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Helping Artists Online
Lost in the Napster and free music legal brawling is the original purpose of copyright. Congress originally enacted copyright protection not so that ideas and intellectual property could be owned forever and licensed by big companies. These laws were enacted so that authors and artists would have an incentive to produce new works and to encourage the free and rapid circulation of ideas and opinions.
Congress reasoned that if anybody could steal anybody's work at any time, authors would have no motive to keep writing books and other works. And since books and documents were cumbersome and expensive to produce, copyright laws were easy to police. They aren't easy to police anymore. The Net produces high qualities copies of almost any text, audio and video you'd like -- quickly and usually for free.
Today, the purpose of copyright laws seems to be earning even bigger profits for media conglomerates hiding behind the mantra of protecting artists. But 18th-century notions of copyright doesn't make sense in the year 2000. Nobody can argue that the sharing of music online necessarily deprives the music industry (or artists) of any incentive to create music. And the Net is the greatest medium yet for ensuring the rapid dissemination of ideas and opinions, a boon that should be protected, not shut down.
There is more music making more money in more forms -- generating $15 billion in profit in l999 -- than at any time in world history. In fact, culture in many forms, from music to movies to several varieties of publishing, is flourishing. It would be tragic to create a more restrictive environment around the Net before we even try and figure out how artists can get the protection and compensation they deserve. A study released last week by Jupiter, a Net commerce research firm, says that online music users are 45 per cent more likely than nonusers (http:www.nytimes.com, Thursday July 27, 2000) to have increased their total music purchases over the last six months. How, exactly, do artists benefit from reversing that trend?
The new purpose of copyright may be the reasonable protection of the rights of artists and other creative entities; namely to ensure that they be paid fairly for their work, although perhaps in new and different ways. (An equally important copyright trial concluded this week in Manhattan, where movie industry lawyers have filed suit challenging the online publication of DVD source code). Copyright laws also need to recognize that access to culture and music has become a tradition and right for tens of millions of people, mostly younger Americans who grew up using the Net, and who are now routinely branded "thieves" and "pirates" by corporate publicists and their close friends (corporations are the biggest contributors to political campaigns), congressional lawmakers. Music lovers also need some sort of fair-use protection, granted Americans offline but stripped by the DMCA (see below).
It's absurd to give giant conglomerates the right to speak for artists. Music companies are to artists what wolves are to sheep. If they could hire lobbyists, wolves would no doubt enact stringent legislation to to protect the rights of sheep to be controlled and devoured by them. That's more or less what the recording industry has sold to Congress.
In the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Congress made it a felony to write and sell software that circumvents copyright management schemes. In the judgment of Congress, regulating users would be nearly impossible, but regulating the code that users use would be a lot easier and more technically feasible. It simply isn't clear yet if they were right or not (if you're a college student losing or about to lose Napster, it might seem that they were.) The DMCA eliminates "fair use" provisions of law that would permit at least some sharing of music. Tracking software like that deployed by the recording industry against music fans in recent months makes no distinction between "fair" and reasonable use of content and theft.
The issue has been thrown out of whack, the law tilting sharply towards media conglomerates, in part because individual citizens and music fans have no lobbyists.
The question of artist's rights is complex and urgent. Many artists not under contract to large corporations can't get their work seen or published at all. Many artists who are under contract feel exploited by recording companies, who take a disproportionate share of profits, and who make enormous margins on conventional music sales. Millions of music lovers feel that they are overcharged and offered too few choices and controls about the music they want to hear.
The Net provides a marketplace of cultural exchange, benefiting new artists and to music lovers. It's not simply a matter of theft, but of creating an environment in which culture thrives. That needs to be legally and politically acknowledged. And many people in the music industry, though still a distinct minority, believe that the sharing of music online can generate enormous interest and revenue for artists, musicians -- and for record companies.
How can artists rights be protected on the Net? Maybe music-lovers could pay a flat fee to access music sites which share revenue with entertainment companies and artists. Perhaps artists can use the Net to begin selling their work directly to fans and the public. Maybe debit and other forms of transactional software can be used to charge small amounts of money for downloaded music, using some system that measures time or data. Maybe college students could pay a fraction of a cent for each song they downloaded on college sites, the overall volume generating a fair amount of revenue for artists and corporations.
