The ultra-cool new K street dedicated its entire show this week to the illegal downloading of music. What I like to call digital shoplifting, or should we call it...

My dearest Michigan 

Ahh you stumbled upon the grandest of all themes for artists and coffee house beatniks worldwide. art for its own sake. to starve or not to starve! That is the question. 

but alas many find that after some deep soul searching and a few years struggling for no reason that it is just a unfortunate misconception in mass consciousness---this belief that if you make money at your art that you are somehow not an artist.  its funny cause so many people believe this. and of course this sets them on the course of feeling like they have to choose between what they love doing and making money....  common theme. leads to future depression, divorce, and abusing their children later in life because "they could have been somebody."

But the i assert that the opposite is true. and for the meantime i am in the minority. but we are the happy healthy successful and wealthy minority. that those who choose to not make money with their art but instead make money from some job that they think they have to do to make money are actually, or even worse, they do their art but starve and struggle their whole life because they believe that that is the role of the artist, that somehow there is an "us versus them," a war between the "haves and the have nots" .... these poor souls... the world is full of them. many of them are my friends. 

But are they artists? well if you don’t believe in your art enough to make it your living, to really go out there and do whatever it takes to believe in it and actually (Gasp!) make money from it just like you would from anything else, well not only will never really be happy---i mean truly fucking jumping up and down bouncing off the walls happy---but you will never really be able to fully express your art in all of its glorious potential because it will always hold for that person an air of "hobby," i.e.: not real. 

so yea I’m an artist who makes money, like any other artist who makes money. We do it because we love it. I did it when i made no money at it and I do it now making money at it and I will continue to do it either way. 

And you should/will make tons of money from writing one day I bet. And you'll still be an artist.

Michigan wrote:

> 

> it's funny, you obviously argue this point so 

> often and enjoy doing so so much that you are 

> arguing points i never even touched on. let's go 

> back to the beginning...i recommended you 

> download a snl skit, not even a whole show, 

> season, nor did I suggest you boycott television, 

> refuse to purchase any product that chooses to 

> advertise via television and turn to piracy for 

> any tv fix that you may need in an attempt to 

> shut down that corporation. and you took that and 

> ran with it all the way down your anti file 

> sharing field. i am not an artist, i am not in 

> any way affiliated with the record industry, 

> therefore my opinion is exactly that, my opinion. 

> i feel like there are way too many people making 

> way too much money in the record industry. i feel 

> like the industry is run on greed. i do not feel 

> that greed and art belong together. as a fan i 

> know that the internet has introduced me to a ton 

> of truly great music that i never would have 

> known. and caused me to see a lot of great shows 

> i never would have gone to. and i think thats 

> what it's about. i've known a lot of people 

> struggling in the industry, and it impresses the 

> hell out of me, they work all day and play shows 

> or practice all night and the drive and 

> determination and love and energy that some 

> possess is incomprehensible to me. and to think 

> that some asshole with a marketing degree or that 

> happens to know someone "important", that could 

> care less about the music or the people or the 

> message could have their fate in his/her hands 

> disgusts me. there are far too many middle men 

> and thats what is destroying your industry, again 

> in my opinion. and the laziness! to fear change 

> so much, to fight the internet with such vigor, 

> instead of just realizing it's a new day and it's 

> time to get a little more creative, try some new 

> things, EARN the ridiculous amounts of money by 

> actually thinking, generating new innovative ways 

> to stay in the game. btw i did not state that if 

> you make money from your art you are not an 

> artist, i stated that if you make art for the 

> money you are not an artist, not to me, and there 

> is a big difference there. there is a transition 

> that sometimes occurs from artist to musician, 

> and you can almost feel the love leave the music. 

> i hope this helps to clarify my last letter a 

> little, i was just really tired and not 

> expressing myself well, and not realizing that 

> this is something that you probably struggle with 

> and rationalize on a weekly basis.  i had 

> intended on briefly addressing that and moving on 

> to some other topic tonight, but now it's 

> midnight and I’ve rambled on forever as usual, so 

> I’m going to do a lil reading and head to bed. 

