Oregon Humanities

Hi, Don,

You can get a tax credit if you make a contribution to a specific arts and culture agency and a matching gift to the Trust. Visit the Oregon Cultural Trust website for more information: http://www.culturaltrust.org/

Kathleen Holt | on Oregon Cultural Trust donate video

Are contributions I make to a specific agency matched when I make a contribution of a like amount to the Oregon Cultural Trust?

Don Doorlag, Oceanside, OR | on Oregon Cultural Trust donate video

Hi;

How about a Think-n-Drink and/or a Conversation Project topic of property? Property rights, property wrongs. Takings, givings. Atomistic fiefdoms vs. resurrecting the commons. Land dues vs. land speculation.

Do Americans have to think differently about owning land if we’re to ever resolve the profit vs. planet dilemma? Might threats like global warming lead us to rethink funding infrastructure? Could the need for harmony bring in the environmental tax shift and thereby make income as property, as sacrosanct has landed property has been?

Oregonians have set standards (up or down throughout US history, beginning with U’Ren who launched the Single Tax on Land up through the US Supreme Court decision in Dolan vs. Tigard, then the UBG and Measure 37. What’s next? Whatever, for it be a rational step, it’ll require thinking and discussing first.

Thanks.

Jeff Smith, Portland | on Cara Ungar to Leave Oregon Humanities

i really hope you will hire someone to bring back the chautauqua lecture/living history/music series.  this was, in my opinion, the best thing that och ever did.  please consider it.  i know many people among the sponsors and presenters, who sorely miss it.

diane allen | on Cara Ungar to Leave Oregon Humanities

Note to self. Don’t hire a friend and I won’t ever have to fire a friend. Simple.

Tim | on Jennifer Ruth on bipartisan friendship

I like the idea quite a bit of revisiting the seven deadly sins. I’m not sure I would consider ignorance a sin, unless that ignorance is willful in nature. We are ignorant of many things and this may be a limitation of our humanity. I’d offer instead, the sin of cruelty, evident in so many domains of our private and public lives. Abuse, bullying, torture,...the list could go on and on.

I appreciate Oregon Humanities publishing John Frohnmayer’s article and I appreciate as well Nancy Haught’s recent follow-up piece in the Oregonian. Now if we could only find a way to be more mindful of our sins, acknowledge them, and work to redeem ourselves.

Prof. Goodstein

Prof. Jerry Goodstein, Washington State University, Vancouver | on John Frohnmayer on deadly sins

Thank you for the advisory and I look forward to joining you on March 13th.

Rev. Renee' Ward, Portland | on OCT grants webinars 2013

Mark,
Thanks for the added insights.
Surely Napster never had a “legitimate” catalog, they had no licenses whatsoever ergo the RIAA lawsuits? Not sure of your point there. When I worked at eMusic the major labels wouldn’t partner with us because we didn’t want to use DRM.
My reference to Kodak is the same as yours, just put differently: they operated as if they were in the film business when they ought to have been operating as people saw them, as in the picture business. Ofoto was not a great strategic move if you’re in the film business.
Your Spotify comment doesn’t take into account a lot of basic facts. Spotify might well pay out what it considers large amounts of money, but the money goes to labels and publishers, not to artists. And as they are licensing the musicians catalogs the labels pay only 50% of any royalty owed. So an artist making 50% of 0.00000023 cents better get billions of streams from Spotify to actually see a fair share of the dollars. Let’s also not forget that the labels have investments in some of these streaming services so they get paid on both sides. I’d be happy to share with you how little money I make from all of the streaming services combined, including iTunes sales, for my Gang of Four catalog.
Regardless, I’m surprised you didn’t address the topic of the essay: Ethics and opportunities.

Dave Allen, Portland | on Dave Allen on the Future of Music

Thanks for an interesting, thought-provoking article.
A few points:
Napster: 1) In 1999 no “legitimate” online music company had the catalog that Napster had. IUMA had barely any commercial stuff, eMusic was small indie labels and others were focused on niche genres.
2) By 2000 Napster was trying to go legit and the record companies were having none of it. Indeed, they would have had trouble anyway, as most recording contracts of the day did not include provisions for the licensing of single songs for digital distribution. (Don Dodge, who was with Napster at the time, has a really interesting insiders view here: http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2005/10/napster_the_ins.html )

Kodak: 1)Kodak *was* interested in digital photography. Indeed, the only value left in the company at the end was the patents related to it.
2) Kodak *was* in the film business. That was the whole problem. They did not have a business model which could ween them away from the enormous profit margin generated by film.
3) Kodak *did* have an online photo service. They bought Ofoto in 2001 and rebadged it a couple of times. Flickr did not debut until 2004.

WRT the points raised in the comments about Spotify paying musicians very little: If you look at payments on a “per listen” basis then they are paying a lot more than radio does.
(Techdirt has a mythbusting piece about this here: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120622/16193319442/myth-dispensing-whole-spotify-barely-pays-artists-story-is-bunk.shtml )

Mark Zip, Woodstock NY | on Dave Allen on the Future of Music

Sean,

First, one essay at a time. I was asked by O.Hm to write an essay about the future of music, which I have done. In asking “Is society responsible for ensuring the well being of its members regardless of whether they are ‘creative’?” you shift the discussion to another moral and ethical tipping point, yet the answer is easy - of course society and its government is responsible for the well being of all of its citizens. That is the welfare model throughout most of Europe and in other countries too. Unfortunately it is not a model that is practiced here in the USA because those on the political Right are viscerally opposed to government giving US citizens help.

