svin wrote:
quoted 16 lines when you pull a calculator and some concentration
> when you pull a calculator and some concentration
> you can easily figure major cash flows and ways
> they are constructed
>
> who gets what is quite clear
>
> its not going to be me, you or our fellow
> citizens employed by corporations, who get
> breadcrumbs and often thrown away if not needed
>
> the way major cash flows are set up is not even a
> legal way but something super rich can get away
> with using money
>
> i wouldnt even bother to point out specefics-
> we all know it
and the best part is-
there are legions of people who subscribe to the view that the super-rich must
know something everyone else doesn't. "they earned it", "pulled themselves up
by their bootstraps", etc., and they consider svin's attitude to be deeply
cynical. and there's an inexplicable feeling of entitlement among the rich,
themselves, people who more often than not either got money for nothing
(investments, favored appointments, inheritance) or whose idea of "working
hard" means getting an mba and learning how to run a business from a
spreadsheet and on the golf course and in smoke-filled boardrooms. they might
throw the rest of us laborers a bone until the shareholders apply some
pressure, at which point we're the first to get the proverbial shaft.
all philosophies about the role of art and aesthetics in society and commerce
aside, the fact that this feeling of entitlement extends to musicians who
expect a handful of creative works to generate income for themselves and their
families in perpetuity, simply based on the fact that there are people who
appreciate the music, and not based on commercial exploitation of it, is just
further evidence of how blind & numb we have become to the absurdity & cruelty
of a system that, over time, only rewards the most ruthless of opportunists.
look at the recent eldred vs ashcroft supreme court decision to see this in
action. and then there's the hipocrisy of feeling entitled to vast amounts of
money for producing music that is heavily influenced by the works of people
who composed their music without concern for monetary gain.
one of the things that made the inspirational foundation for this list,
richard d. james, so remarkable was that he had multiple albums worth of
creative compositions ready to go before digeridoo was even close to being a
"hit". it was his prerogative (and right, protected by copyright law and
international convention) to license material to r&s, sire, or to put it out
with his mates through rephlex, for whatever benefits that would reap. that's
the step he had to take in order to *try* to get income from the reproduction
and distribution of his work for private listening. he was neither guaranteed
of nor entitled to financial success when he did this. the fact that once his
music was in the wild, it would be traded among individuals without involving
money or his consent, is a reality he must have accepted. despite this
"piracy", he and his label partners knew that there would people who would,
for one reason or another, pay for a nice record or cd, so to some extent,
they held the art for ransom and were rewarded for it. good for them. so they
didn't get to squeeze a few more pennies out of the would-be pirates that
would've opted to buy a new copy or just make do without; so what.
yes, it's too bad for the artists that the labels don't have the grip on
reproduction and distribution that they used to, but even when they did have
complete control over recorded music, things were no better for the
lesser-known artists. until the songwriters and artists formed associations
like ascap, bmi, etc., labels would blatantly rip off each other's repertoires
-- a small label would put out a good song by some unknown, and before it
could even chart there'd be a cover of it by a more popular artist, on a more
powerful label, all over the radio. once this activity was curbed, the radio
payola and top-heavy royalty-collection schemes started up. you could play
underground artists all day long but no matter how much you pay in royalties,
it all goes to the more popular artists. the little ones get shafted, and
whose fault is it every time... the big greedy labels, the music mafia, the
corporations with dollar signs in their eyeballs, the people who will sell you
sand in the desert and tell you you're a thief if you scoop up a handful,
yourself. they're the ones selling you on the idea that just one certain kind
of art comes with all these entitlements of revenue "for the artist". don't
forget they tried to muscle in on the used cd market, saying every secondhand
record shop was "robbing the artists" of money they deserved. they want a cut
of every ebay transaction, every burned cd, every mp3 transmission, all in the
name of "the artists" when really they just want to take the money for
themselves. they'll throw the artists a bone just to employ them as their
dupes. artists who think they're struggling and being shafted by pirates
should take svin's advice and look at where the money really goes.
Mike
--
Denver, Colorado, USA
http://hyperreal.org/~mike/
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