Badmovies.org Forum

Other Topics => Off Topic Discussion => Topic started by: Rev. Powell on June 30, 2012, 09:51:52 AM



Title: David Lowery (Camper van Beethoven) rips NPR intern over "free music" blog post
Post by: Rev. Powell on June 30, 2012, 09:51:52 AM
http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

My favorite quote: "Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!"



Title: Re: David Lowery (Camper van Beethoven) rips NPR intern over "free music" blog post
Post by: ghouck on July 03, 2012, 12:36:49 AM
I read this article and I must say it does change the way I look at the situation. I understood the people's frustration when the music industry went to CDs, which then seemed and largely were very fragile, while doing all they could to prevent people from making copies, even legitimate ones. To a kid who made enough in a full day of work to buy 2 Cds at most, it seemed like we were being set up. (especially considering how cassettes could be thrown around with little to no damage). But it's all gotten WAY out of hand for WAY too long. Unfortunately, some of the people in the music industry fighting piracy just seem like douchebags and make it hard for some to care about the artists as a whole. That Metallica knucklehead that was so vocal was probably their side's most counterproductive figure. I know for years whenever I'd hear people speak out against music piracy I'd think of him and not really care.


Title: Re: David Lowery (Camper van Beethoven) rips NPR intern over "free music" blog post
Post by: Rev. Powell on July 03, 2012, 08:24:13 AM
You're right in that the anti-piracy people have often been douches and that helped turn public opinion against them. The RIAA's strategy of suing random grandmas for tens of thousands of dollars backfired mightily.


Title: Re: David Lowery (Camper van Beethoven) rips NPR intern over "free music" blog post
Post by: ghouck on July 03, 2012, 07:47:53 PM
True, but looking back, what else could they do to make it a personal issue with people? I remember back in the Commodore 64 days, people really thought there was nothing wrong with copying games as long as you don't sell them. It was the "I wasn't going to buy it anyways, so how am I hurting the maker?" mentality. People just simply did not look at stealing music as a crime, and when it was pointed out that it was still stealing, it was the old "everyone is doing it so it can't be THAT bad" line of thinking.

One place where the piracy advocates almost made sense was when people blamed gangster rap on the proliferation of street violence, I have to say I sympathized with them: Some A-holes were glorifying violence while making huge money off it, all the while living in gated communities with private security teams protecting them from the exact thing they are glorifying. I truly feel those people owe society something, I'm just not sure what or how.


Title: Re: David Lowery (Camper van Beethoven) rips NPR intern over "free music" blog post
Post by: Rev. Powell on July 03, 2012, 08:32:27 PM
I copied LPs and CDs onto tape when I was young, and so on, without thinking about it; it never occurred to me that it was wrong and selfish. The difference between then and now is that it took time to make a copy, and you could only do one at a time. Illegal copying cut into profits, sure, but it was limited: it took time to make the copy, you had to have a physical copy of the CD and some physical media to record it on, and if my friends didn't own a recording I wanted I would have to go out and buy it. Now people can rip a CD in seconds and share it with millions of people, not just a single friend, and you can download whatever you're interested in with just a simple search. It's way too easy.

A further irony is that people like the ones who ran the original Napster or the current Pirate Bay aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or their belief that "information wants to be free." They're making thousands off of advertising. They're basically big corporations, no different than the recording industry corporations people claim to hate except that they're even more dishonest and unscrupulous.