MICROCAST: An Essay

[mistersleepless]

(Simulcast from BRAINPOWERED, my weekly column on artbomb.net)American Big Media has recently announced the last dark little gem in its triple crown of doom for 2003. First, the music industry registered a major downturn. Then the movie business released reduced figures despite increased ticket prices and some of the widest release patterns in

Comments

[grosely_clerx]

Also, the music industry's insistence that a consumer downloading 100 CDs worth of songs equates 100 CDs worth of lost revenue is specious, dumb and nobody really buys it. The media just regurgitate it because they and the RIAA (and its bedfellows) are themselves kissin' cousins. Anyone with half a lobe left can tell that media "theft" is a fancy way of trying to make copyright infringement an ethical issue.

Copy Right

[thesheryl]

Dude! Like we weren't all copying each others' vinyl onto cassettes when we were in high school...

Re: Copy Right

[deeteeuk]

Nice quote taken from www.theregister.co.uk

My great grandfather was born in 1870. He learned to build crystal radio sets to listen to the earliest radio broadcasts in the 1920's. He would invite the whole town of about 500 over to listen to them.

My grandfather was born in 1899. He purchased one of the earliest tape recorders to make copies of radio broadcasts for his friends in the late 1950s.

My dad was born in 1924. He had a collection of 78's that he passed around for many years until he died last year.

And now I am using the Internet to assemble an MP3 collection of all the tunes on all those LPs, cassette tapes and CD's that I've been buying since 1959.

I'll be damned in hell before I accept the notion that I and my ancestors who love to listen to the audio arts are in any sense guilty of anything that is illegal, wrong, evil, immoral or improper.

Quite frankly, people sharing their culture with each other should not be a crime.

Re: Copy Right

[thesheryl]

Damn straight! I was reading about a case in US of A where a twelve year old kid with a single parent on welfare was fined 3000 dollars for downloading 'copyrighted' music. If I had an adress I would have sent them the money because the whole deal is so seriously fucked on a basic sociological level. What the hell is wrong with some people?
As for your user pic; you look a lot like my ex, Spencer. Stop it.

Re: Copy Right

[deeteeuk]

Yeah, I heard about that case. There was also the one where they spent an inordinate amount on a SWAT style bust for a car park attendant that handed out one or two cd's a week. Cost effective, no?
And I can only apologise unreservedly for my selfish and ill-thought out choice of face. I promise not to do it again.

Re: Copy Right

[thesheryl]

The English are so nice! It's not your fault you look like Spencer; I could always tell him to stop looking like you.

Re: Copy Right

[deeteeuk]

A cunning plan. Blame him. And make him change. It's always the ex's fault.

Oh, and I'm more Scottish than English. This means I'm still polite, I just drink more while being so.