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will makes a good point: nothing about changing mode of access to media changes how people think about and use it necessarily. so there's nothing in itself "liberating" about file-sharing.
at the same time, i don't regard this as theft---more as a vehicle for publicity.
particularly for more obscure types of music/obscure bands etc.: the old business model of object-centered distribution of sound is cooked. there isn't a new one. i don't see anything problematic about abandoning to commodity form in itself--the problem arises with the fact that there are as yet few places that you can get reviewed unless you release objects--so the differentiation/review system is outmoded and hasn't adapted. the problem this creates is at the level of ways to generate exposure. the reason this is important is that you make money--such as it is--through performances.
this is the way of things for most musicians.
for pop corporations and their subsidiary expressions in artists, it's different.
but at the same time, they make far more from touring than from records.
i know the arguments both ways about commodity music and revenue and property rights for the composer and to a lesser extent the performers.
i think they are antiquated arguments.
but the main thing is that there is as yet no alternate model, no alternate system. this remains a commodity spectacle.
"may you not live in interesting times."
i never used to understand what sense that made.
now i do. more and more every day.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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