AMOUR & DISCIPLINE

First of all, please excuse the long time that kept this blog silent.

But with the lauch of AMOUR & DISCIPLINE tomorrow, it's time to break that silence.

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 :

1. Non-Commercial Culture Sharing is essential and legitimate
2. 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