How does a cycle endure? When consumption and replenishment of a source are about equal. If there’s a tiny village with a communal water source, there’s a system in which the precious water is distributed. A system in which allocates not only rations for the water but also implements a kind of compensation towards the good of the village itself. Each family gets to have some by first contributing a bit manual labor to the construction of village structures the natives all share, and secondly, waiting exactly a week for the water to replenish. So there is the compensation which gives something collectively back and there is the balancing of time so as to not deplete the resource. Any upset to the balance of this cycle and everybody loses. If one family decides to sneak more water than they should, lets say in the middle of the night, it would mean for that moment that the contribution aspect to the village is lost and the balance of time for replenishment is gone. Integrity and resource of that living environment is compromised. Everybody eventually starts to lose.
In this day and age of music and entertainment, the balance of our cycle(s) has been upset. Summed up into two ways, by greed and ignorance. Both greed and ignorance falls on the consumer and the industry.
There doesn’t seem to be a big disagreement on record labels in general being blood suckers so to speak. I mean just look at Nine Inch Nails’ front-man/mastermind Trent Reznor’s plight against them. We are talking big-time labels, the ones who can make an impact with less of a struggle. There are some indie labels that have caught whim of what it means to one, be fair where everybody wins, and two, causality and how it affects everybody in the long run. Before the days of piracy, as we know it today, what were the reasons for record labels taking so much while the creator/artist took so little? Greed. And that greed eventually also pushing the consumer started to push the integrity of our cycle off the deep end. It is not to say piracy and file sharing wouldn’t have existed without this greed and I’m in no way placing blame solely on the greed of the industry. I’m rather pointing out how one corrupting aspect affected our cycle for bad. File sharing and piracy, whether stemming from backlash or not is no lesser evil and equally needs to be addressed. You see, to go back to our analogy of the village, the record labels are like the higher-ups who administer and keep a degree of control over the resource. The people of the village are obviously like the modern day consumer. At any point within the cycle, if either party halts their share of what they put into the cycle and take more out than they put in than the long-term effects are the demise of the integrity of our cycle; our lives. If X-label takes THIS much from the artist, that may directly affect the artist’s lifestyle and how they create their art. It may indirectly ensue a backlash from those who are supporting the monetary foundation for both the artist and the label hurting once again the artist, then eventually the label, then finally the consumer for draining the source (artist) of their entertainment, art, and music. Look, the bottom-line is, no matter which thread you want to pull to destroy the sweater they all come down to being equally destructive. Everybody has responsibility in upholding their living environment. Every fair consumption that gives back fairly upholds the integrity of our cycle.
*I’m not affiliated with this gentleman, but Richard Gibbs’ activism against piracy and getting back to the artist what is indeed theirs is noteworthy. Check out this article and concept “Day Of Sharing”:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0225/p12s01-ussc.html?page=1
And also what is being done:
Interesting reads…
