Should music be given away free?

[tocsin]

Ok, Mark. Fair enough. Though, I will respond with your words in mind so you can get a better idea from where I come from.

For one, I never EVER expected to have a release. The only releases I have on a known label is purely accidental. I did not send them a demo. Rather, a CD I had done was passed on to the label by a friend and they got in contact with me. Before that, and largely after, every label I've ever had something come out on were completely DIY with no hope of ever turning a profit. So, I got paid with merchandise. It was a lot of fun, but not something that I ever really cared about. And for where I did care, I had a number of people come in to **** me over in so many ways that just never happened when I just did this for fun without money involved. I'm not talking about the labels either. In my opinion, every label that I've had something come out on has more than honestly lived up to their end of the bargain. However, I am more at home in cyberspace.

I can say that because I do not view computer culture as throw away. Yes, there are a lot of aspects of the modern internet that are entirely throw away. But, there's no shortage of us who were using the internet, both legally and illegally, before the world wide web existed, that didn't have the same corporate outlook that viewed the internet as simply a new marketplace for disposable crap. For us, it was an open library stock full of information that also opened up communication channels for free without risk that we never had before.

I got into this as a direct result of the hacker scene. I ran a relatively well known dial up BBS in the 908 area code that was open to all, with the sole purpose of spreading white, gray, and black information for people to use to benefit society. It was all accessable for free given the amount of time every user had in a day. Myself and my cosysops, and the sysops of the BBSs I was networked with, made no apologies for the information we made available and were willing to fight for it all the way up to the highest courts.

I absolutely HATED techno at this time, based on what I thought it was. My understanding of it was that it was all crap like 2Unlimited. However, based on a number of users on my system who wrote music with computers who wanted a place to distribute it, I created a file section for MOD files. This was, as I would later find out when I was dragged to my first rave by a friend, techno music. However, I just thought it was computer music. It was very much a product of the hacker culture we were all part of. The tools to make it were coded by hackers and distributed for free. The music was distributed for free. It contained messages and concepts that very much demonstrated how technology open up possibilities for people to make change or express themselves, with or without any recognition coming back to people, without any economic or hard learning curves that would prevent people from expressing themselves.

That ethic carried over into my production. Before I started using machines to make music, I played with bands that were all concerned about the money, playing the ass kissing game with labels and agents for exposure, etc. In addition, I dealt with no shortage of rock star egos that drove me up a ****ing wall in all but one band that I played with. At one point, I was playing bass, and sometimes programming beats on a drum machine, for 5 different bands, the majority of which were composed of obnoxious self-interested cunts. Once I started using the tools on a computer that were available to me to do music by myself on one machine, I pretty much stopped playing with bands entirely, and started working on music that was reflective of the culture that I was a part of. Very much around that time, I discovered "raves" and the culture with it, of which many of the people involved who I met in person were old hackers that I knew from the late 80's and early 90s. It all fit and, if the tracks weren't signed, they were available for free somewhere.

The expression of something bigger than yourself that can make you move, feel, and think was the most important part of it for me. Getting it signed never mattered. No artists that I knew, signed or unsigned, would ever think of blaming other artists who gave their music away for free as cutting into their livelihood. DJs who were connected tot he hacker culture never blamed DJs who were willing to spin for less as cutting into our bookings. That was largely because we were confident that, regardless of mass opinion, we all contributed something that was unique and fun and, even if cryptically, educational about a way of life that was out there.

That's my home. If anything, given how secretive my government has become, all while wantonly breaking the law, and how infiltrated the free expression culture has become by corporate or profit-based interests, that I think this shit is more important now than ever before. It's why I am honestly happy to see so many people putting their heart into what they do and distributing it for free. I've honestly found it more stressful for myself when money gets involved for reasons I laid out in earlier posts. Anyone who is smart enough to make music with computers is able to get a job that will pay their expenses while still allowing them to create and tour if they want to. It's why I will not hesitate to tell anyone to **** off if they say to me, with a straight face, that what I do is desttoying what they are doing. If that's actually the case, I say good. I can say that without much care for how one will feel as a result because I already know that I'm not a threat, largely because I never truly have been a part of the same industry they are, and never will be. And somehow, after going though lawschool and working every free day hour I had in the process, to then going to a full time job, it's never prevented me from making art, or having some music released. People like myself are not the enemy since we never gave a **** about the people making music for a living. We weren't trying to destroy it because we just didn't care about it, and the same is true now. Anyone who says otherwise is merely looking for a convenient scapegoat. I'm not about to sit back quietly and let others piss on what I do, and what I care about, just because they need something to blame for not being as popular as they once were. We weren't part of that equation then, and we aren't now. Abd, like it or not, we're not going anywhere. We're only going to get bigger, as has been demonstrated since this culture came to be decades ago and has grown more and more since. We're not the enemy unless you make us one. I am part of the computer underground culture. The internet, with the software running this board tha t transformed a one-way communication protocol into a two way one, is a direct byproduct of that. We are not disposable.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the fact that some people managed to take it to a level that was distributed outside of the hacker or computer culture and make a living off of it. But, don't spit on the rest of us who have been there forever who just never cared to do the same. And that's a general comment, not one directed at you, Mark, as I happen to greatly respect what you and so many other UK and other European techno crews and labels have done.