Every so often we publish here at OSNews articles about copyright, about the war of the “old media” establishment against everyone else. Many, myself included, have argued that the way to get out of this mess — short of changing the law — is to have more artists release their work under a Creative Commons license. However, after a few years it became obvious to me that CC would never be able to change the industry all by itself. Offering a Free license, and having 30,000 albums released under it, was still not enough. Until the Summer of 2009, that is. Update: Added audio samples.
Don’t get me wrong. I support Creative Commons, and I feel very fortunate for having access to it. In fact, the majority of my videos are licensed under the ultra-liberal CC-BY. But despite all the available CC-licensed works, music consumers massively ignore them. Popular music blogs, like the powerful indie blog Pitchfork, don’t give a monkey about CC music. And if blogs don’t cover CC music, then it doesn’t really exist for the public at large. CC music has been mostly used by other CC artists to remix each other, or to find cheap music for various video projects. But very few people download CC music just to listen to it. Because of that, the big-4 labels are still alive and well, and they still lobby their way through tougher laws.
Now, you probably ask, “why music blogs don’t report on CC releases”? The reason is because these blogs are looking into innovation in music-making, while most CC artists are largely copying genres that are old, and traditionally commercial. For example, rock, folk, electronic, all have countless artists that are well known and sell well. There is no reason for the consumer to download a free copy of a CC rock artist he never heard of, when he/she can pirate Weezer’s new album off Bittorrent. There’s no real incentive to do the right thing and download a legal copy rather than a pirated one. Besides, there’s probably a quality reason Weezer have a contract, and the CC artist doesn’t — the consumer reckons, often wrongly.
I believe that people should learn from history. If there was one thing that the GNU/Linux vs Windows war taught us this past decade is that the newcomer could never shine its true colors when going head to head against an established product or status quo. Let’s be honest here: the Linux desktop and its apps can’t replace the Windows desktop and its third party apps for 98% of the users. For example, Gimp is not as good as Photoshop, and even after all these years we still don’t have a video editor for Linux that is not laughable. OpenOffice is not as good as MS Office either. However, while Linux will eventually take over Windows (I have no doubt about this, even if it happens in many years from now), this change will happen gradually, and having started from unlikely places. For example, Linux shines with servers. Windows has nothing on Linux when it comes to server-based software. And for a few years now, Linux is very good at embedded systems too (smartphones, satellites etc). In other words, Linux is now taken very seriously, but this happened only because it could perform well in places that Windows couldn’t. And because it was (F)ree.
Same with the CC music, it is silly, naive, and a waste of time trying to bring down the music industry by making more of THEIR music and offering it for free. For better or worse, “popular” music is their music. They own it. They have signed the artists people care about (or made to care about), they have in-house songwriters who can write one of these derivative songs per day, they have the expensive studios, and they have all the right contacts in high places to help them create new “stars”. As for commercial indie artists, they do try to differentiate from the “pop” music the big labels put out, but few manage to stray away from pop/rock.
So what are we to do, you ask?
Enter 2009. A new genre evolved out of almost thin air. Unlike all the other genres before it, its birthplace was the internet. The genre has influences from ’80s shoegaze and new wave, and it’s largely electronic dance music that… can’t be danced. It’s music created entirely on computers, by “bedroom artists” (reminds you of the Linux bedroom coders of the ’90s?). Its name is chillwave (also known as “glo-fi”, audio samples here).
While software to synthesize music has existed for many years, either its actual audio and production quality was low, or the created music had little musical value. Techno and trance music for example had remained a Euro-thing mostly, and never took off with most music critics. Besides, techno/trance was also very commercial in nature from the get go.
Chillwave on the other hand is different. It’s a new genre, with a nostalgic, somewhat sad sound. It’s grass roots, sprouting after audio software has matured in the recent years. Nothing like this existed before, and so the music blogs took notice! Within a few months they hailed chillwave as the next big thing in music.
Exactly because this was “an internet thing”, made by very young people at zero expense, the songs were mostly free to download! Some of these songs were licensed under the Creative Commons, and some were just “free to download”. Using the CC license was simply a cherry on the cake, an added value, not the main attraction. The main attraction was this new kind of music that felt so different.
And I’m using the word “felt” here, because that’s the selling point of chillwave. Its music is somewhat ambient and loose in construction, however it has the magical ability of reminding you of summer, the sun, the sea, the heat, and the beach. Possibly for the first time, a large number of chillwave songs made you feel like it’s summer, rather than talk about summer. See, in any of these “top-10 songs for the summer” lists I’ve read in my life so far, all these pop/rock songs listed there are just songs that talk about summer. They rarely convey the right emotions though. Chillwave instead is able to also convey memories, not just emotion. And it does so with its music rather than with its lyrics. The music itself blends in a cloud of unformed melodies that triggers the right part on the brain to make you remember of your summer as a kid, or any other similar memory. That’s why in most chillwave songs the vocals are reverbed, blending in with the music, they’re part of the experience, rather than having “some guy shouting stuff on the microphone with some guitar music on the background”. The human voice is now an added instrument, not the main attraction, as in mainstream pop/rock music.
