upon further research

[dragonlady7]

Upon further research, I have determined that the soundtrack to Scotland, PA, is not for sale. Anywhere.

I went to iTunes and tried to buy the individual tracks, but they didn't have most of 'em.

You drive me to piracy, people!!!


This is important! With "Feel Like Making Love" and "Can't You See" alone, I have added an additional 100 words to the count. Can you imagine what "Ready For Love" would do to me? Man! I am at 29888 words now. I need that guitar solo, dude.

(In case it wasn't clear, I am trying to get my two main characters to make out. And I can't think of any suitable 10th-century Scandinavian makeout songs, so I have turned to 70s Southern-Trance Guitar Rock.)

added: I know what I need.
Jack. And Coke. But mostly Jack.
And Coke.

Ahhh.

Comments

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

Can't you go buy a couple cds? Bad Company albums shouldn't be that hard to find...

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Buy? CDs? We do that on special occasions 'round here. Like finishing a novel. Not for 30,000 words. For 30,000 words, we celebrate with some of the stockpile of ramen and booze we bought when we had money.


No, the Internet and the Gnutella network came to my assistance, terrible as that is. I think when I'm rich and famous, I'm just gonna send a donation check to every musician whose stuff I've pirated (http://www.bridget.kelly.name/music/) (though, to be fair, much of my music was legitimately purchased).


Man, listening to headphones with a towel on my wet hair is not as easy as I optimistically thought it would be.

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I guess our views are different there. Pirating music hurts the artists, and I'd prefer to support them. If the music's available commercially, I pay for it.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

You've got a point.
The point I've got is that I'm broke and want instant gratification. Your point? Much better.

But if it weren't for music piracy, I wouldn't be fan of music at all. When I got to college, I owned fifteen CDs and didn't really plan on buying more. People talked about music, I didn't know what they were talking about. I was raised in a house with 3 Christmas records and some tapes people had given us, and my dad's old bagpipe music records. We listened to the PBS radio station, which was classical music. So I didn't know a damn thing about pop music.

Got to college and there was my first ethernet network, and there were shared folders on it, and people had... music in them. So I went through and took a file here, a file there-- I've never actually heard anything by Steve Miller Band but that kid down the hall talks about them, I wonder... Hmm, those kids in my junior high all loved Metallica... wonder what the fuss was... etc. All these names I'd heard mentioned but had never actually heard. (What about the radio, you ask? Well, I found a radio station I liked and an oldies station bought it. Lather, rinse, repeat FIVE TIMES. I gave up on radio pretty young.)

I've become a music enthusiast, but I've been unemployed two of the last three years. I can't afford to spend $15 on a CD. No matter how much pleasure it gives me. So it's the $5 used CDs at the record store, which doesn't do the artist any more good than just downloading the stuff.
I don't download much anymore, because by nature I'm neither a spender nor an acquirer.

But I tell you, I have a list of artists I'm seriously going to send money to when I'm rich, based on how much I've listened to their music. Some of them, I bought the albums to begin with, or Dave did. But even they deserve more from me than the $0.35 they got from the record company when I bought their album.

Because honestly, not much of the money you spend on an album goes to the artist. Most of it goes to that particular corporate America that I'm none too fond of. No, I'm not a revolutionary; I'm just a cheap-bastard lazy-ass. And this (http://www.jdray.com/Daviews/courtney.html) doesn't give me any inclination to overcome that particular failing in myself.

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

I know, there are all kinds of reasons to not pay for music because it "supports the record companies and not the artists." Artists don't get paid enough, etc. But pirated music doesn't pay the artists at all.

I come from the Deadhead culture. Every single concert the Grateful Dead ever played is available, because they allowed taping at their shows. That music was for the public, they said. Ratdog (Bob Weir's post-Dead band) has the same policy. And out of respect for that, pirating any recording that's commercially available is verboten. They gave their fans so much, it's a slap in the face to download a copy of Aoxomoxoa when I can get it at any store that carries CDs.

And one of the lead guitarists for Ratdog has often posted at Deadnet Central (hotline.deadnetcentral.com), and he's spoken out against music piracy. Music is his livelihood, and the more people download, the less he'll be able to afford to keep doing what he does. And I respect him and his point of view.