How can artists be fairly compensated for the transmission of their work online? Until they can be, it's going to be difficult to get the free culture issue beyond the "you're-a-thief, no-I'm not" stage.
http://www.smh.com.au/breaking/0007/31/A40420-2000 Jul31.shtml http://www.smh.com.au/breaking/0007/31/A40420-2000 Jul31.shtml
reject
can you say RIAA challenges federal disabilities act??????
You have to keep this straight, however - just because a photo has been published doesn't mean it's fair game. If you want to use a picture from Time Magazine, you still have to go get your own pub rights for it. Oh, and p0rn is copyrighted too, and operates under the same rules.
So, when you say
you are actually incorrect. That was a payment to the MODEL, not to the copyright holder of the picture. The model could have gotten a per-publication royalty, but generally they don't. In that sense, they would be the same as a studio musician, in that the musician gets paid a fixed amount to show up and play for a day on the recording, and that's it as far as the musician goes. A studio musician is not considered an "artist" so much as a worker....phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Most artists need more protection from media companies than from college kids downloading music online. How can the rights of artists be protected on the Net?
Artists need saving from the representatives that they have contractually agreed to work with? No one held a gun to any musicians head, and forced them to sign with a particular label. Money was given to the artist, and if they felt so strongly that they wanted to retain complete control they should have never given that control away.
And since books and documents were cumbersome and expensive to produce, copyright laws were easy to police. They aren't easy to police anymore.
Apparently, since it's not easy to police anymore, then all enforcement should be totally discarded? Just because something isn't easy, doesn't mean that it's inherently wrong.
The question of artist's rights is complex and urgent. Many artists not under contract to large corporations can't get their work seen or published at all.
Which is exactly why many artists chose to work with labels. Only a large corporation can devote the marketing dollars necessary to make a musician as successful as many manage to get.
Many artists who are under contract feel exploited by recording companies, who take a disproportionate share of profits, and who make enormous margins on conventional music sales.
And those artists are more than welcome to not work with a recording company. The net allows them to spread their music far and wide, under whatever terms they desire.
Millions of music lovers feel that they are overcharged...
If you feel overcharged, vote with your feet, and don't buy music from the companies that are overcharging you. Music is not necessary for life, and if you don't buy popular culture, you'll still survive quite nicely.
and offered too few choices and controls about the music they want to hear.
The record companies aren't preventing artists from creating music. They are merely distributing those artists that they feel have the most potential. The other artists are still out there, and can be found. Getting rid of labels won't make the marginal artists more successful, since they aren't being handled by the majors anyhow.
The Net provides a marketplace of cultural exchange, benefiting new artists and to music lovers. It's not simply a matter of theft, but of creating an environment in which culture thrives. That needs to be legally and politically acknowledged.
This is more of Jon's normal rhetoric about how the rights of the consumer are absolute. And the rights of the artsits/owners should be trampled as necessary for the consumers sake.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
An unfortunate bit of shortsightedness on the part of the Recording Industry.
However, they have quietly collected royalties for 8 years on all blank digital audio media, so you can't say that they haven't been paid. If anything, they have been overpaid.
When the law was passed, most DAT tapes (Digital Audio Tape was the issue in 1992; There were no recordable CDRs) were not being used to make copies of Garth Brooks and Bruce Springsteen albums -- they were being used by Grateful Dead tapers and garage bands and the like. Many of us bitterly resented that henceforth, up and coming bands would be forced to pay a "RIAA Tax" for the privilege of recording their own music, themselves, on digital media. This unfairness didn't stop the RIAA from collecting the royalties though, so the argument, that now that people finally have the technology to use digital audio recorders, media, and computers in the way that the law intended them to somehow makes music sharing immoral, doesn't really elicit a lot of sympathy.
None of this changes the fact that Congress changed copyright law in 1992 to permit ALL non-commercial audio taping. It simply isn't
illegal, and it isn't immoral either.
What Congress needs to do is sit down and pass a law that says that:
1) The record companies receive a royalty for each piece of blank digital audio media sold, to compensate for the effect home copying has on their sales.
2) All non-commercial copying is allowed and defined as non-infringing, so that things like making mix tapes, and facilities like Napster are legal.
