Post #186291 by tikibars on Tue, Sep 13, 2005 7:59 AM

Let me digress away from the Hukilau swap rules for a bit and into a general explaination of why things are the way they are, so that some of you may have a more clear understanding of why the music biz is in such a fuss these days.

The difference between 1980s mix tapes and modern music trading is signifigant:

Making a mix tape, you had a 90 minute cassette that had to be copied in real time, relatively expensively, and with a loss of sound quality. So if your buddy or girlfriend wanted a copy of your mix, you had to spend $3 on a cassette, sit there for an hour and a half while it copied, and the copy would have a loss of sound quality. If you wanted to make another copy, it was another investment of 90 minutes, $3, and a loss of quality. And if your friend wanted to make a copy of his copy, the quaity would further deteriorate.

Now, with CD burners as fast as they are, and with perfect bit-for-bit reproduction, and with blank CDs easily well under a buck, we have a new scenario. Now if your buddy or girlfriend wants a copy of your new 80-minute mix CD, you can pop in blank CD, and make a perfect clone of it for under a buck, in under five minutes. If your friend wants to pass the mix on to someone else, he can also make a pefect copy of his copy with no loss of quality in under five minutes for under a buck.

And what is worse is the MP3s, Once those are posted to the internet, thousands of people can have copies of the music with no time or money spent. And those thousands may each share the MP3, and so on. Granted MP3s do have a loss in quality over just cloning a bought CD, but the sound quality of an MP3 at 160 kbps or above is no worse than a cassette, and clearly people are willing to accept this loss of sound quality for the convinience that MP3 provides.

Now, the real crux of the issue is where to draw the line. Is making a mix CD such a bad thing? Probably not. I do it all the time, myself. But I can tell you this: Just yesterday I was on the phone talking to a guy from a band who are playing at Hukilau next month. He told me that the only reason they were able to make it up to Chicago to play Expotica earlier in the summer is because of CD sales at the event. If it wasn't for their CD sales, they would have run out of gas money half ay home.

Here's a real true statistic: 98% of all bands who are signed to a record label (major or indy) are NOT making a living wage from their music. Sure, you have your U2, Rolling Stones, Eminem, Madonna, and Britney. They and their ilk that other 2%. The others all have day jobs, or drop out of the music biz ("break up") in 4 to 7 years... anf get day jobs. So how about all of those indie bands who aren't even signed? There are always a few who do so well with merch and CD sales at their shows that they are making fat bank, but again, they are the vast minority.

So it is definitely NOT OK to deny potential sales from these people. If you want the music, pay the artist. For 80 years, that was a no-brainer, and now all of a sudden people are getting belligerent about the idea that they can't have music for free. Where did this idea come from, so suddenly and so completely?

So do the math: is making a mix CD for your girlfreind or buddy denying someone bread on their table? Probably not, and if anything it will turn someone on to new music that they may go buy. I can't think of anyone who would really object. But there is a line that must be drawn between what is OK, fair use, and what is theft.

OK, back to the copyright issue: Vic, there is no one-stop shop you can go to to look up every song.

Also, there is a tangled web of issues such as who owns the copyright to the actual song (imagine if it was printed on sheet music) and who owns the copyright to the sound recording (imagine the master tapes used to make the LPs or CDs, and the band playing on them). Often, this is two different people: if Throbbing Gristle do a Martin Denny cover version, then TG owns the copyright to the sound recording, and MD (or his heirs.. or his ex-record label...) own the copyright to the song itself.

When trading digital copies of older music, it does get complicated as to what is ethically and legally OK. I am as big a music fan as anyone (that's why I do it for a living, after all), and I love trading music. I may seem to have ranted on and on in this thread (and others) against trading music, but really I am just trying to explain under what circumstances it is accceptible, and under what circustances it is not.

Since the legal web is so tangled, I use the rule of thumb outlined in my previous posting, which is that it is OK to make digital copies of anything that is not offered for sale by a legit record label anywhere in the world. This STILL doesn't mean that the stuff you are trading isn't under copyright. But like I said, the concientious trader must draw a line somewhere, and after giving the matter some thought, that's where my ethical comfort zone is.

A quick internet search of an artist's name will usually let you know if his/her stuff is legitimately available out there.

Man, that was a rant and a half.

Someone hand me a mai tai.