In 2010, this is what I'd like to see and work on:
1. Passionate expression; Depth in content.
Even if your passion is in capturing video of sexual encounters to screen for your friends (HI ABI CRUZ) please put it into your music. I like when my creative partners know what they are talking about and i can feel it when they spit it.
2. Organized and ready to work
There's nothing like working with people who expect results when they are unprepared. As an engineer, i don't dream about the 179th take of your overdubs. I dream about intense, deep performances that need little editing.
3. People who know that they don't know everything.
Ask questions if you don't know something. If i don't know, I'll say so. Chances are i will have an opinion, though. LOL
4. Ca$h.
No credit in 2010. I'm sure you heard. Yes, we're the bank, but we're not lending either. Bring cash, titles, deeds, platinum, silver or gold.
5. Plan ahead for contingencies.
Sometimes life can throw a curve. Be prepared to change directions. You can still get to your destination even with many detours. Don't sit in traffic jams. Also know that you can build a shortcut. Use your imagination.
6. Don't blame anyone but yourself.
Who else really gives a sh!t about you anyway?
7. Live up to your statements.
Words are important. The boy who cried wolf got eaten alive. Integrity is the key to success. If you cant be trusted with $1000, how can you be trusted with $1,000,000?
8. The Zone.
I hope i can stay here for most of the year. I need to create magic.
9. Recognize and appreciate when someone does something for you.
They didn't have to, and they don't have to do it again. Teamwork is the only way to succeed.
Ever heard of a Fortune 500 sole proprietor? me neither. Favors are an asset.
10. Health.
Mental and physical. In this crazy depreciating world, time is running faster then ever. Spend money on productivity, time is valuable.
W
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Less Students - More Entrepreneurs
Back in the spring, Wes made a great comment while we were in a recording session. We were talking to our Production Assistant about the state of the recording industry and he said:
"What we need is less students and more entrepreneurs."
That statement is still in my head. Each year, around 15k fresh-faced graduates leave their college or vocational school, degree in hand, with the hope of landing a dream job behind a mixing console at their favorite recording studio. Sounds attainable, and it should be; you work hard, you make connections with the right people, and voila, you got it. Unfortunately for most aspiring engineers, it's not that simple and there are many external forces at work that have a lot to gain by making them believe that it is.
Check out this article I found today. I'm just going to tell you flat out- it's a lie.
Yes, there is a renewed interest in recording thanks to the advances and increased affordability of digital recording technology. But I don't see a shortage of engineers being such a problem that it creates a demand to the point where "a good engineer can earn a significant amount of money in a short amount of time." No, that just isn't true.
As I said, tens of thousands of people are certified to be engineers; whether through college or vocational programs like the Conservatory Master Recording Program or (gulp) the Music Industry Workshop. The reality is, there are tens of thousands of engineering grads hitting the job market every six months, and only a few hundred actual positions. Some of these grads will land an internship at a studio with the hope of one day attaining a full-time, paying gig that may not materialize until after many years of free service.
Case in point, the PA I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Wes and I have the great opportunity of working with some of the best studios in the city when we need to outsource our services, which isn't uncommon. We have formed great relationships with studio managers and their staff, all of which have a similar structure when it comes to job hierarchy.
Our PA's studio has a chief mixing engineer who commands the majority of the gigs that come in. When the time comes for him to retire or move on to a better gig, there is an assistant engineer who has worked under him and will be his replacement. The PA directly under the assistant engineer will move up to the assistant position. The rest of the PAs will continue working, in most cases for free, until the pecking order changes again. And so on and so on.
This process can take years, and meanwhile our stalwart PA will have to hold down another job, maybe even two or three, to pay the bills until the day comes, if it comes at all, for him/her to move up into the engineer's chair.
I guess there's no harm done if these people choose to be there, and my intent is not to squash someone's dream or discourage them from doing what they want, I just think it's deceitful for organizations to pass off engineering as a lucrative career move in today's job climate. These companies make millions every year in tuition money spent on training programs and recording certification that may not benefit the students in the slightest.
Again, I'm not a dream killer. To anyone interested in a recording career, I suggest the following:
-Read as many books on the subject as you possibly can. You don't need to sit in a classroom to do that.
-Purchase some recording gear that is within your budget and level of ability and practice, practice, practice.
-Don't do it for the money. If you're in it for the paycheck, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Sorry. I don't care to share how many times I've talked with people who have this outlook on the industry: "Well I'm a musician, but I figure being an engineer will be a good fallback job to pay the bills." No. It's just as hard to be a successful engineer as it is a successful artist. With home recording on an unyielding uprise, I'd say it's almost harder.
