In years to come people will realize the trend. If music is plentiful in quantity, ubiquitous in playback, a low value, ho-hum soundtrack to life, then what is music copyright worth?

I didn’t make the contention that touring and merch is not a viable way of bands making money. My statement wasn’t vague in the least for it to be taken that way. For top tier acts those revenue streams are cash cows. For most it is a money losing proposition. As clearly stated above, most people do not go see a band that hasn’t had significant promotional support, tour support, etc. to build them up to be able to make a living via these revenue streams. Sorry, the local band is not leaving the area or can afford to once their 30 friends they bugged with 700 Facebook invites to go see them on a Wed. night is done. In the 12 or so years since Napster and the mainstreaming of the internet, the only band that has modestly done this independently (and lasted for about five minutes) was Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

As someone who has worked with many of those “Small independent studios”, most of them are going the same way as the mom & pop record shop. Even the big boy studios as well. Even the small ones on modest equipment at the barely passing the line between “guy with his laptop” and “real studio” incur significant costs that come under fire when someone refuses to economically support a product that brings them value.

Very few musicians make a decent enough living playing live. Most of them are top-tier and label backed, whether it is Sub Pop or Interscope. Its a pipe dream. Most can barely get gas to the next gig, or its completely out of the question if they enjoy anything beyond sleeping on their friends couch or in a 20 year old van. Possible, yes, but most of the artists people pay to go see live beyond the cover band playing at the corner bar on a Friday night that is just background music to you getting wasted is backed by promotion, which costs money.

Spot on.  In the last two years, I’ve discovered tons of great music going back as far as the ’50s that I’ve never heard of before.  This is mostly thanks to Rhapsody and the Amazon used CD market.

I have no doubt that I’ll continue to find more and more “old” music which I will love.  Music’s not dead to me!!

“Almost no one has replicated any kind of independent success that has not first made us aware of their existence thanks to the resources of a well-funded label.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiddy_Bang 

I notice you include the caveat “almost” as a weasel-word to get out of having to counteract responses like mine. The reason not a great number  of examples of such artists exist is because record labels used to be the ONLY form of distribution. That has changed. I don’t accept your ‘wading through muck’ idea. Almost all of the best music I have discovered has been on the advice of friends or random illegal downloads that I thought sounded interesting.

Furthermore I strongly disagree with your contention that supporting an artist via tours and merch is not a viable way of bands making money. I accept I may be the exception not the rule but I have personally spent untold sums of money on seeing artists live… magnitudes more than the average person would spend on CDs/records in a lifetime. Then there’s this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/illegal-downloaders-spend-the-most-on-music-says-poll-1812776.html

I’m not going to make this a lengthy rant (even though I could) but I’ll give you these ones Yacko: Where do these fellows fit in your everything is a disembodied copy and can be recreated algorithmically viewpoint?

Cannibal Ox: Pigeon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pADgllloQg4 

Flying Lotus: Do The Astral Plane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDDBxT9uqBk 

The Insane Warrior: Then You Hear Footsteps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPdl9MoLWb0

Also your reference to “rave music” doesn’t instill confidence in me that you know anything about electronic music. What is “rave music”? Since when is “rave music” an umbrella term under which electronic music gets grouped and how come people can identify different genres consistently if it all sounds the same? Have you ever been to a rave? I sincerely doubt so.

The problem becomes in that music became monetized when technology allowed it to be recorded

Music really began to become a commodity long before that, when technology allowed sheet music to be widely produced and sold. Sheet music ‘piracy’ was notoriously prevalent in the 19th century.

No more music other then little Kevin who just got his first Mac with Garageband.

There’s an awful lot of space between the ‘top’ studios and the bedrooms- there are plenty of small independent studios still out there.

As ever, it’s still possible for musicians to make a living by playing live, and selling merchandise (including self-funded recordings)- and this will continue (and possibly increase) if & when ‘that ecosystem’ withers away.

It’s possible to create music informed by, about, or best appreciated under the influence of psychedelics that is also actually good music that can be appreciated sober.

If you look at anything from the right angle, you can suck all meaning out of it. You’re looking at modern music as meaningless compared to what’s come before, and extrapolated that no meaningful music will ever be created again, right? Because it’s all been done before?

Music is about evoking emotional reactions and has a vast number of ways of doing it, one could argue that even “novel” styles of music are still hitting the same old parts of the brain, so aren’t really novel at all. “Wow, this irish folk song makes me feel happy and like drinking with friends!” “Wow, this cheesy metal song makes me feel happy and like drinking with friends!” “Wow, this catchy electronic track…” etc

It’s impossible to listen to all the music made, so different cultures/groups/individuals are going to have their own musical language based on their limited experience with music.  Which means there’s always going to be creators who create things unlike anything they’ve ever heard before, and listeners who fall in love with things unlike anything else. Maybe if they theoretically had listened to every musical creation ever they could say “Pfft, heard it”, but otherwise *it’s impossible to differentiate between something that people think is novel, and something that genuinely is*.