Oh, wait a minute, Congress did EXACTLY that in 1992, when they passed the Audio Home Recording Act.
Don't believe me? Check out USC Title 17, Chapter 10. Paragraph 1008 is particularly interesting!
What 18th-century copyright law seems to have disregarded - and I can't know how intrusive of an influence this was back then - was that art and science is not only about commerce and making big bucks -- it's also about fame.
Now sure, n'Synch n' Spears n' Hansen are bloody rich, but they're also famous -- and let's not forget, one reason why they ARE so rich is because they have been formulated to LOOK FAMOUS wherever they go (i.e., it all started when the record companies "planted" groupies to yell and scream and cry when the stars get off their lear jet ... but I digress); and whether they deny it or not, the aspect of FAME is one of the rewards these "artists" were seeking.
You've heard the old saying, "there's no such thing as bad publicity," right? Metalica's big problem is their image -- if all they were inteserested in was their purses (which seems to have been the case), they should've just said so. But now, they're still fanous, alright -- famous for being out-of-synch with the technology, and therefore, looking like idiots.
It's interesting to me that the above-mentioned artists aren't complaining very loudly about Napster, et. al. ... it's MY guess that they aren't because their fame is not being being jeopardized. Sure, maybe their album sales have been dented (and even this I doubt, since most young fans NEED as many photos of their artists as possible, and there are photos included with the CD's)... and of course, they're getting more exposure than ever, thanks to Napster. And it would seem that since they're getting SO MUCH MORE exposure, they have MORE pressure than ever to produce more work (notice, I didn't call it "music" or "art" -- but "work") ... isn't THAT the intention of Copyright Law?
Those who don't study history are destined to re-implement it.
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)
Almost all of the new recording media introduced in the last 20 years or so has been used by both data & non-data uses, as both markets have shared their R&D & production costs.
Our gov't. tends to believe that without money, there's no reason to do anything. But as a musician it's obvious that having an audience is just as big a draw. Music isn't about money, unless you're the recording industry. Musicians obviously don't care about money as much as they do music: they've been making music for very little money(with the help of the industry)for a while now.
I don't know...it's a decent piece, but JonKatz's rants only get you so far. Let's keep music free; let's make more good, free music. Ultimately, the industry and its lawsuits are secondary to just making music and art...so screw it. Let's just rock out.
Hey, that's a pretty coll way to make a bootleg.
I'd really love to see the RIAA get a PR smack down for attacking the federal disabilities act, but I think they oftin tollerate bootlegs with small distribution, so I would not expect to see them try to stop this bootleging.
Also, I would not expect Slashdot to post this story unless the RIAA did something. It's not really Slashdt's job to keep up with the latest ways of making concert bootlegs.
The thing I don't understand is why Slashdot ran that story about Mojo, but did not run a story about Fairtunes. Fairtunes and it's cousins have much more potential for really creating the tipping based system of music distribution we all want, but Slashdot posts a story about a system which probable pays off the RIAA.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Still, it is a very scratchy existence trying to survive as a musician.
It's funny, most religions don't even require a vow of celibacy for their ministers anymore, but everyone still expects musicians to take a vow of poverty.
**Depriving someone of the use of something they own. Copying an mp3 doesn't deprive anyone of the use of it, therefore it isn't theft**
Thou art mistaken, M'lord.. if you go to a consignment store, and take something out of the store that they dont own, but are merely holding, you are stealing from that store. You are depriving someone of royalties when you download their music without paying the appropriate fees.. whether or not you choose to admit it. Music costs money.. everywhere you hear it. One of Katz' first pieces was about "free music" that you hear.. he wasnt totally right.. if you hear music in an elevator, a hotel lobby, a grocery store, etc, more than likely that place has *PAID* for the right to use/broadcast this music over their loudspeakers. (legally, they are supposed to). So music isnt free.. someone is *giving* that music to you in that case. But if you just rip it off the net, it is theft, plain and simple. If you dont like it, get the laws changed.. but as of now, its theft.
Maeryk,
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
You expect others to figure out how to make money off of their art online, but you can't figure out how to make money off of your writing, except by selling dead trees, even though your book would be completely amenable to distribution online.
