The things you think are useless!
Alfred E. Neuman
Although it's not as exciting as "the" new one, I received a Steely Dan CD
today from Valhalla. [Yes, I'm one of the morally challenged in this NG].
Needles to say that I listened to it all day, and: my compliments to Val. He
has put great efforts in this project. The CD has nine tracks, and lasts a
little over 50 minutes. Especially the live tracks (Mobile Home [2x], Fall
of '92 [2x], Jack of speed and Wet side story) are of very good
sound-quality. I was pleasantly surpised. There are three other very
interesting pieces of music on this first CD, namely: The Second
Arrangement, Kulee Baba and Can't write home about you. The sound quality
here is a little worse, but I didn't even notice that on the first
listening, because these tracks are just great! Especially 'The second
arrangement' is an extremely nice song. What a shame this never made it to
Gaucho (at the time D&W were recording this, an engineer accidentally erased
it). Anyway, thanks a lot Val and keep up the good work....
Kind Regards,
Alfred Neuman
Dirk Brandt
bootlegs and therefore can't judge about occuring differences in sound
quality, it's clear I get a lot of music from that cd. Thanx to Val.
Considering the question of theft from D/W I don't feel like that. I
think that's because I'm just another of the mass recipients. The
relation between mass recipients and artists is not personal. It's
functional. The artist is exposing himself as a kind of symbol to the
crowd. His function is to reflect or even create feelings or at least
make them somewhat explicit (not what you think). Even if that are very
intimate and subtle feelings it's no personal relation because it's only
one-way (asymmetric). Because it's a mass media event, there's no
responsibility. It's just an offer the artist makes and if it emerges
(by success) the function I talk about is established and there's no way
of cancelling it.
The artist is not responsible for the effect (until questions of heavy
metal suicidal appeals are touched - there you find limits of the
artistic area which are set not by the arts but by other functions like
law and such - think of Goethe's Werther or Kleist's ending) - and on
the other side he has no personal control on his output. He's exposed as
a whole person-image, or, more correct, created as a whole person-image
by the receiving members of the crowd. It's similar to the functions of
politicians or pastors or philosophers. By accepting their offers you
get the _right_ of receiving (resp. creating) a complete image (wether
congruent or contradictious). This is a major condition ot that
function.
What I want to say is: If Diane or Steve2000 feel like they could steel
something from D/W, I think it's because they are kind of colleagues to
them. I know I'm a mere recipient. I could do some moral gymnastics but
never reach a level of personal responsibility between them and me.
Result: If I would restrict myself from getting SD bootlegs, it would
only be a matter of my own self-reflection, only a (maybe significant)
part of my way receiving SD. Getting material could never be theft
because it's all exposed and involved from the start, it belongs to the
crowd-created person images. This is something that _has happened_ by
the emergence of the artistic mass communication.
D and W have had the power to initiate that process, also to design it
by their restrictive and perfectionistic policy of publication. That is
their part. Anything else belongs to the crowd (and to artistic
history). - The structure and conditions of artistic mass comm. could be
enlightened by means of Nietzsche's analysis of power I guess, but I'm
to weak to show it clearly.
Dirk
"Alfred E. Neuman" schrieb:
steve...@my-dejanews.com
> enlightened by means of Nietzsche's analysis of power I guess, but I'm
> to weak to show it clearly.
>
> Dirk
>
I must be misunderstanding you somehow. This makes no sense to me. If an
musician/author/artist etc. creates a copyrighted work, it belongs to them.
If music were 'free' for the masses, why do you pay for it in a music store?
Broadcasting of music should not be misconstrued as the artist 'giving away
the music'. Niether should the fact that there is technology for sale to copy
the music. As I've mentioned in my posts, the artists are compensated through
other mechanisms for this activity.
