The People Are Not The Pirates
By: The Shamanatrix

The Music Industry Is Timeless
Big Record Labels Are Not
 
 

The question I ask is how many times do we have to pay for a
song before it's ours? The labels think we are buying a CD, while
everyone else thinks they are buying the music that is on the CD.

I've purchased Prince's 1999 album as a LP, cassette tape, and CD.
Am I now supposed to spend even more money just to get an
MP3 of what I have already paid for three times?

At what point do I own what I have purchased?

The record industry should be about creating new and innovative
points of view, not just selling the same old music on new formats.

Our property rights as an audience are being systematically eroded,
reduced and eliminated and they have the nerve to call us the pirates?

The record companies are drowning in their own mismanagement,
lack of creativity and innovation. They have been imitating their way
to success for so long that they have forgotten how to innovate their way
through the ever changing sands of time. In a classic case of projection
and transference, they are now going to blame us, the copy enabled
public for the fiscal losses created by their own managerial ineptitude.

I have no guilt when I download because I have already bought what
I am downloading at one point or another. We can't search for an MP3
in cyberspace if we have never heard of it before, so people download
the music that they already know and love, and music that they have
more then likely already purchased at one or more times in the past.

Nobody wants a world where we have to pay for a song each and every
time we listen to it. Well, maybe the record companies would like this
but it would substantially erode the quality of life for all in cyberspace.

Throwing people in jail for sharing music is analogous to throwing people
in jail for sharing a part of themselves with their family and friends.
What is more human than sharing the joy and enthusiasm that a
creative work brings into our lives with another?

As a songwriter it should not surprise you when I say that it is crucial that
songwriters be able to get paid. Money enables an artist to pay the rent,
buy groceries and affords them the freedom to pursue their passions, but
how many times should you have to pay the writer for the same song?

The internet allows the songwriters, the musicians, the performers and most
importantly, the audience to self organize and interact on a level never
previously possible. Technological innovation has equally evolved the tools
of musical production and distribution to a degree of simplicity that will
enable the artist to be in direct contact with their audience without a
middleman hovering over, standing between and controlling all
parties in a vain attempt to maximize their influence
and revenues at the expense of everyone else's.

The record companies know that they are dying and they will do all that
they can like a drowning man to drag down any and all that are near or
dear to them in an attempt to survive as they have been, by stealing the
rights from the songwriter, by stealing creative control away from artists,
and by stealing the money in your wallet over and over again.

The real thieves and pirates of creative freedom and liberty are the
record companies and they know this and will use all of their creative
and persuasive wit, guile, tools and tricks just to stay alive, and nothing
is more dangerous to one's immediate environment than a drowning man.

Now is the time for the songwriters, musicians, performers and audience to
take control of the music industry away from those who have destroyed what
they were sworn to protect, the collective well-being of both artist and audience.
 

(C)reative Commons 1999 - 2003 "The Digital Dialectic"
A production of Virtual Recordings.com
 
 

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