Wi - Fi Stunt Refutes Mandelson's Meddling

[fiat_knox]

Watch this video

Basically, the ISP TalkTalk arranged a small demonstration to show how the proposed change to the law forcing ISPs to cut off file sharers can easily be circumvented by sufficiently determined consumers.

Yes, "consumers." Not "hackers" or "smart criminals working for Eastern European gangs" or any of the tropes the media would love to throw in our faces to blind us to what's going on, but ordinary consumers.

Mandy should give up. So should those dinosaurs he takes instructions from, In the long term, they are never going to win the war.

On a side note, does anybody else no longer give a stuff either way for any of the musicians and bands doing the rounds any more, regardless of whether they are pro-file sharing or pro-greed?

I mean, when Lily Allen steps out onto the red carpet of the Mercury Awards in yet another slinky dress, you have to realise that it's the consumers who have paid for that dress - so why should I want to put one penny into the bitch's pocket for telling us that we'll have to pay for her music or face being cut off?

Me, I look at the options and think "H'mm. If I don't buy Lily Allen's music, she gets to wear rags to the Mercuries and I get to keep my internet connection. Win.

"If I do buy her music, I watch her wear silk to a party that I'd never get an invite to in a million years, and even then I may run the risk of having internet access cut off because some other consumer next door used my ISP for file sharing rather than risk his own. Fail."

I hate the musicians who come over saying "You'll have to pay, because otherwise we'll be poor." Because I am wont to retort "But we have never been anything but poor - and you got in because of your rich Daddy so you have never been anything other than rich!" followed by some two-word invective or other.

This argument is not just about music. It is about power, and censorship, and the same old hidebound people in boardrooms miles from the street suddenly seeing how that power has been slipping from their hands - and perhaps they never had it in the first place. It's an argument which goes back to the Seventies (when Roddy McDowall got into legal trouble for sharing video tapes and film reels that the companies had slated for wiping and trashing). And they can try what they like: we the consumers will adapt. We always adapt.

After all, we know this technology better than they ever could.

Comments

[pete23.livejournal.com]

Whilst I am in agreement on the idiocy of cutting off internet connections in response to file sharing, and loathe Lily Allen, and feel that the music industry is a bloated dinosaur blinking at the oncoming K-T extinction event, and don't see that people who can't pay consuming free-to-copy media is essentially a problem... I have a problem with the following:

I hate the musicians who come over saying "You'll have to pay, because otherwise we'll be poor." Because I am wont to retort "But we have never been anything but poor - and you got in because of your rich Daddy so you have never been anything other than rich!" followed by some two-word invective or other.

You don't think that being an artist should be a paying job, then? Because all artists have rich daddies? And so every creator of content should provide it for free? Even as polemic this is bollocks:-D

(edited for userpic... I've bought most of Mr Christopherson's oeuvre, and am happy that this keeps him in - hopefully comparative luxury in - a jungle compound full of wet-eyed thai boys)

[cdave]

IAWTC. Also while it is be about power, it's not about censorship.

[innocent-man.livejournal.com]

pro-file sharing or pro-greed?

That the only choice, then?

I mean, don't get me wrong. It is absolutely untenable for the music industry to continue peddling music as a product, and they should have gotten with the times back when Napster made the offer. But it's not quite so cut-and-dried as "if you would rather folks paid for their music, you're greedy."

Or did you just write for the sheer love of it, with no expectation of compensation? I love writing, but I sure as shit want my paycheck, and it annoys the hell out of my when people torrent books I've worked on (even though it doesn't harm me directly, since I'm usually work for hire) because it displays a lack of respect for the product and for me as the "artist."

Obviously, the comparison doesn't hold up if we expand the terms, but take it for what it's worth.

Thin Line

[fiat-knox.livejournal.com]

Sure, there's a thin line between balancing the need to want to write / dance / perform and the need to eat and occasionally buy clothes to replace the ones that are falling off your back.

But if you didn't love what you did to start with, you'd never have gotten into the business in the first place. The love of your art comes first, and it's there even when the money isn't forthcoming.

Me, I love to write. And no, if all I had as my income was the scratch I made as a writer I'd have been found dead of starvation in a cardboard box long ago. So there's little or no percentage in my writing at all.

There's zero percentage in my writing this shit here on LJ. And yet I write, because when it boils down to it what would you do if you had no income coming in, or if you were as rich as

If you're the real deal, whatever your financial circumstances, whether you are a writer, a musician, a dancer or whatever, you would do your thing. Because in the end, it's all you want to do. And I know that you feel the same about the thing that you all do.

Just like I want to die how I live - writing. Even if I'm starving in a cardboard box, I'll still manage to find a pen and paper - or even write on a flaming wall. F'list, I know you'd do the same with your thing.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

File sharing has been shown to often lead to increased sales of actual albums. Not that most of the money actually goes to the musicians themselves, it goes to the record executives who do the marketing, packaging, etc. Genuinely indie bands do that stuff themselves, all the work for what's usually a smaller fraction of the cost to the consumer, and they still barely turn a profit--I've been to concerts my little brother booked where he had to pass around a hat at the end of it just so the band could have some gas money to get back to their hometown.

I certainly agree that real artists do what they love no matter what...but it takes a lot of time, dedication, and often resources to make the kind of work that's fit to show to the world, and good work is worth paying for just to make sure the artist can make more and that they don't die of starvation before they have a chance to get out a second book, painting, etc.