Re: "Perspective/Perception Is Everything"

["Stephen P. Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

Sorry to have offended, but for the past 4 years I was doing support/etc.
for the last remains of Motown/MCA/Jobete.  They were aware enough to be
worried, and understanding Internet concepts sufficiently to use buzzwords
in meetings, and that's about it.  Otherwise they kept on doing their jobs
as A&R, Studio managers, VPs, CFO etc.  Pretty much a bunch of dinosaurs
with the exception of distribution and mass production, which are the main
things still keeping them going.

> All five majors have sued and successfully settled with mp3.com for huge
> sums of money in the my.mp3.com streaming issue.  So, a site based on
> the foundation of unsigned, independent music distribution was
> financially reamed by all five big guys.

And then MCA/Universal was sued for the same thing once the dust had
appeared to settle.  It ain't over yet.

> Sounds rather like leveraging the abilities of promotion and
> distribution, in fact.  Not bad for a bunch of out of touch,
> mega-conglomerate roadkill.

No, more like lawyerism at work, finding new niches for litigation and
fee-taking.

> I think they at least know that Napster is a company which is merging
> with, and accepting capital from, one of the five major labels.  Not
> unlike the manner in which AOL recently merged with Time/Warner.

Like Napster didn't know what was going to happen.  They flaunted the 
aspect
of copyright infringement and called it "sharing" enough that they invited
litigation against them - if publicly - and then made a huge frigging deal
with the people they were pretending to rip off.  Kind of like Apple with
their pretense of the Mac being a counter-culture machine, which some folks
are still succumbing to.

> > Want a different dynamic?  Try living in
> > the UK and competing with the droves - I mean masses - of folks who 
>want
to
> > be musicians.
>
> Sounds rather like your prior abode of Los Angeles, no?

It's very different here.  In the UK the music biz is just as much of an
escape from poverty and redundancy (being laid off) as it is a road to fame
and fortune.  In the US it's not the same at all.

> > Thankfully a lot of them are bogged down in Music School
> > learning what a chord is or something - [snicker]
>
> Well, I'm sorry you find the idea of formal musical education absurd or
> offensive.  I hope you can someday find it in yourself to grant other
> people the indulgence of pursuing the creative path that most suits
> their own personal beliefs and goals.

My intended meaning was that at least I have the advantage of having a lot
of my musical education (not of course horizon-broadening though) behind 
me.
This is as opposed to the aspect of having a formal education in front of
me, to say nothing of no other alternative for work.  I don't find formal
musical education absurd nor offensive, and have never said so.  I was just
saying that in the UK there's a pre-defined path that more dictates that 
one
learn from a perochial process than just "pick up the guitar and play," as
evidenced by the overwhelming numbers of British musicians who met at Art 
or
Music School.   Again, sorry to offend, but it's not at all what was meant
OR said.

Stephen Goodman
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