[Sussex] RMS Talking at Sussex Uni

[Steve Dobson]

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Hi Dennis & Dominic

Yes, well worth going, I did enjoy it.

I'm not so sure about the cube-root payment system for musicians.  It
appears to be trying to replace the current (broken) Record Industry
business model with something very similar.  There is no need for that.
 Musicians have had for a very long time a way of getting income from
their music, they are called gigs!

As I understand it, most musicians, except the really, really famous
ones (Paul McCartney, Elton John, and that ilk) don't make any money
from their record company.  They make their money from the gigs they
play.  In the past they have needed the record companies because only
the record companies had the resources to prompt the band/artist into
the big time, and their for the bigger gigs and therefore more income.
But we don't need a big, rich company for advertising these days, now we
have the Internet and viral marketing.

As an example take a look at the band Steadman.  Don't pay for their
music, just download it.  You can get it from the band itself where it
is released under a CC license: http://www.steadmanband.com/  Read their
bio and you'll see how the record industry is working to prompt them,
and this is hardly an isolated case.  RMS gave us another, and you may
remember how the Canadian music artists spoke out about the record
industry and the RIAA when they started suing left, right and centre.
Plenty of examples where the industry isn't working to prompt the
interests of the people it clams.

But some creative artists (authors for example) do need a way of getting
paid for producing work that we like and we want to share and copy.  My
understanding is that if a book has a cover price of $8 the author will
see less than $1 of that.  And if the book is being sold at a discount
then they see even less.  Again, I don't think the publishing industry
is working in the best interests of the writes, but are servicing their
own needs first and foremost.

So overall I very much agreed with what RMS had to say.  His goals are
right and proper.  I just don't agree with all his implementation ideas.

Steve

On 10/03/11 11:15, Dominic Humphries wrote:
> Pretty good - well worth going to. 
> 
> I liked the idea of musicians etc. getting paid on a cube-root basis,
> i.e. sell 1000x more records and get 10x more money, so that the big
> sellers still get lots of money but there's more available for the
> reasonably-successful non-superstars. I was less convinced by the idea
> that useful 'howto' books shouldn't get any protection from copyright.
> 
> But it was overall an interesting talk. And I was impressed he managed
> to auction off a plush Gnu for £100 :o)
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2011-03-10 at 11:09 +0000, Dennis Dryden wrote:
>> How was it?
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 8:13 PM, Fay Zee <sussex at eglug.org.uk> wrote:
>>> On 7 March 2011 14:31, Steven Dobson <steve at dobbo.org> wrote:
>>>> Just thought I would remind anyone who is going to see RMS tomorrow that
>>>> it is TOMORROW!!!
>>>
>>> I've decided it's a not-to-be-missed event and have booked my seat.
>>>
>>> Meeting Steve at Brighton station to catch the 18:17 to Falmer.
>>>
>>> See you there!
>>>
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>> Fay
>>> East Grinstead Linux User Group
>>> www.eglug.org.uk
>>>
>>>
>>> --
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>>> E-mail Address: sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk
>>> Sussex LUG Website: http://www.sussex.lug.org.uk/
>>> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sussex
>>>
>>
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> 
> 
> 
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- -- 
Steve Dobson
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