What’s your band called? Where can I get your music? Hook me up with a song or two and I’ll give you a little free advertising on the blog!

You’re right that I’ve only addressed artists who compose and perform themselves. There are, no doubt, countless exceptions to this example. In the end they’re pretty much all commercialised via the same avenues, I imagine, and are sold in pretty much the same stores. I don’t think it matters much to the merchandisers how their product comes through the door – they just want to be the sole distributors of said product. Look at the recent debacle with Prince giving his album away for free in England, and the furious backlash of the record stores who felt he’d betrayed them. Surely Prince isn’t a one man band. Why, Prince doesn’t even call himself that anymore due to his protest of the music industry.

But I digress. Your point is that I am pigeonholing my definition of a musician. However, my point is that the music industry has pigeonholed its definition of a consumer. Humanity is now forever enabled with the tools to distribute bits to each other, and it is a trivial task to convert music into bits. Computers don’t know who wrote a song, how many people collaborated, whether names go uncredited, or even whether a file is music at all. It’s just bits, and nothing will ever stifle the transmission of bits. The music industry as we know it is over.

What does this mean for musicians, songwriters, producers, audio technicians, and the like? Maybe it means it’s time for a new beginning. Maybe it means it’s time for a new job. Maybe professional musicians will have to work Speed Stick and Diet Pepsi into their lyrics. Maybe once peer-to-peer music trading becomes more accepted we will see online communities where people can give their music to the public who in turn will vote today for tomorrow’s superstars. Maybe music will become completely unprofitable and only hobbyists will create it.

My beef with the industry is that they’re trying to stifle communications innovation just to cling to the old ways. That’s like China banning aeroplanes to ensure the Great Wall’s effectiveness. Forward ever, backward never.

The bottom has fallen out of the established marketplace and it’s time to redefine it somehow. Trailblazers like DJ Amber pave the way for future success, though her methods, and my own as a songwriter and producer, are certainly not the only option.

Thanks for writing, Larry.

As well, I feel it should be the creators’ decision if they want their music picked up for free. Yes it benefits them some times. But sometimes it does, like when people download their music and paly it and then send on copies to their friends. How does the profesional artist eke out a living.

Your comment about the industry flouring only because it controlled recording or replication is all off base for years and now cheap recording is everything. Not true. It’s been cheap to record for decades. In fact, the ’60s were the era of lo-fi garage rock as were the ’70s. The labels flourished because they had control of distribution and sales.They still do.

Just because a band can move itself around the Internet is a missed blessing. It competes now with zillions of others trying to do the same thing.

You still have to have some sizzle in the marketplace. In cyberspace, that’s tough to do.

Larry LeBlanc

I’m not about to go on a tirade about copyright, though. I publish in plaintext which is the most open format there is. I appreciate that the commenter above credits me with the content and links to my site and that’s all I ask of anyone wishing to republish my material.

Feel free to use my works however you wish. The internet is for sharing.