Hodgepodge

["Andy Gough, x4-2906, pager 513, CH2-59" <AGOUGH%FAB6@sc.intel.com>]

>> Except the artists' get a $1.00 royalty per song on each album sold.  So
>> you can't steal from the record companies without stealing from the
>> artists' as well.
>> 
>> $1.00 a song for each song you copy is stolen from the artists.
>> 
>> Here's a scenario for you:  Let's say you have a machine that can make
>> copies of Mercedes-Benz automobiles.  So you buy a Mercedes-Benz and
>> make copies for 100 people.  Would that be OK?  Have you stolen anything
>> from Mercedes-Benz?
> 
>> -andy
>
>I think Andy is missing a point here. I would have to agree with him
>if we were talking about making copies of albums that have been
>released, but the music we are talking about is music of Kate's
>that is not available anywhere but from Bootlegged items. Copying
>this music does not affect Kate's income, nor does it affect the
>record company's income because buying this music from them _is not
>an alternative_. Buying the Bootlegged item increases the profit of
>the bootlegger, and all of us seem to agree that that's not something
>we want to do. 

The point is that you are receiving the benefit of Kate's music (her work)
without paying for it.  It doesn't matter if it's been released or not.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >I disagree. If an artist (be it a writer, a painter, or a singer) wants to
> >keep secrets, why doesn't he just not produce any _art_?  No.  They want
> >to put some message across.  There is no value in concealing and
> >disguising that message.  Instead, it must be communicated in the clearest
> >way the artist can.
>
>     This is simply an aesthetic judgement on your part, Andy. There is
>no "must" in artistic expression. One kind of art is straightforward,
>another is indirect and oblique. There is even some art that has no
>"message" at all. And that's merely another aspect to consider, not in
>itself a weakness in the art's _quality_. It's very close-minded to say
>that there should be no concealment or disguise in art. Aesthetic value
>is extremely hard, if not impossible, to gauge.

But art that only the artist can understand is worthless to others.  Why
produce it at all?

> >That's not to say that the message should be _easy_ to understand--it means
> >that all of the information should be there (in some way) so that it can
> >be understood.  For example, the messages' in James Joyce's works or
> >T.S. Eliot's works aren't particularly easy to find and understand.  But it
> >can be done.  If, however, one can't even make out a line in a song because
> >the word is slurred and covered by music, how can the message ever get
> >across?  What value is that?
>
>     You're setting standards for art that many artists simply wouldn't
>accept. IED is reminded of the Symbolist movement, particularly in
>France, during the latter half of the 19th century. One of its only
>commonly held principles was that the imagery used by the Symbolist
>artist could best evoke the desired emotional response in the spectator
>by _not_ stating its "message". The principle might be summarized thus:
>"The image should seem to symbolize a significant idea or emotion, but
>without ever making explicit what that idea or emotion is."

But it's in there.  And if you know the principle of interpretation, you can
find the "message."  But if a singer's words are obscured by the music--how
can you ever understand it?

>>     Remember that the purpose of all art--at least in IED's opinion,
>>and certainly in Kate's--is to evoke _emotional_ responses in the
>>appreciator. So long as it does this, who is to say _how_ it must be
>>done?

"How" doesn't matter.  What matters is that the appreciator have available
all of the information to evoke that emotional response.

>     As for T.S. Eliot, it would be very hard to argue that all his
>"messages" can be "found and understood". Much of his work is designed to
>be ambiguous; it is through its very ambiguity that it communicates
>much of its _emotional_ "message".

I didn't say it was easy.

> >So how does Kate fare in the secrecy department?  Pretty good.  It is often
> >hard to tell what words she is singing, but the lyrics are printed with
> >the album (or CD).  So one can find out.  The messages aren't particularly
> >easy to find or understand, but it can be done.  And for the inside jokes
> >and obscure references--it really doesn't get in the way of the message.
>
>     You've made two errors here, in IED's opinion, Andy. First, it is
>precisely _not_ the case that Kate's lyrics are all printed in the
>album notes. That's why people in this group are repeatedly asking for
>Love-Hounds' edition: because they contain a good deal more of the
>"lyrics" in Kate's work than the official lyric sheets, which are
>terribly incomplete--_deliberately_ incomplete!

Well, my CDs have the lyrics (except TWS).  True, they aren't complete--but
I rarely see complete lyrics from any artist.  It's only the "core" of the
song that is printed--often much more is contained in the song as sung.

> Your other mistake is in
>stating that Kate's "message" always comes through. Certainly some
>basic, easy-to-summarize theme or subject always comes through in Kate's
>work--but are those easy, snappy little thematic kernels the _real_
>"message" of Kate's art? IED doesn't believe so, not at all. 

Ah, but you can have a "surface" message and then a deeper, more obscure
message, inside a song.  Taken literally, _Huckleberry_Finn_ by Mark Twain
is about a boy and an ex-slave riding down the Mississippi river in raft
and having various adventures.  There's more underneath, of course, and
by discovering it you can even learn to like the ending!  And, by the
fact that YOU, yourself, IED, can get the "real" or deeper message of
Kate's art shows that it can be done.

