Delaying Progress

As technology increases, overall wealth will rise.  But while incomes grow for most people, more and more artists will be reliant on donations.  This is actually a very good process, but the recording industry and the courts are delaying it.

I was a freshman in college when Napster went big.  Boy, I loved that site!  I had access to so much music, so many audio files–audio books, radio talk show clips, I even downloaded the Benny Hill theme.  What fun!

Oh, but I wasn’t paying a nickel—neither was anyone else.  And so in came the Recoding Industry Association of America (RIAA).  Since that time, a ten-year legal battle has ensued on two fronts.

1) going after the Websites offering the technology to share music

2) going after the users who do the actual sharing

The Websites were merely, well, there—used for illegal sharing, but not doing the sharing themselves.  The users were the ones doing the dirty work.

So the RIAA went after them and sued the pants off countless college students and others. Most settled, having to pay a few grand.  But the RIAA knew they could do a lot more if they went after the sites that were bringing the users together, so have been systematically shutting them down in the courts.  Since then it’s been RIP Napster, Morpheus, Kazaa, etc.

On June 7th, a judge in NY all but put the nail in the coffin of Limewire—the latest, leading file-sharing technology.  The judge had an easy decision based on precedent.  In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found the file-sharing site Grokster liable because they weren’t doing anything to prevent users from sharing copyrighted material.

It is a sticky wicket, this battle over file sharing.  Obviously, people who download their music collections from these sites aren’t spending their money when doing it.  So the gripe from the industry—labels, producers, and some artists—is that their product is being stolen.

But there’s more to it than a case of simple theft.  Within this issue we address the consequences of restricting the flow of art and ask whether it is necessary to commit this deprivation.

Art has always been a funny thing to try to monetize.  We all know of “starving artists” while noticing the blatant wealth of the successful ones.  As well, many seemingly make this giant leap overnight.

Though evolving, music had always been easily packaged and sold—from the record to the tape to the CD.  But recently, the world’s gone digital.  And with such ease of transfer, how could the music industry control the dispersion to ensure collecting money?  Well, right away it couldn’t, and a flood of music deluged the public who had access to practically any song they wanted.

This meant a lot more than just a free copy of the Benny Hill theme.  This new technological plateau of audio dispersion allowed untold amounts of people to stand a little taller, levitating from the glow that one’s preferred music emits.

But more than the end user, I also think about the artist and come up with this thought: if I was an artist—a musician, filmmaker, painter, whatever—my goal would be to share my creations with the world, to move people, to affect their lives, to have admirers. With this new Internet technology, what better way to extend my reach?  Eureka!  Now there are students at XYZ University listening to my music who never would have before.

But the recording industry pointed out staggering losses calculated from those missed music sales.  And today, this is the side that the courts are taking, and more than shutting down the sites, the recording industry wants payback for all the stolen goods.  But to determine losses, they are using a misleading formula, calculating every download as money lost.  Herein lies an important distinction in the perception of file-sharing.

The industry sees every download as money not going their direction.  But the equivalent of no Napster is not me buying the Benny Hill theme.  The equivalent of no Napster, is me simply not listening to the Benny Hill theme.  Just because I download something free doesn’t mean I would buy it if required to pay.  There exists a gap between music I would buy and music I don’t want.  In that gap lay almost my entire collegiate music collection.

A lot of the music “stolen” simply would never have been listened to if not for Napster, so what we now have now is the equivalent of bunch of records sitting on the shelf collecting dust.  What a waste.

Also not calculated are the potential increases in concert attendance and merchandise sales because of the increase marketing from file-sharing (which, by the way, makes up about 90% of most bands’ revenue).  The music sales go the middlemen.

And there’s good reason to believe that musical output would continue to be monetized despite avid file-sharing. Further, this monetization would be without the side effect of preventing art from being seen or heard, and with the added bonus of relying on the good nature of others.

The rock band Radiohead knew this and literally gave away their latest album In Rainbows for download in October 2007.  The only thing people were charged was a donation of their choice.  The result?  About $6 a download.  It is true, Radiohead is established and can afford to make that can’t kind move, but I do not subscribe to a vision that sees smaller bands going away if file sharing continued the way it did.

If fans saw a need for their favorite artists they would get on the ball and donate.  The financial need would be filled—just not in a coerced way.  We’re seeing this response in another field being redefined by the Internet—journalism.  Bloggers are getting donations from individuals and entire media outlets are funded by private foundations.

