When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide.

POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Monday, September 18, 2023 22:24
VIEWED: 4247
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6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, October 28, 2007 9:18 AM (P)

This was not written by me. The blog can be found here: http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birt
h-of.html

When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide.

[Currently Listening To: Music I Didn't Pay For]

For quite a long time I've been intending to post some sort of commentary on the music industry - piracy, distribution, morality, those types of things. I've thought about it many times, but never gone through with it, because the issue is such a broad, messy one - such a difficult thing to address fairly and compactly. I knew it would result in a rambly, unfocused commentary, and my exact opinion has teetered back and forth quite a bit over the years anyway. But on Monday, when I woke up to the news that Oink, the world famous torrent site and mecca for music-lovers everywhere, had been shut down by international police and various anti-piracy groups, I knew it was finally time to try and organize my thoughts on this huge, sticky, important issue.

For the past eight years, I've worked on and off with major record labels as a designer ("Major" is an important distinction here, because major labels are an entirely different beast than many indie labels - they're the ones with the power, and they are the ones driving the industry-wide push against piracy). It was 1999 when I got my first taste of the inner-workings of a major record label - I was a young college student, and the inside of a New York label office seemed so vast and exciting. Dozens of worker bees hummed away at their desks on phones and computers. Music posters and stacks of CDs littered every surface. Everyone seemed to have an assistant, and the assistants had assistants, and you couldn't help but wonder "what the hell do all these people do?" I tagged along on $1500 artist dinners paid for by the labels. Massive bar tabs were regularly signed away by record label employees with company cards. You got used to people billing as many expenses back to the record company as they could. I met the type of jive, middle-aged, blazer-wearing, coke-snorting, cartoon character label bigwigs who you'd think were too cliche to exist outside the confines of Spinal Tap. It was all strange and exciting, but one thing that always resonated with me was the sheer volume of money that seemed to be spent without any great deal of concern. Whether it was excessive production budgets or "business lunches" that had nothing to do with business, one of my first reactions to it all was, "so this is why CDs cost $18..." An industry of excess. But that's kind of what you expected from the music business, right? It's where rock stars are made. It's where you get stretch limos with hot tubs in the back, where you get private jets and cocaine parties. Growing up in the '80's, with pop royalty and hair metal bands, you were kind of led to think, of course record labels blow money left and right - there's just so much of it to go around! Well, you know what they say: The bigger they are...

In those days, "piracy" was barely even a word in the music world. My friends and I traded MP3s in college over the local network, but they were scattered and low-quality. It felt like a novelty - like a digital version of duping a cassette tape - hardly a replacement for CDs. CDs sounded good and you could bring them with you in your DiscMan, and the only digital music you could get was as good as your friends' CD collections, anyway. It never occurred to any of us that digital files were the future. But as it turned out, lots of kids, in lots of colleges around the world, had the same idea of sharing MP3 files over their local networks, and eventually, someone paid attention to that idea and made Napster. Suddenly, it was like all those college networks were tied together, and you could find all this cool stuff online. It was easier and more efficient than record stores, it was powered by music fans, and, well, it was free. Suddenly you didn't have to pay 15 to 18 bucks for an album and hope it

LEADB

Sunday, October 28, 2007 1:29 PM (P)

Article is much too long for me to read the whole thing. One interesting tidbit:

http://www.riaaradar.com/

is the URL for the RIAA Radar mentioned above; I ran the last half dozen artists I bought CD's from, and they are all 'RIAA Safe'. Not terribly surprised, 95% of the [s]albums[/s] cd's my wife and I buy these days are from local performances of artists hawking their own CD's.

Except for 'The Howling', the results from;
http://www.riaaradar.com/search.asp?searchtype=ArtistSearch&keyword=Mc
krells
show recent cd's from The McKrells (or Kevin McKrell; I guess he's gone solo of late for his cd's; longish story). If you like acoustic music which is American, but has a strong Irish 'flavor' to it, go have a look around.

