Fuzzy Logic, Grateful Dead and Napster Buddhism
May 11 '00 (Updated May 15 '00)
The escalating conflict between the RIAA and Napster, MP3.com and the other free music download sites is a watershed event in our culture, signifying the beginning of an epic transformation of cultural power from Mega Corporations to Individuals. How nice of this battle to take place during the millennial year, when everyone is primed and ready for change. Well, not the big record companies, who are, to say the least, resistant to change.
I am not a big Grateful Dead fan, but I have to give them credit for deciding over three decades ago to allow their fans to record and distribute their music at concerts, and even let people plug right into their sound board during shows. Did this sanctioned "piracy" rob them of much-needed revenue? Far from it. It is quite possibly the very thing that made them the huge success they are, that gave them such a huge and loyal fan base.
Why did this happen? Because the world, society and culture are not governed by linear, dualistic behavior. If it were, it would be a very dry and boring place indeed, where everything is black or white, yes or no, rather than the messy, fuzzy amalgam of cultural stew we enjoy today. Actually, the Grateful Dead did not really begin this trend, it probably began with the McCarthy witch hunts in the late '40s - early '50s. That first battle was a draw, since while McCarthy was eventually defeated, a lot of people suffered and were blacklisted for years. The Grateful Dead may have struck the first winning blow for the other team, the Fuzzy Team.
What an irony then for this great explosion of creative, fuzzy, non-binary thinking to coincide with the all-binary digital era; but then contradiction and oxymoron are the handmaidens of the Fuzzy. Therefore, you could say that this current trend really began with the Dadaists in Zurich during WW1, James Joyce in Paris in the Twenties, and the Marx Brothers in Hollywood in the Thirties. And they all had the same grandfather: Lewis Carroll. But I am drifting off into the wine-dark sea of tangents....
Let's return to the Year 2000. Napster is now the standard bearer of free artistic distribution. Why is the RIAA so afraid? Everyone repeats their argument that Napster is "robbing artists of billions of dollars" in CD sales revenue. That, however, is merely a feel-good smokescreen, since the big record companies enjoy a much larger cut of the pie than the poor recording artists, though big sellers like Metallica surely receive more booty than their less successful colleagues. What they are really afraid of, in my view, is of losing Control, just like Microsoft, McCarthy, and countless other ruling powers throughout history. When the big record companies lose control of the musicians, who will then distribute their own music and retain a bigger piece of the pie, that's when the Big Five will really see substantial losses in revenue, not from lost CD sales caused by Napster downloads. They'll still be throwing the expensive party, but fewer and fewer people will come. Two-thirds of all Americans are now online. What we have here is a stunned bull moose in the headlights of a tractor-trailer truck.
Napster and Gnutella are Satan and Beelzebub to the Recording Industry, but they may be more like Buddha and the Dalai Lama. Not to stretch this metaphor too far (oh, what the hell), since those Gnutty Nappers may be last week's salmon very soon, but this may be the cultural manifestation of a religious shift from an angry Christian God laying down the Law to a more Buddhist orientation, where we live in the present with compassion for others and do not habitually act out of fear.
This struggle can be seen in the new Battle of the Bands: Metallica VS. Limp Bizkit. Personally, I don't ever want to listen to either play music, but as cultural warriors they are fascinating. Metallica is going to go down in flames of its own igniting, by failing to understand that the primary culprit taking money away from them is their own record company, not the Napster users who are also the people who buy their CDs and attend their concerts. By going after their audience, they are dead. This former Metallica fan, quoted in a story in today's San Francisco Chronicle, aptly sounds their death knell after being shut out of Napster under pressure from Metallica:
"'I was in shock last night when I saw I was blocked,' said Jay Arnold of Tulsa, Okla., who added that he felt 'betrayed by Napster.' Arnold said he has purchased CDs after hearing songs he sampled using Napster. But now, he won't buy the latest 'Mission Impossible' soundtrack because it contains a Metallica song. 'They want to have this image of being rock and roll rebels and they do c r a p [c'mon epinions, you shouldn't flag and deny use of an innocuous word like this as objectionable, especially since I am quoting what was printed in a newspaper] like this,' Arnold said."
The word hypocrisy comes readily to mind. Limp Bizkit, on the other hand, has embraced Napster and the free download movement. By giving Napster their blessing, Napster is underwriting a free Limp Bizkit tour this summer to the tune of $1.5 million, and everyone wins: Napster gains more ground with music fans by doing a good deed, Limp Bizkit gets loads of free, great publicity and a potentially large spike in its fan base from the free concerts, and the people who actually like this music get to see it live for free, many of whom will probably go out and buy Limp Bizkit CDs as a result.
It's time to wake up to the new reality, people: Give, and you shall receive. Stop fighting and trying to screw individuals out of every last penny; if you do, they will simply go elsewhere in a hurry. Start giving in a big way, and you will be rewarded. Free MP3s will not replace CDs for most people, but can serve as a great way for people to discover new music.
Peace.
Metallica backlash update - 5/15/00:
http://www.salon.com/tech/log/2000/05/15/metallica/index.html
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Member: Jay Jurisich
Location: Berkeley, CA
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