THE EARLY BIRD: A Bi-Weekly Rant On Decay & Deterioration In The Age Of Enlightenment.

TACKLING THE COPYRIGHT ISSUE:
A deeper look into the gaping abyss beneath patented thought.

In this day and age, it’s probably fair to say that legally speaking, you are a dirty thieving pirate or an accomplice of one, mainly because the law has made it nearly impossible not to be. Technology and legislation are clashing like never before. Never before in the history of popular culture has it been so enticingly easy to share (steal), yet at the same time so completely illegal to do so. Technology has changed, but copyright laws have remained exactly the same under the influence of panicky media tycoons who realized that the Internet was the blade with which a new generation of consumers would slaughter every last golden-egg-laying goose that they were breeding in their battery cages. Because seriously, who is going to pay for something they could easily do without, especially if it’s actually physically easier to steal that something. After all, technology is making us lazier every day, our inert asses sagging ever deeper into the age of Bloated Sloth. Is anyone really waiting for that new Christina Aguilera album or will the target audience be satisfied with anyone that fits the template? And in either case, how many people do you think are going to actually go out and buy it?

We’re not just talking (shitty) music here; this phenomenon is increasingly affecting all kinds of media content and computer software. Thousand dollar programs downloaded, installed and up & running in a time span of a few hours. The latest movies in DVD-quality, scooped off the net and running on your home cinema system if you take the tiny effort of properly configuring the video settings on your computer. Now let’s get one thing straight: we’re not in any way advocating piracy, we’re just carefully explaining what an entire next generation of consumers already takes for granted. And who’s going to blame them? If you force people into being thieves, then you can bet that they are going to get good at it and steal as much as they possibly can. The system does not really give you a reasonable option somewhere in between, so why stop at 100 mp3’s when you can just as easily download 1,000?

Technological evolution has thoroughly undermined the autocracy of the moguls of content industry. We’re talking about the faceless guys lounging behind the scenes in tailor-made suits and getting obscenely rich by making pop-products out of naive teens and then selling them wholesale by feeding the uncaring and obedient public every last drop of blood they can squeeze out before they pick a new perky candidate that’s just aching for those famed fifteen minutes. These are the people that are feeling very threatened right now, because they know that the public is not going to fall for their scams anymore. Not because that public is fed up with being ripped off, but because it has now actually become easier to fight the power than to obey. The sharing (piracy) revolution has been the most successful, widespread and unstoppable revolution we’ve seen in a while, exclusively because it’s just so damn ridiculously easy to partake in. It’s amazing how this generation is bringing the established giants of popular culture to their knees by clicking a few buttons and then leaving their computer running when they go to sleep. Why? Because nobody is too lazy or scared to partake in a revolution that they can join while sitting safely at their desktop.

Part two online on monday April 19.

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