The bottom lines with any kind of law are that they must reflect public practice, be enforcable, and be established in fairness. The only people really pounding their chests over downloading and home CD duping are major-label guys. The majority of music released in the Western world is not the product of major labels, but major labels have lobbying groups and attorneys, who between them get laws made that reflect the interests of the few. Do these laws benefit Jello Biafra? Ellery Eskelin? John Oswald? Do we see Jello or Ellery on the news pounding a pulpit about how downloading is "robbing us of our livelihood"? No -- they're into building an audience, establishing a clientele. The amount of record royalties they're seeing ain't Ryan Adams numbers. They're making the bulk of their cash going out and playing live to that clientele and collecting the money directly, instead of having to wait up to a year to see if the recouped on their last release. The majors set up a price structure that reflects nothing of actual cost. Also, they're releasing such low-quality product that paying damn near twenty dollars is a travesty to the average teen record buyer, who knows the only satisfying (by his needs) thing on the record is going to be the hit. The labels got so greedy that they made CD singles -- which cost about a dime to manufacture -- retail for about six bucks. The law is supposed to be practical in its application. Practicality is defined by what is practical to the public. If it is more practical to download the hit rather than pay twenty smacks for a record with one good cut, go to a used store and trade it in for four bucks store credit, as any CEO will tell you a sixteen dollar loss is not practical. To say nothing of the time it takes to take your obsolete hit discs to the store, and wait around in line to tell you they can't give you more than three or four bucks because they already have dozens of copies of J Lo's masterpiece used and unsold. In the old punk rock days, bands started labels and distribution networks. They were a helluva lot more careful about what they put on their records, because THEIR MONEY went into making the thing itself. Why more jazz guys won't do this is beyond me. I get the impression Tim Berne likes keeping his own money, money that he generated by making a product himself. The fuss and feathers about the "harm" internet radio, peer-to-peer sharing etc are doing to the music business is a little suspicious. Twenty-five years ago, you had more majors, more big corporations who owned media outlets. This -- just by sheer numbers -- kept anyone from having a stranglehold on the makking of media policy. But now, there are about five major labels. These are owned by a scant few big conglomorates who also own the news media, film studios, TV networks. You can have your new hit come out on a major, reviewed in papers and magazines owned by the same corpo giant, with the hit placed in a movie made by the film studio owned by that corpo giant, and make a video from that played (in heavy rotation) on their various TV channels. Meanwhile, remember some of those punk rock bands whose "integrity" we so praised? Their songs are selling Jaguars now. They want money, too, whether or not the means by which they get it has anything to do with the ideals that music espoused. How much of a dent can home digitizing make in a system like that? All home digitizing does to harm them is offer alternatives to their crappy product. And their are enough computers with mp3 players and Real Audio players that the threat to them is real. These corpo fucks don't want people to be made aware that their consumer options are not relegated to major label catalog. They lose money if some kid takes his sawbuck and uses it to buy an indie release. (Do you honestly think these assholes heard a tape of Nirvana and said "this band is great"? Fuck no. They went to shows and looked at how many people were already there, how many of those people were wearing Nirvana or other Sub Pop-oriented t-shirts, how many fanzines were already writing all about Nirvana. They saw a way to take all that indie clientele money and turn it into major label money.) If you're going to support cultural insurgency of any sort, home digitizing is damn near a patriotic duty. A way to let people know that whole other musical traditions -- traditions that really make America great -- exist. It brings things back to the freedom of choice this nation was based on. Become the media. Burn American Music discs for your friends. Give 'em a disc with Tim Berne, Cecil Taylor, Uri Caine, Ellery Eskelin, Mark Feldman and Chris Speed. Just one cut you like from each album. Make twenty copies and distribute them to friends who seem intelligent but still have a Journey disc in the player. If they don't like it, it's only about forty cents out of your pocket (the cost of a bulk disc). Go campaign throughout your neighborhood for this culture of which you claim to be a proponent. If you know somebody really special is coming to your town, notify the local jazz crit. Let him know you read his stuff and respect him, and that some really special music is coming to town. if he doesn't know about this person's music, send him an mp3. Home digitizing has given all our different music communities a chance to inform people in a way that never existed before. We're Americans -- materialistic pigs who will always buy something if we decide to like it. Baskin Robins has the right idea -- a free taste. If you like the free taste of that little teeny spoon, you'll buy a cone or a sundae while you're there. We have the opportunity to become little tiny media forces. The royalty generated via one CD isn;t much. But the ten bucks a warm body pays at the door at the gig (when there are tops 100 people at the show) is 20% of a Motel 6 room, 33% of a tank of gas, one bandmember's meal. You get the picture. You're on this list because you care about some other music. If you really care, nurture it. Help the music finds homes and interest and a consumership. Debating exactly what ownership entails and implies when you buy a CD is what the majors want you to do. It keeps you from "bootlegging" their product, and it keeps you from freely digitizing this stuff for your friends and trying to make non-major music fans out of them. I propose that each of us on this list knowns 20 cool people who aren;t on this list and who don't really know about the music we discuss around here. Let's all make twenty discs and distribute them to people who might like this kind of entertainment, who are likely to buy one or two of the records we put on that disc for them, who are likely to attend a performance. We're obviously people with time, energy, and passion about this stuff. Let's not relegate ourselves to preaching to the converted. skip h

Hello John, Saturday, November 30, 2002, you wrote: js> Actually, other people are paid this way and it is by manufacturing. Cars, js> Hamburgers and Cd's are all sold the same way. Zoo admission, Plane Tickets, js> and Concert tickets are all sold the same way. If I make a copy of hamburger nobody will say a word. For zoo admission, plane tickets and concert tickets I just normally pay as is. It is just the product as anything else from the store. What are the rights payments for zoo admissions? js> Lets say I'm cleaning some path in the park, should I charge

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every person who passes this path some money?

js> They already are payinb money. Taxes. Taxes are fine. The sweeping guy is not paid based on the number of trespassers. That's the point. NP: Astrud Gilberto "Compact Jazz" (CD) -- Best regards, Peter Gannushkin e-mail: shkin@shkin.com URL: http://www.downtownmusic.net/