Ask HN: What would you be doing different if copyright/patent law didn't exist?
Would anything change for you or would it stay the same?
Most movies and TV would suck because people would be stripped of the motivation to undertake big projects. Music would still be good, because it is less costly and the live experience is worth more than for movies and TV.
Privately funded pharmaceutical innovation would end. Software innovation would accelerate.
People dramatically underestimate how important a great producer is to making great albums. It doesn't cost much for an indie band to make an album, but it does cost a lot to have a producer make it sound really good. The past ten years we've getting an unending stream of Bleach and Kerplunk rather than Nevermind and Dookie.
Yes, producers are important. No, they don't have to cost a lot or use very expensive equipment. And records are only part of what a musician does. Live shows are so important as well, and you're not (really) going to have the producer to help you out there.
There's always been talent out there, and now finally with costs of producing and selling music coming down, we're starting to see lots more people making music. Of course, now that almost anyone can do it, there's a lot of crap being made. But just like with blogs or stuff on youtube, 90% of it is crap, but the remaining 10% is both better than what used to be the "norm" before and, in absolute numbers, is far larger.
I dunno, maybe it's just my peculiar tastes. I'm a sucker for killer pop hooks.
Where do you go to find music? Any recommendations?
There's always pitchfork, the standard-bearer for pretentious reviews, although I find their music taste to be in general somewhat close to mine. Metacritic is likewise useful. I hear last.fm is useful to people as well, although somehow I've never really gone there much.
As far as specific recommendations, I'm afraid I'm not big on most classic music, nor on pop in general, so I'm not going to be useful to you.
Incidentally, do you feel this way about film, or art, or literature as well? That it's gone downhill? Or is it just music?
My analysis is that, first of all, there is a lot of waste overhead involved in large-budget productions. In a remix economy everyone will use the minimum budget possible to produce new material, so producers will operate near perfect-competitor efficiency.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, because all material can be reused, consumers will profit; new material will constantly seek to create new value, rather than to simply create a rebranded version of old value.
This can apply to drugs as well as media. Presently, pharma corporations each jealously guard their research. Hence they are all duplicating effort. In a remix economy, the company that kept secrets would be overtaken by collaborating competitors, because their costs would be too high. They'd get throttled from the overhead needed both to do original research and keep it secret.
Even if a bunch of companies are collaborating to create a new drug, the dominant strategy for a company is to not be involved in the collaboration, since you get the IP without the cost. (Ignoring the possibility of trade secrets)