Okay, so, I thought it would be a cool idea to do a SDMB mix tape and CD swap. Similar to the Book Swap, if anyone was involved in that, except in this case with music instead of literature. Personally, I enjoy making mix tapes very much, and I am regretfully at a point in my life where I don’t have a lot of people who would appreciate recieving them.
Let’s cut to the chase. I brought this idea up with my close personal friend RaCha’ar (we go way back. We’re like this.) and she said she thought it was a cool idea and that she’d be willing to organize the affair. This was definitely the dealbreaker for me as I hold no illusions about my organizational capacity or ability to be diligent enough to follow through with something like this. So here we are. The idea is that you email RaCha’ar to let her know you’re interested, and she puts you on the list (if she likes you). Once we feel like the list has achieved sufficient length, we’ll (and by ‘we’ I mean RaCha’ar) match everyone up so that you’re sending a mix tape to one person and getting one from someone else. Easy like pie, no?
Some thoughts:
The idea is to use this to hear new music that you’re not familiar with, so I don’t think we’ll try too hard to match people up with other people that share their musical tastes (giving credit where it’s due: ‘That should be part of the point, to get people exposed to stuff other than what they normally listen to.’ says RaCha’ar). Not to mention the logistical nightmare that this would cause for our administrative team here at The Great SDMB Mix Tape/CD Swap. If you have any strong preferences (e.g. ‘I’d rather peel my toenails off with a rusty eyelash curler than listen to one minute of gangsta rap’), please feel free to let us know in your email, and we’ll pass on those requests along with any other pertinent information to your swapee.
Also include in the email whether you’ll be producing a tape or a CD, and which you prefer to receive.
I’d be happy if you’d email me as well as RaCha’ar so I can see what kind of response we’re getting to the GSDMBMT/CDS. Thanks.
So, to review, this is the information you need to send in the email to RaCha’ar and myself:
[ul][li]Your SDMB username[/li][li]Your actual name (optional, I suppose, if you don’t mind getting packages addressed to your username)[/li][li]Your mailing address[/li][li]Any strong veto preferences you have as to genre[/li][li]Your orientation as regards Tape/CD (I used to belong to the BMG music club thing, and you were expected to denote this information using ‘C’ for cassette and ‘D’ for disc. Needless to say, I received many cassettes by mistake because I couldn’t understand that ‘C’ didn’t stand for ‘CD.’ Sad, I know.).[/ul][/li]Provide us with all this information and we’ll add you to the list. Does anyone else think this is a cool idea?
Okay, people. Here’s the deal. Please email RaCha’ar. For RaCha’ar is all that is good and pure in the world! You must email her! And me. We can’t put you on the list if you don’t email us, because we won’t have your info.
Not to be a hard-ass, but I’m interested in how you plan to acheive this without violating the intellectual property rights of the artists from whose works you’ll be making the tapes.
(FYI, the sale or exchange of second-hand copyrighted materials, like books or albums, is perfectly legal. Duplicating the copyrighted materials and distributing the copies is not.)
You know, I was just wondering about that. I mean, I know people do it all the time and I’ve been a beneficiary of same, but I was wondering if the mods might have qualms about this being openly discussed (and encouraged/endorsed) in a forum.
Call me a crazy outlaw, but I don’t give a rat’s ass. It’s now like anyone here is going to be mass producing anything, and in all likelihood no one artist will have more than one or two songs represented, On a tape/CD that is going to one person.
I can see the problem when artists aren’t making any money because entire albums are being downloaded and burned instead of purchased – but a mix CD to one person? They can come arrest/sue me if they want to. In the same vein, anyone is free to take me to the pit for version 13.9 of the “napster/intellectual property rights” pissing contest if they like. I can’t say I’ll participate much, because the thing’s already been beaten to death. But, sock it to me!
Im in, and I think it is a good idea. Email coming to RaCha’ar shortly.
You know what would be really cool, but harder to organize?
A travelling mix tape. We make a list of everyone intrested, and their addresses. When it’s ready to go, we buy a couple of blank tapes, and put them in a box with the list of names. It gets to the first name on the list, who records of or two of their favorite songs, and starts a playlist. They then send it to the next name, who adds a couple of songs, and sends it on. Eventually, it gets to the end of the list, with the last name being a pre-determined tape maker. They make copies of the mega mix for everyone who contributed, and sends them back to those who submitted. If everyone contributes like $20 for postage, tapes, time spent, etc, it could work out really cool.
Anyone intrested, or does this idea just completely suck?
The only difference is whether you’re a big thief or a little one.
Artists are dependent upon the sales of their recordings for at least a portion of their livelihood and anything that diminishes those sales – like burning copies of their works and giving said copies to your buddies – has an affect on their ability to earn a living.
You only see the few or the one, but multiply that by a few people and it gets to be sizable.
While you don’t care about the rights of others, we do.
Here at the Straight Dope we appreciate and honor copyright – how can we expect our own works to be respected if we disrespect others? – and for that reason I’m going to close this thread.
You want to swap music? Talk about it in the abstract. You can build lists all day long to share with your friends here, you can talk about why and who and what 'til the cows come home. But please don’t steal music.
Let me add that we’re also aware some groups allow and even encourage sharing and swapping – all those Grateful Dead bootlegs come to mind, and the work of Galactic as well, to name just two – and if it’s okay with them it’s okay with us.
However, before you reference such work and share it between yourselves you must be able to show that you do have permission to use this material in this fashion. Links to a website where such permission is granted by the legal copyright owners is sufficient for our purposes.
I’m game for the CD swap as in the OP (I’ll be emailing later today), but I have one suggestion: I think it makes sense to swap with people of at least fairly similar tastes.
I know the sort of music I like, but I have only heard a small fraction of that sort of music. I don’t need to be exposed to completely different genres to have whole new musical worlds opened up to me; what I really want is a sampler that includes stuff I may not have heard much of. And chances are that if I and someone with roughly my tastes were to make reasonably eclectic mix CDs to swap, we’d both find some real discoveries.
