Old Git
October 21st, 2003, 02:07 PM
I have been reading these pages on Zeropaid for a little while now, intrigued what I see as the saga of the RIAA versus the people. Whilst they obviously have the ear of powerful politicians in the USA the issue clearly not as simple as it may seem at first. I would suggest though that it is simple but in a slightly different way.
I am a middle aged person writing this in North East England, in a part of the world that over the last twenty years or so has seen whole communities destroyed, families ripped apart and lives driven to despair, occasionally suicide, all in the name of economic progress. Coal mines with reserves shut, steelworks closed, ship building gone. Some of these industries had been around a few hundred years. The newer chemical industry is now a shadow of what it once was. All these industries employed thousands of blokes, most of them husbands and fathers. In turn these industries supported a region of approximately two and a half million people. Other parts of the world have similarly gone through such experiences. No doubt there are plenty such places in the USA, where firms have said to their workforce, ‘We’re moving on, we don’t need you anymore, so go and get ‘you know what’.’
Today, many of these men are still without work. Many have not had meaningful employment for twenty years or more. The politicians here in the UK say that unemployment is no longer a problem. Where I am they either don’t know what they are talking about, or they are lying, and I am less than twenty miles from Tony Blair’s own patch!
How do I justify what I say? I have been doing research of an academic nature around all these blokes that can’t get jobs. I at least do know what I am talking about and there are other academics that can verify the facts.
The bottom line is that all these thousands of blokes, millions worldwide probably, are without proper work for two reasons. Firstly, that technology moves on, that in many cases their skills are now redundant. They effectively become unskilled. Secondly, that the current political climate, much the same here as in the USA, deems that somehow it’s these blokes own fault, that they won’t work for a low enough wage, so shareholders can live via unearned income through the efforts of these people. Seemingly they should all work for the minimum wage and be grateful.
What’s all this got to do with the RIAA ? (or IRAA as I once accidentally called it! – Given the hard work Sinn Fein and others on the opposite side are putting in to bring the whole sad saga of conflict in Northern Ireland to an end, it would be improper to link them in any way with what appears to be nothing more than a bunch of money grabbers, given the lack of payments made to musicians and others).
Basically, what had occurred, thanks to computers, is that the skills that propped up the record companies and made some people obscene amounts of money for minimal effort, often of questionable artistic value, are now redundant.
Look over most of the audio recorded commercial material since the invention of sound recording techniques. Is there anything there that could not be duplicated, recorded again from scratch using musicians etc.- not copied, using appropriate software and hardware, none of it expensive, on a home PC?
The future of recorded music, at the moment, looks the best it has ever been. Artists themselves however will have to rely more on live performances for income, but is that such a bad thing? Forms of merchandising can also help. It is the recorded material itself that gives the artist exposure to the listening public. Musicians themselves thus can do what musicians like doing most, entertaining us. There is some real talent out there. There always has been. We’ll be able to listen to it now.
The RIAA and its members in this context are no different to those steelworkers who were told they are no longer wanted. Many of those workers finished up in poverty, some homeless, and were told that it was their fault. Government’s don’t give a damm about steelworkers, factory workers, shop workers; basically those people that actually create the wealth we all need to survive in the western world.
The RIAA however has influence and clout. They represent giant megabuck corporations, as well as smaller less well known ones. Politicians listen to them. They have financial power where it can influence.
When I am told by RIAA members that it is immoral to download music from these people what does it tell me? It tells me that business and politicians work hand in hand when it suits them, and I can assure that is not just in the USA as well. Anyway, when they bleat about morality, ideas around expressions relating to stones and glass houses come to mind (people in glass houses should not throw stones – if you don’t know what I am referring to).
What of course this does mean is that the RIAA can perhaps delay the inevitable a little longer, that of course being their own redundancy, along with the corporations that support them, though I have no doubt they would move to pastures new.