Make no mistake, once a work is copyrighted, it belongs to the
composer/author etc. It is theirs to do with as they please. If they choose
to commercially release it, it is Not arbitrarily yours. That's like saying
"since BMW has decided to manufacture convertables, and make them available
For Purchase by the public, I have the right to a free one." Or, less
dramatically, "since Paramount pictures has decided to release a new Star
Trek movie for mass viewing, I have the right to expect free admission to the
movie theatre, a free video when it comes out, and free access to pay per
view and premium TV channels to view it." Incorrect, the Only time you have
the opportunity to personally view it 'at no charge' is when it finally makes
it to commercial or public TV, where your viewing is either 'paid for' by
commercial or private sponsorship.
In the strictest sense, when you buy a CD you own the right to use the music
for personal use. If you wanna play it at home, fine. If you wanna play it at
a party, fine. If you wanna make a few copies and give them away, fine-there
is a built in charge on the copying media and machine. If you copy it and
resell for a profit, you can go to jail.
I work as a professional DJ. In radio and television, BMI and ASCAP regularly
monitor individual stations' broadcast of music. They charge the stations for
the right to use copyrighted music, then distribute the money (roayalties) to
the artists. If a niteclub is playing copyrighted music for profit (either by
a DJ, or a 'cover band'), the niteclub owner pays for the right to use the
music, which is attracting customers and making him money. This is can be
several hundred dollars per year charged to the club.
If a song is used in a movie the producers pay a onetime sum for the license
to use the music (in the case of a copyrighted song-movie/TV soundtracks are
also paid for but the mechanism is different.) This can run into thousands of
dollars for one song.
In a television show, a song can be either be licensed for unlimited use or,
as with a theme song, or in any commercial 'jingle', the copyright holders
and (in commercials-also the singers) may be compensated Everytime the song
is played. Compose or sing in the chorus on a nationwide commercial or even a
long running regional commercial, and you might make $25,000. It' Property.
Paula Anka wrote the original 'Tonite Show' theme that was played every show
for 30 years while Johnny Carson was host. Johnny had a couple of ideas for
how he wanted it done, so he made sure he had a composer who would give him
songwriting credit on the theme. Everytime that song was played, those 2
gentleman split a royalty, probably a few hundred dollars x 5 nites a week x
30 years = at least one of Johnny's monthly alimony payments was partially
covered.
And not to delve too much deeper and rehash what has been said, but a quick
reminder, we are going a big step further (with nothing but the best
intentions) by booting music that Has Not Been Approved for Release by the
Artists.
I've made my decision on the CD and feel fine with it. It falls within my
loose ethical scope. But don't for one minute think it's legal or that you
are not violating the artists rights.
Steve
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Jackofdays
>He's exposed as
>a whole person-image, or, more correct, created as a whole person-image
>by the receiving members of the crowd.
Wow, Dirk! This is the most incredibly convoluted, dehumanizing rationalization
I've ever read. Congratulations. You have defined for Nineties citizens of the
world the concept of "A Nation of Sheep" that took William Lederer an entire
book to explain way back in 1961!
>Getting material could never be theft
>because it's all exposed and involved from the start, it belongs to the
>crowd-created person images.
God, I hope I never become a "crowd-created person image." Run! Save
yourselves!
Dirk, can you actually HEAR what you're saying? Dr. J (David) made a suggestion
I think you'd do well to mull over: fuck the rationale. If you want it, buy it,
but don't try to wrap yourself in some convoluted "principle" in the process.
It's very honest to say you are simply satisfying your own needs and urges by
buying a bootleg. But it becomes very (sorry) weaselly when you try to justify
your actions by defining "who" the others are in your dynamic: "D and W have
had the power to initiate that process, also to design it by their restrictive
and perfectionistic policy of publication. That is their part. Anything else
belongs to the crowd (and to artistic history)."
You're taking refuge in an intellectual argument when this is a strictly
emotional issue ("belongs to the crowd") that doesn't make a whole lot of
intellectual sense.
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are real, living, breathing, human beings (Well,
actually, I'm not so sure about Walter...). I don't consider them colleagues or
pals or even artistic equals, but I can't dehumanize them just so I can feel
free to deny them a few ducats to which they're entitled.
