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Illegal Downloading: The 8th Deadly Sin

There was a recent blog that went viral about illegal downloading. It was written by David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker fame. This is it:

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/#comments

It was written in response to this blog by Emily White, an intern at NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/06/16/154863819/i-never-owned-any-music-to-begin-with

It sparked great debate and I posted my two cents worth (still awaiting moderation,) but thought I would use it as the seed for a more in depth piece about this issue, especially since my comment was written late at night and will probably never get posted anyway. This is a hot button issue that gets oversimplified on both sides. I'm always taken aback by people's vehemence, kind of like:

 "You torrent! You're going to hell! Don't you know you're taking the bread out of musician's mouths?"

One example of this is quoted below:

On a personal level, I have witnessed the impoverishment of many critically acclaimed but marginally commercial artists. In particular, two dear friends: Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and Vic Chestnutt. Both of these artists, despite growing global popularity, saw their incomes collapse in the last decade. There is no other explanation except for the fact that “fans” made the unethical choice to take their music without compensating these artists.


Shortly before Christmas 2009, Vic took his life. He was my neighbor, and I was there as they put him in the ambulance. On March 6th, 2010, Mark Linkous shot himself in the heart. Anybody who knew either of these musicians will tell you that the pair suffered from addiction and depression. They will also tell you their situation was worsened by their financial situation. Vic was deeply in debt to hospitals and, at the time, was publicly complaining about losing his home. Mark was living in abject squalor in his remote studio in the Smokey Mountains without adequate access to the mental health care he so desperately needed.


I present these two stories to you not because I’m pointing fingers or want to shame you. I just want to illustrate that “small” personal decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly “love”. And it is up to us individually to examine the consequences of our actions. It is not up to governments or corporations to make us choose to behave ethically. We have to do that ourselves.

I opened up my response by thanking him for his thought-provoking article. The preceding paragraphs, however, begged the following response:

The two personal stories you present are sophistry, whether intentional or not. The fact is that correlating suicide, depression and struggles with addiction with illegal downloading is a stretch at best and highly manipulative. I appreciate that your friends’ struggles have had a marked effect upon you, but the issues involved are much deeper. If this country focused more on true quality of life and less on consumerism and profits, we would have better health care and better understanding and resources for mental health. If our country had focused on actual evidenced-based drug policies, rather than draconian war-based metaphors and the creation of a massive law enforcement and prison economy, humane treatment for addiction would be much farther advanced.

... I also tried to address what I believed are some of the underlying issues that created this situation and have included them below. Please realize that this was impromptu writing and I wanted to post it while the iron was hot. Since I am now transferring it to my blog, I may even edit it as time passes and I can articulate myself better...

What has actually happened is that America’s corporate profiteering and cynicism has finally come home to roost. Please remember that this is the same music industry which:

    1.    Consistently censors “obscene” language, editing musical works of art for public performance.
    2.    Frequently pressures artists to change album art to make it more palatable to the major retailers, such as Walmart.
    3.    Degraded the medium of radio into the mindless churning of heavy rotation formats aimed merely at selling advertising and disposable musical product.
    4.    Engaged in numerous shady practices around these advances you refer to, including racking up inflated expenses for engineers, studio time, producers etc.
    5.    Saddled many artists with producers and other company watchdogs to interfere with the creative process for corporate interests.
    6.    Constantly remarketed/reformatted/remastered the same material for revenue purposes, often creating a technically inferior product.
    7.    Inadequately promoted freshman albums, derailing promising young careers.

And that is just off the top of my head.

The paradigm is changing and the issues are complex. Obviously, the entitled teen or twenty-something that rattles off a shallow justification like “record companies rip off artists…” has put very little thought into the actual issue. Yet, this generation is a direct product of a society that greatly undervalued many artists who you and I can name, not to mention those who were great but undiscovered. The life of artists and musicians is difficult; they belong to a bohemian underclass that suffers from many of the afflictions of any underclass, plus others unique to their specific subculture.

I would also like to raise a few other points:

    1.    1. Musicians pirate too. Distribution of culture is something much greater than the mere sale of mechanical product. Mixtapes, bootlegs, simple cassettes from vinyl and now MP3 torrents circulate amongst musicians and music lovers. I also mention in passing the “tapeheads” of Grateful Dead culture. From those who love the Dead, I understand these recordings are a much truer representation.
    2.    Digital distribution is fraught with unnecessary complexity created by corporate agendas. From the annoying DRM issues and the low resolution of iTunes MP3s to the almost bizarre lock in attempt by these media purveyors. Do I commit myself to a iReality: buying from, playing on equipment by and storing with one corporation? That is a far cry from picking up a record from your local record store, playing it on your Dual turntable with a Shure cartridge, through a Marantz system. It smacks of unwholesome monopolies..
    3.    Misuse of copyright law (despite your upcoming arguments) has contributed to people’s cynicism. There is the obvious example of Mickey Mouse, but also the unfortunate reaction to sampling that happened in the ‘90s. The viciously capitalist reaction to perfectly legitimate original works utilizing sampling had nothing to do with intellectual property and more to do with money.