-Beware of any industry program that promises an easy, "A-to-B" success path towards your field of choice. Doubly so if they're trying to pitch you their program in a music equipment retail store like Guitar Center. There is a purpose and agenda behind that.
-Study other facets of business, music and otherwise, and apply it to what you do. Why be an employee if you could be your own boss? Innovate. Please innovate.
Both Wes and I have had experience with traditional methods of learning how to be an engineer. Him moreso than myself, but the common fact is, we've both learned more about the trade outside of any curriculum than actually in one. Our PA friend undoubtedly knows more about the ins and outs of a mixing console's functions than I do, but I work on a great board whenever I want and occasionally I'm fortunate enough to be paid for it, so... does that qualify me enough to make this point?
Please share any comments, thoughts, and stories you may have on the matter...and next time you're in a recording session, tip your PA; they work incredibly hard for very little.
-TJ
"What we need is less students and more entrepreneurs."
That statement is still in my head. Each year, around 15k fresh-faced graduates leave their college or vocational school, degree in hand, with the hope of landing a dream job behind a mixing console at their favorite recording studio. Sounds attainable, and it should be; you work hard, you make connections with the right people, and voila, you got it. Unfortunately for most aspiring engineers, it's not that simple and there are many external forces at work that have a lot to gain by making them believe that it is.
Check out this article I found today. I'm just going to tell you flat out- it's a lie.
Yes, there is a renewed interest in recording thanks to the advances and increased affordability of digital recording technology. But I don't see a shortage of engineers being such a problem that it creates a demand to the point where "a good engineer can earn a significant amount of money in a short amount of time." No, that just isn't true.
As I said, tens of thousands of people are certified to be engineers; whether through college or vocational programs like the Conservatory Master Recording Program or (gulp) the Music Industry Workshop. The reality is, there are tens of thousands of engineering grads hitting the job market every six months, and only a few hundred actual positions. Some of these grads will land an internship at a studio with the hope of one day attaining a full-time, paying gig that may not materialize until after many years of free service.
Case in point, the PA I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Wes and I have the great opportunity of working with some of the best studios in the city when we need to outsource our services, which isn't uncommon. We have formed great relationships with studio managers and their staff, all of which have a similar structure when it comes to job hierarchy.
Our PA's studio has a chief mixing engineer who commands the majority of the gigs that come in. When the time comes for him to retire or move on to a better gig, there is an assistant engineer who has worked under him and will be his replacement. The PA directly under the assistant engineer will move up to the assistant position. The rest of the PAs will continue working, in most cases for free, until the pecking order changes again. And so on and so on.
This process can take years, and meanwhile our stalwart PA will have to hold down another job, maybe even two or three, to pay the bills until the day comes, if it comes at all, for him/her to move up into the engineer's chair.
I guess there's no harm done if these people choose to be there, and my intent is not to squash someone's dream or discourage them from doing what they want, I just think it's deceitful for organizations to pass off engineering as a lucrative career move in today's job climate. These companies make millions every year in tuition money spent on training programs and recording certification that may not benefit the students in the slightest.
Again, I'm not a dream killer. To anyone interested in a recording career, I suggest the following:
-Read as many books on the subject as you possibly can. You don't need to sit in a classroom to do that.
-Purchase some recording gear that is within your budget and level of ability and practice, practice, practice.
-Don't do it for the money. If you're in it for the paycheck, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Sorry. I don't care to share how many times I've talked with people who have this outlook on the industry: "Well I'm a musician, but I figure being an engineer will be a good fallback job to pay the bills." No. It's just as hard to be a successful engineer as it is a successful artist. With home recording on an unyielding uprise, I'd say it's almost harder.
-Beware of any industry program that promises an easy, "A-to-B" success path towards your field of choice. Doubly so if they're trying to pitch you their program in a music equipment retail store like Guitar Center. There is a purpose and agenda behind that.
-Study other facets of business, music and otherwise, and apply it to what you do. Why be an employee if you could be your own boss? Innovate. Please innovate.
Both Wes and I have had experience with traditional methods of learning how to be an engineer. Him moreso than myself, but the common fact is, we've both learned more about the trade outside of any curriculum than actually in one. Our PA friend undoubtedly knows more about the ins and outs of a mixing console's functions than I do, but I work on a great board whenever I want and occasionally I'm fortunate enough to be paid for it, so... does that qualify me enough to make this point?