You might say 'ok, what does LeadB's music preferences have to do with this.' One question asked above is, how do you discover new music? One answer, folks with similar music interest making meaningful recommendations.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, October 28, 2007 2:40 PM (P)

Yeah... he's even more a talker than I am.

Was pretty sure nobody would read the whole thing, but it's up my ally anyways. I think he said a lot of powerful things there, but reading it is like watching Saturday Night Live for an hour and a half to find the 5 minutes of funny.

That link you mention is great. I've always been in the artists corner and I've never implied that somebody should steal from artists. Go to their concerts (preferably when we dethrone the scalpers at Ticketmaster), buy their shirts and keychains and bling. And by all means, purchase thier albums when they break free of the contracts and go independent or small label, like Trent Reznor recently had. Just PLEASE don't feed the RIAA troll machine that pumps out pop shit and pop artists like they are going out of style (which coincidentally, they are)....

With the rise of new technology, the call to the Major Labels at the beginning of the century was Adapt or Die. They chose the latter. It's just a matter of time now....

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

FREMDFIRMA

Sunday, October 28, 2007 2:41 PM (P)

Excellent.

Been sayin much the same for years.

-F

6IXSTRINGJACK

Sunday, October 28, 2007 2:55 PM (P)

Thank you Frem.

I forgot to mention, it's people like Bono who legitimatize everything these Major Labels stand for by releasing U2's "Vertigo" to the public via a Target commercial a months before the CD came out. Then when the video comes out, the band is rocking on a cataclysmic Target symbol in the middle of the desert.

After they cashed in like that, who should ever feel obligated to give them a single cent for any of their music?

I mean, by using reverse RIAA psychology, you already paid for it by watching the ad associated to it. Right.....?

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

SIGNYM

Sunday, October 28, 2007 4:05 PM (P)

Amen.

I'm not a music lover, but the same goes for Microsoft (Bill's penis), proprietary software and Digital Restrictions Management, officially labeled in Orwellian fashion as Digital "Rights" Management... as if they were talking about YOUR rights.

I think a lot of this crap goes back to DMCA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA (thank you Bill fucking Clinton) and if there is a law that needs to be changed, focus on THAT.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

LEADB

Sunday, October 28, 2007 5:22 PM (P)

Agreed, DCMA is terrible. I send a rant to my duly elected representatives on that now and again.

FILLIANGIRL4136

Sunday, October 28, 2007 10:35 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I forgot to mention, it's people like Bono who legitimatize everything these Major Labels stand for by releasing U2's "Vertigo" to the public via a Target commercial a months before the CD came out. Then when the video comes out, the band is rocking on a cataclysmic Target symbol in the middle of the desert.

After they cashed in like that, who should ever feel obligated to give them a single cent for any of their music?

I mean, by using reverse RIAA psychology, you already paid for it by watching the ad associated to it. Right.....?

I am a big supporter of local artists. Being from Chicago, I get to go to a lot of small shows with upcoming artists. I definately believe in purchasing the music directly from the artist. I have had conversations with certain performers who say they get more money from fans purchasing music at gigs then they do through stores. Plus they get to see who is really into their music.

This is why I have to give huge props to Radiohead (not signed to a major label) who released their new album on the internet for a "donation". I think it's great that established artists can make music and let the consumer chose the price. If you haven't already seen the new Rolling Stone there is an article about it.

But to get back to the whole U2 thing. Yes, they "sold out", but you have to realize that endorsements and tours are where the real money is for artists that are signed to major labels. I don't blame them for doing because they use the money to help other organizations around the world. God, Bono was nominated for a Noble Peace Prize.

But, local artist

PIRATENEWS

Sunday, October 28, 2007 10:55 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

[Currently Listening To: Music I Didn't Pay For]

That used to be called "RADIO".

Now the record label monopolies own 1,000s of stations networked together, and only play their own music, so they don't have to pay royalties to their own bands (nor hire DJs and news reporters). These Clear Channel type stations play the same worn out music over and over, year after year, decade after decade.

