MP3s Are Killing Home Taping

one of many amazing stories in one
of the best articles about music,
musicians and the digital age
i've ever come across...




     "...Tim Quirk and the rest of Too Much Joy found out the hard way. ‘‘I was kind of pissed because my Warner Bros albums are all out
of print and the only way to get them is on eBay
or at a used record store, and I don’t see any
of that money anyway,’’ says Tim.

‘‘I’m not making any money anyway, so I thought, ‘People are paying more than the record is worth, and that’s stupid.’ So, we built this website and you can listen to all of our records. We set it up as streams, which was easier. So, you can stream
the albums, but not necessarily download them.’’

Despite the fact that the company no longer
sells the CDs, by offering their old music
for free, they are potentially violating Warner’s copyrights…on the music they created.

It’s yet another example of how copyright law
can lock up and imprison music, movies, and books—something that collectors, scholars,
and fans have been screaming about for years.

As an added bonus for their fans who visited
the website, Tim and Too Much Joy guitarist
Jay Blumenfield recorded a new song,
under the name Wonderlick.

‘‘We sold T-shirts and also put a little thing up there for donations and t-shirt sales,’’ he says. ‘‘And in 24 hours I made more money in donations and T-shirt sales than I had in ten years on Warner Bros.’’

He then adds with a laugh, ‘‘It sounds very impressive until you remember that I never made
a penny selling a record on Warner Bros.’’  Too Much Joy ended their tenure at the label about a half million dollars in debt to the company.

read more/learn more at...

http://www.getyourmelancholyon.com/2008/07/20/mp3s-are-killing-home-taping-the-rise-of-internet-distribution-and-its-challenge-to-the-major-label-music-monopoly/

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