Counting down the days to my imminent layoff is kind of depressing (2. TWO.) but it’s still a little exciting, too. I can do anything now. Theoretically. In reality I’ll probably spend the next two months unemployed and fucking around on the internet and then take the first job I’m qualified to do. But in theory, IN THEORY, I can spend the next couple of months getting my shit together and figuring out what I really want to do. Which you’d think I would’ve done by now, but… well, figuring your shit out isn’t an event, it’s a process.
When the highlight of my day was listening to a sketchy cellcast of a concert on the other side of the country, well, that probably is a little more revealing about the rest of my day than I’d like. But still, I got about a thousand words written, and while that’s well below average, it’s a lot more than nothing.
I’ll probably delete it tomorrow. But that’s okay.
So a friend of a friend was talking about music copyrights here, and both her entry and the comments and pretty interesting to me. I have yet to find anyone I agree with entirely on the issue, because everyone’s got their own perspective, and everyone’s got an agenda.
So here’s mine, the simplified version. Since the first song I downloaded in — 1997? Pre-napster, at any rate — I’ve bought more CDs than ever. Between 1994 and 1997 I bought less than a dozen. In 2002 I bought probably about a hundred. That’s not because I suddenly have a hundred times the disposable income I had before. No. It’s because I’ve had the opportunity to discover new music.
I download music because it gives me the opportunity to get a song, even if I already have it on tape or CD somewhere. It’s easy, it’s convenient. I can find rare music that I just can’t find on CD somewhere. I can make my own mixes. I can listen to what I want to do. I can’t do that with albums. And right now, there’s no middle ground.
Someone needs to make that middle ground, where artists can still make money off their music, where consumers can get it cheaply and conveniently (which seems to be the big stumbling block right now). At this point, it’s not something that can be outright stopped though nasty speeches and lawsuits and guilt trips; people will find a way to get what they want. There needs to ba a solution where the official product is better, and just as convenient, and not prohibitively expensive.
And nobody’s come up with that yet.