[throwaway13337]

An aspect here is that a lot more people are primarily on social media services like YouTube and twitch. The people they follow cannot play popular music because of DMCA take downs.

The result is that a natural avenue for discovery music is cut off. Consumers will not associate the experience of the thing they're enjoying with the music as has traditionally been the case with TV, movies, and bars. The setting has a lot to do with growing attachment for that band or that song in the first place.

The record companies are shooting themselves in the foot here.

It's maybe a good thing - a new opportunity is open for a platform that allows a more permissive license. Artists that choose such would likely get a lot more exposure.

Maybe the Beatles of the future will finally be creative commons as it should be. Their music is, after all, is bigger than the band. All popular music is a reflection of our collective memory and a common ground to connect with others. After a certain point in popularity, it becomes our collective cultural heritage - no company should own that.

[foepys]

They absolutely can play popular music. They just don't want to pay for it.

All popular YouTubers and streamers are businesses which is a part that is often forgotten. They are all acting like they are friends with their viewers but in reality they are businesses just like a car wash, restaurant, plumber, etc.

[J0_k3r]

Let's say you're a youtuber or streamer who listens to a variety of different music, are you really going to pay to license every one of your favorite songs for business use? No.

Instead they go to No Copyright Sounds or Kevin McLeod and grab their stuff instead because why are you going to sacrifice that money to license the music when you're small and starting out?

[foepys]

When streamers are streaming, they are working. If you want to listen to your favorite music, you can do that in your own private time. In a business context, other rules apply.

> why are you going to sacrifice that money to license the music when you're small and starting out

Does this also apply to utility bills?

Just use non-copyrighted music. If that isn't enough, you need to pay or just live with it.

[sharpneli]

The original post talked about this causing a lack of discovery for the new music. If the streamer doesn't pay and just uses non-copyrighted music no harm done to the streamer. It's still great fun. But the users don't get exposed to potentially interesting music content.

Why should the streamer pay for the privilege of being basically an advertisement platform for a commercial product? And they don't, and thus there is less discovery. Hence what is meant by the music industry shooting itself in the foot.

I personally listen mostly to music I listened as a teenager and early 20's. Sometimes I learn of something new and nice from my friends, but otherwise I find discovering new music quite hard.

A new game comes out: Tons of reviews and letsplays and whatnot. Looks interesting, I'll buy. New music comes out: Its advertised maybe in Spotify but that's it. Making a review or analysis is not possible (without paying extra), so I can't encounter it. And thus I won't listen it.

[intricatedetail]

You are assuming that no copyright content is not interesting. That's often the case, but this is a chance for artists who don't subscribe to the exploitative model offered by most labels. People discover new music just fine, only that it doesn't come from greedy labels.

[J0_k3r]

\>Does this also apply to utility bills?

If people could cut costs by using electricity that isn't from their local state monopoly then definitely.

\>Just use non-copyrighted music. If that isn't enough, you need to pay or just live with it.

The original post is complaining about a lack of discovery, and you don't seem to care about finding any sort of solution to the problem originally posed.

No one's going to pay to advertise your crap, thus no one is going to listen to it.

[dmitriid]

That is true, to. very large extent. However, paying royalties for music is a chore that even big companies struggle with.

Do you know who to pay royalties to for a piece of music if it's broadcast in the US? In Europe? In Japan? It's not uncommon for a piece of music to be co-owned by multiple companies with weird things like "in the US the rights belong to Warner, in Europe it 27.5% Warner, 13% Sony, 1% the original production company that still exists and the rest goes to UMG"

[daniellarusso]

This is wrong.

If I want to DJ a livestream on Youtube, I can only play certain songs, regardless of my willingness to pay for the songs.

Certain music is prohibited from the platform.

It is not a business, I am not trying to sell ads or promote anything.

[maxfurman]

Is your video monetized? Either way, youtube is certainly trying to sell ads on top of it. Adding content to youtube is a for-profit enterprise. Whether any of that profit accrues to the creator is another issue.