Small bands would have to rely more on donations, sure, but they also would have a heck of an easier time fund-raising from the recognition gained via a Napster.  Of course, there’s nothing stopping them from giving away their music right now, but the beauty of sites like Napster was their enormous network of people.  I remember downloading music from bands I’d never heard of because of what others on the network were listening to.  Perhaps what small bands should do is pool their music and attempt their own Napster.

The RIAA’s recent legal victories have hindered the effects that the file-sharing movement was rapidly having.  First, and obviously, many more people were having access to more art.  Art fulfills people, lubricating the productivity of humanity.  And more than just enabling current bands to reach out, this access to music spurs new bands, featuring new collusions of music styles.  This new expression, in turn, becomes an inspiration to new listeners, the whole process perpetuating itself to new heights.

In addition, the productivity point gets hit from another angle: where would these file-sharing technologies have gone if left to function?  Who knows how big and in what form Napster would be today.  We are seeing the prevention of the use and enhancement of the time-saving, innovation-inducing mechanisms of file sharing.

But the greatest loss I can perceive in all this is the disruption of the voluntary spirit.  Here’s why: as we progress technologically—file sharing, iPad’s, etc.—we enjoy greater wealth.  Those whose services are monetized will have increased incomes and will simply be “required” to donate to services that technology has removed the roadblocks of mandatory payment from—like music, and video as well.  Spurred on will be a whole new class of donators maintaining a rich flow of art.  The war on file-sharing has prevented, or delayed, the growth of a new norm of donation.  And as anyone who gives to charity knows, this is unfortunate because the involvement of giving to others makes lives bigger and more fulfilling.

I suspect the deluge was too much of a good thing too quick.  But in a way, the rulings made in the U.S. are rendered moot as the flow of video, music, and print will continue into our computers—legally or not—finding their home into the hearts and minds of the open individual, to the benefit of all.

Content with Discontentment

I was excited when I began my new serving job.  I was happy to meet new coworkers and customers and to help the business do well.  But after a bit the excitement wore off; getting used to my job, a discontentment crept in.

My gratitude slipped away in the midst of new concerns.  One day I caught myself getting worked up about the host not sitting people in my section.  (My former excited, happy self would not have gotten bent-out-of-shape about this).  I also worried that when it was my turn to get a table, I would probably get stuck with a small group.

What happened to my cheery, happy, optimistic self?

Well, the novelty, the freshness of my new job wore off, and consequently, I started working more on autopilot—where minds can begin to wander.  Mine did and starting losing touch with each moment, and so I started wanting “more”.  Suddenly I was looking to my job as a source for more than it was supposed to be and unhealthy expectations ensued.  Internally, I started to demand more and better customers.  It’s similar to the problem that causes that sense of emptiness in successful people, never being satisfied despite how rich they may become.

So all this was clearly not a good thing.  And to remedy this discontentment we are told and taught to be at peace with things, to not demand more, or we’ll never know true happiness.  We go to lengths to become content; we meditate, pray, breathe slowly.  We work to maintain a clear view of things, keeping that fresh outlook on work and all of life, moment by moment.

But at the same time, and confusing the matter, is another “discontentment” that is apparently quite different.  This is the seemingly innate American tendency to always be growing, always looking for more—the businessperson who seeks expansion or an academic seeking another degree.  One’s quest for self-improvement never really comes to an end and we’re all encouraged to never stop learning.  In these cases, people attain a their goal and are pleased, but benchmarks have been risen and, heck, they just can’t sit there, can they?  One may interpret these as “discontentments”, too, but these are valued and promote wealth and personal experience.

So it’s not the sense of “wanting more” that is bad, but the specifics of its source.  Or maybe these two illustrations are not of different sources so much as differences in how we handle them.  Either way, there’s a big difference between the desperate “needing more” that seeks to escape reality vs. the natural, healthy desire to expand one’s reach and involvement, one’s reality.

The latter seems so natural, so woven into being human.  Growth, or the process of gaining, isn’t just a means to some end, but is the goal in and of itself—part of the formula for man’s happiness, his contentment.  As the grandfather says to his grandchild in Steinbeck’s The Red Pony, referring to the settling of the western U.S., “it wasn’t getting here [the west coast] that mattered, it was movement and westering.”  The book series “Little House on the Prairie” opens with Charles Ingalls leading his family out of Wisconsin on a horse and wagon.  A reason given for the move was that Charles thought their environment in the woods of Wisconsin was becoming too crowded.  This implies the eagerness they had to be on the move.

