Minor board reorganization and Songcrafters' philosophy/direction.

[T.C. Elliott]

Thanks TC

I do think DIY vs non-DIY is a very different kind of division than Original vs Covers vs Backers etc.

For one thing, it takes a very big majority of members and places them in one group set apart from the other. It tells members that because they do not fit into an ideal, that few of us hold, you will not be allowed to post with the others.

The other type of division is nothing more than standard musical classification by descriptors. It doesn't single anyone out for NOT conforming to the WAY someone does something. It is this that can, and should, be streamlined.

I see your point. Only speaking for myself... I've posted several songs with help from friends who are not members of the site. I intend to post songs from the band which are 3/4 not members of this site. I also do a lot of recordings in which I do everything from writing to playing to recording to mixing to posting. I, for one, will be on more than one board. For me that makes me pay attention to the posts I don't pay attention to now. At the very least it will expose some of them to me. And I do try to listen to new members postings which, I would assume, tend to be more in the lines of backers and covers. If that means I get to see them when I normally wouldn't then that's an improvement.

[64Guitars]

...again and again, could someone please explain me if we are talking about philosophy of a web site, or about legal issues? Am I wrong, or has been someone of the forum staff who raised the legal problems?

Sorry. I've been meaning to address this issue but there are so many other posts to read and reply to that I haven't had time. When this topic started, it was my intention to reply to every post in the order they were posted. But, by the time I got to page 3, there were already 9 or 10 pages of posts! I realised there's no way I'll ever be able to reply to every post, so I started being selective. Unfortunately, that means that many great questions and comments will not be answered promptly, if at all. But we're certainly reading all of them and we'll consider all of your comments when making our final decision.

Someone brought up the legality of backers (it might have even been me. I don't recall). But somehow it got a bit out of hand. Although it's a very important matter which comes up often in admin discussions, I never meant for it to be part of this discussion. This topic is about the proposed minor reorganization and the philosophy of Songcrafters. The admin discussions began with the question of whether recent posts using looped vocal samples belong in the Original Songs board. We decided they don't, but we have no suitable board to put them in. That led to discussions of reorganizing the boards. In those discussions, we also brought up other issues which have been bothering us for some time, like the growing number of posts which have lots of non-member performances and not much member performance (often only one member playing one part). We questioned whether this was good for the site and agreed that it wasn't. So we discussed an emphasis on DIY posts as far as the focus of the site and came up with the board structure presented here.

Before finishing on the legal discussion, let me clear up the issue of the legality of covers. Yes, we're aware that covers also have legal issues. But we're not as concerned about those right now for a couple of reasons. As Flash Harry pointed out, covers only present a legal question in terms of songwriter/music publisher copyright. The recordings and performance are ours. But some backing tracks (not all) are direct rip-offs of commercial recordings. So they're protected by copyright in the recording, the performance (the musicians who made it), and the writing/publishing. So these will interest not only the music publishers but also the RIAA and similar organisations, as well as possibly lawyers representing the musicians, musicians unions, and who knows what else. For these reasons, we're more concerned about that sort of backer than we are about covers. The other thing about covers is that losing them would be a significant change to the site. Covers are very popular here, especially in the festivals. But, if we were contacted by the law about covers, we would (reluctantly) take that section down. Actually, let me correct myself. We wouldn't take it down. We'd just insist that all of the songs covered are legal. For example, there's nothing illegal about covering the original songs posted here by our members. And there are lots of public domain songs which could be covered legally. But, for the time being, we'll continue to allow any covers. I don't know the law, but from things I've read on the web, our current covers aren't necessarily illegal anyway. We're just worried that they might be. You hear things about "fair use" and other things that allow copyright works to be used in certain situations. We don't sell anything and we don't charge a membership fee, plus we're not a hugely popular site compared to many others. Does that mean our covers are legal under fair usage? I don't know. The other thing I've heard is that the publishers, RIAA, etc. have to send you a letter stating that you've violated their copyright and request that you remove the files in question. If you comply, I don't think there's anything further they can do. But I could be wrong, and it might only apply in the USA anyway.

Apart from that, if you want my opinion about the philosophy of a site called Songcrafters, well, for all the reasons you quoted about BIAB or loops (not played by us), I expect that since for each cover we didn't compose the music nor the lyrics, no cover at all should go on a DIY (Do It Yourself) section. 

In the DIY ONLY originals with everything performed by members.

DIY isn't about the songwriting. It's about the song performance. So covers are welcome if everything is performed by one or more members.

[guitarron]

I see a community whose primary focus is on making cool original music and original takes for classic covers. It has nothing to due with it being recorded by ONLY members.

agreed- i don't see any point to segregating posts -besides why would it be necessary for every band member to recordists-usually its one two people in a band that has the equipment and gumption to record and mix anyway.

i am missing the point i guess

this is getting tiresome

[guitarron]

oh and the loops thing-
i see where the distinction with biab type midi tracks/loops-in my earlier post i was referring to audio loops-
loops are another instrument these days-creative use of loops is songwriting too- maybe not in the traditional way, but it is certainly part of the craft these days.
 as long as they are legal and/or created by the song crafter they are ok

looping is form of expression just as performing is

as long as it not some cheesy, hit the button and let the machine do all the work to make your arrangement king of thing

ooohhhhh my head is hurting

[64Guitars]

Several people have asked why it makes a difference whether a song is performed entirely by members or by non-members. So I'll try to explain.


Songcrafters is a community with a fairly small number of active members. We've all gotten to know each other through our posts and have made some good friends here. It's this community spirit and these friendships that keeps us coming back.

