Thanks Arthur, Getting good music into the hands of the public is always a good idea. Unfortunately when these essays speak of good music they are strictly speaking of commercial entertainment. That is as important as listening to that 13 year old English girl sing O Holy Night or the Blind Tenor sing a pop song. When they are asked to compete in the real world with real people who are not only talented but have all of the tools, the only thing that gives mediocrity the advantage is that it is usually cheap to do. This takes salaries and pay out of the hands of the people who "speak" music and puts it in the hands of the people who like to imitate sampling and string things together electronically but are functionally illiterate. If its bad in writing it is also bad in music since looking at a musical score stops many mistakes before they are ever played, IF you know what you are looking at and for.
It was the performance pieces formed by dancers, taking composers minimal fees away from them and being funded by the NEA that brought the demons out of the closet in the Reagan administration. Sam Lipman literally couldn't make a living in a profession that he had known since childhood and where he had an uncommon expertise while politically savvy choreographers who couldn't read or write music got grants as composers of "Performance Art." So Lipman, Kramer and Epstien (Editor of the Phi Beta Kappa Magazine) went on the attack with the New Criterion. That dark smell that you felt in the Rothstein article came from the same place. Rothstein was one of them as well. It is the smell of poverty and expertise being mixed and short changed. It makes them mean and with nothing to lose it makes them evil. Imagine if Einstein had been ignored or any of those scientists who could imagine the bomb had seen their own children go hungry and treated poorly by people who were lazy and unwilling to work. That analysis by Hutton of the conservative morality here is accurate in my experience. And I have a great deal of sympathy with their feelings but I don't agree with their solutions or judgments. But if you make expert Intellectual Capital valueless then those who are expert and who can imagine evil things will do so. It is often said that the artist's product is like the amateurs. As a result amateurs and illiterate audiences see no difference and make poor judgments protecting themselves with stories about subjectivity. But the same graveyard seen through the eyes of someone driving by and someone who just lost their mother who is buried there is not the same. The experience of the Artist is what you are buying in art. Trying to understand why they put that pile of bricks next to that wall, is the act of participation in art. The bricks are just the medium, it is the message contained in the bricks, the choice of material, the environment around it and even the weather, that is important. These essays are talking about entertainment and commodoties. That is irrelevant to serious music and as wrong as the New Criterion bunch are in their anger they are right in their pain. We all feel it. I once sat with a wife who explained why her husband had taken the evil route. She put it simply. "We can eat, life is easier, our children can go to college and we have time to do things that are important to us." I fear these people who are internet souls who are declaring their little war have no idea who the troops are on the other side. They should not worry about the pop music people, they are barely artists at all except in banal derivity. Also business people have very short concentration and memories. It is the serious folks that will hate a lifetime and follow, as Sam Lipman did, the people who stole his profession, all the way to hell. Those are the heavey dudes and GWBush is just the latest product that they have given us. REH ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 10:27 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] globalizing and privatizing R and D > Ray, > > Here is another take on the issue. > > arthur > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 1:34 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [NEC] 2.2: The Music Industry and the Big Flip > > > NEC @ Shirky.com, a mailing list about Networks, Economics, and Culture > > Published periodically / # 2.2 / January 21, 2003 > Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License > Subscribe at http://shirky.com/nec.html > > In this issue: > > - Introduction > > - Essay: The Music Business and the Big Flip > (Also at http://www.shirky.com/writings/music_flip.html) > > - WiFi and VoIP > - Worth Reading > - Open Spectrum > - Query: Research on Economic Loss from Protected Information > > * Introduction ======================================================= > > This issue's essay is on distributed systems and collaborative > filtering. In particular, it concerns what sort of system would have > to exist to alter the ecosystem of music in the way earlier forms of > internet publishing have altered the ecosystem of the written word. > > Between the last essay and now, the Supreme Court also decided the > Eldred case, saying that Congress has unlimited power to extend > copyright, thus making the limit of the "limited duration" unlimited. > > This is Mancur Olson territory, where the effort required by the many > to police the predations of the few is so high that special interests > carry the day. For the average Congressperson, the argument is simple: > copyright is a palatable tax that transfers wealth from the many to > the few, and the few are better donors than the many. When the primary > advantage of repealing that tax is something as unpredictable as > cultural innovation, its not hard to see where to vote. > > The Eldred decision costs us a shortcut. This will now be a protracted > fight. > > -clay > > * Essay ============================================================== > > The Music Business and the Big Flip > (http://www.shirky.com/writings/music_flip.html) > > The first and last thirds of the music industry have been reconfigured > by digital tools. The functions in the middle have not. > > Thanks to software like ProTools and CakeWalk, the production of music > is heavily digital. Thanks to Napster and its heirs like Gnutella and > Kazaa, the reproduction and distribution of music is also digital. As > usual, this digitization has taken an enormous amount of power > formerly