The Fools

It's April Fool's Day.

This is the perfect day to give you the "profile" of the average "got to post it all" blogger. You've wondered who would do such a thing...take every artist's box sets, discographies, brand new releases, and throw them all over a forum or blog.

The person is obviously somebody with no mind or feelings. The person is also a loser. Only a loser would do such a thing. A winner would have the money to buy the music. A winner would not have time to make up a moronic Halloween name and spends hours and hours "upping" files and monitoring comments and double-checking if any link was removed so it could be "re-upped" out of spite.

The fool who does this is rarely somebody with a family or friends. He looks to comments instead, where he's elevated into somebody important...the exact opposite of who he is in reality. In other words, the fool is both a loser and a loner.

Checking up on these fools, one also finds that they tend to be in the most obscure, God-forsaken armpits of the world. The most avid of them, the ones who post entire discographies of American black performers, or United Kingdom progressive rockers, are in some second rate country nobody cares about, with music nobody is interested in hearing. So they exploit the American and British artists instead, sometimes adopting the lingo of the countries they desperately wish they lived in.

Lastly, these fools have little education and no concept of what being a responsible adult is all about. In the countries that favor a Capitalist society and approve of copyright...America, the United Kingdom, Japan, etc., the idea is that you do a job and get paid for it. This is what makes the economy strong, and what makes people happy. Certainly, the artists who are being ripped off, are not happy about it, otherwise they'd leave joyous comments for the fools: "Thank you for giving away my entire discography..."

The sad thing about the fools...the anti-social loners and losers with those Halloween names that reference murderers, devils, demons, the lawless and the obscene...is that their greed and stupidity is killing off what they supposedly love the most: entertainment. There will be less and less of it. Every day is becoming April Fool's Day, just as, no coincidence, every day we read about economic collapse, bankruptcy, closed stores, and artists unable to get a deal or make a living.

Is this so surprising? The fools who pollute our water, infest our land, and start wars, are having their way, too. It's about ego, control, power, hate, greed, and being a selfish stupid fool.

SOUR KISS - HOORAY FOR SOMALI PIRATES

Sour Kiss

It's been ten years since KISS has made an album. If you can't guess the reason, here's Gene Simmons, as reported by Billboard:

"The record industry is in such a mess. There is nothing in me that wants to go in there and do new music. How are you going to deliver it? How are you going to get paid for it if people can just get it for free?"

A lot of artists are disheartened and disgusted by the theft and disrespect that "fans" call "sharing."

3 Cheers for the Somali Pirates

Ahar, mateys, and all of the Pirate Bay fans, bloggers and anti-social forum members who hide behind Halloween names involving pirates, death, skulls and demons.
Give three cheers for your new heroes, the Somali Pirates.
During a 12 day streak, they hijacked 8 ships.
Why not? They are entitled to do what they do, because they're poor, and these ship owners are rich and can afford the million dollar extortion. No different from a blogger who can't afford every AC-DC album and knows that AC-DC and the RIAA, and the record label and the record store don't need the money. An economy run by paying for things? Crazy!
Just as a blogger gets a happy "thank you, keep up the good work" from somebody who downloaded stolen merchandise, villagers in Somalia grin and say "thank you, keep up the good work" to the pirates tossing spare change around.
If you believe in Internet piracy, then you must also support the Somali pirates.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said, ""Piracy is against everybody. Like terrorism, it is a disease that has to be eradicated." Really? Sounds like the RIAA talking. Bloggers know better. Just as Prince (of Minnesota) should never ask for a file deletion, Prince (of Saudi Arabia) should never complain about piracy either.
The pirates put it succinctly: "If you try to stop us, we'll make things worse." Perhaps that would be a "sharebee" fleet of many more boats with machine guns, and some helpful people to throw a few tear gas bombs as well, to let the people aboard the big pleasure ship or oil tanker know who's boss.
A news report: "United States naval officials said they fleets are spread too thin to deal with the pirate bands." As for the Brits, they won't go after the pirates because if they chase the pirates, "The pirates will go somewhere we are not," said Royal Navy Commodore Keith Winstanley"
Hooray, the pirates win!
Just like the happy Pirate Bay crowd, who made Tower and Virgin and HMV and Circuit City and the others shut down and go into bankruptcy, record companies cut back on employees and cut loose older artists, and many artists simply refuse to release new material just to entertain thieves, the Somali pirates are spiking oil prices higher, reducing tourist interest in cruises, and sending a message that mob rule and mindless selfishness is the way of life. Ahar, a hardy-har-har.
The bloggers who throw everything on the Internet don't have any answers for the toll they take. All they know is they get music for free and people are happy to get it. The pirates who are holding ships for ransom don't care about the havoc they cause, just as long as they get something for nothing and they get cheers from their friends and neighbors.
The Norwegian shipping line Odfjell, with 90 tankers, has resigned its employees to longer hours and longer time away from loved ones, and the possibility of layoffs and bankruptcy.
"We will no longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden," said Terje Storeng, Odfjell's president. It will take two extra weeks away from friends and family for a tanker to make the detour away from the Somali pirates. The cost is "between $20,000 and $30,000 a day," which will be passed on to the customer...or...the company will go out of business.
How many pirates does it take to ransom a tanker? Just a few speedboats. And how many blogs and forums does it take to kill the music industry? We've seen: not much more.
The music industry is in a massive slump. Lay-offs. Suicides. Depression. The answer is a strong economy, but that involves buying and selling...not "sharing" which is "stealing." The bloggers who give it all away, even if it's in print or easily available in a store, are just as savage as the Somali pirate who also think they are entitled to something for nothing, taking down giant shipping vessels with the same indifference as the people who walked past the Tower record stores that went dark and put thousands out of work and into despair.
The quality of your life and mine is eroding because of selfish, savage, stupid people who don't care about what's right or wrong.
The Somali Pirates are hearign "thanks, you're doing a great job..." from their villagers and friends. Just as someone who pirates an entire discography gets "thanks, you're doing a great job" from a forum member too selfish to care about law and morality.

