I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the great response to my previous post on the music sharing / David Lowery / Emily White conversations of the past few weeks. Since I posted my thoughts, I’ve seen several other pieces that should be required reading for anyone interested in the subject. Here they are:

Are We Really Still Discussing This? – Or: My Response to David Lowery by Ethan Kaplan

Ethan approaches the issues philosophically, with great results. The best line: “This is unfair. But the best of art came about through situations that were just that.”

SOME THOUGHTS ON MS. WHITE, MR. LOWERY, AND GETTING ON WITH OUR ART by Zach Barocas

Zach examines the difference between agency and artistry. Great quote of many: “Let me be frank on this sub­ject: no one is steal­ing music. They’re steal­ing recordings….They might as well be wrist­watches, which is, as far as I can tell, pre­cisely the point. I don’t, how­ever, know any­one who would hon­estly claim that a wrist­watch is time.”

Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing wrote an excellent piece on his blog: Radiohead wouldn’t exist without early major-label funding. The future won’t bring new Radioheads. All I want to say here, truly, is: let’s get used to it.

And finally, one of the most important (and most overlooked!) points - musicians need data on their listeners. A brilliant examination here by Isaac Schankler: Beyond Sound and Science: Musicians, Researchers, and the Next Spotify

Make sure to read these, or save them to your Instapapers, or print them out on your company’s best letterhead accidentally, or whatever suits you. Let’s fight the Internet’s propensity towards microscopic attention spans and keep this conversation going.