I read on the net the other day about the sad case of Jammie Thomas. Ms. Thomas was convicted of copyright infringement on 24 songs she downloaded using a software program called Kazaa. The jury awarded the plaintiffs $1.92 million in damages.

No I didn’t mistype that. It’s damn near 2 million bucks for downloading 24 songs. I’m sure the jury was trying to “send a message” and they did. Loud and clear. If you want to pilfer music, raid you friends CD collections. You’ll get better quality and the RIAA can’t spy on you while you do it. . . yet.

Here’s a list of the extremely valuable musical masterpieces in question:

• Guns N Roses “Welcome to the Jungle”; “November Rain”
• Vanessa Williams “Save the Best for Last”
• Janet Jackson “Let’s Wait Awhile”
• Gloria Estefan “Here We Are”; “Coming Out of the Heart”; “Rhythm is Gonna Get You”
• Goo Goo Dolls “Iris”
• Journey “Faithfully”; “Don’t Stop Believing”
• Sara McLachlan “Possession”;  “Building a Mystery”
• Aerosmith “Cryin’”
• Linkin Park “One Step Closer”
• Def Leppard “Pour Some Sugar on Me”
• Reba McEntire “One Honest Heart”
• Bryan Adams “Somebody”
• No Doubt “Bathwater”; “Hella Good”; “Different People”
• Sheryl Crow “Run Baby Run”
• Richard Marx “Now and Forever”
• Destiny’s Child “Bills, Bills, Bills”
• Green Day “Basket Case”

Not only was she using a dog of a program like Kazaa to get her ill-gotten goods but she used it to download some of the lamest, corporate oriented pop ever created. Yuck. No Coltrane, Beethoven, or Hendrix? Not even any Beatles or Clapton.

Much has been written about the poor quality of the music that the suits dole out to unsuspecting teens these days and many use that as an excuse to pilfer music. The real battle that the record industry has is not against illegal downloaders though. It’s against technology itself. They may be able to sue the hell out of individuals like Jammie Thomas but they are helpless against the relentless march of technology.  The record companies would do well to remember that tech is how they took over music in the first place. The invention of the record player moved the power from the musicians themselves to those that produced the records. In the process they’ve created a do or die system that, to great extent, means and artist either hits it big with all the fame and fortune you read about in the magazines, or they’re forced to make music into a sideline. Something that takes a back seat to their “day job”.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in the day if you wanted to hear music you needed a musician. Or you played the music yourself. People actually used to learn to play an instrument (Now they play Guitar Hero, a perverse turnaround where kids pretend to be “artists”). Musicians would travel from town to town to entertain. Sure there were superstars, shady booking agents, and cheap bar owners, but other than the player piano there was only one way to hear professional music. Hire a musician.

Adding insult to injury was the exploitation of the talent. Black musicians got an especially raw deal. We’ve created nearly every indiginous American music form worth hearing. Blues, jazz, rock, and rap. I’ll throw in Reggae as well. I know it’s Jamaican, but it comes from the same racial and slave experience if you ask me. Not only were black musicians paid a pittance to record their music allowing record companies make millions off royalties, they also gave song writing credit to the white musicians who covered these songs allowing them and their children to continue to profit off their work. Yes that includes Elvis as well, a pox on him. Today people don’t even know that Rock and Roll was black music. In fact Ike Turner is credited with writing the first Rock and Roll song. They were able to do this as the country would not allow black musicians to excite their kids with that jungle music called Rock and Roll. The artists were suppressed, Little Richard was robbed, and the British invasion was little more that British artists imitating the black musicians that white Americans were not allowed to hear.

So I can’t wait to see the record industry die. It would be the best thing to ever happen to music in decades. I suggest that everyone go out and pilfer as much music as you can. Use the newsgroups as that prevents the authorities from tracking you. Have duping parties were everyone brings their favorite discs and copies them for the rest of the party goers. Find alternate sources of new music, especially online. Most of all, go to a club or other live event and support real artists playing live.

Related posts:

1. Message to the Music Industry: Go Ahead and Die Already
2. Message to the Music Industry: Go Ahead and Die Already
3. Message to the Music Industry: Go Ahead and Die Already
4. Message to the Music Industry: Go Ahead and Die Already
5. Message to the Music Industry: Go Ahead and Die Already