In the larger sense, I think these dilemmas are the natural offshoot of a society that lost its way on many fronts before this current issue. We have created ultimate consumers, and now technology has enabled them to circumvent certain of the mechanics of commerce. Our society failed to emphasize the true intrinsic value of creative output and we are seeing the ramifications.

For example, PBS produced a wonderful documentary series, called the History of Rock and Roll. It is no longer available, even though it should probably be used in schools worldwide. Even the YouTube version that became available has had the audio removed from certain episodes. This series could do nothing but create new fans for old catalogue or, more importantly, broaden the horizons of music lovers, yet due to licensing issues - essentially money issues - it is unavailable.

We live in a society where musicians, writers and artists are not venerated and supported, that spends millions on political media campaigns, cuts music and art programs to the bone in schools and makes the cost of further education prohibitive to all but the wealthy. You should not be surprised if the rarefied evolutionary result of decades of cutthroat consumer culture is a wholly new breed.

This is where I ended, but I feel I may have left some things out. I know that as a young person I loved music. I was classically trained, but listened to a wide and eclectic variety of music. I scrimped and saved for my precious Dead Kennedy's albums imported all the way from the States (taking forever and frequently costing $30.) I methodically taped LPs, calibrating levels, bias, equalization etc. I made mix tapes for friends. As time went on, I rummaged through discount bins, garage sales and thrift stores for exciting deals, but also poured plenty of cash into CDs at full retail (minus an employee discount at times.) It was fun and I don't regret a minute of it; I celebrated, disseminated and created music.

Do I have the same relationship with iTunes as the local record store. No. I never will. I like the convenience, I browse and pick and choose what I can afford and am somewhat cognizant if it's an independent artist I'd like to support. But fuck, I don't go overboard and act all self righteous. I also torrent things. Some of it I've bought in a couple formats before. Some I actually lost when Window Media Player store died. Some wasn't worth buying. But not all. Apple is a slick, faceless corporate entity and iTunes is a horrible bloated piece of code. It was developed to make money and sell more iStuff.

As am footnote, I would encourage all the self-righteous folks who talk about supporting musicians take a look at their own habits in supporting the independent audio industry. Is all your sound equipment made with love in a family run factory? Do you buy it from a local audio dealer? Or do you buy the cheapest Far Eastern gear made with cheap labor from some big chain retailer. Quiet as it's kept, there are quite a number of quality American and Canadian audio manufacturers (as well as European, Asian etc.) The gear costs more, lasts longer, sounds infinitely better and is made by people who love music and building fine equipment to reproduce it.

Let me know what you think.

So the topic for today is… Television!

Yes, I know that you think you know what I’m going to say next, especially those of you that have heard me incessantly mutter, bitch, whinge and kvetch about my roommates’ incessant, mind numbing TV habits.

And on some days you would be right.

But today I got up at 5-ish, went to work, and spent some time out after work and yet I have found myself here, past midnight, typing away. And… I’ve read both books by my bedside. So what kept me up? That’s right: TV shows.

This got me to thinking… what do I really think about TV? How can I get so annoyed by people watching TV, or by TV in general, yet love to watch films? How can I get so into a show that I will catch up on three episodes at a time?

What is the difference between how I see myself as a TV viewer and how I see the “average American” and am I just a self-deluding snob?

Firstly, and the easiest point to raise is advertising. Generally, most people concur on this, although not as many as I would have once expected. I do hear conversations about ads people like more than I used to. Anyway, most people would say they would prefer to watch their favorite shows without advertising. Because this is not a very interesting topic, I’ll cut to the chase and just say, ads are a mixed bunch, and although some are clever, I feel assaulted by most of them, and because of my inability to tune things out, I watch every single one. Intently. And then I feel robbed.

Secondly, timing. I have never owned a DVR. But I get the idea. I, too, like to watch stuff when I want to. I won’t pay for the whole shebang, though, because I can’t and wouldn’t even if I could. Dish or cable + packages with DVRs and bills are an entirely repugnant, bloated consumer product to me. I guess I’m more aligned with the younger generation in that I will torrent, rip, load onto my phone and all that.

