First of all, please excuse the long time that kept this blog silent.
I highly encourage you to check out this project that I will be part of too and hope for your full support.
Here's the short version of the manifest from Olivié's mail:
AMOUR
& DISCIPLINE - SHORT, REDUCTIVE AND INCOMPLETE
MANIFESTO FOR THOSE IN A HURRY
How
much does a band earn when you’re sharing their music with a
friend, or when you're using P2P or direct download services
to get it?
Well, ok, zero.
But
how much does a band earn when you buy a 10$ CD in a store ?
1.2 dollar.
How
much does a band earn when you buy a 0.99 song on Itunes ?
15 cents.
How
much does a band earn when you listen to a song one hundred
times on Spotify ?
0.5$.
Most
of the time, no matter how you listen to music, the artist
gets very little financial support. Of
course, these are average figures regarding both indie and
major label artists ; some manage to get better deals,
others get worse (if
you're signed on a major label, you'll propably get zero from
sales: majors give an advance to record the album, and you
won't earn anything until it is repaid. Very few artists
recoup this advance).
In
recent years, technology has made music shift from scarce
goods to infinite goods : once the original is made, it
takes zero marginal cost to make a digital copy and
distribute it. All the music in the world is available for
(almost) nothing, and less and less people are buying
physical records. Global Non-Commercial Culture Sharing is
now a reality – which, don't get us wrong, is simply great
-, but the problem of decently funding artistic creation
remains.
But
Why?
- a lot of people want to
maintain old centralized models of distribution, creating
artificial scarcity on infinite goods, and pretending
global culture sharing never happened
- big entertainment
corporations keep laying down the law
- many middlemen are still
involved. Some of them are valuable (independent labels),
some have to be questioned
So,
why not directly support those who create music and those
who really help to produce it?
Amour
& Discipline is
a non-profit DIY organization establishing a donation
platform where
people can donate to ANY independent band or label in the
universe (to cover our costs, we decided that those using
A&D will simply choose if and how much they want to
give us). A&D
project is not about charity, but Gift Economy. It is not
about guilt, but common decency.
Of
course, good ways to support bands/labels already exist
(buying stuff directly from them, for example) and crucial
ideas still have to be tested, but we think A&D can be a
useful step to promote two fundamental and inseparable
points :
- Non-Commercial Culture
Sharing is essential and legitimate
- We can and we must find
new ways to support independent authors and producers, so
the aforementioned fact won’t cast them in the sewers
where they will starve alone
We
want A&D's initiative to rest on the very people it
intends to support. Thus A&D also includes a collective
ad-free webzine written
by all kinds of people contributing to the shiny world of
underground/indie cultures (bands, labels and activists
such as d.i.y promoters, venues, webzines...). A&D is
NOT a place dedicated to music download, but a place to
support artists/labels. The only music available will be
found in the webzine, willingly shared by the artists
themselves.
Finally, we don't want to
promote Gift Economy only on our website, so we hope to be
linked on a lot of other webzines/blogs to remind people
they can support music this way.
We
think the combination of coercive (i.e. governments) and
mercantile (i.e. corporations) tactics should certainly not
be the only ones driving the legislation, distribution, and
financing of culture. On the contrary, we believe the
present situation urges us to invent new alternative
strategies.
Some bands/labels/webzines
contributing to A&D Webzine :
Action Beat,
Aguirre Records, Anders Hana (Moha!, Ultralyd...), Amen Dunes,
Astral Social Club, Autumn Records, Ben Greenberg (Zs, Hubble,
The Men), Ben McOsker (Load records), Brad Rose (Digitalis),
Bruno Dorella (Bar la Muerte records, OvO...), Carla Bozulich,
Chris Corsano, Chora, Clint Simonson (De Stijl records), Dan
Deacon, Daniel Francis Doyle, Datashock, Dean Spunt (No Age,
Post Present Medium), Deerhoof, Dirty Beaches, Doru Mihail and
other Cookshop dudes, Dustin Wong, Dwight & Brian (Get Off
The Coast / Secret Decoder), Efrim Manuel Menuck
(Godspeedyoublackemperor/A Silver Mt Zion/Constellation), Ela
Orleans, Eli Keszler, EMA, Ensemble Economique, Father Murphy,
Gangpol und Mit, Giuseppe Ielasi, Golden Cup/ 8 MM Records,
Hoquets, Jakub Adamek (Weed Temple), Japanther, Jeffrey lewis,
Jon Hency (Bathetic records), Julian Lynch, Justice Yeldham,
Kemialliset Ystävät, Lightning Bolt, Liars, Marc Richter
(Dekorder), Marvin, Mount Eerie, Nicholas Short (ex-Ruby
Scoops), Orange Milk records, Our Brother The Native, Patrick
Flegel (Women), Peter Nicholson (One Ensemble) Pheromoans,
Pica Disk, Pierre Bastien, Pink Reason, Pneu, Prince Rama,
Ramona Cordova, Rob
Hayler (Radio Free Midwich), Rusty Santos (The
Present), Scout Niblett, Sculpture, Senufo Editions, Shadow
Grounds, Shawn Reed (Wet hair/Night People), Singing Knives,
Sole, Sore Eros, Spencer Clark, Stonerobixxx, Stranded Horse,
Sun Araw, Sunburned Hand, Tape Drift Records, Teenage
Teardrops, The Ex, The Rebel, Tonstartssbandht, Troglosound,
Tune Yards, Upset the Rythm, Volcano the bear, Xiu Xiu...
Read the full manifesto here: AMOUR & DISCIPLINE
Since we are already touching the subject I´d like to link some great articles.
Steve Albini's article about major labels, which dates back to the early 90ies:
The Problem With Music
Andrew Dubber on piracy:
Should I Be Worried About Piracy?
We speak out for the idea of "Sharing is Caring" and the opinion that media, music specifically, should be available to everyone - and the internet facilitated our effort to achieve global availability.
That music giants discourage such an attempt is pretty obvious - their push for ACTA shows even more that their fight against sharing, "piracy" in their words, clearly isn't fought for their artists but for the greedy majors themselves.
This all starts with the use of the word "piracy", which is already improper.
Piracy in our context is "the unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material".
When sharing music you don´t reproduce it. You leave it untouched.
I think this image circulated for a while now, but I believe it's pretty fitting..
To sum it up: sharing music doesn't hurt anybody - on the contrary especially for little known it's much more of an opportunity to gain audience. And that is why we do it.
Yours truly
INTERSTELLΛR NΘISE
