to whom it may concern,
here's my deal. i am an average guy, i live in canada. that makes me an average canadian guy. the one exception to my overwhelming averageness is the fact that i play in the rock n roll band die mannequin. you probably haven't heard of us yet but we are becoming quite successful here in the great white north. we have received recognition in a number of national publications here. we have toured this fine country extensively and have even had the honour and privelige of opening for guns n roses for five nights at stadiums all across eastern canada. in short, i plan on building my future (my career) in the music business. this makes me an average canadian guy with a vested interest in the future of the entertainment industry.
i am (believe it or not) a huge music fan as well and a helpless internet addict. one of my life's great pleasures is combining my two loves into one, trolling music sites all night long and finding out about everything that's going on in the world. from european black metal to brazillian club music, i want it all.
so (to make a long story short) here's the deal i am making with you:
everytime i open a website to view content only to be met with a "this content is only viewable in the united states" message, i am going to download whatever it is for free off of
pirate bay or
limewire. then i am going to burn copies of it and hand it out for FREE outside of movie and music stores along with huge unmarked bags of candy corn for the kids.
i will encourage everyone i know to do the same.
last year i went out and purchased the foo fighter's double disc, "in your honour". dave grohl is one of my favourite musicians and i own every foo fighters record released to date. i got home, unwrapped my new cd and opened the jewel case, stopping for a second to stick my nose in and catch a whiff of that New CD Smell. I put it in my computer first only to discover that my computer wouldn't play it. I shrugged and retrieved it from my disc drive.
i put the disc in my stereo and hit play. again it wouldn't play. i ended up listening to the record on my clock radio, the only cd player i had in the house that would play the fucking thing. so i downloaded the whole album, burnt it onto a disc and have enjoyed it ever since. i returned the original to the store and wrote dave grohl a letter to apologize for stealing his music.
now i'm not saying that i don't download music illegally. i have a few thousand mp3's on my computer, singles mostly (full albums are best experienced not at a computer but while lying face down on one's bed). this is because most bands suck and don't write good records or if they do, i've probably already purchased one or two of them.
such is life.
i think that maybe what happened is that you forgot that music is art, it's not a product. now, you can sell art with integrity and credibility, or you can sell it like a bar of soap. bars of soap don't really emote anything to me. they kind of sit there returning to their primordial state in my soap dish until such time as i decide i need to take a shower. so you sell it to me like that. "here is a bar of soap, it will clean your body off so that all the girls won't run away from you". that's nice. that's what i want soap to be. a product that serves a purpose.
now maybe i'm crazy, but i don't really want my music to be a product. it never has been. it's way to transitive to be that. music is the way i tap my fingers on my kitchen counter or the way i hear my boss whistling finnish folk melodies at work (a.k.a death metal guitar solos). it surrounds me as it surrounds all of us. as cliche as it is, music's purpose is to be the soundtrack of our lives. it's as present as the blood rushing through our veins, and no less powerful.
so don't dangle the proverbial carrot in front of my face and then tell me i can't have it. because i can. you're lying to me and you're lying to yourselves.
copyright is good. people have a right to own work they've created and to do with it as they please (sell it, give it away, etc..) in the same way as an inventor has a right to patent his idea.
this being said, you have every right to protect your artists creations. i want mine protected and make sure that i am being fairly compensated for the work i create or have a part in creating. you, as the money behind the art, also deserve your fair share. this is of course, if you understand that you are selling art. if you wish to sell products, i hear that the hygiene business is booming.
your digital rights restrictions are lame. you will never win the war against piracy. perhaps you instead need to understand that piracy is your (and my) new competition. what can you offer me that will entice me to return to the advertising wastelands you call commercial websites?
content my friends. that's what. give me more of it in better quality. give it to me faster and with better search options. offer me things that will enrich my life and my love of music, and i will give you my undying love.
pandora is a great example of this, even if still hindered by the ludicrous restrictions you have put on it. give us exactly what we want.
supplement it with some advertising so you can pay for your new audi roadster and i can buy another box of kraft dinner and we'll all be happy. give us more shit like what's happening at mtv.com or rollingstone.com and i'll be living out of an old refridgerator box and you'll be wondering who broke the window of your car and stole your fucking radio.
what i am saying is that by not being open minded, you are facilitating piracy. i hope i'm not being redundant, but i feel like maybe you need this spelled out for you.
imagine if all of a sudden all the people in the world decided that they wanted soap to smell like a freshly cooked pound of bacon and the soap companies all stood up and said "that's ridiculous, we're not making bacon scented soap". so then, instead of buying soap, people just started buying more bacon. what do you think would happen to all the soap companies? well, if they were rigid and stuck in their ways, perhaps they would go bankrupt. or better yet, sue the bacon companies to try and stop them from selling bacon. but then maybe one soap company, a brave and forward thinking soap company has a moment of clarity and proclaims "if everyone in the world is buying bacon to use as soap, then we should get into the bacon business!"*
david bowie said a while back that paying for music will eventually become like a utility bill, not unlike water or electricity. i agree with him and think it's a good idea. let's make sure it's our names at the top of the bills though, eh?
be brave my friends and we will all be able to rock the fuck out for years to come. you are the keepers of the songs, so do your due dilligence and stop screwing it up.
sincerely,
the ghostwolf
