The TrendRobot Marches On » Commentary

A Mouse and his Sheriff: Why I won’t be supporting Broken Bells

BRQ — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:15:14 +0000

Among the most searched terms on TrendRobot since its beginning are “Broken Bells”, “Vaporize” and “The High Road”. All of these terms, at one time or another, appeared on the site via our Track of the Day segment and I gave nothing but praise to the duo whose main projects I loved so dearly. I am a lifelong Shins fan and an avid Danger Mouse listener and thought that the work they were going to put out together could only be as great. I, however, was shocked to find a bit of hypocrisy lying within the trenches of Pitchfork’s new favorite band, and for this, I will never again mention Broken Bells in a single post.

Once I had heard about the Broken Bells project from a friend, I knew this had to be on my upcoming site. I emailed Columbia for free tracks and was immediately directed towards the official website where I could download, for free, “The High Road”. A great song, a great video, everything was aces. I emailed back, hoping for an exclusive track that I could actually review and was again pointed towards a promotional website where I was able to download “Vaporize”. Thinking this was immediate permission to post the song, I did . . . and then the Sheriff came to town.

If you’re at all well-versed with music blogs, you know that the rights and permissions granted by labels and record companies can be murky waters to tread, and you probably know about the watchful eye of The Web Sheriff. Falling on the heels of the Blogocide of 2010, there has been a significant push by big-name record labels to collect and protect their copyrighted, intellectual material and the UK-Based Web Sheriff offered to clean up this town for a share of the dinosaurs’ profits. The question though, of course, is how to audit the permissions given out. Do some blogs have the permission? Do some blogs not? For all intents and purposes, it’s safe to say a majority of music blogs probably don’t. However, in keeping TrendRobot on the up-and-up (as successful music blogs do), I reached out and was given a timely, positive response. At the same time, Columbia Records had also apparently hired the infamous Web Sheriff to police the internet for any pirate sailing the wired-seas and flying the Broken Bells flag. Along the way, some wires were crossed, and I received one of those delightfully polite letters from the Web Sheriff telling me to immediately remove the post and “wait patiently” for the Broken Bells album to premiere despite being directed to the track earlier. As a responsible administrator, I removed the post with haste, but got to thinking why this was even happening on a Danger Mouse album (even if it was a pirated track).

For once, my beef is not with the Web Sheriff. I’ll leave that to bloggers who have had far worse confrontations with the high law of the internet, for the response I received was polite and under the wishes of Columbia Records. Yes, Web Sheriff, I understand that you’re attempting to facilitate a service (even though it may be an ill-fated trade in the era of new media). Unexpectedly, I was more upset about the actual musician making the music I had just plugged, repeatedly, on my site . . . my site which has a strict morale against advertising or making money from its pieces. Yes, my beef is not only with Columbia Records’ marketing department, but moreso with the hypocritical morals of an artist who was so disenfranchised with his previous label, that when his last album was released, he prodded listeners to download the torrent and burn it to a disc illegally.

The event that I’m talking about is, of course, Danger Mouse’s well-publicized legal troubles with EMI that led to Dark Night of The Soul being released as a 100+ page book that included a blank CD-R on the back cover that read, “For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music, use it as you will”. On his website and various other outlets, Danger Mouse promoted the use of torrents to air mixtapes and further promote new remixes and projects he was working on, including the seminal Grey Album . How does someone with the counter-culture following of Danger Mouse go from mocking the music industry’s dinosaur principles to an artist working within the confines of them?

Here’s the bottom line: Columbia Records, if you don’t want me to talk about Broken Bells, then fine, I won’t. Danger Mouse, if you don’t want me to share your material, then fine, I won’t. Even though you prompted me to download “Vaporize”, TrendRobot apparently is not fit to post the song. It’s not even the fact that somewhere, a miscommunication happened, it’s that there’s policing of this product in this manner. I’m sure one small-time Denver media blog won’t hurt the mass appeal from the hipsters reading Pitchfork, but I can think of at least a few other blogs who will refuse to post your material as well. I’ll forget to mention singles, videos, and I’ll inevitably forget the album amidst my Best of 2010 lists. Just think about the thousands of unique visitors that TrendRobot attracts and consider that they will now not be able to hear your product . . . now consider how many of those are other bloggers. Nothing you did just stopped illegal downloading . . . you simply stunted word-of-mouth.

