Serious essay on the music biz

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
so, how do we fix it?

Do we bomb the russians and chinese back to the stone age?

Do we strong arm YouTube and others into properly paying their ASCAP fees for playing songs?

Do we send ChillingEffects.org a DMCA request to take down the names of people who sent requests because they were unlicensed use of their names (I'm sure the right lawyer could find a way to twist that so they're the bad guy).

Do we lobby congress for equal enforcement of IP laws be it music or google patents?

Do we leave it alone and let it all sort itself out? Maybe live music will die? Maybe all new music will be amateur based or KickStarter sponsored?

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I can see some things that would help:

1) Make a foundational courses in logic & ethics part of the educational system. I'm talking as in the formal philosophical classes, not bits & pieces scattered throughout courses in civics, history, and so forth. (Some education into what actually constitutes a crime wouldn't hurt either.). A lot of issues would dissapears overnight if people just followed the rules.

2) The IP industries need to be a bit more transparent about how their money is spent. I think a good portion of the casual piracy is seen as inchoate "sticking it to the man" and "rich artists have too much money already" quasi-anarchy when in reality, there's a host of blue collar guys & gals getting hurt...including emerging artists.

I don't see the end of live music, but one thë that hasn't changed is the decreasing number of successful big, multi-act tours. Bands aren't getting the same chance to get exposure to new markets because of that.

As for Russia and China- we can't do much about them, but they're having their issues as well. The Chinese, for instance, are actually doing more anti-piracy policing than ever before: as it turns out, the pirates were not content to go after decadent Westerners, they were going after Chinese IP creators as well. Their economy is having troubles keeping up with the West. Sure, their numbers look amazing right now, but their country does not. They have infrastructure problems, poverty issues, and the old bugaboo of communism- inefficient allocation of resources- creating drags that, as their economy continues to slow down, may turn into full-blown anchors.
 

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