Thirdly…well, there is no thirdly, actually. Instead we head straight into another one of my idealistic visions. This vision has to do with storytelling. It has to do with ancient man, sitting by the fire, sharing stories, wisdom and knowledge. It has to do with timeless oral traditions that preserved myth, knowledge and culture through the ages.

Basically, I see television, film, and books as the next steps in this august lineage. Some of my most precious memories are of being told stories by my parents. Some fantastic tales spun by my mother, others readings from books and still others personal retellings of different times and places in the world from my parents’ personal experiences: America (segregation, rock ‘n’ roll, the ‘60s,) Europe (Nazi Germany, post-War Britain.) These have become part of the mythology of my family and I hope that someday I may pass these on, along with my own stories.

In addition, I will never forget the impact that the stories I read on my own had on my developing mind and perspective: the Moomin’s dark Finnish world, the idyllic Dragon-filled lands of Anne McCaffrey, the Lord of the Rings, Dune and so many others. I still have vivid memories of iconic films: the Wizard of Oz, Blade Runner, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Fight Club, Trainspotting. And of course, here it is years later and Doctor Who has followed me from across the sea. These stories spoke to me at the time and have become interwoven in the fabric of my consciousness, whether frivolous and fun or deep and meaningful.

I guess I view storytelling as a sacred trust. And certainly the ability of an artist to inspire an audience to think, learn and wonder. Why is the Discovery Channel so popular; why do I see people from all walks of life watching animal shows and documentaries? I think it is because people truly are interested in life and learning.

Television is a miracle. Schools across the world should be utilizing all forms of media to engage their students. To profane this vehicle of the sacred trust by selling us “lifestyle products” or to push another voyeuristic glorification of some garishly consumptive celebrity is an affront.

With the proliferation of available outlets, it seems to me the time is right for the true storytellers to reclaim their territory. I know there are innumerable underground filmmakers I am unaware of and I should probably be out there digging around, finding the next cool thing, but I’m not.  Surely there has to be some way for the media barons to make some space for something a little edgier and realer if we put enough pressure on them. And I imagine that there are a bunch of community-based art projects and young filmmakers who could generate a wealth of low-budget material for school districts all across the country

Hey, I’m just shooting off at the mouth, since I haven’t really done any research, but if anyone out there agrees, post a reply, maybe even with some links to like-minded folks, sites, projects etc. I can’t be the only one who feels this way.

Johnny doesn't do well in school. All he wants to do is smoke weed and write beats. Part Two

Last time, we were speaking about our hypothetical Johnnies and their hypothetical teachers. Their teachers’ attitudes ranged from the most selfish reasoning (I need my job) to the less so (instilling education, discipline etc.) At the most basic level, the more selfish the reason, the less likely it is to work. Keeping a job or making sure the necessary percentage of students graduate are not educational goals, they are agendas set by regulatory agencies or economic requirements.

Just for a second, imagine if a teacher’s job was a partnership aimed at helping Johnny find out what he’s good at, and how to go about doing it. In that process, a teacher might find out that Johnny likes working on cars with his older brother. This opens the opportunity for any number of dialogues about chemistry, physics or mathematics that will have relevance to Johnny. That relevance to Johnny is a much more effective motivator for Johnny to learn and apply what he has learned than arbitrary grades and punishments from people who neither understand nor respect him.

In that process, it might be part of the curriculum for Johnny to get work experience at a local body shop in his community. It might even be a shop that does restoration on classic cars, or works on low riders. This provides a real-world example of where Johnny’s passion can lead, helps him develop goals and aspirations and provides him with inspiring role models.

Following this same train of thought, what if you were Johnny? What would your ideal school have looked like? For that matter, what would your ideal job look like?

Your ideal home? Your ideal community? Your ideal life?

And thus we come full circle, to the issue I mentioned originally: what our lives should and could look like. Since I wrote Part One of this blog, we saw the Occupy Wall Street movement demonstrate widespread discontent with the current landscape of the majority of people’s lives. This indicates to me that this is a systemic problem. Johnny’s “bad behavior” at school, the huge number of people incarcerated, struggling with addiction or simply zoning out on reality shows after work, these are symptoms of the same problem.

We are standing at a point in history where the façade is cracking. Most Americans no longer feel they can aspire to the American Dream. And that dream was a false one created by corporate manipulation of popular media, conspicuous consumption and the wholesale plundering of natural resources without concern for consequences.