reserved for professionals and delivered it to amateurs. But > the middle part -- deciding what new music should be available -- is > still analog and still professionally controlled. > > The most important departments at a record label are Artists & > Repertoire, and Marketing. A&R's job is to find new talent, and > Marketing's job is to publicize it. These are both genuinely hard > tasks, and unlike production or distribution, there is no serious > competition for those functions outside the labels themselves. Prior > to its demise, Napster began publicizing itself as a way to find new > music, but this was a fig leaf, since users had to know the name of a > song or artist in advance. Napster did little to place new music in > an existing context, and the current file-sharing networks don't do > much better. In strong contrast to writing and photos, almost all the > music available on the internet is there because it was chosen by > professionals. > > - Aggregate Judgments > > The curious thing about this state of affairs is that in other > domains, we now use amateur input for finding and publicizing. The > last 5 years have seen the launch of Google, Blogdex, Kuro5in, > Slashdot, and many other collaborative filtering sites that transform > the simple judgments of a few participants into aggregate > recommendations of remarkably high quality. > > This is all part of the Big Flip in publishing generally, where the > old notion of "filter, then publish" is giving way to "publish, then > filter." There is no need for Slashdot's or Kuro5hin's owners to sort > the good posts from the bad in advance, no need for Blogdex or Daypop > to pressure people not to post drivel, because lightweight filters > applied after the fact work better at large scale than paying editors > to enforce minimum quality in advance. A side-effect of the Big Flip > is that the division between amateur and professional turns into a > spectrum, giving us a world where unpaid writers are discussed > side-by-side with New York Times columnists. > > The music industry is largely untouched by the Big Flip. The industry > harvests the aggregate taste of music lovers and sells it back to us > as popularity, without offering anyone the chance to be heard without > their approval. The industry's judgment, not ours, still determines > the entire domain in which any collaborative filtering will > subsequently operate. A working "publish, then filter" system that > used our collective judgment to sort new music before it gets played > on the radio or sold at the record store would be a revolution. > > - Core Assumptions > > Several attempts at such a thing have been launched, but most are > languishing, because they are constructed as extensions of the current > way of producing music, not alternatives to it. A working > collaborative filter would have to make three assumptions. > > First, it would have to support the users' interests. Most new music > is bad, and the users know it. Sites that sell themselves as places > for bands to find audiences are analogous to paid placement on search > engines -- more marketing vehicle than real filter. FarmFreshMusic, > for example lists its goals as "1. To help artists get signed with a > record label. 2. To help record labels find great artists > efficiently. 3. To help music lovers find the best music on the > Internet." Note who comes third. > > Second, life is too short to listen to stuff you hate. A working > system would have to err more on the side of false negatives (not > offering you music you might like) rather than false positives > (offering you music you might not like). With false negatives as the > default, adventurous users could expand their preferences at will, > while the mass of listeners would get the Google version -- not a long > list of every possible match, but rather a short list of high > relevance, no matter what has been left out. > > Finally, the system would have to use lightweight rating methods. The > surprise in collaborative filtering is how few people need to be > consulted, and how simple their judgments need to be. Each Slashdot > comment is moderated up or down only a handful of times, by only a > tiny fraction of its readers. The Blogdex Top 50 links are sometimes > pointed to by as few as half a dozen weblogs, and the measure of > interest is entirely implicit in the choice to link. Despite the > almost trivial nature of the input, these systems are remarkably > effective, given the mass of mediocrity they are sorting through. > > A working filter for music would similarly involve a small number of > people (SMS voting at clubs, periodic "jury selection" of editors a la > Slashdot, HotOrNot-style user uploads), and would pass the highest > ranked recommendations on to progressively larger pools of judgment, > which would add increasing degrees of refinement about both quality > and classification. > > Such a system won't undo inequalities in popularity, of course, > because inequality appears whenever a large group expresses their > preferences among many options. Few weblogs have many readers while > many have few readers, but there is no professional "weblog industry" > manipulating popularity. However, putting the filter for music > directly in the hands of listeners could reflect our own aggregate > judgments back to us more quickly, iteratively, and with less > distortion than the system we have today. > > - Business Models and Love > > Why would musicians voluntarily put new music into such a system? > > Money is one answer, of course. Several sorts of businesses profit > from music without needing the artificial scarcity of physical media > or DRM-protected files. Clubs and concert halls sell music as > experience rather than as ownable object, and might welcome a system > that identified and marketed artists for free. Webcasting radio > stations are currently forced to pay the music industry per listener > without extracting fees from the listeners themselves. They might be > willing to pay artists for music unencumbered by per-listener fees. > Both of these solutions (and other ones, like listener-supported > radio) would offer at least some artists some revenues, even if their > music were freely available elsewhere. > > The more general answer, however, is replacement of greed with love, > in Kevin Kelly's felicitous construction. The internet has lowered > the threshold of publishing to the point where you no