HIP-HOP NEWS spreads like any other mainstream NEWS in America. The garbage that’s unfit to print has now floated on websites and blogs like sh*t. For example a rapper working in the community gets obscured while if that same rapper robbed a gas station he’d get top coverage and be label a “rapper” while getting his upcoming or current music somewhat put on blast, regardless of its quality which of course is subjective like any other art. RAP sites and blogs are mimicking the New York POST.
It does the people of the planet little good to hear that an an artist is famous and rich, will wear expensive jewelry straight from the mines, show it off, stay it the hotel, ride in limos, do the VIP with chilled champagne in the clubs, ape and monkey the chicks (meaning not even talking) and keep the dudes away with slave paid bodyguards when real people come close.
Archive for the 'Music' Category
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Over at Another Line of Flight, Michael and I are having a great conversation about the intensification of intellectual property and the further expansion of capital into creativity.
In the most recent development, a quick and dirty taxonomy of speculation and creativity:
Speculation and financialisation of:
1. Past, “public domain” works: here there are works that sneakily resist easy domestication. They are part of an “old school” way of thinking IP. Thus, they are kind of “grandfathered” in as universally accessible, part of an antiquated notion of serving the public good. But, they can be appropriated by capital for the cultural capital that accrues through their use. Case in point, many of the musical selections used in period pieces (I’m thinking Boardwalk Empire here). Also, such pieces can be used free of charge to create new works, which are made in the context of current IP frameworks and are thus more easily integrated into the profit machine. Speculation and financialisation can occur on future creative uses of older works. In this scenario, these stubborn old works must be tweaked in order to fit the needs of property.
2. Royalties on Past Works: as you say, tried and true and currently informing things like the Bowie Bonds and the SBCEA. Here, the global juridical apparatus is ensuring the future profitability of creative works that have already proven their viability, and betting on continued viability. The vast catalogues of recorded music already form a large part of the stock value of major labels and media companies. Here, the property referred to in intellectual property retains a tangibility. A song can be said to exist, and thus it can be made into property.
3. Future Economic Success: …of yet to be known creative work. Here’s where your Idol analogy seems to fit. A populist speculation in which the audiences of the idol show provide, free of charge of course, the “ethnographic” market research needed to determine future preferences. What is a talent show but the (emotional or financial) investment in one or another performer to win? Add some healthy betting and odds to this and you’ve got speculation on future success. Here, the wager builds on the notion of a mental property that exists, but as yet has no specific form. The bet is that it will take form, and that form will have some success according to the logic of exchange in the market for actualised creativity.
4. Future Potential Creativity: this is where marketisation is fully internalised, such that the very potential extant in every human being is what speculated on. From birth, bets are waged as to whether or not an individual will actualise that creative potential at all, or whether they won’t, and this is done regardless of form or potential for success in the market for acutalised creativity. Here the wager is on the moments between thought and action, on the affect itself. Thus, an investor stands to gain if a person steps into some predefined creative role as such: makes a recording, paints a painting, dances, etc. (Or stands to gain if they invest in the default swap option, where the bet is on the non-expression of the creativity.) Here the juridical apparatus takes steps to define and track creativity in order that they be accurately catalogued and reported back to the investment houses. First, through campaigns to achieve the full hegemony of the notion of intellectual property are waged so as to ensure that creativity itself is understood as a property before it takes on a form. Second, through the creation and maintenance of a marketplace for that property, a mental stock exchange if you will, in which potential creative actors are speculated upon. This could be with or without their knowledge, of course.
This is the most bizarre but imaginative strategy I have heard of yet. And like many other anti-piracy strategies seems like a weak band aid.
For the next two years the French govt will subsidize half – that’s right half – the cost of a 50 euro ($70 USD) card to be used to download music from approved subscription-based online retailers. Consumers will be limited to one card a year.
