"Rich" and Famous
While riding the bus home from work several months ago I noticed a young urban black man who was intensely looking over the rap CD that he had just purchased from a local music chain store. I found this rather amusing because I knew I could go home and obtain that same music for free by downloading it from newgroups on the internet. This young black man did not know how to download music and was forced to pay the fee of over $14.00 for a shiny pressed piece of plastic they contained the music that he so desperately wanted to hear. It dawned on me at this point that the value of the music was not the $14.00 he had spent. The value was in the young black man's ability to obtain it. The music was not worth $14.00, the price for his ignorance was $14.00.
This has been in the back of my mind for some time. What is the concept of art and its value in terms of money? I know that what I'm about to say will cause a lot of people grief and anger. I believe that this grief is due to the blinders that we tend to put on because society tells us to. We are told by Capitol Records and their lawyers, "It has simply been this way in the past and therefore it should always be this way into the future."
With the advent of the Internet and the compression of global society the idea that artists can make money from selling reproductions of their art and live from the royalties seems somewhat arcane. Anything that can be digitized, such as music or video or artwork cannot really be controlled or profited from in this day and age. The ability to duplicate, cut and paste, and e-mail any type of digital artwork means that its value is only that which is related to one's ability to obtain it. If I can download 10,000 songs, all of which I enjoy listening to, how much are those songs worth? Ninety nine cents a song? $10,000? $100?
However, the unseen benefit to being able to obtain these songs for a nominal fee, or for free, is that I get to experience a broader range of music and have the potential to hear and appreciate music I otherwise would never have heard. Thereby, wanting to experience more music (artwork) than I otherwise would have been able to afford.
This gets back the concept of the value being in the performance, not in the royalties from the reproduction. The value to the performer would be the performance on the song, or the original piece (such as a signed photograph) or a commissioned work. I don't believe that Beethoven got 25 Viennese Francs every time the 9th Symphony was played, but he is considered a great artist. Chritine Aguilara gets $2 for ever CD she sells and we think that she will be remembered in 300 years?
The people that don't want you to think this way, are those that are already entrenched in the old system and don't want it to change. They see the 'rights' to music as a commodity. Michael Jackson bought the Beatles music catalog as an investment. Not for it's artistic value. There is a difference. The record companies have vested infrastructure in promoting and reaping the royalties from radio station and the like. But this has all been leap-frogged by the Internet. Instantaneous digital duplication has made music distribution obsolete, unless you are that poor urban black man on the bus, who was paying a price for his ignorance.
The written word can be considered the same way. Does J.K. Rowling really deserve the millions of dollars for writing was is essentially an ornate children's book, while Noam Chomsky goes almost un-noticed? The ability of a great writer comes in their ability to create the great work. Books are available to be printed on demand over the Internet from many authors now and are also available on e-books (particularly fun to read on a Palm Pilot), in which the author makes direct profit from his work, as long as it is fresh and inspiring.
This is just part of the new world order. The digital planet. A place with no middle men. There are those that will resist this violently. But it is a death struggle and they cannot win in the long run. But as long as they keep fighting, I am going to open up a Rap CD store in the poorer part of town. There is money to be made in ignorance. And lord knows, 50 Cent and Nelly need all the royalties they can get.
I read this thing twice and I still have no idea what your point is.
ReplyDeleteBut I wonder why it is important to point out that the guy in your story is black? Would it be different if he was Mexican, White or Asian? Just because he’s black and on the bus, he’s from “the poorer part of town?”
And why does it bother you that he went to a store and paid for a product rather than steeling it on line?
Yesterday I looked at the guy driving in the car next to me and I thought ‘what a jerk I bet he paid for his car when he could just steel one.
Maybe I misread it but that’s what I came away with. Anybody else?
PS
That fact that Mr. Homie was Black is really irrelavent to the Blog, he could have been hispanic or white or zebra stripped. The issue was he paid for something that was in essence free for the taking, but his inability to understand and utilize that knowledge is what cost him. The fact that a lot of homies riding the bus don't have broadband Internet access is a sad fact of life these days.