So, now you ask, how can this new genre end the copyright wars.
This genre alone can’t do it. It requires more genres that are as grass root and as fresh as this. But these will undoubtedly come. Chillwave is still brand new, and just a year later is already evolving into other genres — other “memories”, and “feelings” are created, not just about summer. Soon, the music created by bedroom artists could overshadow in musical value commercial music because it’s new, and because the young people who listen to it, will replace the older listeners. Pop/rock music might sound to youngsters in a few years just like my generation feels when listening to Sinatra-style music: old.
Also, this new kind of music has no high visibility stars (stardom is one of the ways the music industry is able to hook up new customers). Most MySpace pages of these artists don’t even have pictures of themselves, but usually some highly artistic/ambient photos. They visually represent themselves with “an impression”, not with a real picture.
Wild Nothing – Confirmation by musicmule
The nice thing about the whole situation is that if the labels try to sell commercially such music, they won’t succeed. They can’t own something that can be produced so cheaply. They won’t be able to sell something that can be found online for free, legally, and with the same production value. Because in this case, the genre itself is associated with freeness in the minds of its listeners. Not to mention that finding songwriters that can write such music on a payroll would be hard to get, if only because it requires a certain amount of believability and sincerity, rather than cookie-cutter pop songs that Britney Spears is able to purchase today for about $100k a pop.
But enough about music.
There’s also photography, and video to consider. Interestingly, the same applies to both! “Ambient” artistic pictures started arriving on FlickR by enthusiasts a few years ago. But similar video only started appearing late last year! And usually to accompany chillwave or ambient music, created by fans of the music rather than paid filmmakers! Speaking as a filmmaker myself, these videos are not easy to create. They look random, but they are not! Every time I tried to create something similar, I failed. At 37, I’m too old for this sh*t. It literally requires a different kind of thinking. While most videos from old-schoolers like myself must play with certain rules (e.g. good exposure, focusing, having footage with a story — even if a very loose one), these young artists instead break all these rules! Their goal is not to create a video that has a succession of images that have some logical continuation and are clearly visually defined, but rather to re-create “a feeling”, by compositing a lot of different animations, colors and footage that are seemingly unrelated, but when they put together, they remind you of something in your past. Basically, their videos have this goal: “how did it feel to be there, back then?”.
Again, this whole new video genre ties perfectly with chillwave music, because the music tries to make you remember of a particular summer memory, and the video is trying to do exactly the same, but with visual stimulation instead. Sometimes the videographers use their own footage (the chillwave artists themselves are nowhere to be found on screen), and more often they use Public Domain video from the ’50s and ’60s!
My husband said it best when I showed him these new expression forms that are taking the artistic online community by storm today. He likened this revolution to Impressionism. And he was indeed correct. From wikipedia: “Radicals in their time, early Impressionists broke the rules of academic painting. […] …they portrayed overall visual effects instead of details.”
This can potentially be big, and lead to other genres, and other kinds of artistic expressions. Expressions that the old media establishment won’t be able to follow through as easily. Because innovation will come from these bedroom kids, via the internet. And then, the labels, which are betting on “their” [old] music, will crumble under their own weight, and fall apart in their irrelevancy. Culture will once again will be largely free. And Creative Commons will be there to help do so.
*very* optimistic here, I do not know if this will work, but had hoped that piracy should be able to move us further along a similar path, by making artists stop churning out crap for the money, and start to make music for the sake of music, and to let people hear their vision.
I mostly listen (almost only) to classical pieces.
The best system out there for typesetting music is lilypond. Since the music is already typeset electronically (a bit like LaTeX), why not simply convert that, via the computer, into midi?
Those who have heard lilypond renditions of classical pieces, you are entitled to weep now.
However, I heard that they are having much progress in the area of human speech synthesis. It sounds so good in songs it actually can fool the observer. I hope whatever genre you mean is going to be at least as good as that, not the generated sounds lilypond->midi makes.
These are different genres. Different genres requires different instrumentation and human interaction. For classical, you must have a human play the instruments. Just like for classical painting you had to be super-precise, and paint in photographic-quality
But for chillwave, just like with Impressionism, it’s the overall impression that counts. With enough filters you can hide the fact that it’s a computer that made that music, and make it sound natural (for the genre).
I don’t mean to sound rude, but you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
Electronic music isn’t about trying to accurately synth real instruments. If a artist needs a real guitar then they’ll bring in a session guitarist to record. The point of electronic music is that it doesn’t sound like a traditional pub band or classical orchestra. If you want that kind of music, then listen to any one of the millions of bands struggling to make a name or any number of up and coming musicians that play free performances at your local church / cathedral or town fate. There’s plenty of quality music out there that’s not electronic music and is also free to attend.
