The Automatik

I’ve been railing against the RIAA for a long time now, and I’m tired of it. Something has got to give. The latest article I have read is perhaps the worst offender of all.

Truly, this woman is deluded if she thinks she can sell us this Floridian swampland. First off, does she honestly believe that kids today who have never even heard of Paul Newman will give a flying fuck about the Coal Miner’s Daughter? (No disrespect to Loretta Lynn intended.)

Secondly, I can state with absolute certainty that the record companies have made an amount of money off of Loretta Lynn that is grotesquely out of proportion to the money Ms. Lynn herself has made.

I want to send Ms. Hamilton a copy of Peter Guralnick’s Lost Highway. From my reading of the copious quotes in Lester Bangs’ review of this book, it seems that the music industry has been chewing up and spitting out artists since the 1940s.

It sickens me that this woman tries to muddy the waters with her attempts at homespun American pride and references to (in truth, woefully antiquated) copyright laws, which most people don’t know or understand. It’s by keeping the masses in ignorance and throwing out this jingoistic montage of “morals” that the masses are kept shackled. She should read Steve Albini’s insider view of the real deal with the record industry or Courtney Love’s discussion of musicians’ rights (or lack thereof) to own their own songs.

From what I have seen of copyright laws, they do not protect the artist, but the record industry, which owns the rights to most musicians’ entire catalogue ad infinitum. Unless you happen to be a billionaire and can buy the rights to your own songs. Just go talk to Brian Wilson about how he lost the ownership to his entire catalogue of music. Or perhaps give Aimee Mann a jingle. Sloan used their songs in beer commercials to be able to afford the PRIVILEGE of owning their OWN music.

Ms. Hamilton shudders at the idea of a society where “the class of creators [is] winnowed down to the rich and the government sponsored” yet that is nearly identical to the current situation. The record companies, in cahoots with the DJs, radio, and MTV, shove sub par dog shit down our throats. Those shitting it reap in the rewards; those providing access to the shit also rake in a tidy sum. These fat cats have now replaced the true creators, made even more apparent when the RIAA starts bellyaching about their “product.” Furthermore, when the RIAA overtaxes the judicial system by demanding preposterous amounts of subpoenas, and the government caves in, I would say that the RIAA appears damn close to being “government sponsored.”

Let’s get one thing clear right now: this is not about the utopian ideals of an advanced civilization providing art to the people because of a duty to philanthropy. This is not about artistic liberty. This is about a group of rich, white men (and some women) getting richer and richer at the expense of those people they control and manipulate because those people naively believed that they could make a profit through their own talent and ingenuity. This is about shrewd businessmen twisting an outdated law to their own ends, and destroying creative freedom in favor of extending the shelf life of “their product.” These people are killing music by chaining it to politics, big business, and self-preservation.

Do you think any of the money from these court cases is going to the musicians? I won’t even insult your intelligence with an answer. I have no objection to paying monthly or per song fees for downloads. However, I want my money to go to the people who have created the music that brings me joy, not the RIAA. Until the music industry stops this preposterous campaign of indentured servitude, Ms. Hamilton and the RIAA’s bullshit rhetoric will remain just that.

It’s time for a mass exodus from Plato’s cave. It is time for us to stop excusing all of this as the nature of capitalism. The knee jerk liberalism of a boycott is not going to be enough. Public perception needs to change, laws need to be rewritten, blind acceptance of the embarrassment that is popular music needs to end, and we, the music fans and the musicians, need to take control.