By James Pew

An interview was posted yesterday from Australia’s One Movement For Music Festival, with Techdirt writer Mike Masnick. Mike’s thoughts on the present and future of music really struck a chord with me (pun intended!). And considering the One Movement For Music festival’s tagline is “Artist, industry, fan united,” I felt it time to express my position on the value of Modern Music and why outdated copyright restrictions are undermining the sentiment in “Artist, industry, fan united.”

Let the rant begin:

The Fall of Empire

The opinion that modern music has somehow been devalued, does not regard the music industry from the cultural benefit standpoint. When people feel culture has been devalued they often support stricter copyrighy. But it is over reaching copyright restrictions that cause a cultural devaluation. Outdated copyright laws are at odds with our emerging culture practices (sharing, remixing, mashups, etc.). It makes little sense to leave so much control in the hands of the Corporate lobby groups (RIAA), who are mostly responsible for transforming popular music into an artificial and bland commodity.

The Rise of Indie

The emergent culture today sees much more music being made, and even more being re-made (REMix) by fans of it. We see music makers empowered by technology enabling Direct to Fan interaction. And we see fans empowered by the same technology that enables them to find music they can re-create with.

Music has not been devalued by or behaviors (online and offline), the exact opposite is true, we are all receiving a vast cultural benefit by more indie, more DIY, and more Action. With so many people creating, remixing and enjoying music, how can anyone think a system that revolves through a handful of over exposed “A-list” pop stars, in a Big Content vision of product placement, commanding the majority of the worlds attention is better for culture. Where is the diversity, artistry and choice in that?

Check out the full interview with Mike Masnick On Music, New Business Models And The Quest For Win-Win-Win on Hypebot

Technorati Tags: Copyright, Hypebot, Mike Masnick, One Movement For Music, Techdirt

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 6:23 am and is filed under Copyright, Music Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.