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Fabio Manganiello

Do you remember when audio cassettes were seen as tools for piracy? When the industry used to drill in our brains the idea that if we were recording stuff from the radio to a cassette we were killing music as an art?

Guess what? Musicians actually loved the idea, they even released cassettes with a blank B side so you could record anything you liked on it.

And millions of kids who recorded their favourite songs or radio shows in the 1980s and early 1990s didn't kill the music.

On the contrary, the music industry itself ended up killing the music, by forcing artists to "play it safe" and repeat the same formulas again and again, so the cigar smoking capitalists wouldn't take too many risks on their investment into the new boyband.

"Don't do that, or you'll kill X" most likely won't kill X as a form of art, nor the artists. It'll just hurt those who have no interest in X as a form of art, who make profit out of somebody else's talent, and who want to have nobody pushing them to take new risk to modernize the industry.

For us, music is a form of art and communication. For them, it's just another mean of making money.

Piracy was, is and will always be a civic right.

openculture.com/2023/07/home-t

19 comments
Dorian Gray’s Papaya

@blacklight I was hoping to see that Dead Kennedys cassette at the link, and I was not disappointed!

Morten Juhl-Johansen

@blacklight Interestingly, there is a Danish tax administered by the copyright enforcement authority (Copydan), the Blank media tax (Blankmedieafgift), which means you have to pay a fee every time a storage medium is sold - USB sticks, hard drives, devices with storage like phones or laptops - and that was completely derived by the Blank tape tax (Blankbåndsafgiften) - a tax to compensate artists for perceived lost revenue when you would buy a blank video or sound tape.
No idea if this money actually goes to artists.

@blacklight Interestingly, there is a Danish tax administered by the copyright enforcement authority (Copydan), the Blank media tax (Blankmedieafgift), which means you have to pay a fee every time a storage medium is sold - USB sticks, hard drives, devices with storage like phones or laptops - and that was completely derived by the Blank tape tax (Blankbåndsafgiften) - a tax to compensate artists for perceived lost revenue when you would buy a blank video or sound tape.
No idea if this money actually...

Fabio Manganiello

@mjj oh yeah, we've also had it in Italy for writable CDs and USB sticks for a while - not sure if they're still around.

Those are the most pathetic and desperate attempts of raising the perceived "lost revenue".

First, at least in Italy, the revenue didn't really go to artists directly. It went to the national society for artists and copyright holders (SIAE, akin to BUMA in the Netherlands). Which just ended up beefing up its stash without any form of "trickling down to the artists" - so basically it ended up being a tax that funds a powerful lobby.

Second, technology progresses at breakneck speed. The idea of sharing an mp3 on a CD-ROM or a USB stick sounds so outdated to me that eventually you end up keeping a tax on something because of something that doesn't even apply anymore.

Third, to me it always sounded like "everyone who buys a knife needs to pay a tax to compensate the victims of domestic violence": it just doesn't comply with any form of logic.

@mjj oh yeah, we've also had it in Italy for writable CDs and USB sticks for a while - not sure if they're still around.

Those are the most pathetic and desperate attempts of raising the perceived "lost revenue".

First, at least in Italy, the revenue didn't really go to artists directly. It went to the national society for artists and copyright holders (SIAE, akin to BUMA in the Netherlands). Which just ended up beefing up its stash without any form of "trickling down to the artists" - so basically...

Morten Juhl-Johansen

@blacklight Same. Really feels like an excuse and nothing but that.

Paul Chambers

@blacklight

Slightly on topic, they are doing it to over-the-air tv now.

ATSC 3.0 is letting local TV stations encrypt their over-the-air tv signals, adding DRM features and blocks. The old standard will only be around a few more years during the transition.

I'm in an OTA dead zone. Not even PBS. Forced to purchase streaming or cable. Now, my cable provider just ended CableCard support meaning I can't home DVR my local channels anymore.

FCC let them end 'locals only' cable packages, too.

M_U

@crunchysteve @blacklight Music is 1000000x bigger than "commercial sales of a right to listen to a desired recording".

Kerri Levine

@blacklight

One of the millions of reasons why I love these guys so much.

#RushGirl

Blank Frank

@blacklight The label that released the cassette with the blank B-side featured in the article is Alternative Tentacles, the label that released my old band's albums. Great folks, then and now. Home taping didn't kill music, it SPREAD music. And you know what? My friends and I ending up buying a lot of the music we'd first heard on each other's mix tapes.

M_U

@blankfrank @blacklight Can't really tell this story without the bitter end of SubPop (much much later than AT's glory days, of course)

Fabio Manganiello

@blankfrank I discovered classical music when I was young by recording broadcasts on Italy's Radio3 back in the day, and by today I have a collection of hundreds of cassettes. And later in high school I discovered a lot of bands that influenced my style by recording them from alternative rock radios.

I was raised in a quite poor family who couldn't afford to buy CDs or cassettes for their kid at the snap of the fingers. Recording cassettes allowed me to get a level of exposure to music that I would have never had otherwise. Hadn't been for all those recordings, I probably wouldn't have recorded a single song to this day.

And, just like me, there are many who couldn't afford a wide exposure to art in those days, and eventually managed to afford it only thanks to these forms of "piracy".

@blankfrank I discovered classical music when I was young by recording broadcasts on Italy's Radio3 back in the day, and by today I have a collection of hundreds of cassettes. And later in high school I discovered a lot of bands that influenced my style by recording them from alternative rock radios.

Blank Frank

@blacklight Nice post Fabio. Am I'm glad you did end up making music. Cohiba is a great little song!

🇺🇦 haxadecimal

@blacklight The VCR is to the American film producer, as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.
– Jack Valenti, President of the MPAA

TheCityDweller :verified_gay:

@blacklight I remember the stickers "Home f*g is killing prostitution" as reaction to that.

Nazo

@blacklight My favorite was just covering that little punchout "write protection" hole with a piece of tape. Then you could record on anything.

KBSez ✅

@blacklight

Yeah, but the real arguments were had had over which side of the U2 album WAR was better. Saw fist fights over that happen…..

Asking people that question was a real eye opener.

(If you know, you know)

Yakyu Night Owl

@blacklight I also remember making dozens and dozens of mixtapes for friends who were interested in artists that weren't on the radio, and it isn't piracy if it turns out to be promotion.

ᕲᗩᖇᖽᐸᘿᘉᘿᕲᑢᕼᗩSᘻ

@blacklight

Man... this hit me right in the soul. I'd never understood it quite like that before...spoken or written. Thank you...from my heart. A big twinge of nostalgia came with it too. Very well done. My hat's off to ya!

AnthropoceneMan

@blacklight

It wasn’t the tapes.

T’was video that killed the radio star.

I heard a documentary about it once on MTV.

youtu.be/W8r-tXRLazs

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