kristin hersh

A few thoughts on the relationship between cost, value and the action of sharing music:

As Iâ€™ve said before, Â£10 was never representative of the real value in an album. It was less than the value of the time the person takes to listen to it, and certainly not anything like the value the artist places on their finished work.

And of course, given that all albums sell in different amounts, and all the cost of making the album is upfront – before anyone knows how many itâ€™s going to sell – it couldnâ€™t really be described in any fractional way as a share of that value.

No, it wasnâ€™t an expression of â€˜valueâ€™, largely because the most natural way of expressing our sense of value in music is to share it. Continue reading ““Sharing Is Not Stealing” – Cost, Value And The Desire To Share.”

On Christmas Eve, I found out via Kristin Hersh on Twitter that Vic Chesnutt was in a coma – Vicâ€™s a singer/songwriter that Iâ€™ve known about since the mid 90s (Andrew AKA Calamateur played me a compilation album of his songs called Sweet Relief II).

I suggested over on my Posterous blog that if people wanted to help, they should buy his music. If he got better, heâ€™ll have medical expenses, and if he didnâ€™t, his wife will need money to live.

A lovely friend on Twitter questioned the usefulness of buying his music, suggesting that the magnitude of medical expenses couldnâ€™t possibly be dented by buying music, what with labels and publishers taking all the money anyway… Continue reading “Buying Music by Musicians In Trouble (Helping Vic Chesnutt’s Family)”