on SOPA…when you rely on the government to regulate the actions of teenagers you are in for a losing battle. and face it, the overwhelming majority of people who download movies and music are young people. and you know what? young people don’t have any money so chances are, even if you shut down every download site on the Web and block access to foreign sites, they still would not purchase your product. That’s what people without money do. They don’t buy stuff.
I recently went to the pirate Bay and downloaded Dr.Dre’s the chronic because my cd had become unplayable. now this is an album I’ve purchased at least seven times in my life so you can bet I’m not losing any sleep over my actions. what was interesting was there were 12 people seeding the album and 35 leaching it.
I remember the first Time i bought this album i was 12. When I arrived home, i immediately put a blank tape in the stereo and record a copy for my best friend. I did this several more times throughout the following days for many more friends. and with their recorded copy many more copies were created. likewise, when the next cool album came out whoever was lucky enough to have $15 dollars around to buy it was under obligation to make it available for dubbing. that continued all the way through high school and college until we could afford to pay for all the music we wanted. eventually the format changed to cd but the process remained the same it just got more efficient.
now, the format is mp3 and the process is even more efficient but it hasn’t really changed.
if anything, Hollywood should embrace these practices. in todays age of instant information a band can be discovered by the masses in record time. people don’t realize how regional music used to be. a bands that was hugely popular in one past of the country remained relatively obscure in others and if you didn’t live in a major city you were always months behind in what music was cool.
so too all you crappy bands and shitty rappers, embrace the sharing of music because without it you would have a hell of a time finding anybody to buy your work.
just remember, not that long ago most people relied on mtv to tell them what music was cool.
—My Dad on SOPA.