At the end of the day it boils down to, how can the speed up of the end of the stranglehold the RIAA and its equivalents elsewhere in the world be put into place? Because once that straightjacket of control has gone music can burst through creatively, original, sometimes awful no doubt. The music industry however, musician and audience led, should surely flourish.
I am a middle aged person writing this in North East England, in a part of the world that over the last twenty years or so has seen whole communities destroyed, families ripped apart and lives driven to despair, occasionally suicide, all in the name of economic progress. Coal mines with reserves shut, steelworks closed, ship building gone. Some of these industries had been around a few hundred years. The newer chemical industry is now a shadow of what it once was. All these industries employed thousands of blokes, most of them husbands and fathers. In turn these industries supported a region of approximately two and a half million people. Other parts of the world have similarly gone through such experiences. No doubt there are plenty such places in the USA, where firms have said to their workforce, ‘We’re moving on, we don’t need you anymore, so go and get ‘you know what’.’
Today, many of these men are still without work. Many have not had meaningful employment for twenty years or more. The politicians here in the UK say that unemployment is no longer a problem. Where I am they either don’t know what they are talking about, or they are lying, and I am less than twenty miles from Tony Blair’s own patch!
How do I justify what I say? I have been doing research of an academic nature around all these blokes that can’t get jobs. I at least do know what I am talking about and there are other academics that can verify the facts.
The bottom line is that all these thousands of blokes, millions worldwide probably, are without proper work for two reasons. Firstly, that technology moves on, that in many cases their skills are now redundant. They effectively become unskilled. Secondly, that the current political climate, much the same here as in the USA, deems that somehow it’s these blokes own fault, that they won’t work for a low enough wage, so shareholders can live via unearned income through the efforts of these people. Seemingly they should all work for the minimum wage and be grateful.
What’s all this got to do with the RIAA ? (or IRAA as I once accidentally called it! – Given the hard work Sinn Fein and others on the opposite side are putting in to bring the whole sad saga of conflict in Northern Ireland to an end, it would be improper to link them in any way with what appears to be nothing more than a bunch of money grabbers, given the lack of payments made to musicians and others).
Basically, what had occurred, thanks to computers, is that the skills that propped up the record companies and made some people obscene amounts of money for minimal effort, often of questionable artistic value, are now redundant.
Look over most of the audio recorded commercial material since the invention of sound recording techniques. Is there anything there that could not be duplicated, recorded again from scratch using musicians etc.- not copied, using appropriate software and hardware, none of it expensive, on a home PC?
The future of recorded music, at the moment, looks the best it has ever been. Artists themselves however will have to rely more on live performances for income, but is that such a bad thing? Forms of merchandising can also help. It is the recorded material itself that gives the artist exposure to the listening public. Musicians themselves thus can do what musicians like doing most, entertaining us. There is some real talent out there. There always has been. We’ll be able to listen to it now.
The RIAA and its members in this context are no different to those steelworkers who were told they are no longer wanted. Many of those workers finished up in poverty, some homeless, and were told that it was their fault. Government’s don’t give a damm about steelworkers, factory workers, shop workers; basically those people that actually create the wealth we all need to survive in the western world.
The RIAA however has influence and clout. They represent giant megabuck corporations, as well as smaller less well known ones. Politicians listen to them. They have financial power where it can influence.
When I am told by RIAA members that it is immoral to download music from these people what does it tell me? It tells me that business and politicians work hand in hand when it suits them, and I can assure that is not just in the USA as well. Anyway, when they bleat about morality, ideas around expressions relating to stones and glass houses come to mind (people in glass houses should not throw stones – if you don’t know what I am referring to).
What of course this does mean is that the RIAA can perhaps delay the inevitable a little longer, that of course being their own redundancy, along with the corporations that support them, though I have no doubt they would move to pastures new.
At the end of the day it boils down to, how can the speed up of the end of the stranglehold the RIAA and its equivalents elsewhere in the world be put into place? Because once that straightjacket of control has gone music can burst through creatively, original, sometimes awful no doubt. The music industry however, musician and audience led, should surely flourish.