longer need help > or permission to distribute your work. What has happened with writing > may be possible with music. Like writers, most musicians who work for > fame and fortune get neither, but unlike writers, the internet has not > offered wide distribution to people making music for the love of the > thing. A system that offered musicians a chance at finding an > audience outside the professional system would appeal to at least some > of them. > > - Music Is Different > > There are obvious differences here, of course, as music is unlike > writing in several important ways. Writing tools are free or cheap, > while analog and digital instruments can be expensive, and writing can > be done solo, while music-making is usually done by a group, making > coordination much more complex. Furthermore, bad music is far more > painful to listen to than bad writing is to read, so the difference > between amateur and professional music may be far more extreme. > > But for all those limits, change may yet come. Unlike an article or > essay, people will listen to a song they like over and over again, > meaning that even a small amount of high-quality music that found its > way from artist to public without passing through an A&R department > could create a significant change. This would not upend the > professional music industry so much as alter its ecosystem, in the > same way newspapers now publish in an environment filled with amateur > writing. > > Indeed, the world's A&R departments would be among the most avid users > of any collaborative filter that really worked. The change would not > herald the death of A&R, but rather a reconfiguration of the dynamic. > A world where the musicians already had an audience when they were > approached by professional publishers would be considerably different > from the system we have today, where musicians must get the attention > of the world's A&R departments to get an audience in the first place. > > Digital changes in music have given us amateur production and > distribution, but left intact professional control of fame. It used > to be hard to record music, but no longer. It used to be hard to > reproduce and distribute music, but no longer. It is still hard to > find and publicize good new music. We have created a number of tools > that make filtering and publicizing both easy and effective in other > domains. The application of those tools to new music could change the > musical landscape. > > -=- > > * WiFi and VoIP ========================================================= > > There's been lots of interesting conversations and feedback around the > Zapmail essay (http://www.shirky.com/writings/zapmail.html), which was > pointed to by over 350 different weblogs and sites. In that essay, I > pointed to the symbiosis between WiFi and Voice over IP in home and > office setups. Several readers pointed out the possible symbiosis > between WiFi and VoIP for mobile telephony as well, by using WiFi > access points to carry voice traffic from mobile phones in congested > urban areas, possibly putting those access points into payphones, > whose use is declining precipitously. > > Pocketpresence.com is working on putting VoIP in a PDA, as is > Telesym.com. Meanwhile, from the it-might-be-vapor department, > Motorola, Proxim, and Avaya are announcing wireless roaming that can > jump between cellular networks and WiFi. > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/14/business/14MOTO.html > > And in the Wifi-is-a-product-not-a-service department, Technology > Reports suggests that Starbucks in the Bay Area may be so bathed in > freely available WiFi signal that patrons do not need to use their > for-fee TMobile service. > http://technologyreports.net/wirelessreport/index.html?articleID=1452 > (via the incomparable boingboing.net) > > * Worth Reading ========================================================= > > - Open Spectrum > > David Weinberger has put together an absolutely terrific pair of > papers, and essay and a FAQ, on Open Spectrum, drawing on the work of > Jock Gill, Dewayne Hendricks, and David Reed. > > The essay is at: > http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/framing_openspectrum.html > The FAQ is at: > http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/OpenSpectrumFAQ.html > > Along with Kevin Werbach's earlier white paper on Open Spectrum for > New America (http://werbach.com/docs/new_wireless_paradigm.htm), there > is now enough non-technical literature to move the conversation from > the technical realm to the policy realm. > > * Query: Research on Economic Loss from Protected Information ============ > > Elliott Maxwell asks: > > "I'm trying to find anything good that's written from an economic > perspective on the effects of loss of access to protected > information on innovation and economic growth. There is lots of > anecdotal evidence, but if you know of anything systematic and/or > empirical it would be great." > > In light of Eldred, this is _the_ question. Edward Rothstein, in an > attack on Lessig in Saturday's New York Times, asked "What harm have > we come to from copyright extension?" and the answer, of course, is > "We don't know." (Rothstein's piece is at > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18CONN.html) > > Because we can't directly demonstrate the loss of things that didn't > happen, we need examples of loss from other systems where information > became too atomized or controlled. Route 128 versus Silicon Valley, > Japanese versus American manufacturing, anything that helps illustrate > the point concretely. > > If you have any pointers, send them to me and I will forward them to > Elliott (and point to the paper when it appears.) > > * End ==================================================================== > > This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. > The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform > the work. In return, licensees must give the original author credit. > > To view a copy of this license, visit > http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0 > > or send a letter to > Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. > > 2003, Clay Shirky > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > NEC - Clay Shirky's distribution list on Networks, Economics & Culture > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://shirky.com/nec.html > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
