I’m feeling Immortal technique on this rant. From the discussion of exploitation of musicians to the geo-politics of Bin Laden (Bin Ashcroft?). Don’t forget the vocabulary lesson.
Thanks to 2dopeboyz for the link.
Category Archives: media
Buying music in 2011: Numero resists the cloud
Personal Numero favorite "Local Customs: Downriver revival"
I like music I can hold in my hand. When Itunes started I bought a few .mp3s, and I have occasionally bought a few digital files of hip hop albums that I can’t find locally. But I tend not to buy digital if I can help it.
At the heart of it is simple: I don’t really trust digital files! I want a backup — which is silly in a high-speed capitalist world where the mantra is buy another one. (I also like the inserts, liner notes, and photos . . .)
I’m not a purist about sound or ownership. I believe there is a real value in sharing music and ideas. At the exact same time I also hold the role of artist as holy in our society. I think that artists should be given living wages, safe working conditions, and credit for their creative contributions. Not to mention respect and care.
Digital distribution puts many of those things at risk. The next articulation of digital distribution is cloud computing — where a corporation hosts your files, allowing users to download files to any number of computers. Both Apple and Amazon have cloud projects. The Apple version is interesting in that it seems to promise amnesty for previous illegal file sharing.
When Apple came around to the history-obsessed Chicago re-issue masters the Numero Group to invite them to make a contract with the new cloud file-sharing, they refused. The Numero pursue unpublished and under-appreciated music, find the real producers, pay them and then reissue some of the hottest lost tunes.
(I probably own twenty Numero record albums.)
Here is Rob Sevier, a Numero dude explaining their decision in the L.A. Times:
Sevier said he is sensitive to customers who want a back-up of the product, and noted those who buy the CD essentially have one. The iCloud will still require data management on the part of the user, as even those who pay $24.99 will have to download the song to their devices or computers. Apple has not yet unveiled any music streaming ambitions.
However, Numero’s statement contended that any income derived from the iCloud “will very likely not be enough.” An earlier Times story reported that the aggreements (sic) “call for Apple to share 70% of any revenue from iCloud’s music service with record labels, as well as 12% with music publishers holding the songwriting rights.”
“We represent a host of copyright holders,” Sevier said. “Some are just small families with only a handful of copyrights, and we’re their only life-line into this world. We have to take a more responsible view.”
via Acclaimed reissue label Numero Group ‘declined’ invite to Apple’s iCloud – latimes.com.
Respect to Numero for drawing the line somewhere. As a company that tries to play the music creators and their families some actual money, they offer a healthy perspective.
And no diss to cloud users. I appreciate the convenience. I’m sure I’ll probably wind up with both a cloud account and a couple of thousand records.
Filed under capitalism, media
Twisty on IMF rapist
I have been thinking about the accused rapist/IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn. In the end my thoughts seem to circle around power, entitlement and violence.
Power. This case is important because of the relationship between power and the expectation of silence about sexual assault. Entitlement. Because of the insulting sense that this rape is some how different — that the identity and status of the perpetrator and survivor might be twisted to justify the attack. Violence. The systemic violence of rape-supportive culture and the terrible media which envelop us.
. . . and I start to get angry.
Well in these moments of lack of personal eloquence, one can often turn to that gentleman farmer and/or spinster aunt, intellectual heavyweight Twisty Faster for clarity. First Twisty reminds us of the linguistic impact of the term “maid.”
The woman Strauss-Kahn attacked is being referred to as a “maid” or “chambermaid.”
Maid is a creepy-ass word. No matter what, a maid is not a good thing to be. In days of yore the term was used to denote a mythical female who had so far escaped — but would soon be forced into — getting pronged by some entitled prick. Denoting females thusly was of vital importance back in yore; owing to a lot of macho-religious nonsense that equated women with sex, as-yet-unpronged ladies were worth more than pronged ones. Intact virtue could make or break your career.
Nowadays maid still refers most commonly to a member of the sex class, but with less emphasis on purity, and more emphasis on the flipside of the misogyny nickel — suitability for interaction with other people’s filth. It means “low-status servant who cleans up after high-status assholes.”
via Hugs, Twisty: rapist is asshole « I Blame The Patriarchy.
And of course Twisty covers the secondary usage of the survivor — as a tool to bring the IMF head down. Don’t forget Twisty’s view of the Strauss-Kahn apologists, and the silencing of sexual assaults which get some crisp analysis in two awesome paragraphs.
Anyway, in the narrative of IMF rapist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the victim’s status as a sub-human hotel cleaner is an important detail. Apparently this Strauss-Kahn shitsack is a celebrated rapscallion, rake, and ladies’ man. Boys will be boys! His nickname in the classy world of international finance is reportedly “the great seducer.” So it makes titillating how-the-mighty-have-fallen news copy to depict him, not as a suave Casanova jetsetting around with supermodel heiresses, but as a privileged fiend predating a powerless, lower-caste menial. In a world where it’s generally considered OK to use women according to their universally-acknowledged purpose (sex), it is sometimes permissible to use them, as long as patriarchal prurience is served, for other stuff, such as, in this case, leverage in toppling a poobah. As for the actual woman herself, nobody gives a rat’s ass about her. She is merely a symbol of a towering potentate’s descent into ignominy, frothily recounted by patriarchal media. Like the virginal maids of yore, hotel maids are also receptacles for male disdain.