Somewhere between a social service debit card and a tax break, this strategy appears to be both an admission of powerlessness in the face of piracy and also an assertion of state involvement that on the surface seems to run counter the “hands off” anti-regulatory ethos of neoliberalism and the Sarkozy regime. Additionally, this is a great example of the intensification of state surveillance regimes, surely there must be a way to then gauge the “taste” of the nation, or even to index the number of music files a person possesses against the number they buy with the card – any discrepancy and its the gulag for you! Alas, it may also be another case of the state funneling of public resources toward private interests. And this time, instead of a bailout to the finance industry, this is a way to direct tax payers’ money toward “legitimate subscription-based services.” It’s hard not to see how this doesn’t amount to paying twice. It also doesn’t seem clear if this is about nurturing French cultural production specifically, or just ensuring that for-profit distributors get a slice of the pie. However, in exchange for state aid
website operators will be required to cut the price of music, extend the duration of subscriptions, and contribute to the cost of advertising the card. Their benefit will be capped at 5 million euros each.
That said it also seems a rather ingenious way to promote cultural awareness and listening to music. I can’t imagine a British or North American government so blatantly funding the consumption of artistic work. Here we cut arts funding and gut humanities departments in universities. What else could be next: a tax break for every theatre ticket purchased? A granting system for reading materials? Still, if there’s a mood for state involvement these days, why not a lump sum to the download services and performing rights agencies via a blank media levy like we had on blank tapes and CDs and then let everyone download away? I’ve seen studies that suggest support for this. Or, even better, why not scrap the whole notion of state support for for-profit entities (not very “free market” anyway is it?) and instead support people with a universal living minimum wage that would also account for the purchase of cultural/creative works, which, following food, I’d say are pretty important for a well-nourished soul.
See also here.
The problem I have with articles like this is that they begin with the now axiomatic premise “The Internet has changed everything” and then largely go on to show how little if anything has really changed at all. Here, the woes of the recorded music industry are put into perspective. Despite a decline in recorded music sales (which were really artificially enhanced by the phenomenon of replacing old LPs and Tapes with CDs in the 90s), other areas of the industry are thriving – touring revenues are up, merchandising is the new profitable thing along with tour sponsorships, while listeners who might be “worth nothing” to the industry as pirates are now “worth a little” if they respond to advertising on free streaming applications like Spotify. So, we have a here a shift of profit from one based around the sale of physical media, to one based on the proliferation of the symbolic: we pay more for concerts – the price of tickets has far outstripped inflation – which are evanescent, immaterial. We buy clothing (the elementary commodity form) and we pay for the privilege to be advertised to by the music’s sponsors. But, don’t worry, in all of this the raison d’être of the music industry as such remains: profit. Change indeed!
The problem in this article is that the change is superficial, and it betrays an ignorance of some of the fundamental alterations that have been made, outside of the narrow mainstream music industry scope. Of course, the Economist can only think in terms of the profit paradigm, because it is so dominant. (That said, the acknowledgment of age and the superstar factor are important, and I think under-recognized in the turmoils of the record industry.)
But, in other areas of music distribution online, i.e. “piracy,” with a shift in perspective we could see that a lot more is working in music than merely its function as a conduit for profit. It travels faster to a wider audience, unencumbered by the barriers and limits that are set in place by the industry infrastructure and the profit motive. It occupies a central position in the development of online musical discourse, and acts as a common ground for many online “communities.” A vibrant and self-regulating community of “pirates” has emerged that privileges obligation, reciprocity, and “sharing” over profit. Indeed, the power of autonomous music distribution online is acknowledged by the IFPI who say that “the pool of pirates is so huge at present (IFPI, an international trade group, reckons that 19 out of every 20 tracks downloaded are illegal) that it ought to be possible to make serious money from persuading people to make the switch.” This is just pure jealousy. People are out there doing things that the industry finds difficult to monetise, nothing gets the ire of a business up more than that – people doing things better without their help. (Of course doing these things helps the computing industry immensely…another topic).
The trick here is that people ought not to be persuaded. Real change that doesn’t just shift the profits from one sector to the other, with music still in the position of commodity, but one that recognises the full import of music and doesn’t diminish this in the commodity form could be hastened by the even further entrenchment and emulation of pirate practices not just in the distribution of music but in the wresting of control over the production and technological infrastructures that undergird it. Let’s look outside the mainstream adaptation of “flexibile specialisation” and “vertical integration” to alternative practices for inspiration here.
@paaitken