who?
twenty sixth june | one post meridiem
Like a woodpecker with a headache
As a Texas cowboy likes his sodomy, as Clarence Thomas likes his high heels and golden showers, as Anthony Scalia likes barebacking swiss cheese on Pluto, I like a good analogy. However, there are times when analogies are inappropriate, or at the least unhelpful. The time immediately after 9/11 was one of these. The US was a rape victim. The US was a sidewalk innocent who was being repeatedly punched. Etc., etc. These analogies were ways of pretending to have an understanding of the situation while ignoring any substantial analysis of real world events. Most of these were, honestly, deeply stupid.
Now the media channels are again stuffed with analogies as obsfucation. "[The RIAA is] going to have to let people know that there's no difference between [file sharing] and going into a store and stealing a candy bar," says attorney Dale Wiley, who is also a record company head. RIAA President Cary Sherman, when asked if taking legal action against consumers could alienate them, said, "You have to look at exactly who are your customers. You could say the same thing about shoplifters: Are you worried about alienating them?" The same comparison is repeated in most articles I looked at today. It's obvious: the record industry thinks file sharing is no different from shoplifting.
This is wrong. The shoplifting equivalent of stealing music is walking into a store and shoplifting a CD. There is a difference between file sharing and going into a store and stealing a candy bar: with file sharing there's no store. It's something completely different: a different product, different technologies, different methods of consumption, etc. Is it unfair to artists? Maybe, though lesser known artists receive far more exposure through file sharing than they do through traditional media. Is it stealing from them? To an extent, though you could make the argument that popular music had traditionally been free for all of human history until the advent of recording, and that too many people now take it for granted they should be able to make a living making music. Is the opening of a new market stealing from record companies who insist on overcharging consumers for now-unnecessary manufacturing and transportation costs? No. Is the legal stifling of a new market by a powerful yet lumbering and clueless cartel contrary to the basic principles of free market capitalism we hold so dear to our hearts? Yes. Can the RIAA suck my cock till I cum blood? Yes, please.
I sympathize to an extent with the artists and people who are concerned about them, but there's nothing defensible about the RIAA, its actions, or the five companies it represents. It doesn't represent artists, it breaks laws, stifles competition and has been fighting a sisyphean battle against its own enriching technologies for 30 years. As companies devoted to selling recorded music (or megacompanies with divisions devoted to selling recorded music), its members should be receptive and adaptable to opportunities to do so; suing the p2p's, the consumers, the ISP's, whoever, isn't going to preserve their business model, it's just going to take a lot of people down with them and create a nightmare of litigation.
One of the legacies of punk was the mixing and melding of artist and entrepreneur; artists as (theoretically) self-empowered entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs as media artists. The exploitative machinations of the major record companies are well documented � fuck, they're their own legacy, with stories and myths and anecdotes. The indie labels and shops have been tagging along for 30+ years, occasionally shaking things up but always adhering to the same basic models of production, distribution, and promotion. Corporate shills and indie whiners! Grow some fucking labias and a frontal lobe and figure out how to avoid being dragged into the red by a bunch of corporate cracker salesmen who care fuck all about you. Get a 60 gig hard drive, a broadband connection, a PayPal account, and adapt along with the rest of the opposable-thumbed. Christ.
[*lovingly shammies gilded soapbox; places it back in velvet-lined case for future use*]
Insilico's Raiments: black pants, tan collared shirt with white polka dots, second-to-last clean pair of boxers, no socks. Birkenstocks!
Legally Acquired Listening: Pixies; Mulholland Drive sndtrk; The Button Down Mind of Daniel Bell
DVDs What Magically Appeared In My Mailbox Yesterday: The Big Sleep; His Girl Friday; Some Like It Hot. Hooray!