[shoham]

Yeah, as an independent, 'starving' artist myself, I take exception to all this happy talk about making information free. It's already hard enough to make a living off of music, or any art, and I'm no fan of the monopolies, but it's incredibly obnoxious when I hear all this stuff about just give all of your work away for free with no path to eventual prosperity, and how "It's the producers problem, why don't they make a new business model". As for the monopolies, that's what they've done with litigation and IP protection measures, albeit more and more draconian ones...

[angersock]

So, you do realize that the information is free to duplicate, right? And that there is no way of ensuring you get paid for rent on a resource you can't control the duplication of--at least without causing massive headaches for everyone else?

Dude, sell tickets to shows, sell merch at shows, don't perform unless paid before hand.

If all else fails, consider that maybe you don't have a product worth buying, and then improve or leave.

[logic]

> If all else fails, consider that maybe you don't have a product worth buying, and then improve or leave.

This point bears repeating. As a musician, like it or not, you're an entrepreneur. You can outsource your marketing and collections to a third party in exchange for a percentage of profit (or even in exchange for an advance on anticipated profits), but it doesn't make you any less of a businessperson.

Everyone reading Hacker News knows the statistics when it comes to startup success. Why would the music industry (or any artistic endeavor) be any different in this regard?

Make something people want, at a price they're willing to pay.

[shoham]

"Everyone reading Hacker News knows the statistics when it comes to startup success. Why would the music industry (or any artistic endeavor) be any different in this regard?"

This is the failed model that leads to the kind of monopolies all too well known to artists like myself.. It's sure not the American model for entrepreneurship. This hits "business" business model is for the fucking birds, and this line "If all else fails, consider that maybe you don't have a product worth buying, and then improve or leave." is bullshit. Ask Mozart, Van Gogh, Stephen Foster and lots of other great artists who died penniless.

"As a musician, like it or not, you're an entrepreneur"

Sorry, I know this and I like it. And as an entrepreneur, what I hate about about the hits business model that started in music, and is making its rounds to software is that it's not a very healthy one -- it's a winner take all, zero sum game, ans it's naive to not understand that most successful business models cannot run this way. Yesterday music, today movies, tomorrow software.

TL;DR thank you so much for the lecture, hacker bro. When it comes to: "Make something people want, at a price they're willing to pay."

[route66]

/rant starts > Why would the music industry (or any artistic endeavor) be any different in this regard?

"why would" indicates you did not think about it but you just want to fit the arguments to your position. Answer is: why should it? Like everyone here on HN you should know that softwareland is not only filled with startups but that there are infinitely more ways to run a software company. Same with music. It's not about being Michael Jackson or starving poor.

I have seen all kind of spoiled brat arguments of entitled hard drive owners seen coming along here and they are in the end just that: sense of entitlement and "i want" spelled out in different forms.

Foremost I read it from the snarky tone with which BS "tips" are given like "sell you underwear", "if people don't pay just f* off" ... I was even reading from people who think that artists principally have no rights on their creations, others were going pseudo philosophical with "the bits of my hard drive are free", (Oh yes physical property is still sacred, can someone tell me why?).

And then to witness the shit storm breaking loose if a company uses designs of 37 signal. Then the wannabe startups come out of their holes, they already see their ios-apps floating around in freedom and not generating money anymore.

Here it is: If a content creator creates something it's at his will to decide what happens to it, if it's free, it's free. If he wants to be attributed or paid, then it be so. All else is not at your discretion. Running away with a 1TB hard drive full of downloaded content and then screaming "it's good for your resume" is just an insult. Not more.

This has got nothing to do with entrepreneurship. Apparently music motivates people to buy gadgets for several 100 bucks to have it 24/7, so let them take the free stuff, let them pay for the stuff with a price tag.

To paraphrase: consider it a product worth buying and pay or just leave.

As an aside: I do not make and do not intend to make money from music anymore and always have profited from very liberal use of copyright laws. But when I played copyrighted material I always made note of it and paid dues where applicable. Why is this such a difficult concept for the elite hanging out here? And why this kind of annoyed lecturing?

/rant ends.

[shoham]

You're an ass. No, it's not FREE to duplicate. It costs money to duplicate and distribute licensed copies of other people's work. And it's not information, it's art. The massive headache you feel is called honor. You're from a culture that now calls stealing liberty. Brave new world, indeed.

Dude, sell tickets to shows, sell merch at shows, don't perform unless paid before hand.

You're an ass.

If all else fails, consider that maybe you don't have a product worth buying, and then improve or leave.

You're an ass.

[angersock]

"No, it's not FREE to duplicate."

cp ShohamsGreatestFlames.txt ShohamsGreatestFlames2.txt

Man, that was really really cheap. Free even.

"It costs money to duplicate and distribute licensed copies of other people's work."

Notice that I didn't say anything about licensed copies of other people's work. Duplication--the raw act as shown above--of digital data is effectively free.

Your profits derive from your ability to control the scarcity of your product, right? If a publisher licensed your music and stood next to you at your shows handing out your album for free, you'd be boned, right?

The fact here is that these people can and will make duplicates of your work, and there is nothing you can do to stop them. It's not costing them enough not to, and anything you do to increase that cost--pushing for rediculous prison terms, making blank CDs have a big tax, forcing ISPs to limit service, etc.--hurts society far more than your loss hurts you.

"And it's not information, it's art."

To my capture card in the studio, to my sound board mixing analog signals, to my microphone receiving vibrations in the air, reading a phonebook and playing a song are functionally equivalent. To the hard disk, the bytes look the same. Metadata about "art" or "not art" is lost in the medium.

There may be a great philosophical difference between art and information, there may be a moral difference about how one ought be treated as opposed to the other--but there is no practical difference, and getting paid is about getting practical.

[figglesonrails]

If all else fails, consider that maybe you don't have a product worth buying, and then improve or leave.

I think you shouldn't write this off as "you're an ass". It's rough to hear "you likely won't get full payment for the product itself because it can be pirated", but that is the curse of massive amounts of processing power, digital information, and storage space. It doesn't mean you can't be successful, it just means that traditional cash cows such as prints/CD sales are harder get. You used to be able to record a song once, and sell that song indefinitely. Milk the cash cow. Now, in a world where you could potentially (but not likely) make zero due to piracy, you can't rest on your laurels with an awesome work. It's strange, and like I said in a different post, not unlike software, but in the end, you can fight the whole internet and increasing technology or adapt (or die).