[MODERATOR’S NOTE: Rather than simply add a link to the originally published piece and make a few comments directing readers of Rock Town Hall to the content that follows and possible discussion that may flow from an examination of the original piece, I believe the legendary “Original Links Linkerson” has merely copied and pasted somebody else’s work into “his” own thread. This is not really cool in copyright terms {hence my prelude}, but neither is the “author” of this post..cool, that is. That’s cool with us. That said, I’m glad this founding RTH member is finally making his presence felt here and contributing to discussions. Read the following piece that has been published elsewhere by some other author and see if we don’t rally around some key points for discussion!]
A dangerous or ingenious musical precedent?
The Wu-Tang Clan are releasing just one copy of their latest “secret” album in the hope of sparking a shift in the way music is funded and distributed.
The general premise is that the art of music has been devalued by cheap modern distribution techniques and it makes sense to revive the…
“400 year old Renaissance-style approach to music, offering it as a commissioned commodity and allowing it to take a similar trajectory from creation to exhibition to sale, as any other contemporary art piece, we hope to inspire and intensify urgent debates about the future of music…”
The Wu Tang Clan appear to be miffed, basically, that music isn’t being treated the same way high value art is.
Felix Salmon has, however, argued compellingly against that point.
In Salmon’s mind the difference between music and art is actually pretty marginal. Both industries “have skewed themselves towards a winner-takes-all model where a very small number of people are making gobsmacking amounts of money, while everybody else struggles.”
He also argues that music by nature is an inherently social experience, and that creating something for the consumption of just one person defeats the whole point of music.
To be fair to the Wu-Tang Clan, it doesn’t seem that consumption by just one person is really what they are aiming for. What they seem to be aiming for is a) marketing buzz and b) the creation of a rentable asset that allows them to presell their album, and receive its value up front rather than over the course of years in copyright revenue.
