No Title | Evil Genius Chronicles

No Title

August 10 2002 | 3 min read

Music TopicToday's band of the day is one that I'm pretty new to. I found out about them by hearing them on WREK in the last few months. They are Woozy Helmet from Texas. I like the way they sound, "Not Real" being my favorite of the ones I've heard so far. They have a lot of MP3s up on the site. The Macromedia Flash shit is really annoying, but artistic sorts and musicians seem to love it. Anyway, check it out and listen. If you go to the "Recordings" page, there are actually more MP3s that aren't listed on the downloads page. They rawk, dood! out every personal you/me type of remark, but just pretend I am addressing all affected creators, and they are the "you". I'll still be the "me." Alle ist klar, kommisar?

No one has all the answers. We are still miles away from even having all the questions. We are all fumbling around here. Please please please, understand that doesn't mean I want to see your livelihood impaired. It is my gut feeling that in a world where less friction is spent fighting free downloads, you would make more money. I'd rather see all the money spent in fighting them (via the expense of DRM, opportunity costs of sales not made, etc) go straight into your pocket.

I keep mentioning this stuff because some people are finding success in making free downloads work for them. Janis Ian seems to have, the musicians I know are having varying of degrees of success with it. I'm not a wild-eyed "Intellectual property is theft" slashdotter and I'm not advocating anyone doing anything without the permission of the rights holder(s). However, I think loosening up might very well make y'all more money. I don't know this and cannot provide you with evidence for it, but I feel it in my rheumatism. I also feel there are benefits that the rights holder get that we have no models to describe or measure, an "enthusiasm" value that increases when people have cheap or free access to some of their work.

Here's one example: I preordered Aimee Mann's new album this week. Right now, I can hear the entire thing for free via her website. Its in high quality RealAudio files, but with about an hours worth of work a dork like me could create my own audio CD that would have better audio quality than a cassette copy of the CD. Why did I order the CD rather than doing that? A variety of reasons, hard and soft, that include:

  • It cost $15 and 2 minutes to order it. The value of my time that it would have taken to burn an illicit copy far exceeds that cost
  • The CD includes a booklet with illustration by Seth, an artist I like
  • A bonus CD with unreleased tracks is included for those who preorder (also a reason for buying now rather than later)
  • I like Aimee Mann and want her to continue putting out albums, rather than quitting and going into advertising jingles
  • Burnt CDs are cheezy and I'd rather have the "real thing"
  • It would be a hassle and not be fun
  • I give her extra credit for the way she has stuck her middle finger out at the major labels and that's worth some money to me

I believe that this great loss of money you are worried about is a bugaboo to keep power in the hands of the same plutocrats who at best don't help writers much and at worst rob them blind for their entire careers (and y'all have it good compared to the indentured servitude of major label musicians.) I think you as a writer would be better off with a system that would force publishers to be more efficient, to not have sales forces claim "But I can't sell a book about that", with a market place with lower friction. It is my belief that, ala Jack Valenti fighting against VCRs in 1980, the world you are fearful of is one that will be better for you and that will increase the market. I could be wrong but dear god I hope I'm not.