I’ll save my new media rant on how recorded studio tracks are now nothing more than marketing fodder for live performances for later. I’ll even save my belief in the constitutional right of Freedom of Press, that allows a journalist to review, critique, or report on something, and supersede copyright law. No, this is more a disappointed fan writing to say he’s done listening to your hipster band because of your change in morals. I felt I just owed it to my readers to explain why no more Broken Bells material would be posted, and I needed to grasp at straws as to why Danger Mouse would affiliate himself with such an outdated business model.

So, Danger Mouse . . . how is it that you, rebellious producer and counterculture icon, ultimately ended up making an album that was policed by a bunch of goons without their facts straight? I don’t know and I don’t care to know. Just think about how this looks (or won’t look) on any site other than Pitchfork from here on out.

World-savior Bono wants to police your internet activity, endorses China’s ‘net monitoring

BRQ — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:03:23 +0000

In an article written for the New York Times, U2 frontman Bono said that internet service providers were essentially “reverse Robin-Hooding” by benefitting from the music industry’s lost revenue over music pirating.

“A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators…the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.”

The article was originally intended as a call-to-arms for Hollywood to heed the warning from the music industry and not fall to the same pirating measures that have plagued physical music sales in the last decade. “The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we’re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of ’24′ in 24 seconds.”

Shockingly enough, Bono went on to suggest that China’s efforts to curb and monitor internet content and social networking were a positive move in the name of “fairness to creators and artists”. In a particularly controversial statement, the Irishman went on to discuss how the US’ “noble efforts to stop child pornography” and China’s “ignoble efforts to curb online dissent” as being proof that music and movie pirates could easily be brought to justice.
Needless to say, the article raised a great deal of debate online, including the crosshairs of Cory Doctorow, a noted journalist who has exhaustively studied file-sharing policy. In a string of recent tweets, Doctorow noted, “Bono has missed that even a totalitarian government…can’t effectively control net-content. “If only greed and ignorance could sequester carbon, Bono could FINALLY save the planet.”

What’s funny is that Bono, the lead singer of a band whose acts topped the “highest grossing acts of 2009” is complaining that the internet is taking from his profits and ultimately demeaning his artwork. A recent comment on Gizmodo stated, “Heck what you spend on sunglasses yearly could probably pay my childcare bill”.

While music, in its physical form, IS a physical creation of the artist, is it really the product to be sold? CD’s and vinyl are essentially collectibles and marketing fodder, to be written off as overhead/deadweight losses to promote a live act. The labels now give away music in an effort to produce hype for their artists and upcoming festivals and shows. U2 is a perfect example of this . . . giving away songs and doing commercials that are free for download for Apple iPods and Blackberry. Bono is simply placing the blame on the internet providers instead of on the failure of the music industry to adapt to modern trends. It is not the fault of the artists whose intellectual property is being stolen, it is the fault of the labels to register the format as a form of promotion. Music blogs like Knox Road, You Ain’t No Picasso and TrendRobot are affectionate billboards for their up-and-coming artists who deserve the promotion. I really doubt that savvy file-sharers are downloading U2 albums to supplement their music collections. Labels of this generation are realizing the vast potential that the internet offers as far as premiering tracks and albums in efforts to get people to buy deluxe editions or go see shows. Labels have been sending me track after track, eagerly allowing me to post in an effort to get listeners to purchase a full-length album or go see a show . . . where is the line drawn?

Finally, is Bono suggesting that the same type of effort put forth to save children from child pornography be put into action to stop torrents, magnets and other P2P file sharing? What will we have next? “Dateline: To Catch a File-Sharer?” A child’s safety takes precedent over a 100,000 people downloading How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in my eyes. While this is an issue that will never be settled due to different definitions of ethics and value, Bono’s suggestion that China’s monitoring tactics are a good example of cultural monitoring is disgusting.

At the same time, the hypocrisy that Bono exudes is much deeper than just the file-sharing debacle that he’s created. If we’re really talking about being Robin Hoods and not sharing wealth, perhaps he should answer questions regarding his tax evasion practices in which Bono is harboring the proceeds from non-profit causes devoted to overseas aid in a personal, tax haven.

Note: This article first appeared in my Examiner.com column and I deemed it necessary to be reproduced here, as Bono has been raising more fuss over internet censorship and file-sharing evil.