans *should* pay for health care.

I imagine if he read that his head would explode.

spend more on their beer tab than they do at the merch table

Wait, who *doesn't* do this aside from teetotallers? Beer is expensive, man.

― emil.y, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 11:56 AM (35 minutes ago)

you clipped the end of my statement which implied spending $0 at the merch table. I'm talking about ppl who never visit a merch table but don't think twice about dropping $20 on beer because they can't download a beer for free. I guess if they could we would have a big long thread about the value of getting drunk and the long hours brewmakers spend cleaning out their tanks.

lol at "@darklordjames" weighing in

Lowery is like one of those American politicians who continue to insist that Americans *should* pay for health care.

More like an American doctor

yeah i mean 'owning your master recordings' as something even on the radar of many musicians as any kind of priority seems like a relatively recent development that we can probably thank diy indie for to some extent

Ray Charles made ownership of his master recordings a condition of signing with ABC in 1959. I don't know how much (if any) precedent there was for it at the time -- the biopic naturally dramatizes the point to make it look like absolutely no one owned their masters. But I always wondered if/how many other artists started making this demand once they got wind of Ray's deal.

Oh man, a proper band tie pin would be the most awesomely rad raddest thing.

Pretty sure Laibach had these when I saw them in '92. Hell, they may have had their own line of ties.

Not so sure about band logo ties, really, it seems a bit 'zany'. But a tie pin, yes yes yes. Nice neat little logo you can pin on to whatever tie you like.

I imagine if he read that his head would explode.

xp I'm sorry to take that tired socialist gambit here, but Canada and Europe are filled with OK-paid musicians who back up their tour budgets with grants and publicly/privately sponsored events; their recordings are paid for by licensing deals; they have jobs, too, that don't necessarily require insurance plans.

I don't think any argument can be made about "life sucks for American musicians" without getting to the root of the problem, which imo is America's health care system. Blaming an intern for not taking care of a depressed/addicted songwriter and a paraplegic/depressed songwriter and citing "medical bills piling up" is a reenforcement of free market economic stupidity

Like how can there possibly be a creative class if people have to pay $500 for herpes medication

i missed the part where Lowery blamed the intern for not looking after songwriters

I used to have Einstürzende Neubauten earrings, but I don't think they were official merch.

Joe Perry: yo Steve is our tour accounting done yet? bills kinda stacking up here.
Steven Tyler: yeah I got it, I've been kind of putting off forwarding it
Joe Perry: what do you mean? that was our best tour since Pump, couldn't believe some of those gate numbers! was it time to pay the insurance again or something?
Steven Tyler: no, Joe, it's -- it's the tie pins. We're going to have to eat a lot of money on the Aerosmith tie pins.
Joe Perry: well, it's just a merch item, right? How much money's left after we eat the tie pins?
Steven Tyler: After we eat the tie pins -- carry the 5, right, decimal over three places...there is no money after we eat the tie pins

I don't think you're supposed to eat them. They're kind of pointy.

xp and then they ate the rich and it was all good again

pretty sure aerosmith could find an alternate use for pins

@ Que actually he does it pretty explicitly, buttressed by "of course I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, I'm just telling you to donate ~$2.5K in their memory"

I present these two stories to you not because I’m pointing fingers or want to shame you. I just want to illustrate that “small” personal decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly “love”

The artist only has to “repay” (or “recoup”) the advance from record sales. If there are no or insufficient record sales, the advance is written off by the record company.

I haven't had any first-hand experience with this, but is that even remotely accurate?

just as i get albini wanting to make this about the '90s alterna-singing craze, i get a canadian wanting to make this aboot health care

listen everyone just download shit but you don't have to be such a dick that you brag about it in a NPR thinkpiece ok?

that's cause it is. The article is about Linkous and Chesnutt being abandoned xp

@ Que actually he does it pretty explicitly, buttressed by "of course I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, I'm just telling you to donate ~$2.5K in their memory"

i don't see him placing any blame in what he's saying that not paying for music has real consequences, but he never once says that the intern is to blame/has to take care of songwriters.

listen everyone just download shit but you don't have to be such a dick that you brag about it in a NPR thinkpiece ok?

