The Other McCain

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#OccupyMusicIndustry Lost Logan Lynn

Posted on | March 9, 2012 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

The full feed from the Puffington Host brings in the occasional gem like Logan Lynn: “Guess What? Stealing Is Still Wrong”
I listend to a couple of his acoustic tracks, and think his acoustic stuff compares favorably with Jack Johnson. Which makes this amuzing:

I know this is the part where all the kids and hipsters start to roll their eyes and say things like, “You just don’t get it, grandpa,” and, “It’s freedom of speech,” but I don’t actually believe that stealing my intellectual property is your constitutional right. Sorry, everybody. I get that you are used to consuming music like it’s chewing gum, but those days are numbered. I’m glad that file sharing companies are getting shut down, and I’m happy that the people who have been stealing from me and my fellow record-makers all these years are going to pay for their crimes (or at least stop doing illegal piracy facilitation business as usual). Organizing a $180,000 heist would get you sent to prison in real life, so what’s the difference?
Next time you hear a song you like, I encourage you to purchase it instead of stealing it. Supporting independent musicians just feels better than robbing us of our livelihood. I promise! Hell, you could even go to your favorite local record store, buy a CD, and look at the cover art for hours. You know, for old times’ sake.

I don’t want to kick a guy when he’s down, or blame the victim. How to make this point positively?

Mature adults don’t engage in individual, petty theft. You can argue that the U.S. government, as a whole is the largest group heist in human history, and I won’t turn in a counter-argument. But mature adults grasp that respecting the market, like any other relationship, is what mature adults do.

And yet the federal government has engaged in systemic attacks on faith, the family, and adulthood for so long that we have an entire generation of moochers to show for it. Socialism is the antithesis of private property, mature adulthood, and “old time’s sake”.

I rather hope that the realization that #OccupyAmerica is a form of hell populated by bratty children will shock you into a process of maturation, out of which could potentially emerge a conservative with actual. . .values.

Also, I bought “Feed me to the Wolves” on Amazon. There may be a market for men who natter on about trying “to find a way to ease this pain.” Hopefully Lynn can get past it all someday, look back on this, and grasp the contempt with which grown men regard this sort of thing.

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Comments

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  • http://twitter.com/richard_mcenroe richard mcenroe

    What if we only steal stuff from rabid Hollywood lefties?  It’s like, a political act, man!  A protest!  Come the Revolution! Attica!  Attica!

  • K-Bob

    Musicians and other entertainers seem to lose sight of the fact that they are a small business.  As such, they often further lose sight of the fact that–as their own chief marketing representative–discussing piracy is a losing topic for them, business-wise.

    Let the surrogates carry that ball.  Join some lobbying group or whatever.  But don’t put yourself in the position of basically telling a bunch of your fans to go screw themselves.  (This is where comedians screw up, by going “political.”)

    Just run your business like everyone else, and make allowances for these kinds of losses, and do whatever you can behind the scenes to stifle them.  Besides, many musicians have capitalized on the giving away of their music themselves, and have demonstrated they can make money at it, since like blogging, it leads to sales in other significant areas (swag, books, live performance, etc).

    Besides besides, unless you are eligible to be a client of AEG or Sony, or some other major, music promotions/tour/sales agency, anti-piracy efforts aren’t going to do a damned thing for your business.

  • johnl

    What’s the amusing part? Is Lynn a prominent advocate of mooching in other contexts? 

    I appreciate it when artists put their names to the message that when you steal art, you are stealing from them. 

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