It was a pretty dismal posting effort this time around 4 years ago and 8 years ago on the site.

So this history post is short and sweet.

4 Years Ago (2018)

What comes first when creating, the words or the music?

The answer really is, “listening to the words and music of other artists”, however it’s rarely said for fear of a court case. It didn’t used to be this way. Artists would gladly share which artists influenced them.

Being inspired by other artists, story tellers and sounds is how we learn. From the day we are born, we are listening to the sounds of voices and learn how to talk from them. We watch people walk and decide to try it ourselves. We basically copy what others do. But when big business gets involved and hijacks a law designed to protect artists, well this isn’t what Copyright should be and it shouldn’t be up to any court to decide.

7 notes in a scale or 12 notes including chromatics. 20 million songs released in a day.

Any musician starting out learns to play the songs of others before writing their own. This builds their style and forms a large part of their song writing. Artists do not operate in a vacuum. They assimilate what is happening around them. They create because they want to create. It’s a human need that needs to be satisfied within. No artist sits down and says to themselves, “geez, lucky for me that Copyright law lasts for my life plus 70 years after my death, so I have an incentive to create.”

However, the recording industry constantly spews the same rhetoric about the need for stronger copyright enforcement and longer copyright terms, because they still believe that piracy is killing the industry and if there is stronger copyright enforcement, then artists will get paid, and if artists get paid, more art will be created.

Are they serious?

The true purpose of copyright, is the progress of arts and science.

And while piracy ran rampant, and recording industry revenues went down, there was still plenty of creative output. Artists create because they want to create.

And for getting paid, if you have some traction and are not seeing any coin, redo your contracts with the middle parties. Otherwise if you are an artist who has no traction, obscurity is your enemy, so keep on creating.

More money actually leads to less creative output. Jimmy Page as an owner of all things Led Zep is a perfect example. Look at his recorded output since Led Zeppelin finished up compared to Robert Plant.

8 Years Ago (2014)

I was in Europe during this period, so no posting was happening.