^^^^^^

^^^

^

oops let's try that again

i don't see him placing any blame. he's saying that not paying for music has real consequences, but he never once says that the intern is to blame/has to take care of songwriters. the article is not about songwriters being abandoned, and if that's your takeaway you are missing the point

most people I know don't actually give a shit about illegal downloading & do it themselves but it's hard not to feel a unique strain of contempt when some nicely dressed kid smoking Rothmans goes out of his way to say "I love your stuff...I don't actually own any of it" [feigned shrinking-back-from-anticipated-attack gesture here] "Sorry, I'm" a) "poor" b) "evil"

does he make scare quotes when he says evil or does he pronounce it like Richard Burton?

her last paragraph is so hilarious

What I want is one massive Spotify-like catalog of music that will sync to my phone and various home entertainment devices. With this new universal database, everyone would have convenient access to everything that has ever been recorded, and performance royalties would be distributed based on play counts (hopefully with more money going back to the artist than the present model). All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it. Is that too much to ask?

@ Que: he ends the article by suggesting the intern make cash donations with links xp

is my rhetorical question piquant?

As far as I'm concerned, he is telling the intern (and the music absorbing masses) that it is their responsibility to take care of the creative class

Jeez aero I'm always blustering when you're clowning we need to syncronize

Is that too much to ask?

the short answer is yes.

he is telling the intern (and the music absorbing masses) that it is their responsibility to take care of the creative class

it would have been cool if he threw in a "or maybe campaign for universal healthcare if you aren't already" but i'm not mad he offered an outlet for dealing with plausible guilt after guilt-tripping

the only part of it that's too much to ask (i.e. unlikely to happen within the next few years) is the part where artists get a higher royalty rate than they currently do

notice how that last paragraph contains nothing about her paying for this universal database

3. How do you discover music at the radio station?

EW: Some of the fondest memories of my college experience have been sitting on the floor of the station on Sunday afternoons ripping towering stacks of CDs onto my laptop. My personal library more then tripped after becoming a part of college radio. I discover new music through being a DJ every week. At our station, we have music staff to write reviews for every new album we select for the station. Every review includes a RIYL (Rip If You Like) label with similar artists and I often use this as a guide as to what I might like.

http://imaginepr.net/2012/04/27/quickfire-qa-emily-white-music-director-wvau-radio/

she probably pays the Spotify fee to not have her stream interrupted by ads. and would probably pay more than she's paying now.

or at least, i would. i mean, Spotify brings me about as much enjoyment as my cable TV package, but i pay like 20 times as much to have the whole enchilada with HBO and everything else as i do for Spotify. xpost

notice how that last paragraph contains nothing about her paying for this universal database

^^^

All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it.

if someone said this about, I dunno, food or clothing or shelter they would rightly be laughed off the face of the earth

physical media is totally stupid and retrograde buuuut....

EW: It’s a largely digital industry now. The number of digital albums we receive far outweigh the physical CDs. In that way, it’s almost smarter to send us a physical CD or physical promotional items– they are much more likely to get my attention. A CD with interesting packaging by an artist or label I’ve never heard of is more likely to be listened to then something in a plastic sleeve. I love getting posters, stickers and buttons in the mail. Including a hand-written note is also a sure-fire way to get my attention.

....please spend a lot of time and effort on making it because it will help you get MY ATTENTION

yeah i got a tooooon of music via my college radio days but this is so far through the looking glass that i don't understand begrudging the ghost of pitch-a-tent his chain rattle

i don't understand

honestly, physical music media is over for most of the world and always will be from hereon out. doesn't really matter how or why it happened, i just hope that someone finds a way for people who make music to not be totally SOL because of it in a way that doesn't involve a bunch of us nerds who still fetishize physical product demanding everyone else be more like us.

^

sorry that was an except from my beat poem about the death of '80s indie rock. I just mean I've been where this college DJ/tastemaker person is on the privilege scale, but she's so openly glib about her spoils that I don't understand why people want to begrudge lowery (who ran a diy label in 1985 donchaknow) his guilt-trip/factoid pull

if someone said this about, I dunno, food or clothing or shelter they would rightly be laughed off the face of the earth

so you understand the difference between a good that can be reproduced a million times for no cost and one that can't? hmmmm, interesting

her idea is a legit one, but the idea of Spotify being free or only $5 a month or whatever is absurd. but yes this is the future of everything

and yeah, while i plan to become a real patron of the arts if and when i go up an economic notch, that will really only benefit guys like David Lowery, and not the horseshit only a new college student could love

xpost to croup

ah ok i agree w/that