Why I download music
Jan. 18th, 2006 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fingertroubleOK here's a confession. I download music
Shock horror!
Although I'll let you work out whether I download legally or no, here's one case why either way, record shops are losing the battle.
I spent most of today because I wasn't working trying to find records by Harry Partch - someone talked about in Songs in the Key of Z by Irwin Chusid that I'm reading. In fact he says there are 'loads of CDs' out there by Partch.
Where exactly?
It's a familiar story, and one I used to repeat regularly when I used to trawl for records (well trawl as in current Cod levels, ie. one lonely fish somewhere out there...) -
1) Goto big megastore. Try and find it on shelves. Either not in the right category or not there. Goto information desk, who tell me they had it on order in 1979 and not since and they can 'order' it for me. This is not helpful since even Amazon or P2P does not take 2-3+ weeks like they do, and still not have it since 'their distributors don't have it/it was eaten by the dog', yada yada yada...
2) After trying a few big megastore type places in one of the World's biggest cities and capital of culture and still finding them totally blank and unknowing; goto small hip record store. Small hip record store seemingly has moved into new premises and rather than getting more eclectic stock or different categories seems to have inherited stock from previous store and just is more of the same, showing wannabe megastore tendencies but surviving by being slightly less terrible that them. They don't even have the category, let alone the artist. Try a few other places in Soho, still no luck.
3) Give up and finally order online if it's available (and wait days for it not to arrive, or in the case of Play.com not at all, cos they cancel your order because they felt like it) or if you're in a hurry, download it. Again if it's shared...
Thing is, with iTunes et al the BPI and the music authorities seems to think the whole 'downloading illegal music' issue is settled. Well when the online downloadable record stores have more choice and more than offline stores then and ONLY then is the matter settled. A lot of people downloading P2P or torrent are actually music geeks and audiophiles getting not the tunes by Robbie or Madonna but the out of print records from 1970 and the promo 12" mixes that unless you were like God (or shagging their PR manager) never were available anyway, and certainly not anymore.
iTunes et al just pump out more of the same - the record shops were depressing as I went through them going 'shit...shit...crap...shit...more shit...' as universally the records they stock are unimaginatively commercial or old. I strangely see no difference online. The key feature of Audiogalaxy was that it's system valued rarity - you'd get a better download rank or speed if you were sharing files it didn't have, rather than files it did where it would go 'no thanks'.
Shame the online and offline record stores don't have the same idea about rarity - there are probably 10's of 1,000s of albums out there that are deleted that now could be shared online. I'm not seeing a sudden resurgence in rare band sor tracks hitting those download charts tho; just the same old shit.
And I didn't find any of the Partch records I wanted, just some newer Kronos CDs and a few later 'interpretations'. Really if finding a record is made SO hard, it should be legal to download the fucker, don't you think?
I've often thought that deleted records should go into the public domain quickly, encouraging the record labels to either as the americans say so wonderfully 'shit or get off the pot' and release old records or let them fall out of copyright so someone else can. It seems odd that labels can sit on an album for 50 years - I've known artists personally who've had that happen, it seems so wrong.
Shock horror!
Although I'll let you work out whether I download legally or no, here's one case why either way, record shops are losing the battle.
I spent most of today because I wasn't working trying to find records by Harry Partch - someone talked about in Songs in the Key of Z by Irwin Chusid that I'm reading. In fact he says there are 'loads of CDs' out there by Partch.
Where exactly?
It's a familiar story, and one I used to repeat regularly when I used to trawl for records (well trawl as in current Cod levels, ie. one lonely fish somewhere out there...) -
1) Goto big megastore. Try and find it on shelves. Either not in the right category or not there. Goto information desk, who tell me they had it on order in 1979 and not since and they can 'order' it for me. This is not helpful since even Amazon or P2P does not take 2-3+ weeks like they do, and still not have it since 'their distributors don't have it/it was eaten by the dog', yada yada yada...
2) After trying a few big megastore type places in one of the World's biggest cities and capital of culture and still finding them totally blank and unknowing; goto small hip record store. Small hip record store seemingly has moved into new premises and rather than getting more eclectic stock or different categories seems to have inherited stock from previous store and just is more of the same, showing wannabe megastore tendencies but surviving by being slightly less terrible that them. They don't even have the category, let alone the artist. Try a few other places in Soho, still no luck.
3) Give up and finally order online if it's available (and wait days for it not to arrive, or in the case of Play.com not at all, cos they cancel your order because they felt like it) or if you're in a hurry, download it. Again if it's shared...
Thing is, with iTunes et al the BPI and the music authorities seems to think the whole 'downloading illegal music' issue is settled. Well when the online downloadable record stores have more choice and more than offline stores then and ONLY then is the matter settled. A lot of people downloading P2P or torrent are actually music geeks and audiophiles getting not the tunes by Robbie or Madonna but the out of print records from 1970 and the promo 12" mixes that unless you were like God (or shagging their PR manager) never were available anyway, and certainly not anymore.
iTunes et al just pump out more of the same - the record shops were depressing as I went through them going 'shit...shit...crap...shit...more shit...' as universally the records they stock are unimaginatively commercial or old. I strangely see no difference online. The key feature of Audiogalaxy was that it's system valued rarity - you'd get a better download rank or speed if you were sharing files it didn't have, rather than files it did where it would go 'no thanks'.
Shame the online and offline record stores don't have the same idea about rarity - there are probably 10's of 1,000s of albums out there that are deleted that now could be shared online. I'm not seeing a sudden resurgence in rare band sor tracks hitting those download charts tho; just the same old shit.
And I didn't find any of the Partch records I wanted, just some newer Kronos CDs and a few later 'interpretations'. Really if finding a record is made SO hard, it should be legal to download the fucker, don't you think?
I've often thought that deleted records should go into the public domain quickly, encouraging the record labels to either as the americans say so wonderfully 'shit or get off the pot' and release old records or let them fall out of copyright so someone else can. It seems odd that labels can sit on an album for 50 years - I've known artists personally who've had that happen, it seems so wrong.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-18 10:28 pm (UTC)If you want more material to help argue against copyright abuses, check out Kembrew's book-Freedom of Expression. He's got a CC version for free on his website. You can also get Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture under a similar license. It's also a fantastic book about copyright and its failings.
And speaking of free culture, 8 Bit Peoples have been releasing some really great stuff as have the labels Exegene and Comfort Stand Recordings. All are under CC licenses as are all the songs hosted on the Internet Archive. You no doubt know all about those, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't mention them in a comment about copyright. Also, on the note of availability and downloading, Harvey Danger's latest album-Little by Little-is available for free download on their website and it's a pretty very good pop album.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-18 10:51 pm (UTC)Lawrence Lessig is a bit person in the blog/podcasting world - his seminars get dissected a lot, must read/listen to him more.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-18 11:50 pm (UTC)Here's what they have listed for Harry Partch.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-19 12:02 am (UTC)Looks like most of the records are in the US...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-19 02:06 am (UTC)I hear you on this, though. One of the benefits of having been a reviewer for many years was a broad range of music that wasn't getting much play or store space.