Anyone who goes around calling himself “the great seducer” is undoubtedly a serial rapist, so naturally other women are beginning to turn up with accounts of Strauss-Kahn’s abuses. One of them, a young journalist who had previously publicly recounted her assault (with Strauss-Kahn’s name redacted), now describes his behavior during her attempted rape as that of a “rutting chimp.” Not surprisingly, the woman didn’t press charges at the time. She didn’t want her career to be permanently stained with “she’s the girl who accused Strauss-Kahn of rape.” Which is exactly how rapists get away with it: fear, humiliation, and shame are superb silencers.
via Hugs, Twisty: rapist is asshole « I Blame The Patriarchy.
Spend some time going through I blame the patriarchy for more wisdom!
. . . but I’m not racist and I’m certainly not sexist!
I’m feeling these two blog survey web sites:
Visibility makes power less effective.
Dan Savage and Terry Miller on google + it get’s better
This is a really nice reflection on the technology company’s relationship with the It get’s better campaign. Savage is particularly eloquent about the ways homophobia limits the ability of gay teens to see happy gay adults. He argues that the It get’s better campaign, through youtube, circumvented barriers and actually got to people.
Dan Savage gives credit to the support and sponsorship of google, who created a commercial video for the project and have helped to publicize the campaign. Google, Obama and other higher profile participants joined without compromising the message and the sincerity of the videos. Check it out, you’ll enjoy the discussion.
And this morning the SF Giants became the first major league team to make their own It get’s better film. I appreciate that they speak for the whole organization. Nice work. Culture change in process.
And the standout best It get’s better video comes from the Cincinnati Rollergirls.
Filed under documentary, human rights, media
capitalism: car shortage
The end of the American empire is going to be rough. There is no doubt that many working class folks will suffer as our economy continues to crash. Interesting dimension — the L.A. Times notes that we are in a car crunch — not enough automobiles for the American market — thus the prices are high.
Doug Stevens
The cause identified for this shortage is the earthquake which killed more than 14,000 people (official police estimate), left uncontrolled mox reactors dumping nuclear fuel into the ocean air and water, and wrecked people’s homes and businesses. Given the chance, we’d rather read disaster in terms of the impact on our consumer market. News stories about radiation abatement and the deadly nuclear reactor don’t get coverage, but we get the explicit run down of how much the earthquake and tsunami hurt the run of 2011 Hondas.
“Although automakers will work hard to catch up during the second half of this year, ultimately about 700,000 vehicles will never be built because of the quake.
The shortfall has allowed Toyota and competitors such as General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. to raise sticker prices.”
This is capitalist semiotics at it’s most refined — there is no doubt that natural disasters have an impact on business — but it is the prioritizing of the disruption of automobile production as it impacts United States consumers that seems so grimy to me.
For those who make a living selling cars, this story is particularly important. So as the article progresses, they note that one result has been an enormous surge in the trade-in value of cars:
In 2007, a 3-year-old Ford Explorer would bring about $7,100 as a trade-in for a new car. Now, a 3-year-old Explorer gets double that amount — $14,200 — according to auto price information company Kelley Blue Book. The trade-in value for a 3-year-old Honda Civic has jumped by $3,500 to $12,200 in the same period.
Another way of reading this change is to note the declining value of the dollar. American money is less valuable — and this makes all the valuable goods cheap for other countries to buy. If you are over thirty, then you probably remember the phenomenon of travelling to other countries for a “deal” — well, now the United States looks like a deal.
I’m not all that concerned about the actual corporations who make money off of these transactions — but the folks who need transportation and can’t afford a safe used car are going to struggle. The United States is a nation which holds fierce the right to individual automobile transit, and has stubbornly refused to invest in public transportation.
Filed under capitalism, disaster, media
hacktivism: anonymous in Tunisia
Thinking about the struggles to articulate democracy in the era where the very means of expression are owned, the Arab spring gives a chance to see the information strategies of dictatorships on the wane.
In an interesting Al Jazeera article, they note the hacking collective anonymous who helped to provide tools for information sharing during the government clampdown in Tunisia.
As Anons realised the significance of what was taking place in Tunisia – and the fact that it was being ignored by foreign media – they collaborated with Tunisian dissidents to help them share videos with the outside world.
Anonymous quickly created a “care packet”, translated into Arabic and French, offering cyberdissidents advice on how to conceal their identities on the web, in order to avoid detection by the former regime’s cyberpolice.
They used their collective brainpower to develop a greasemonkey script – an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser – to help Tunisians evade an extensive phishing campaign carried out by the government.
via Anonymous and the Arab uprisings – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.
Filed under human rights, media
Life of refinement 