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Alternatives to the Entertainment Industry?
Lendrick writes "With all the discussion lately about the increasing proliferation of Digital Rights Denial and the erosion of fair use rights, it occurs to me that if the entertainment manufactured by the big entertainment companies gets to a point where it's no longer worth the trouble, then maybe we should get our entertainment elsewhere. My question is this: Does anyone know of any places (apart from the obvious mp3.com) where music and especially movies by independent artists can be legitimately downloaded?"
There are lots of indie film sites on the web these days... form hypnotic.com to ifilm and such.
Support them.
In addition, maybe sending an email to your favorite bands to put some mp3s up on their site could generate some interest. If a band sees that their stuff is eagerly downloaded form their site, maybe they'll start thinking about alternative means of producing and publishing their work.
Andy Oram at O'Reilly has some interesting thoughts along these lines: Stop the Copying, Start a Media Revolution.
If you occasionally need a bit of industry-sanctioned entertainment but don't want to fund their legal teams, get it at your local library.
Buy a Macintosh with a superdrive and get a camcorder. Make your own movies.
Learn an instrument and make your own music. You'll be happier and smarter.
Take up gardening, pottery, painting, sculpture etc. Have something you can give away or sell.
Getting out of the house has the added benefit of introducing you to new people. You may even meet the cute guy or girl you've always hoped to meet. Better than a chatroom cause you can see what they look like.
Or stay at home and look at pr0n and watch whatever dribble they package to replace Friends.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
The entertainment industry was built around the fact that it cost money to distribute the entertainment. As distribution channels changed (and became cheaper) the industry adapted in more and more profitable ways. The internet gives us an opportunity to shortcut that (again), and cut out the middleman. The industry, obviously, is searching for ways to adapt and become even more profitable - now they can get the customer to pay for the content, and distribution. Their charges are now all profit.
The problem is that the creaters of content are so intertwined with the distributers that it'll be a long time before we see creators uncoupled from the providers. In the meantime you find that providers will only support creators that do it their way, ie, exclusively through proper channels. They also act as the middlemen between the advertisers and the creators in the case of 'free' content such as TV.
We won't see independant creaters even near the quality of current movies/music/shows/series until we show creaters that it is worth their time. The model that premium cable channels have (no ads, full unlimited access) needs to be adopted. But - guess what - no one will pay for that model. Not yet, anyway...
-Adam
Support Righteous Babe Records, Ani Difranco's indie label. They have a lot of high quality, frequently politically charged, and non-mainstream music. On top of that, the music doesn't suck.
None of that money goes to a big corporation; most of it goes back into making music and fighting the good fight, so to speak. If you want to put your money where your mouth is, go support Ani and the artists she publishes.
If you just want free music, you should get involved with etree.org, which is a community that distributes "bootlegs" of live concerts...the bootlegs are legal, recorded from performances of taper-friendly bands, such as Phish, older Grateful Dead shows, Bela Fleck...stuff like that. The bands that allow this tend to fit a certain profile (lots of improvising, etc), so if you don't like songs that can be fed to you in 3.5 minutes between commercials, you aren't going to like this avenue, however, there is a genuine community being fostered here that tends to be more artistic and intellectual, and frequently, very tight-knit for a bunch of virtual strangers. It's kind of cool, actually, and unlike the P2P mentality of leeching everything you can, there's a sense of the value of contributing back.
etree.org also happens to be Linux-friendly; there are links for XMMS plugins on the frontpage, etc.
The ultimate problem of these massive media corporations is they _do_ have a product that you want. I mean, if you want N'Sync (or that Episode 2 DVD, or some new Disney-owned Anime, etc...), then you can only get it in one place. I can also respect that not everyone is going to be falling over themselves for the latest release from indie band Bitch and Animal, but you _can_ consider this a chance to broaden your horizons; entertainment doesn't have to be mindless, and can in fact be a bettering activity.
Get out there and try something new.
--ryan.
Don't say, "don't quote me," because if no one quotes you, you probably haven't said a thing worth saying.
http://mp3.washingtonpost.com/
Local to washington area bands. More newspapers need this feature.