ASCAP declares war on Free Culture

[uncloned]

I even go to CD shops and get told that certain discs I'm looking for won't be imported due to limited demand.

True CD shops still exist, and Itune and there are people that pay.


However I believe that people largely don't appreciate music as much as previous generations did. Live shows are still ever popular, but you can't copy those digitally. Yet...

I'm going to investigate more into it as I said earlier, but so far my experience has proved unfortunate.

Well, CDs *should* go away. While I miss the big vinyl album covers mp3's are *so* much more convenient.

It is possible that people don't appreciate music as much. Or its possible the music the RIAA members put out is, in general, unmemorable and meaningless. I mean ask yourself why do today's kids know so much of the music of my youth in the 70;s and even 60's? Its not because that music is worse than today's music....

My daughter *loves* music - but mostly for the lyrics and the independent artists she listens to have tapped into that. Of the commercial "acts" she pays attention to it is not at all for the music. Its for the glitz like Lady Gaga videos. The RIAA membership have made music more about sex and theater of the absurd than music. It no longer *has* meaning - so why are you surprised no one likes it as much?

I am hoping some young groups goes totally viral on the internet ala Beatles famous and tells the record companies to go to hell.

[Paul Legovitch]

The RIAA membership have made music more about sex and theater of the absurd than music

Recent Guardian article on this topic (Lady Gaga and the New World Order) :evil:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/01/lady-gaga-vigilant-citizen-illuminati
quoting this blog article http://vigilantcitizen.com/?p=3979

[uncloned]

I will agree she's a puppet.

no doubt about that.

I think though much more likely a puppet for whatever gets her more money and fame.

I sometimes wonder if it really is the drag it seems to me to be when all is left of your career is singing the few hits you sang when you were 20-ish for the 9 billionth time on a Los Vegas stage in your 60's.

That is to me the sum of pop music for the artist.

[KrazyKatz]

Well, CDs *should* go away. While I miss the big vinyl album covers mp3's are *so* much more convenient.

I far prefer having the physical object. It's just more personal and real. Sort of like the difference between receiving an email and a letter from a friend.
Ridiculous the speed that times are moving that I could be considered old fashioned for this.

The other aspect though and this also touches on appreciation, is mp3 quality doesn't cut it for me.
My qualm with CDs are that they are only 16bit and a I believe the commercial standard should be 24bit.

[Saga Musix]

The other aspect though and this also touches on appreciation, is mp3 quality doesn't cut it for me.
My qualm with CDs are that they are only 16bit and a I believe the commercial standard should be 24bit.

Do you claim that you would be able hear the difference between a 24-bit "CD" and a 16-bit CD?

[Paul Legovitch]

Well, CDs *should* go away. While I miss the big vinyl album covers mp3's are *so* much more convenient.

I far prefer having the physical object.

I agree with you, it's a bit like saying books shoud go since you can read their electronic versions.
Also mp3 is not a HiFi format, I would certainly never buy mp3 files, for me it would be like giving money for a loose cassette tape copy.
Back in 1999-2000 the Super Audio CD looked like the ultimate HiFi enthusiast's dream, but as very few records were produced, I never bought the SACD player.
Then the virtual world got in the way I guess, and like you I've become old fashioned in the blink of an eye.

[KrazyKatz]

Do you claim that you would be able hear the difference between a 24-bit "CD" and a 16-bit CD?

Undoubtedly Jojo. When mastering a song and performing the final dither to 16bit, it always sounds somewhat "thinner".

[Saga Musix]

Do you claim that you would be able hear the difference between a 24-bit "CD" and a 16-bit CD?

Undoubtedly Jojo. When mastering a song and performing the final dither to 16bit, it always sounds somewhat "thinner".

Dithering has to be performed in any case, and there are smart ways and not-so-smart ways to do it. And yes, I wholeheartedly doubt that you would pass an ABX test on this issue.

[KrazyKatz]

There is no longer any contest on the 16bit vs 24bit argument. Many engineers hear the difference. Doubt all you want. I've already had my fun blind testing the bypass button.

44100 vs 96000 is still up for debate though.

Also if you mix at 24bits and keep it at 24bits you wouldn't necessarily need to add dithering. Unless you have processing at a higher rate in the mix.

I would be interested in knowing more about the 'smart' vs 'not so smart' ways of dithering. I personally just use my ears.

Thread is derailed. Want to start a new one?

[Saga Musix]

I would be interested in knowing more about the 'smart' vs 'not so smart' ways of dithering. I personally just use my ears.

You use your ears to dither PCM data? :lol:
Of course the result of dithering heavily depends on the algorithm used, just have a look here. The chapter about image dithering probably gives some better "visual" examples.

44100 vs 96000 is still up for debate though.