Music lovers are forced to go elsewhere.

The net allows indy bands to bypass the censorship of the multinational anti-American radio stations, not only locally, but worldwide. This introduces bands to billions of potential customers. If the listeners likes what they hear, they can perhaps download a low-res MP3 or WMA file, or buy a CD with hi-res WAV file, just like the old days when they could taperecord music off the radio for free.

Myspace, Amazon and Garageband.com allow free webhosting for bands to offer downloads of music, either free or pay per download. I offer my music for free download at Myspace and Garageband, and for sale at Cafepress.com, without any overhead.

These internet music networks allows personal networking between bands and promoters, worldwide. That's how I hooked up with a band in LA, and produced a music video for them that won awards in Hollywood. The band got $1,000s worth of "free" labor from me, and I got $1,000s worth of free publicity from them. This would never have happened without "filesharing".

I produce videos and DVDs, and it's great to negotiate royalties with indy bands. But it costs $10,000 just to speak with lawyers for the same bands, in their previous contracts with major record labels, with the bands getting none of that money. That's why these bands fired their major labels, and now self-produce their CDs. One of theose international labels "lost" $100-million of their bands' money...

This week, my weekly TV show was again banned on Youtube, because of my comments about Comcast throttling my cable broadband service, from 4MB/sec down to 10KB/sec. Comcast reportedly perps this fraud against all its customers who visit myspace, google video and youtube, since that's now classified as "filesharing". Comcast has TV adverts for the Slowskys (talking turtles), making fun of DSL. My youtube comments observed the Slowskys are an example of Truth In Advertising, since all Comcast customers are Slowskys.

Here's the Comcast employee who got me censored on Youtube:

Quote:
"LOL @ You. really slow? I get 12Mb+ at my home using their 6Mb service. They don't throttle at all. They only send warning letters to the top .001% of their subscribers each month regarding bandwidth usage. Most of these customers are using the service that violates the user agreement and are distributing copyrighted material. You, sir, are a complete dumbass. If you want commercial class service, then open your wallet and get a bonded T1 line at your house."
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/piratenewsrss/message/355

I guess the Comcast monopoly isn't satisfied with the $500/year I pay them for cable internet. Sounds like a class action will soon cost them a few $100-million. A similar class action was filed against ATT, which is partnered with Comcast.

BTW, filesharing is not illegal, no more than it's illegal to let your sister borrow your record or send you an email.

But if you never learn how to win in court pro se (without a lawyer), such as traffic tickets and parking tickets, how can you hope to win a filesharing lawsuit from the record label rackets?
www.piratenews.org/fasterthanaspeedingticket.html

Hanoi Hannity: "Outsourcing your job is good for me."
"US ports owned by Commie China is good for me."
"Dead and disabled US soldiers are good for me."
"Sir Rupert dines with Hillary every week."
"Ron Paul does not exist in my 'Verse."

"As far as Chinese goes, I resented it."
-Adam

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, October 29, 2007 12:51 PM (P)

I'll give you that about Bono. He is doing a lot for other people, and though I may not appreciate it like his fans do, I'm not trying to talk anybody out of being a fan if they are. Certain things that rich folk do just get under my nerves. I like a lot of U2 songs over the years. I was a huge Metallica fan back in the day too, and even though a lot of critics and fans hate their new stuff, I don't mind it all that much. I'm just never going to buy anything of theirs anymore after certain decisions they'd made about the people they were going to back.

Somebody in Metallica's position really had a chance to start making changes about the way the game is played at their home turf and they decide to go Corporate. The very same guys that would never cut their hair and made fun of made bands like Motley Crue, calling them a bunch of "*@c*suckers" turn around and suck on the corporate teat and drop their drawers and shit on their fans in the process.