Instead of sitting in your pearly white ivory tower on slashdot, and instead of preaching to the world about how things should be, why don't you actually act on it and show the world it can be done?
It's awfully easy to sit up in your little nest, and tell other people what they should and should not be doing, but it's a lot harder to actually take action on your words, and change the world. If you expect anybody who has graduated junior high to even consider what you write about the "new media", "free culture", "corporatism", blah, blah, blah, then you need to get off your high horse and actually demonstrate that it can be done.
You are in a perfect position to do this. I dare you to. Of course, it's a moot point now, because you have already garned several million dollars at obscenely high margins, so it wouldn't hurt too much to stop that income. The only solution is to write a new book, and publish it online. You believe it would work. Why don't you do it?
You raise some key points about the requirements for backing. However, there is no nead for the backing to be from a record company as such. The old act of patronage is not illegal, and I would suspect that we shall see many such arrangements arriving over the next few years.
Take the large mega-star as an example, there are a number of musical superstars who have more money than they can ever need, who could easily afford the "risk" of not resigning with a record company and buying a server-farm. Then they can build a studio and tender for merchandisers (what lengerie manufacturer would not want to sell Madonna basques from her site). When they release their music (and especially videos) they "could" slow down the net enough to be noticed and get some free publicity there. The net will spread the word if the artist is sufficient. On the back of their resources they can help out other acts. Some would be gready, some would look for musical integretty and some would be straight rebelious about it, but they would use their wealth and resources to carry the little guys to their markets.
Add in the potential for radio stations (WKRN the people who bring you RadioHead), computer companies, famous business men and sportsmen to help and the potential for no record companies is easy to see. All it takes is some communal effort from the people who can make it happen. Once any weight develops on the pile, the era of musical depravity (the 90s was the decade of the remix for fscks sake) will end as we all start to listen to the music we want to, and we will all help pay for the music we all listen to.
I say buy-cot, the less use the label is to an artist the sooner they will bolt to the brave new world.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
I've already mentioned this a couple of times in previous discussions, but it seems it hasn't been seen by many people so at the risk of repeating myself too often I'm going to post it again.
Try emusic.com they have flat rate plans ranging from $9.99/month to $19.99/month (depending on length of contract) for unlimited legal mp3 downloads. They don't have much in the way of top 40 stuff but that's fine for me.
This is a nice system because I get my music cheaply and the artists/labels get some money for their work. If this could continue on a larger scale with emusic continuing to sign new labels/artists this could be an important piece of the future of internet distribution of music.
No I don't work for them, I'm just a happy customer who downloaded about 10 gigs of legal mp3's over the weekend and only paid $9.99.
Does anybody here see the similarity between Linux distributors and recording companies?
The recording companies at least pretend to be interested in paying the artists, even though many of them manipulate contracts so that it doesn't happen, and many artists don't see a dime. Linux Distributors may talk about "giving back to the community" but few programmers see much of anything.
Yet the recording labels are monsters while the Linux distros are perceived as "getting it" and being "cool", "hip" or whatever teenagers say these days.
This is not a troll. Can anybody explain the difference? In some alternative universe, is there a website where musicians extoll the virtues of General Public Music while blasting software distributors for not paying programmers or allowing them to copy software?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'd estimate now that what the artists make from CD sales is starting to pale in comparison to other licensing arrangements.
:) he was the only band i saw.
Certainly in the case of Moby he's made far more money licensing his latest album for films & tv commercials than from album sales. I believe he's licensed every track on the album and many times over.
Added to this he must make money from touring - I paid 80 ukpounds for a music festival and on account of the rain (and my wastedness
Certainly artists could do without the RIAA - sure they would need a means for promoting themselves but I see no reason why it should be as costly to them as signing with a record label.
Consider the software world. Some of the worlds most used software is given away free: Internet Explorer, Napster & Linux to cite just a few. The companies behind those products do seem to make money.
Creators of music however should be given some choice as to what distribution model they want to choose - perhaps they'll follow the now common model of giving some stuff free and others not.
I dont see why artists should have to tolerate their stuff being distributed for free but i'm sure we could do without the RIAA and them imposing american laws on the rest of the world.
Do music artists have some sort of orginization that allows them (the artists *NOT* the music barons) to lobby, work, etc. in their benefit? Maybe musicians should team up to begin a digital distribution method like Napster, make sure *THEY* get paid, not the corporations.
