On Demand
Ethics and Music, Part One
It's never been easier to acquire, manipulate and distribute recorded music. Randy Cohen, author of "The Ethicist" column for the New York Times Magazine, joins us to add some color to the "gray areas" in issues like downloading, ripping CDs and pitch correction. Plus, we take your calls and comments.
Tell us: Got a music-related dilemma? Leave a question for The Ethicist!
Our blog: host John Schaefer and producer Joel Meyer share their musical ethical dilemmas
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Comments
Can you recommend a, good reasonably priced ($200 or less) sound editing software solution for the PC.
Randy:
When the RIAA takes back my album (vinyl)
and gives me a CD, then I will start buying stuff again..
Agreed I bought RIGHT to play the music!
Guilty as charged; I now feel so "superior" as a person who tries to always buy my music... but how times have changed... pre-funding, I was a college DJ and rampantly made cassettes of every band I loved - thinking that, hey, I played and promoted them, and it helps me audition the songs and find good new ones, etc. All the justifications. And who am I to say; this practice probably helped me find new songs to play, but it was certainly wrong... I felt extremely guilty when Elliot Smith died prior to me ever giving him a cent. But I did give word of mouth to others, who may have then bought all his albums... great topic..
I wanted to archive my kids disney vhs tapes (bought and paid for) onto dvd, feeling they would be soon obsolete. The Sony VHS to DVD recorder wouldn't let me! what do you think of the ethics of DIsney and Sony?
I had a stack of music CDs that I bought over many years. When I finally ripped them all onto my computer what do I do with the CDs? Ive paid for the music already so I dont feel bad about putting them into a format that is more convenient for me (although RIAA has sometimes said that this was a violation of copyright and users should have to pay again to switch formats). I dont want the physical CDs anymore, they just take up space. But I cant sell them or give them as a gift right? Then two people have the music when the artists only got paid once. But it felt wrong to throw them away - which is what I ended up doing.
What about lyrics - can I dl lyrics from free web sites? Again RIAA says no.
The Guest said that it is ok to update your media for free (ie old record to new mp3 or other download). How about when you bought a cd when if first comes out and the artist then remasters it (Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones come to mind). My delemia comes from the fact that if I either download it or copy my friend's cd, those people involved in the remastering don't get paid.
We live in a time of renegade electronics. Unfortunately, ideas or designs can no longer be owned. Duchamp and Pop Art established that. So why are we still hanging on. Capitalism's end goal is proliferation and it will continue whether it gets paid. I think the question now is, can you own my experience. I say absolutely not.
Oh my goodness am I going to jail for all the mixed tapes I made for my girlfriends..
If mp3s did not exist and I broke or lost a cd I'd have to buy that album again. How is it ethical that because mp3s exist and I once owned a hard copy of the original music I am now ethically entitled to download that same music? The medium is irrelevant, it is still unethical.
Laying aside matters of law, focusing only on ethics:
How is sharing music different from sharing recipes? Recipes have been shared for eons, without the originators being paid for their creativity. Adulation is payment enough.
I don't buy the argument that we wouldn't have music if its professional producers (musicians, songwriters, etc) weren't paid extravagantly for their work. We have to have music, just as we have to eat. Musicians should (and would) still make music even if the public shared mp3's and CD's without the producers getting a cut.
I have over 500 albums I bought in my teens and twenties back in the 70's and 80's. I go to the library now and take out CD's that match the albums I own. I make copies of these CD's for my own use. Since I have already bought the albums and paid the artist is this ethical?
I have purchased so many cds as a result of someone burning a mix cd for me.,
It is ridiculous the amount of money pop musicians make these days and the influence on society that they have because of this wealth is sometimes obscene. If these people made less money ,from downloading or whatever, it would be fine by me. Maybe they'd be less interesting to the tabloids if they actually had to work for a living.
If you are walking down the street and you record a car passing by with the radio on, and then burn that to cd and sell it, should we pay the performer for the rights to the music. Do they now own my experience.?
What about dling for free music you cant buy in the US. Like if you are into Japanese pop music, but its not sold here, is it then ok to dl it free?
I get my songs from the public library and I don't feel bad! I was under the impression that artists make their money from concert sales and not cd sales ever since mp3s came out. I might be wrong, but I still don't feel bad since I grew up in the "napster" peer to peer network age. Sorry.
i commented i the other thread accidentally.
isn't it a little unethical to rerelease an album with only slight differences anyway? a la the led zeppelin scenario.
the other thing i said, was that records should just be outlawed, that way it will be back to a performance art and people will have to pay to see the performers play!
but that's mostly a joke.
oh, that said though, it's amazing what people will and won't pay to see live performers and how much that is tied in to how many records they've sold to begin with.
what if i make a contribution to a public radio station, make a tax deduction b/c the radio station and i tell the IRS i didn't receive anything in exchange, and all the while i groove to the "gift" CD the radio station gave me in exchange for my money?
If you are not going to buy it regardless then is it ok to download it since no one is loosing money?
The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble will be on Soundcheck on Friday May 16.
This is a really great Jazz band, bringing a fresh sensibility to the New Orleans Jazz idiom.
Keep tuned....
>>RSM
Does Mr. Cohen, as an employee of a company that seeks to protect its copyrights, and as an individual who earns a living as a writer, have a conflict of interest on these issues?
Can we pay what we want for a Rauschenberg? RIP.
In response to the people who rent music from the Library. In Japan, it is the norm to rent music from a rental or music store just as you would also buy music. The store would allow you to do either rent or buy a CD. Also, there you can also just buy one song from an MP3 Machine. Maybe there is some royalty sistem set up there but it should not be illegal or unethical to make a copy and at some point allow a friend to have the copy. We can still make copies or tapes from the radio or a tv program.
so far as not being able to afford music, why do you need to buy music? i can't afford music, so i don't buy it. why is that so complicated? we act like we have a right to music. but the artists who create the music, not to mention the engineers, producers, people who work in the cd manufacturing plant.... they can't afford music either, because no on is paying them for their work.
Here's my ethical argument:
1. I collect so much music that even if I only pay for 1/3 of it I am still paying my "fair share" since I pay more than the better percentage of people.
2. There is so much good music that it is practically impossible for me to collect it all anyway. If I limit myself to what I can afford then I just have less music. The industry does not have more money.
thank you for pronouncing my name properly...most people get it wrong :)
Own the experience.
If a CD only cost $5, how many people would bother to steal it?
The idea that once you've bought a CD/record/tape, you should be able to download it without paying misses a point that anyone who ever took freshman economics learned - the "free rider" problem. Even if you bought the "idea of the music" (a dubious theory) rather than the CD, others haven't. And unlicensed (I'll avoid the word 'illegal') download sites don't require proof that you owned a physical copy of the music; thus, most of the people using them skip buying the music entirely and the artists, record companies, et al. lose. I suppose, moving forward, music companies could enclose a code in each physical copy of the music so that, if you lost it, you could download it. It's fraught with problems, I admit, but it's better than the false moral high ground that the "Ethicist" claimed.
This thread is closed.
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