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Re: [microsound] [OT] Glut of new cds of just no money to spend?
if so, do you feel its because you have less money or just that there
is less music you want to purchase?
um, there's also a thing called the network where many musicians are
just 'giving it away'. it's a remarkable thing- people sharing culture
with each other without having to monetize it.
try it!
I did, for years, and now I'm burnt out. I have so much free music I don't
know what to do with it all. I just threw out over a dozen CD-R's full of
mp3's of experimental music I had downloaded for free because I almost
never listened to it. And though I run a weblabel, I rarely check out
other people's weblabels because I just can't keep up with all that music.
And I know that very few people are interested in my weblabel, for
probably the same kinds of reasons.
I find I'm actually spending *more* on music now than I was a while ago.
Maybe I'm just over-compensating by creating scarcity for myself by my
limited budget, but I find I do value the music much more once I've bought
it. And this is the question I think I've always had about free culture
(in both senses of the word "free"), and which I never really resolved in
the two years I've been running my weblabel: how does free culture acquire
value? If free culture is based on abundance as opposed to scarcity, then
how do we attribute value to something that is so plentiful when we are so
used to valuing what is scarce *because* it is scarce? Is it enough to
simply exchange use value for exchange value, that is, to value music
just because it's "good" rather than because it cost a lot of money? If
so, then how do we find out what's good? How do we undertake the massive
amount of labour entailed in separating the wheat from the chaff? How many
people are willing to do that? I, for one, find that I am less willing to
do that, and it seems other people feel that same way. So how do we avoid
scaring people away from free culture with the magnitude of the task of
sorting through stuff to find something they like?
I'm not getting down on free culture, but just asking a set of questions
which I think has recently come to a head for me. Maybe the discussion of
these questions could shed some light on why people are engaging less with
experimental music in general these days?... What do people think?
P
+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
{ Phil Thomson
{ home: http://www.sfu.ca/~pthomson
{ label: http://centibel.org/
{ group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/databenders/
+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+
SDF Public Access UNIX System
http://www.freeshell.org/
Geekier than you since 1987.
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