Yeah baby, let's get political!
Today, Tuesday, April 2, 2001, Napster is hitting the US Congress. As someone who is majorly affected by the legal status of filesharing, I am watching the session on C-SPAN. Okay, so I'm not really that affected by the legal aspect, I've never had much respect for the law. I must watch this though, because my political mind refuses to let me take a nap instead. Here's what I've been hearing, in total paraphrase, with my comments, which are pretty much what the true meaning of the words are:
1st Dude (don't remember his name)
I have my own independent label.
I am rich.Independent music keeps music changing, unlike major record companies.
Buy our music instead of major labels.Napster keeps music availible on a level playing field for labels.
Napster is the only thing that gets people to listen to our songs.A recent ruling made Napster remove copyrighted stuff for major labels, but this wasn't extended to independent labels.
Major labels spent a lot of money and damaged their reputations before fans to defend their copyrights, and now that we've done nothing at all we want the same rights extended to us.
2nd Dude (Ken Berry, I think)
I work for EMI.
I am rich.I've worked with Beach Boys, Janet Jackson, someone else, etc, etc.
We've had good artists in the past so you should listen to whatever we say, and not steal from us.Sharing copyrighted files is bad.
Sharing copyrighted files means I don't get as much money which I just put in a big pile and roll around in.I'm in this business because I love music.
I'm in this business because I want to make lots of money without doing work.
3rd Dude
I worked to create the first digitized music, and its a good thing for music.
This is all my fault, but I've turned on my creation, because I'm the only one on this panel who is not incredibly rich.I worked with George Lucas on something.
Associate me with George Lucas (apparently he couldn't afford to see Star Wars Episode 1, else he wouldn't want to be associated like that).Don't share files.
If you share files, I won't get my check from record companies.
Dudette (Hilary Rosen)
I work for a major record label.
I'm rich.Sharing files for free is yesterday's news.
Sharing files for free is something I don't want you to think is "cool" anymore, because it stops me from making money.Sharing files for a fee is a great way to expand opportunities for everyone.
Sharing files for a fee is a great way for us to make a lot of money.
Don Henley and Alanis Morisette (notice that these two don't need to subtly state that they are rich, because they are Don Henley and Alanis Morisette)
We as musicians (I think the exact word was "artists") need a dialogue.
Record companies can now make money off file sharing, but we still aren't getting any.
Thats all the quotations I feel the need to analyze at present, although there are many more that I could have fun with. Now here comes my analysis of the entire situation, even though Rocky already dropped da bomb on anti-Napster parties in another post on this site. I feel the need to voice my own opinions as well.
First off, I find it strange that once the government realized that they could not censor the Internet by their own Constitution (which is rather ineffectual in many cases, but thats not the issue at hand right now), the Internet is immediately attacked by record companies who attempt to take away freedom of information. Yes, I know, it's copyright violation, but its also free transfer of information, and free transfer of information is GUARANTEED IN THE CONSTITUTION. Thus corporations have proved that they are more powerful than the government, by making it so things that are easily and voluntarily transferred will now be required to make them money.
Secondly, and this is the part where I freely admit things, of course people love getting music for free you idiots!!! Why would you NOT get music for free? CD's cost lots and lots of money, and most of them have only one or two good songs on them. And some of them have less than that. When people can get the songs they want without paying outrageous prices why would they not? The whole reason technology advances is so we can get things easier and for less money.
So why must record companies bust on this? Because if artists realize how little they make on the price of their CD, they'll start negotiating better contracts, and costing the record companies more money. They don't care if some yahoo in Tenessee downloads "Sweet Country Love" or whatever, that costs them about 2 cents. But if artists start demanding more than about 10% (if that in most cases) of their record sales, record companies will be fucked.
Also, and in this case you can consider this a personal attack if you wish, Dr. Dre comes up against file sharing. Dre, didn't you tell us to fuck the police? Dre, aren't you the biggest bad boy gangsta of them all? Who shoots people and robs liquor stores? And you don't want us to... download your music for free? You hypocritical fuck! I guess drive by's and armed robbery are okay but not file sharing. Bastard.
Okay, thats all for now. But then, I think I've got another political piece in me today. Politics really inspires me.
--Scuba Steve, April 3, 2001