[canofbars]

Because they don't have to pay for it. They have plenty of free music available and they aren't losing fans over it.

[ubercow13]

Can they? Is Youtube's system set up to allow that? They'll still get hit by content ID or automated takedown notices from labels or whatever, have to fight each case, and still have the possibility of the strikes causing their channel to close, or the entirety of the income from a video being diverted to a record label.

[mytherin]

The system is not set up for this. You cannot play copyrighted music in a stream or YouTube video without jumping through hundreds of hoops with licensing. Especially if you are listening to a variety of songs (e.g. Spotify or a radio) this is a nightmare.

You are right that many (not all) YouTubers and streamers are businesses, but pinning this on streamers for being cheap/greedy and not wanting to pay ignores the reality of the situation. If this was in any way realistic you would see a certain percentage of streamers pay and legally play popular music. Instead, that percentage is zero.

There is no reasonable path to pay for playing popular music, and that is entirely the fault of the record companies.

[taurath]

And they don’t cause... why would they when they don’t have to?

[pjc50]

One underestimated part of the gig economy is that eventually everyone will be a business, and eventually they will be on the clock all the time. I guess that will be the end of music.

Do Uber drivers have to pay a license to have the radio on in the car?

[rbradford]

> Do Uber drivers have to pay a license to have the radio on in the car?

In the UK, yes, https://pplprs.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/PRS-for-Music-Tariff...

[daniellarusso]

This is definitely becoming a bigger problem.

Mixcloud seems to be the only live video streaming platform that has worked out licensing rights for DJs to livestream without ‘censorship’.

To me, the worst is not even the takedown, it is the partial ‘muting’ of the audio at some random point in the DJ’s set.

And just like most streaming providers, where the license will change on a whim, a video that was not censored, can wind up being censored months or years later, or vice versa, where a DJ set that was blocked, can now be uploaded again.

I have been lurking in reddit on the /DJs and /beatmatch threads, and the topic of how to livestream is very popular.

The current advice for youtube is to make a simple video of all the songs you want to use, upload it as a private video, wait for youtube to flag any ‘bad’ songs, then make your mix off of the allowed songs, then upload or livestream and hope the licensing rights of the music you used is ok with Alphabet.

I am not a FB/Insta user, but the advice for livestreaming DJ sets on those platforms seem to be don’t stream for longer than 45 minutes and don’t allow the livestream to be saved for later, or you could be banned/suspended.

Facebook and Alphabet are the gatekeepers of ‘longform’ pop culture right now.

[rectang]

> no company should own that.

In a world without licensing, the companies who make money off of art are the the ISPs.

[Siira]

ISPs in a proper regulatory environment should have minimal margins.

[vineyardmike]

> a lot more people are primarily on social media services like YouTube and twitch. The people they follow cannot play popular music because of DMCA take downs.

Pretty sure tons of people discover music through Tik Tok

[gnopgnip]

How would artists be compensated if all art was public domain?

[einpoklum]

(Not necessarily in order of importance)

1. Direct voluntary payments by their audience (one-off/recurring).

2. Live shows.

3. Payment by various entities to sing something.

4. Organizations (the state, corporations, philanthropic bodies) which sponsor artists to work on their art without having to also do the work of financing themselves.

Still, it's quite possible that would fund less than are funded today. To that I would say:

1. It would still be a reasonable trade-off.

2. It would level the playing field somewhat between today's popular performers/artists and the vast majority of their peers whom, today, aren't funded.

3. Communities should motivate themselves, and organize themselves, to support local artists on the individual level, and to provide facilities such as music rooms, instruments, recording studios, professional training/lessons - for free or a symbolic fee, to local music artists (and ditto for other kinds of art) - so that at least people don't have to pay to engage in their art.

[intricatedetail]

1. How is that different from begging?

[einpoklum]

You seem to be implying that transfer of funds can only fall into a few categories, e.g. robbery, sale and alms. Well, reality is more complex than that.

If two people are married but have separate bank accounts, and one of them asks their spouse to transfer some funds into his account because some joint expense will come out of it - is he "begging"?

