First, have a look at this video:
Why would this possibly affect me?
Because I love mashups, listening to them, sharing them, and so on. If you’ve been following We Heart Music at all, maybe you remember a few of my articles on mashups.
So I can tell you some elements of the video are most definitely true. I’ve seen quite a few mashup vids get taken down or blocked on copyright claims from Warner Music Group, EMI, and so on. And I remember all those peer-to-peer music sites mentioned, too… where are they?
Mashups are a product of the disc jockey (DJ) scene, and besides being a variant of the remix, I think they are often a potent reminder that musical themes are repeated over and over again– more so, it seems, in contemporary record music today. However, I think condemning them is like saying a collage threatens the existence of an original painting or other piece of graphic art.
Okay, on to the meat and potatoes of this virtual dish of news: WordPress brought the latest on this (including the video) to my attention. Ex-VOXer Jack Yan has written about this, for Lucire magazine. (To boot, he was also the one who let me know about the WP article.)
There are other articles… but let me put this simply. If you’re getting news on the Internet, this should have lit up your newsfeeds.
I admit it– I am still agonizing on how I should write my local representatives– AND be confident they will listen to what I have to say. Sadly, though, I am poor. I don’t think politicians listen to poor folk.
But I am at least trying to get the word out, in hopes that maybe the 99% might think, “Oh, damn, this might be BAD for business!” Hard to say, because I know the music business is pretty unhappy, for one, and it’s not just the producers and execs. I remember David Byrne writing for WIRED recently… at the time, he was rather sanguine, saying most musicians make money in live performances. However, Mark Mothersbaugh (of DEVO) was less so, saying music listeners apparently aren’t willing to pay for music.
(Pardon that I don’t have all my links in– I’m still pretty fried out and running low on willpower to track them all down to properly cite things. I actually started this post about a week ago– January 11, 2012, @ 13:57, to be exact. But does this make sense?)
the tao of jaklumen 