I saw Randy Newman on David Byrne's "Soundstage" on PBS last night. Newman was
talking about the inequities of the world, artistically speaking. He has a song
about Karl Marx where he expands on it, and he told a story about watching the
Van Clyburn competitors, how good they were, how talented, and how POOR, while
he, a "froglike middle-aged man" had just gotten lucky and had a beautiful wife
and perfect children and a big house and lots of money, and he couldn't play
the piano nearly as well as any of them.
It doesn't matter how D&W choose to torture their fans with unbearably long
gaps between releases. That's their business, their music, and their right to
decide. You have exactly the same rights if you live in a country that has the
same creative laws and protections. Doesn't matter who's more talented, or who
you make into an icon (stealing his humanity in the process). You still have
the exact same rights, and the onus is not greater on one side than it is on
the other.
Sorry if that all sounded mean, Dirk. I meant simply to be direct and emphatic,
but I'm sure I sound like a bitch on wheels.
If I decide to send Val $10 to get this CD, it will be because _I_ want it, _I_
need it, _I_ got to have it, not because D&W are two-dimensional "crowd-created
person images" who have somehow sacrificed their rights by dint of being so
desirable and unattainable.
"Kill Your Idols," the t-shirt says, and it's good advice. Once you let someone
down from a pedestal, you can't demand that pound of flesh in exchange for your
worship (mixing metaphors faster than a speeding bullet...).
Harumph.
diane
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Dirk Brandt
don't for one minute think it's legal or that you are not violating the
artists rights.
licences and so on - I meant the moral point. I wanted to ask why I
don't feel any moral problem when I buy a certain bootleg. You may say
it's because of a deficiency of moral consciousness on my side - but I
mean, there's a difference between stealing a tape from a friend or a
book from a big warehouse (which I think is theft apart from any mass
phenomenons) and this one: Getting material about an artist that I'm
interested in.
Think about all the trade-concerned postings. What makes people
including me so easily violating the legal artists rights and get all
material anyhow available without bad feelings?
Because of the creative side of reception (they own it before). It's
like when you interprete a writer (in highschool) and you collect all
aspects from all material available, including maybe letters, diaries,
other people's comments but at least all the writer's production. Apart
from the alternative of biographical orientated or immanent
interpetation:
The task is always to create a complete "living" image, a consistent
model of the meaning or the sense in his work. You can't do that without
using your ability of identification - slipping into what you imagine as
the writer's ego - in old hermeneutics they called it the divinatory
act.
The same - but deliberately - I do when I'm fascinated by subtle music
and lyrics. It starts on the other end: I find myself identified with
that vibes, I find a medium for my self-expression, whole peergroups
find themself stimulated that way and therefore they're interested in
going further with it without being tasked.
Where you can put licences on (and I think the artists shall get all
their fees, otherwise it's theft) is the material (external aspect), not
he decodation, the creative act of reception including identification
and all that stuff. This belongs to the members of the crowd. We come
out at what we all knew before: In a certain way the production of an
artist belongs to the recipients more than to himself.
Only the loss of interest could stop the crowd from further research and
interpretation (even if you restrict yourself from detecting prohibited
material, that has got an aspect of interpretation: The artist wants
something to be hidden and protected and I do respect that - one
possible way of interpretation: to include the phantasie of personal
reference and relation).
The power of an artist is measured by his relevance for the
self-experience of the recipients, his ability to emerge authentic (more
or less) self-experience. This is the main point. The whole thing is
nothing without the creative crowd. This is the reason for the owner's
rights of the crowd. They put themselves in as a whole and are related
to a imaginative but whole artistic subject. Therefore they're
interested in all about that subject they mean - we all know and said
that.
Last point: Limitations. There's none in that process itself. Different
with a personal relation: A friend can put some limits between him and
my divinatory understanding (by using my ability of identification and
so on). I always will try to understand him completely as a living
subject - but if I break certain limits that are given, I will loose the
friendship or something else will happen.