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
Desire is not an occupation.
- Present copyright term is not a "limited" term -- at least not in terms meaningful to a human being.
- Present copyright benefit does not go to "authors and inventors" as the founders would have understood those terms, but to some rather-removed third party.
The present situation is one where the publishing industry is engaged in wholesale theft--first, theft of the works from their true authors; then theft of what should be in the public domain (and thus the property of all of us) from us as a society. It is a vast leap from the originally-passed copyright term of 14 years to today's life plus 70 years!There is in fact a currently-active suit denouncing the latest copyright act as unconstitutional -- see URL http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/complain t.html
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
It would be tragic to create a more restrictive environment around the Net before we even try and figure out how artists can get the protection and compensation they deserve.
Unfortunately, all we get from Katz is a list of "maybes" with little analysis. It's always easier to say "X is bad" but it's considerably harder to offer legitimate realisic viable solutions.
Instead of constantly slamming the music industry, can we get a full analysis of how things should work taking in to consideration all parties involved?
Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another
When Phish was playing their NYE show in Big Cypress, they were relasing a couple of tracks from the show every couple of hours as mp3s.
They used eLicense. Yes, it can be gotten around, but not by everyone.
Essentially, you downloaded an mp3 and could listen to it 3 times before purchasing. After the third listen it was $1 to purchase it.
A buck a song seems fair to me. Get some decent traffic through your websites posting mp3s and it could be a decent revenue stream.
13 Aug. 1813Writings 13:333--34
<rant> Think about that, and ask yourself if the public is being served when drug companies 1) pay off smaller companies so they won't produce that drug which will do the exact same thing as the major company's drug, but is much cheaper, and 2) whenever a patent is about to expire, they subtley and trivially change the chemical so that it is technically a different drug, but still has no benefit over the original, so that they can extend their patent-granted control. Should indigenous people's genes, or purely the concept of "one-click shopping" be able to be patented? </rant>
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
But 18th-century notions of copyright doesn't make sense in the year 2000...
I would argue the opposite. The 18th-century notion of copyright DOES make sense today: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
Get it? In my opinion, the 18th-century notion has two key words here: "promote" and "limited". Copyrights used to be 14 years, renewable for another 14 years.
It's the corrupted 20th-century notion that is fscked. The Sonny Bono "Screw The Public" Act had two clauses: (1) The Mickey Mouse clause, preventing anything Disney has even done from entering the public domain (95 years for works-for-hire), and (2) The Gershwin Heirs clause, keeping the Gershwins rich (life+70 years for works of individuals).
How does this promote useful arts? It doesn't. It promotes individual gains. Disney has borrowed greatly from the Public Domain and returned nothing. Bach's heirs didn't expect to be rich from their father's work; they wrote their own. The Congress has been bought and paid for. Art and science used to belong to the people (after 28 years). Now it belongs only to the richest campaign donor.
We have a moral obligation to fight the current copyright system. We must take back the public domain. A society with no public domain art is bankrupt.
--
My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
No one has a "right" to profit. Nowhere in the constitution is such a right given to anyone. You do have a right to try and make a profit by engaging in business, but succeeding and making money is not gauranteed. In a changing economy, the recording industry should have no expectation to continue making as much money as they currently do, nor should they have any expectation to be around five years from now. All they can hope to do is change the way they do business in order to adapt to the situation. If they fail at this, they should fall by the wayside to make room for others who do understand the new economy. This is the way the free market has always worked. Adapt or die.
-Vercingetorix
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
"The Net provides a marketplace of cultural exchange, benefiting new artists and to music lovers. It's not simply a matter of theft, but of creating an environment in which culture thrives."
Jon, here's something for you to chew on, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
That aside, this is a matter of theft Jon. Yes, Napster is a great promotional tool. Yes, Napster has helped a lot of artists get recognized. And that's all fine and dandy. But your candy-coating everything with "It's net culture!" doesn't work. The musicians need to get paid like the rest of us, and while some people buy the music they get off Napster, others don't. But let me guess, they're only participating in this "culture" thing you rant on, right?