Now lets address my issues with your article:
Yes, Scooter and Ian Van Dahl are pop, but that’s not to say that techno and trance are commercial. Quite the opposite in fact.
And more over, being a DJ and producer of (and for want a better term) “underground” dance music, I can safely say there is a lot of highly advanced production going into techno and trance. Take Speedy J for example – his stuff dwarfs anything played on the radio. Sure, his sound wont be to everyones taste, but that only goes to further prove my previous point about dance music not being a commercial sound.
You also talk about dance as if it’s just your new fangled genre and techno and trance. It really isn’t. Theres, breaks, DnB, electro, house, hardhouse, hardcore and about a million varieties of music within each of those. Theres IDM which gives you the likes of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. Again, anything but commercial yet hugely technical music. In fact Thom Yorke credits Squarepusher and Aphex Twin as two of his influences in Radioheads sound post OK Computer. These artists also pioneered many of the sounds used commonly in music these days (such as the digital glitching effect)
Having been an audiophile for a great many years, it’s very very rare that I hear a “new” genre. Usually it’s just taking an old sound and modernising it a little. Unfortunately I can’t view the clips you loaded (I assume they were clips) as the embedded pages in your article are blocked at work. However I am highly skeptical that you’re new discovery isn’t just a re-branding of an existing genre as happens on a regular basis within dance music. I’m interested to hear what this brings to the table that isn’t already done by any of these 10+ years ago (suggested bands in brackets):
* IDM (Boards of Canada, Royksopp),
* Trip-Hop (Portishead),
* Chillout / Leftfield (The Orb, Leftfield)
* Brokenbeat (not really to familiar with the artists in this genre)
* EBM (Front 242, Nitzer Ebb)
* Electronica (Love and Rockets later stuff, Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesia)
* Electro (Kraftwork)
* or more recently, Dubstep.
I get sick and tired about hearing people passing comment about a massive scene of music when they clearly have little exposure to the music.
</rant>
Edited 2010-09-07 13:47 UTC
You have an invalid tag in your post. You never opened the <rant> before you closed it. That is NOT good form. You can try this : http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?uri=
…before you post next time.
(ha ha!)
>Electronic music isn’t about trying to accurately synth real instruments.
I never said it is, so I don’t like how you started your comment about myself “not having a clue”.
The problem is that chillwave is supposed to be more natural and more blending-in music, and so they need to add filters to hide the very “clear” sound of electronic-generated music. That’s what I meant, not that other electronic types of music need to do so too.
As for the rest of your rant, I can assure you that I’m familiar with electronic music. I’m European anyway, and electronic was huge in the ’90s, when I was younger (my brother was a DJ too at the time). The problem with it is that most of it sounds robotic. And when it doesn’t sound robotic, it’s because it’s masqueraded pop. Therefore, after about 35 years, true electronic music is still considered largely underground music. Sure, there’s Moby and Zero7, and any of these dream-sounding electronic artists, but again, their music while somewhat ambient, it fails to do what chillwave does: unearth memories.
Chillwave instead is all about emotion and memories. The fact that it’s electronic too is besides the point, rather than shouting it from the rooftops as other electronic music does with its compositions. And everyone else agrees that chillwave it’s is own genre btw (granted, created out of 4-5 different genres from the ’80s, but that’s the fashion that every other genre is created).
Edited 2010-09-07 18:43 UTC
Ok, I’ve listened to the samples now and most of them just sounded like bog standard chillout / IDM tracks.
Reminds me a lot of these albums from the last 15 years:
* Royksopp – ‘Melody AM’
* Lemon Jelly – ‘Lost Horizons’
* Amon Tobin – ‘Out From Out Where’
* Love and Rockets – ‘Blandat’
* Boards of Canada – ‘Geogaddi’ and ‘The Campfire Headphase’ (though personally I think their best album is ‘Music Has the Right to Children’, but that album is more “electronic chillout” and has less of the organic sounds you describe)
I listen to this kind of stuff a lot and I can tell you now that it’s neither new nor “underground”. Royksopp and Lemon Jelly have both had UK top 40 singles back in the early part of 00s and Amon Tobin is sampled to hell for TV backing music (BBCs Top Gear being just one example).
I really do hate genre pidgenholes as they always seem to detract people from the music. Most of the time it seems they’re born out of a need to promote the artists rather than music, and this seems little different.
Edited 2010-09-07 22:10 UTC
>* Royksopp – ‘Melody AM’
>* Lemon Jelly – ‘Lost Horizons’
>* Amon Tobin – ‘Out From Out Where’
>* Love and Rockets – ‘Blandat’
>* Boards of Canada – ‘Geogaddi’ and ‘The Campfire Headphase’
Absolutely not. Only *some* of Royksopp’s songs on that album come a bit close, but still no cigar (their sound is too clear, it’s not like a fade memory, but clean-cut electronic sounds). The rest of the albums you mentioned have absolutely nothing to do with chillwave.
