Today is a sad day for all of us, because whether you know it or not, our generation, the internet generation, stands for nothing if not freedom of information. Art, music, political affairs, weapons technology--information. What divides us but what we know? If we care about anything, we care about our ability to choose the information that we receive. The freedom of information on the internet unfetters us from the shackles of a corporate dominated media. The only way to guide our political machine away from its kamakaze divebomb into foreign affairs is to be the generation that understands the changes that have taken place within the last century--technological, social, global change--and to modify our beliefs and our behavior to find a maintainable way of life that emphasizes individual autonomy. Music is just the beginning, and it is what speaks to us on the most visceral level. It is the soul of our generation.
Oink.cd, a beacon of communal respect for art and the creative individual on the internet, was shut down today, and the guy who ran it, whom I only know by the name of Alan, is dealing with the legal consequences of allowing people to share their music. How long will it be before we all understand that these bureaucracies are not protecting art, the artist, or our rights? Any true artist wants their work out there, they want to be heard, they want to be seen, they want to be understood by as many people as possible. They are not protecting the artistic individual. They are protecting the businessmen and the tax collectors. They are protecting themselves and their money.
It doesn't matter whether you used Oink or not, this crack-down represents the direction of governmental policy and the growing divide between two different value systems. If you care about music, if you care about art, if you care about freewill which is tied inextricably to freedom of information, today is a very sad day. Hopefully I won't be needing to make another post about this for a long time, but the way things are going, it's not looking good.
The only proper course of action I can think of is to share. Share your music, share your art, share your ideas. They are yours. Connect with other people, don't let money guide your course through life. Don't let anyone stop you.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Live Free or Die?
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11 comments:
Exactly. Oink was a communal beacon of respect for the free access to art and knowledge. The authorities and media blatantly lie and say it was a money making scam and pay to enter criminal organization. So infuriating.
I think the Britney album had something to do with it being shut down, because it was number one on the top 10 when it got shut down.
I'm excited to see where all the oink users flock to.
yeah, soulseek is about to get 180,000 of its users back, haha
Nice post.
-Carles
Well put, What a shame. I loved oink.
Even though this incident has led me to make a dive into the not-downloading-music-illegally-anymore camp (a decision I've been leaning toward but not fully committal to for some time now), I can't help but share your sentiments.
My taste is so much more refined, my ear so much more attentive, my understanding of musical growth and development, have been aided so greatly by such services.
So many CDs I've purchased, I'd have never even HEARD OF if it weren't for these services. If it weren't for Napster in the 90's and everything that followed, I probably wouldn't even listen to music anymore.
In most ways, I think the debate over whether or not piracy is moral or immoral relies on what kind of music fan you are, and what kind of dedication you have to it as a growing, changing art. If everyone on OiNK were a passive Top-40 teen pop fan, I think the raid would have been completely justified.
Still, you can't argue that the raid wasn't completely justified either, as the site DID break laws, and certainly knowingly. I think the problem lays not in that the raid occurred, but that, as you say, that the music was treated as product and not art.
And for some of the music on there, I think that's fair to say, and I think most of the "60" albums they're referring to probably were commercial garbage.
I guess all I'm actually trying to say is that I completely sympathize with your views, that a little understanding for the dedicated music fan would make for a better world.
the raid would be justified if law enforcement agencies actually had some hope of putting a stop to file-sharing. as it is, its just a law they can't enforce, so they're making a empty gesture to scare the public into think that they are in control of the situation. they're making one guy suffer to make an example out of him, they brought cameras along for the raid because they knew that this was a public event that was designed more to influence opinion and to scare people than to actually accomplish anything.
i really don't care if he broke laws. laws that can't be enforced, laws that the public doesn't agree with, just need to go. it is going to take a while for culture to catch up to the changes technology has made, and it is going to take even longer for government to adjust, especially since their monetary interests demand that they keep the system working the way it is. we just have to make sure that everyone of our generation is aware enough of what is going on so that they can protect their right to free information and not continue in the same direction that we're going now. i hate to keep repeating myself, but i really think this is important.
i forgot to say, though, that i agree it is kinda stupid to share those really big commercial albums that you're more likely to get into trouble for.
This is likely going to just have a hydra effect, further spreading the movement out and making it harder to stop.
There may not be a place as quality as Oink that will pop up, but I think in order for a group to be successful, it HAS to be kept secret and Oink simply wasn't.
I agree, though I tend to think the sheer number of different groups is more important than secrecy. You just can't punish everyone. But you may still have cases like this where they can hang it on one guy who runs the thing.
If there was some way of running the tracker without using one server in some specific place, like the way you can let NASA borrow your computer's processing power to do calculations when you aren't using it, that seems like it would be really awesome. But its probably really complicated and I'm not sure if its even applicable for this kind of thing.
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