Rape of the Virgins

The Virgin megastore in Los Angeles shuts down this month. The one in Chicago just closed. So did the one in Salt Lake city. More are going to close, falling over like the Tower Records chain.

The compulsive bloggers will find a rationalization. They'll blame Virgin for not diversifying and selling books and DVDs as well as CDs. Oh. They did. Only people are now getting their books on bootleg PDF downloads, and their DVDs on bootleg avi and mpg downloads. Too bad.

The bloggers know no shame and they have every excuse. They "Share" (without asking permission). They are entitled to Google ad money for their hard work, but the artists don't deserve anything. Some openly declare they really don't give a damn about anything but themselves and how good they feel when they get compliments for "sharing."

If a blog is shut down they don't even take it as a sign that the artists are upset. They sneak to find a new host. If a file is removed they will impudently re-up, offended. If the law of their own country tells them NO, they will patronize some remote, communistic country where human rights are ignored. Anything to continue this sick compulsion to do what the artists don't want done: copying copyrighted work.

The result is people thrown out of work. Economies in trouble. Families ruined and uprooted. Artists unable to create or get new contracts. People forced to work for less, and at jobs they hate. All of it because bloggers have bad jobs, too much time, no creativity, and get their kicks by pretending to be in show biz in this most grotesque of ways. These illegal downloads are enabled by the Bill Gates-types of the world, much more evil and immoral than the RIAA or Warners or EMI. These illegal downloads are often found on sites that make money off the most despicable of porn ads aimed at anti-social people who don't understand what love is.

Sick people who adopt fake names that prove how moronic, evil and self-absorbed they are, make blogs filled with entire catalogs of stolen merchandise and crawl around forums desperate to put entire discographies out as part of some insane conspiracy. Why? Why not run a blog with your opinion, not what you steal? Why not offer one song on an album and not a 320 bit-rate copy of not just the entire album, but the artist's entire catalog? When did human beings lose all common sense and start acting so spiteful, so vicious, so cruel?

No doubt these bloggers also shrug about global warming, care not about abusing the planet, think only of themselves, and if artists get together to raise money to prevent murders in Africa...the album is upped for free just to get some Google ad money for the blogger, or a thank you. The bloggers have an answer for everything. If a virgin is raped, they smirk and say, "She asked for it."

Goodbye to the Virgin Megastores. You asked for it: you thought people might want to buy the work of artists who aim to entertain and enlighten...but this has become a world that fights fiercely for the "right" to steal. No reasoning with fanatics.

The Pack of Hyenas Kill and Maim

The hardcore bloggers? They are like a pack of hyenas, loud, fierce, obnoxious, and able to gang up on the big hapless prey and bring it down, moaning, ripped to pieces, eaten alive.

The music industry is the hapless prey, plodding, often stupid, but essentially doing a good thing: bringing music to people, and giving a living to those who love music. The bloggers who post every single day and give away entire discographies? At first the excuse was "we are sharing," but they knew it was stealing. So now? Now the hyenas say, "We want it free, and we found a way to get it free. Go figure out some other way of making money."

These anarchists have all the sensitivity of a pack of hyenas. As long as their own jobs aren't lost, they can make any excuse for taking what they don't own and distributing it without consent. Let the record industry workers survive on minimum wage, and let the record store owner sell shoes instead. The music industry is being eaten alive.

Headline in fan-friendly Rolling Stone 24/1/08: "Key executives laid off...morale tanks." The firings "targeted some of the most experienced hitmakers in the business...Universal axed A&R ace Rob Stevenson whose signings included Fall Out Boy...Sony BMG followed suit, cutting more than a dozen in publicity, video and marketing departments. Columbia lost its head of rock promotion among others, and Epic suffered cuts across the board, slimming the label down to fewer than 80 employees...Geffen Records let go approximately twenty percent of its staff..."

"In December Warner stock was trading at its lowest price...EMI...has pledged to drastically downsize...5,000 music industry employees have lost their jobs" and that doesn't include people who depend on the industry such as record store owners or sound studios.

You can't stop a pack of hyenas or reason with them. We watch the music industry struggle and flounder and bleed to death.

Good bloggers ask for restraint. They post a few songs. They have no Google ads. They try to see things from the artist's point of view. They don't want the artist to pay more money to a Web Sheriff or secretary in order to get links removed.

Sadly, people need laws. Without a law, without a security guard, they give into their baser instincts and too many become hyenas. When there is a blackout, some people transform into hyenas and take the lack of security cameras or sensor devices as an excuse to steal. There is a blackout with the Internet, where people can move in the shadows. In the shadows they change from humans to hyenas.

News Report on EMI Cutting 2000 Jobs

"EMI, the storied home to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones that was taken over by a private equity firm last year, announced Tuesday it would cut about a third of the company's jobs in a restructuring plan aimed at reassuring its restless artists, countering plummeting CD revenue and saving 200 million pounds ($400 million) a year...."