Iris Electronica said:
Most contracts have been written by a solicitor for the benefit of both the musician & the label
Rubbish - the lawyers are paid by the label, and the small print usually reveals a significant bias in favour of the labels (and their lawyers) inherent in most record industry contracts.
Try phoning AGR Multi-media (London don't know the current code 0181 594 9412) to find out it will cost to manufacture 2,000 CDs with jewel cases if they provide the plates for the artwork with full colour?
But you don't need to have a physical product to distribute music any more - this is why the current music industry is a dangerous anachronism sucking the life out of artists who are potentially good, and why it needs to be destroyed.
If decent artists explored the avenues of releasing their records themselves, then the majors would slowly become the sole preserve of Waterman-esque pop pap and the occasional old dinosaur like Phil Collins or Elton John, and become as much of a relic as their business model.
Not all Electronica and psychedelic music is dance music and thus appeals to a far wider audience so thus royalties to the composeur are potentially huge.
Only if you sell parital rights to advertising firms, as Moby demonstrated.
Why should a struggling artist give away 2weeks work for free?
In my experience, all but the luckiest musicians stop whining and get a job. There's more than enough free time in the evenings to get your creative mojo on. Failing that you can gig every night, just as musicians used to do before the recording industry came along.
How much does a Korg prophecy, a 303, a Yamaha A3000, an ensoniqu DP4 & an ensoniqu DP Pro cost?
And how unnecessary are they in today's world of virtual synths and the ability to take a virtual studio - more powerful than many project studios of the 1990s - on the road in a package no larger than a briefcase?
To the quality electronica artists that don't bother releasing anything anymore like Hallucinogen, Dimension 5 & Chi-A.D. do the words 'filter wankers mean anything to you?
That's got nothing to do with it - Posford doesn't release as Hallucinogen anymore because he has moved on as an artist, and I'm prepared to bet that the other artists you mention have as well too.
Without meaning to sound harsh, those days are over and it's time to get with the programme!
J.
PS:
Electroencephalogram said:
surely it CAN't if the source is modified--- I'm asking you ... if it did where does GPL protection stop ?
It doesn't - that's the point. The onus would be on the developer of the commercial product to prove in court that their implementation is completely 'clean-room' and contains no GPL'ed code.