According to an article in Time (link) Madona left her record company - not for another one but for a concert promoter. Meanwhile Radiohead is selling its new album on the net for "whatever you want to pay" (link) and Prince gave away his new album in a London newspaper (link). What gives? Looks like things are slowly moving toward a massive retolling of the music industry where, as in informal economies like Brazilian tecno-brega and funk carioca and Colombian champeta, recorded music is just promotion for the live show. I guess Benjamin's aura lives.
It seems that the polemic over IP and music has made it deep into th ebelly of the beast, and one wonders when the conservatives at the RIAA or Disney or wherever are going to have a backlash, and what it will consist of...
Showing posts with label riaa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label riaa. Show all posts
10.13.2007
5.12.2007
The Political Economy of Music, Technology, and Intellectual Property
The link between political economy, technology, intellectual property and music is as old as Edison. We still feel the impact of that today - much of our access to our own musical history (a concept, like Art and Culture, from which the market is supposed to be purged) is totally wrapped up in the market. (link, and another one). So is the actual format and formal logic of music, apparently.
Gilberto Gil wants to get over it all by just letting it all flow, but will that work? Aside from the digital divide problems that, Bill Gates or no Bill Gates, this "free" flow of digital used-to-be-commodities implies, and although ignoring intellectual property is great for creative mash-ups, alternate distribution systems (which have less decommoditized music than informalized its economy), and education, the idea of indigenous and small-scale societies' intellectual property rights often gets overlooked in all the techno-optimism. Projects like the MuDoc digital archive of ethnographic recordings are great, but somewhat lax on intellectual property, or more accurately, assume the person who has the recordings rather than the people featured on the recordings (this is US copyright law) has the right to sign off on their free distribution. This might be the de facto way of things when "cultural groups" (an anthropological chesnut of a notion) are into promoting themselves politically and in terms of cultural tourism through their music and therefore willing to let it flow, but what if they actually want to sell it? After all, even the most backwoods groups are part of the global cash economy, but in order to make money and keep doing things the way they want to (or "preserve their culture" as this is frequently called), the only thing they have to sell is their culture, and assuming that they're happy just to be on YouTube is not always true.
I say all of this not to advocate for draconian intellectual property regimes, but merely to suggest that things like the mp3 are not a frictionless evanescence that simply circulates without engaging ethical, economic, and cultural (see Sterne) issues that a simplistic "let it flow" policy cannot address...
Gilberto Gil wants to get over it all by just letting it all flow, but will that work? Aside from the digital divide problems that, Bill Gates or no Bill Gates, this "free" flow of digital used-to-be-commodities implies, and although ignoring intellectual property is great for creative mash-ups, alternate distribution systems (which have less decommoditized music than informalized its economy), and education, the idea of indigenous and small-scale societies' intellectual property rights often gets overlooked in all the techno-optimism. Projects like the MuDoc digital archive of ethnographic recordings are great, but somewhat lax on intellectual property, or more accurately, assume the person who has the recordings rather than the people featured on the recordings (this is US copyright law) has the right to sign off on their free distribution. This might be the de facto way of things when "cultural groups" (an anthropological chesnut of a notion) are into promoting themselves politically and in terms of cultural tourism through their music and therefore willing to let it flow, but what if they actually want to sell it? After all, even the most backwoods groups are part of the global cash economy, but in order to make money and keep doing things the way they want to (or "preserve their culture" as this is frequently called), the only thing they have to sell is their culture, and assuming that they're happy just to be on YouTube is not always true.
I say all of this not to advocate for draconian intellectual property regimes, but merely to suggest that things like the mp3 are not a frictionless evanescence that simply circulates without engaging ethical, economic, and cultural (see Sterne) issues that a simplistic "let it flow" policy cannot address...
4.06.2007
La Muerte del Album/The Death of the Album
This NY Times op-ed blames the RIAA, not technology. Link
(Lástima, el New York Times no se deja traducir...)
(Lástima, el New York Times no se deja traducir...)
3.05.2007
Singin la vida loca
Ya que el único mercado musical que está creciendo es el hispano, ahora todo el mundo va a hacer discos en castellano - de J-Lo a Beyonce. "El español se está volviendo el jardín secreto, donde [los rtistas] pueden salir a oler las flores, sin ser 'lobos'. Pueden ser expresivos y románticos"dice un productor. Enlace Veremos con esto el tipo de persecución a circuitos de distribución no tradicionales en español como lo hemos visto en inglés (demandas a usadores de software peer-to-peer, el arresto de DJs de hip hop)?
Since the only musical market that's growing is Spanish-language, now everyone and their mother is going to do albums in Spanish, from J-Lo to Beyonce. "Spanish is becoming the secret garden, where [artists] can go smell the flowers without being 'wolves' [?]. They can be expressive and romantic," says one producer. Link, translated. (Exoticism, anyone?) Anyhow, we'll see if this kind of persecution of non-traditional distribution systems in Spanish will happen as it has has in English - suing peer-to-peer software users, arresting mixtape DJs, etc....
Since the only musical market that's growing is Spanish-language, now everyone and their mother is going to do albums in Spanish, from J-Lo to Beyonce. "Spanish is becoming the secret garden, where [artists] can go smell the flowers without being 'wolves' [?]. They can be expressive and romantic," says one producer. Link, translated. (Exoticism, anyone?) Anyhow, we'll see if this kind of persecution of non-traditional distribution systems in Spanish will happen as it has has in English - suing peer-to-peer software users, arresting mixtape DJs, etc....
3.04.2007
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