“My experience with online distribution is described on the Soundfiles page of my website. While the music industry panics about file sharing (reminiscent of the anti-cassette tape campaigns of the ’80s featuring a cassette with cross-bones and the slogan “Home recording is killing the music industry, and it’s illegal”), iTunes and other major distributors were selling downloads of my album with absolutely no contracts or permissions from me. They refused to answer my emails inquiring who they were paying royalties to, or let me speak with any member of their licensing team. It was a nightmare. If you’ve ever bought a download of my music, the money never was connected to me in any way. I finally got them to pull my files last year. It was all money being circulated between iTunes and their corporate distributor pals. Of course, they have no interest in my music. And whatever money they made couldn’t have been much. It’s just fucking information greed, trying to consolidate and monopolize for no reason other than a possible sale. This is horrible…

…But typical capitalism.”

the whole interview is here:

http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/2008/03/consciousness-is-queen-ssg-boys-get-q.html

(sorry this is not supposed to be self promotion but the interview is really, really interesting and relevant).

here is my thoughts which I’ve also posted on RA

fair play to you Steve, i think it’s great that some people are waking up and realising that if they truly love music they need to show some more respect to the artist and not just expect to get everything they want whenever they want for free. I do agree though, that it’s pissing against the wind in the grand scheme of things, but I don’t think that’s any reason for individuals to be so blazé about their attitude to getting music. hopefully if enough people keep saying this in their blogs, amongst their peers, etc, then the TRUE music lovers will do the right thing when they can.

yes, I don’t believe you TRULY love music if you’re not willing to give the artist who actually created the music you LOVE something back. going out to see a DJ won’t help the producer who doesn’t DJ (one reason why so many great producers but average DJs are doings so much DJing these days), so the rock music analogy about going to gigs doesn’t work with a lot of electronic dance music.

as for people in poorer countries, sure, it’d be nice if their was a better more relative pricing system that could reflect individual countries economies, but I still think they should pay something.

Re; poor student analogy - I was a poor student once, before people could expect to get their music for free. I managed, I saved , sacrificed other things so I could buy music , because it was what I loved and it was worth it.

I’m not denying how things are and the advance of technology but I wish people were a little less selfish sometimes and thought a bit more about the bigger picture, like Steve has here.

Well done Steve, respect!