American needs a new dream, one in concert with the rest of the world, one which is inclusive, inspiring and self-perpetuating, rather than generated, promoted and marketed to serve the interests of a moneyed oligarchy. Prosperity must be redefined at a societal level and the dialogue needs to begin on every street corner. I believe that every one of us has been forced by this society into abdicating our dream of self-fulfillment. In many cases, I think we have been so crippled in our thought processes that what we dream of is not truly ours. We dream of “having a safe place to raise my kids” or of “winning the lottery” – dreams formed from fear or lack - or, sadly, the new iPhone 4S.

How many of these gadgets are simply new devices to help us cope with our alienation or to navigate an impersonal society that no longer serves us at the personal or community level? We use facebook as a desperate lunge for human contact while we decompress from our frantic day in the rat race.

More importantly, I think this dialogue can and must also occur at the highest levels. Our economy, political system and basic infrastructures will not survive if there is not major reform. Corporations, medical practitioners, psychologists and physicists are all beginning to converge on some of the fundamental questions of existence. What wellbeing really is, what abundance is and how we create it on the individual or group level is no longer an esoteric concern.

Our lives and our futures are at stake.

Food for thought:

www.oecd.org/betterlifeindex

A Plea: Please comment on, disagree with, contribute to and spread this blog.

Johnny doesn't do well in school. All he wants to do is smoke weed and write beats.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released a comparative study of educational rankings by country sometime last year. The U.S. ranked 20^th, right above Lichtenstein. Most people know about the failing U.S. educational system and it’s falling ranking in the world. The fact usually leads to a recitation of the usual litany of ills including teenage pregnancy, drug use etc.

That is not what this blog is about.

Those who know me have heard my ongoing soapbox stance about how education should be changed for years. I will speak about this to begin with, but as I began to write this piece, it quickly lead me to a greater issue, the issue of what our lives should and could look like.

For Part One, I’ll casually outline the education spiel.

I participated in a number of educational systems, primarily public. I received very little support in my educational goals and a notable lack of guidance. My overall experience was that schools were holding pens for people’s offspring; a place to stick the sub-people while their Moms and Dads went to work. Education was required by law, so that was the solution.

It was depressing.

Below is a quote from Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr., a politician I know nothing about. It comes from a speech he made at a University.

If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.

I don’t know whether he lived his life in light of this truth or it was just one of those things you annoy students with. Either way, the quote speaks to me.

One day, I was confronted by a frustrated teacher. He said:

“You think the rules don’t apply to you. You think you’re special.”

I replied:

“I think everyone’s special.”

A pretty profound response.

What could be simpler? Education needs to be focused on the individual. People pursue what they’re interested in. Let’s run a few hypothetical examples:

Johnny doesn’t do well in school. All he wants to do is smoke weed and write beats.

Bingo! Johnny already knows what he wants. He is interested in music, electronics, horticulture, plant biology, psychedelic culture, consciousness expansion and so on. If he’s lucky he will continue to smoke weed, get good at writing beats, learn computer software, sound engineering, networking and self-promotion. If he’s unlucky, he will get indoctrinated into believing that he’s a stoner loser who’s a failure and end up getting a juvenile record for grand theft auto and possession.

Johnny doesn’t do well in school. All he does is draw funny pictures in the margins of his work.

Again, Johnny is already on track. He’s an artist who practices all the time. What dedication!

I think you get the idea. Rather than belabor the issue, I’ll leave you with that core concept. There are a million reasons why it can’t work or why it’s an oversimplification, but since the system is failing already, why not head towards something different. Education should be an empowering, self-motivating exploration of the self, facilitated by all of society.

As you can see, we’re already touching on the larger issue. Why would we discourage Johnny from writing beats, and force him to memorize presidents?

I think it’s because of these reasons:

1.     Johnny needs to do what he’s told.

2.     Beats are cool and that means drugs and sex and bad things – basically the same argument used to stop white kids from listening to “race music.”

3.     I had to learn the fucking presidents, so he has to too!

4.     It’s my job to bore Johnny. I need my job.

The less cynical version might be:

1.     Education is important. Americans need to know their history.

2.     Discipline is character building and will serve Johnny in the future.

3.     I am an educator trying my hardest to instill important facts in Johnny’s mind.

4.     Once Johnny has completed his education, he can pursue all those frivolous interests to his heart’s content, but he’ll learn once he has to get a job!

To be continued…

The Big Picture: 10 years of the US Dollar

Here is a simple chart of the US dollar index for the last ten years.

America is a Sinking Ship. Wake Up!

originally posted Sep 25, 2006

America is in a state of decline. This is a fact. For whatever reason, America's financial condition has changed drastically between 1999 and now, the year 2006. This change is of such magnitude, that the mass media, the schools and every family's home should be ringing with the sounds of energetic debate, vigorous planning and decisive analysis. Yet this is not the case.

