Capitalism, the internet and trends in music

[Ian]

Speaking as one (mindful of Julien Sorel's implicit invitation), the answer is indeed yes. A composer does, of course, have a perfect right to put some or all of his/her work into the public domain (as, for example, Severo Ornstein's done for his late father Leo's work) if so he/she chooses but, to the extent that a composer needs income from royalties and that this is therefore not a course of action that many of them would likely favour, it does indeed remain a concern for most composers.

It is very interesting, and rather lovely, that in the world of pop music fans will often pay more than they need to for their music - if they know the funds are going directly to the artists. For example, on bandcamp.com bands (or indeed any kind of music creator) can make available downloads of their music at any chosen minimum price (even £0.00) Over 40% of downloaders choose to pay significantly more than the minimum. If fact payments of over £20 are not rare.

[Julien Sorel]

It did to me? Otherwise, what does it matter what other people do? Unless your version of a pluralist paradise is one that excludes all the things you don't approve of.

How the do you arrive at that?

At one stage a lot of books and articles and chattering went on among trend setters saying that the internet was the unpoliceable, uncontrollable, space of free play, joy, wisdom, the Unrecuperable, the apotheosis of the not for profit sector. You could, like, do anything, go anywhere, be anyone you wanted. That isn't so, is it? The same organisations that make money out of 'real' capitalism have found lots of ways to make money out of 'virtual' capitalism, perhaps because all capitalism is virtual or spectral anyway. I do agree the internet is hard to control, police, completely, but efforts to do so won't relax, even as the rhetoric of it's your choice, create your own playlist, inject your own brain, becomes more beautifully and shimmeringly ... caring / sharing.

Of course (of course) the first people to work out how to make money from the internet were pornographers. What's your view of internet porn Ian? Think it's cool?

[Ian]

How the do you arrive at that?

At one stage a lot of books and articles and chattering went on among trend setters saying that the internet was the unpoliceable, uncontrollable, space of free play, joy, wisdom, the Unrecuperable, the apotheosis of the not for profit sector. You could, like, do anything, go anywhere, be anyone you wanted. That isn't so, is it?

Come on, spit it out, what is it exactly you are prevented from doing/being on the internet?

[Julien Sorel]

Come on, spit it out, what is it exactly you are prevented from doing/being on the internet?

As I've said, if there was something I'd be a bit stupid to post it on a public internet forum wouldn't I?

One thing I can guarantee, it wouldn't be pornographic. Because, uncool as it might be, I don't approve of porn. What's your view on internet porn? Here are some stats for you http://internet-filter-review.topten...tatistics.html

[Ian]

As I've said, if there was something I'd be a bit stupid to post it on a public internet forum wouldn't I?

You just have - you are prevented from banning porn.

[ahinton]

As I've said, if there was something I'd be a bit stupid to post it on a public internet forum wouldn't I?

One thing I can guarantee, it wouldn't be pornographic. Because, uncool as it might be, I don't approve of porn. What's your view on internet porn? Here are some stats for you http://internet-filter-review.topten...tatistics.html

Good grief! Here we are in the midst of a thread about Howard Goodall's TV series and questions are being asked and statements made about internet porn! Does or can anything get much more off-topic than this?

[aeolium]

The same organisations that make money out of 'real' capitalism have found lots of ways to make money out of 'virtual' capitalism, perhaps because all capitalism is virtual or spectral anyway. I do agree the internet is hard to control, police, completely, but efforts to do so won't relax, even as the rhetoric of it's your choice, create your own playlist, inject your own brain, becomes more beautifully and shimmeringly ... caring / sharing.

Though in fact the greatest efforts to control the internet take place in countries like North Korea, China and Iran and come not from corporations but from the state, though even here it seems difficult to control the exchange of ideas and the creation of communities of interest. And the presence on the internet of advertising, pornography, all the corporate stuff that goes on in the non-virtual world is surely an indication of a lack of control, not too much control. You could of course try to regulate this but then where would the regulation stop, particularly if effected by the state? And in response to S_A's point about the response to corporate power being too atomised, what about organisations like Avaaz, 38Degrees, UK Uncut, the Occupy movement etc which are almost entirely facilitated by the internet? Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment M5S party is almost entirely internet-driven.