The stylistic origins of chillwave is Panda Bear, some of Animal Collective, a bit of early Beach House too.
>I listen to this kind of stuff a lot and I can tell >you now that it’s neither new nor “underground”.
It is very new, and it’s still underground. You confuse chillwave with chillout electronic music. It’s not the same. Chillout music is simply ambient music, sometimes with a bit more dance-infused electronic music, while chillwave is synthpop/new-wave/shoegaze that specifically tries to awake memories, rather than just make you chill. The fact that it’s using the electronic music’s tools to realize itself is besides the point. That’s where the similarity ends.
Check the artists mentioned in the chillwave wikipedia article to check out the genre.
Edited 2010-09-08 01:45 UTC
But the point I’m making is there’s nothing new to chillwave that warrants a new genre. To most people (and myself including) this is just another form of electronica / chillout music.
No, that’s entirely the point. The music uses the same tools, techniques and clichés, thus it sounds just like the stuff I listed and thus i have trouble taking you seriously when you keep harping on about how this is a whole new genre of music.
I couldn’t give a rats arse about your psychobabble about awakening memories because music will only awaken a memory if you have memories attached to that style of music. So to say this achieves something that other tracks can’t is somewhat pretentious and not to mention completely false.
So the simple fact is, music is categorised by what it sounds like and everything else is just artistic fluff for the producer to indulge in.
Furthermore, this is the problem I have with your article. Rather than focusing on the merits / pitfalls of CC and emerging music scenes that are advocates of CC: you were trying to promote a specific genre that you have found a personal bond with and then trying to sell it like we all should agree with you that it’s the greatest original idea since ‘Ugg’ designed the wheel. To most people this is just chillout electronica – and given that there’s already far too many pidgenholes, I’m inclined to side with them.
Edited 2010-09-08 07:38 UTC
>thus it sounds just like the stuff I listed
NO, it does NOT sound the same.
> and thus i have trouble taking you seriously
>when you keep harping on about how this is a whole new genre of music.
It’s not myself who says it’s a new genre. It’s the whole wide world. Read up, look it up, google it. It’s only you who says that it’s not new. Chillwave has nothing to do with the albums you listed. You’re trying to make this about me, and what “I” said, while I simply wrote what’s already public knowledge.
>music will only awaken a memory if you have memories attached to that style of music
Luckily for me I grew up in sunny and summery Greece, next to the sea. In the ’80s. So there.
Edited 2010-09-08 08:21 UTC
Not exactly the same no, but then where do you stop? What if someone released a “chillwave” track with heavy use of cowbells? Would you call that a new genre? What if 20 people then started to do it?
I see this happening time and time again in music and it’s just stupid marketing driven by people wanting to differentiate themselves from other artists. It happens in hardhouse (hardhouse, harddance, hardtrance, hardstyle, Nu NRG, Hard NRG, Hi NRG, Bounce, etc), it happens in hardcore (hardcore, trancecore, happy hardcore, tecknocore, freeform, breakscore, doomcore, clowncore, deathcore, yadda yadda yadda). It happens in trance, techno and house. It happens in rock and it happens in metal and each and every time it’s complete BS.
The problem with music is people overly attached to a scene will over-exaggerate insignificant differences and then masquerade these every so slight variations as whole new distinct genres when in fact the music is actually just (and at best) an evolution of an existing genre. It’s like looking at a fractal: from a top level theres a finite number of sides, but the more you zoom in the more you sides you see but the less grasp you have of the bigger picture. The same is true with music.
It’s nobody outside the scene, that’s who it is.
Wikipedia entries will be written by chillwave enthusiasts, chillwave websites will be built by chillwave producers and anybody who isn’t attached to the scene will just hear these tracks and think “oh, that’s electronica / IDM / chillout / whatever”. I wish these guys every success but Mixmag wont create a new section in their magazine, they’ll just lump it with Leftfield. MTV wont be creating a new channel, they’ll just lump it with MTV Dance. Chillwave is not a new genre.
Well that pretty much proves my point that the “awaken memories” is irrelevant for anybody that hasn’t had the same upbringing as yourself (and thus completely moots your arguments about chillwaves distinction from other genres based on the fact that it awakes memories)
I wouldn’t count on it:
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Broadway_sings_blues_over_synthes…
I welcome this development – it should make it considerably cheaper to create large productions, bringing more “live” art music to the masses.
>Classical …requires human players
What bunk! This music stuff is well understood, but a pain to keep in mind, competitively with foodie and news and various crafts. As if computers couldn’t be relied upon to apply styling to a score, or Sony Acid Studio (I think Vocaloid–humanlike singing–is a separate IP unit) doesn’t have that in there, or the classical remixers who participate on OCRemix.org won’t let their studio tools participate in the play and orchestration?