"Maybe music-lovers could pay a flat fee to access music sites which share revenue with entertainment companies and artists. Perhaps artists can use the Net to begin selling their work directly to fans and the public. Maybe debit and other forms of transactional software can be used to charge small amounts of money for downloaded music, using some system that measures time or data. Maybe college students could pay a fraction of a cent for each song they downloaded on college sites, the overall volume generating a fair amount of revenue for artists and corporations."
And maybe I could stand on my roof and shout nonsense. You know, with the methods you advocate above (excluding one), it's still in a zero-sum situation. Sure, we're selling CDs in MP3 format online, and that's fine and dandy. It's just too bad that the same amount of money will still be going to the record companies. And that's a Bad Thing(tm), correct Jon?
We all know that record companies are getting a really big piece of the pie, but there's nothing that we, the music fans, can do about it. Sure, we can all take up the Jon Katz rallying cry of "Culture! Free music! Culture!" But that's just plain bullshit. What good is downloading music off Napster going to do? It's not going to make the industry think "Hey, we're screwing these musicians in the ass," it's going to make them say, "See, nothing but pirates out there!" If anything is going to happen, it's going to happen due to action from the musicians themselves. They're the ones who are directly affected by the industry's ways. They're the ones getting pennies on the dollar. If more artists could speak out and say "Look what they're doing to us," I think it would work better than just having a bunch of Katz groupies downloading music off Napster, because at least it's genuine first-hand experience. Just downloading music under the shield of "Culture!" is going to do more harm than good IMHO.
--
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Hey! How can artists protect themselves? By reading the bloody contracts presented to them by the recording industry.
Real simple. You sign, they own you. You want to be on MTV, hang out with Britainy Spears, open up for the Who, and snort cocaine in the back of a limo with a leggy supermodel? Sign the contract.
You want to maintain your independence and creative control and not have to sing songs penned for you by some numbnuts you never met? Don't sign. It is that simple.
Who protects the artists' rights, Jon? They do. They are grownups who should know better. They protect themselves the same way every successful entertainer, actor and athelete does: With a good lawyer, agent and accountant.
Don't like and want to change the system? Try this.
Don't buy new CD's or tapes.
Don't listen to commercial radio stations or support advertisers (if at all possible) who advertise on commercial radio stations.
Don't buy concert tickets.
Convince future artists not to sing contracts and contribute to the ongoing fodder.
(Don't be surprised when you find out this takes time and committment).
You can dream all you want about some imaginary utopia, you can imagine some warm, squishy world where artists and listeners/viewers/appreciators live together in peaceful, non-economic controlled state, but here is reality: the recording industry is a business which does this for the money. Deny the money enough and things change.
The fact that I have to remind you of this (yep you! The guy who gets a paycheck from a publicly traded, capitalistic, corporation) befuddles me to no end.
(Talking)
/.'ers love jonnykatz /. and just let loose
/. see
.................
May I have your attention please, may I have your attention please, will the real jonkatz please stand up,
I repeat will the real jonkatz please stand up.....we're gonna have a problem here.........
(Verse 1)
Ya'll act like you never seen a editor troll before
jaws all on the floor
like sengan just burst in the door
and started whoopin your ass worse than before
they first were divorced
locking out all posters (aaaaaah)
It's the return of the...
"awww..wait, no wait, you're kidding,
he didn't just say what I think he did,
did he?"
and CmdrTaco said...
nothing you idiots, Cmdr Taco's dead
he's locked in the Geek House
long time
chicka chicka chicka jonkatz,
"I'm sick of him, lookit him
walkin around, trollin for who knows what
talking about not really much"
"yeah, but he's such a good writer though"
yeah, I probably got a more than a few screws up in my head loose
but no worse than what's goin on in your parents bedroom (eheheheh)
sometimes, I wanna get on
and can, but it's not cool for people to talk shit about my posts
My bum is on your lips, My bum is on your lips
and if I'm lucky, you might just give it a little kiss
and that's the message that I deliver to little trolls
and expect them not to know what a dictionary is
of course they're gonna know what thesaurus is
by the time they hit 9th grade
they got the "Hellmouth", dont they?
we ain't nothing but morons
well, some of us panderes
have troll-armies who cut posts open like cantelopes
but if we can rework dead points and hype a lot
then there's no reason that I can't keep spewing the same rot
but if you feel like I feel, I got the antedote
geeks wave your cash around, sing the chorus and it goes..............
