Bassnectar responds regarding music piracy | Hacker News Reader

Bassnectar responds regarding music piracy

bassnectar.net

47 pointsSyama18 comments

It's also interesting to see how much less serious this is to musicians and producers who weren't in the business before the mp3. This is the only world he knows, so he knows how to work it.

It also sounds like he derives a lot of revenue from a healthy live following. Musicians that aren't as performance-oriented are probably less sanguine about this.

Like Jonathan Coulton?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/14/136279162/an-inter...

I'd argue the opportunities for digital distribution far outweigh the risky and extremely limited opportunities of traditional physical media. The smaller artist has a major lack of publicity muscle. Piracy can provide just that; on a potential scale almost completely inaccessible to unknown artists.

I work for a small record label, I understand the problem very well.

He derives a lot of his revenue from kids on E bugging out to his laser show. Good bass music if you're into that.

Always great to see artists' perspective on "piracy", the people actually making that "copyrighted work" and having to make a living out of it, rather than the opinion of the big corporations.

Always great to see artists' perspective on "piracy"

Do you mean that sincerely, or do you mean it is always great to see artists' perspective on "piracy" when they're equivalent to your perspective on piracy?

I make a living selling "copyrighted work", and it determines whether I eat on any given day. I am not a big corporation. I think pirates are value-destroying parasites, and their justifications are self-serving proto-philosophy drizzled over gigantic entitlement issues. The fundamental justification for piracy is that stealing stuff is a lot preferable to buying stuff if stealing stuff carries no social cost to it.

I implement DRM and, worse to pirates, changes to business models which are 100% effective DRM++: put the bits which need protecting on your server, gate access to them based on payment. This both helps me continue eating and gives me that piece of mind that only people who are not getting their stuff stolen have.

That is just this artist's perspective, of course.

Oh dear, where do I start...

First off, stealing.

I don't give a crap how often you and others like you spout this bullshit, it doesn't make it any more correct. It's not stealing. It never was, it never will be. If you are unable to understand the consequences of digital media, that's a pity, but not the fault of the evil, evil pirates.

Second, that's a pretty nice appeal to emotion. Frankly, I don't give half a fuck whether you starve to death. If your business model cannot keep up with technology and you refuse to adapt (or worse, try to fight the change, which is ultimately a losing battle to everyone's detriment, including you), that's your fault. The evil, evil pirates are just a convenient excuse.

Third, if you really /need/ all this bullshit to get people to buy your stuff, then your doing something very, very wrong. Deliver a good product at a reasonable price and people will be happy to pay for it. Stop developing against the evil, evil pirates but instead for your valid costumers.

Fourth, if 'free culture/software' is a 'self-serving proto-philosophy drizzled over gigantic entitlement issues' to you, I can't help but feel sorry for you.

Hiya Slowpoke. You seem to be new to HN. That's cool. We're very much unlike some other Internet communities which you've spent time on. In particular, we place a wee bit of emphasis on treating people like they are people, even when interacting with them over HTTP.

My name is Patrick. Pleased to meet you. I run a business which helps teach little kids to read, and spend a lot of time on HN as my hobby. A lot of HNers know me, have spoken to me, or have shaken my hand in person, because I'm a fairly personable guy. Most do not say "Hello Patrick, pleased to meet you, I don't give half a fuck whether you starve to death." That would be a wee bit uncouth.

We have guidelines here for the community's consensus on talking to each other: http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

I'd also like to leave you with a video from Derek Sivers, who also happens to be a HNer. I think the lesson is rather important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfwwHa-7Ux8

While slowpoke's rudeness is to be deplored, you set yourself up for that. Attempting to tie your survival (ie whether you eat) with a political concept (support, or otherwise, of the current intellectual property regime) is a pretty poor argument. "Either you agree with me, or you want me to starve to death!"

I also don't appreciate the call to some kind of moral high ground - "I run a business which helps teach little kids to read". Yeah yeah. Maybe slowpoke has devoted his life to curing cancer in kittens. Wouldn't make any difference to his argument, either.

"I also don't appreciate the call to some kind of moral high ground ... Wouldn't make any difference to his argument, either."

In fact, the moral standing of participants in an argument does make a difference. It informs us regarding the credibility of their moral judgment. For example, the moral judgment of someone who knocks over convenience stores for a living is probably a wee bit less reliable than the moral judgment of someone who spends his time serving the poor in soup kitchens.

Well, at the risk of further downvotes, I think that's totally irrelevant. No-one is down at the soup kitchen asking what the volunteers have to say about intellectual property reform. It is a complicated topic and the personal altruism of the person making the argument has basically nothing to do with anything.

I'm quite acquainted with the general tenor of HN, thank you. I just don't have much nice words left for people who continue to spout lies, logical fallacies and also insult people to defend their failing business models. Your insults are merely prettily worded (in other words, ad hominem).

I could do that too, I just prefer to speak plain text instead of hiding behind verbosity, calling it 'treating people like people' to appear superior in a discussion.

Also, you haven't even adressed any of my arguments. The only thing I got from you now is even more appeal to emotion ('look what a nice guy I am!') and a change of subject.

Oh, and by the way: I'm usually a nice guy too. Horribly fallacious claims from people defending copyright constitute my beserk button though.

> "I'm quite acquainted with the general tenor of HN"

Either you are less aware than you believe, or you choose to violate our community standards anyway.

Whichever it is, I encourage you to adjust your behavior. Your "beserk button" does not need to be on display here.

Well, ignoring counterarguments, blabbering fallacious nonsense and citing 'community standards' to hide the first two things seems to be a 'community standard' amongst some people here as well.

If you care more for being nice than for valid arguments, then I indeed appear to be in willing violation of 'community standards'.

> "If you care more for being nice than for valid arguments"

I care for both.

Do not ignore the former simply because you feel someone else has failed at the latter. There's always room to pair valid arguments with civility; save the berserking for WoW.

It's also refreshing to see the artist open to input on this issue from their fans http://www.facebook.com/Bassnectar/posts/226030840772909

Also, from what I've heard little or none of the funds gathered from RIAA piracy suits actually get to the artist anyway.

These views about piracy seem almost identical to the pirates' views about piracy.

Many nfo files include things like "try before buy" or "if you like this release, please buy it".

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