I realize that to some, probably most, the fact that Bono released a good song like Vertigo as a commercial and made the entire 5 minute video a Target commercial isn't the same, but to me it is. I've seen the commercials and even watched the video (several times laughing while showing others who didn't know how they're Target's new mascots). I figure I've paid my dues. If I want to download their entire discography, whatever.... It's not like Bono's strapped for cash, although I could see him backing the RIAA someday and suing everyone in their uncle saying that since we listened to their music, our money should be going to Africa to feed starving kids. But then again, I'm not a fan. I know nothing of the man. Maybe he'd not be capable of that...

I don't blame Bono for being a capitalist. It's very hard today to not find that in an artist who has become a household name. It's just not what I respect in a musical artist. If the man was living like a pauper (see a struggling couple paying for daycare because they both work at a shitty, low paying 9 to 5 job making regular workingman's wages, with a used car, 3.5 kids to insure and put through college, and a 30 year mortgage on a McMansion), I would have all the world of respect for him for doing what he was doing. As it were, I don't take kindly to a man trying to make me feel bad about decisions I make when he has the means to live in excess whenever the desire comes upon him.

I'm glad Bono is helping people, but he is an attention whore. He is the most conceited philanthropist I've ever witnessed and he's built his entire image around that. People aren't even going to remember Bono the musician. People will remember Bono the philanthropist.

I'm a fan of what Radiohead did. It was definately a publicity stunt. And a very creative one at that. I don't hate em for it. They only gave the fans lower quality tracks and the actual CD, on top of sounding superior, will also contain "bonus tracks". But it's definately a step in the right direction. Hopefully others will (be allowed?) to come forward and emulate that type of behavior and even trump it. I was also a fan of Prince's decision to release his CD in the newspaper for free. The world's never seen anything like that before, though I can't help to question what the possible altereor motives might have been. Time will tell if this is all just a gimmick or if we will begin to see an entire new way that fans interact with their favorite artists... the way that fans and artists network and find each other and share each other. A community that will happily shed itself of agents and lawyers and corporations and labels. Imagine what a different world may be created by such a thing, if left to flourish without greed influencing every creative decision.

Imagine

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

RAZZA

Monday, October 29, 2007 2:15 PM (P)

This has to be one of the best summaries of the entire file sharing/music industry relationship and the idiocy of copyright law as it exists today that I've ever read, and I did read every word!! Thanks for posting it 6ixstring. Excellent stuff!

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"There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration."
---Andrew Carnegie

"Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."
---Roger Ebert

FLETCH2

Monday, October 29, 2007 4:17 PM (P)

I read it all too and it's a fantastic post.

CITIZEN

Monday, October 29, 2007 10:30 PM (P)

Not exactly music but:

Quote:
TV LINKS WEBSITE OWNER ARRESTED FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

A man aged 26 from Cheltenham was arrested on Thursday (18th October) in connection with offences relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the Internet. The arrest came during an operation by officers from Gloucestershire County Council Trading Standards Service working with investigators from the Federation Against Copyright Theft (‘FACT’) and Gloucestershire Police. The man has been released pending further enquiries.

The site, TV Links ( www.tv-links.co.uk), was providing links to illegal film content that has been camcorded from within a cinema and then uploaded to the Internet. The site additionally provided links to TV shows that were also being illegally distributed.

Sites such as TV Links contribute to and profit from copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organising, and indexing links to infringing content found on the Internet that users can then view on demand by visiting these illegal sites.

Kieron Sharp, FACT Director General, said: “We at FACT have stated very clearly that we intended to pursue those who are openly exploiting and facilitating the distribution of illegal film and TV content and this was the first major target.
The theft and distribution of films harms the livelihoods of those working in the UK film industry and in ancillary industries, as well as damaging the economy.
In addition, those visiting sites hosting illegal content run the risk of downloading Trojans or viruses that can infect their computers.”