88.2KHz or 96KHz preserves harmonics better, often improving the upper end of the audio spectrum, especially during production. I noticed that clearly when playing around with a very high square sound, there was a lot of aliasing noise at 44KHz playback, but it sounded a lot better at 96KHz.
It is proven that the human ears (and eyes) focus on frequency rather than amplitude, and thus the missing harmonics do make a difference (of course not always, but that's the same as with 16/24bit).
24/32bit is nice to have during production (MPT uses 32bit mixing precision), but on a final mix, 16bit vs 24bit does not make much of a difference, unless you need maximum headroom for a piece with extreme dynamics. With 16bit, you get about -96dB headroom - my 24-bit soundcard has a noise level of about -100dB when recording, so I only use a few dB when recording at 16bit, but I cannot make much use of the theoretically improved headroom with 24bit recording.

Thread is derailed. Want to start a new one?

I do not need to debate about this, but if you really want to, go a head. I have made up my opinion.

[g]

Then why are they trying to block (truly) free (and independent) music /art / software ? Why are they saying EFF is eroding their "profits" oops - I mean "rights"

i.e. the article that starts this thread?

They fear change and the future? Who the hell know what they want, their logic doesn't make any sense at all.

Personally I think there will always be money to make in making things people like; they don't need to worry - they just need to adapt.

[uncloned]

Personally I think there will always be money to make in making things people like; they don't need to worry - they just need to adapt.

I agree 100%

[Louigi Verona]

KrazyKatz: People don't value music like they used to. Certainly not like you and me.

I don't get this. I put out serious arguments, some in-depths analysis and you are telling me that because people don't pay for music that means they don't value music?

I hope you were joking. Really. Otherwise I don't think any fruitful discussion is possible here.

[residentgrey]

There are plenty of bands that I downloaded that I later bought physical albums of when I actually had the money. I usually don't have it though. Been next to broke my entire life.

[psishock]

Been next to broke my entire life.

+1...

To the topic:
i've read up most of the linked articles and comments over time, my opinion is, that the old record selling system may be falling (and that is why the labels are afraid), but the online one is actually rising. More and more people are buying from various stores, because the system is easy to handle and finally accessible worldwide.

Perhaps one day, we could fully bypass the labels, and everybody could sell their music from larger, collector webshops, or directly from their websites. We need to have focused search engines for this case, the present ones are not really handy. Maybe a lucky company will pick this case up in the future, im not sure, but if the users would search for their favored genres with a global service, and would have all the related artists available on the net to listen and check afterward, that would be totally cool for everyone. We could definitely save unnecessary money from unnecessary pockets, it would be a more direct and cleaner way.

...
maybe the mp3 quality isnt enough for some people, but i am sure that for most of the people even the poorer quality stuff is more than enough. They are using cheap home stereo and pocket players, or they cannot really tell the difference anyway... or dont even care at all. The beauty of the digital distribution makes available any type of format to release, so if someone would need wav or flac formats, that could be arranged too. They are definitely a lot more cost and space (and eco) effective than constructing and shipping the physical formats.

Someone still rather likes to hold a physical copy of the material? No problem, just need to buy an empty media and write it out, on any desired quality rate. The cost of this will be surely much less, than buying the CD/DVD from a label, with shipment, storing and additional unnecessary costs.
...
Some people will never pay for music, some will do sometimes, others will do most of the time. I think, that its up to the individual to decide, not the artist (we can think this way, because easy copying technology enables us, not to loose any physical unit or any extra cash, when people do that). If enough people will find the artist worthwhile, they will surely support him, so he/she can continue to make (very nice) living. This way the "piracy", "stealing" question question could be solved too, since everyone could freely copy music without worrying about copyright trouble, but a natural monetary support should be considered from his/hers case, if their artist are favored. Since lesser pockets are need to be filled on the way till it reaches the artist, considerably much lesser amount of gathered money will be sufficient to balance up his living needs.

This can really work with art works like music, because they are not like big software product from companies, where you must consider the continuous support, patches, the high cost of the development, the payments to the many number of employees, and possible the limited interest. You can really just throw out your music and tell people to do whatever they want with it, without worrying much, and expect to have enough support to balance you out, because the whole procedure its considerably fairly low cost, also good music can be expected to have higher interest from good amount of people.

Server costs can be cut down to minimal also with p2p distribution, and with letting people to do the file multiplications on their own chosen way.

One of the biggest problem is (between the additional ones), that with the present system some artist get too much attention because of the hype and constant media exposure, and huge amount of them arent getting any. With an unbiased global search service, the attention could be more distributed.

So am i saying with this that some people should not pay for music and still get it for free, while others are paying? Definitely yes. I think, we should not exclude people who cannot afford to do so, technology enables us to let this, without any losses. This is actually happening right at this moment also, they are finding their way to get it, but its considered "illegal". And in the other hand, we can certainly expect to have fair amount of support when people can afford it. It can be considered as a two way trust-deal with the listener and the artist, because in theory, the listener demands the good artist to make more good stuffs, and the artist demands, at least sufficient amount of support to continue with his work.

Reducing every given expense as much as possible, and avoiding unnecessary pockets is a win-win situation for both artist (much cheaper distribution) and listener (much cheaper prices).