Separately; what’s this contract stuff and to-do? I understand it kills the band members (until an ad finally works,) and often appropriates the work, but doesn’t everyone casually look for iTunes promotion?
Glo-fi or drone stuff like Warren Ellis promotes is the new genre?
well, here is my music
http://iogd.free.bg
it`s cc-licensed..listen and dance!
but i think every professional must be paid. not by labels, but at the concert. and the only professionals, who can perform music live, are rock, metal and jazz musicians, britney and madonna can not.
What about classical musicians? Or dance acts like Orbital?
Any music can be performed live these days. (though i do think it’s disapointing when you see some pop artists mime at concerts)
Edited 2010-09-07 14:11 UTC
Classical musicians dont Think music, they are robots, playng composed by others music.
Im not sure, that orbital Play live – does they? And they are not good, where are the solos?:]
Look at SLAYER! They are good musicians, they play live, and they think complicated music – this is what i mean, they deserve $$$!
They’re still playing live though so what does it matter if they composed it or not. After all, even The Doors has played cover versions of other peoples songs.
YES!! Why else would I have mentioned them.
Erm, ok. I appretiate that Orbital are not to your tastes, but that comment was just silly.
You do realise that you’re now starting to come across as if you are rating a bands worth entirely on your own personal music tastes?
Thanks for the music! Appreciated. I like picking up personal made albums. In response I recommend White Bird by David Schooley (Also CC-BY) http://www.sakari-infinity.net/2007/06/white_bird/ Other music of his, like On Their Land, and Spirits are good. (totally different to what you do, mind)
Thanks for the attention!
Several of my photos have been released under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. But I’m starting to have second thoughts about releasing more work under a CC license. Every now and then, I search for my photographs to see whether they were used by others according to the license (that is: reproduction/manipulation is allowed, provided the author, source and license are explicitly stated).
What if I find a CC photograph is used without accrediting me?
Well, all I can do is send an email, point out that it *IS* under a copyrighted license, and that this entails stating the copyright holder. I can usually expect the recipient to respond curtly. Mostly the picture is taken down; apparently mentioning the source is a bridge too far.
What if I find a copyrighted photograph is used without accrediting me?
Well, I can actually “fine” the perpetrator by charging double standard tariff because I own full copyright over this creative work. Hence, I have more power. (Of course if some 14-year-old would do this, I’ll be easy on him/her. I’m talking companies and sane adults here.)
You could dual-license the photos – CC-BY-SA, and under a separate commercial license. If they don’t abide by CC-BY-SA, then they’re causing you a financial loss by not getting your commercial license, and therefore you can go for damages.
Thanks, i didn’t know CC is non-exclusive. Great to hear!
I can’t get a single one of these videos to play. I click the play button, and nothing happens. Anyone else having this trouble?
Me, too.
New music takeover of the world will return after we resolve technical difficulties. In the meantime, here’s some Lady Gaga…
They work for me on WinXP. Haven’t tested on my Linux laptop though. They use Vimeo’s brand new embed code, so there might be a bug on their part there.
Works on Debian Sid with SeaMonkey 2.0 and 64 bit Flash.
I am sad it isn’t using the audio tag.
I don’t think the fact that it’s CC changes anything. The only reason CC music hasn’t taken off in my opinion is that the quality isn’t substantially better (or worse) than commercially available music. I say this after having listened to much of what’s available on Jamendo. There’s good music, but nothing genius in my opinion. Commercially available music on the other end has other advantages, being associated with a public figure to adore is one of them. Big marketing is another. And then there’s this effect where people listen to what they’re friends listen to rather than seek music on their own.
It’s possible to challenge the big studios on quality alone though. ZUN has demonstrated it and keeps demonstrating it with his music. Maybe you’ve already heard of ZUN or of his Touhou games, maybe not. He’s japanese after all, there’s a language barrier to overcome. What’s interesting about him is that while his music isn’t CC, he explicitly allows fan-made content based on it (content which can then be sold or given for free). So it’s rather similar to CC really.
In recent years the Touhou movement has pretty much taken over all japanese anime and video game public conventions. The Touhou merchandise, mostly consisting of music CDs and comic books, takes about a 3rd of the biggest comic book convention, Comiket. About 200 new CDs based on his music are released at each Comiket, which take place every 6 months. In total there’s about a thousand CD being released each year and it’s still increasing. It’s interesting to note that Touhou really started in 2003, so it didn’t take long to take off.
He’s just a single guy writing FM music and shmups video games, and he manages to challenge the video game and video game music industry as a whole, at least in popularity.
