Re: Zoe Keating in NY Times article.@borisfx.com

[Antony Hequet <antony.hequet@yahoo.fr>]

Right on Rick!

Antony Hequet
Poet composer

On 31 janv. 2013, at 00:44, Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:

> I get a lot of 'quit crying over spilt milk'  kinds of responses
> to my own anger about the way that music and musicians have been so 
> devalued
> in our culture due to the new paradigm shift of downloading (and the 
> demise of the CD)
> 
> I know it's not going to change (though I have some powerful friends who 
> are attempting to
> come up with a new paradigm---more on that later),
> but what I've noticed is that people are really uncomfortable about
> anger being expressed openly in a public forum,  but they seem completely
> okay with the major companies being completely usurous and exploitive.
> It's a sort of <shrugs shoulders> "regretful but that's the way it is 
> and we
> are powerless over it."
> 
> At the same time,  major corporations spend millions of dollars trying to
> improve their images through the media (look at BP after their Gulf of 
> Mexico
> debacle)...........the major corporations DO listen to public opinion 
> and they
> do respond when there is a grass roots surge of protest.  Even the 
> largest company
> on earth, currently,  Apple,  is suddenly scrambling
> to try and bring some of their manufacturing back onto US soil because of
> universal public displeasure at the disclosures about the slave wage 
> conditions
> of their Chinese manufacturing sites.
> 
> At one point in this country in the last century,
>  the major industries heavily exploited their laborers and they rose up
> against them and the Labor Unions were created and Child Labor laws
> were created and the 40 hour work week was established............all
> humanizing and positive influences in our culture.
> 
> It took,  however,  major displeasure by the government and industry
> and a lot of indignant anger and organizing to forge those changes.
> 
> iTunes,  Spotify,  Pandora and their ilk are exploitive..........period. 
>   point.   dot.
> Apple went from a cool 'underground'  artsy company to the largest 
> multi-media
> (indeed, purely the largest) company on the planet,   partially because 
> of their
> technological innovation and partially because of this very exploitation.
> 
> Why don't we all just say "NO,  not any more"  to these people?
> 
> It has nothing to do with being an old fart.
>