Barclays Takes You For A Ride
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Banks Take You For A Ride

This sticker campaign from P K Munroe in 2010 seems even more pertinent now in the face of the Libor interest rate fixing scandal. Sadly I can’t crow too much because shortly after all the other banks – well ones that were functioning *snigger* got fined as well for wrongly selling financial products to small businesses – and also are being investigated over the Libor scandal.

It is possible but it’s getting hard to find a bank that isn’t hypocritically taking money (either bailout, governmental or citizens) and then claiming they have no responsibility for what they do with it, nor any responsibility for kick-starting investment needed in the recession. And remember those recessions were started by financial institutions and banks with bad investments, dodgy financial ‘instruments’, currency speculation and a credit boom in the first place.

Although historically investment during recession has always been the measure of the Government, but I can’t see Dear Dave doing that either – and he’s happy to let the banks get it – well until he wants some more party funds then it’s ‘how high should I jump’?

Interesting also how the script has changed from 2009 – from evil bankers to evil people who just couldn’t stop buying things on credit cards. Remember that when the boom kicks in again and they all want you to spend, spend, spend. And it seems those that profited are not the ones who are blamed, ever. Thus is capitalism, one of mostly unessential buying, boom and spend followed by bust – but to state that you get called a ‘commie’ and a socialist. But I’m also uncomfortable with the ‘austerity’ measures as they are all designed to attack the working and middle classes and leave the rich out of it – from Jimmy Carr to Google and Apple and Vodafone. And that’s 1bn in tax avoided by Vodafone is extra to the £6bn they’ve already avoided oh and the CEO of Voda just said we should give him back more money and then he might pay more tax. Fuck, and off are my response.

These offshore laws I’m guessing are for the likes of Amazon, which is arguable whether they are onshore or off as an internet company that’s based in the States but does have UK warehouse stock (similar to the Google example, but I don’t think Amazon has much property here – might be wrong). If you have infrastructure here, like say a mobile phone network with all the masts and shops etc, then you cannot ever be ‘offshore’ as a company as you can’t ever move your network abroad. These laws are stupid.

I think with the general hatred of banks and the government, and this is before anyone here has realised how much their savings and pensions are being devalued through clipping the currency – that maybe I should invest in that Bailout! tshirt I saw back in 2009.

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Kids, Lawns and Unhappy Campers

I must say this is a strange one – a NPR intern writes that she’s not owned many albums in her life but has 11,000 songs – fairly typical for that generation, as much as you might deplore it. Then Oscar the Grouch, sorry David Lowery comes along and his long toilet-roll rant about how it’s so wrong.

What appalled me about it is because he knew Mark Linkous and Vic Chesnutt he can then claim that downloading contributed to their unfortunate demise. WTF? No, nothing about the fact that EMI delayed the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ for over a year with a legal dispute – contrary to the fluffy argument earlier that record labels don’t rip off artists which David states “…in the vast majority of cases, this is not true.” (hmm right). Just because you knew someone, even closely does not mean you can know why they took their life, what was going through their heads that moment, or whether having no money or lots of money would have changed it. It’s unknowable. I know this from very personal experience, sadly. And then to get defensive and insulting when questioned about such an allegation? (check the comments) – ouch. Not a good look, really. And not a good way to remember Mark or Vic, whose work I both respect and loved – and indeed financially supported.

Also odd is the ‘it’s our site, fuck off!’ moderator comments at the end and the usual OMG Free Culture = EVIL ILLUMINATI CONSPIRACY simplifications (also – pretty sure Spotify has never actually disclosed the proper rates in fact? The ones people quote are from a leaked Gaga ‘receipt’ and estimate from 2010?) David’s post is full of FAIL, and comes over as a bullying sort of older generation that kids will just switch off. I mean I write about this shit, and that screed even turned me off…and I’m not exactly a kid. I feel sorry for his students.

I do get the whole ‘you’re giving Google/Apple/Samsung your money why not me?’ argument, although that’s very simplistic. There is some truth there, although artists are far from in the clear when signing very stupid contracts and not allowing people to give them money (I mean seriously, if you’re an artist without Bandcamp or your own site for buying direct, you’re a dolt). Also the culture has changed, hectoring ‘the kids’ about not giving you money for bits of plastic is not going to run – and I do think subscription/streaming models will most likely be the way as Emily did point out.

Screaming that ‘Spotify is shit! Google is shit! Do it MY WAY!’ won’t really run, nor help with that – the reason such things don’t exist or get crippled is record industry bodies (RIAA, BPI, MCPSPRS etc) who do want to screw every cent out of any service – not that many small artists see it – which tends to mean many of these things are either incomplete or stillborn. I would pay for access to ALL recorded music, there’s so much stuff that’s still not available and I’d like to pay for it – but can’t. Sadly this means the second hand dealers get the money not the artist – which is why I say if you don’t get your catalogue back and/or use Bandcamp or similar for your music then you are indeed a dolt.

Giving profits to the rare record dealer, when you or your label could be making it. Many records never made it to CD let alone iTunes, and all it takes is a few sales to be quids in…rather than moaning about kids sharing your stuff. I’d rather buy a decent quality copy, but amazes me that so many artists including the ones who moan about filesharing don’t do that (I won’t look into, say, Camper Van Beethoven’s discogs entry but I’m sure I could find some deleted gems that should be out there, but aren’t.)

In my mind if you’re not selling your music then why can you moan about people sharing it? Personally I’d change the law to say copyright is only in force through use – ie. you don’t use it by releasing then deleting something, you lose. Cover would still be there for unpublished works, but it would go back to the original idea of a license – like a patent – that only exploitation of rights happens for a shorter period and also must be utilised. If not – it reverts to the artist (which would also stop record companies holding onto albums forever). If they aren’t interested then public domain it goes. I don’t see why in the digital age recorded can be still shelved in dusty vaults, it makes no sense and makes a mockery of the original idea of copyright. It was never meant to be some artist pension scheme but to help dissemination of works into the public domain with the ‘candy’ to the creator of a protected window.

