Interesting Tim O'Reilly article. (OT)

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Fri Dec 13 22:40:01 2002

> The MPAA and RIAA are failing to see that we are slowly turning from
> consumers to producers/consumers and this has actually been going on for
> some time now.

I think you are greatly overestimating the ambition and attention span of
the public.

> In 1989, a little known musician spent a week mixing his own
> music on a Macintosh (doing two takes per song) and in 1990 released the
> album to critical and commerical success (Nine Inch Nail's "Pretty Hate
> Machine"). That was 12 years ago. Imagine what can happen now.

The reason this guy became popular is because he can actually craft a good
song*. It is not something that everyone can do, even if they actually
spend the hours to crank out a tune. Many kids try, but almost all quit
after they find out that the tracks they just laid all sound like a bunch of
Casio presets.

Look what happened when the electric guitar started coming out in force,
back in the 1960s. With a fairly minimal amount of training, you can make
a song. What we ended up with is a bunch of crappy garage bands making
crappy music, and pretty much everyone went nowhere selling out in the huge
garage sale guitar glut of years later.

*No, not a Trent fan - no CDs, no MP3s...hell, I didn't even give him any
airplay...and yes, I *reeeally* don't like the RIAA. Oh, and he did have
a bit of help from Adrian Sherwood - that didn't hurt the record, certainly.

William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Fri Dec 13 2002 - 22:40:01 GMT