Families "westering" across America

And it’s not uniquely American.  Though pronounced here in the U.S., this deportment has led to the inhabitation of every continent as well as every technological advancement.  Looking at the migration of human history it seems contentment was maintained by migration.  For 100,000 years man has been on the move in every direction out of Africa.  For some, the Middle East wasn’t far enough, and neither was modern China, Russia, Alaska, Canada, USA, Mexico, Central America.  Not until they hit southern South America did the migration stop.  Undoubtedly, humans would have kept going if they could!  Man loves to move…and/or grow.

Domestication is a rather modern concept.  And when we started domesticating we then focused growing our worth, our knowledge, our love and relationships.  Within us is the urge for change and better lives.  Stagnation is not an option.

So there concludes a paradox in all this asking you maintain contentment and peace with things as they are and with our innate need for change, growth, and gain.  But mind your own pace.  Each culture and each person straddles this line of give-and-take a little differently.  America is very industrious and provides the best wealth, technology, and medical care; but we also have high rates of debt, anxiety and substance abuse.  In a Guatemalan village, things are slowed way down.  You can really take life in, be  much more relaxed with this lower cultural industrious drive.  But they have with lower standards of living.

Maybe you’re a USA; maybe you’re a Guatemala.

And I’ll work at being at peace with my host and talk to her if need be.  I’ll enjoy the company of the customers as it was my first day.  And when not serving, I’ll listen to my passions and career aspirations and continue to work toward them.

Keep “westering”.

Same Words, Different Mouth

We’ve heard this before: a political leader speaking about the wrongs committed against America citizens by an entity that is “selfish, self-interested, greedy…that cares more about putting money in their own pockets.”

Okay. Now if asked to describe the scenario surrounding these recently-made comments, many, myself included, would presume a democratic, or liberal, politician slamming the behaviors of big business.

Well, as interesting as it was for me to isolate these comments, perhaps it’s as surprising for you to find out that they came out of the mouth of a conservative. In fact, they were spoken by Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

And the “entity” he was speaking of? Not big business, but public education unions. The citizens wronged? School children.

It’s neat seeing the same rhetoric being used from either “side”, each bringing to light unique disservices being done to American citizens. It shows that the concerns are the same (standing up for what is right for the citizens), but also that either side is better at recognizing wrongs in specific sectors of society. On display is the differing perspectives, the differing world views featured in each party.

What we can take away from this is that perhaps neither side is “right” nor “wrong”, just better at recognizing different sets of wrongs. And like so many examples of diversity, this is a good thing. The more perspectives we have the more we can collectively see.

(Of course, at the same time, each perspective also has a unique propensities to commit certain wrongs.)

See Christie’s comments here

Why Halliburton Loves Rachel Maddow

Why do Rachel Maddow and other liberals get so riled up over Rand Paul? Before them sits a man, with a real shot at winning an influential senate seat, who wants to bring troops home and is a notable social liberal.

This sounds like a dream come true for liberal voters and a sworn enemy of conservatives. But more conservatives will get behind Paul this November as liberal voters support the democratic candidate who, if elected, will most likely support what liberal voters claim to detest: the war on drugs, patriot act, and other socially conservative measures.

More important, though, this democrat will undeniably support the military industrial, nation-building, third-world exploiting complex which is big business for American big business.

This hub to U.S. existence utilizes foreign nations, making them suitable complements to our economic system. This would all be “okay” except that the U.S. military is used for this and so untold foreign civilians are killed regularly for this purpose.

This process, which is at the heart of many of our international controversies, and which is a huge criticism voiced by many liberal voters, is what Rand Paul stands against. He, along with a couple others in Congress, is a man to help stop this trend but liberal voters will do what they can to strike him down.

Why? Because liberals are very sensitive to race issues and react strongly to anything that could be perceived as racist. It so happens that Rand Paul has a stance of granting business owners the freedom to refuse their service to who they wish. Liberals are afraid of this stance providing a loophole for racism, which indeed it may, and so equate Paul as a threat.

Even the liberals who are able to recognize Paul’s stance as one not of racism, but of humility respecting private enterprise, are blinded by this threat to their psyche.

That being the case, they are pre-determined to dislike Paul and will support the democrat who lauds laws that will intend to make sure racism cannot exist; this puts this voting bloc at ease.

Meantime, they’ll abhor the bombing of Afghan kids, but vote for the politicians who allow it to happen.