And unlike the expensive distribution and record pressing of yesteryear ANYONE can release a record now without any initial outlay – and sell it for almost free in fact (Bandcamp and other sites take a cut of any sales, for instance – meaning you don’t have to pay for it up front).

Oh and to finish – I love this gramps style comment from the article:

“kids, lawn, vacate. You are doing it wrong.” ?

Way to go, David. My response is: old fool get off my lawn.

EDIT: Dave Allen of Gang of Four restores my faith of old punks getting it with the excellent The Internet Does Not Care About Your Mediocre Band. He really does – and points out some other silliness of that article (thanks Jeb for the link!)

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Future So Bright I Gotta Wear Glasses – Project Glass

This is obviously still in the concept stage, but Google’s Project Glass they announced a few days ago isn’t a late April Fool, it’s a real product, although still in development. The possibility and also viability of the technology behind this does feel like a jetpack moment – like we are living in the future…and people are quite cynical about not having hoverboards or hovercars but I was thinking recently that I have more power in my hand now than my desktop PC from a few years back – or my old Amiga, I’ve been playing with emulators on Android and yes it runs old Amiga games, PC Engine and even original Playstation games pretty much perfectly! So now we have people basically wallking around with powerful microcomputers in their pockets, why not make their interfaces a lot more wearable and usable day to day?

And even in concept stage this looks sexy and makes Apple look staid – because all of the work Google has been doing feeds into this – voice search with a massive database of different voices, the Augmented Reality work, the translation app (this would be ace to wander around and get a real-time translation of what’s in front of you!), Google Goggles, Star map, etc. It feels like a logical step.

Of course there are possible downsides to such technology, not only making everyone look like Joe 90 (unless you already wear glasses….MWAHAHAHA At last – Revenge Is Ours! :-P ) but also the possibly distracting and less co-operative features of such technology: (via b3ta and Eve Massacre)

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Calling out RIAA and MPAA lies over SOPA & PIPA

Or to use their term ‘misinformation’.

Really the RIAA and MPAA don’t seem to know when to lick their wounds and give it a rest, judging by their petty and frankly wrong response to the successful Internet Blackout and actions by Wikipedia and Google – so it’s nice to see Techdirt calling them out line by line, internet forum style, and rather than coming over all green ink it’s great to see such stupidity pwned so intelligently and with knowledge. Something the RIAA and MPAA seem to lack, with the cases as mentioned where blogs have been taken down for sharing music with permission from their very own members – or from non-members thus they have no jurisidiction over.

No, it’s sad to see such protectionism at work with the corporates, trying to save an industry which, to quote Jello Biafra ‘put out too many lousy records’ – whereas Spotify, Bandcamp and a lot of independents seem to be in rather rude health at the moment providing good music to people who want to buy it, not at the rare £15 a pop for an album but many multiples of pennies per track…or special formats like vinyl which the big boys were so quick to drop. Also strange that RIAA, BPI et al are first to trumpet the rude health and worldwide success of the likes of Adele – on the indy label XL no less – but then go and claim the industry is then ailing under piracy. Which is it? It can’t be both…

Especially offensive and intentionally misleading (and an outright lie, in my case anyway – aren’t generalisations a bitch, RIAA?) is this part:

but how many knew what they were supporting or opposing? Would they have cast their clicks if they knew they were supporting foreign criminals selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals to Americans? Was it SOPA they were opposed to, or censorship?

Ahh the old ‘piracy supports terrorism’ unfounded propaganda trick! If those ‘foreign criminals’ are selling patent-free AIDS drugs to keep people alive in sub-saharan Africa and Asia, then yes, I’m quite happy for them to break the law. Ditto those resisting Monsanto’s efforts to screw the developing world over GMO crops.

But that’s actually not what this was about, and the language is intentionally inflammatory and misleading – that to oppose SOPA or PIPA is to be one with criminals and counterfeiters and yes, probably terrorists. I remember this particular strategy being used directly after 9/11 and had to point out there were many ‘ways’ (as John now says ‘Yes there are alternatives’) not just the black and white that was presented as the currentfait accompli. And also look where that thinking took us all…

It’s not about allowing counterfeit goods – there are already many laws to deal with those, especially in the drug sector. What was the worrying thing was possible uses for censorship and a corporate crackdown on patents over drugs where generic versions now flourish under a concerted action to not allow the pharma giants to squeeze poor countries more into debt, or play god with people’s lives over patent rights. And censoring sites that would enable such access, or take away financial accesss such as Paypal to those who were organising around these – people like Sherman would say ‘oh of course that isn’t in the bill’ – but laws like this are so broad and open then of course it could have a freezing effect. Laws are always misused, and those drafting them must counter for that, unfortunately when faced by nosy government and corporates they will be misused to protect those interests.

But to tell me I was supporting ‘criminals’ by my SOPA Blackout, well Mr Sherman you can fuck right off. Especially when later suggesting by classic veiled association that I and others might have been ‘hacking’ sites for Anonymous too. By and large the protest was lawful, and can’t say I was critical of Anonymous’s actions (maybe their techniques with that DDOS Spanish link director that was floating around Twitter – that was silly & dangerous) – well I call that a dirty trick and misinformation too because like most people I wasn’t involved.

Basically RIAA and MPAA had to back off by forces of many good and vocal people rising up and expressing how unhappy they were with such legislation that wasn’t transparent and most definitely not consulted widely or considered enough. That’s democracy, and if you don’t like it Mr Sherman, you know where to go.

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