Comments on: Billy Bragg is Wrong http://thomashawk.com/2008/03/billy-bragg-is-wrong.html Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:09:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Anonymous http://thomashawk.com/2008/03/billy-bragg-is-wrong.html/comment-page-1#comment-2768 Anonymous Tue, 25 Mar 2008 07:15:00 +0000 http://clients.emmense.com/thomashawk/?p=510#comment-2768 Slightly off topic, but I find it interesting that, in this entire debate on the value of art expressed through digital media, it's as if technology might take us back to the system of centuries ago. They're used to be no permanent record of art. In 1600, if you wanted to see Much Ado About Nothing, you had to go <i>see</i> and artist <i>perform</i> Much Ado About Nothing. There was no other way. In the beginnings of copyright, you held only that, copy rights. If you wrote a book, as an artist, you didn't automatically own the play that it could become. In the beginning of copyright, you only held the rights to the actual art you created, not the art that could be created based on it. <br /><br />For the better or worse, tangible recordings became possible and artists didn't only own the actual art they produced, they started owning possibilities and tangible recordings.<br /><br />Nowadays, with more recent technologies, physical support has become essentially useless and the economic value of digital recordings (and so of any recording) is now essentially zero (whether artists and labels like it or not, the price of a copy is zero, so you can copy it an infinity of time and the fixed initial costs divided by an initial number of copies is, well, zero). So it seems that with new technologies, <i>performances</i> is what has value now, at least for a musical artist. Recordings are now only a marketing tool to get people to go to your concerts. My limited knowledge of the music industry tells me that, economically, it doesn't change much for the artist. Wasn't it so that artists didn't see much money from records anyway and that their main source of revenue was really "derivative sales" (an ironic name) of stuff like concert tickes and t-shirt.<br /><br />Anyway, by now it's way too long for a comment. I'll make this a blog post at some point. On my own blog, don't worry. :)<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Charles Slightly off topic, but I find it interesting that, in this entire debate on the value of art expressed through digital media, it’s as if technology might take us back to the system of centuries ago. They’re used to be no permanent record of art. In 1600, if you wanted to see Much Ado About Nothing, you had to go see and artist perform Much Ado About Nothing. There was no other way. In the beginnings of copyright, you held only that, copy rights. If you wrote a book, as an artist, you didn’t automatically own the play that it could become. In the beginning of copyright, you only held the rights to the actual art you created, not the art that could be created based on it.

For the better or worse, tangible recordings became possible and artists didn’t only own the actual art they produced, they started owning possibilities and tangible recordings.

Nowadays, with more recent technologies, physical support has become essentially useless and the economic value of digital recordings (and so of any recording) is now essentially zero (whether artists and labels like it or not, the price of a copy is zero, so you can copy it an infinity of time and the fixed initial costs divided by an initial number of copies is, well, zero). So it seems that with new technologies, performances is what has value now, at least for a musical artist. Recordings are now only a marketing tool to get people to go to your concerts. My limited knowledge of the music industry tells me that, economically, it doesn’t change much for the artist. Wasn’t it so that artists didn’t see much money from records anyway and that their main source of revenue was really “derivative sales” (an ironic name) of stuff like concert tickes and t-shirt.

Anyway, by now it’s way too long for a comment. I’ll make this a blog post at some point. On my own blog, don’t worry. :)

Regards,

Charles

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