Author: Trichordist Editor

Trichordist Editor

Amanda Palmer: Spotify and iTunes “Aren’t Putting Any Money Back Into Content Creation” | DMN

We’ll be running more of the artist feedback and commentary from last week’s Virgin Disrupters roundtable. Here’s Amanda Palmer,

“Can I speak up here? I’d like to just add to what Zoe [Keating] was saying. There’s also – the other kind of general problem that I think we’re seeing that doesn’t really get addressed very much because it’s so big and possibly un-fixable is that as bad and clunky as the major label system was, you still had a constant influx of capital back from those giant, sometimes soul-sucking systems, back into content creation.

And one weird thing is that iTunes, Apple, Spotify, Google, whatever, all of the people who are profiting – [and] YouTube – who are profiting off the artists from the small level to the huge levels aren’t really feeding very much back into the creation of new content.

READ THE FULL STORY AT DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/10/29/palmeritunesspotify

by Trichordist Editor

T Bone Burnett vs. Silicon Valley: ‘We Should Go Up There With Pitchforks and Torches’ | THR

The entire infrastructure that supported the world of music for a century has been dismantled, and in its place we’ve got these little things, these little handheld devices. The worldwide web was supposed to give everybody access and democratize everything. It was supposed to create a level field and increase the middle class and everybody had more access and more information. But now anybody can say anything and nobody cares. This is the problem of ubiquitous data.

And what’s happened in reality is that the power’s been consolidated in very, very few companies, and the middle class of musicians really has just been wiped out. I mean, the Internet has been an honest-to-God con.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/t-bone-burnett-silicon-valley-652114

by Trichordist Editor

Philip Pullman: illegal downloading is ‘moral squalor’ | The Guardian UK

Bestselling author says web piracy is akin to ‘reaching into someone’s pocket and taking their wallet’

Illegal downloading is a kind of “moral squalor” and theft as much as reaching in to someone’s pocket and stealing their wallet is theft, the author Philip Pullman will say this week.

In an article for Index on Censorship, Pullman, who is president of the Society of Authors, makes a robust defence of copyright laws. He is withering about internet users who think it is OK to download music or books without paying for them.

“The technical brilliance is so dazzling that people can’t see the moral squalor of what they’re doing,” he writes. “It is outrageous that anyone can steal an artist’s work and get away with it. It is theft, as surely as reaching into someone’s pocket and taking their wallet is theft.”

His article comes after music industry leaders met David Cameron in Downing Street last Thursday where the issue of web piracy was discussed.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/15/philip-pullman-illegal-downloading-theft

by Trichordist Editor

Real Censorship | nycRUEN

During the protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), critics of the legislation portrayed its process of identifying foreign black market domains and then blocking them from gaining easy profits from, and access to, the US online audience, as “censorship” — full stop.

…

It bothers me that representatives from Google or the EFF, Reddit, etc. are so quick to lump in the attempt to protect artists rights with the political censorship of China or Iran. It is entitlement of the privileged at its worst and demonstrates to me how desperate some people are to excuse freeloading by any means necessary. But, the wonders of technology simply do not excuse clear cases of exploitation.

READ THE FULL POST AT nycRUEN:
http://nycruen.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/real-censorship/

by Trichordist Editor

YouTube’s Copyright Problem | Plagiarism Today

Bottom Line

If YouTube is going to be more than a destination for watching content and a key part of where producers and others go to post their content, it needs to solve its copyright problem, meaning that it is both a place original expression can thrive and a place pirated and infringing content is kept at bay.

While ContentID and YouTube’s rules have done a decent job in the majority of cases, it doesn’t really feel as if YouTube is building on stable ground in either direction.

YouTube has to do more to both protect fair use and legitimate commentary/criticism while doing more to prevent illegal material from taking home on the service. Those two ideas are not in opposition to one another, though many would let you believe they are.

READ THE FULL STORY AT PLAGIARISM TODAY:
http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/10/23/youtubes-copyright-problem/

by Trichordist Editor

Help for New Musicians Chasing Cash | BBC UK

With digital downloads, falling album sales and rampant piracy, what’s it like trying to establish yourself as a new performer in today’s troubled music industry?