Not so in the mass communication. There's no personal relation, only
that function mediated by cds. I'm only a certain kind of customer. The
authors are damned far away and I'm alone with my divination. Certainly
for some reason (they'd be bored).
Because this customer-dynamic is so unlimited and would destroy the
artist (he would be torn apart physically and in imagination by all
those different approaches) there's some limitations that substitute the
missing counterpart we have in personal relations: Common sense (you
shouldn't destroy people) and legal protection of personality (in
Germany: Persönlichkeitsrechte). I agree with that limitations. But:
They have a different root, their origin is heterogen from that
receptive process. It's only an external hinderance. Therefore no bad
feelings with bootlegs.
Hu, in some point these categories come together: What if the
real-person-artist has no choice and has no other ego than the one he
mediated artistically? Then I would really reach him and violate his
personal rights?! -
But I still think there's a difference: The artist's input is only one
element in that emerging process - he barely has no control over that.
That's what it makes it fascinating and kind of threatening, too. I'm
not loosing the idea that it _does_ in some way deal with violence or
even kannibalism - confer the holy supper - and this is the same wether
the crowd "digests" officially released or bootlegged cds. SD are
extremely aware of that point of "digestion" - that's where we started
from - but again, this is only a piece of input in that thing being
bigger than them. Question of making rules that leads to that power
question again.
Dirk
Jackofdays
>The power of an artist is measured by his relevance for the
>self-experience of the recipients, his ability to emerge authentic (more
>or less) self-experience.
Dirk, I just gotta say, you think too much and you read too much philosophy.
Spend some time in the REAL world, which is the world that exists between your
ears. That's where you are apparently tortured by your lust for more Steely Dan
and, unable to reconcile that longing with some sort of ethics or morals, you
seek outside-of-your-head explanations for your weakness.
Well, it's okay to be weak, and it's okay to buy a bootleg, not because I say
it's okay, but because YOU say it's okay. And that's all that matters.
I quoted Martin Luther before: "Love God and sin boldly." Don't be half-assed
about it, and don't look for some special dispensation that will get you off
the horns of a moral dilemma.
Admit that you bought it because you WANTED it, and you'll get plenty of
strokes from others here who relate precisely to that. And you'll also have the
respect of anyone who is anti-bootleg (as I am), because at least you were
honest about it.
"Please sir, may I have some more?" --Oliver Twist
Dirk Brandt
> Sorry if that all sounded mean, Dirk. I meant simply to be direct and emphatic,
> but I'm sure I sound like a bitch on wheels.
well ... - and you could talk about a little lack of swing on my side
> You're taking refuge in an intellectual argument when this is a strictly
> emotional issue ("belongs to the crowd") that doesn't make a whole lot of
> intellectual sense.
... the thing is I didn't rationalize. I started from my _feeling_ that
it is no problem getting that cd. I'd like to analyse that feeling.
... did you say "Karl Marx"? I think there should be more interpretation
(and analysis) done than changing ...
> God, I hope I never become a "crowd-created person image." Run! Save
> yourselves!
Yes, it's that threatening aspect of being (having yourself) exposed as
an artist. IMOHO nobody will get over that. They all can critizise you
or adore you stupidly or be better or step further - in one word
_digest_ you
> "Kill Your Idol[]," ... pound of flesh ... worship< - yeah, that comes close.
was nice to meet you ...
Dirk
Dirk Brandt
Dirk
Barry Seymour
Wow. Will you marry me?
<<JUST KIDDING!>>>
Still -- well said!
Barry
------------------------------------------------------------
Jackofdays
>Wow. Will you marry me?
>
Sorry, Barry, I'm not THAT kind of a girl... but if you'd like to discuss other
"options..." heh heh heh...
Yeah, I'm just kidding too, dammit.
diane
Curiosity killed the cat. But for a long time, the authorities suspected me.