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Kanye West Is Reportedly Considering Legal Action Against the Pirate Bay
An anonymous reader writes: Kanye West apparently has a new mission: to sue The Pirate Bay. Last weekend, West announced that his new album, The Life of Pablo, would be sold exclusively as a download from his website and the artist-driven streaming music service Tidal. The news sent Tidal to No. 1 on the U.S. Apple App Store, so West pulled the album from his site and announced it wouldn't be released on other streaming services. The Internet responded by pirating his album in droves.
And his music is terrible.
Let's clarify what happened. Kanye made his album available on his website and Tidal (where he is a part owner). Tidal has no free ad-supported plans. It's expensive compared to other services. When Tidal surged in popularity on Apple's app store, Kanye pulled his album from his own website. Now it's only available from Tidal.
I'm tired of some albums only being available through different services. Instead of subscribing to one service or buying from one store (like iTunes), this pushes consumers to subscribe to multiple services. It's a pain in the ass. And it's because of greed.
According to Billboard Magazine, some users who purchased the album on Kanye's site were charged multiple times while others never received a copy of the album. Now Kanye says it won't be for sale again, only available for streaming. That means instead of buying a copy of an album and being able to listen to it whenever I want without paying again, Kanye wants people to pay each month for the ability to listen to his album. It's fucking greedy.
Because Kanye is a part owner of Tidal, he has two revenue sources. One is royalties from his album being streamed. The other is profits from the service because he has equity in Tidal. That means he collects royalties from his own work but collects profits from subscriptions to listen both to Kanye's music but that of other artists as well. If you're wealthy and powerful enough to be a part owner of Tidal, you get to profit from your own work plus that of other artists. That's as opposed to artists who aren't as wealthy and powerful, who will get paid at a lower rate because they only get royalties.
I always thought Taylor Swift came across as a bit whiny about Spotify. But at least she said she wanted higher royalties for everyone and expressed concern about artists who weren't wealthy like her. Kanye isn't concerned about other artists. Kanye is concerned about Kanye. He's greedy as hell.
I listen to a lot of new and indie artists who put their videos on YouTube. If I like their music, I'll happy buy it on iTunes. I understand that labels and the RIAA help to finance new artists so I'm not really opposed to them getting a cut. I'd certainly be willing to donate to support new artists if their music is good. But I hate the idea that, if I'm subscribing to a service to listen to some artists, that I have to give greedy bastards like Kanye a cut.
It's time for the market to say "fuck you" to Kanye and "fuck you" to Tidal. Don't subscribe. Support artists who aren't greedy bastards. Support artists who make far better music than Kanye. If people were smart, they would not subscribe to Tidal, stop listening to Kanye, and support artists who aren't greedy. The market could put Tidal out of business, but people are too fucking stupid.
Fuck Kanye. Fuck Tidal. Fuck their greed. That's all.
I hate it, but he's stretching the language and speaking to his audience... who are insiders who understand the references.
Much of what we talk about casually is full of references. Given we're in tech, our references are pretty obscure too. We're all asked "why can't you just explain it to me?"
These are just a different kind of obscure.
The way I understood the lyrics was a bit more cynical:
"Sipping a chardonnay with my compatriots, when an officer visits us and questions us for being so unfashionable. We express some concern over such criticism, but the young officer takes this the wrong way and we're challenged to a duel. Some of my friends, though gentlemen, really do enjoy the sport of dueling. The officer however, was not practicing good etiquette, and surprised upon his would-be challenger a grievous injury. It will never be clear to me how officers can be so immune from the rules of civilized culture. After that, we had unfortunately lost our composure and things became most unsporting."