Re: [libreplanet-discuss] DRM is the straw man

[Nils Gillmann]

Fabio Pesari <fabiop@gnu.org> writes:

> On 02/20/2016 02:25 AM, J.B. Nicholson wrote:

>
> I don't doubt there are good musicians releasing music on it, however
> most of those artists are necessarily derivative of influential nonfree
> music: for example, I can't imagine someone who makes progressive rock
> and isn't in any way influenced by Pink Floyd, Genesis or Yes.

Try to live in this connected world and *not* be influenced by
anything which has been done before in some way. I don't know who
I heard saying this, but in the beginnings of the last century
you could meet musicians in some parts of the USA in remote
mountain villages who never heard any other musician before and
had only their own, original ideas.
Now, well.. you find the "everything is a remix" case very often.
It's not entirely a bad thing, I like lots of specific
musicstyle, one of them is music which is based on remixing and
destroying/doing what you want with it and adding your own style
to it: breakcore.

> In short, especially if you are a musician, you will have a hard time
> connecting with other people with similar musical tastes if you only
> listen to music released on Magnatune.

I'm not sure wether I can agree or disagree, so I think this is
an added statement.
Even if you totally manage to avoid all kinds of
external,subconscious influences like public radio, people
driving by with music too loud, your parents/friends playing
records, etc etc, your taste builds on your experience you made
in selectively listening to multiple sources of music throughout
your life. And it's very different from person to person, I've
met people who do not like music at all, and I've met people who
can't stand musical pieces being longer than 5 or 20 minutes.

What I wanted as a musician (dormant projects currently) did not
(only) get shaped by what I listened to as a child. My taste is
diverse and wandered off from some extensive listening phases to
certain music I no longer listen in my "adult" life to something
entirely different or being a result from what I listened to
earlier. Selective, conscious and unconcious media input. Yet I
had (and have) a hard time finding someone with the exact same
interest I have who also happens to play fitting instruments. You
can't avoid to consume copyright, but copyright is the problem,
it's as difficult as trying to escape capitalism in a capitalist
society system. It's there, it will disappear eventually, but as
long as it's the ruling force it's hard to see a way out.

Alternatives for creative people who want to make a living off
their art (always very hard to manage without exploiting
yourself) are growing again, that's the positive thing. Like the
counter project against the GEMA in germany, the C3S (
https://www.c3s.cc/en/why-we-need-an-alternative-to-gema/ ) which
is a good thing to have if you are not into diy culture etc.

A potential step against DRM encouraging platforms for artists is
also involved in something I want to design over the next years.

You will have a hard time enforcing certain free licenses on
people who have a hard time making money, because people think
they don#t deserve income because "that's not a real job", but if
we can work towards a change in that way (more ethical consumers,
pay-what-you-can, etc), with a multitude of tools, it will get to
creative people at some point, because creative people are
consumers and people who seek new input too. Nobody likes major
labels or rip off platforms, But not everyone is a born manager
for the diy style.

just my 2cents, free associating.

> Back to Magnatune, if you only listen to music released on it, you won't
> have much of a cultural life. If that has to be case, you might as well
> go all the way and listen to libre music exclusively, and prevent this
> bullshit from happening in the future.
>

-- 
ng