Comment by djyaz1200 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by djyaz1200 | Hacker News Reader

The movie Scratch is a fun and fascinating journey through the rise of Hip Hop DJ's, available free here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcOUYOg-dAM

As a former professional DJ turned tech startup CEO I believe this article is very accurate and the author well researched.

I'm troubled that the next generation of DJ has their hands tied by terrible tech and onerous licensing restrictions rolled together. Tools like Apple Music and Spotify encourage users to just consume music one slice at a time from start to finish which is boring. It also caters more to the commercial interests of the labels than the listeners. Imagine for example if you couldn't mix your food together, only one product at a time. That's the current state of music without immense ongoing effort on the part of users to convert their music into DRM free and seek out complicated and/or expensive DJ tools.

DJ's should be able to access all available music and monetize their art by sampling whatever they want from any artist as long as that artist gets paid for the full "spin" of the song even if there is just a one second sample.

If you want to hear what music can be like when licensing restrictions are flagrantly ignored you might enjoy...

"Girl Talk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWzkK7tUjaU

"2 many DJ's, Hang the DJ" https://www.mixcloud.com/2manybootlegs/2manydjs-hang-the-dj-...

I feel like we are close to the endgame. Sure, learning to DJ and even buying DRM-free music is easier than ever in 2022, but actually performing as a DJ? Have fun dealing with licensing. The labels have been enjoying this transition from music as part of a huge remix culture to music as a strictly personal medium of entertainment, as something you passively listen to exactly as Spotify wants and occasionally embed as-is into your 10 second TikTok video. Discovery now happens primarily through personalized algorithmic "radios" (read: echo chambers), along with the occasional excessively overhyped 80s song artificially brought back by being featured in an episode of a Netflix series. The equipment used for listening of course followed this trend, with horrible-sounding-but-convenient true wireless earbuds and portable speakers becoming ubiquitous and displacing pretty much everything else in sales numbers.

Where did all the creativity go? Some of the more niche platforms like SoundCloud are absolutely full of highly illegal mixes and mashups waiting to be taken down... but I haven't yet seen anybody seriously considering listening to SoundCloud daily instead of just consuming Spotify's prepackaged playlists. Even piracy doesn't seem to care; just go to TPB and see how large its repertoire of DJ mixes, EDM or non-mainstream hip hop is (hint: not very large). And let's not even talk about the minefield of doing anything related to music on YouTube. Remix culture is not yet fully dead, but it might as well be.

I'm not that surprised TPB is lacking in that content, rutracker and soulseek may be a better indicator.

> actually performing as a DJ?

Performing where? Doesn't a venue's ASCAP license fee cover that? If I go out on the weekend, there's gonna be a DJ at the bar/club and most of them aren't playing exclusively their original tracks. I'm sure some of the smaller venues are skirting the law but anywhere notable isn't going to be able to get away with that, and be paid up on their licensing fees.

As far as just listening to SoundCloud, maybe my cohort is more musically adventurous but there are a ton of 3 hour mixes that are on heavy rotation, with Spotify a distant second.

100% on the restrictions.

The thing is, I have zero optimism for an "acceptable" solution, especially given that -- big winners in the space of "using other peoples content" have NEVER followed the law. It just doesn't happen.

Along with all the great freely-sampling records of the past, Google, Youtube, and lately Github Copilot and the DALL-Es all have/had in common that they essentially disregarded copyright law in the beginning and just created. Some might say "flagrantly stole."

It's odd because as a lawyer I should have a solution. But I'm starting to think there is no good, "legally acceptable" one -- if the goal really is innovation and creativity.

Wouldn't it work if there was a cypto stake based (to restrict co2 impact) token priced at a fraction of a penny that users could pay with each time they spun a record licensed by anyone. No more backroom deals to beg a label to let you remix their catalog, you just do it and if it's a hit they make tons of money.

That might not exactly be it but I think a technical payment/usage standard open to all is directionally the right way to let the new artists play/create.

I like micropayment ideas like this, but I just don't see them happening, not until we fix the below problem.

I think the issue isn't "we don't have the technology to pay creators," I think it's always "greedy middlemen suck." They've never been more useless than today, and yet they're still so very powerful here. We just sort of assume their necessity and existence.

I can't agree with all of this. We have multiplatform open source DJ software for free, anywhere selling tracks gives you DRM-free files, there's lots of online record pools, Soundcloud/Bandcamp/etc. have massive amounts of free downloads, and if it comes to it tools for copying music from Youtube/Spotify/Tidal/etc. are not hard to find or use.

It probably took more effort for Girl Talk and 2 Many DJs to obtain their source material then it would for an artist to do similar now.

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