It makes me want to deny that I’m a musician.
I read countless articles in which “artists” like Britney Spears, DMX, and Sean “Pussy” Combs advertising the fact that we fans are thieves and are breaking their banks. Spears is quoted as saying, “Do you walk into the store and steal a freaking CD? That’s what you’re doing when you log on and download my music.”
And in Congress, we’re hearing about record companies, who have the support of the RIAA, trying to legalize any possible means for crippling the big bad file sharers. Their threats include flooding the P2P programs with dummy files to confuse consumers, which I would be okay with. But they go as far as replacing songs with viruses, and what many fear would end up involving big companies to spy into your computer and delete your mp3 files!
Is that hacking? Well, in the words of Bill Clinton, I guess that depends on what our definition of hacking is. And in the eyes of the government and big name record execs, the ruling may be that in the interest of copyright protection, this is not hacking.
Is this a dream, or did I fall asleep and wake up in Orwell’s worst nightmare?
As a musician, this pisses me off. I mean, isn’t the whole point of this whole “business” to get our art into the hands of consumers? Is today’s RIAA board too blind to see that internet downloading is the new distribution of the future? They railed against the VCR, the ability to tape your own personal cassettes and pass music to friends, and every other imaginable thing, and now they’ve got their sights set on the net. Well I’ve had it.
I think it’s time that those of us who AREN’T millionaires, those of us who care about fans and their ability to find new music, get together and make our voices heard! I suggest that we band together and refuse to download the music of these artists who want us to stop – – but also remember not to spend another dime on any of their music. Let it be known that we can invest our money elsewhere, where there’s more give and take, and a little less we-give-they-take.
Make it clear that if they won’t budge on eliminating the .mp3 file, we won’t budge on not buying their CDs. Maybe THAT will hurt their pocketbooks.