ReplyDeleteAs for the jerk in the car, and why doesn't he just steal one. He should, "if" the car could be eaisly duplicated for 'nothing'. If someone could clone my truck and drive it away in the middle of the night, I could care less (as long as don't have to pay insurance and registration on the damn thing).
The point being made here is that in this changing world there is no ownership of something that is not tangible. You can't own something that you hear, see or think.
In a global society, you can't enforce copywrite across political boundaries. The 'do not call list' here in America has no meaning to a telamarketer in Bangladesh.
The point of the blog is that .50 Cent, or The Travelling ChiChi Mariachis or Zen Buddha and the Deaf Tones can create the art form and perform it. If folks want to come and pay to watch...excellent.
But the world has changed regarding profit for reproduction. Art is no longer profitable from it reproduction (as it is now), Art needs to be profitable from it creation (which is going to mean a lot less profit for somebody).
The hope is that some day in the future, we will ALL be artist to some degree, enriched by the broader spectrum of art that is available, as opposed to the narrow filtered market provided by publishing companies that give us the Brittany Spears of the world who lay down one mediocre track and through clever marketing, reap the economic windfall for years.
Maybe he is an audiophile who appreciates the superior sound quality in uncompressed music. Or maybe he is a collector who appreciates having the package/liner notes/artwork. Or maybe the artist on the CD isn't a big name commercial rap superstar, and "Mr. Homie" likes supporting indie artists.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, and you are a racist fuck becuase you make the assumption that since he is black, that ignorance is the rule.
Anyone need further proof of this racist ass?
http://www.hedonistica.com/archives/2005/10/slam_dunk_over.php#comments
I'm not going to accuse anyone of being a racist. But I have some major problems with your post. I'm a writer of various things. I've been published. By your reasoning, all writers, artists, musicians, actors, filmmakers, are second class citizens. Because what they choose as a profession entails digitized work, they forfeit their right to be compensated for their work. As if the labor I expended to create my product is worth nothing.
ReplyDeleteArt is not valueless because you say it is. I, as an artist, expended valuable time and labor to create the art in question. If you hold it in little or no esteem, that's fine. But my right to be compensated for my work is not dependent on your generosity. I created the art, and, until the copyright term is up, I own it and have the right to control its distribution.
I have to assume that you're a working person. So how would you feel if the world suddenly decided that your profession is of less value than others, or of no value at all? Maybe you're a waiter at a restaurant. "Well, you seem to make a good amount of cash in tips," your boss says, "and after all what you do isn't that substantive to me anyway. I think I'll stop paying you a salary."
If you still want to steal, that's fine. Do it. I'm not God or a judge, so I can't stop you. But don't push your douchery to the max by justifying it and looking down on the little people who actually pay to own things created by others.
Evan: Thanks for the comment. It was interesting bacause I wrote this blog over 5 years ago and it has well fallen off my radar. The title of "Art Has No Value" was ment to be a shock hook to draw people in. Of course art has value and of course the artist should be compensated for his work. The issue raised in the blog is one of changing culture and the concept of 'reproduceable' art.
ReplyDeleteThe idea ventured over the past two centuries, was that if you created a work of art, (literature, imagery, performance), it was 'marketed' by middle men (art houses, record companies, publishers) for which you (the artist) was given a royality.
That model no longer applies with the internet and global communications. The value of art comes from it origination, not from its repetition. An original painting by Van Gogh is priceless, any copy of it is pretty much worth only the paper and ink it is printed with.
The new model, is for a musician (for example) to create music, publish it for free or a nominal fee on the internet and then bring in profit from his art via the live performance, which the distribution of his music for free should encourage. The concept of getting paid everytime a song is plaid, or a picture copy sold is no longer viable.
More teenagers pirate Lady Gaga's and Beyonces latest CD than they go out and plunk down $14 for it. I would pay to see them, but hardly consider paying them for a 'copy' of their art.