radio free midwich

a new way of shaking hands: amour & discipline

May I respectfully draw your attention to a new endeavour?  Our Gallic cousins, troubled by the issues of promotion and remuneration in a time of infinite availability, have started the website Amour & Discipline.  This is a ‘collective webzine’ and a ‘donation platform’.

The first category is easily explained.  These charming fellows have approached interesting musicians and writers and, using coercive flattery, encouraged them to use A&D to let the world know about something they like.  Many names of interest to the readers of this blog, including Neil Campbell, Volcano the Bear and so on, are sharing their enthusiasms and I would recommend checking this unrolling (magic) carpet of articles, reviews etc. on a regular basis (though use Google Chrome or better – it will knacker Internet Explorer).  An article by me about Striate Cortex (inevitably) has been submitted and will appear there in due course.

‘Donation Platform’ is a little more difficult to get your head around.  Here is the short version of their manifesto:

—ooOoo—

How much does a band earn when you’re sharing
their music with a friend, or when you’re using P2P
or direct download services to get it?

Well, ok, zero.

But how much does a band earn when you buy
a $10 CD in a store ?

$1.20

How much does a band earn when you buy
a $0.99 song on Itunes ?

$0.15

How much does a band earn when you listen
to a song one hundred times on Spotify ?

$0.50

How much would a band earn if you sent them
a free donation ?

The exact amount you chose to give.

Of course, these are average figures regarding unsigned, indie and major label artists ; some manage to get better deals, others get worse. But most of the time, no matter how you listen to music, the artist gets very little financial support.

In recent years, technology has made music shift from scarce goods to infinite goods : once the original is made, it takes zero marginal cost to make a digital copy and distribute it. All the music in the world is available for (almost) nothing, and less and less people are buying physical records. Global Non-Commercial Culture Sharing is now a reality – which, don’t get us wrong, is simply great – but the problem of decently funding artistic creation remains.

But Why?

• a lot of people want to maintain old centralized models of distribution in the digital world, creating artificial scarcity on infinite goods, and pretending global culture sharing never happened
• big entertainment corporations keep laying down the law
• many middlemen are still involved. Some of them are valuable (independent labels), some have to be questioned

So, why not directly support those who create music and those who really help to produce it?

This is what we’re experimenting with this Donation Platform. A&D project is not about charity, but Gift Economy. It is not about guilt, but common decency. Of course, good ways to support bands/labels already exist (buying stuff directly from them, for example) and crucial ideas still have to be tested, but we think A&D can be a useful step to promote two fundamental and inseparable points :

1. Non-Commercial Culture Sharing is essential and legitimate
2. We can and we must find new ways to support independent authors and producers, so the aforementioned fact won’t cast them in the sewers where they will starve alone

We think the combination of coercive (i.e. governments) and mercantile (i.e. corporations) tactics should certainly not be the only ones driving the legislation, distribution, and financing of culture. On the contrary, we believe the present situation urges us to invent new alternative strategies.

—ooOoo—

Noble sentiment, I’m sure you’ll agree.  Reading the lengthy and comprehensive full manifesto, in which the mechanics of the donation platform and the philosophy behind it are properly explained, led to me musing on the gift economy which in turn led to me deciding to give away the physical copies of the Midwich/The Skull Mask split.  Should you have a little spare time I recommend retiring to the gazebo, lighting a cigar and perusing it yourself.

On the Astral Social Club blog Neil has described the donation platform as an…

…audacious attempt at getting people to donate to us poor ripped-off musicians, by way of offsetting the smash and grab of download culture

…and whilst I suspect ‘poor ripped-off musicians’ was typed with tongue firmly in cheek, I have to agree that the plan is audacious.  I’m not without misgivings, of course, and the site is suffering teething problems (at the time of writing the donation bit is still to be launched) but I am prepared to put worries to one side, get my shoulder behind it and push.  I know a lot of people, myself included, are watching this with close interest and are wishing it the best of luck.

Visit Amour & Discipline.