> talk to ya soon.~~~ Michigan

my dearest Michigan,

Well the truth is that sometimes i can just be a real self righteous pain in the butt; i apologize for that. And two, we are just really freaked out by this whole "digital shoplifting" thing happening in our industry. you are right, i am used to arguing about it and talking about it. the truth is we talk about it non stop. last year our industry lost 17%, the year before 11%. every other business in America is still going up. you just expect business to go up.. the music industry is falling fast. and that sucks for everyone. [like i said, just try to imagine if you can, waking up one day and all of a sudden your entire industry is falling fast and everyone is just ripping off the massage therapists. just out of the blue. and worse. your own friends are doing it. and they're all smiling and telling you to fuck off and stop worrying about it. get used to it babe. you’re just going to have to get used to giving free massages all day!!! so yea, its something we talk about a lot.]

In the long run its music fans that will lose the most. people like you and me and everyone else who loves music. cause the money wont be there to make great albums. great art takes money. can great art be made for next to nothing? sure. our new album we are recoding right now is being made in a home studio and it is by far the best album i have ever been a part of making. so yea that can happen, but its a fluke really. 

And even worse---the only way we will make money now is through touring and through CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP which is the way its headed now. and you think we are hog tied and fucked now by the suits with marketing degrees at these fucking labels? wait till the only way we can earn a living is through selling out to soda companies and car companies beer companies. And they're telling us what songs we can play on stage and what songs we can put on our albums and which ones to leave off because they don’t want to hurt sales. Dark days ahead...

But i agree with you about a lot of what you said. Everyone does. That’s why people are not looking at stealing intellectual property the same way they do say stealing a car. We are all justifying it because of all the reasons you brought up. 

But you are right. We need to wake up, smell the coffee, and find a way to profit from it. and stop trying to fight it. Cause its there. people don’t care that they are stealing. they are going to do it anyway. and i think its only a matter of time before we do find a solution and get things back to normal. i hope by your suggestion that you were not implying that we should accept that from this point forward we are just supposed to just give music away for free. communism perhaps? everything is just free now in our society. we value nothing enough to pay for it and therefore stop producing anything of value. 

But your point about way too many people make too much money in the record business... and all that. this is something you need to take a look at. I mean this is the main belief that brings whole societies down. This attitude that you just expressed that “I think such and such makes too much money so I think its o.k. to steal from them.” hey welcome to the last ten thousand years of humankind’s history. Everyone just taking from everyone else because they are mad or jealous at how much they have. please, with all due respect, get over it. I'm sorry that people in your industry don't make as much, but don't come down on us because we have the potential to make more. Many more of us starve in the music industry.

And your other point that “greed and art don't belong together.” Really? Says who? People just make this stuff up. Art is not art if its made by an artist who is greedy? Or what if its great art by a really non greedy artist but his manger is the greediest guy in the world. Its not art? art is art. I wish people would stop judging it, trying to find ways of justifying ripping the industry off. Just pay for the goddamn music if you like it and please shut up. 

But I do think the solution will be both founded in the law and technologically based---the same way this all started. number one, make it really hard to steal the music for free. just hardwire all the computers so we have to pay to download copyrighted content. the more data per month you want to download, the more you pay per month. just like an atm machine. people wont mind paying if they realize what they’re doing. and then look, most decent people don’t steal phone service, or cable, or electric, or internet. right? a few idiots do. they think its funny. or cool. whatever. but most people are just smarter and cooler than that. they don’t mind paying for it. so its the same thing with music. just make it a huge fucking big law to steal music. you get caught, you get fucking fined, period. get caught again, fined even more and eventually if you keep stealing you go to jail. just like if you shoplift. 

its a fascinating concept when you think of it. its a felony to walk into a store and shoplift a dress or even a cd. you go to jail. but if you steal the music on the CD--which is where all the value is in that cd--the cd itself with nothing on it is worth almost nothing, but if you steal the music and not the cd, its not even a crime. this is truly twisted. and yes i see it changing really quickly. these laws i think will come into place very quickly and then it will make a lot more sense to more people. maybe there’s just a lot of people who don’t get stuff, they don’t see the real implications of what they're doing unless the government tells them. its like you have to tell people, "don’t steal," or "don’t murder." Its weird. One would think its just kind of obvious. 

Anyway, as always, good talking to you. you are smart. spunky. remind me never to get on your bad side.