Liberation Musicology (was Re: FYI)

From: adario (adario@thingsburnup.com)
Date: Thu Mar 01 2001 - 17:11:08 CET

  • Next message: Andreas Saag: "Re: A name for our music"

    viva la proximo mundo,
    aaron dario

    http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010312&s=moglen
    by Eben Moglen

    The recording industry has been celebrating the supposed defeat of Napster. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the grant of a preliminary injunction that may well have the effect of closing the service down completely and ending the commercial existence of Napster's parent (that is, unless the record companies agree to an implausible deal Napster has proposed). But despite appearances, what has happened, far from being a victory, is the beginning of the industry's end. Even for those who have no particular stake in the sharing of music on the web, there's value in understanding why the "victory"over Napster is actually a profound and irreversible calamity for the record companies. What is now happening to music will soon be happening to many other forms of "content" in the information society. The Napster case has much to teach us about the collapse of publishers generally, and about the liberative possibilities of the decay of the cultural oligopolies that dominated the second half of the twentieth century.
    ...
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Shawn Kuo
      To: acid-jazz@ucsd.edu
      Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2001 9:59 AM
      Subject: FYI

      Amazon.com, the giant Internet retailer, has dramatically expanded its music downloads as part of an effort to rejuvenate sagging CD sales. Indie artists can post tunes there, and happy fans can contribute to "virtual tip jars" -- with Amazon.com taking its cut. The team behind Ogg Vorbis, an open-source digital music file format, has created the nonprofit Xiph Foundation to give them some cover in the increasingly litigious online music arena. Amazon cranks up the music downloads



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