I don’t agree with you when you say “we have achieved the goal of “Modern Society.” A “modern society” is not one that puts up with mass unemployment, homelessness, a destitute lower class steeped in poverty, an inferior education system, racism, sexism, an Oligarchic system that creates a huge gulf between rich and poor. Nor should it put up with a government that does nothing about global warming, that steadfastly panders to Wall Street, that fights unnecessary wars, that cannot control healthcare costs while providing worse healthcare more expensively than most other developed countries.

There is much at stake but it is up to the citizens of the USA to demand better for all. Unfortunately, even though the last election provided a mandate for civic improvement, I don’t expect too see much in the way of change.

And it is not programmers who are putting people out of work. It is politicians and business leaders who don’t understand that what is required today is financial stimulus by the government, infrastructure building and repairs across the country to put people back to work and a healthy functioning education system that doesn’t bury graduates with debt.

There ought to be rioting in the streets but people are too busy playing with their video games to care.

Dave Allen, Portland | on Dave Allen on the Future of Music

Dave,
Yes, I do make music, but it is not how I make a living - for that I’m a programmer - and as such it is my job to put everyone else out of work.

Musicians get a lot of press in the current shakeup. But at the root, the problem is not “how can a musician make a living?” It is much bigger than that.

The big difference between this technological revolution and the ones that have come before is that we have achieved the goal of “Modern Society” - that is, we have virtually eliminated the need to do work in order to survive. We no longer need to work, yet we still value people for their “productivity.” So I say again, the problem is not “how can a musician make a living?” It is “how will any of us make a living?” How will the over half a million people in the United States who are homeless right now make a living in this new world where they are not needed? Compared to 600,000 people homeless, what does a guitar player who can’t make a living playing music really matter?

You ask, “Is society responsible for ensuring musicians have successful careers?” I ask instead, “Is society responsible for ensuring the well being of its members regardless of whether they are ‘creative’?” You ask “...  should we support music and musicians by purchasing more music, or should we accept the new social construct…” I ask if we should support every person in society at some minimal level of food and shelter regardless of whether they are “creative.”

In theory blogging is a creative endeavor and is something a homeless person could conceivably do at the public library.

I don’t think we are going to be able to solve this problem. I think that the future will force itself on us and we will say, “I meant to do that.” Because that’s what creative people do when things go sideways.

Sean Utt, United States | on Dave Allen on the Future of Music

Mark,
Your last sentence closes by mentioning “the industry.” If that means musicians, not labels or other entities, pulling together to get something done about including them in all of the financial transactions, then that’s a horse worth backing.

Dave Allen, Portland | on Dave Allen on the Future of Music

Sean,
We have had three Industrial Revolutions:
IR #1 (steam, railroads) from 1750 to 1830;
IR #2 (electricity, internal combustion engine, running water, indoor toilets, communications, entertainment, chemicals, petroleum) from 1870 to 1900; and
IR #3 (computers, the web, mobile phones) from 1960 to present.

As I note in my essay, in recent history there was also the era of the jet plane that brought nations and the people of those nations closer together. All of the above created a need for humans to adapt and accept, or not, the benefits of the new norm. These revolutions also brought great fear - cf The Luddites. Eventually societies always adapt although I’m sure not to the greatest benefit to all mankind. The advent of the Nuclear bomb was not exactly beneficial.

I note that you make music so I’m uncertain about the approach your comment is taking. I also don’t quite get the “How about if they write a snarky blog” either. That seems to be well beyond the gist of the essay unless its a remark about my own blogging activities?

Dave Allen, Portland | on Dave Allen on the Future of Music

Totally agree with Jason, it is a sticky, rather icky situation.

I think that it comes down to a matter of where those who are investing their money in the craft can recoup that money. Of course, the formats that allowed them to do so previously have been shifting since before I was born, so it’s like aiming at a moving target.

At the moment, I think that there’s been just a huge transfer of wealth from one set of boardrooms to another, but even less money making its way back into the hands of those actually making the music.

I believe that the illicit advertising on pirate networks is a big problem, not necessarily due to Google, but in general. I think everyone could do more to stop it, but at the same time, I feel a certain futility in worrying about it. Formats are indeed shifting away from ownership and more to a blend of on-demand radio. Until those streaming royalties increase, however, the industry will likely never see the boom it did over a decade ago.

Mark | on Dave Allen on the Future of Music

Technology is at the stage where it is beginning to put us all out of work. At the same time, technology has already brought us to where there is no technological need for people to go hungry. Yet, our ideas lag centuries behind. When no one needs to work, how do we structure society and an economy? I read endless babbling about the plight of the musician in the digital era, but none about the migrant farm worker in the era of machines that can pick nearly every crop, including strawberries, and even robots that can prune vineyards. Now, legal assistants are being replaced in doing research by AI, and soon Watson will be re-purposed from playing Jeopardy to diagnosing diseases. There are AI’s that write news articles, mostly about sports, but that will spread as well.

Do “the homeless” deserve food and shelter? What if they play harmonica really well? Maybe if they sing and dance for us? How about if they write a snarky blog?

Sean Utt, United States | on Dave Allen on the Future of Music