Hillary Clinton at Fresno High 22OCT07

It was a good speech. She doesn't need notes. Very well thought out. Support the troops not the war. After the speech she greeted folks. All the waving hands hoping to get an autograph or a handshake was touching. The most interesting part for me was where I was standing was where the 'protesters' were. There were about 15-20 of them holding various anti-Hillary signs. There was a biker with two big american flags on his Harley. There was a disabled guy in a wheel chair who yelled out, "Yeah, free abortions for all!" The grey-haired Republican women, who had t-shirts on that said they were the life of the party. One of them held a sign up that said: "Hillary lives in upscale Govt housing for free" I didn't understand the point of that one. The Ron Paul supporters and the IWW kids vied to be which one yelled out the loudest, angriest accusations. Seeing these two groups on the same team was funny. The Far Left (IWW) went so far to the left that they met up with the far right (Ron Paul Libertarians) and became allies in their common dislike of Hillary. Politics does make strange bedfellows.

FILE SHARING HURTS LOCAL INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS, TOO

Making this argument is like standing in the middle of highway 99 and trying to stop a giant tractor-trailer rig headed right at me. But, I’ve been thinking about this for a couple years now and I have to let it out.

Will the judgment against Jammie Thomas for $220,000 for file sharing handed down in a Duluth courtroom a few days ago slow down file sharing? I don’t know. I know it probably won’t slow down the file sharing of independent and out of print music. That is more widespread than ever before. The silence of local musicians and songwriters on the issue is due to the digital divide. A lot of small-time musicians and songwriters are being ripped off and they don’t even know about it. I highly recommend Google Alerts for finding out if there is anybody out there giving away or selling your music on the Internet.

I have refrained from criticizing file sharing until now because I wasn’t confident that I knew enough about it. Plus, I was afraid to speak out against this because of fear of reprisals. But I know enough now that I feel like my argument is logical and ethical.

There are some legitimate reasons behind the argument in favor of file sharing that I totally agree with. They all kind of come under the heading of: Major Label- Bad. The reason they are bad is because total power corrupts totally. I have been saying this for over 25 years. Thanks for coming to the party. They have had a near-total monopoly of the music business for many decades. We are, I believe at the beginning of another revolution to unseat the power of the majors. But, it’s going to be one hell of a war because this isn’t the first time they have fended off such an attack. And they won’t go peaceably. They will fight this with everything they have. This is also driven by the crux of the shift from the physical recording to the digital file. How far will it go? Will there be physical copies of albums in the future, or just digital files?

The majors have been unfair in the pricing of records they have sold over the years and people are wise to that now. They have also treated some of their artists unfairly, too. While they pour immoral amounts of money into a few top sellers they cast off smaller artists while at the same time selling their back-catalog and then turn around and refuse to pay royalties to these lesser knowns. Heck, I believe they won’t pay ANY artist royalties unless they are forced to do so under the threat of litigation.

But, if file sharing has made it hard for the majors to sell music it has also made it hard for anyone to sell music. Including local, independent musicians and labels.

There has been an awakening in Cities over the last few years over the value of local creative types. Localism is another issue I have embraced for decades and I’m glad they have come to this party as well. I have never had a problem with people making a few copies of my music to give to a few friends. In the rare instances when I find an album I like enough to buy, first thing I do is make a few copies to give to my friends. But, when someone uploads it to a web page and lets a whole album’s worth of music, artwork, photos, logos and track listings sit there 24 hours a day for perpetuity they distribute a lot more than just “a few copies to friends”. And it only takes a few of these guys to completely wipe out what little bit of sales a small-time musician/band could get.

What is it about the hard work that goes into writing, performing and recording music that these people feel isn’t worth being paid an honest days wage for an honest days work? I would be happy to get just a living wage for my efforts. Someday they will find a way to steal on the same scale other intellectual property like books and T-shirts. Maybe then it will stop.

I have learned to live in a new world of lowered expectations. Ok, so you won’t let me sell the 10 or 20 albums a year I could possibly sell if things were going really well. Will you at least let me be the one to give it away? So I can at least have the fun and prestige of distributing my own music? And know that I have retained at least some form of ownership of the music I have spent a lifetime writing, performing, recording and archiving? No, they won’t even let me have that. They even stole my ability to be the one to give it away.