Re: [LAU] ASCAP Assails Free-Culture, Digital-Rights Groups

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 8:50 AM, drew Roberts <zotz(a)100jamz.com> wrote: There's an interesting book that came out a few years ago called The Black Swan. It's oriented toward stock trading and the statistics involved but it covers a lot of real world examples. One is the influence things like newspapers have on how people view what's _really_ going on. I love the newspaper but how 'important' is a story in the newspaper when the general population reads it in only one paper vs reading it in fifty? The 'right' answer is it's got the same importance because it's just the same story. However people tend to lend far more credence to a story that's repeated everywhere vs seeing it just once. It's 'human nature' to think that because everyone is reporting it that it's 'more real' or ''must be true' when the fact is it's just a story that's been repeated. (Think early Watergate coverage on one end vs maybe the lovely ingenue Taylor Swift on the other. Think about the relative importance of authors - those who write one great book vs those who write massive numbers of best sellers. I feel that there's a direct parallel with what's happened to the music industry. Radio, TV - they play the same things over and over taking advantage of 'human nature' to make these artists appear 'more important' when in truth they aren't. They are just better promoted. I have a personal rule that unless I'm working on a learning a song I try to never play any CD more than once a month anymore. I try to limit how many times I listen even to the same artist. (Like 5 Peter Gabriel CDs/month) I just listen to more sources of material which seems to give my mind a chance to breathe. Of course, doing your best _not_ to get stuck in traffic is a good idea also. - Mark