smoe.org mailing lists
ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Jeff" <jeff.teez@comcast.net> |
| Subject | Re: too much and or not enough |
| Date | Sat, 12 May 2007 12:37:36 -0400 |
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I'm just fantasizing here that I represent the typical consumer of
music:
We, the consumers, will determine the value of your musical product
because we ARE the marketplace. You can accept that reality or not,
obviously. Your fortunes (literally or figuratively) or lack thereof
will no doubt follow your decision. Collectively, we'll decide with our
ears and then our dollars what your music is worth. We may decide that
it's worth $2.00 a track, or we may decide that it's worth .09 cents a
track (the current going rate on the lowest priced Russian mp3 sites).
We may even decide that it's not worth anything at all and choose to
ignore you entirely. The labor, love or sweat that you put into it
doesn't factor into the equation at all from a strictly consumerist
point of view. You could've tossed something brilliant off in your
basement in 15 minutes and posted it to your myspace page and it's so
damn good that suddenly everyone is clamoring for it and will pay
accordingly. Or, you could have labored for hundreds of hours in an
expensive studio and come up with a piece of crap that *nobody* is even
remotely interested in. Ultimately, it's OUR decision, not yours or
anyone associated with you. You put it out there however you're able and
however you see fit. We can handle it from there. We don't need to or
want to pay your publicists, lawyers or anyone else. We'll gladly pay
YOU for the music you make. If I decide that I want to take your music
home with me (in a physical or digital sense), then I'll most happily
put my $15.00 of hard-earned cash in your hand after seeing you play
LIVE. I'll put it in YOUR hand and very much enjoy seeing you tuck it
into YOUR pocket. If you want to split it up amongst your business
associates or whomever else after that, that's up to you. But don't
expect or ask ME to pay them. And that's exactly what I'm doing by
paying iTunes, EMI or anyone else.
I'm not personally responsible to any of you in the music business
anymore than any of you are personally responsible to me. You can try to
*make this* personal all you want, but it's basically bread on the table
v. music on the victrola. Put the product out or don't, but don't blame
your problems on us. We're just fans and, ultimately, consumers. We're
not here to help you pay your phone bill just because you're *trying
really, really hard*.
Aren't you just pissing into the wind when you complain that some/most
people want to pay as little as possible or even nothing for your music?
No kidding. Isn't that, in part at least, and for only SOME of us, human
nature? What in the world can you possibly do about it? What do you
propose? I'd suggest that you accept that reality and either keep making
music within the current parameters or don't. But for God's sake, please
stop whining about it.
I'd sure be interested in hearing what the 650 OTHER auditeers who don't
regularly (or ever) post here think about all this. We pretty much know
what the other 36 of you think. You've stated it, refined it, restated
it, clarified it and on and on, ad nauseum. Even the Big Star thread is
a step in the right direction away from all this woe-is-us fatalism, and
God knows we've not discussed their merits (or lack thereof) nearly
enough on this list.
jeff teez (crouched and head covered in the elementary school hall of my
imagination)
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