From: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org (good-noise-digest) To: good-noise-digest@smoe.org Subject: good-noise-digest V3 #120 Reply-To: good-noise@smoe.org Sender: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-good-noise-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk good-noise-digest Thursday, November 23 2000 Volume 03 : Number 120 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Napster ["Dan Lins" ] Re: Napster [Greg Steele ] My two cents.. ["Frank R Elia" ] John Gorka fans don't like napster !! ["josanne" ] Re: Response to your two cents.. [SAbrams613@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 08:12:40 -0600 From: "Dan Lins" Subject: Re: Napster I would say it's theft only from those artists who care. Many do. Many others love the fact that people want to disseminate their music, and they view Napster as free advertising. You can't steal what someone freely gives. (This from someone who's never been to Napster.) - --Dan >>> 11/21/00 05:10PM >>> If your description is accurate, I, too, have a huge problem with Napster. Since I am relatively flame-retardant by nature, I will repeat my last highly flammable point on this list once again: This is theft. Barbara ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 10:58:29 -0500 From: Greg Steele Subject: Re: Napster > Seems Napster shouldn't be a problem for anyone. I believe they made a > deal to remain open by paying royalties to record companies, didn't they? > I think someone has Napster confused with MP3.com. From what I understand, MP3.com HAS worked out arrangements with Sony, Universal, BMG, EMI, etc. for paying royalties on their content. I have no idea how that works... also, Dan Lins wrote: > > I would say it's theft only from those artists who care. Many do. Many others love the fact > that people want to disseminate their music, and they view Napster as free advertising. You > > can't steal what someone freely gives. The argument of course is, who has the rights to the music and who's giving it away? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 11:12:48 -0500 From: "Frank R Elia" Subject: My two cents.. My opinion is that John and many other "smaller" artists don't have a "big problem" with Napster and heres why: Most of the artists who "have big problems" with this service are already well known to most of the world and are played on the majority of the popular radio stations heard around the country. These artists have very little to gain from music sharing. But for limited exposure music, like folk and jazz, this sharing can be a great way for a talented starting artist to get their art out to a mass audience. And to tie into a previous thread from a few weeks ago... this is a way for poorer people to access good music. There is no doubt that at $15-$18 a CD, some lower-income people are unable to expose themselves to anything other than the force-fed crap coming out of most radio stations across America (we here in Pittsburgh have a fantastic public station WYEP 91.3FM that is committed to music diversity, and yes, you can hear them on the web at wyep.org) This leaves them "disenfranchised" with the music business. Now it is true that many lower-income people do not currently have access to the internet, but remember that when the telephone came out, most poor people were unable to afford them also. Today, I see poor people talking on the phone at most bus stops around my city. It's just a matter of time. Contrast technology prices in the last 12 years to the cost of CD's in that same time period and I hope you see where I'm going. I have no doubt that more exposure to artists like John Gorka, Dave Wilcox and Dan Bern will only help them over the course of their careers. I don't believe it would ever hurt them. I will eventually hurt us as fans in that the more people who hear John Gorka, the more people that will go to his shows and the larger his venues will get. His shows will lose something for us, but John and his family will ultimately gain. In fact, I would gladly send, directly to John, a donation every year, just like I do to my public radio station mentioned above, for him to continue writing songs. Now John has become, for lack of a better term, my personal consultant and I pay for the writing and the music (John gets ALL the money and sends his songs directly to my home e-mail address) and not the CD (John gets SOME of the money and I have to go find his CD somewhere). Don't buy the spin coming from the record industry(THEFT!!!). The record companies are starting to realize the jig is up and they stand to lose from unleashing the artist from their distribution prison. In summary, sharing music is nothing different that what many of us have done to get our friends into John. We make a tape and force them to listen. They then, predictably, want more and more. They buy CD's, go to shows and request their songs on their local radio stations (more exposure!!!) This isn't theft. It's the American dream. One more note: The question is posed "why are so many people leaving this list". I think it may be due to the "election" discussion from a few weeks ago. Bad thread in my opinion. Most of the respondents were pro-Gore or pro-Nader (but didn't want to "chance-it"???(lovely)). There is no need for divisive talk on this list (but then again, most of the respondents were pro-Gore, aka Mr. Divisive). This list is to bring people together and political discussion never achieves this goal. Maybe the people leaving were in the upper 1%... Best Regards, Frank (who would like to EARN his way to the upper 1% some day) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 22:38:49 +0100 From: "josanne" Subject: John Gorka fans don't like napster !! Greg Steele wrote: >>I think someone has Napster confused with MP3.com. From what I understand, MP3.com HAS worked out arrangements with Sony, Universal, BMG, EMI, etc. for paying royalties on their content. I have no idea how that works...