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I'm going to let my sleep-deprived philosophy rants bellow:
There's probably an interesting argument for people who 'believe' that technology destroys music. Artists are devalued as machines propagate the music on an effortless medium. What's my point? I'm playing devil's advocate: all the white noise of the internet music phenomena is distorted by electronic music as a whole -- captured acoustic or pure electronic.
To these people, music is spontaneous and alive. Music is a real person striking a string at one specific point in time. It is always different; never replicated. While I personally do not hold this belief, they are probably enjoying music constantly destroy and reinvent itself within the confines of human economics, law, and politics.
Now we see the cybernetic face of humanity take upon itself a two-edged sword. The two-face of human demons now has a bolder contrast when given more powerful tools.
Now is anything worth paying for that is no longer tangible? Is a service no longer worth paying for because of the effortless propagation of information in any form. Can only that which is material be paid for by the tokens of "human labor"?
Should the idiot be paid when all he did was cycle loops in FL is given a few pennies every time someone downloads his/her hobby? However, a violinist who worked 4-hours a day strenuously perfecting an art-form is given the same treatment because his/her playing can suddenly be captured and rendered to digital passes of electrons!
The anti-capitalist side hasn't held up a good audience that has affected the wages for programmers/software-engineers/developers/etc. To the free market that I am aware of, these workers get paid big bucks because they perfected a difficult-to-forge form of knowledge that companies thrive upon. The spread, creation, and enhancements of information is given much worth on the scale of human life-and-living. A programmer may never build a couch for you to sit upon, but the programmer may have created a client program to a sales-database for several companies to access with limited user-ship, order parts from, base corporate decision from, etc.
I'll give the violinist one leg-up: a pro-violinist can be paid for live acts better than a digi-download. It seems right, the violinist depends on the forced-upon venue-ship to continue honing a historical craft that provides transcendental release. The violinist has no other way to put bread on the table because the violinist spent too much valuable time perfecting the bow and string instead of learning an occupational behavior that rates less on the scale of the arcane.
Personally, music being forced to an "economic standpoint" is a fallacy as long as the lack of money somehow depreciates the gift from being expressed. If everyone had to work to support themselves, and in turn: work entailed no time for music... the world loses something This is especially true if the love of music doesn't die alongside such a realization. However, the opposite is true. Music is in abundance, and the amount of people who have the resources to expend their life to it's expression is endless. Many have discovered successful musical output in the hobby-side of their life. However, there are countless talented and crafted individuals who share no such luxury. Where does "portable value" and "artistry" meet on the scale of human life-and-living?
Even more alarming is the stupidity of celebrity status that gains more attention than real talent. However, some may blame the lowest-common-denominator of public mass appeal. In rebuttal, the blame can easily be pointed right back in the face of listeners who haven't done the work of music appreciation for themselves. However, in today's world where everything is in the fast lane, fast-food, fast-downloads, fast education, fast love, etc who has the time? Who has the time indeed, when life can be so superficial that one can live 80 years without understanding anything that is extraordinary in these escapades.
Audio-nerds (kinda like me) deserve to starve if they somehow depend on their tapestries of synthetic dreams to serve them bread and butter. Everyone has the tools and access to know how, anymore. Too many can sound like a watered down virtuoso of electronic music with the right amount of effort and talent (while some examples are laughable, many have found something to latch onto).
So where am I going with this? I really do not know, but I believe they are questions that seek higher questions that ultimately seek answers to the individual. Personally, I believe in the merits of individuality. That means that I have a standard for myself that is different due to my beliefs about human nature (whether stemmed from religion, culture, ethics, or philosophical contemplations). In practice, my actions speak thus:
1. 99% of my music that I have immediate access to is legal.
2. HOWEVER, I OFTEN listen to music off of YouTube (Sometimes, I buy the track if I like it so much).
This is where I find compromise: exploration and collection. But I personally believe that functions such as "universal subscriptions" to music downloads (legally) wouldn't have have to be an issue if human beings were all honest with themselves. If every human paid for the tracks that they downloaded, there would be no need for money to be extracted someplace else. It's the principle of such an action: that
centralized-friends-in-high-places have to tie everyone up by the arm to meet the 'demands' of another (equally scary or even stupid) centralized entity: the music industry. Here is where paradox equals unsolved questions and where politics and philosophy start getting heated and rise to sling whatever is available.
Audio-s for now...
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...On college-driven hiatus...
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