No Song Is Illegal

at some point in this copy right
or wrong situation, a lot of musical questions start coming up, including:



what kind of mind makes it illegal to enjoy a song?




what kind of people bust campfire girls, grannies and students for possession of music?



why are their spin doctors not laughed out of the building whenever they show up with their absurd statistics?




is the music industry any different from the police industry and the drug industry?

and if i was a legislator, i would like to put a few questions to the Industry itself, like...

how many of the alleged downloads
are theoretically "your music"?


how many of the alleged downloads are from completely legitimate sources?





how many of the files being downloaded
can be purchased from you today?







what are the demographics of "the pirates"?
who are these uploaders & who is downloading them?





why do you have such a bee up your butt about music you haven't cared about for decades, if ever?

but i'm not a legislator,
so here's a question from me:



how long is it going to take you to figure out
that all those music blogs out there
could be the best friends you ever had?

more where they came from, 
but that'll do for now.

questions like these trouble me, and i'm troubled about the discussions we're not having about some pretty important issues, with a very long tail we will have drag into the future with us.

the Music Industry has positioned itself in a fashion similar to the Holy Roman Church in medieval Europe. Big surprise. they are the font of reason, with a double-shot of moral authority back.

RESPECT

when it comes to loving the Artists,
the Industry might not walk the walk,
but they have certainly bought the talk.


if all the money the Industry has invested in this process has done one thing well, it has put a long term lease on the vocabulary of the conversation and straight-out bought the box we're going to have it in...

it has "defined the issues" so effectively that there are only their issues. there is no room left at the table for any other arguably less self-interested voices.

they have created  an urgency where none existed. Canada represents a whopping 2% of the international music market. passing this legislation will not change that fact. this one's not about the money. this one signs up for the digi-Coalition of the Willing.

the war on sharing is an American-driven war. another big surprise. more accurately the War on Sharing is a project of the music and film divisions of several trans-national corporations.

it's a remix that drops DC in for New York, New York, to the effect that if you can get something like this passed there, you can get it passed anywhere. it's up to you, DC, DC...

make no mistake about it -

we will get the legislation they want...

and there will be inspiring sound bites about how Canada, our Canada is no safe place for "pirates".

and how we were once laissez-faire, but now march in the first rank in the war on sharing, doing our bit to constipate the internet..


this legislation will pass in Parliament because
good and evil are all laid out. it makes everybody look good, it sends a message that Canada is open for business and there's no bad guys here except 'the pirates'.

you can even mention how you care so much about Canadian artists, you've given them their own level playing field. it's almost like giving them money, except it's free.

***

but between then and now, can we call a cease-fire on all those earnest sermons about how this is for the Artists, and pointing out other crumbs that may or may not fall from the tables of our betters? 

it's too depressing.

- 30 -



the illustrations for this rant have come from a variety of pirate places that used to exist on the net.

if you like looking at album covers,

you really want to go to:


LP Cover Lover

Incredibly Strange Albums

the Worst Album Covers of All Time!

.