more reasons to hate the RIAA vs. Democratic Primaries



So, here's another reason to hate the RIAA -- they're going after DJ mix CDs/tapes again (thanks to Kim Cascone for posting this to microsound). I've written before on the hypocritical nature of the RIAA. The fact that the RIAA are confiscating DJ mixes that contain music produced by musicians who are, in most cases, not members of the RIAA lobby, and moreover, targeting music from producers that support DJ mixes as a way to disseminate talent to listeners and proliferate DJ culture, confirms that the RIAA is not aiming to protect the copyright of the music in question, but rather limit the selection of DJ mixes to only those approved, controlled, packaged, selected and mixed by corporate chains, their labels, and their 'DJs'. By targeting independent music stores, the RIAA sends a clear message that independent music is the criminal, as well as its homegrown systems of distribution, its culture, its language, discourse, its very ideas. Culture is the criminal. Generalise that to say: anything non-corporate is at stake--held to the stake, burnt at the stake. Everything must be owned, stamped, calculated. Profit is the mark of legitimacy. Were the RIAA around in the 15th century, bards and folk singers would be jailed for their 'copyright infringements'. National anthems would require a fee. Communal history would be verboten without paying the toll. In fact, the RIAA bears some resemblance to the Guilds of the late Medieaval period and Renaissance. And just like the death of the Guilds--their monopoly and greed, controlling the market, led to their fall--the RIAA too will find itself eventually shelved by the forces of history. It's just a shame they have to expend their petty energies on the creative cultures of the world before their none-too-soon demise.

Meanwhile, everyone else is following the Democratic primaries, elections, etc. My take? Yeah, a Democrat would be good in office. But I'm Canadian. No matter who gets in, the US is the US. The Democrats treat the rest of the world better, but the underlying military infrastructure, judicial systems, various staff, subsystems of intelligence, operatives, and so forth, will remain on target to a goal that, barring a complete reversal and deplacement of the Washington camp in its totality that would involve a complete detour of the US as a whole, like a magnet that is invisible yet powerful, leads the people of the United States and the world to an ever increasing state of exception and conflict. This is not to say that 'The Revolution' is coming, that there is something inevitable on the horizon (although I do think there is a hint of 'crisis' about the variables of environmental sustainability, oil, power, corporate multinational structures, governance, and its reactions--terrorism--and the ancient battles being fought via religious power). This might reek of telos but it's more or less a haunting superstition. It's intuition. It's haunting in all the ways that can be deconstructed as haunting, which is to say, it's the passing of time that leads this time to its own unique understanding of paranoia, fear, and ultimately, death.

No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in.


posted. Fri - January 30, 2004 @ 03:42 PM           |

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