Home Land

I was on the bus and three Somali high schoolers, one young man and two young ladies got aboard. I thought about how different America, and particularly Minnesota, is from their homeland.

I recalled a poem I heard recited by a African American female who spoke her city neighborhood. Walking home in the late morning sunshine as a little girl with her mother returning from the market on a warm, July day. It’s aaaaall goooood is the vibe I got when hearing this poet groove about the days when she was a little girl with a Mommy so bright and cheery, seeing life for its joy, in each moment, every step she took. This described what “home” is to me.

And I looked at the Somalis on the bus—energetic and alert. But do they long for the days of Somalia or Kenya the way the poet recalled the days of sunshine with her mother?

If so, they can’t have those days back the way the poet can raise her future children in her known world. These young Somalis are here, in this totally different world. They lack that. It must be hard, I thought.

But then I had a nobler vision. One that projected time 50 years. Grey hairs grew from the young man’s head and creases appeared on the girls’ faces. Now they had descendants, they were grandparents and were telling stories of when they were young, energetic and perhaps a little scared about being here in a “white man’s world”, away from the home they once knew and remembered. I saw them recalling these unsettling years to their grandkids and their grandkids looking up to them with respect and imagination as what it was like to be thrown into a new world.

As I write this, I imagine Ellis Island and recall all the immigrants who have come to America. They, too, had the novelty, excitement, and anxiety of being the first of their families here. All broke ties with their home lands and exchanged the sun-shining-days back home for better dreams of sunny days in future lands.

I Didn’t Know

Okay. Urban dwellers will certainly sympathize with this account; perhaps all can appreciate my point here, as well.

I live in Loring Park. It is congested and parking can be a burden. Borrowing my friend’s car to run errands I returned to find a spot right across from my building! Eureka, I have four bags of groceries to unload. I park and go inside to enjoy some dinner. After an hour or two I step outside to take in a few cool breaths of fresh, Minneapolis air. And what do I see on the car, but the unmistakable red-striped envelop, under-the-wiper courtesy known as a ticket for breaking a law.

I approached the car confused as hell, but also not that surprised (after all, maybe the spot was too good to be true). But the spot wasn’t the problem; my parking was.

I’ve been parking in the cities for a while. When I initially parked there I walked away from the car without any concern about my legality.

my ticket-inducing parking job

But I was unaware of a law that states that a vehicle has to be five feet from a driveway. I hadn’t the foggiest notion that this law existed.

I know, I know, this isn’t an excuse. I broke the law—no question.

What I can’t believe is that I had no clue of it’s presence. (And where does a driveway begin anyway?)

On one end it’s disheartening. The ticket was $32. For me that’s about a third of a day’s wage. So one-third of tables I waited on today was devoted to the fine. Down the toilet, no progress being made—all for parking my car, going about my day, trying to get ahead, yada yada yada,

What’s more is that accompanying the ticket was a notice that my vehicle was slated to be towed immediately. (What the hell?) I was fortunate to save that awful fate. I would have been working three or four shifts for nothing then.

I’m at a point in my life where I’m scraping together every dollar I can to pay down credit cards, student loans, and save up airfare for a trip to teach abroad in the fall.

I couldn’t help but feel—just for a moment—like the city was working against my goals here. That they could legally undo three or four shifts of work.

But I digress and acknowledge that my finances don’t excuse me from breaking laws, so let’s look at the law and my ignorance of it.

How many of you knew of this law? How often have we seen cars parked right up to the point of a driveway?

I’m an active person and am current on many happenings in town. Why didn’t I know about this law? Come to think of it, how are we made aware of all the laws they have on the books nowadays?

Maybe I’m obviously ignorant—“oh, everybody knows that law, Brandon.” If that’s the case, then I’ll hush. My bad.

But if this law is as hidden to others as it was to me, why is it? (I told a friend what happened and she said, “yep, the same thing happened to my fiancé two weeks ago.”)

And what other laws don’t I know about?

Here’s an idea: to help help prevent citations, the city could have a little PR campaign to notify the citizens of the most common offenses seemingly perpetrated because of ignorance. I think the citizens would appreciate this.

With information dissemination so simple and cheap, getting the word out about these laws would be a helpful PR move. But while ability to get the word out exists, the city may prefer to keep giving out tickets. They rely on them for income.

Get to NoMi!

On my fancy shmancy cable-access program Connie Nompelis is featured, discussing the development of North Minneapolis.