During my lovely holiday naptimes (come 4 o'clock after a busy day sunbathing, eating a heavy lunch with as many free alcoholic beverages as you like, you need a nap) I checked out BBC World Service to check what I was missing out on in the world.
Cue SOPA and PIPA. I'm sure there's much more to the issue, but from my point of view, it seems like the media execs are getting pissed because I can log onto MegaUpload and watch the new Twilight film (THEY'RE REALLY GOOD, OK?) for free. This means everyone from Summit Entertainment and Edward to the Best Boy and the Gaffer ain't getting no money. Poor fuckers.
This is unsurprising really as all of those people look to make as much money as possible for no other reason than they like counting it and piling all into little gold doubloons in a vault somewhere, dress up in an old fashioned bathing suit and dive into it, a'la Scrooge McDuck.
But what I was really surprised and almost ashamed with, were the small creative people who were supporting this vile act of illegal oppression. There was an author who claimed her books were had leaked on the internet and were available for free online and she wasn't making enough money. An Indonesian film maker who made a documentary about the life of Barack Obama as a child and that he had no support in trying to remove it from streaming through the internet, notably it's availability on YouTube.
As a creative sort myself it would make sense for me to but in support of this piece of legislation, right? WRONG! Back in the day of Leucine, we made a little 4-track EP called Step One: Proceed. And still to this day I think, 'man, that EP is fucking well good!' We went about getting our EP on all the normal outlets for music (iTunes, Amazon as well as physical copies). To this day, nearly 3 years later, I think we probably sold around 120 units of that CD through physical copies and online MP3 downloads.
At the same time we flooded the internet with it from a single Rapidshare root and within a year we had over 15,000 downloads. That was from just one source, not people who had downloaded it and then uploaded it themselves. I have absolutely no idea how many downloads it has had in total today but from I'll estimate and say 20,000.
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT HERE, COS I'M SO NICE
So, the question is, would I prefer the money from 120 people? Or would I prefer 20,000 people to hear my music? At the end of the day, I was in a band because it was fun and create something fun.
Creativity is an expression of yourself; that you have created something you are proud of, no matter what other people think.
To the women author who supported the new laws, maybe if you let a few of your books slip through the cracks you'll gain a bigger presence and more people will buy them. The fact I didn't know who you were or that I can't even remember your name speaks volumes that you can't expect everyone to buy your books.
To the Indonesian film maker. Are you not happy that your film has exploded into a position where it is much more visible to wider audience? I can't imagine independent films from Indonesia have big marketing teams behind then and after all, surely the reason you made a film was so someone would watch it, right?
I'm a massive cunt and only care about MONEY!!!!
When did theses creative people become such sellouts? Why do you feel that you are owed financial consideration, is making someone enjoy a good book or film or an EP not the reason why you decided to express yourself in the first place? Did Da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa because he new he was getting a big fat wedge out of it? Did Shakespeare write all of his work so that he could buy a new landau carriage, get it lowered and ride around on the pussaaay patrol?
Yes, there needs to be something in place that ensures small time producers do receive some form of protection but to the Hollywood execs and media moguls. You can go and fuck yourselves! Even in a recession and a time when cinema and music sales are dropping, directors, actors and musicians are making more money than ever. There was one time Leucine did get snotty with the availability of Step One: Proceed and that was when we found an Uzbek website selling our songs. Whether they actually sold any, I'll never know (I know we rarely did) but we sent a few strongly worded emails courtesy of some of our legal savvy friends and the situation was resolved.
You need to get with the fucking times and think of a new way to market yourselves instead of relying on tired, lazy techniques. The internet has changed everything, including copyright laws.
Here's an example, it may be wrong so don't quote me. The band Thursday, fronted by Geoff Rickly. Thursday were a moderately sized band and in 2009 Geoff apparently earned a meagre $10,000. This is just a fact, he didn't complain about it, I'm just pointing it out that $10,000 when you haven't released an album in that year, when your label supports you financially when you're on tour, when you wake up every day and realise you get to be in a band, FOR YOUR JOB, then earning $10,000 a year ain't half bad. As I said, Geoff never moaned about this, it was just mentioned that he had only earned this amount.
The upside of this oppression is that it will ensure the survival of internet piracy for the foreseeable future. Remember when Napster was shut down? Did that stop music piracy? No, in fact if Napster hadn't been shut down then the pirates probably would never had innovated as well as they have done, where we can now download a high quality album in a matter of seconds.
SOPA and PIPA have, for the time being, been postponed and I'm confident MegaUpload, with it's deep pockets and trove of highly skilled lawyers, will be back on it's feet in no time. And it better hurry up, I haven't seen Family Guy in weeks!
One last thing, I don't really like the Twilight films. They're shit. I really can't stress that enough.
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