Add to that the fact that music technology keeps advancing, meaning that we literally have new raw materials from which to make music that have never happened on earth before – new textures, new instruments, even new algorithms for making computer-composed music. Globalisation means our musical vocabulary is vastly bigger than ever before in human history. I think this is a mind-bendingly awesome time for music.

But again, you can also say “Yeah, they’re still using the same 12 tones, or if not it’s because they’re just another noise musician”. Each to their own!

No one is suing anybody for humming a tune. Or banging a can or strumming an acoustic guitar around a camp fire. Well, not yet. Carreon has some free time on his hands now that The Oatmeal ordeal is over. The problem becomes in that music became monetized when technology allowed it to be recorded. That technology costs money. A mixing board of any decent quality can run to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. A microphone can run five thousand dollars. You pay for craftsmanship. The construction of specialized architecture. The rent of the space. The salaries of the skilled engineers that man the helm.

On top of that, you pay for the marketing, tour support, etc., etc. so you can even know these acts exist to use that old fall back of supporting the artist by buying concert tickets and merch. Otherwise, good luck wading through the muck. Or missing out on concert experiences because musicians would not financially be able to get out of a city or region.

There is a whole ecosystem, jobs, etc. that exists to produce quality recordings. That is where “free culture” eventually goes off the rails, because if you do not support that ecosystem it goes away. No more music other then little Kevin who just got his first Mac with Garageband. Man, you thought Nickelback and Black Eyed Peas are bad, wait until you hear his dubstep covers!

The punishment does not justify the crime ($150,000 per track?). The crime does not justify draconian legislation like SOPA/PIPA/ACTA. As is the case with almost all current industries, depending on where you fall along the political spectrum, an arguement in regards to excessive executive compensation can be made. The Big 4 suffer from trying to hang on to margins that are no longer realistic and thats when you get assinine crap we see going on.

Guys like Trent Reznor aren’t railing against paying for music. He’ll gladly sell you any one of a dozen configurations of a release. He does rail against greed though. Almost no one has replicated any kind of independent success that has not first made us aware of their existance thanks to the resources of a well-funded label. TVT fucked him as hard as much as they helped let us known Nine Inch Nails even exists. Amanda Palmer can raise an easy million on Kickstarter because Roadrunner supported The Dresden Dolls is.

You aren’t paying for music. You are paying for a recording. You are paying for the medium through which music is recorded and distributed. Big difference.

this is why i feel copyright should go back to how it was, in america, at the start: 14 years with the possibility of adding 1 more 14 year period for a maximum of 28 years. then its in the public domain and anyone can use it, i also feel it should be up to the creator of the art to press suit or to allow the infringement. copyright was meant to be a means to reward those who give back to the community by making something, it was meant to foster art but now its a means to suppress it.rather than being a short period to make money off of the art its a means to make money off it FOREVER (or at least the lifetime of the artist +70 years..also i think thats the average natural lifetime,or the amount of time they live whichever is longer…so if they are shot at 20 they still have 35 years+70) this fosters a sense of “make something once and live off it for the rest of your life” this does nothing to repay the community. this isnt fair. the method i mentioned above is fair and it means all those things you grew up on (assuming you are older than 14) you could make things using them. and if little big planet shows anything: people really like making mario games.

At this point, with CAMC (computer aided music creation – think like CASE or CAD) anything from the past can be reproduced or extended by formula. Anything new is simply the jumble of snippets and styles run through a vegematic, like scientists splicing random DNA to see what kind of mutants they can create.

It isn’t just technology that has cut the worth of music. Every new song, every new piece of music has helped to devalue the entire aggregate of all recorded music. Oddly enough, the moment copyright started a long term slide to no value, is the exact moment when music could be recorded, stored and reproduced on a consumers whim. When the only supply of music was via musicians in real time, that’s when music had its greatest value.

Think of music as a money supply, and think of the music industry as endlessly inflating that supply until that supply is so bloated as to be valueless. It may take another 50 years, but at some point even musicians and songwriters will realize that copyright protects very little except for a favored less than 1% of artists and even their jobs (like most other work on this planet) will be taken over by autonomous machines.

This whole little legal wrangle over copyright will seem like momentary farce.

Next up films. Let’s start a poll. Anybody want to venture whether, on a total basis, we have passed, are passing, or will soon pass peak quality of film? Is it an accident we are bumping up at the limitations of this just as we are for natural resources? Maybe our time is spent and a creation we let loose will be the next new order. Anybody want to guess, on a worldwide basis, whether we passed peak intelligence?