Random Notes and...remember "Sharing?"

"Sharing." That's an antique term, isn't it? You'll remember, a few years ago, when bloggers justified posting entire box sets, entire discographies, every new release, because it was all about "sharing." Kind, sweet, innocent, adorable "sharing."

Now all pretense has dropped, and most bloggers frankly demand PAYPAL donations. Blogs have sprung up that fester with porn ads and links. Thousands of people all have the same quick buck idea: build a blog, stock it with stolen merchandise, and make money off the Google ads and the donations. So much for "sharing." So much for real music fans who didn't just post an album and a link, or even a stolen "all music.com" review. Now it's organized crime. Not "sharing."

So many bloggers frankly, ironically, state, "If you don't donate, I can't "share" more music with you." Is that a music fan or some kind of sick pimp?

Here are some Random Notes from people who actually are in the music business, and don't simply "share" or steal and find some hypocritical way to justify it.

"For new bands, it's much more difficult to make a living, because when music is as cheap as water, only the department of water and power gets a check. The deals bands haveto sign these days — we thought we got fucked, but ourdeals now look like gems. Now, whether it's a major label or an indie label, bands have to sign away a third of their publishing, a third of the money they make on tour, a third of their merchandise, just to get their toe in the door to get a minimal recording budget. So that is certainly unhealthy."
TOM MORELLO, guitarist, RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

"Everyone's trying to put out a record WHILE THEY STILL CAN. Who knows if you still can put out fucking records a year or two from now? Is it going to be online only? Is it going to be singles?"
BOB MCLYNN, manager, FALL OUT BOY

"I'm used to releasing a record and selling 2 or 3 million. I don't want to sell 22,000 copies. The whole label structure is falling apart."
STEVE MILLER

"Music Should be Free!"

You see this more and more. Some manifesto. Some brilliant philosophy. Some new "Internet thinking" from somebody who probably never graduated college.

The idea is that music is communication and we should all share each other's knowledge. Something like that. So, conveniently, any music, any movie, any new computer program, should be given away for the common good. Shared. Without permission.

How nice to see so many people embracing Communism. What else do you call a plan by which copyright is ignored, and human freedom disdained?

The people behind "Music should be free" are almost never musicians. The few musicians who believe this crackpot notion either are so rich they don't care anymore, or so unknown they'll do anything to get attention.

Here's a better idea, kiddies. "Health care should be free." "People should be free." Not so easy, is it? You'd rather sit around being so radical by stealing other people's property, than join the Peace Corps or volunteer your time to teach a child how to read, or to protest Darfur or the current conflict on the Russian border.

Some doctors with a conscience and a heart, donate their time to a free clinic. But nobody kidnaps doctors, forcing them to lose money treating the poor. Kidnapping, after all, is a crime Isn't it?

Yet the bloggers and forum dwellers and P2P fanatics who take without asking, or who post some ridiculous legalese remark like "File for promotional or review purposes only, remove from your computer in 24 hours" are arrogantly, childishly or maliciously making a decision they have no right to make.

None of these "music sharers" want somebody walking into their homes and making copies of their CDs, or dupicating their DVDs. The word "Library" or "Open, Come In, Copy Anything I Have" don't appear on their doors.

Yet they have nothing better to do than create a conspiracy to get everything free, and if they destroy the lives of musicians, store owners, and others, "so what."

Hitler had his "Mein Kampf." He thought he had a brilliant plan to decide who should be allowed to work and who should be denied rights. If you have the monumental stupidity or ego or cruelty to take without permission, and kill sales by giving away what is legally not yours to give away, then put a swastika on your blog, put up the SS symbols, or the skulls, or devil tattoos and the rest of it, because you are far from the truth, far from intelligent philosophy, and just a little Hitler.

When Bootlegging Isn't So Bad

ESPN reporter Don Steinberg recently praised bootlegging:
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3390712

To put it briefly, he confessed to buying bootleg fights, and he mentioned forums where boxing matches are available for free download. He said: "...if you really need videos of Shane Mosley's greatest hits, what's a guy to do? There's no legal way to do it." He mentioned that HBO and the others don't normally put out boxing DVDs because the market is small, and the rights issues are complex. Then he said this:

"I'm not proud that I solicit products from the digital underground....I stopped downloading music illicitly years ago and began paying for it on iTunes and Amazon. Every week I ignore the guy I see selling bootleg DVDs of new movies."