As to how all this affects the way people listen to music, it seems to me that the internet has had an enormous effect in expanding people's awareness of a much greater range of music compared with other, pre-internet media (including institutions like the BBC). The control over what was being made available to people - both by corporations and broadcasting - seems to have been much greater then, whereas now communities of interest such as this one can disseminate information much more effectively than organisations. And as people here clearly want to explore more, R3 increasingly provides more of the same old same old, combined with an attempt at interactivity that is debilitatingly banal. The test is, would you prefer to revert to a pre-internet state of affairs and, if you scoff at people having the opportunity to make their own choices about what to listen to using the internet, do you really want those choices restricted (including your own)?

[Julien Sorel]

You just have - you are prevented from banning porn.

http://feministsforchoice.com/melinda-tankard-reist-on-the-harms-of-pornography.htm

[Julien Sorel]

Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment M5S party is almost entirely internet-driven.

It's also 97% fascist. I don't disagree with what you say about the internet, nor do I share S_A's dystopic view. I'm trying to provide a perspective on Ian's trend-setting the internet is the paradise of pluralist cool, empowering, enabling, with great cat videos. That's all.

[Ian]

Good grief! Here we are in the midst of a thread about Howard Goodall's TV series and questions are being asked and statements made about internet porn! Does or can anything get much more off-topic than this?

I'll attempt a connection (I'm good at this in the pub quiz)

HG dismisses serial music from his personal history because hardly anyone likes it (the music that is).
The rhetorical implication here is that, the reason more folk don’t like serial music is because their heads are turned by the easy pleasures of porn (and other products of the global capitalist system).

[Ian]

I'm trying to provide a perspective on Ian's trend-setting the internet is the paradise of pluralist cool, empowering, enabling, with great cat videos. That's all.

Those are your words, not mine, thank you very much.

[ahinton]

I'll attempt a connection (I'm good at this in the pub quiz)

HG dismisses serial music from his personal history because hardly anyone likes it (the music that is).
The rhetorical implication here is that, the reason more folk don’t like serial music is because their heads are turned by the easy pleasures of porn (and other products of the global capitalist system).

Then it's just too tenuous a connection to have any credibility, let alone validity, not least because most listeners would not know whether a piece to which they were listening (whether or not they liked it) is serial or not just by listening to it, whereas most people would almost certainly recognise porn if they saw it.

[Ian]

Then it's just too tenuous a connection to have any credibility, let alone validity, not least because most listeners would not know whether a piece to which they were listening (whether or not they liked it) is serial or not just by listening to it, whereas most people would almost certainly recognise porn if they saw it.

nor does it suggest the possibility that one might be a fan of both porn and serial music...

Serial porn!!!

[Julien Sorel]

the easy pleasures of porn.

There's nothing easy about the pleasures of porn, Ian. Did you read the article I thoughtfully linked to?

Still, it's cool of you to be so cool and amusing about it.

[Julien Sorel]

I'll attempt a connection (I'm good at this in the pub quiz)

HG dismisses serial music from his personal history because hardly anyone likes it (the music that is).
The rhetorical implication here is that, the reason more folk don’t like serial music is because their heads are turned by the easy pleasures of porn (and other products of the global capitalist system).

Oh and by the way that's crap. There's no rhetorical implication of the sort. You made a remark about me wanting the internet to be open to anything I approved of. One of the things the internet is very open to is making money from exploitative porn (exploitative of people who appear in the films, overwhelmingly exploitative of women, and with an effect 'outside' porn on the lives of those who interact with porn users). So I'm suggesting there's nothing wrong with disapproving of some of the stuff on the internet. I'm still waiting to find out what your thoughts are about internet porn? Doesn't bother you? If that's what people want, why not?

Just to make clear, what I have just written has zero to do with people's musical enthusiasms. I'm not saying pop music is aural porn, because that would be to trivialise porn and insult people who like pop music and don't like porn. Ditto I'm not saying people who like serial music are innately going to be the kinds of people who wouldn't touch porn with a bargepole (as it were). So stop trying to pretend I'm making analogies which I'm not making. OK? Thanks.