ohmigod!
It seems, vis-a-vis the Death of Music,
there are more lions, tigers and yes, even more bears out there than ever.
It's all laid out a website called stopmusictheft.com, and the news is not good. In fact, it's bad. It's bad with a capital B,
and that rhymes
with P
and that stands
for
Piracy!
Arrrr!
But wait! It gets worse!
Apparently, without swift and sweeping action on a global scale - including legislation, prosecution, re-education and behaviour modification - the Future of Music Itself is in danger.
Seriously. Here's what it says at "Stop Music Theft dot com"...
"Apple's "biggest" iPod holds 40,000 songs. Assuming one bought them all, that's about $40,000. Teenagers (and many who once were)
all over the world are walking around with the equivalent of a stolen Lexus in their pockets (because really, who has $40 grand to spend on music?). Do you think that's right? Do you think we should ignore that? Do you think we should blame car dealers if they or their trade association tried to stop that?"
a Lexus?
Welcome to The Box. There is so much wrong here that even trying to think about it brings on the intellectual equivalent of an ice cream headache.
The philosophical assumptions behind all this sound and fury have never been - and are not now - shared by a majority of listeners or musicians on the planet. The "business plan" implied here was crude a hundred years ago and now it's more than 20 years past the stale-date... just over one digital generation.
The message comes wrapped in a cheap, moronic metaphor and dripping with condescension... but there is more to this Lexus moment than a level of loathing for the customer that even airlines can't touch.
This little fable says a lot
about why The Industry
formerly known as Music
has been so wrong, so often
about so much
for so long.
The sense of entitlement and level of self-absorption in these few lines are not just infantile. They are literally sociopathic*.
- tbc -
*sociopath, from Wikipedia:
"...defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood."[1]
the idea of corporations as sociopathic is brilliantly articulated in The Corporation. It's a documentary film, a book, a dialogue and a website. To learn more about this diagnosis, go here:
or you can download the film here:
don't forget the bonus video - associate producer Joel Bakan interviewed by Janeane Garofalo
and/or download the soundtrack here:
if you do, remember to say thanks!
.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment