BradSucks sees a 750GB external hard drive for $159.97 CAD that says it holds 660 hoursdays of MP3s and does the math:

* 660 days around-the-clock is 1.8 years of non-stop music, never repeating a single song
* That’s 15,840 hours.
* That’s 990 days or 2.7 years of non-repeating music if we adjust for waking hours.
* 28 of these hard drives full of music would play for 75 years, the average American male’s life-span. Again never repeating a song.
* 28 drives (18,627,840 hours of music storage) would cost only $4,464 CAD.
* Digital downloads to fill those drives would cost roughly 370 million dollars.

Best of all, you’d only have to listen to “Mandy” once!

[Tags: music hardware bradsucks ]

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Brad Sucks came to Harvard this week and gave a performance-conversation and addressed the class I’m co-teaching with John Palfrey (blogged here and here). There were a few surprises.

What was not surprising was that Brad’s totally delightful, frank, and just a good guy.

First, he pronounces his last name (Turcotte) as Tur-COTT, not Tur-COAT. I stand corrected. Also, he likes his name written as “Brad Sucks,” not “BradSucks.” Sorry twice, Brad!

Second, especially during the class, I was struck by how different copyright looks to Brad than it looks to, well, lots of others. It’s not just that copyright protection looks to Brad like a limitation on how widely his music spreads and his musical career builds. Rather, it was how foreign copyright looks to him. From what he said, it seems like an imposition of an artificial construct place on top of the work.

Here’s what I think is happening, although I can’t say that this is what Brad is thinking. To people who think of music as a work, copyright looks like the natural boundary of their work, the ethical edge of their work itself. Others (Brad, maybe?) think of music not so much as a work as a shared experience, as a connection with listeners. For them, listening is co-creation. The work feels more like a performance to them. The concept of copyright doesn’t fit easily over such a view.

Third, Brad surprised both the class and the attendees at the performance-conversation with his claim that he is a “horrible capitalist” who gives his songs away for intensely practical reasons, not because he’s an anti-copyright activist.

Thanks for coming, Brad. And thanks for being so BradSucksy. [Tags: brad_sucks bradsucks copyright copyleft music harvard ]

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This Mon, Feb 11, at 7pm, there will be a Very Special Web of Ideas: A concert by and conversation with Brad Sucks (AKA Brad Turcotte), the webbiest musician on the Web. We’ll listen to some songs performed live and talk with Brad about what the battle over “business models” means to someone making music.

Note that we’re not holding this one in the Berkman Center. It’ll be in Griswold Hall Room 110 at Harvard Law. It’s free and open to all; rsvp to [email protected].

[Tags: berkman brad_sucks brad_turcotte music RIAA ]

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Some time in the early evening of February 11, I’ll be conducting a very special (as they say in the entertainment biz) Web of Ideas session about how the new business models for music are affecting music…by interviewing BradSucks, who will also favor us with some songs.

I’m a big fan of Brad’s, so I’m quite excited about this.

[Tags: bradsucks music ]

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[NOTE Dec. 31: The Washington Post article I based this blog post on is wrong. Thanks, Shelley!] The RIAA continues to ratchet up its claims for what we customers are allowed to do with music. According to this Washington Post article, the RIAA is now claiming in a law suit that a man who has 2,000 legally-purchased CDs is not allowed to copy those CDs onto his computer.

What next? Will the RIAA claim that were not allowed to play CDs loud enough for our neighbors to hear? Listen on speakers because people who did not purchase the CD might listen along? Look at our CDs funny?

Tags: RIAA copyright copyleft music berkman

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