Well, in the words of one UK music business professional: “It’s like trying to create a hurricane by running around a field in circles.”

Artists can no longer depend on labels to finance their projects and invest in building their careers. Long demonized, it appears the true value of investment capital, expertise and contracts are coming into focus for today’s new artists.

In her guide – entitled Easy Money? – Ms Harris identifies six main sources of money for music projects:

  • grants
  • friends and family
  • crowdfunding
  • sponsorship
  • debt
  • investment

She says that during her 15 years in the music industry, it has “moved from an internal funding model to having to go to external sources” for cash to kick-start projects.

Normally, she says, musicians are looking for about £5,000 to £10,000 to fund a specific project, such as a record or live appearances.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE AT THE BBC UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24249918

by Trichordist Editor

Slaves of the Internet, Unite! | The New York Times

A familiar figure in one’s 20s is the club owner or event promoter who explains to your band that they won’t be paying you in money, man, because you’re getting paid in the far more valuable currency of exposure. This same figure reappears over the years, like the devil, in different guises — with shorter hair, a better suit — as the editor of a Web site or magazine, dismissing the issue of payment as an irrelevant quibble and impressing upon you how many hits they get per day, how many eyeballs, what great exposure it’ll offer. “Artist Dies of Exposure” goes the rueful joke.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE NEW YORK TIMES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/opinion/sunday/slaves-of-the-internet-unite.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

by Trichordist Editor

Swedish Artists Are Now Threatening Legal Action Over Streaming Royalties… | DMN

The origin of the outrage is telling: Sweden is widely regarded as a model country for streaming and access, thanks to massive adoption and recovering recording revenues. The threatened suits suggest that not everyone is celebrating or, more importantly, enjoying the early spoils.

Regardless of the locale, the issue comes ahead of very difficult juncture for Spotify. Mega-artists like Thom Yorke continue to raise uncomfortable questions about paltry payouts, but more perilous questions are dangling on the financial side. Recent financial figures show an unsustainable level of cash burn at Spotify, and potentially serious problems attracting more capital as a result. And after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars, Spotify is getting dangerously close to depleting its funding tranche.

READ THE FULL STORY AT DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/10/25/swedishartists

by Trichordist Editor

YouTube Awards Tarnished by YouTube Hate Videos and Jihadi Recruitment

YouTube, Just Like Television? What network broadcasts hate and jihadi recruitment programing?

Music Technology Policy

Google has a lot of excuses for why they profit from piracy, but what is inexcusable is how YouTube profits from hate videos and war porn.  It is difficult to understand how Lady Gaga and other artists slated to perform on the “YouTube Music Awards” would be able to turn a blind eye to this evil, no matter the fee and no matter how much “promotion” a media giant like Google can bring to bear.

The Problem from Hell is Easily Solved

johnny rebel youtube

What is difficult to understand about YouTube’s hate problem is how Google could just ignore it–particularly when these videos no doubt violate some policy that Google pays lip service to.  Fortunately, the Anti-Defamation League has compiled a list that Google could easily use to enforce violations of their dormant terms of service when it comes to hate speech.

I tried YouTube searches by picking a few names from…

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by Trichordist Editor

@natgeo and @geico sponsor beheading videos on YouTube…yes, real ones

Just Like Television?

Music Technology Policy

beheading

[Editor Charlie sez: Here’s a recent “content warning” video embedded from YouTube:

So YouTube makes it look like they are screening violent videos, but all they are really doing is grabbing users email addresses to sell them other stuff and preserving Google’s monopoly over video traffic by allowing grotesque videos to drive traffic to YouTube through referring sites.

 

YouTube–the #1 music destination online–is also the home of all sorts of grotesque videos, monetized by YouTube and Google.  Try searching YouTube for “beheading” and you’ll get the idea.  544,000 search results all available for streaming directly into your home, right now, all over Internet television.

Not only is YouTube available at home, but it’s also linked to Google’s education apps, government apps, and by the Android.  And these are not just an odd video here and there, these videos account for millions of views.

Some of the beheading videos…

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by Trichordist Editor