But it doesn’t stop there. The music he releases is FM music and you can easily recognize its origin. It’s very different from studio music. But many fan circles take his music and produce studio quality songs, of any genre, sometimes even with professional singers. The same singers who make anime or video game songs also sing these fan-made songs. But this fan-made music cannot be published by big labels, only artists are allowed to directly sell their remixes.
To give an example of original -> studio quality remix, try this one:
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ehKblhOfg
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nHmMc4NKp0
Unfortunately Youtube quality isn’t great but it should be a good example still.
I’m sure you also saw that mad Ronald McDonald video. The genius background music is from ZUN. Various viral videos have used his work.
This is what I think CC intended to do. It definitely works; it just needs an artist that stands out above the rest of the pack.
You mean like Nine Inch Nails?
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/11293
The Beastie Boys too, who licenced some of their content, where it turned up in various scene remixes—this one is a favourite: http://remix.kwed.org/?search_id=3307
I think the real question is: can an artist make it without going through the big labels at all? Could those artists have become popular if they went CC right away? Or is the big labels’ marketing machine necessary to make it in the first place?
That’s a big question still not answered AFAIK, at least not for the mainstream audience.
In short I think no.
Marketing will always be the biggest issue and it’s impossible to market your artists without a budget to do so. So if all new music went CC and the big labels disappeared, you’d end up in a situation where only the wealthy could afford to become commercial successes.
I hate this side of music, but sadly I can’t see how you can achieve success purely off the back of free media and word of mouth when there’s so many competing artists in the world today.
If I could write Japanese, I would definitely email ZUN and point out that his informal license is a lot like certain CC variants, and make a case that he ought to adopt it. Actually, I have a few things I would want to talk to him about…
Eugenia, I hope you have the fortitude to ignore the narrow criticisms being posted here. To the person above who criticized her knowledge of electronic genres without “meaning to be rude”–who cares? To the person who pointed out the demerits of CC–not the point.
Eugenia is talking about a new vision for music in general, and the underlying assumption, which I believe is true, is that it’s madness to try and enforce copyright on bits of +5V charges. This is regardless of copyright laws’ morality or ethical grounds (personally, I am very pro-copyright), but simply in terms of logistics it’s just not a tenable position. What we think of as music today is inextricably bound up with old legal systems. To the person who implied that this discussion is irrelevant because she only listens to classical music, do you think that Handel and Mozart would exist without regal and ducal patronage? It’s not just about the composer’s daily bread, either: would Saint-Saens be Saint-Saens without bourgeois aesthetic tastes?
Eugenia, I would take what you’re saying and run with it. In fact, we shouldn’t just be thinking in terms of genres, but rather computers have opened the way for an entirely new kind of art, the way that the printed codex led to silent reading which led to the novel. “Content” and “format”, or rather the art and all the conditions surrounding the art (technical, legal, placement/arrangement) feed into each other. They exist symbiotically, and the day will come when we stop foisting orchestras onto oscilloscopes and create an entirely new kind of art that draws on all the unique capabilities of the computer. Then the computer will no longer be merely a tool and we will have truly computeral art.
As Eugenia has shown, there isn’t a revolution waiting to happen, but rather we are in the middle of an evolution toward computeral art. I tried to bring this up before on this site with my article on craftsmanship, but it seemed then like people had forgotten how to read two pages (indeed, past the title). I want to let you know, Eugenia, that you’re not alone and that others here are thinking along the same lines: artists, scholars, and engineers.
You should also check out the “neen” art movement if you haven’t already: http://www.superneen.com/. They are working toward a kind of computeral art, as well. A “piracy” manifesto by their leader, Miltos Manetas, that’s particularly prescient (though a bit get-on-your-soapbox political): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCThTeLZy3I
I wasn’t ignoring the copyright points because I missed the point, but rather because I didn’t disagree with the vision she was trying to express.
My problem was her point was massively diluted with misinformation and personal opinion of scenes she knows little about.
In fact, I notice she does this a lot. She often has an interesting and thought provoking idea but then loses her credibility as she digresses onto topics that are either on a tangent to her original point or just completely inaccurate. It’s a real pity as she then loses her readers.
So yes, like yourself, I see myself siding with her ideologies on copyright laws and copyleft licenses; the problem was that didn’t seem the main focus of this article and sadly I found the rest of the article to be incorrect.
The author is sort of on to something important, but doesn’t go far enough.
First of all, to supplant record companies, you have to get outside of the thought-horizon they have created. The most important aspect of that is to reject the idea that genre determines quality. In decades past, especially in the 1960s -70s (or so), innovation happened because many artists ignored genre, or ‘format’. They created *new* genres, by following their instincts and mixing things together as they saw fit. They heard music in their heads, and realized it, rather than worrying about what the genre or format was, or what the marketing plan was. Record companies had no idea what was going on, and just signed up a bunch of people with long hair, funny clothes, etc.