Please share any comments, thoughts, and stories you may have on the matter...and next time you're in a recording session, tip your PA; they work incredibly hard for very little.
-TJ
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Bank Blog: Re-Introduction
I haven't blogged in over a year.
We originally started this blog in 2007 with the intent of using it as a forum for us (and any readers) to discuss ideas about music, production, recording, and business. We felt there was a need for that, mostly because at the time the majority of blogs I came across concerning music were written by people who didn't know anything about it beyond their often mis-informed opinions as fans.
I think we did okay for awhile, but at some point the focus of my posts, in between the daily affairs of The Bank and other areas of life, lost their way and became rants about the ills of the music industry that provided a lot of opinion and speculation but offered no real solution. I had become exactly what I was against, so I hung it up. Also, I just did not have the time to commit to it the way I wanted to. As it stands today, I left a few of the old posts to illustrate my point and to remind myself of what NOT to do, but the majority of what was here is now gone.
So now, here we are, 2010 is just around the corner, and today there are almost more blogs out than there are people. It's remarkable how influential blogs have become, especially considering how hardly anyone gets paid for it. Not to say blogs lack value just because they lack proper monetization, I'm just sayin'...This in itself is a discussion I'll get into at a later date.
We've decided to pick this blog back up, to share finds, info, and ideas, as originally intended. Also, we'd like to use it to elaborate and expand on views and opinions we may post elsewhere online, like twitter and other SM sites we have a presence on. This time around, we invite you to be a part of it with us. Please feel free to provide feedback, good and bad because we kinda need that.
Welcome!
-TJ
We originally started this blog in 2007 with the intent of using it as a forum for us (and any readers) to discuss ideas about music, production, recording, and business. We felt there was a need for that, mostly because at the time the majority of blogs I came across concerning music were written by people who didn't know anything about it beyond their often mis-informed opinions as fans.
I think we did okay for awhile, but at some point the focus of my posts, in between the daily affairs of The Bank and other areas of life, lost their way and became rants about the ills of the music industry that provided a lot of opinion and speculation but offered no real solution. I had become exactly what I was against, so I hung it up. Also, I just did not have the time to commit to it the way I wanted to. As it stands today, I left a few of the old posts to illustrate my point and to remind myself of what NOT to do, but the majority of what was here is now gone.
So now, here we are, 2010 is just around the corner, and today there are almost more blogs out than there are people. It's remarkable how influential blogs have become, especially considering how hardly anyone gets paid for it. Not to say blogs lack value just because they lack proper monetization, I'm just sayin'...This in itself is a discussion I'll get into at a later date.
We've decided to pick this blog back up, to share finds, info, and ideas, as originally intended. Also, we'd like to use it to elaborate and expand on views and opinions we may post elsewhere online, like twitter and other SM sites we have a presence on. This time around, we invite you to be a part of it with us. Please feel free to provide feedback, good and bad because we kinda need that.
Welcome!
-TJ
Thursday, October 30, 2008
THE BANK: FALL '08
yyyeeeeahhh!
We've got our hands full over here, working on some really exciting projects. Here's a glimpse of what we've been up to:
VIRUS: The Catalyst album is set to drop 12/23/08. It features Mr. Dope Shit Himself (Virus), with tracks by Battletek and appearances by Crooked I, John-Jon, J.U.I.C.E., Melanie Rutherford, and Punch & Words.
FUNSHO: After smashing in Shinjuku, the raw Chicago native is at it again, serving you his latest offering, Bad Skin. Full of street stories, futuristic soundscapes, tales of unrequited love and alcohol induced sexual mishaps, Bad Skin hit the streets this month. .
D. RICH: A man so hard the government wants to send him BACK to the Middle East, South Side rhyme-spitter D. Rich is working with us on his first full-length album, Boot Camp, which we'll be producing from top to bottom. Boot Camp features guest appearances by some great Chicago talent including John-Jon, Payne, Roze Red, and Virus.
PAUL THOMAS: Comedian Paul Thomas (check out the video for "Tighty Whiteys" in the "Shorts" section of his website- www.bigheadpaul.com) came to us to help give his musical stylings a contemporary feel. Good lawwd, so far the results have been nothing short of hilarious. The song, indefinitely titled "Smackin'," will accompany a music video of the same name. Check back here for updates!
....
