Steve Albini and Robert Kalin, recent Signal vs. Noise subjects, stop by to add their .02 Jan 22
5 comments Latest by Derek Scruggs
It’s been neat to see these guys popping in to leave their .02:
SvN: Music producer Steve Albini explains his studio and the record business. Then: Steve Albini comments and explains why he dislikes contracts...
I sometimes hear the criticism that bands can mitigate these effects through negotiation (I’ve read such criticism in comments here), but this ignores another point of the article, that the result of negotiation is a contract, and contracts provide no protection for the weaker/poorer party signatory to it.
Contractual protections are only enforceable by the application of money, lawyers, courts and time, and record companies have such an advantage in all these areas that they may simply ignore their obligations to bands, while stringently enforcing the bands’ obligations. Such a contract is essentially worthless to the band that signs it, but remains an important coercive tool for the record company. I’m sure you can see parallels in the software and web worlds, but the disparity was most obvious to me when watching my peers navigate the music scene.
So that’s it. A contract is meaningless unless you have the wherewithal to enforce it, and can endure the time (sometimes years) it takes a dispute to wind its way through the courts (during which time you will be earning nothing).
For this reason I don’t use contracts in any professional dealings, and I am convinced this is the best way to maintain transparent and amicable relationships.
SvN: Lessons from Etsy on building community. Then: Etsy founder Robert Kalin comments on the post...
Thanks for the mention. When designing Etsy, 37signals was one of the sites I looked at for UI guidance.
Shows you how much these guys are “on the case” and want to be in on the conversation.
Now, does this mean Steve Jobs is gonna chime in on our next Apple-related post?
Over 1 million people use 37signals' simple web-based software to collaborate on projects, track contacts, and organize their business with an intranet.
5 comments so far
Michael Houghton 22 Jan 08
“Now, does this mean Steve Jobs is gonna chime in on our next Apple-related post?”
Well, if you do, and he does, you could further test your powers of command by having a discussion about Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa and Lord Lucan.
Steve Jobs 22 Jan 08
No.
Jimmy Hoffa 22 Jan 08
Oh my god…where am I…somebody help!
David Andersen 22 Jan 08
I don’t use contracts in any professional dealings, and I am convinced this is the best way to maintain transparent and amicable relationships.
Okay, so what do you do when there is a disagreement about what each party agreed to do? Without a written record of commitments/promises, what do you fall back on?
Derek Scruggs 27 Jan 08
“A contract is meaningless unless you have the wherewithal to enforce it”
That’s true in the abstract, but in practice many people will feel more psychological pressure to conform to something they signed than what they just shook hands on (with all the attendant ambiguities). This is actually discussed in the book Influence – the technique was even used with success on GI POW ’s during Vietnam.
Blanket condemnation of a basic business tool is IMO as silly as slavish devotion to it. Reminds me of people like David Horowitz: “I once was a Trotskyist, but then I realized the folly of my ways and am now an Anarcho-Capitalist.”
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