Re: [TCLUG:14607] Napster

[Ron Parker <parker@mi-recordz.com>]

Ah well, as long as we're expressing opinions I'll take a second to fire
my attitude at this topic.

I'm a musician, studio and independent record label owner. One would
assume from this that I need a place to throw away my money. The only
problem is I haven't got any money. :) Not sure how I ended up in this
stupid business.

Anyway, My partners and I have experienced varying degrees of success in
the music industry including; major label contracts and sales of around
10,000,000 pieces of an independently released project. Some of our
opinions are based on personal experience.

Several years ago Mohtown had $150,000 of my partners money in their
account. My partners lawyer found that money about a year ago and
requested an explanation as to why we never recieved it. We were informed
that they wanted to deliver the money but they'd lost our mailing
address. That's one of many of our personal experiences. We would never
have gotten that money without a lawyer that was being paid to investigate
a much larger problem.

That said, our feeling is that everything that's bad for the major
recording labels is good. Without exception, not enough damage can be done
to the current music industry. Obviously all musicians are going to have
their  product pirated and that's just to bad. With the advent
of the internet and digital compression the music industry is undergoing
serious changes, we've got faith that it can only get better for
musicians. 

We're hopeful that artists will be able to make their livings 
independently from the majors. All our current efforts, building new
digital studio and record label, learning networking (linux) are based
on our hope for a revolution in the music industry and we're
optimistic. The internet brings a great deal of hope to musicians.

Does Napster hurt musicians? The answer is irrelevant because it's
destroying the major label business model which is the cancerous root
for 999 of every 1,000 artists. I live to see those thieves lose their
control.

As a rule I don't make unsolicited expressions of my opinions on this
topic, I just couldn't help myself today. It won't happen again. I've
never purchased a musical CD or cassette. I did buy some albums in the mid
and late seventies. I don't own a cd player so I have no way to
listen to music, including my own albums. I have to go to a local bar
and plug the juke box when I want to hear my music. Incidentally,
artists don't recieve any revenues from juke boxes. In light of my
position, I'd like to encourage everyone to run out and purchase a $15.00
cd today. The artist will use their .04 to pay points and repay the label for
the recording budgett and numerous other expenses. Afterwards they'll
split the balance amongst the band members. That balance will probably be
spent on drugs. :) Maybe I should get a job spreading chicken turds on
farm fields.

End of rant.

parker

> Sure, napster is one big collection of pirated music.  It's like Warez. 
> Actually, not knowing exactly what this means, but I'd guess it's more
> like "0-day" warez.  And pr0n.  lots of pr0n.
> 
> I have the same outlook.  I hate the record industry, as they really do
> stick it to the artists, but napster hurts them more.  At least before
> they were getting $.01 / CD sold, now they're getting The Shaft (tm).
> 
> Of course, I'll grab a song off of napster, but if I really like it and
> listen to it a lot I'll always buy the CD.  Until I get an MP3 player in
> my car and in my living room, I'll continue to buy the CD.
> 
> Timothy Wilson wrote:
> > 
> > Hey everyone,
> > 
> > It looks like we're starting to see the Napster flood here at school. I've
> > noticed a number of students trying to install it on various machines.
> > We're probably going to have to end up blocking it to preserve what
> > bandwidth we've got. So, does Napster run on a special port? Is the
> > software available from sites other than napster.com? I'd appreciate any
> > info anyone could provide.
> > 
> > -Tim
> > 
> > <opinion>
> > I don't know how others feel about Napster, but the warning on their
> > homepage about complying with various laws rings a little hollow with me.
> > What percent of Napster traffic is legit? Is it even 1%? I support MP3s
> > and I hate what the music industry is doing to try to destroy them, but I
> > can't help thinkig they've got a point when it comes to Napster.
> > </opinion>
> > 
> > --
> > Tim Wilson      | Visit Sibley online:         | Check out:
> > Henry Sibley HS | http://www.isd197.k12.mn.us/ | http://www.zope.org/
> > W. St. Paul, MN |                              | http://slashdot.org/
> > wilson@visi.com |   <dtml-var pithy_quote>     | http://linux.com/
> > 
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> -- 
> Adam Maloney
> Systems Administrator
> Internet Exposure, Inc.
> 
> NO CARRIER
> 
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