We've got our hands full over here, working on some really exciting projects. Here's a glimpse of what we've been up to:
VIRUS: The Catalyst album is set to drop 12/23/08. It features Mr. Dope Shit Himself (Virus), with tracks by Battletek and appearances by Crooked I, John-Jon, J.U.I.C.E., Melanie Rutherford, and Punch & Words.
FUNSHO: After smashing in Shinjuku, the raw Chicago native is at it again, serving you his latest offering, Bad Skin. Full of street stories, futuristic soundscapes, tales of unrequited love and alcohol induced sexual mishaps, Bad Skin hit the streets this month. .D. RICH: A man so hard the government wants to send him BACK to the Middle East, South Side rhyme-spitter D. Rich is working with us on his first full-length album, Boot Camp, which we'll be producing from top to bottom. Boot Camp features guest appearances by some great Chicago talent including John-Jon, Payne, Roze Red, and Virus.
PAUL THOMAS: Comedian Paul Thomas (check out the video for "Tighty Whiteys" in the "Shorts" section of his website- www.bigheadpaul.com) came to us to help give his musical stylings a contemporary feel. Good lawwd, so far the results have been nothing short of hilarious. The song, indefinitely titled "Smackin'," will accompany a music video of the same name. Check back here for updates!
....
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Game Theory
Here's an article I read on The Guardian. Hmmm, seems extreme, is this the answer? What do you think?
The Right To Peer Inside Your iPod
An agreement on intellectual property rights to be ratified by the G8 heads of government highlights conflicts between ownership and privacy
Charles Arthur
The Guardian, Thursday July 10, 2008
Photograph: Nick Veasey/Getty Images
The heads of the G8 governments, meeting this week, are about to ratify the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta), which - it's claimed - could let customs agents search your laptop or music player for illegally obtained content. The European Parliament is considering a law that would lead to people who illicitly download copyrighted music or video content being thrown off the internet. Virgin Media is writing to hundreds of its customers at the request of the UK record industry to warn them that their connections seem to have been used for illegal downloading. Viacom gets access to all of the usernames and IP addresses of anyone who has ever used YouTube as part of its billion-dollar lawsuit in which it claims the site has been party to "massive intentional copyright infringement".
It seems that 20th-century ideas of ownership and control - especially of intellectual property such as copyright and trademarks - are being reasserted, with added legal muscle, after a 10-year period when the internet sparked an explosion of business models and (if we're honest) casual disregard, especially of copyright, when it came to music and video.
But do those separate events mark a swing of the pendulum back against the inroads that the internet has made on intellectual property?
'A finger in the dyke'
Saul Klein, a venture capitalist with Index Ventures who has invested in the free database company MySQL, Zend (the basis of the free web-scripting language PHP) and OpenX, an open-source advertising system, is unconvinced. "In a world of abundance - which the internet is quintessentially - that drives the price of everything towards 'free'," he says. "People don't pay for any content online. Not for music, not for video. They get it, either legally or illegally."
Is that sustainable? "The model of suing your best customers and subpoenaing private information is doomed to failure," Klein observes. "It's putting a finger in the dyke. It won't change the macro trend, which is that there's an abundance of information. Copyright owners need to find new ways to generate income from their product. The fact is, the music industry is in rude health - more people than ever before are going to concerts, making it, listening to it. It's the labels that are screwed. The artists and managers are making money. The labels aren't.
"What is broken is the paid-for model for content, though it won't go away entirely. We look to invest in scarcity, where people will pay a premium for something not in abundance." He gives the example of Viagogo - a ticket-selling site that Index Ventures has invested in: "Selling tickets for Madonna or Prince capitalises on the public's interest in paying for scarcity."
But the BPI, which represents UK record labels, disagrees: "Music's true value is greater than its price ... people can see that creative people, and the companies who pay them, are not being fairly rewarded for the use of their work online, and almost everyone now agrees this needs to change."
Content creators are taking a more assertive stance. Scott Adams, the cartoonist best-known for his Dilbert strips, stood up for his work in a blog post in April last year, where he reasserted his ownership of his products: "When you violate a copyright, you take something valuable from the copyright owner that he can't get back ... After I published The Dilbert Principle, within days it had been illegally scanned and was widely available on the internet for free. Technically speaking, it wasn't theft. But I still lost something. I (and my publisher) lost the ability to decide if, when, and how to publish as an e-book." (tinyurl.com/2zxgb5).
That drew many comments, such as: "There's nothing that you can do about us. You're impotent, we're everywhere, and soon, we'll be everyone. It's over. It's time to start seeing the world as it actually is, and not as you wish it to be."
