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For 10 years, music execs have waged a war against digital file sharing -- and software like Napster and websites like The Pirate Bay -- which have decimated the industry’s profits. But recently, there are signs from Europe that the battle over free music may be changing.
Twenty years ago a series of lawsuits criminalized the hip-hop sampling of artists like Hank Shocklee and Public Enemy. And yet, two decades later, artists like Girl Talk have found success breaking those same sampling laws. OTM producer Jamie York talks to Girl Talk, Shocklee and Duke Law professor James Boyle about two decades of sampling - on both sides of the law.
Recorded music might be easier than ever to get for free, but seeing live music is getting more and more expensive. Veteran concert promoter John Scher says this is due to a decade of consolidation. He says not only does it hurt fans who can’t afford tickets that ultimately it’s an unsustainable model.
The music charts have traditionally relied on album sales and radio plays to rank songs and albums. So what do the charts mean today when there are so many other ways to listen to music? OTM producer Mark Phillips reports that charts as well as the very notion of popularity are changing.
A frequent refrain in the music industry is that the future is not about selling CDs, but about creating relationship between musicians and fans. If it's true, musician Amanda Palmer is a good case study. One half of the band The Dresden Dolls, she explains that she raised $19,000 from her fans on Twitter in just 10 hours.
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Highlights from Past Shows
President Obama recently signed into law the re-authorization of three contentious provisions of the Patriot Act. Shane Harris, author of The Watchers, returns this week to discuss the implications for the future of American surveillance.
With the stage set and the script written and revised, the actors hit their marks on Thursday for the President’s first bipartisan Health Care Summit. After much anticipation both Republicans and Democrats sat through a more than six hour discussion of the labyrinthine reform proposals. But what sound does a policy debate make when (finally) everyone can hear it?
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