That's the point. Bootlegging may not be such a crime if it's rare items and there's no demand, but it's a crime when it's easily available music or movies. Some radical jihadists in forums and in blogs are "proud" of what they do, rationalize by ragging on the RIAA or MPAA, and believe the anarchy of torrents and that "music should be free."

What is ethical, moral and legal, is to buy what is available to buy. It means being adult. It means saying what this reporter said, that you have no reason to be "proud" of stealing what you should buy. Buying helps the economy. It gives people jobs. It lets honest musicians, songwriters and store owners do what they want to do and should be able to do.

Why do the radical jihadists (who usually have no jobs, and are just as nasty, socially inept and malcontented as the religious fanatics are) use moron excuses like "music must be free" and "down with the RIAA." Down with the RIAA? And up with what? Microsoft? Yahoo? Google? Organizations far bigger and more sinister than the RIAA, run by billionaire fatcats who hoard their money and have created a creepy world called "Silicone Valley?"

By bootlegging and downloading, the radical jihadists are screwing musicians, store owners, songwriters, and yes, somewhat inept organizations like RIAA, BMI and ASCAP, but they are making billionaires out of fatcats at Microsoft, Rapidshare, Yahoo, Megaupload and Google and a few "genius" torrent owners and members of organized crime.

Maybe, just maybe, bootlegging old boxing telecasts isn't so bad. Same with scoring an ounce of pot, or needing a prostitute's services. Maybe friendly "sharing" on a small level isn't so bad either. But...

Distributing free music, warez and movies on mammoth blogs, in secret forums, and via torrents, in an organized conspiracy to not have to buy this easily available stuff...is no reason to be proud.

Let's Talk Turkey

There are people in obscure countries like Turkey, in unpleasant places like Taiwan, or in second-rate nations like Sweden, who crow, "We have absolutely no copyright! Don't tell us what to do! We give away music! Ha ha!"

There are also parts of the world where female circumcision is legal, where prostitution is legal, where dangerous drugs are legal, where a "crime of passion" is legal, or where polluting the environment is legal. There are countries where killing endangered species is legal and the murder of dogs and cats is not a crime either. In fact, some countries think a cat or a dog, something you might cherish, is just a good meal.

The answer, at best, to backward countries and backward people is, "Keep it to yourself." If your country allows legal drugs, don't attempt to bring it into a country that is trying to stay clean. If you are a whore in Holland or Las Vegas, don't think you can set up shop elsewhere.

Respect others. If your country is against human rights and doesn't believe in copyright, don't use a file sharer service in a country that does believe in decency. Don't use a blog from a country that does believe in rights. Don't try to spread illegal files by beaming them to people in countries where it is illegal.

In other words, share only with your fellow Taiwanese, Turks or Swedes. And don't be surprised if the civilized world really doesn't want to visit your country or know from you. Places where human rights are not respected...from the Congo to North Korea and back, are loathed by modern, enlightened people everywhere.

And to indiscriminant bloggers and forum members and torrent lovers who want it all for free and don't give a damn who gets hurt...you know where you can go. Leave America. Leave the U.K. Leave France. Leave Germany. Go live in Turkey, or in Sweden where it is physically and morally dark most of the day. Go to Taiwan or one of the former U.S.S.R. republics where ethnic cleansing is praised and free speech denied.

What? You're not leaving the U.S. or the U.K. or France or Canada so soon? Then think about the laws and morality that made your country great. Think what you can do to make it greater, and what you can do to help the musicians, record stores, song writers and music-providers you claim to love.

Another Hang-Up

Ringtone sales are falling. It peaked in 2006 and last year, there was a $90 million LOSS in sales. Why, do you suppose?

According to Richard Conlon, of BMI, "third-party software" can quickly and easily make ringtones...at little to no cost rather than the $2 or $3 a customer pays to purchase a ringtone from a wireless carrier.

Posting-whores in forums, and over-posting bloggers who offer discographies and all the new releases, blithely tell the music industry, "think up a new way to make money." Ringtone sales are falling because technology makes it easy to steal. If ringtones were ten cents, most would rather steal, just as they'd rather have the music free than even pay a "nice price" for a CD or the e-music budget rate for a downloaded album.

P2PP is the answer. Peer to Peer Pressure. When someone happily crows about "sharing" and offering up another dozen items with more to come, curb your enthusiasm, and let that person know that selfishness has a price of its own. It means less music produced, less old music re-issued with bonus tracks, less record stores to browse, and a lot of people unemployed or worse.

Human nature is that the same way we can't and won't stop buying SUV's, motor-boating over lakes and the animals living in them, or abusing the environment or being selfish in so many ways unless law enforcement and sensor devices and surveillance cameras deter us...some of us will never stop stealing music at a dangerously hurtful level. Short-sighted people. You'll answer for all of this with decreased quality of life, and your call for help will not find anyone on the line, no matter what catchy ringtone you stole.