I, Downloader 5 - What? Me Listen?

if the Music Industry and their more vocal sub-contractors* have one ace up their sleeve,
it's their ability to stay on message.

ten years into a new Millenium, they are still chanting the mantra they entered it with - the Industry is in decline because people are 'stealing' their 'intellectual property' on the internet.

they can prove it, with their own statistics. the statistics are then  translated into financial losses, at an exchange rate of 1:1, where each alleged download equals one lost retail sale.

these fantasy figures make it clear that their former customers are now active participants in a global crime wave bigger than the Medellin cartel.

as though this were not enough, the news of this sonic apocalypse is wrapped in an Industrial pink fuzzy blanket of love for the Artists... big ones, little ones, old ones and especially the young ones, as given their fiscal projections one or more of the big three or four won't be able to be there to help crazy kids everywhere live the Dream of trans-national, rock-pop-alt-crossover success.

***

...all of which adds up to a sense of entitlement verging on the sociopathic. it boils down to...


We rock. Totally.

it's those Fans who suck.

***

 it's an interesting gambit. as long as you stay
in their script, it all seems to make some
kind of sense. i guess.

the only problem is that they are wrong... as wrong as wrong can be. it would actually be hard for them to be more wrong.

these Industrial pain cries are the same ones heard near what we now call the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles, as mammoths, ground sloths and sabre tooth cats sank into the tar pits.

do you smell methane?

***

looking at it all from a decidedly Old School bench,
i think the people who upload music files, and the people who download music files are the people who really love music.

...as much as any major dude. 

the Industry and their acolytes no longer seem to know what it's like to love music beyond reason.

they lack clue one about the difference between a music lover, and 'a fan'... maybe they're not music lovers. maybe, they're not even be fans.

they're not listening - which is odd, on one level and yet on another might explain why they release so much unessential  music by so many second-rate, one-hit-maybe fame sluts.

and their child-like wonder when we the people don't pony up like it's 1999...
like we used to...


they're asking "where's all that easy money gone?", while we're asking "what is this shit?"

***

                   They would not listen
                   they're not
                   list'ning still
                   perhaps they never will.

from Vincent - Don McLean

- tbc -






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