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Re: The RIAA are a bunch of commies



SG and DT were saying:

> > >If CARP ends up
> > >pushing all non-commerical broadcasting off the
> > >web, I think we end up losing in the wrong run.
> > maybe.
> 
> Maybe?  Not to be too difficult Senor Torn, but as you're already fairly
> embedded in the music industry and enjoying its relative benefits of
> exposure and other work being done on your behalf - 

I have to interject here, and say that the comment about work being done
"on [his] behalf" is a fairly substantial disservice to David, who is
one of the most jaw-droppingly proactive and hard-working people I've
ever known.  I think there's a bit of an implication in the comment
above that David's all set, and just sort of sits around whilst the
mechanics of "the music industry" spin automatically on his behalf to
promote and parlay opportunities for him... which couldn't be further
from the truth.

> as opposed to a most artists - 

Here again, this potentially implies that David has taken a different
route than most other *working professionals*, which from what I know of
his career is absolutely not the case.  We're talking about someone
who's been getting in the proverbial (and often literal) van for about
thirty years, playing out, hitting the road, diversifying his skills and
sources of income, and building a name for himself through DECADES of
very hard work - which continues to this very day.  

I've never met a single successful working pro who doesn't work their
ass off on a regular basis.  By the same token, I have never met a
single successful working pro who subsists strictly off of free mp3
downloads, royalties from online streams, or web site traffic.

This is very important stuff to think about when it comes to discussing
the web as a source of income for artists, and where that figures into
the much larger overall equation of a serious professional's livelihood.

With that in mind, here's David's comment (which he wrote after his
"maybe" remark) which was snipped out of Stephen's reply, and which I
think does much to illuminate where he's coming from:

> all's i know is:
> i attempt to get paid for what i do, 
> when it's appropriate (like when the 
> 'non-commercial' website is profitable 
> to *somebody*)..... so that i can 
> continue doing it.

So, without wanting to speak for David, MY OWN interpretation of his
comments here (as well as his reply to Valerie, vis a vis the
difficulties of securing mechanical royalties for sales of tangible
product) would go something like this:

Increasing one's visibility is good.  Making the listening public aware
of what you're doing is important.  It's alsp important that outlets for
disseminating people's work are able to function in such a way that
they're able to stay afloat financially while continuing to make music
available to listeners.  I'm not in favor of the CARP's prohibitively
high rate.

But... as I look at the slightly bigger picture...

...as online music comes of age, and as people start to explore the
long-term ramifications of free information, free music, intellectual
copyright, etc. etc., it's important to try and clarify - in one's own
mind, at least - where the line gets drawn between free promotion and
tangible compensation for services rendered.

In other words, I don't support oppressively high broadcast royalty
rates for online radio.  But I do support the idea that the artists who
are responsible for creating that content in the first place should be
able to benefit from the dissemination of their work (which is creating
the reason for the online radio station's existence in the first place)
- not just as a promotional tool, but in terms of payment via publishing
royalties for material that's broadcast in the first place.

The tricky part is that, as Kim pointed out the other day, almost ANY
rate is going to be too high for a lot of online stations.  

Exposure and visibility is an important thing... but if it comes at the
expense of sacrificing your sources of potential income, then what sort
of victory is it, ultimately?

No definitive answers here, at least not from me.  But some things worth
thinking about, I do believe...

--Andre LaFosse
The Echoplex Analysis Pages:
http://www.altruistmusic.com/EDP