T.C. and Andy have asked what's wrong with creating a song yourself, then deciding that it needs some female backing vocals and asking a non-member to provide them. There's nothing wrong with that at all. If that was the only kind of non-member involvement we had, I wouldn't have raised the issue of DIY in the first place and we'd just be continuing with the same board structure we currently have (except, perhaps, for the merging of Lyrics and Songcrafter Tributes into other existing boards). But there have been many posts with much more non-member involvement than that.

To illustrate what I have against non-member content, let's look at an extreme, hypothetical example. Suppose I searched the web and found lots of music I like by amateur musicians. I start posting this music at Songcrafters. At first, most members probably wouldn't mind. Some might even agree with me that the music is great and they'd be glad they listened. But what if I continued to post this music performed by strangers 2 or 3 times a day, every day? What if other members decided they'd like to do the same? What if the result was that more than half of the music posted at Songcrafters was performed by strangers? I hope that most of you will agree that this would be very bad for Songcrafters. The sense of community would be lost. Many of us would no longer have a reason to continue coming to this site and quit. The few who remained would not be able to find posts by their friends because they'll either have quit or the posts will be lost amongst the sea of music by strangers.

Granted, this is an extreme example which isn't likely to happen. In fact, with our rule that all music posted in any board must have at least some member content, the situation I described wouldn't be possible. But what about songs that are primarily by strangers with only a small part played by a Songcrafters member? Is that much different? This has already happened many times when members collaborate with people they've met on other music sites. These people are strangers here at Songcrafters and the member often only plays one part in the song (perhaps just the bass, for example; or maybe just some rhythm guitar). So the song is primarily performed by strangers. I don't think such posts fit our community very well. I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed on the site, but I think we're justified in separating them from music performed by our members.

When you post a song at Songcrafters, you hope that your fellow members will listen to your song and post some comments. You'll usually reply to their comments to thank them for their encouraging words and taking the time to listen. And you'll reciprocate by listening to their songs and giving them your comments. We've come to expect this cycle of mutual respect and admiration in this friendly community. But the cycle is broken when the music is primarily by strangers. These strangers may not even read the comments posted about their music. And even if they do, they can't reply to thank us for our comments. And they can't post comments about our music. So why should we take the time to listen to their music and post our comments? Isn't it already hard enough to find the time to listen to music by our friends in this community and comment on it?

When I listen to songs performed by any of our members, I feel a sense of involvement and pride. It feels like the song is a product of this community, not just the members who performed in it. Many of the songs posted here would never have been written and recorded if this community didn't exist. And many of us wouldn't even be playing music and recording if not for this community. When I listen to songs performed primarily by strangers, I have none of these feelings.

Some of you might be thinking "Okay. I see why it's a problem with songs that are primarily by strangers, but why can't we allow songs that are primarily by members with just a little help from a non-member?" As I said earlier, I don't have a problem with songs like that. However, managing a board where only some non-member content is allowed would be far too impractical. How much non-member content is too much? Members would argue with us all the time because they want us to allow their posts. It would never work and it would drive the admin team mad.

So I think the right thing to do is to have a board where only songs performed entirely by members are allowed. It's fair and it ensures that the friendly spirit of our community will continue. When you comment on a song in this board, you know that anyone who performed on the song will be able to express their appreciation for your comments and reciprocate by listening/commenting on your songs.

I hope this helps those with doubts to see why we want to emphasise member-performed music over collaborations with non-members. We believe it's an important step to ensure that the friendly community spirit and cycle of mutual respect and admiration will continue for many years to come. I'm sure there will still be one or two members who refuse to see it. That's unfortunate but expected. You can never please everyone.

One final clarification: Although I like the name "DIY" (Do It Yourself), the word "yourself" might imply working alone. That isn't the case. Collaborations with other Songcrafters members are certainly welcome in the DIY boards. I hope the name "DIY" is not misleading to most folks.

[Bluesberry]

One final clarification: Although I like the name "DIY" (Do It Yourself), the word "yourself" might imply working alone. That isn't the case. Collaborations with other Songcrafters members are certainly welcome in the DIY boards. I hope the name "DIY" is not misleading to most folks.

Maybe we could call it "DIO" (Do It Ourselves) instead of DIY, that is another commonly used term for this sort of idea.

When I listen to songs performed by any of our members, I feel a sense of involvement and pride. It feels like the song is a product of this community, not just the members who performed in it. Many of the songs posted here would never have been written and recorded if this community didn't exist. And many of us wouldn't even be playing music and recording if not for this community. When I listen to songs performed primarily by strangers, I have none of these feelings.

yeahhhhh baby

[Gritter]

My cat drinks beer.

[guitarron]

yawn-pass me a beer kitty

[Saijinn Maas]

Certainly something to think about. Though it explains why a few feel this way,I still don't see that it is necessary to exclude them. As you say, we have indeed become a tight group of a small group of active posters, but that has been with them included. Was it not? A majority of them should be considered to be a very big part of this community since they also take part in other aspects of this forum. When they post, all member or not, it is not their music they are still playing? It just feels very wrong to me to exclude them now. Especially for something so superficial and with no history of having caused any problems before.   

Guess it doesn't matter. Maybe I've been naive in thinking that ALL the regular members were a part of this community. And that all of them have been essential in making this community what it was. Maybe the banner should read "Music for members by members".

Also... Can we please stop with the comments that have nothing to do with the conversation? If you have nothing of value to add to either side of the discussion, then what is the point in commenting? Allow those of us who would like to discuss this, to do so without the the pointless and unnecessary posts. Thanks

[Oldrottenhead]

whats a beer kitty?