Radio (in collusion with the record companies) began to think of music in terms of format, and marketing people loved it – they needed to pigeonhole the stuff to sell it. But genre is an invention of marketers.
I hear so many people these days say ‘If you like [x-formatted music] you’ll like [y-formated music]’, because the genre is the same. But that’s a total mistake: there is good techno, and bad techno; good country and bad country, etc etc. etc. Genre has no bearing on quality. So, first, become de-obsessed with genre.
Second of all, artists need to make a living. That is totally overlooked these days. It’s great if you can make some stuff in your spare time, with cheap tools, etc. But true excellence takes time and work. Giving the work away doesn’t solve this problem, obviously.
Third thing: the Impressionists – and any other rule-breaking artist innovator – has to know what the rules they’re breaking ARE. Those impressionists were well trained in the traditional art of painting. There is a huge difference between knowing what you’re doing when you break the rules, and just breaking them because you don’t know any better.
sorry for the rant, but we need to think a little deeper about this, because it’s very important.
Yes, but it’s also true that sometimes knowing the rules makes it harder to think outside of the rules.
In my opinion, people are either talented or they’re not. Talented musicians will still compose good songs even if it’s a little raw due to inexperience. However experienced bad musicians will write well produced but ultimately dull music.
The issue about CC music being a copy of everything existing is very, very true. Eugenia couldn’t have got that better. This is more of a problem of the composers, most of them at least. Even in the music industry this is an issue, so they bet so strongly on promoting the image of an artist (to compensate the lack of musical innovation).
However, listeners are to blame too. There really is PLENTY of VERY innovative music around. From artists that no more than a few hundreds of people know, that you can enjoy if you have an open enough mind. Yet listeners want something they know, or something that resembles something they know, and new music styles really take several listens and exposure to be grasped. This is why mainstream can do it, they can expose you to their stuff easily and even forcefully while undeground artists can’t.
Edited 2010-09-07 15:23 UTC
I am not really into new and different music genres or innovative music, but I will happily listen to CC music in my usual genres.
But it seems good stuff is still hard to find by chance – you have to go looking for it, and these days everyone is too lazy for that (or is that just me?).
You rant about how the music industry should change, how the big labels should die, how the new music is free, etc… and then for audio samples you send us to the iTunes store. You know, the one controlled by the fifth of the Big 4. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?
(And yes, I need samples because I haven’t the faintest idea what this no doubt fantastic new genre has to offer.)
Actually, copyright law itself is not that complex. The structure behind it is. Collecting societies, music publishers and record companies, who knows what they are doing? Imagine, you’re a small artist who wants to be famous. Sign here, sign here and sign here. Before you know it you don’t have any rights left, including income from gigs and merchandising. It used to be evident that we wanted to reward the creativity of people. Nowadays, it’s not that obvious anymore. My idea is that we should not discuss copyright law, but how to protect the performing, reproduction and any other rights of the music authors. Luckily I’m not the only one who is worried. It can’t be any coincidence that the Featured Artists Coalition was founded. They want the artists to have more control of their music and a much fairer share of the profits it generates in the digital age. But there is also another way. The internet is a promising marketing environment, fit for individual management of copyright and the delivery of rights on demand to users. In these circumstances the music authors are in full control of their rights. And is that not what it used to be all about? Giving the advantages of being creative to such persons? I hope the authors will be more and more aware of the fact that they have a strong legal position.
Website for D.I.Y music copyright: http://www.villamusicrights.com
How do the artists make money using a CC license if their work is available for free? By performing?
Yes, by performing and selling merchandise.
Most artists don’t make money off of CDs. It’s a well kept secret that bands only get a fraction of the cost of a CD, like 1%, maybe, and even then the labels have back list of items the bands owes them for, so a band could sell millions of albums and still not see a royalty cheque.
If you really want to help a band, buy a ticket, buy a t-shirt, wear the t-shirt.
I saw three great bands perform last night: Crooked Still, Sara Watkins, and Ryan Bingham. (I’d highly recommend that you check them out) I made a point of buying CDs at the show, and as I pointed out to my wife at the time, I do that because I know that they’ll get all the money, instead of some measly percentage (or none).
Are there examples of up and coming artists who have done this successfully? Not established acts like Nine Inch Nails?
Also, how would this work for a writer or say a visual artist?
Cory Doctorow sells books that are also available free via a CC license, but people buy the books anyway. Maybe he’s too famous now to count, but I think he’s always given his stories away but sold the bound versions, so there’s an example of a novelist who managed to make it work.
Unfortunately, I think you also have to be a prominent blogger and really promote your books and engender goodwill and a personal connection with the potential readership. Doctorow feels pretty strongly that if all else were the same and he didn’t CC his stories, he wouldn’t be more successful or rich than he is now, because the main enemy of any writer, just like musician, isn’t being ripped off by filesharers, but being ignored by everybody.
