Re: <nettime> The problem with file-sharing

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@yahoo.com>]

> So the only possible reply we, as people who read our email on.screen and 
> do not let the secretary print them out, should somehow form an 
> international lobbying organization to be a balancing factor against the 
> interests of others in this matter...

Good ... I'd like to see a subcommittee that will balance right to copy paper
banknotes against interests of assorted governments.

The difference is smaller than you think.

Labels, by pumping money into advertizing and monopolizing public meme space,
*create* popular music. This is a (unfortunate) fact. You could have a genius
playing on the corner around the block, but you simply don't care. An essential
ingredient in the value of "music" is the engineered popularity. People like
what others like. People like what they get shoved down their sensory apparatus
over and over again. That costs money. Only then will they bother to share.

Talking with, ehm, "artists", the same conclusion comes over and over again.
The un-picked ones are unhappy because they didn't get picked, the picked ones
are fine, the rich picked ones get greedy and bitch about labels.

If labels disappeared overnight, what would you download ? How would you *know*
and *value* anything beyond your street block boundaries ? You'll find it "on
internet" ? Well, there are hundreds of thousands unknown artists giving away
their stuff for free "on internet" TODAY and no one bothers to get it. The
enlightened masses crying for "right to download" would not have their "music"
without labels in the first place. The whole P2P "rights" movement is bogus in
the sense that without multi-billion-$ celebrity industry no one would bother
to design P2P for the masses in the first place.

And I also fail to see how propagating media outlet drivel is a positive on any
plane. It's sad that a good part of wired (counter)culture is focused on this.
Which is why labels (not so openly) love P2P.



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