(Chorus)
I'm jonkatz, yes, I'm the real katzy
all you other jonkatzs are just imitating
so wont the real jonkatz please stand up, please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm jonkatz, yes, I'm the real katzy
all you other jonkatzs are just imitating
so wont the real jonkatz please stand up, please stand up, please stand up
(Verse 2)
Real writers are generally lucid and understand english
well I'm not, so fuck Webster and fuck you too
you think I give a damn about a webby
half of you critics can't even stomach me, let alone stand me
"but jon, what if you win, wouldn't it be weird"
why? so you guys can just lie to get me here
so you can sit me here next to timothy
shit, michaeal better switch me chairs
so I can sit next to CmdrTaco and Hemos
and hear em argue over who he gave head to first
little bitch, put me on blast on
"yeah, he's cute, but I think he violated my rights, whee hee"
I should download the audio on MP3
and show the world how you invaded MY privacy (aaaaaah)
I'm sick of you little girl and boy posts
all you do is annoy me
so I have been sent here to destroy you
and there's a million of us just like me
who post like me, who just don't make much sense like me
who troll like me, walk, talk and blather like me
and just might be the next best thing, but not quite me.................
(Chorus)
I'm jonkatz, yes, I'm the real katzy
all you other jonkatzs are just imitating
so wont the real jonkatz please stand up, please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm jonkatz, yes, I'm the real katzy
all you other jonkatzs are just imitating
so wont the real jonkatz please stand up, please stand up, please stand up
(Verse 3)
I'm like a head trip to try to understand
cause my rants attract nerd-boy wannabe fans
you preach about to your friends inside you AD&D club
the only difference is I got the balls to bullshit it
in front of ya'll and I aint gotta be correct or accurateat all
I just get on the board and spit it
and whether you like to admit it (riiip)
I just bullshit it better than 90% you wannabes out can
then you wonder how can
trolls eat up these albums like valiums
it's funny,cause at the rate I'm going when I'm ninety
I'll be the only person left at slashdot flirting
pinchin Signal 11's ass when I'm jackin off with jergen's
and I'm jerkin' but this whole bag of viagra isn't working
in every single person there's a jonkatz lurkin
I am workin at burger king, drooling on your onion rings
or wandering around senseless in the parking lot, screamin I dont give a fuck
with his windows up and his system down
so will the real katzy please stand up
and put 1 of those fingers on each hand up
and be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
and 1 more time, loud as you can, how does it go?
(Chorus)
I'm jonkatz, yes, I'm the real katzy
all you other jonkatzs are just imitating
so wont the real jonkatz please stand up, please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm jonkatz, yes, I'm the real katzy
all you other jonkatzs are just imitating
so wont the real jonkatz please stand up, please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm jonkatz, yes, I'm the real katzy
all you other jonkatzs are just imitating
so wont the real jonkatz please stand up, please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm jonkatz, yes, I'm the real katzy
all you other jonkatzs are just imitating
so wont the real jonkatz please stand up, please stand up, please stand up
(Talking)
haha guess it's a jonkatz in all of us........ fuck it let's all stand up
---- Some people do Haiku. I do pop.
Well, unfortunately the current model on which the music industry is run means that an artist requires the backing of a major label to reach an audience of more than a couple of thousand. Thanks to the way in which they've sown up the market from recording to distribution, an artist who is outside of their hegemony is going to find it extremely hard to gain popularity or even just exposure.
Whilst the net is changing this, allowing artists to reach a potentially far larger audience without the "backing" of a major label, at the moment the key word is potential. Nobody denies that the net has potential, especially not the RIAA/MPAA, but people are still trying to work out workable models that benefit both artists and consumers. A lot of people are happy with MP3.com's business model, but I'm sure there will be a lot more progress in the next few years.
Unfortunately for us, the RIAA/MPAA have realised this huge potential at a time when it is still vulnerable to pre-emptive legislation. They want to chain and guide this potential whilst they still can and their resources are up to the challenge.
What does this mean? Basically, if the uptake of the net as a tool for artists takes off over the next couple of years, it will become next to impossible for the conglomerates to stop. We just need to get through these challenges.