So I just had a TV crew in my little hovel, taping me as part of a segment on internet downloading of music, sparked by this.
I have no idea how much they're going to use, but they taped me playing "Even Hitler had a Girlfriend," as well as an awkward little interview. (Short version: PTP file-sharing is a non-trivial issue that must be dealt with, but suing individuals is crazy.)
Anyway, anyone in the Bay Area can catch it on channel 7 (ABC) tonight at 6 pm. It may be a vain hope, but I'm still hoping I don't end up looking too stupid...
Posted by Dr. Frank at June 25, 2003 10:37 PM | TrackBackThat link isn't working
Posted by: Lynn at June 25, 2003 10:57 PMWell I don't live in the Bay Area. Did anyone see the finished product air?
My mom lives in San Jose, I guess I coulda told her, but she's a fundamentalist Catholic, she might've been disturbed to find out that I know or listen to someone vaguely punk rock if I told her.
Catholic guilt!
Posted by: Matt from Vegas at June 26, 2003 08:42 AMWait. You posted that at 10:37p. Is this supposed to be airing on the 26th, or is there some time zone wackiness here?
Posted by: stacy at June 26, 2003 12:01 PMOops-- I guess that didn't make too much sense. I have the time stamp on the blog set for "universal time coordinated." (Not for any other reason than that it sounds cool.) Sorry for the confusion. The program was on on the 25th. The used brief snippets, and I probably looked a little silly, but not much more than usual. The whole thing was kind of fun.
Posted by: Dr. Frank at June 26, 2003 01:30 PMFrank,
I subscribed to a service called E-music where I downloaded a few of your albums(3-5). It says on their site that they pay you and probably Lookout! for the stuff I downloaded. The cost was only $10 for a month of unlimited downloads. I bought the rest of your albums from Lookout! at $7-$12 each. I thought this was a good deal for me because I never keep the CD cases and covers (except for the copy of Miracle of Shame that you autographed for me). What I would like to know is: are you getting ripped off when I do this or are you doing equally well by saving money on the cost of the buying, copying and packaging of the CD? If this is hurting you, Jim and Gabe then I won't do it for any MTX CDs from now on because I want Dr. Frank and MTX to continue on into infinity.
Channon, my understanding of the eMusic/Lookout deal is that Lookout granted the digital rights of their entire catalog for a period of time and in return got some kind of fairly large advance. I don't believe this advance was ever recouped (which isn't that surprising, when you consider how inexpensive the service had to be to attract the subscribers it did, and that it was competing with "services" that were identical in every respect except that they were free.) I may be mistaken about this, but that's my understanding/recollection.
It's not a case of ripping anybody off. But it does underscore the inadequacy of the subscription model for solving this problem. I don't know how many songs you were able to download in a month, but divide 10 by that number-- I doubt it works out to too many dollars, even it did somehow go directly to the bands. Someday, they will figure out a way to balance consumer convenience and "supplier" cost in a way that works and makes sense-- but they haven't figured it out yet. Obviously.
If your goal really is to acquire music in the way that is most helpful to the artist (which is a sweet, if eccentric, thought-- and thanks for that) buying a CD, at this point in time, is still the way to do it.
Anyway, infinity is a long time, but let's give it a shot.
Posted by: Dr. Frank at June 27, 2003 06:47 AM