Musicians Who Understand The Internet
from the a-list? dept
Perhaps we need to put together a list of musicians who actually understand the internet. We've written about the band Wilco and their willingness to embrace the internet before, but Wired News is now running an interview with front man Jeff Tweedy talking about how useful the internet is as a distribution mechanism and how badly the recording industry is missing the boat. "A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work. Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator. People who look at music as commerce don't understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property. I'm not interested in selling pieces of plastic." There is also the next step, though, of realizing that as music is freed up, it becomes an input that can be used for other commercial opportunities, opening up possibilities for other areas of commerce. The trick is to stop thinking about music as an end-product to be sold, and focus more on how it can be a larger part of something else (a different product, a social experience, etc.).
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I'm just a caveman lawyer, but...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I'm just a caveman lawyer, but...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I'm just a caveman lawyer, but...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I'm just a caveman lawyer, but...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]