there's a lot of weird shit going on these days, out on the old information superhighway and in the courts and people's lives, with lose talk about artists, audiences and theivin'...
The RIAA has only been out in full Gestapo drag for a few years, but it's been long enough to rank number one with the proverbial bullet as the "most hated corporation on the planet". In an effort to make up some mad miscalculations vis-a-vis ramping up the net earnings in their division, down at the rump end of one corporate conglomerate or another, they have now decided it's the people listening to the music that are the problem.
It's way too Adolf on uncut factory meth, speed-rapping in the bunker fto me. Their numbers are the stuff that dreams are made of, dire dreams where deserving artists are having the very bread taken from their mouths by the the people who love their music.
And the thing is... this is not an all-new episode.
it's happened before...
it's like a major deja vu...
or perhaps in this case, deja ecoute?
you can understand why these people are upset,.
I'm sure many of us remember this lovable character....
I remember when this crap started coming out, because my friends and I were major mix-tape makers, to the point of freakhood as per the titling and original cover art that were de riguer among our set.
We were the biggest music geeks we each knew - at least among those who could also catch or throw a pass, shoot a puck, take a hit and drink without getting frickin'weird about something.
We were True Believers, proselytizing, trying to get our favourite music- which we had all bought, by the way - into the ears of near and potential believers who would then buy their own copies because it was always understood that we did not lend albums.
We felt we were the best fans a band could ever have, devoted listeners whose only real interest was in turning on more people to music that ruled our worlds. Thirty years later, major labels and indies would be creating "street teams" (overtly or covertly) to do more or less what we'd do then for The Music We Loved.
To be told by some suits somewhere that we were not the best fans a band ever had and in fact we were A Really Big Problem was worse than wrong and way off base.
It was insulting.
And the tenor and tone of these Industry communiques had a strangely familiar sound to it...
didn't it occur to anyone that this might
make the hormonally-challenged seek
this stuff out, pronto?
but i digress...
the point was anyone can understand why the RIAA is so very, very upset about this.
the numbers - which they've made assembled themselves - are truly astounding. they are also of a bodaciousness that no first year stats student would ever try to get away with.
they are ludicrous.
leaving the total speciousness of the math aside, the fact remains that they are spending and litigating large behind this and damaging a lot of people's lives... some of those people are artists.
they seem to be fooling some of the people all of the time. some of those people are artists too.
they're not fooling all of the people though. and some of them have been alerting the rest of us to the fact that these people are going for changes in the law to take care of their corporate selves and this is far, far from a good thing.
it's something we shpuld all be keeping an eye on, and it's about a lot more than what gets to go on your ipod...
http://www.popartuk.com/music/the-rolling-stones/exile-on-main-street-pp0600-poster.asp
http://www.popartuk.com/music/jimi-hendrix/studio-shot-jimi-hendrix-lp0982-poster.asp
http://www.reefermadnessteachingmuseum.org/pulpfictionbooks.htm
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/
http://www.riaaradar.com/
http://www.m-1.us/
http://www.eff.org/riaa-v-people
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