Free the Music through Civil Disobedience



By The Devil's Advocate

I saw "Total Recall" with Arnold Schwartzenegger, and he went to Mars, where the government controlled the air, and charged for it. They said it was limited. Arnold figured out how to turn the ice into air, and freed the people.

Songs are somewhat like "minutes of air," where sound travels to your eardrum. Multiply the number of minutes in our lives by the total number of people on earth, and you get close to the number the grains of sand on earth.

Now picture a handful of that sand, representing the handful of music that gets music heard by the public, and picture powerful companies owning contracts on that handful of sand, and charging for each grain, and so few could afford more than a few grains at a time, unless you wanted to look at a government owned grains on display in their "radio museum."

This same handful of sand (minutes of air) is being funneled through the companies "price controlling" "hourglass," where the hourglass is simply "turned over" every so often so they can charge again and again for the same grain of sand. They change a few grains every year, and reap their money over and over again for the same grains.

Now imagine Arnold Schartwenegger coming to the rescue, and discovering that by inventing the "internet" he could smash this "hourglass hold" that the compainies and outdated copyright laws had on the music, and instead of an hourglass full of sand (music), we had the whole world full of music.

Napster represents the Arnold Schwartzenegger, and through it's "civil disobedience" can free music! Napster can smash the hourglass "hold on music revenue" and let loose an explosion of music around the world by letting the people have access to the gadzookstrillions of free "minutes of music" on earth.

Napster is basically "civil disobedience," just as a black women refusing to sit in the back of the bus in the 50's was. Yes, it's currently against the copyright law, but it represents a "protest" against an outdated law.



"But what about the poor musicians? They won't get paid for their music?"

I believe that the more free music gets out the more people will buy. I'll bet if 90% of ALL music become free, the record companies will still sell more CDs than they do today. The artist still needs the record companys and the record companies still want to make money, so revenue percentages will still come in for the artist. Also the songwriter/band is still the "artist" whether he gets paid or not. Copyright laws will still protect the "name" of the artist, although they can't protect the revenue. The artist's name will still become "famous" along with his music, and the artist can use that "fame" to create revenue.