Yet Acta spooks many. A draft version appeared at the Wikileaks site (tinyurl.com/5sh934), which said it reveals "a proposal for a multilateral trade agreement of strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to internet activity and trade in information-based goods, hiding behind the issue of false trademarks".
One of the footnotes has sent a shudder across the net: "Members shall provide for the provisions related to criminal enforcement and border measures to be applied at least in cases of trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy." That can certainly be interpreted as meaning that you could be stopped at Customs and quizzed about the music or films on your iPod or laptop.
Chasing the big boys
A more likely interpretation, however, is that Acta is really aimed at the big players, who copy CDs or DVDs on an industrial scale. The US trade representative Sean Spicer said in a statement on June 5 (tinyurl.com/5voyhk), after the last round of Acta negotiations, that "the main focus of the discussion was border measures, particularly how to deal with large-scale intellectual property infringements, which can frequently involve criminal elements".
Perhaps coincidentally, the UK Electronics Alliance, representing about 1,200 UK companies, will this month claim that counterfeit electronics cost the UK economy £1bn per year in supply-chain problems caused by fakes, yet only two customs officials have full-time jobs tracking them down. Certainly counterfeiting - especially of pharmaceuticals and electronics, but also of car parts - has become a serious problem in recent years, and the consequences can be serious: drugs that don't work, car parts that cause a crash.
Part of the aim of Acta therefore is to provide an international means of putting pressure on countries from which counterfeit products originate. But Acta's tentacles may spread wider than expected. It would include "safeguards for ISPs from liability, to encourage ISPs to cooperate with right holders in the removal of infringing material". But for those pirating material, that might also mean ISPs could finger them with the backing of the law.
Free, the internet?
And the implications for privacy? Acta is silent on the rights of the individual; unsurprising, since the signatories would include the US, UK and China - which have widely diverging ideas on the topic.
As one music industry insider - who asked to remain anonymous - notes, part of the problem with online culture is that people are used to getting stuff for free, while feeling that they will not be tracked down. "Imagine if someone somehow bought up Wikipedia, and demanded payment for access," he says. "People don't like the idea of paying for things they've not been used to paying for. The internet has given the opportunity for normal people to infringe intellectual property more easily than ever before. But I think there's a creeping understanding that what the record industry has been banging on about for all these years really is a problem."
Adams, meanwhile, thinks that challenging people is the perfect way to create "cognitive dissonance" - "putting a person in a position of doing something that is clearly opposed to his self-image. Then wait for his explanation. The explanation will seem absurd to anyone who doesn't share the dissonance" (tinyurl.com/2fndal). He adds: "I also enjoy the rationalisations from the people who say it is okay to violate copyrights whenever it's cheaper than paying. They argue that these violations will encourage greedy publishers to be more efficient, thus transferring wealth from recording companies to ... Steve Jobs."
The Right To Peer Inside Your iPod
An agreement on intellectual property rights to be ratified by the G8 heads of government highlights conflicts between ownership and privacy
Charles Arthur
The Guardian, Thursday July 10, 2008
Photograph: Nick Veasey/Getty Images
The heads of the G8 governments, meeting this week, are about to ratify the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta), which - it's claimed - could let customs agents search your laptop or music player for illegally obtained content. The European Parliament is considering a law that would lead to people who illicitly download copyrighted music or video content being thrown off the internet. Virgin Media is writing to hundreds of its customers at the request of the UK record industry to warn them that their connections seem to have been used for illegal downloading. Viacom gets access to all of the usernames and IP addresses of anyone who has ever used YouTube as part of its billion-dollar lawsuit in which it claims the site has been party to "massive intentional copyright infringement".
It seems that 20th-century ideas of ownership and control - especially of intellectual property such as copyright and trademarks - are being reasserted, with added legal muscle, after a 10-year period when the internet sparked an explosion of business models and (if we're honest) casual disregard, especially of copyright, when it came to music and video.
But do those separate events mark a swing of the pendulum back against the inroads that the internet has made on intellectual property?
'A finger in the dyke'
Saul Klein, a venture capitalist with Index Ventures who has invested in the free database company MySQL, Zend (the basis of the free web-scripting language PHP) and OpenX, an open-source advertising system, is unconvinced. "In a world of abundance - which the internet is quintessentially - that drives the price of everything towards 'free'," he says. "People don't pay for any content online. Not for music, not for video. They get it, either legally or illegally."
