Selfish? Me?
Maybe. It’s all a matter of perspective. I firmly believe in the right of musicians to work for a living, and earn a decent (read 10% above or below the national average) salary. IF they are absolutely phenomenal at what they do, I see no reason they shouldn’t be allowed to become millionaires, and bask in the fruits of their talents. I would die to defend their right to do so.
What I don’t believe in, and you will never convince me of, is their right to dine on their past “works” for eternity. More specifically, I don’t believe in the right of the music content industry to dine on those works for life + 70. The rest of us are only as good as our last day at work…this principal needs to apply across the board.
This isn’t, (in my mind) a matter of being selfish. It’s a matter of being pragmatic. In case you have been living under a rock these past few decades, there’s a war on the middle class occurring. It started out relatively benign, but in the past 15 years or so it has really been heating up. As a member of the middle class, I say to you and to everyone: you are either friend or foe. I can accept no in between.
The wealth gap gets bigger every year. More and more money is simply removed from the economy by the wealthy and never re-invested. The middle class is evaporating as we all become “proles.” Against this background, rather than try to work out a social compromise that everyone can live with...content owners turn on the middle class to attack it. There’s a bigger battle to fight here. I honestly believe a class war is looming, and as in any war, if you aren’t with us, you’re against us.
I pay for every scrap of media I consume, but I refuse to pay for it over and over and over. I am simply unable to feel sorry for people who call me “pirate,” and “thief” and try with all their might to take my rights away. They can, each and every one of them, work for a damned living just like the rest of us. Produce new content worth buying, and play live gigs. If they can’t make a living off that, then their war isn’t with us “filthy, selfish middle classers.” Their war is with Ticketmaster and the various tentacles of Big Content.
If my artist brothers want to stand side by side with me in the fight to reclaim our rights, to end this class war before it really gets started, then I will support them whole heartedly. Instead it looks to me like they have opened another front, and I’ll treat them like the enemies they have chosen to become.
So no...no selfishness, but no sympathy either. Niether has a place in war.