Band Tries to Make It Big Without Going Broke
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6885355
Above is an interview with the Dresden Dolls talking about being a band and making money. CC artist or not, the reality of being a musician is the same.
How an Indie Musician can make $19,000 in 10 hours using Twitter
http://mikeking.berkleemusicblogs.com/2009/06/23/how-an-indie-music…
And another which touches on the same subject.
With music it’s about publicity and exposure, just like selling any other product.
With writers and visual artists it’s, once again, publicity and exposure. Webcomic artists make money off of selling merch, commissions, etc. Jeph Jacques, Randy Milholland, Chris Onstad, Jerry Holkins, and Mike Krahulik, plus others I’m sure, make a living off of their product.
No it’s between 10 and 20 percent.
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/recording-contract2.htm
Is anyone else astounded that over twenty people have already commented on this article, and not one of them has angrily refuted Eugenia’s claims about Gimp vs Photoshop or Windows vs Linux? What has this world come to?
Well, my several-month-old copies of the Gimp still lack some stuff my over-a-decade-old paid copy of Photoshop has.
On the other hand, Firefox left IE in the dust years ago.
Well, Its Eugnina. I already know he positions on these things and have commented on them before. Why kick the same dead horse over and over again? Plus, I’ve learned not to mess with horses left by Greeks.
Literary allusion, FTW!
Well, maybe there are some people like me around, for who…
-Gimp’s UI is just cleaner and more efficient when you’re used to it.
-Gimp does most image editing and drawing jobs in a hassle-free manner.
-Gimp is cheaper, and it runs on Linux. With proper pen tablet support.
But who think that if someone wants to spend hundreds of euros/dollars in photoshop licenses because he’s more used to its interface or some specific feature, it’s perfectly fine. Everyone has a different taste. I can’t understand photoshop users, but I tolerate them
Edited 2010-09-08 10:54 UTC
They are really good and finding good new artists. Its a good starting point for searching for new music that I like. There was, at one point, a comparable site called mp3.com. A place where I could sample a new artist and then buy his album. I haven’t found any place like it after the labels corrupted it with the injection of limp Biskit.
You are correct in your logic, but we differ in tastes. Electronic is not my thing.
I use a combination of things. Pandora.com, Allmusic.com, and Grooveshark.com.
Pandora.com is the closest to mp3.com as I remember it.
Don’t get me wrong, I like them just fine. But a whole new genre, that even non-musicians would recognize as such?
Meanwhile, in MY bedroom …
http://soundcloud.com/just-john-jj/imiopia
http://soundcloud.com/just-john-jj/feevon-b-jaunty
… and a whole lot more …
http://www.soundclick.com/justjohn
(A lot of them do use synths and samplers imitating natural instrument sounds.)
fine music.
but people get their music from itunes or at walmart.
if this music is not where people get their music, does this music exist?
Windows has nothing on Linux when it comes to server-based software.
What software? This type of grandstanding just encourages complacency. MS has a very large cash reserve that they can dump into their server line and the Linux world wants to pretend that it will be 1998 forever.
http://www.binplay.com/2010/09/linux-vs-windows-for-servers-part-1….
As for music I’ve listened to a lot of unsigned metal bands and the vast majority of them are garbage. Part of the purpose of the record company is to seek out bands with potential and then use a team of experts to improve their sound.
I’ve heard some good electronic music that was unsigned but any type of music that involves acoustics is better off being produced with a sound engineer.
Perhaps, Linux doesn’t quite measure up to the corporate standards the music and art industries have promoted within the microsoft and apple empires. So what. I do not work for them. I am free to create whatever I want with Linux and CCL. Is money the only motivation for art? I think what I do is for enjoyment. The rest of you can go get 20th century jobs. D.W. Griffith made an epic movie at the onset of a fledgling motion picture industry start-up. Look where it journeyed. I think this is the embarking of a new future voyage. Cut bait or fish…your choice.
When clicking the ‘read more’ buttom of this article the page stops responding in Chromium…it’s strange I never had such problems.
Maybe it is because of the including clips? Is there something special about them?
Chromium 5.0.375.127 / Linux 2.6.35-ARCH
It’s my some guys in my country local response to Pitchfork that have recently added English branch.
They are covering mainstream, indy and internet based artist without discriminating anybody because of it’s origin.
They have even covered one of the bands you mention already.
http://www.porcys.com/en/Archiwum.aspx
There are really two problems that any copyright revolution has to fight past with regard to music.
1) The “war on piracy” has (deliberately, I believe) confused most consumers into thinking that music is either paid for or pirated. They comprehend no difference between that pirated Weezer, and this CC licenced music.
2) Making it easy to find and enjoy. You addressed this one, but the importance of making CC music available can’t be understated. I hope that eventually (after we defeat obstacle 1) Portals that allow only Libre music may compete directly with the Major labels, which do distribution and exposure very well, as it is the foundation of their business.