When i was younger i would sit in the kitchen with my finger hovering over the pause button of the tape deck while Radio 1 played the Top 40. For most of my youth all my cassettes had songs with Gary Davis speaking on the end of them.
To me, this is exactly the same as downloading MP3's off the internet and i have never bought into the downloading is killing music shtick. Almost every record i paid for in the pre-digital era had a warning that home taping was killing music and as far as i can tell it never did.
Kids will grab free music anyway they can, we all did, whether it was taken off the radio or by swapping the Frankie Goes to Hollywood album for your friends Madness one so you can tape it.
This view brings me into an uneasy alliance with Liam Gallagher who today launched into a rant at stars who moan about illegal file sharing.
He said: ‘Downloading's the same as what I used to do - I used to tape the charts of the songs I liked (from the radio). I don't mind it. I hate all these big, silly rock stars who moan - at least they're f**king downloading your music, you c**t, and paying attention, know what I mean? You should f**king appreciate that - what are you moaning about? You've got f**king five big houses, so shut up.’
Not exactly eloquent but his gist is a lot more sweary version of how i feel.
The record companies are making massive profits and the stars are ridiculously well paid so why begrudge some kid getting their music for free rather than paying the 79p to download it of which the star would only make a tiny fraction of with the lions share going to the record company?
Yes Liam is a royal prat, but i'm with him on this one.
5 comments:
Agreed. The opposing viewpoint, as advocated by the millionaires from Metallica - while legally of merit - is very uncool, very unrock'n'roll.
But should we be worried that we share a view with Liam Gallagher?
Possibly. However I think we disagree on the more important matter of 'whether Liam Gallagher should just f*ck off forever'. Apparently, he reckons he shouldn't.
Hanz,
I agree with you and Liam. Actually blogged on this topic in 2007
http://truthnoteverybodiescupoftea.blogspot.com/2007/11/moral-dilemma.html
Cheezy,
Metallica sold out to "The Man" after "And justice for all". Lost respect for them after that!
Liam Gallagher is a idiot of the highest order, but the balck and white of his statement is rather simplistic. First of all the record companies are not making what they did, nor are the up and coming bands either. It's not that I give a rats ass about the record companies, but the whole steal from the rich, just because they are rich Robin Hood crap doesn't sit well with me. The record companies are idiots for not coming to grips sooner with the new reality of their business model and deserve to be punished for bad business decisions, but that still doesn't change the fact that stealing is stealing (just like speeding is speeding, a little is tolerated, but don't overdo it). In the interest of fair disclosure, I have stolen music in the past, but have moved to paid subscription model at the moment. I'm dying to see how Hollywood handles the issue with movies, once bandwidth and storage become even more ubiquitous. Music distribution is evolving in many strange ways and I guess that we will be surprised and amazed many times before this is all over.
P.S.
I should say that so far, Hollywood seems to have a better handle on this issue with their online buy or rent options. It seems that the world is willing to pay (a little) for convenience. We shall see where this leads
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