>Kate is
>trying, always, to describe _very_specific_ emotions in her work. To
>say that Kate's message in _Running_Up_That_Hill_ is straightforward
>simply because one can summarize its thematic content as being "about
>the different perspectives of male and female" is to miss the
>larger, more important and more mysterious meaning of the song--which
>is only to be found in the _recording_itself_: its sound, its
>atmosphere, its unique musical and lyrical qualities. How _can_ an
>artist make _that_ kind of message "clear"? It is by nature ephemeral,
>just as emotions themselves are ephemeral. So it's no wonder that,
>in seeking to express something as ungraspable and impalpable as a
>human emotion, Kate relies heavily on allusion, metaphor, double-
>entendres and secret messages. These are all tools which she uses--
>very deliberately, even systematically--to communicate that _real_,
>final message of each recording--what Kate calls its "feel", or its
>"energy".

I would agree.  The best expression of the "message" is the entire song
itself.  By distilling it down to a few sentences or simple theme ideas
is necessarily going to result in some information being lost.  

I, however, would just like to see the lyrics printed so that I can know
what the words I can't hear are.

> >So should IED keep his interpretations secret so that others have to
> >work to find the messages?  No.  I, for one, would have never figured
> >out some of the things in various Kate songs without IED....Here's what
> >it comes down to:  I'm lazy and so are many others, and keeping Kate
> >interpretations secret wouldn't stimulate us to search for the answers
> >ourselves.  Instead, we'd just never know the answers.
> >
> >-- Andy Gough
>
>     But perhaps that's what Kate _intends_. Perhaps part of her is
>acknowledging, by the very fact that she makes so much of her art
>a secret, that only _some_ people are going to be able to respond
>to those secrets, to be intrigued enough by their tiny signals to
>discover the hidden meanings for themselves. You see, _that's_
>_all_part_of_the_art_--part of the _game_ of Kate Bush. Some--if not
>most--of the true allure of Kate's work, as in most things, is _in_the_
>_searching_, not in the finding.
>     IED is lazy too, when it comes to most things in his life. But
>Kate's work gives him the energy to pursue those nooks and crannies
>of hidden hints and secret symbols. If her work doesn't give you
>that energy, then _telling_you_ the answers won't help you to
>appreciate that aspect of Kate's art, because that aspect is only
>to be experienced through the personal search itself. And _that's_
>why IED is having doubts about the efficacy of Love-Hounds.

Well, we'd have _more_ of an appreciate of Kate's work if we knew the
answers--even if we didn't do the search.  Because we aren't going to
do the search.  I can live with not knowing.  But knowing something extra
gives that little "aha!" that adds to the experience.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     It must be nice to see the world in such simple tones of black
>and white, Andy. IED doesn't have that gift. To him there are grave
>ethical problems attached to either course in this demos issue, and
>he has _not_ made up his mind which one to take. 

Ah, but I agree that not all ethical (and moral) problems have straightforward,
"black and white," answers.  But in this case I think it does.  It's not
like the question, "Is it all right to steal food when you're starving?"

>In the meantime,
>though, he denies having "profited" from anything at all regarding
>this demos business, except insofar as the experience of learning
>these unfamiliar songs can be rather tackily called "profiting".

Hearing those unfamiliar songs, without paying the artist for the right to
hear them, is profiting.  You have received the benefit of her work without
paying her for it.

>(In fact, he has so far lost quite a tidy sum over this demos business.)
>Frankly, the question of becoming a "criminal" is the least of IED's
>worries in this issue. Foremost in his mind is the issue of what Kate
>would feel about this unusual dilemma.

Well, to quote you:

	"     It's pretty damn obvious that these songs are Kate's songs, and
	that she doesn't want them to be heard by the public yet, for whatever
	reason. That cannot be denied. It's a fact."


> What bothers IED is the
>question of what's _right_, not what's _legal_. See the difference?

See your quote above.

>     On the other hand, it's equally obvious that at least three
>different groups of bootlegging scumsh*ts are intent on selling these
>same songs to the public, for a _very_ large profit. That also cannot
>be denied. It's a fact.

So the moral, ethical, action to take would be to try and bring these
bootleggers to justice.

>     It's also a fact that the market for these songs is relatively
>limited, and that probably a not insignificant percentage of the
>bootleggers' customers for these songs would eventually get a copy of
>the songs through IED's proposed plan of non-profit distribution _rather_
>than through the bootleggers. If not from this round, then through
>the next generation of copies, which the Love-Hounds might be asked
>to make by other friends of theirs, etc.

Consider this, though:  What if a bootlegger gets a copy of the songs due
to your distribution?  I.e., the bootlegger gets a descendant of the tapes
you made.  Then you've helped to expand the bootlegging unintentionally.

>     Therefore, the question arises: Is it _right_ that IED should
>make this tape available this way, knowing on the one hand that
>Kate would prefer that no-one hear the tape at all (which is no longer
>possible anyway), and on the other hand that bootleggers stand to
>make _more_ money _because_of_us_ if we _don't_ implement the project?
>
>-- IED

Do two wrongs make a right?  Do the ends justify the means?  Is it ethical
and moral to murder crack dealers in order to reduce crack distribution?
Or to open your own crack house to reduce the profits of the other crack 
dealers (and thereby hurt them)?

I think it comes down to two options:

1) You can hurt Kate

or
 
2) You can hurt the bootleggers.

If you distribute the songs, you can't do #2 without doing #1.  So is
it worth hurting Kate in order to hurt the bootleggers?  Who do you want
to hurt more?

The choice is yours.  Make a good one.

-andy