Monday, December 18, 2006

Souls for sale

A post on the Unofficial Apple Weblog tells us that the R*AA wants to lower artist royalties. Apparently the artists themselves should not get such a huge cut, and the poor Music Publishers are losing out. The logic behind this appears to be "downloading means lower costs for us since we do not have do distribute records, so we should natch'rally get a bigger cut".
Well, what were people thinking? Actually paying the ARTISTS instead of the suited pimps and scumbags who do NOT create music? Unheard of. Naturally the government will fold like a cheap camping table, since these Music Publishers have plenty of cash to use for... shall we say "lobbying"... to make the politicians jump through hoops. Naturally the US govt will then pressure all other governments to follow suit. And they will, as they always do.
By now, all who have not been living in caves since the fifties know the moral fiber of these Associations who claim they are protecting the livelihood of the starving artists. The artists are starving, all right, but who is responsible?
What really blows the mind is the fact that plenty of musicians still stand up for these Associations and call their fans thieves for listening to MP3:s. Wonderful. Now, assuming that Darwin was right, are these artists who work hard at alienating their fans in order to suck up to people who want to lower their wages really people who we, the listeners, should support? Shouldn't the gene police order them out of the pool to ensure the well-being of the species?

A final thought: The R*AA IS the music business. If you want to get airtime, you have to go through them and sign contracts where you sell your rights to your works. You then get paid a pittance, IF they decide to pay you. Even platinum sellers have to fight to get the money they have a right to. I am sure there is some kind of difference between organized crime and these Associations, but I can't put my finger on it right now.

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