Glutter Supports BUY NOTHING DAY. Nov 28th
Socio-Politico Rant
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On messenger a few weeks ago:
Cyburn: So when I was eleven, I was arrested the only time in my life, for stealing some tape.
Yanipoo: Hmmm, I don’t think I have ever stolen anything. Never.
Cyburn: Yes you have. You’re stealing now. I am too. Listen to this -the best Johnny Cash Song ever.
Yanipoo: What do you mean? I am sitting at home. It’s 2am. What am I stealing?
Cyburn: Music. Much the same as I did as a kid. Chronic.
I suppose I am a music thief, even though the idea of walking into HMV and putting a CD in my bag without paying for it horrifies me. Funny what happens to you once you are home by yourself.
But I used to steal music all the time. I walked into Works down in Tsim Tsa Tsui and buy a bunch of bootlegs every summer. In fact, I have every intention to go down to Works and buy myself some concert recordings once I find some money. I have some bands I think I would like to hear live again.
And I have no guilt over this at all.
The way I see it, not only are bootlegs the domain of any music fan, this explosion of downloaded prerecorded music is Karma. The big5 record companies had this coming for the last 55 years at least.
They ripped everyone from the musicians, to the fans, to just a general listener for years.
We won’t even go into the commoditization of music, how they used recording technologies to create a product that is constantly out of date, needed to be renewed, thrown away, re-bought to plug products, images, and a sense of belonging. (I know all this but I am still a sucker for it).
More salient is that CD’s, including packaging and printing costs about five HK dollars a pop (Less than 1 US), factor in distribution, I let’s just say, $15 (USD $2.50). But even in the 1980s they charged $100 for it, or about $15 to $20 US, now even more. Making Music one of the highest end percentage premium the products out there. So they say the musicians need to be paid. It costs some for promotion and recording but really why are the record execs so rich beyond necessary? Something is amiss.
And it’s not really for the love of the musicians it’s this way. It’s a harsh business. So many people get thrown away, and chucked out. Bands get “Charged” for going on tour. Money taken out of their earnings for “promotional purposes” and so many musicians never got a dime for their creativity because someone else owned the rights to their music. They got paid a session fee and that’s the end of that. Some of the great Jazz, Soul and Bebop musicians, died penniless and broke, even if they wrote songs everyone in this universe know the notes and words to.
The big5 can be such a bunch of crooks in so many ways to begin with. And now they are throwing histrionic fits over people getting hold of songs for free. We are still getting songs for free legally anyway, it’s called the radio, it’s called MTV, it’s everything all the time (Oh, that’s the title of my friend Pieter’s dnb album –plug, plug-) they need to chill out. It’s only okay then because its the newest thing, so it’s free advertising for their new product.
And until a few months ago I was still buying my favorite CDs, every so often, until they kicked up such a fuss the RIAA in the US busted 12-year-old Brianna LaHara who lives in public housing and fined her single mom $2000, (Someone suggested on slash dot we should go buy $2000 worth of CDs and give it to them instead, great idea. But make sure it’s real dreak.) and a whole bunch of other people. Most recently another 15 year old girl in Seattle for having over 1000 songs in their hard drive. My friends and I thought it sucked, and I swore I would never buy a CD from the Big Companies again.
I still grab indie label ones, because those people do need support. Because I want to find interesting and new music, the kind record companies are too slow and bulky to care about or too eclectic for the general populace.
I thought it was utterly ridiculous Napster got a ruling against them. It was such a sign that the system bent towards big money. They ignored all legal precedents which was set before, they didn’t take into account that the company merely put the technology in place and what the users choose to do with it was their business.
I could put anything in my hard drive to share, I happen to choose music that I liked. Napster had nothing to do with that decision. It’s like suing and winning against the person who built the road because someone else got drunk and crashed their car.
Anyway, the whole legal argument just falls apart if you go through precedent cases. Under the US and most first world country law we are allowed to use the recording technologies available (tape, video, just under the legalese “Computer and Internet” is not included) to make copies and distribute it as long as there is no profit made. So it’s perfectly legal for me to make a 1000 copy of anything and send it to my friends.
Therefore when I hook myself up on Napster, Kazaa, and all those “Peer to Peer” networks, legally I can. Who is to say, that stranger down in Australia is NOT my friend. (He or she is giving me music, which is more than I can say for some people I know.) It’s just a matter of technology expanding and the users having power over distribution that the companies are having problem with. It’s just the “Scale” of it that’s different. The “Concept” is exactly the same. There as no reason to rule against the previous decisions.
And what annoys me too is hearing how every download is a lost of sale. I download loads of music as do everyone else that they would never have a thought of purchasing. Not even imagine to. One-off songs that I sorta like from artists I think are okay. (I am way too young to have bought singles in the first place, who does?) I throw out about 30% of things I try out because mainly it’s crap. They just make it out like they are such victims of this heinous crime, which is hyperbole. They aren’t making money this year, and they didn’t make money last year, because the music was drivel.
But most of all, I find all the spare cash I saved from buying the newest pop creation goes to buying documentaries DVDs anyway, and since everything is a conglomerate now, and that information/entertainment is streamlined, it’s difficult to find anything they don’t have their hands in. That’s part of the hike in DVD sales in the last few years too. People still like to spend their spare cash on entertainment. It’s not as if we’re all saving it up for something this. The money is going right back into their pocket, just a different division.
Anyway, I shall leave you with a funny thought. One of the board members of Universal (I think), admitted in print recently. He can’t stop his own kids from downloading music from peer to peer networks.
He could stop it all by doing something real simple. He could buy his kids every CD they want to listen to, which will remove any incentive to do so. I wonder why he doesn’t do that. Could it be he thinks it’s too expensive?
If you want to debate this issue. Goto: Slashdot.com Forums: The RIAA Sucks
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 