I sure as hell wouldn't go through the effort of listening to that even if it's the most divine thing i will ever hear (seriously doubt that).
Music is meant to be heard if you want to turn it into a publicity stunt keep it it's probably not worth my time anyway.
Although it would be hilarious to have a kickstarter to buy the album and rip it into mp3's for the masses to listen to :)) given how much you will be paying for i argue you should be allowed to do whatever yo want with it.
Some would argue that it is meant to be experienced, not heard.
What some people call "the greatest piece of music ever written" was composed by a deaf man, indeed Beethoven even conducted its première, setting the tempo for an orchestra he couldn't even hear. But still he got 5 standing ovations.
"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
I agree, it's a good mission statement for the site, but it can get lost in the general HN haze of Silicon Valley and web startups.
I work in a very different part of the country on very different things than the majority of HN as far as I can tell, but I do enjoy reading the comments and articles posted here. It bums me out when people are down on things that don't fit within that SV sphere.
> I work in a very different part of the country on very different things than the majority of HN as far as I can tell, but I do enjoy reading the comments and articles posted here. It bums me out when people are down on things that don't fit within that SV sphere.
Agreed. Hacker News doesn't always mean Silicon Valley News.
>visitors will be charged a price to listen to the 128-minute, 31 song album on headphones provided by the venue. (Rigorous security checks will discourage the possibility of any illegal recording.)
Could a powered recording device be made small enough to fit in the ear canal? Searching for "In-Ear Binaural microphones" finds some fairly small devices (they require external power and storage, though)
It's likely this will just end up on filesharing/torrent sites depending on who buys it, how secure their recording process is, how trustworthy the recording studio personnel are etc.
I think that's the point. If you only expect to make 500K* from album sales, it makes sense to sell a single copy for 500K to a wealthy fan and let the content leak out to other fans.
Same pay, less work and more happy fans.
* - I don't really know what the numbers are. 500K is just an example.
It's already recorded and I expect that RZA is doing the production himself or with trusted associates. With only one master it's not like there will be much opportunity for a factory worker to grab an early copy, either.
The album will be anonymously leaked to the Internet by a trusted insider before a physical copy even makes it to the first museum. Absent that, someone on a museum's security staff will do it.
Did they forget that most bootleg recordings come from the venue's sound board, and not from some random guy in the audience?
Paying some exorbitant ticket price to sit for over 2 hours in an isolated, monitored environment for a single play-through of a rap album? I can't imagine a less enjoyable listening experience.
Artificially inducing scarcity in order to increase value is an interesting experiment, but this doesn't seem like the way to do it. At some point on this tour, some handler is going to have 5 minutes alone with the album, at which point they'll immediately make a copy and leak it.
Nevertheless, the original will sell for a small fortune. Genuine scarcity will always be a good reason to pay lots of money.
"Artificially inducing scarcity in order to increase value is an interesting experiment"
This is an interesting experiment in another (more extreme) way of doing that, but "artificially inducing scarcity in order to increase value" is the basis of much intellectual property.
I'm not so sure I agree with that statement. Intellectual property (as it applies to digital goods) is rarely about inducing scarcity. The purpose of IP-protection tools (DRM) isn't typically to limit the availability of a product-- it's to limit possession of a product such that the quantity possessed is equal to the quantity purchased (the attempt to minimize piracy).
There have been cases where companies have tried to artificially induce scarcity--I recall that during the release of a certain Battlefield game, EA's storefront had temporarily "sold out" of digital copies--and in that case, the same DRM-based distribution tech that was designed for IP protection was being used to induce scarcity.
In other words, if ten people are trying to purchase your product, IP enforcement means you want exactly ten copies to exist. Inducing artificial scarcity means you want fewer than ten copies to exist.
It's hard to find examples of artificial scarcity in the digital world, which is what makes this somewhat interesting to me. However, in the brick and mortar world, the diamond industry is a good example.
edit: it's worth noting that the handcrafted case is a legitimately unique item, so in that sense, the scarcity of the complete package is real, not artificial.
I couldn't even imagine how I'd feel if something I worked on for multiple years and only made one copy of was leaked. I'd have to question my entire existence.
1) They are artists.
2) Artists do weird things.
3) This will be released.
a) There's no way they can resist.
b) They need the ego boost.
4) There's nothing illegal about recording it.
5) It's only illegal to distribute it.
6) It's an experiment.
7) They will gain much press.
38 comments
[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 84.9 ms ] threadMusic is meant to be heard if you want to turn it into a publicity stunt keep it it's probably not worth my time anyway.
Although it would be hilarious to have a kickstarter to buy the album and rip it into mp3's for the masses to listen to :)) given how much you will be paying for i argue you should be allowed to do whatever yo want with it.
Some would argue that it is meant to be experienced, not heard.
What some people call "the greatest piece of music ever written" was composed by a deaf man, indeed Beethoven even conducted its première, setting the tempo for an orchestra he couldn't even hear. But still he got 5 standing ovations.
It's artificial scarcity, which has never worked well, or for long.
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Excellent wording. That's exactly what a Hacker is all about.
I work in a very different part of the country on very different things than the majority of HN as far as I can tell, but I do enjoy reading the comments and articles posted here. It bums me out when people are down on things that don't fit within that SV sphere.
Agreed. Hacker News doesn't always mean Silicon Valley News.
Could a powered recording device be made small enough to fit in the ear canal? Searching for "In-Ear Binaural microphones" finds some fairly small devices (they require external power and storage, though)
They're really just selling the box.
Same pay, less work and more happy fans.
* - I don't really know what the numbers are. 500K is just an example.
What's interesting is that this model works in a world without copyright - you can always sell the first copy.
I wonder if they even bothered clearing their samples...
If it is not the only copy, how would they not be liable for fraud in claiming that it is?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2014/03/26/...
The album will be anonymously leaked to the Internet by a trusted insider before a physical copy even makes it to the first museum. Absent that, someone on a museum's security staff will do it.
Did they forget that most bootleg recordings come from the venue's sound board, and not from some random guy in the audience?
Artificially inducing scarcity in order to increase value is an interesting experiment, but this doesn't seem like the way to do it. At some point on this tour, some handler is going to have 5 minutes alone with the album, at which point they'll immediately make a copy and leak it.
Nevertheless, the original will sell for a small fortune. Genuine scarcity will always be a good reason to pay lots of money.
This is an interesting experiment in another (more extreme) way of doing that, but "artificially inducing scarcity in order to increase value" is the basis of much intellectual property.
There have been cases where companies have tried to artificially induce scarcity--I recall that during the release of a certain Battlefield game, EA's storefront had temporarily "sold out" of digital copies--and in that case, the same DRM-based distribution tech that was designed for IP protection was being used to induce scarcity.
In other words, if ten people are trying to purchase your product, IP enforcement means you want exactly ten copies to exist. Inducing artificial scarcity means you want fewer than ten copies to exist.
It's hard to find examples of artificial scarcity in the digital world, which is what makes this somewhat interesting to me. However, in the brick and mortar world, the diamond industry is a good example.
edit: it's worth noting that the handcrafted case is a legitimately unique item, so in that sense, the scarcity of the complete package is real, not artificial.
Monopolistic rent is extracted through underproduction.
ps. huge Ghostface fan right here
http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2014/03/26/...
Oh, and it will deff be leaked.
- if nobody pirates this, it means they've completely failed at producing good art/music
- if somebody pirates this, it means they've completely failed at implementing their artistic/marketing concept of "one copy album"
...one way or another, the inevitable result will be a big fat failure :)