I mean, say you publish your novel. Would you be happy to know that someone had uploaded it to the net, free for everyone, because "publishers keep most of the money anyway" ? That's your hard work that someone else is giving away for free.

We can agree to disagree if you like. You're not going to change your opinion and I'm not going to change mine.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

i'm with you on the deadhead stuff-- sure, that's a whole self-contained culture with a perfectly clear moral code.

I have no clearly defined morality in my approach to music and piracy. My morality all along, in all that I do, has been formulated by what feels right after I've thought everything over. In the case of music piracy (along with a few other things), that hasn't worked. I can think it over all I like, but I can't come up with a clear reasoning or feeling one way or the other. I buy a CD, I listen to it, I like it, I still feel my enjoyment tainted by how much I spent on it. I've never had that feeling from a CD I bought from an artist at a concert, even if my enthusiasm for the artist at the time outweighed the quality of the recording. But CDs I bought online or in a store? Never give me quite a good enough feeling to justify the spending.


What I'm saying is, this isn't something I haven't considered. But I'm definitely coming at it from a different point of view than you, and it isn't surprising we feel quite differently about it. I just don't see it as that clear-cut, and I will here repeat that I have bought far more music than ever I would have if I hadn't pirated it first.

Because what it comes down to is that now I have listened to a bunch of music (in this case, Bad Company) that I'd never listened to in any depth before, and if I'd had to buy a CD to do so, I wouldn't have bought it. Now, in future, I'm more likely to buy a CD that I really want. But I will repeat-- I wouldn't have bought a CD, it takes the earth moving to get me to spend money I don't have. I would've dismissed the impulse and forgotten about it. But now? I'm listening to someone I wouldn't have before. I have that mp3 on my hard drive. I will listen to it over and over again. I will put it into playlists. I will have wonderful life experiences with it playing in the background. When I see a CD by that band, I will be much more likely to shatter the earth's crust by actually pulling out my wallet, because now instead of a vague craving, I have a solid association with that band.

So there's where my viewpoint comes from.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

And, I will address the reversal-of-viewpoint challenge. I am not a hypocrite.

Say I publish my novel and someone puts it online saying 'the publisher keeps most of the money anyway', you say?


You know, i'm going to write more novels, and honestly if I get more readers because that puppy's online for free, then I get more readers and that's all good. I just read an article with a SF author who did some sort of e-publishing deal and he said, the emails he got from people saying "Wow, I loved that story and I'm going to buy the book" outnumbered 20 to 1 the emails he got saying "You sucker, I'm never paying for this if I can get it for free." And his sales figures reflected that.

I need a publisher first, to establish a name for myself and prove to my friends and family that I can legitimately do this, but I am certainly considering online genres of publishing. I am perfectly open to alternative methods of gaining readership. I am certainly considering alternative methods of distribution. I am fascinated by the ramifications of paper-free writing. So no, i wouldn't be entirely upset if my works were electronically distributed, but I would hope to have been active enough and to have had enough forethought that I would be somehow involved in the process, or would be able to become somehow involved in the process.

In short, I am not such a hypocrite that I would say, "it's ok for me to take someone else's creative work for free but not for someone else to take my creative work for free". I have considered this. At length. I think this is an area that is definitely developing. I think this is something that has to change as the world changes. Copyrights and distribution systems and all of that are to an extent in flux. I am aware of this and I accept this as i do my work.

So, yes, for now I am only posting excerpts publicly, and am keeping the full text of my novel away from general public availability. I am young yet, am developing in the craft, and know too little of the industry.

But yes, I am actively thinking about what is changing, and am ready to change with it.

Owwch.

[(Anonymous)]

Not to mention that music ceases to be commercially available in these parts around 9pm, when record-store clerks stop giving a crap about musicians' welfare, lock up the store, and get on with the rest of their lives.

- Z

Re: Owwch.

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

CDs can be purchased online, I do it all the time.

Re: Owwch.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

And then you don't get the music for three weeks.
Sometimes you get an earworm and you need the song now. that's all I'm sayin'.

Hence the first attempt at the iTunes music store, where you can get it now. If I'm gonna impulse-purchase, i want to get the purchase while the impulse is still there.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Actually, the link I gave in the last one isn't as good a copy as this link:

Doing The Math (http://www.stormymondays.com/home/courtney.htm)

(the other one had some typos)