Is that sustainable? "The model of suing your best customers and subpoenaing private information is doomed to failure," Klein observes. "It's putting a finger in the dyke. It won't change the macro trend, which is that there's an abundance of information. Copyright owners need to find new ways to generate income from their product. The fact is, the music industry is in rude health - more people than ever before are going to concerts, making it, listening to it. It's the labels that are screwed. The artists and managers are making money. The labels aren't.
"What is broken is the paid-for model for content, though it won't go away entirely. We look to invest in scarcity, where people will pay a premium for something not in abundance." He gives the example of Viagogo - a ticket-selling site that Index Ventures has invested in: "Selling tickets for Madonna or Prince capitalises on the public's interest in paying for scarcity."
But the BPI, which represents UK record labels, disagrees: "Music's true value is greater than its price ... people can see that creative people, and the companies who pay them, are not being fairly rewarded for the use of their work online, and almost everyone now agrees this needs to change."
Content creators are taking a more assertive stance. Scott Adams, the cartoonist best-known for his Dilbert strips, stood up for his work in a blog post in April last year, where he reasserted his ownership of his products: "When you violate a copyright, you take something valuable from the copyright owner that he can't get back ... After I published The Dilbert Principle, within days it had been illegally scanned and was widely available on the internet for free. Technically speaking, it wasn't theft. But I still lost something. I (and my publisher) lost the ability to decide if, when, and how to publish as an e-book." (tinyurl.com/2zxgb5).
That drew many comments, such as: "There's nothing that you can do about us. You're impotent, we're everywhere, and soon, we'll be everyone. It's over. It's time to start seeing the world as it actually is, and not as you wish it to be."
Yet Acta spooks many. A draft version appeared at the Wikileaks site (tinyurl.com/5sh934), which said it reveals "a proposal for a multilateral trade agreement of strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to internet activity and trade in information-based goods, hiding behind the issue of false trademarks".
One of the footnotes has sent a shudder across the net: "Members shall provide for the provisions related to criminal enforcement and border measures to be applied at least in cases of trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy." That can certainly be interpreted as meaning that you could be stopped at Customs and quizzed about the music or films on your iPod or laptop.
Chasing the big boys
A more likely interpretation, however, is that Acta is really aimed at the big players, who copy CDs or DVDs on an industrial scale. The US trade representative Sean Spicer said in a statement on June 5 (tinyurl.com/5voyhk), after the last round of Acta negotiations, that "the main focus of the discussion was border measures, particularly how to deal with large-scale intellectual property infringements, which can frequently involve criminal elements".
Perhaps coincidentally, the UK Electronics Alliance, representing about 1,200 UK companies, will this month claim that counterfeit electronics cost the UK economy £1bn per year in supply-chain problems caused by fakes, yet only two customs officials have full-time jobs tracking them down. Certainly counterfeiting - especially of pharmaceuticals and electronics, but also of car parts - has become a serious problem in recent years, and the consequences can be serious: drugs that don't work, car parts that cause a crash.
Part of the aim of Acta therefore is to provide an international means of putting pressure on countries from which counterfeit products originate. But Acta's tentacles may spread wider than expected. It would include "safeguards for ISPs from liability, to encourage ISPs to cooperate with right holders in the removal of infringing material". But for those pirating material, that might also mean ISPs could finger them with the backing of the law.
Free, the internet?
And the implications for privacy? Acta is silent on the rights of the individual; unsurprising, since the signatories would include the US, UK and China - which have widely diverging ideas on the topic.
As one music industry insider - who asked to remain anonymous - notes, part of the problem with online culture is that people are used to getting stuff for free, while feeling that they will not be tracked down. "Imagine if someone somehow bought up Wikipedia, and demanded payment for access," he says. "People don't like the idea of paying for things they've not been used to paying for. The internet has given the opportunity for normal people to infringe intellectual property more easily than ever before. But I think there's a creeping understanding that what the record industry has been banging on about for all these years really is a problem."
Adams, meanwhile, thinks that challenging people is the perfect way to create "cognitive dissonance" - "putting a person in a position of doing something that is clearly opposed to his self-image. Then wait for his explanation. The explanation will seem absurd to anyone who doesn't share the dissonance" (tinyurl.com/2fndal). He adds: "I also enjoy the rationalisations from the people who say it is okay to violate copyrights whenever it's cheaper than paying. They argue that these violations will encourage greedy publishers to be more efficient, thus transferring wealth from recording companies to ... Steve Jobs."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
