You’ve Won The Lottery. Now, Do You Buy A House Or A Song?…

The RIAA continues their ridiculous strangle-hold on people who download music. One of the better examples of this is the case they launched against 30-year-old Jammie Thomas in October. Allegedly, Jammie used the P2P file sharing program Kazaa in order to download copyrighted material from the artists. Nothing out of the ordinary so far (unless you count the fact that she used the shittiest downloading engine available at the moment). What is very troublesome, however, is what the courts have decided regarding how much the RIAA are allowed to sue for. In this case, $222,000.

You read that correctly, $222,000 for a small amount of songs (24 I believe). The story goes like this: single mother with an annual income of less than $35,000 gets sued by the RIAA for downloading songs via Kazaa. The case is settled in court in the RIAA’s favor. The case is then taken to the Department of Justice to contest the ruling but sadly, the ruling stays. In the end, the Department of Justice agreed that $9,250 per song is a viable price to quote in a case like this. So now this single mother with an annual income of less than $35,000 is forced to somehow come up with $222,000 in an effort proposed by the RIAA to “deter” any future “pirates”. Uh, yeah. Makes perfect sense.

The RIAA needs to stop this insane crusade they are trying to spearhead. Look, there isn’t a youthful soul alive that doesn’t download music these days. Do they really think this absurd case will stop people from becoming “pirates”? All this is going to do is deter people from downloading from Kazaa. It’s been said a million times before, but you can’t stop online downloading. You attack one site for allowing it, a hundred more will pop up later that day. The fact that the RIAA are wasting the amount of money that they are just trying to “deter” this unstoppable aspect of the industry is just sad.

Gene Simmons and that disaster area he calls his face recently claimed that the only people downloading his music are “pimple-faced thieves”. Simmons acts like all of the downloading of music is being done by a small group of teenage bandits, roaming cyberspace in order to steal directly from the artist’s pockets. Let’s make this clear: EVERYONE DOWNLOADS! The people that take the time to download Simmons’ shitty music are his fans. That’s who’s doing it. Some of them probably have pimples, I’m sure, but they are KISS fans all the same. So, in essence, he is slamming his own fans by saying these things. Don’t think for a second that the people in the audience of a KISS show have never attempted to download the music. (It’s also funny to me that the guy saying this is in a band that has done everything in their power to extort as much money from their fans as possible.)

Saying online downloading is something that can be avoided and prevented is along the same lines as saying time travel and world peace are possible. They are all impossible dreams and can never be attained. So, the RIAA keeps attacking these helpless victims because, well, they know they’re helpless. It’s an easy case to prove a point with. Which is really all this is about. The RIAA and the courts know, I’m sure, that they can’t logically stop online downloading and file sharing for good. Instead, they choose to sue single mothers with annual incomes less than $35,000 for seven times what they’re worth (financially) and claim it’s a valid argument. They know it’s unfair and they know it’s ludicrous. This, to me, is the worst part about these cases. Taking up this much time and effort for something that is only really fueling your own big-headed fantasy seems grossly unconstitutional. But, in that respect I guess it makes it a perfect fit given the current state of the music industry.

By the way, please visit www.freejammie.com. It has various ways to support Jammie Thomas and help stop the RIAA (which, in all likelihood, is another impossible dream). It has some pretty sweet tees too, brah.

Bored, So Here’s A Video (12/17)…

Here’s a quick vid of Kermit doing a mock-up of the Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime”. I have never been able to shake my fixation with the Muppets or this particular Talking Heads song so this is something I’ve been obsessed with in the past couple of days. It’s ridiculously stupid and far be it from me to support Disney ventures, but what the hell…

Bored, So Here’s A Video (11/13)…

This is an old video from 1984.  It’s from a British television show and it features The Smiths miming “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” (sort of a music video I guess).  It’s one of my favorite Smiths songs and so I figured, what the hell, I’ll put it up.

Don’t be distracted by the flowers sticking out of Morrissey’s pants…I don’t think even he knew what it meant.

Music Industry Fat Cats Vs. The US…

In the on-going battle that has pitted the listener against music industry executives, a new piece of legislation is about to be passed down that will further enforce stricter limitations of file sharing and “illegal” downloading. They have sharpened their scope this time, however, specifically on college students. The new advancement will be titled the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007, because one of the first words that pops up when I think about laws limiting our options to hear music is opportunity. According to an article on Prefix Magazine’s online site, Representative George Miller, the man proposing this “opportunity”, claims the bill will do the following:

- Direct colleges to inform students and employees about policies and procedures involving illegal downloading and file sharing.
- Require colleges to develop plans for alternatives to online bootlegging to be offered students and plans for exploring technology-based bootlegging deterrents.
- Authorize the Secretary of Education to award grants to institutions of higher learning for developing piracy prevention and education programs.

This, along with the discovery that my favorite torrent downloading site Demonoid has been shut down by the CRIA, put in a bad mood today. What this proposed legislation means is that they will be forcing already broke college students to spend money to download music. College kids, who can’t even afford to wipe their own ass, are being asked, politely I might add, to discover alternative and safer ways to enjoy their music. Translation: “If you don’t pay through your school’s plan, we’ll find you and throw you into a nice comfy jail cell. Because stealing music is wrong, and it not only hurts the artists, but it hurts the music as well!”

Please, spare us. I’m getting tired of hearing that same argument when it comes to this, well, argument. Artists getting fucked is nothing new, in the least. The labels and executives have been doing it to the artists ever since the concept of music as a commodity came into fashion (the ’50s). The difference now is that it isn’t them doing the fucking anymore; it’s the consumer. And man, the industry is pissed and filled with jealousy. Which is to be expected when anyone finds out their sex buddy is in bed with someone else.

