I'm starting to do a series of little "explainer" web videos if there are any aspects of music policy that are confusing to people. Need ideas for topics!
this will be fun. i think a lot of people don't know how many ways the gov impacts music from like, the FTC to the FCC to the CRB to the HUD to the NEA, to the LOC to the D of E.
It would be cool to have a handy video primer on all the various licensing/revenue schemes and how to take advantage of them: Master Use, Synch License, Public Performance (Streaming, Broadcast, Theatrical...) Mechanicals... etc., how these schemes are handled differently in the US versus other major territories, the advantages of registering as both writer and publisher.
Here's a sort of unrelated quote I just found by Heinrich Schenker, famed Ol' Grouch of a previous, thankfully largely bygone, era of structural musical analysis:
“The masses, however, lack the soul of genius. They are not aware of background, they have no feeling for the future. Their lives are merely an eternally disordered foreground, a continuous present without connection, unwinding chaotically in empty, animal fashion. It is always the individual who creates and transmits connection and coherence.”
He's talking about how Stravinsky doesn't evince grand dominant tonic cadences or whatever and is therefore despicable, but it sure is funny to imagine him writing this about kickstarter
is kickstarter the masses or is it individuals? seems to elide that boundary
i like to imagine that this quote is about the internet, even though he died like a billion years ago
Currently reading "Worlds of Sound" a history of the Folkways label. Did you know that "Indie music" was something that people talked about in the 1940s? It's true!
Also, the unions organized boycotts of the major labels in 1943.
It's just stunning how little the rhetoric has changed (same with the power dynamics)
That's an ugly darned quip from Schenker. Animal fashion, huh?
I'm expecting all that feudal claptrap to come back in style in a big way this century. It's what you get when a few families own most of everything. At first it's like: Well, we worked hard (or at least grandpa did). After a couple generations it's like: Well, up here on our perch we can really see what is going on, it's best we lead. Eventually it's like: Why are we so dang rich? Well, obviously because of the natural laws of creation.
@Kdawg - I did not know that. That sounds like a good book. I wonder if John Foster was aware of that. (Inventor of the "Green Line" independent music policy at KAOS Olympia 1975). Possibly.
My youtube account is in bad standing due to an accusation of copyright infringement. P****fork presumably has a blanket protective clause over everything they post, including a video that I made. It was hit with their copyright claim (even though it was private/invite-only). I was allowed to respond by submitting a formal dispute, which is supposed to be reviewed next week.
Kinda weird, kinda interesting, kinda annoying
UPDATE they dropped all charges.... I won my rights!
Microsoft's new ad campaign pegging Google as creepy & invasive is kind of amazing. Especially because the production values are so terrible, which somehow comes off as charming.
It's a discussion about how visual effects workers in the US are being driven out of the industry. From the workers point of view, it would take a union/individual firms agreeing to set prices. Or maybe something like extending the tax incentives that are given to film makers to produce in a particular locale back to the visual effects firms themselves.
Different discussion, but related in that the FX industry speculates that the solution is that individual workers stand their ground and demand fair pay.
I bet movie people are different! Much more collaborative, their industry is older so they don't have the prevailing idea that they can just jump ship and move to a different employer if they don't like things.
It's because they are invested in the observation that the technology that defines their work is revolutionized/rendered obsolete every few months. There is no incentive for them to slow this process down, guaranteeing positions for people to do obsolete work, etc.
A robust welfare state that guarantees life, health and protection for all inhabitants independent of market forces is a much more elegant and humane line of argument than the industrial union model.
I see DrJ's point, though. If you didn't have union-based job security, you would get fired if you were being lazy, but if you had a robust welfare state, at least you wouldn't die. This would allow employers to hire and fire competitively and people could still see a doctor.
i think the prevalence of the notion that unions are about allowing lazy people not to get fired tells you a lot about the current ideological climate.
But I could argue a pragmatism back to you Kdawg, that after more than forty years of erosion, even if that trend were to be reversed, it will be a good long while before the Union movement has the power to flex on behalf of a more robust welfare state.
In fact, there is no sign of that trend reversing, particularly under the current model of Democratic party leadership.
I'm reminded of the often reactionary quality of union politics by the fact that local unions and establishment Dems have decided to support Coal export terminals in the Northwest. They've decided that desertification of the planet is good for jobs or some such....
Comments
p.s. twin of Em sounds GREAT to me
“The masses, however, lack the soul of genius. They are not aware of background, they have no feeling for the future. Their lives are merely an eternally disordered foreground, a continuous present without connection, unwinding chaotically in empty, animal fashion. It is always the individual who creates and transmits connection and coherence.”
He's talking about how Stravinsky doesn't evince grand dominant tonic cadences or whatever and is therefore despicable, but it sure is funny to imagine him writing this about kickstarter
is kickstarter the masses or is it individuals? seems to elide that boundary
i like to imagine that this quote is about the internet, even though he died like a billion years ago
Also, the unions organized boycotts of the major labels in 1943.
It's just stunning how little the rhetoric has changed (same with the power dynamics)
I'm expecting all that feudal claptrap to come back in style in a big way this century. It's what you get when a few families own most of everything.
At first it's like: Well, we worked hard (or at least grandpa did).
After a couple generations it's like: Well, up here on our perch we can really see what is going on, it's best we lead.
Eventually it's like: Why are we so dang rich? Well, obviously because of the natural laws of creation.
Kinda weird, kinda interesting, kinda annoying
UPDATE they dropped all charges.... I won my rights!
On another topic http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/12/the_orchestra_the_best_classical_music_ipad_app_from_esa_pekka_salonen.html. Video, score, commentary. I know orchestra pay can be quite good and symphonies are multi million annual corporations, but the idea could be used to teach many genres of music.
"Musicians meanwhile need to consider what business they are in."
Wise words.
http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1969o6/more_than_400_vfx_artists_protest_at_the_oscars/c8l8eg8
It's a discussion about how visual effects workers in the US are being driven out of the industry. From the workers point of view, it would take a union/individual firms agreeing to set prices. Or maybe something like extending the tax incentives that are given to film makers to produce in a particular locale back to the visual effects firms themselves.
Different discussion, but related in that the FX industry speculates that the solution is that individual workers stand their ground and demand fair pay.
It is true that the disdain for traditional labor issues in certain tech circles runs deep. I do not get it.
A robust welfare state that guarantees life, health and protection for all inhabitants independent of market forces is a much more elegant and humane line of argument than the industrial union model.
In fact, there is no sign of that trend reversing, particularly under the current model of Democratic party leadership.
Local unions fuck things up sometimes.
(Possible overstatement but still so glad we have a union.)