<< My advice last sunday (listen to the similar John Gorka artists on mp3.com like James L. Grant) had nothing to do with napster or mp3 John Gorka files. In fact those unknown similar artists like it that people download there songs. They opened there own site on MP3.com. David Wilcox did the same thing, but you can only listen to 2 songs (and not download the songs). But ofcourse we buy CD's of our favorite artists !! regards "King" Jos ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 13:49:14 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew Bester Subject: Re: My two cents.. Frank, I have to say I disagree with you. I am certainly interested to hear what the likes of JG, Wilcox and others have to say about Napster, but my guess is they oppose it. Napster is simply a way for anyone who wants to make a digital copy of this cd without paying for it. I can't see how that is anything but stealing. While the "make a tape for a friend" analogy rings somewhat true, the difference is scale. When I make a copy of a cd for a friend on a cassette, I am not making a copy for the entire planet. That is what Napster does. If artists (like JG and Wilcox) wanted to allow us to make copies of their songs to copy for free, a website could be set up in a flash for that purpose. They would control dissemination of their own music. Again, the difference is with Napster the artists are not putting their music on the site, fans are. But fans don't hold the rights to disseminate this music. The bottom line is that artists deserve to own their creativity. Napster takes part of that away. A story appeared on NPR recently about the Russian music scene. Musicians there make NO money from their creative expression because copyright laws afford them no protection. There is such rampant piracy in Russia that fans simply make illegal copies of cds and no one actually buys it. They can't afford to create music because they make nothing from it. That is wrong. While that won't happen here, the Napster problem leads us down that road. Thanks for reading... Quoting Frank R Elia : > My opinion is that John and many other "smaller" artists don't have a "big > problem" with Napster and heres why: > > Most of the artists who "have big problems" with this service are already > well known to most of the world and are played on the majority of the > popular radio stations heard around the country. These artists have very > little to gain from music sharing. But for limited exposure music, like > folk and jazz, this sharing can be a great way for a talented starting > artist to get their art out to a mass audience. And to tie into a previous > thread from a few weeks ago... this is a way for poorer people to access > good music. There is no doubt that at $15-$18 a CD, some lower- income > people are unable to expose themselves to anything other than the force-fed > crap coming out of most radio stations across America (we here in > Pittsburgh have a fantastic public station WYEP 91.3FM that is committed to > music diversity, and yes, you can hear them on the web at wyep.org) This > leaves them "disenfranchised" with the music business. Now it is true that > many lower-income people do not currently have access to the internet, but > remember that when the telephone came out, most poor people were unable to > afford them also. Today, I see poor people talking on the phone at most > bus stops around my city. It's just a matter of time. Contrast > technology prices in the last 12 years to the cost of CD's in that same > time period and I hope you see where I'm going. > > I have no doubt that more exposure to artists like John Gorka, Dave Wilcox > and Dan Bern will only help them over the course of their careers. I don't > believe it would ever hurt them. I will eventually hurt us as fans in that > the more people who hear John Gorka, the more people that will go to his > shows and the larger his venues will get. His shows will lose something > for us, but John and his family will ultimately gain. > > In fact, I would gladly send, directly to John, a donation every year, just > like I do to my public radio station mentioned above, for him to continue > writing songs. Now John has become, for lack of a better term, my personal > consultant and I pay for the writing and the music (John gets ALL the money > and sends his songs directly to my home e-mail address) and not the CD > (John gets SOME of the money and I have to go find his CD somewhere). > Don't buy the spin coming from the record industry(THEFT!!!). The record > companies are starting to realize the jig is up and they stand to lose from > unleashing the artist from their distribution prison. > > In summary, sharing music is nothing different that what many of us have > done to get our friends into John. We make a tape and force them to > listen. They then, predictably, want more and more. They buy CD's, go to > shows and request their songs on their local radio stations (more > exposure!!!) This isn't theft. It's the American dream. > > One more note: The question is posed "why are so many people leaving this > list". I think it may be due to the "election" discussion from a few weeks > ago. Bad thread in my opinion. Most of the respondents were pro- Gore or > pro-Nader (but didn't want to "chance-it"???(lovely)). There is no need > for divisive talk on this list (but then again, most of the respondents > were pro-Gore, aka Mr. Divisive). This list is to bring people together > and political discussion never achieves this goal. Maybe the people > leaving were in the upper 1%... > > Best Regards, > Frank (who would like to EARN his way to the upper 1% some day) > - ------------------------------------------------- Created by Zkey.com - http://www.zkey.com Awarded PCMagazine's Editors' Choice ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 21:51:05 EST From: SAbrams613@aol.com Subject: Re: Response to your two cents.. 1) Regardless of where we are in the pro-con Napster discussion, instead of assuming we know what JG thinks about legal or illegal methods of disseminating his music, why don't we simply ASK him? His manager does frequent this list and perhaps he could help us in this regard. 2) An artist 'gives away' his/her product when performing in a free venue, over a radio station (where there is no pay-per-listen), or by donating performances to a percent to charity CD or tape. When we make a tape without that person's permission, we are stealing his/her intellectual and musical property (and cutting into his/her ability to earn a living and feed the family). Using a 'stolen' tape to get more people to attend paid venues is a poor and flimsy excuse for this theft. If the artist wanted that kind of distribution, he/she would make a series of free tapes and distribute them. If realizing the 'American dream' involves losing the ability to control the quality of one's performance and profit from one's talent, it is a very poor dream indeed. 3) If we want to know why people are leaving the board, we should ASK them. Anything else is mind reading. 4) Interesting that a plea to avoid divisive talk on this forum is linked to name-calling one of the candidates 'Mr. Divisive'. How does that statement 'bring people together' in a country so sharply and narrowly divided that a presidential selection hinges on less than a thousand votes in one hotly contested state? Barbara ------------------------------ End of good-noise-digest V3 #120 ********************************