Moses Avalon Comments

Derek Sivers has requested that I disable the link to the 2003 Moses Avalon article, and I have reluctantly agreed to do so.

Before I explain why, I'd like to offer a little about my own background and my reasons for starting this blog. Although I have nearly 30 years behind me as a professional musician, these days I consider myself to be more of a semi-retired indie performer who is currently much more involved in music education. I have been a CD Baby artist since 2004 with just a couple discs on its pages, but have had only modest sales there, and until July 2009 I've had only the most tangential interest in CD Baby and its connection to the rapidly changing music industry. All I've really known is that CD Baby was a great company, and I was proud to be on its roster.

So I come to this debate with a remarkable amount of ignorance. I have spent many hours the past five or so years reading current books about e-commerce, the internet, and the music industry, but have to admit to still being pretty much stuck back in the last century. Although I hate to admit it, I don't own a computer, and I don't have easy access to the internet, but even if I did, I don't really have the time to do thorough internet research about the many issues that pop up in the course of this, or any other, internet debate.

So when an anonymous reader of this blog provides a link to an article, my tendency is to link to it first and foremost because I know that even if I'm the most ignorant person out there,I can be sure that there are others who may be just as ignorant, and who would be interested in any information that comes up.

I want to note, too, that my research on an item is necessarily a kind of playing catch-up: I can do so only when I can get access to a borrowed computer, or one at the library or at a cybercafe.

Accordingly, I have done some belated research on the Josh Melville/Moses Avalon vs Derek Sivers internet spat. And I came to the conclusion that any reasonable person could read about both sides of that debate (which was about CD Baby's deal with Apple iTunes) and come to their own conclusions--as many people did on several threads that I found over many internet forums. This is why I was reluctant to de-link to the Avalon piece. The reason I did so is because one of my anonymous posters provided what I felt was an apropos quote from the piece plus its url. For those, like me, who wish to read entire piece, I refer you to the first July thread in this blog and the recent comment by the poster.

I have zero interest in internet catfights, and I don't consider myself to be an internet "journalist," muckraking or otherwise. But the reason I started this blog is partly because of my own ignorance about the current state of the indie music industry. Although Derek may be right when he says the Avalon piece has nothing to do with the disastrous CD Baby relaunch, I believe that anything from the historical record may be germane to the discussion. For people who are worried that the new CD Baby is going the way of MP3.com, and for those like me who are only now learning about what's been happening the past half dozen years, the Avalon piece is highly relevant. Again, reasonable people can make their own judgements. And some people might not kneejerk react: "Avalon--scumbag! Derek--God!" Reasonable people know that Derek's not a god and Melville/Avalon probably isn't a total scumbag either.

I started this blog only because I saw a need for a central clearing house of sorts for information. Several posters to this blog have posted bits and pieces of info, and it seems that most of them have done their homework. For that I am grateful because my homework is necessarily tardy.

But I don't detect, in the few readers/posters of this blog, much sign of ax-grinding or internet sniping. So I will continue to post anything people here provide, including Derek's rebuttal to "Avalon", if it ever comes.