I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again
Chumbawamba's Thoughts on Copy Protection:
Well, I'm not one to believe statistics and the like, but most recent independent research clearly shows that these same people who illegally download music on P2P networks also spend more money on legal downloads (from sites like Napster, iTunes store etc..) and buying CD's than those people who don't venture into this shady world.In their ongoing effort to continuously stick it to The Man, the British band that popularized Tubthumping may also be inadvertently promoting Kinsellaism. Via BoingBoing.History has a habit of repeating itself - consider some earlier examples of the Music Business getting hot under the collar:
Early US records (eg Brunswick Records, who released, among others, Robert Johnson) had “Not for play on Radio� stamped on them, for fear that radio play might harm Sheet Music sales. Later, in the 1970's, the Record Business claimed “Home taping is killing music�. Don't make me laugh - home taping was a fantastic, free way of promoting records, just as Radio play (and P2P file-sharing) is.
Comments (13)
Daniel J. D'Amico
Chumbawumba are very vocal about their anarchist political stance. Lesser known is the fact that many of their members are the remaining members of hard core, in your face, crust punk rock group CRASS!!! Crass pioneered the very notion of anarchist punk before The Exploited, before Total Chaos, before Anti-Flag their was CRASS. True, the sex pistols are often attributed with such iconography but in fact their drug induced image pioneered more of the gutter punk trend then the purely anti-political anti-statist anarchist punk.
Check em out here:
CRASS
Published: January 10, 2006 6:21 PM
Aakash
I knew about Jack Valance and the "Boston Strangler" testimony quote, regarding fear of the VCR... But I wasn't aware that there were corresponding examples when it came to audio recordings. Thanks for posting this; I'd like to see more entries like this at the Mises Blog!
Published: January 10, 2006 7:09 PM
anarchy is a pin on my jacket
These are also the folks that advised people they should steal their album instead of paying for it. Obviously, not the brightest bulbs nor greatest defenders of property rights.
Published: January 10, 2006 7:13 PM
Peter
FWIW, the link in the article is broke; the correct link is http://www.chumba.com/Chumbawambacopyprotect1.html.
Published: January 10, 2006 7:27 PM
Dennis Sperduto
Tim,
Are you a Blues fan, as you mention in your posting the Blues icon Robert Johnson. I don't know allot about this music genre, and what I do know I stumbled on years ago through The Rolling Stones, especially their Let It Bleed, Beggars Banquet, and Exile on Main Street albums. Given the age of the typical Mises Blog participant, I'm curious as to what percentage know who Robert Johnson is.
Published: January 10, 2006 8:12 PM
Tim Swanson
Dennis, can't say that I'm a huge blues fan and unfortunately I don't knowmuch about Robert Johnson. The above was actually a quote from Neil Ferguson, one of the band members. And for the record, I do not advocate the theft of property (i.e. cd's) nor does the Mises Institute (not that this was unclear) -- sounds like an attitude along the same lines as 'Rage Against the Machine.'
Peter, thanks for the correction.
Published: January 10, 2006 8:37 PM
Pete Canning
If you have ever heard the goons in that band talk you would realize they are commie garbage.
Published: January 10, 2006 10:20 PM
darjen
Dennis,
I for one know about Robert Johnson, am a big blues and traditional jazz fan, and a blog lurker here. I don't typically listen to Rolling Stones type stuff, but I know they and lots of other 70s rockers covered the early blues stuff a lot.
Published: January 11, 2006 8:52 AM
zuzu
These are also the folks that advised people they should steal their album instead of paying for it. Obviously, not the brightest bulbs nor greatest defenders of property rights.
"theft". "property".
Depends on whether you believe duplicated information is subject either to mutual-exclusion / "natural" scarcity.
Nevermind that "intellectual property" consists purely of government interventionalist legal fiction.
The "natural" scarcity of mutually-exclusive artifacts are a problem by which we co-operatively emerge and evolve mitigating solutions to through the process of capitalism.
The information and real-time processing needs of the distributed problem of "who needs what, when, and how?" demands a distributedly computed solution, such as private property.
Hence, The Use of Knowledge in Society by Friedrich A. Hayek.
Published: January 11, 2006 12:37 PM
anarchy is not a pin on your jacket
zuzu,
This happened in the age before napster, they encouraged people to shoplift their record from chain stores. Of course, they didn't care because their label would pay them for it no matter what. The damage done to the workers and store owners apparently never crossed their mind.
Published: January 11, 2006 4:24 PM
Roy W. Wright
zuzu, I was going to reply along the same lines until I realized that he meant "steal their album" in a very real sense.
Published: January 12, 2006 12:38 AM
zuzu
Ok, I totally missed where the use of the word "steal" transitioned from copyright infringement to genuine theft of property.
Published: January 12, 2006 1:49 AM
SteamshipTime
"Ok, I totally missed where the use of the word "steal" transitioned from copyright infringement to genuine theft of property."
Actually, I'm trying to figure out how you reckon "steal" is synonymous with "copyright infringement" rather than "theft."
Published: January 13, 2006 7:24 AM