The artists usually get less than ten cents of every album sold. The industry standard is around seven cents. That means that even a multi-platinum selling artist really only makes enough to pay off recording costs, video expenses, and distribution charges. Then, they have to use whatever is left after that to pay their managers, producers, tour managers, etc. Since it’s hard to duplicate a platinum album (unless you’re someone like Beyonce), it’s entirely common for an artist to go broke fairly quickly, even after a massively successful hit album or song. That’s because when the industry is done fucking them, they kick them out onto the street. They have to get up early in the morning I guess.

Where an artist really makes their living is through concert sales anyway. Shows are how these bands and songwriters keep their heads afloat, not record sales. And tons of artists have flourished due to online downloading. Online buzz is the best way to get people to come to your shows, and so now the game has a changed quite a bit. Back in the 80s and 70s, “underground” music truly meant underground. You basically had to dig a hole into the middle of an east village street to see some of those bands. “Underground” today is not the same moniker it meant back in those days. Thanks to the Internet, the music scene is now more accessible and more available (therefore, more interesting). You don’t have to suffer through top 40 radio or shitty breakup songs on MTV if you don’t want to. There are thousands of other places to go to find good, new music.

So, given that, the only major difference this whole illegal file sharing fiasco has made is that it is taking the profits away from the labels and the executives. If you were to ask any person that isn’t behind the artists’ back, ready and willing to insert for their monies, they would say screw those greedy assholes. No one cares about Tommy Mottola. Nobody.

And if you still need proof that the top brass who “give” you your music are shady and deceitful, you needn’t look any further than the current Radiohead/EMI debacle. Since Radiohead went on their own to release their new album and dropped EMI Records in the process, EMI took it upon themselves to release all of Radiohead’s past seven albums (that were made with EMI) as one big, overpriced box set to compete with the release of In Rainbows. They also created a false link that stated you could buy the new album as part of the box set, which, of course, it isn’t.

Yeah, and we’re supposed to be on their side.

Radiohead And The Fickle Fans…

Since everyone else has given their two cents on the Radiohead pay-what-you-want business model, I might as well have my say, too. If you don’t know (those of you living under slabs of stone I would imagine), alt-rock giants Radiohead released their last album on October 10th. The difference this time is that since Thom Yorke and company had no label deal worked out by then, they decided to release their eighth studio, titled In Rainbows, on their own via the Internet. The album was only available as a digital download and only through a website Radiohead created. The key aspect that has everyone talking, however, is that you could choose how much you wanted to pay. Any amount was acceptable, especially zero.

In the month long wake of this market-bending approach, every music and business enthusiast has come out of the wood work to either criticize or defend Radiohead for doing this. Even the fans are engaging in fierce debates over this move. Many industry insiders are claiming foul, while others are showering with praise.

I myself am a huge Radiohead, uh, head. The Bends is probably my favorite album ever and OK Computer is not far behind. When I learned of In Rainbows and how they were going to let us hear it, I was ecstatic. Not so much for the concept of the whole thing but just because I was going to be hearing some new Radiohead tunes. That was really all I cared about. From what I’ve been reading lately, however, many others don’t share that same sentiment. Here’s an example of someone on a “Slicon Alley Insider” message board and their reasoning for paying zero dollars for In Rainbows:

“Lack of technical info about the MP3…lack of uncompressed or lossless version…no album art…slow website…the manufacturing costs of what I downloaded was 0…I am going to buy it on CD anyway…They got an email address out of me (which they didn’t need)…If I paid real money, then I would have to probably provide my credit card info. Not if I can help it.”

Wow. The sad thing is, this is a common response to this whole situation. People everywhere are slamming Radiohead for the intricacies of the In Rainbows release. Yeah, the quality isn’t perfect. Yeah, there isn’t any album art. But you know what? Who cares?

Here is one of the most popular bands around today, choosing to distribute their new album to us for free if we so choose, and people have the nerve to complain about it. It’s music. I don’t understand why an art form as free and limitless as music is constantly scrutinized under these terms. Music’s primary duty is to please you aesthetically. You listen to it, you enjoy it, then you listen to it again and again at your heart’s content. Radiohead tried to focus on that, but they still catch hell for it. This need to rationalize slamming someone else’s music based on reasons other than the music itself has got to stop. What would you rather Radiohead do? Give their music to a major label and sell it to us through places like Wal-Mart or Best Buy where they can charge you almost twenty of your hard-earned dollars for it? Radiohead was trying to show us, the so-called “consumers”, that they care about us by letting us pay what we wanted for the album. They tried to give us a break and, surprise, people still have problems with it.

People like that guy quoted above probably spend their days complaining about the current state of music and how utterly disgusting the mainstream acts are. They hate major labels, support indie chains, and blah blah blah. Yet, they refused to support Radiohead for trying to be the ultimate advocates of independent thinking because of reasons like mp3 quality and the fact that they asked for an email address. Cry me a fucking river.

Music is music. It shouldn’t be a business. It shouldn’t, but I know that it is. Between record labels swallowing indie labels left and right and huge retail chains killing off independent record stores, it’s getting harder and harder to get music by reasonable means. I’d like to have more bands follow Radiohead’s lead, but I know that not every artist can do this. Quite simply, Radiohead can afford to do this. They have enough fans and enough of a respected musical past that they didn’t even need to promote In Rainbows.

The best part of all of this, however, is how silent Radiohead have remained throughout it all. Johnny Greenwood, the only member to speak out about this career move in any detail, simply stated that they just wanted to get their music to their fans as quickly and with as little strings attached as possible. That’s all. They wanted people to hear their new songs, and they extended their hand to us all and said, here, have our music and we hope you enjoy it. Then, let me just say, thank you Radiohead. I appreciate the gesture along with the music and I hope my fifteen dollar tip serves you well.