Out of the Elevator, Endlessly Rocking

New at Reason: If music can't survive in a can, why is there more of it available today than ever before? Brian Doherty sticks in an 8-track and takes a tour through the bloody history of recorded music.

Comments

[Sam I Was]

yawn:

(There I go again!)

It was never intended to be "funny" -- the first time or the 50th -- but I'm glad it provided you amusement at one point.

[deron]

Yawn.

Stop that you're making me tired.

[Warren]

Too right. Music will thrive without copyright. Moguls need IP to make piles of cash, but the music industry is if anything only hampered by it. This is generally true of all arts and letters. People will still write and perform without copyright. In fact there is every reason to believe there will be more creative output without it.

[Sam I Was]

Yawwn.

Writing convoluted diatribes about the state of recorded music is sooo 2002.

(And, yes, I know that the phrase "X is sooo Whatever" is outdated itself.)

[yawn]

Yawn.

Sam I Was begins another comment yawning.

First time funny, fiftieth time irritating.

[Critic]

Warren,

Would YOU write and publish a book without copyrighting it?
I wouldn't.

[David U]

Nothing more to say than kudos for referencing Rush (the band, not the pumpkin-head) in the title of this blog entry. A libertarian-minded band if ever there was one...

[JD]

Critic: Maybe you wouldn't, but check out the legalese on some books by Hakim Bey and Eric S. Raymond. (Immediatism and The Cathedral and the Bazaar are good examples, I think.) Some of them permit copying. Making big piles of cash is not the only reason people write stuff, after all.

Douglas Fletcher: No way, because if he turned to a life of street crime, then I could legitimately shoot Justin Timberlake.