Mardoch said:
You mind explaining why you support them?
(sigh) I suppose I can at least defend myself as I have already received a fair amount of hate mail since Thursday that I haven't replied to yet, ranging from fans to family members... but I doubt it will do much good to make anyone understand, sympathize or change their opinion on the matter. When it comes to possible censorship and infringement of certain liberties, it's going to obviously send people into a frenzy. Especially when it sneaks up on them out of nowhere, and gets put into the spotlight by those campaigning an opposition.
Before I explain my support of the bills, let me state that I am a conservative, I believe in smaller government, and with that I am also a believer in capitalism. When it comes to politics, there is never really a cut-and-dry approach, and the core values can sometimes conflict with each other and you might be asked to choose between them if there is no reasonable compromise... these bills are just as such. Also, I don't want to make this seem like I am targeting anyone here, as I know a vast majority of music fans here, many who I consider good friends, are honest and supportive of music in general.
This is a very emotional subject for me, and has been for many years now, and yes, I take it personally. Why? I have sat on the sidelines for almost a decade, and watched the music world and technology change and progress (or lack there of), and have become very bitter and jaded with how consumers (fans?) have become adversarial, feeling that they have this new sense of entitlement with the budding technology, and seem to feel that they are doing me a favor by taking my creative works without my permission or reimbursement and calling it "free advertising."
Being a musician, I love what I do, I love to create, it is more than a passion, it is a very personal outlet of creativity that drives me to have an actual purpose to wake up in the morning. I have no desire to be a "Rock star" or even live off my music, however, I would like to still find some worth in continuing without going into further debt, selling my personal property, and making unnecessary life choices like between paying the electric bill or releasing an album. What I do is considered a hobby, being that I don't live off of what I make from it (which is very little, or nothing at all) and have a day job... in fact I spend three to five times more on it than I see come back. I want to have the freedom to dictate if I will give away my art or ask for compensation. I have become disenchanted at not even being able to have an opportunity to pay myself back on my creative works, having my work treated like it is a disposable commodity, and told to just "suck it up" and figure out another way to generate a return on my investment by both the tech industry and consumers.
These bills are about money on both the opposing and supportive sides of the debate. Period. The entertainment industry has been fairly up front about this since day one. However, the tech giants (Google more so than any other) have politically side-stepped this same question, and hide behind the first amendment as a clever shield to the reality of what they stand to lose. If anyone out there feels the tech giants are looking out for you, and your best interest in freedom of speech and keeping the web "free", and sticking it to the fat cats in the entertainment business, then you are fooling yourself. They too, much like the entertainment industry, are all large corporations too. They are all businesses, they all have margins to keep up, and many with profits into the billions, so it's rather ignorant to believe they don't have a general vested interest in these bills outside of what they are saying right now publicly, because if they were to pass, they all stand to lose money... a lot of it.
The ethical part of the equation was the best way to wake everyone up in the general public to this and rally the troops. These bills were both on the verge of passing until the tech giants threw a hail marry pass in the 11th hour after fighting against them behind the scenes for almost a year now, and I give them kudos on this, as playing on peoples emotions is a sure fire tactical advantage that they pulled out of the deck at the perfect time. It worked, just reading through all the comments in this thread, on face book and everywhere else, it worked fantastically. The only thing I find laughable, is that everyone was linking to Google and Wikipedia's statements... not the actual bills themselves. This leads me to believe that most people didn't even read the bills and understand the reason why they are even being considered as possible law and what the actual effect it will have. If they DID read the bills, they might not have had such a knee-jerk reaction to opposing it. I'm not saying it would sway anyone to support them, only that it would give them a better understanding to what they are about and why they are in the house. Sadly, the public just logged on the intertube Thursday morning and saw the tech giants protests and only viewed it as big brother stepping in and censorship on the web... and thus it was game over. It's also impressive that the ripple effect was so strong, some of the co-sponsors (including my own state representative) decided to flip-flop on it after a year of fighting tooth and nail for it to pass. Must be an election year for them... oh wait, it is. How convenient.
So, why do I support the bills? Besides everything I've already mentioned above, the bottom line is that I am tired of the excuses and am sick of being told that I have to just "deal with it or pack up and go home" (non-verbatim quote from Google senior council Kent Walker). As an artist, pardon my being overly offended that I can create something, spend money on creating it, release it to the public on my own accord to share with people with the hope of being mildly compensated for my effort, and within a blink of an eye, have someone in my own back yard take it from me, upload it onto a website/server in another country, and allow the entire world, including EVERYONE ELSE in my OWN COUNTRY to take it without giving me any sort of compensation. All the while being told that nothing can be done because the server/website is based OUTSIDE the United states, and that chasing down those uploading/downloading MY copy written material WITHIN the United States is a waste of resources because EVERYONE is doing it? Does this really seem right to anyone? Is this really fair? Is it seriously justifiable? I certainly hope not....
Do I want the government involved? No... absolutely not. It goes against my beliefs as a conservative. would I much rather have the tech industry police themselves on this issue? Of course I would. However, The tech giants over the last decade, especially over the last year when these bills were introduced, have proven that they are not only uninterested in it doing such a thing , but feel that it isn't their problem, it is the intellectual property owners problem, and they are not responsible in the least, and that is why I am in support of the bill. Until someone is willing to take responsibility and do something on their own accord in the tech world to find a solution that is in-line to the copyright laws that they are blatantly in total defiance of, then at best... I have to rely on the government to lobby the tech industry to find a solution that doesn't compromise my intellectual property rights and my copy written material, and at worst... FORCE them to take responsibility and find a solution. And that is the bottom line.
I guess that makes me one of the bad guys. But no worries, these bills are pretty much dead at this point, so I'll just deal with it, or pack up and go home.
