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A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

rootsmusic.ca

211–220 of 248 posts

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#211
post #206
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a bad argument. It ignores the fact that humans progress by division of talent and labour. I suspect the "bad" argument is actually compatible with division of talent and labour. Could you explain the link between this division and income? > You wouldn't apply it to physicists, engineers, medical specialists, lawyers, politicians [1], financial experts, sports, or software developers. > So why is it fine to ap…

People are not pirating "some" art, the generally pirate the best art available. The best art has always been produced by professionals and not by some YouTube narcissists who think they're God's gift to this world.

As a rule, people are pirating the most valuable art, not the best. This is an important distinction, because by conflating them, you are buying into the industry's point that the most expensive art is the best -- and as the monopoly cartel controls the price, that becomes self-fulfilling.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#213
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you suggesting artisans weren't a thing? Historically, anyone who made something by hand was an artisan, so the hammer maker and the sword maker. I suppose you could consider that art, but when I say I art I'm talking music, paining, sculpture, etc. Things that only have aesthetic use, not functional use. And I don't believe there are any examples of people making aesthetic works as their only source of income…

"when I say I art I'm talking music, paining, sculpture, etc. Things that only have aesthetic use, not functional use." Painting, sculpture, and music have had functional uses since forever. They had functions such as: - reminding people of what happened in the past - teaching people moral lessons - exulting or placating gods - inspiring troops to be braver in combat - honoring the dead - letting people see things th…

The classical arts used to be the vectors of vital cultural information (music, poetry and story telling are mnemonic techniques).

We then invented writing which made those media mostly obsolete.

We're still drawn to those disciplines though, because they provided an evolutionary advantage for a long time, making the trait of liking those things quite stable (since pleasure leads to practice, and practice leads to skill).

The same goes for gossiping and superstition.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#214
post #211
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are not pirating "some" art, the generally pirate the best art available. The best art has always been produced by professionals and not by some YouTube narcissists who think they're God's gift to this world.

As a rule, people are pirating the most valuable art, not the best. This is an important distinction, because by conflating them, you are buying into the industry's point that the most expensive art is the best -- and as the monopoly cartel controls the price, that becomes self-fulfilling.

It is true that in pop music and movies the best art does not necessarily win, but even bad movies have some level of professionalism that is absent from indie productions.

YouTube becomes the cartel these days, and tries to drive down the price for "content" to zero.

It is far more evil for artists than any middleman taking 60% or more of a substantial sum of money.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#215
post #211
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are not pirating "some" art, the generally pirate the best art available. The best art has always been produced by professionals and not by some YouTube narcissists who think they're God's gift to this world.

As a rule, people are pirating the most valuable art, not the best. This is an important distinction, because by conflating them, you are buying into the industry's point that the most expensive art is the best -- and as the monopoly cartel controls the price, that becomes self-fulfilling.

There are pirates who are in it to make money, and pirates who are in it to get the art itself. The former might focus on most valuable art, the latter focus mostly on art that is the best - they're not going to pirate something they don't like (I'm purposefully not taking into account things like downloading that horrible Celine Dion album for dear old mumsy. :) )

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, music will always exist as a human form of expression. It's just more likely to exist in the same way your hobby projects compete with your full time job. Lots exist as concept only. Some are half-finished but never ship. Maybe some of them get done. What could you have done if people payed you to do what you cared about? Patronage is... a thing. Better than nothing. But obviously a weaker form of economic syst…

Time is likely the currency we all spend. Human activity of all kinds is exchanging time with each other. I spend some time doing A and give you some. In return you spend time doing B and give me some. Ultimately we all have a finite amount of time available. When you start assessing things in terms of hours exchanged rather than dollars, euros or pounds you see how it all works. Baumol’s cost disease explains itself…

The movie had an interesting idea (presumably stolen from any number of old sci-fi novels), but unfortunately turned it to a generic "the rich hoard all the money, we should redistribute it to the masses!" action flick.

While there were several hints at some interesting effects on society throughout the movie, they were never actually explored.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#217
post #18
post #6

For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. For a few hundred years, there was the patronage era, where if you were really good you could get a rich person to feed and clothe and house you while you made art. Or you traveled around giving performances for money or food or clothes or shelter. Then only in the last 100ish years ha…

> For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. This seems wildly improbable to me? People didn't get paid for art until a few hundred years ago? Are you suggesting artisans weren't a thing? That all the art produced globally outside of the past few hundred years was done just for love of doing?

