lost highway

This analogy doesn't work because number one it's a physical good, and number two it's a public market and not the privacy of someone's laptop. These two things change people's behavior significantly.

She said she ripped cds inside her college radio station on her laptop. I am pretty sure this is technically illegal, and also ubiquitous and unpunished. Another example of an irrelevant law that is not enforced.

Correct, we all know it is illegal. I don't think that was the core of the moral imperative in the original article. What is interesting is how consumers, musicians, and promoters/streaming services/ labels will move forward. I am a musician, and I also run a recording studio where I work with underground bands. I have been performing music and recording music since 1996. The old model for the music industry never served anyone I knew. In fact it helped implode some of my favorite 90's groups: Jawbox, Jawbreaker, Engine 88, Shudder to Think, Seaweed, and it nearly smushed Samiam but th

It is legally theft. And crossing the street away from an intersection is legally jaywalking. I suppose people who's perception of reality is constantly clarified by law must really be struggling with the hemorrhaging of a corporate art market that is ravaged by every aunt, son-in-law and girl next door you know. They are all violating the law, and they go unpunished. Somehow the law never seemed to define the meaning of rock and roll, and how it is used.

But that's what's up for debate. Society has not been able to collectively deem the inherent value of something that does not occupy physical space. It is not a settled matter. Musicians also have a pretty wide range of opinions about this.

More thoughts on this: I remember Jeff Tweedy once saying something like: "Music isn't a loaf of bread." Intellectual property theft is one of the most abstract ethical accusations around. If you bit torrent an album someone spent 15 grand making are you taking away something that puts them at a loss? Do they have less goods? If you steal a riff from the Kinks is that wrong? If you get a decoded copy of Adobe Photoshop from your room mate is that hurting people? It's cool to read the back and forth between these bloggers because they're both pissed off, and they're both kind of right

That's a great article. While I don't agree that releasing music was ever very lucrative for less-than-famous artists, that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay them. I especially liked his point that music consumers like to give the man the finger by not paying a record company for songs, so they can listen to the songs on a device created by a bigger mega-corporation.

More than anyone could demand to know, Jules. But I suppose as you said, you brought it up. This brings that conversation back to square one; lots of people do what Jules does. They work hard and make difficult decisions, they employ hundreds, some thousands of people. They are a much-needed part of our economy. This does not mean to me that corporations should all have their current tax breaks. Suggesting an end to any of those tax breaks is not a call to "punish job creators" (as we've discussed customers are as much job creators as anything else). My minimal economic knowledge woul

The government is a job creator. When Obama signed the stimulus bill in 2009 it allocated a large amount of money to "shovel ready" projects in our 50 states. As it happens, my home state of CO had it's proverbial shit together with plans drawn up, and budgets sorted out for highway improvements, and light rail expansion. Those funds put a ton of Coloradans to work. There jobs did not exist before and in a few years I will be able to take the train to the airport. In a few months there will be a nicer on-ramp from Santa Fe onto I-25. Long live Karl Marx.

Now I'm reading this in preparation for my journey to Argentina/ Uruguay next month.

Class conflict on the VC.

Gogo's right, you don't need to be 100% forthcoming with personal details on a forum. I think people got a bit riled because it's a game of: Hey I take this personally, I'm a job creator. Oh yeah, what do you do? I don't want to talk about it. It's this weird insistence on one hand that economic policies are personally essential for people in a line of work, but they are some how ashamed of their tax rate, their under-taxed investments, or their income bracket. There is a tendency for the business class of this country to bark loudly about policies that favor them personally, but then th

Ah, the secretive pride of an outspoken 'job creator'.

Hiring someone is not the same as creating a job.

Then cut every public job and see what is left of our economy. I wouldn't have a job. The government hires where needed because you need a person to pave a highway, an elementary school teacher to teach some kids and a firefighter to put a fire out. If you disagree with that than mayhaps you'd be happier in a less socialist country.

Yeah, some of the 33 1/3 books try a little too hard. I like to read some good journalism about the process, with some criticism as to why the album was important in its time. I don't need Colin Meloy trying his hand at narrative writing based on the Replacements, or some stuffy critic using OK Computer to examine what a compact disc is from a theoretical standpoint.

I just finished this. It was a dystopian satire about a future English society that was formed by the paranoid writings of a schizophrenic cabbie, The cabbie made a 'holy book' full of driving routes, racism, and misogyny that he buried in his ex-wife's backyard in hopes that is son would find it and learn the knowledge. Instead a post-apocalyptic chiefdom of English folks found it and organized themselves according to its principles. Like the other Self book I found it acidic, cynical, occasionally funny, and the absurdity of its satire was so well-thought I often forgot is was satire, i

Bien traducido!

Wow, that video! At Least That's What You Said made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I hope they do that one at Red Rocks.

Como siempre!

I don't know what we can do for Syria. I think the Libya engagement showed a more calculated restraing for an American military operation. Nonetheless it still killed innocents. While it did help the people we meant to help, recent Libyan history has followed the classic revolution timeline of overthrowing a dictator and then instating another violent, unstable regime. Wars don't solve problems they just grind peoples bodies up. There has not been an ethically justifiable American war in over half a century. Well fed American citizens sit back from where the ground doesn't shake and tra

+1

I've got the source: http://www.foxnews.com/ You can find some misleading things over there. You don't need Rev Jackson to tell you when something is ridiculous.

They should have stuck to Deeper Down when they knew how to play it. Now that they haven't done it for a year or two it would take weeks of practice.

Jules, you're glib, man.