I feel this entire discussion about music, file sharing, copyrights, and "remixing" is very interesting and raises a lot of eyebrows. Now more than ever, it is looked down upon to take things from others. At the same time, our society tell us that it is healthy to be inspired by others and take their certain aspects and make them our own. We live during a time where inspiration comes in all shapes and forms, and it is amazing to be able to share ideas. With fashion, we are inspired by others. With writing, we are encouraged to cite others' thoughts and incorporate them with our own. But music... music is an entirely different issue.
With technology, music has become much more accessible than it was in the past. As opposed to spending $15 on a CD in which you only like 2 of the songs anyway, a free download of a song is only a click away. The emergence of illegal downloading and file sharing has almost become part of the norm. People download limewire of frostwire, and their entire music library can be accumulated in a matter of seconds. It is so easy to maintain songs nowadays but also so... illegal. And why is this? Why is it okay to copy fashion and other items, but not music? I personally feel it is more because of the recording companies than anything. Many of the music artists are just trying to get their songs out to the public, regardless of whether the consumer pays or not. These artists thrive from concert sales, merchandise, TV appearances, etc. Only a small portion of their salary comes from the CD sales anyway. It is the big bad recording companies who are against the act of file sharing. It is them who are losing profit.
It is crazy that in today's world, listening to music has become such an issue. Not even downloading it, but manipulating it and using it as well. GirlTalk, who takes samples from several songs and makes them his own, also faces lawsuits more and more every day. Although he is taking something that already exists and putting his own spin on it, it is still considered "stealing." All this talk about "stealing." The consumer steals, the up and coming DJ steals. Maybe if we made everything public to begin with, we would not be facing such a problem.
As big of a deal that this all seems to be, I doubt any of this music drama will be going anywhere soon. We are become more and more advanced every day. If we don't use limewire to download music for free, something else will come along. If GirlTalk isn't remixing music, someone else will. This is who we have become... and I don't see it necessarily as a bad thing.
I agree. The trend is becoming more apparent: we want products quickly and cheaply. We have responded to our own needs by creating means for fast and free music acquisition. The result? Radio that feeds us OUR songs, not just the songs by the artists who pay industries top dollar. The internet is currently run by us, so unless we as consumers are vigilante gatekeepers of music/file sharing, no industry or government organization will be able to completely wipe out our "crime". I'm writing this post why listening to GirlTalk on Pandora and downloading the last Pandora song I heard through mediafire and it's being transferred to my itunes and soon to my ipod for the weekend.
ReplyDelete