Roger Marles, Head of Trading Standards, said: "This practice allows people to view any one of a large number of films and television programmes directly via the website. This is illegal under UK copyright law. The 'users' are potentially evading licence fees, subscription fees to digital services or the cost of purchase or admittance to cinemas to view the films.
No physical product changes hands but the effect is the same - anyone has the opportunity to view an illegal copy of a copyrighted work. This is all done without the permission of the owners of the copyright or trade mark protection in the works being distributed.
As no control is exerted over who can visit the site and access the service, there is no regard for the age of the viewer and therefore no control of the content of what is viewed."

The operation was conducted with the assistance of BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy body, who have served notice on the TV Links hosting provider, Leaseweb, to allow the website servers to be removed. Leaseweb is based in the Netherlands.

http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/site/latest_news/index.htm

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

FREMDFIRMA

Monday, October 29, 2007 11:41 PM (P)

You know what's funny, I flamed Metallica for it the moment they did it, and caught ALL amount of holy hell for it at the time.

And now, here we are.

You'd get a bang out of my "official" name for em nowadays Six...

Metallibitchywhinycorporatewhoreica.

It even sounds kinda neat when you say it, and boy does it ever raise eyebrows and start interesting conversations, lol.

-F

JAYNEZTOWN

Monday, September 18, 2023 4:42 PM (P)

The rise of AI music: A force for good or a new low for artistic creativity?

https://mixmag.net/feature/the-rise-of-ai-music-a-force-for-good-or-a-
nadir-for-artistic-creativity

Socrates' Trial

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, September 18, 2023 10:24 PM (P)

Wow. That conversation was a long time ago. Somebody got old.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

I was just at my buddy's last night and we were listening to his Spotify while shooting pool and we were talking about how devalued entertainment in general has become since we moved to a world where everything you want is (or could be) at your fingertips.

Music is almost meaningless to me these days, when it was a big part of my life growing up. Remember the days of just having a tape recording the radio in hopes that the song you really wanted to record would show up because you knew if you waited around for the song to start you'd miss the beginning of the song before you hit record?

I'd do that all the time, then I'd take the time to re-record those full songs onto a 2nd tape so it didn't have the garbage I didn't want to listen to before or after it. Sure, the quality wasn't as good after the 2nd recording, but who cares?

Now it's just kind of being buried under a pile of over-abundance. The thrill is gone. Hell... I think I've even run out of songs to find from my youth based off of only a few stray lyrics I somehow remembered in the back of my mind. With the internet having lyrics for virtually everything up somewhere, even the most obscure underground HARD 90's rap songs I remember from local Chicago groups that my buddy would find on "Thug Life" tapes he bought at kiosks at the mall have all been found.

With music, I know that what happens with every generation happened to me a long time ago. With rare exception, new music doesn't appeal to me very much. But even all my old stuff is kind of meaningless since everything went digital.

With Movies and TV shows there's the additional woke element that has just turned the entire industry into trash (again, with rare exception), but it still has the exact same problem the record industry has. It's all been devalued when we swim in a sea of easily-accessible over-abundance.

After KODI became a thing, I didn't even have to worry about torrent sites getting shut down left and right because why would I bother even taking the time and effort to download a movie, rename it and put it on a NAS drive when I could just pick the movie I wanted to watch and stream it?

Fast-forward to today, and as some of you know, after I stopped drinking I pretty much stopped watching Movies and TV shows altogether unless I'm watching them with my Dad and brother or a friend. (And I don't even know if KODI works anymore and if it's still a thing that people even do). It's almost October of 2023 now, and I can easily count on one single hand the amount of Movies and TV shows that I've watched alone this year, and if I counted the ones that I watched with friends and family too, I wouldn't have to go too much further into my first foot worth of toes to count all of them after moving beyond my second hand.

I know that part of this is me just growing up and my tastes and priorities changing. I also know that I'm built a little different than most folk are in the first place. But I think that the Digital Revolution really killed a lot of the allure of entertainment. The ease of access and overabundance was a huge part of that. But there are also other factors at play here like getting to realize that these Celebrities are just people too, and once they were allowed to talk (mostly down) to everyone about their opinions we realized that not only were they just people, but most of them were pretty shitty people to boot.

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How you do anything is how you do everything.