Larry Lessig on Wired
article
Ive heard all this stuff before from him, but it is still an extremely good article. My favorite part would have to be this:
"I got a chance to ask Tweedy about all this before a concert in Oakland, California (that's the weird thing about law professors hanging around Wired - you get to go to the back of the bus). What struck me most was his clarity. He was a man called to a war that he couldn't believe had to be fought. Yet it isn't ideology that drives him. It's common sense.
"Music," he explained, "is different" from other intellectual property. Not Karl Marx different - this isn't latent communism. But neither is it just "a piece of plastic or a loaf of bread." The artist controls just part of the music-making process; the audience adds the rest. Fans' imagination makes it real. Their participation makes it live. "We are just troubadours," Tweedy told me. "The audience is our collaborator. We should be encouraging their collaboration, not treating them like thieves."
He uttered this with the passion of a teacher explaining the most fundamental truths. Words echo in this poet's mind many times before they are spoken. These words had echoed many times before. But when I asked him to explain the extremism in this war, passion faded and disbelief took its place. Commenting on a court decision to ban all music sampling without a license, he said one word: racism. And he seemed genuinely confounded by those who use the courts to punish their fans. "If Metallica still needs money," he almost whispered, "then there's something really, really wrong." He would protest this extremism, he explained, by living a different life. By inviting, by creating, by inspiring music, and by ignoring wars about plastic."
This is an extremely common view amoung non-mainstream artists. Pretty much every (good) punk show I have been to had the artist thanking the crowd for a good show. In the words of the Dropkick Murphys:
"The bands' main goal is to play music that creates an all for one, one for all environment where everyone is encouraged to participate, sing along, and hopefully have a good time. In the true spirit of punk rock we view the band and the audience as one in the same; in other words our stage and our microphone are yours."
Mainstream music? The tripe that plays on mtv or the radio barely diserves to be called music. Honestly, the RIAA will never get another cent from me, nor will bands who charge 30$ an album, and 60$ a show. Their hearts simply are not in the right place, and that is reflected in their music. The best indication a band is going to go sour is if they sign to a Major. And its not like the majors will kill the music, although they sure as hell dont help any. Its more that a band who moves from people paying them to listen to their music to writing music for a corporation so you can collect a regular paycheck is already performing for the wrong reasons.
Ive heard all this stuff before from him, but it is still an extremely good article. My favorite part would have to be this:
"I got a chance to ask Tweedy about all this before a concert in Oakland, California (that's the weird thing about law professors hanging around Wired - you get to go to the back of the bus). What struck me most was his clarity. He was a man called to a war that he couldn't believe had to be fought. Yet it isn't ideology that drives him. It's common sense.
"Music," he explained, "is different" from other intellectual property. Not Karl Marx different - this isn't latent communism. But neither is it just "a piece of plastic or a loaf of bread." The artist controls just part of the music-making process; the audience adds the rest. Fans' imagination makes it real. Their participation makes it live. "We are just troubadours," Tweedy told me. "The audience is our collaborator. We should be encouraging their collaboration, not treating them like thieves."
He uttered this with the passion of a teacher explaining the most fundamental truths. Words echo in this poet's mind many times before they are spoken. These words had echoed many times before. But when I asked him to explain the extremism in this war, passion faded and disbelief took its place. Commenting on a court decision to ban all music sampling without a license, he said one word: racism. And he seemed genuinely confounded by those who use the courts to punish their fans. "If Metallica still needs money," he almost whispered, "then there's something really, really wrong." He would protest this extremism, he explained, by living a different life. By inviting, by creating, by inspiring music, and by ignoring wars about plastic."
This is an extremely common view amoung non-mainstream artists. Pretty much every (good) punk show I have been to had the artist thanking the crowd for a good show. In the words of the Dropkick Murphys:
"The bands' main goal is to play music that creates an all for one, one for all environment where everyone is encouraged to participate, sing along, and hopefully have a good time. In the true spirit of punk rock we view the band and the audience as one in the same; in other words our stage and our microphone are yours."
Mainstream music? The tripe that plays on mtv or the radio barely diserves to be called music. Honestly, the RIAA will never get another cent from me, nor will bands who charge 30$ an album, and 60$ a show. Their hearts simply are not in the right place, and that is reflected in their music. The best indication a band is going to go sour is if they sign to a Major. And its not like the majors will kill the music, although they sure as hell dont help any. Its more that a band who moves from people paying them to listen to their music to writing music for a corporation so you can collect a regular paycheck is already performing for the wrong reasons.
posted by Google Ninja at 6:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home