Dying giraffe recordings Hi. Could you please introduce yourself briefly?
Hi! My name is Muf, I work for dying giraffe recordings at a voluntary basis (like all the people who work for dying giraffe recordings)


How do you use Internet?
I use it for my daily news, email, Instant messaging, scouting new talent for dying giraffe, downloading music that is not available in record stores and of course for publishing my own music.


What is Dying Giraffe?
Dying giraffe is a record label that mainly focuses on the Internet as distribution medium. There are lots of artists who are not big enough to sell lots of Cd's. These indie artists gain more from free exposure by offering their music for free than they would by selling Cd's in the regular way.


What are the benefits of alternative business models both for consumers and artists?
Artists get more exposure, we spread their music by uploading the mp3's to many sites that support us. Because we use creative commons licensing, we can do that for free. We send their songs to on-line radio stations who play their music regularly. Consumers can download a selection of their music for free. The free music is offered at high quality mp3. Consumers can donate money to these artists, supporting them to go along and perhaps earn enough to create a full length Cd. When an artist has a full length Cd we sell it on our web page and arrange physical distribution for their work. These Cd's are very low in price and the artists get maximum royalties.

The consumers are able to browse our on-line music catalogue and download some music for free to discover new music; when they like it they can donate to an artist or buy a Cd.

The artists get exposure on the Internet worldwide, through partnering with other record labels, music sites (e.g. Fading ways records, isound.com, musiqe libre, etc.) In our digital backyard we help them in the process of creation. We support their development by giving advice and letting them collect money from donations. They have the opportunity to meet other musicians. When an act has grown enough, we select them and they can record a Cd. We arrange physical distribution for these acts and help them to perform live. The royalties they receive from on-line sales are very high.


What do you understand by DRM? What do you think about them? What are their advantages/disadvantages? How do you see their usage?
DRM is a way to control the exchange of music on-line. The question shouldn't be what I think of DRM, but what I think of specific kinds of DRM. DRM should be there for the artists, not for big companies who are trying to get a monopolist position in digital music. All forms of DRM should be cross-platform, and with cross-platform, I mean cross-platform, so it should work on windows, mac, Linux, BSD, whatever.

Furthermore people should be informed about what happens if they play a DRM-ed music file. Lot's of websites use DRM to get data from their customers. They use these data to find out in which country you live, which music you are playing and so on. They use this for their marketing strategies, they can find out which people will be most likely to buy a certain kind of music. Customers are generally not aware of this and they are not well informed about what is going on. This is not a very friendly form of DRM and doesn't help the artist to protect their work.

Furthermore DRM restricts the consumers to copy the music they bought. Actually they didn't BUY music, they are some kind of renting it. A bit like pay-per-view television. This doesn't sound like a bad thing, just a business model. Customers, however, are not really aware of this.

Another form of DRM is copy protection on Cd's. This means you cannot copy the Cd you bought for personal use. In my opinion, you have the right to copy music for your own use.

You already pay for copyright when you buy a blank CD-R. When I copy my own created music to a blank CD-r, someone receives money for the copyright of my own music, which is copyrighted under a creative commons license, which means that free copying is allowed. I'm wondering.. who receives that money? Not me!

Furthermore DRM is designed to fight piracy. The record companies are complaining about losing money because of illegal downloading. This is absolute nonsense. The music industry has never been as big as it is nowadays. They say artists are victim of piracy. I'd suggest they first raise the royalties artists receive and invest more in the development of music before talking about artists being victim.


What is/will be the impact of DRM on the market?
As stated above, companies will use user data for marketing strategies. Companies will think for you and decide which music is best for you and what will be easily available for you (what makes the biggest profit). Furthermore copy protection will lead to more piracy. People already pay lots of money to the music industry.


What is/will be the impact of DRMs on consumers?
Customers will at first not care, until they find out that they can play the music they “bought” only on a normal Cd player. But not on their car stereo, not on their DVD player, not on their computer, not on their mp3 player. Furthermore, their behaviour and their handling of the music will be spied on, and information will be send to the producers. Then, some will discover that if the music is handled in a way that does not conform to the industries rules, the music expires.


What can an artist do if his Cd producer wants to use DRMs against his will?
Find another label. This may not be so easy, but what we are trying to do with DGR is setting up a label, or rather, a network of labels where people can produce and distribute their music in a non traditional way that is fair to the musicians and the customers. Thanks to this, a musician will have a choice how to publish his music, in or outside of traditional, unfair practises.

What do you think about industry suing consumers using P2P?
The music industry is no longer about music. It is about money. Suing customers for amounts which are completely ridiculous and putting the blame of lower profits on downloads is a blame game, and more convenient than examining the real reasons for people not wanting to buy music: high prices thanks to price fixing, extremely conservative, limited and small-minded repertoire selection, strong compression of music to create one mainstream sound etc. Intimidating children and elderly into paying extortion fees is completely unrelated to so-called damage the industry suffers.

The recording industry should use their energy and money to come up with a product capable of competing with p2p. That would help the artists!


Is there a need for a campaign on consumers’ rights in the digital environment?
There certainly is. Many -if not most- of the customers do not know or even care what the consequences of these developments are. If they realise that their freedom and privacy is reduced, that they get much less value for money, they might reconsider buying music form the mainstream labels.


You are an independent label supporting this campaign? What is your motivation?
We want to make music the most important goal of the music industry, instead of money. It is about giving musicians and their consumers their rights back.


Do you support BEUC campaign?
Certainly.