Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 26th Aug 2009 13:22 UTC
Not too long ago we had a semi-loss for The Pirate Bay in The Netherlands, which was convicted 'by default' because the defendants did not show up in court to plea their case. Today, The Netherlands once again saw a ruling in a high-profile piracy case, and again, there's a loss for the defendants. Update: Oh, and by the way - thought about putting some lyrics you like on your website or blog? Think again. We live in a crazy world, people.
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Member since:
2005-07-08
Well, I didn't want to portray media companies as greedy only, and I'm certainly not opposing modern free market system in itself.
I was just saying that you can do business both in a good or a bad way. It is up to democratic law making to ensure that business is done in a good way that serves people, artists, customers and society the best. It is also an unrealistic and ideological myth to claim that the free markets by themselves will always be able to miraculously turn the bad things into good ones.
The mafia and crime can be seen as business too. Selling non-working crap as magical equipment that will miraculously improve your health and life is business too. Heck, even selling pirated content is a big business in the third world countries. How could you ever fight them if you think that business will take care of itself without any need for restricting such business by laws? Greed is greed, and it often needs to be restricted, especially when people may not notice the danger they may be facing if they buy bad products.
There are many examples of both good and bad media business. Not every artist in history has been very happy just because they have gotten a poor contract with some media company. Sometimes those media companies have been acting like pimps, not much caring for the interests of those they should serve. Also, these times media companies have become huge empires that try to dictate to us, according to their own commecial interests, what things we should consume, what music to listen to etc. If you are a talented musician but are not willing to sell your whole artistic person (music style, image etc.) to these commercial empires, it may be quite difficult to even get that record contract in the first place.
"Is it really jazz that you want to play? Hahaha... Get out of here grandpa! And no, we really don't care how well you can play or sing, or whether you studied music at the Juilliard or not. It is hot music videos and rap that sell these days. Hmm, but your wife, she has a nice ass; if she could get off her clothes we might give her a dance job on our next hiphop video. Still interested?"