Now "we" know better, don't we? All those scumbag know-it-alls with Devil and Skull and Death names and avatars, all those senile moles, all those snotty forum owners jilting the artists, all the Dutch douche bags and Swedish meatballs who were arrogantly hell-bent on giving everything away...they all know in their black hearts, what they did. They were greedy, stupid, vain, and childishly nasty as they hid behind their firewalls, shouted their slogans, proclaimed their worthless opinions as fact, and helped kill off record stores, jobs, hopes and profits.
All the things I, and others with some kind of heart and mind said...have been proven true. And that includes the great experiments of Pandora and Spotify Just today, THE NEW YORKER weighed in.
Need to read it? Not really. Anyone with half-a-heart knew from the start, that Internet radio, like YouTube, would be a corporate conjob, with the artists getting half a penny on every dollar.
But you can't stop a gluttony riot. You can't reason with greed. When "Blogfather" or "Fuckoff" or "Shit-Goes-Nuts" is giving away every Beach Boys album, every Led Zep, every "not to be missed" Jethro Tull as if these artists are unknowns and it's "educational" to give it all away, the piggies shouted "Thank you, keep up the good work."
Damage done. And Spotify? It hasn't broken new artists. It doesn't pay decent royalties. And guess what, if you're curious about an artist or song...it's easy to just listen, then copy off the music off Spotify without paying for it, or go off to a torrent or blog or forum to get it in FLAC from some "nice" person.
Young performers and the old ones...people who did take a gamble on Spotify...are wiser. And poorer.
The irony is that THE NEW YORKER piece is from a guy's blog. He's blogging at the New Yorker website, so is HE making much money? Is HIS future secure? When will The New Yorker go "Internet only?" It's just another con. Website publications aren't paying much, what they do is stolen and re-printed, and vanity rules. "I write a blog for New Yorker..." and have to buy macaroni and cheese dinners on sale at the supermarket." I knew some writers desperate to get their stuff on Huffington Post. Then they discovered...it's for NO pay. Just glory. Of which there isn't much because there's so many websites who cares! This guy's New Yorker blog isn't that far removed from mine on Blogspot. His just has a dotcom URL that is a little more fancy.
But the points he makes are valid and it's nice to have The New Yorker behind him for validation. Although some will remain naive, or will just shrug and say "try another paradigm" if Spotify isn't working.
Can the "music is free" assholes really keep fooling themselves? That Kim Dotcom is nice? Megaupload was cool? Torrents are good for writers, actors, singers and artists? Anyone out there really saying the RIAA and EMI and ASCAP are the devil and NOT Google? Anyone out there really thinking that by being an asshole with a blog or a torrent site or a forum and letting everybody steal every discography, every TV show, every movie...that this has struck a blow for freedom and hasn't ruined things instead? Any ostrich out there really fills his bird brain with so much freebie shit that the reality of Putin and North Korea and race riots and Islam terrorists and pollution and overpopulation doesn't bring a chill?
Christ. SPOTIFY. Nice going, Mole Rat. You thought this was going to mean your favoreite 60's artists would go back into the studio and give you more? That the vaults would empty with unreleased gems? That new artists would arrive to tantalize and please you? Didn't happen.
The last line of the piece points out that the freebie destruction of the music world has extended:
"I think it’s true in book publishing as well, that everything pretty much loses or breaks even, except for the monster hits which pay for it all. That model is broken if nothing can break anymore. But maybe it’s not such a good model to defend?"
Call me Miniver Cheevey, but I think things were better when we paid. What was the worst thing about it? That we didn't have EVERYTHING? We had enough. More than enough. At worst, we played the same record over again. And maybe, discovered something musically or lyrically we'd missed the first time.
At best, there were stores we could visit. Lights were on. Artists had hope of grabbing the brass ring. You had shelves of records, books and video that you took pride in owning. You could even re-sell some of it and some of it rose tremendously in value, too. There were disc jockeys and real radio stations. Movie and TV companies had the revenue to give you good shows and not reality shit and karaoke contests.
Technology has played a part. True enough. We are used to mp3 files. Most of us are getting used to Kindle or reading books on a computer. Many of us don't own a TV set and watch our movies on our computer screens and are grateful that instead of clunky CDs and DVDs, a space-saving external drive has thousands of hours of entertainment (and most of it via illegal free download). How nice that if we want to hear a particular artist we don't have to call a radio station and ask...we can Spotify, we can YouTube, we can go to iTunes and instantly get gratification.
But it's come at a price. The price is...we can't afford the price. We want "music to be free" and everything else because the economy sucks. And the economy sucks because everything's free and nobody can make money. So what can we do? Oh, just not THINK about it. Don't THINK. Do what you did when piracy reared up and Spotify took over, just say "This is the future, the genie is out of the bottle, this is going to work," and it doesn't? Well, no big deal to Dr. Skull and Fuckoff and Seniormole and others who are retired, or work as gas station attendants or dustmen. "Support the artist" if you feel like it. Or not.
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