I would like to point out some interesting facts. These are not my opinions, but hard facts of which I am aware and think are important. I, of course, draw certain conclusions from these facts, but I will present the facts to you unencumbered by rhetoric, so that you may draw your own conclusions.

Firstly: gold. Since the turn of the millennium, gold has risen from about $300 to over $600. If you are not in the habit of thinking about gold, you may be unaware that it has been quite cheap for the past 20 years. In fact, many people thought that gold would never again be a worthwhile investment. Yet for some reason, the price of gold is rising. Platinum, which is rarer and followed with less interest, is over $1200, from around $400… quite a jump. Let us assume that there's a socioeconomic reason for this, since neither gold nor platinum was suddenly stolen by U.F.O.s.

Next: oil. As I'm sure you have noticed, gasoline is quite a bit pricier these days. This is because oil has gone from about $11 to $76. It did this at about the same time that gold rose. The price of oil affects the price of unleaded gasoline (which you put in your car,) but it also affects a lot of other things in the economy. You can find out the exact details if you're interested, but suffice it to say that it's a big deal when oil costs a lot. There are a lot of political ramifications and tricky situations involving the Middle East, but let's just stick to simple facts here at home.

Your modern American is distinguished from his forbears by his notable lack of savings in addition to the heavy debt he carries. Generally, "we" put most of our net worth into a house. Since The House is such a central part of the American economy, it's a dire sign when the housing sector is weak. After the big run-up in real estate and proliferation of new building, the current market is what they call "soft"… what we normal people call shitty. Sales are at a significant low and building has dropped enough to put a serious dent in the economy. There are a number of clever people who measure these things, and I'm relying on their judgment rather than my own.

I also obtained some interesting facts about the real estate boom from these clever people:

• 32.6% of new mortgages and home-equity loans in 2005 were interest only, up from 0.6% in 2000;
• 43% of first-time home buyers in 2005 put no money down;
• 15.2% of 2005 buyers owe at least 10% more than their home is worth (negative equity);
• 10% of all home owners with mortgages have no equity in their homes (zero equity);
• $2.7 trillion dollars in loans will adjust to higher rates in 2006 and 2007.

That doesn't encourage a lot of confidence in the sales that were made: it looks like a fair percentage of those deals will fall through once things revert to the norm. Plus, anyone who bought for profit will find that the equation no longer works or that there's no one to buy that 2nd or 3rd house from them.

One notable exception to this "low-savings" paradigm is the significant interest that the middle-class - specifically the baby boomers - took in the recent stock market surge i.e. the huge run-up during the '90s of tech stocks etc. It resulted in an unprecedented influx of private funds into the equity markets. Events like this tend to distort the economy, generating a profit frenzy and fostering opportunism. Additionally, these heady bull markets are like a long run on speed: eventually you will crash and pay the price. I would, at this time, like to point out that although the bull market is a demonstrable reality, my expectations of the immediate outcome are opinion, dealing as they do with the future. This is to carefully delineate fact from speculation.

Many people will, of course, disagree with me as to this final outcome, usually because:

a. it's "different" now, or
b. the internet has changed everything and my favorite:
c. the market is global now… in some inexplicable but axiomatic way that can't be explained to a simpleton like me…
or any number of other reasons.

My response is: believe what you want. I however, will keep my head down and wait for the fallout. I may not know why everything happens or when it will do so, but I still expect the historically validated ebb and flow of kingdoms and their money to assert itself in such a fashion as to inconvenience as many people as possible. Unless you're a Saudi Prince or own a nice island, you're just one of us. And those of us born after the Boomers' party days have watched ourselves dumped with mess every time so far. Time will tell – and don't burn any books.

It is important to understand that I am not a pessimist. The cycles of life and death are integral to existence and without them we would never experience the fascinating variety offered by a dynamic system. A static existence would be far worse than any calamity we encounter. I am merely attempting to gather the available information which I believe is pertinent to this very moment, so that I can both illustrate my viewpoint and stimulate speculation on these lines in others.

Anyway, before I cram too many numbers in, let's just break it down to this: lots of money on war, devious and power-hungry politicians, corrupt corporations above the law, thug police, overflowing prisons, rising real prices, falling U.S. dollar and a noticeable nervousness by the Russian, European, Chinese and Japanese Central Banks in continuing to hold worthless American paper. Let's not even touch the crazy church cults and paramilitary survivalists. Let's pray we can keep a better lid on the genocidal fascism than Germany in similar circumstances.