When a member-funded NGO reminds its members to pay their annual dues - is it "begging" them?

You could claim the answer is "Yes", but then - the world has a whole lot of begging going on.

[probably_wrong]

Because begging is asking for help with no expected return - either you give them money, or you don't.

If an artist you like asks you for money, it is implied that this money will go towards funding their next project. It is more of an investment.

Patrons of the arts have existed for a long time. Donating to your artist is just the distributed version of that.

[strogonoff]

Just earlier this month I discovered some stunning new music. I paid its producer $10 for the album, $9 (minimum price) to gift it to a friend, and $9 to gift it to another friend. That day the artist earned $28, minus Bandcamp’s cut, from me alone.

Even though that musician enables free listening via Bandcamp, he does not distribute his work under Creative Commons or a similar license, which radically reduces the chance of lucky accidents where people like me stumble across his music.

I believe having more music distributed under CC or a similar license would immensely benefit musicians themselves, other content creators such as YouTube vloggers and Twitch streamers, and the end listener—everyone wins, except maybe for major labels and distributors.

(Note that CC license is different from public domain: the former mandates attribution, the latter doesn’t.)

[foepys]

You should read this: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-worlds-email-encrypti...

The person maintaining GnuPG went nearly broke because nobody donated to this widely used project. Only because corporations stepped up, GnuPG didn't go unmaintained.

This is a constant issue and hardly anybody can survive on private donations alone. Government grants and corporate donations keep the lights on.

[strogonoff]

If that was seriously intended as an analogy, it is at best comparing apples to apple tree fertilizer.

One can be appreciated by anyone for its own sake, answering fundamental human needs; the other can only be used by certain qualified technicians.

100% of people who heard my song in background of John Streamer’s Minecraft speedrun are capable of enjoying music for its own sake. (In fact, they may be more likely to listen to my song again and again than rewatch his speedrun. I have gained up to as many new listeners as John has had viewers.)

0% of people who used the app Kyle McDeveloper built on top of my web framework are capable of enjoying a web framework for its own sake. (In fact, 0% of humans are, and only a rounding error would know what it even is. I have not gained anything, so if Kyle is profiting off this I’d rather prefer if he sponsored me on GitHub.)

[foepys]

> 100% of people who heard my song in background of John Streamer’s Minecraft speedrun are capable of enjoying music for its own sake.

Why doesn't the streamer use their marketing power to promote independent musicians that don't have big record label deals then? That would be even better because successful independent musicians weaken the music industry and could lead to more competition.

[strogonoff]

From my understanding (not a vlogger, not a streamer), it may be safe to buy music from content platforms[0] but generally music is tricky business: no matter what you use, you are risking some YouTube music ID bug or frivolous DMCA takedown shutting down your channel at any moment.

Even if you have gotten a green light from the original musician, go prove this to a giant corporation that will never have a human representative speak to you. (Stories about people publishing their own music on YouTube only to get it taken down due to a false positive were posted even on HN, I believe.)

Thus, creators seem to use either 1) no music at all, 2) their own music, or 3) generic-sounding music from some royalty-free content platform.

I am wondering whether Bandcamp will finally do the next logical thing and streamline the process of licensing music for video creators directly from musicians (those who opted in).

[0] For obvious reasons, few good musicians are willing to publish music on those royalty-free commoditized music farms.

[Multiplayer]

Link please?

I think curation of music is a large part of the ultimate answer to recreating the relationship we used to have with music. If you think it's "stunning" I want to hear it!

[strogonoff]

Glad you asked!

https://robertrich.bandcamp.com/album/neurogenesis

Slow abstract soundscaping like this would not generally be my kind of jam, but my ear welcomes the lack of typical equal temperament inharmonies. I reckon this album is among the more accessible examples of just intonation and microtonality (title track puts JI on show especially).

I wouldn’t classify Robert Rich as someone who desperately needed my financial support, but I really liked the music and know a couple of people who could possibly appreciate it.