So, watching my identi.ca stream I notice this little number pop up. Even though I don't care about Warner Music Group, since they don't publish any music from artists I care about, I can't say I'm heartbroken. But, at the same time, this is not the downward slope we need to be on right now.
While I use, and enjoy, both free content and free software, I have nothing against commercial media and proprietary software. I'll listen to what I want, and I'll use what software I want, and I have nothing against other people using what they want as well (unless it's Windows, heh). However, there is a large difference between software and media, one is honestly just a collection of bits that gets something done. Media, on the other hand, is something that expresses us as a people, our culture, ourselves.
Do I believe you should be able to steal peoples hard work? No, I don't. In fact, many of the creative commons artists I listen to I try and support in some manner, because I enjoy their work and I want to thank them for it. But, as a certain video states, we are getting away from being tied to our computers and consuming content by ourselves all day. We venture out into the world and make some of our own, taking photos and video of our adventures, no matter how simple they may be.
And while we take these to preserve memories for ourselves, we also want to share them with others. We want to mix our memories with our favorite content, such as syncing a photo slideshow to your favorite song. Or, maybe, a soundbite from a movie, TV show, the possibilites are endless. Or, maybe you just want to mash together existing content into something new and exciting.
Now here's the issue, copyrighted materal usually doesn't really allow derivative works, and so far, they've simply been tolerated. With the start of this Warner and youtube issue, it's becoming apparant that the media companies don't really approve of such practices, because it provides an easy avenue for other people to 'steal' their content.
A simple issue about sharing content online, is that it requires bandwidth. So generally, while we make a high quality version of something for ourselves, what we post online is usually much lower because we don't want to take forever to post it. Does such low-quality versions of a work really make people want to save that copy and keep it? Do you actually enjoy repeatedly listening to 128kbps MP3's?
Society is changing, we're mixing and sharing content, telling our friends what we like and what we don't. As much as I'd like a truly 'free culture' to exist, I'd like to point out that companies can still make money from their content when people share it. If I see a friends slideshow and go "hey, what song is that", I'l often go online and buy that song or album. It's free marketing, and the people who aren't interested in your content won't buy it either way, so what's the difference?
I'm hoping I made some sense, as this is just another one of my rants. But I really believe in our ability as a race to build upon each others creations and make something new. It's how society and technology have slowly developed, we evolve, expand, further explore unknown territory. It's how we operate, and it's really sad to see greed get in the way of the evolution of our society.
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