I was trying to put together my new website today, trying to decide how to promote my music. That got me thinking about file sharing and all that garbage. Back when I was a kid, you had these FTP sites. And some clever bastards made searches of freakin' FTP sites. So you could type "Beatles" into a webpage, and it would tell you an FTP site that had Beatle songs. Then you'd load up your FTP program and have at it. Those were the days, and I'll tell you why. This isn't about being "old school" or some phony ideology like that, it's about practicality. Music on the interweb just died.
When the filesharing thing started up, I thought it was pretty neat. I got the Gnutella program and hopped about searching for things. It was a blast. I discovered so many things I never would have otherwise. Then Napster came along, and even then it wasn't so bad. Not for a while, at least. But then after a year or so the media heard about it, and started talking up a storm. Like they ever heard about it. Phony plastic newsmen and women saying all these criminals were roaming the web. And that's when it got popular, and that is what killed it.
Any song from a Britsh group became the Beatles. Every funny song became Weird Al Yankovic. Every quirky 80s song became They Might Be Giants.Before, in order to find any music, you didn't have to be a genius or anything, but you had to know some basic stuff. And with that basic knowledge, you also had some sense. Then when the networks got lousy with AOL kids, all of a sudden it seemed like nobody knew how to catalogue music anymore. And I don't mean putting the right genre tag on or something. How many times did I see the song "Imagine" credited to the Beatles? At least that song was written by a Beatle, but how about "Mrs. Brown?" "Happy Together?" Any song from a Britsh group became the Beatles. Every funny song became Weird Al Yankovic. Every quirky 80s song became They Might Be Giants. I got real sore when I downloaded "88 Lines About 44 Women" and it wasn't a cover by TMBG, but the original version by The Nails that I never cared much for anyway.
And how did these things happen, anyway? I knew the AOL kids weren't taping songs off of the radio. Hell, most of them have never even seen a goddam cassette tape. These mp3s were coming from CDs, so how the hell did they get the wrong artist on them? And even for the few that you could understand, like if the kid had been given a mix CD without labels, why did those files persist? You'd see hundreds of copies of these mislabeled songs. Which means that hundreds of people didn't see a problem. Artists are not losing royalties because of mp3 sharing; artists are losing royalties because nobody knows who the hell they are anymore.
And I'd get into arguments with these kids. This one kid, he told me, and I remember this exactly, he said that when he buys a CD, it's his and he's allowed to do whatever he wants with it. That includes making copies for all of his friends, and for everybody he's never met. He honestly believed that was his right. I told him that was ridiculous, because then an artist could never be expected to sell more than one CD, but the kid wouldn't listen. Then this other kid, he was 15 and totally acted like it (and still does now, though he must be about 20 by this time), he was all proud that he had never in his life ever purchased an album from anybody. He really thought that was something to be admired for.
It's not a thing, but an idea, and you can't kill an idea without anything short of genocide.I wish filesharing would get shut down. But I know it won't. It's not a thing, but an idea, and you can't kill an idea without anything short of genocide. Oh, the RIAA got Napster shut down. Well la de dah, because Napster wasn't filesharing, it was just the one portion of it that got attention. And I'm not saying this because I'm some greedy bastard. The only way my music is going to spread is through the interweb. I made a total of $3 over the six years I actually released stuff for sale. I'm sure that was a lot back in 1812, but it's getting that I can't even buy a goddam Coke for that anymore.
I didn't get into music for money. I didn't get into it for fame. Hell, I didn't even get into it to meet other musicians. I'm in this game for the love and respect of music as a form. And when I see people who can't be bothered to know the difference between The Animals and The Zombies, who have no respect for the people who make the music they love, then I can't possibly be expected to support such an apathetic fan base.