Yes. There is this question of 'what is art'? and we can assume that old cave paintings are 'art' but is it really? Is that just us assuming this is 'art'?

Art as we know it really is a capitalist contrivance. Sure the communists had art too but do native people outside of regular capitalism have 'art'?

In Canada they tried to get an art exhibition together of native people's art. It didn't really happen. They tried teaching them how to make art but they didn't get it. This was not because the native folk were primitive and backward, far from it. They had plenty of beautiful things they made as part of their daily existence. However, they did not see the world mediated through images and capitalism. They weren't worshipping icons either.

Before capitalism as we know it took over the church had all the power and art was invariably made on some Bible oriented theme. Nobody painted scenes of rural peasant life, it was always the baby Jesus.

I am sure that everyone puts some art into what they do. Writing code is an art. The medium just isn't brown pots or watercolours. Code is a creative medium though.

Music is an interesting one as we all grew up at a time when we partied for fun. The guy sorting out the music was just contributing to it. Then we grow up and meet musician friends. And yes, all of them are out to make money, it isn't just about the music any more. It probably had more to do with sex first time around so even then it wasn't entirely just about the music.

This is why music is not at all useful for revolutionary or activist causes. There aren't many John Lennon's in the world willing to stay in bed for peace.

Sometimes I hear of musicians I listened to many aeons ago and wonder when it is they will get a proper job. Years ago it was about the music, now it is about paying for the kids to go to private schools.

Most of what we know of as art because it commands price tags is 'art business'. This is just a game and the likes of Damien Hirst know how it is played.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#218
post #6

For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. For a few hundred years, there was the patronage era, where if you were really good you could get a rich person to feed and clothe and house you while you made art. Or you traveled around giving performances for money or food or clothes or shelter. Then only in the last 100ish years ha…

You could apply this argument to almost literally anything that people do or have done for money. It's a bad argument. It ignores the fact that humans progress by division of talent and labour. You wouldn't apply it to physicists, engineers, medical specialists, lawyers, politicians [1], financial experts, sports, or software developers. So why is it fine to apply it to an art? The predictable outcome is that you'll…

You could apply this argument to almost literally anything that people do or have done for money.

Yes, there is a reason nobody is making money selling NPM modules and that is the marginal cost is zero and there is no constraint on supply, people like to do it for free.

Doctors and Lawyers have professional guilds that legislate to constrain supply. Hence the price is high.

Competence doesn't really come into it, even in the high art world it's more about who you know than what you know. No amount of wishful thinking will change this.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#219
post #6

For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. For a few hundred years, there was the patronage era, where if you were really good you could get a rich person to feed and clothe and house you while you made art. Or you traveled around giving performances for money or food or clothes or shelter. Then only in the last 100ish years ha…

You could apply this argument to almost literally anything that people do or have done for money. It's a bad argument. It ignores the fact that humans progress by division of talent and labour. You wouldn't apply it to physicists, engineers, medical specialists, lawyers, politicians [1], financial experts, sports, or software developers. So why is it fine to apply it to an art? The predictable outcome is that you'll…

> It ignores the fact that humans progress by division of talent and labour. You wouldn't apply it to physicists, engineers, medical specialists, lawyers, politicians, financial experts, sports, or software developers.

The key point you're missing is these people are selling their labor (aside, maybe, from software developers who could be selling their product).

If you get an engineer to design a bridge they do the work and get paid, no IP rights, no "limited" monopoly, no nothing but a paycheck.

If you get a musician to write a song for you they (and their heirs) get payed for that work for a long, long time.

I understand where you're coming from (that artists should be a protected class so we have "enough" artists) but the days of the billionaire rockstar is probably over.

Re: A brief history of why artists are no longer making a living making music

#220
post #6

For all of human history, we've been making music and art. And for almost all of that time, it was done for love of doing, not money. For a few hundred years, there was the patronage era, where if you were really good you could get a rich person to feed and clothe and house you while you made art. Or you traveled around giving performances for money or food or clothes or shelter. Then only in the last 100ish years ha…

I disagree very strongly.

For most of human history, the arts existed for a huge part in the service of religion, and therefore were instruments of power and wealth.

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