Having thought they were subverting the corporate music industry with In Rainbows, he now fears they were inadvertently playing into the hands of Apple and Google and the rest.
Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has a striking interview in the Guardian in which he sums up the band’s realizations about what David Lowery calls the “New Boss” reality:
“[Big Tech] have to keep commodifying things to keep the share price up, but in doing so they have made all content, including music and newspapers, worthless, in order to make their billions. And this is what we want? I still think it will be undermined in some way. It doesn’t make sense to me. Anyway, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. The commodification of human relationships through social networks. Amazing!”
He is, of course, exactly correct. What does this “commodification” or the Americanized, “commoditization” mean exactly?
In a prescient 2008 book review of Nicholas Carr’s The Google Enigma (entitled “Google the Destroyer“), antitrust scholar Jim DeLong gives an elegant explanation:
Carr’s Google Enigma made a familiar business…
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The Trichordist 
Reblogged this on THE PLUGININ EXCHANGE.
The Spirit of the Law, which hath been degraded by all the corporate-sponsored Lessigisms and Doctorowisms (who sends female journalists x-rays of his pelvic region) is that “The risk taker–the artist, creator, and maker–ought get the reward.”
As Sergy Brin and Larry Page and their sponsored priest Larry Lessig did not create the art and culture of the world–it’s very soul–but only copied it onto their private servers behind firewalls protected by patents and trademarks, they do not deserve to make billions of the backs of others, while eroding the very liberties and Constitutional Rights (baed on Natural Rights) which foster art and culture.
Watch Cory Doctorow send an x-ray image of his pelvic region to me, as the Lessig fanboyz always reort to debased, gutter tactics so as to debauch the Constitution and exalt their Chosen Corporation, as more and more artists, writers, and creators are put out of work so that uncreative, talentless lawyers and MBAs might reap millions.
When you think about it, the hipster technocrats are very, very bad when it comes to creating art and culture–the true, enduring wealth of the world. I mean do any of you ever fire up the iPad to download a Corey Doctorow song or a Larry Lessig film or a Sergy Brin novel? No. And because they create no higher wealth, but only legalese and rants and x-ray photos of their pelvic regions and giant copying/advertising/spying machines as well as phones that but imitate steve jobs’ vision, they have to get their wealth from somewhere. And that is why they need all the artists and writers and performers and filmmakers to give it to them for free, so they can mash it up and sell almighty ads around it.
Another driving factor of their attitudes is jealousy. Larry and Cory probably didn’t get the chicks as easily as Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan, and so debauching the system which supports and pays artists most likley gives them an added sense of pleasure (in addition to sending x-ray photos of pelvic regions to female journalists whom Corey does not agree with). For you see, Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan never had to send x-ray photos of their pelvic regions to women.
Why is it that google doesn’t open source it own patents, trademarks, and internal documents? Why doesn’t it upload the blueprints for its data centers online, so as “to spur innovation?” For even if they upload and copy all their internal documents to the internet, they will still have them themselves, and will be none the poorer.
Why can’t Sergy Brin of Google be more like his good friend Trey Ratcliff who writes, “Or, you can be like me. Offer up all your creations (google business methods/blueprints/data center design/software code that runs google’s servers/phone designs/business plans/memos) in maximum and beautiful resolution to the will of the web. The web, and the universe, has a certain flow to it. You can become one with that flow and enjoy the ride. You can let the opportunity of what-can-be motivate you rather than the more poisonous fear-of-loss.”
Why does Sergy Brin refuse to “become one with that flow?” Why does Sergy Brin refuse to “enjoy the ride?” Why does Sergy Brin allow the “more poisonous fear-of-loss” motivate him rather than “the opportunity of what-can-be?”
What does Sergy Brin hope to gain by going against the Flow of the Universe (as defined by Trey Ratcliff, where Trey’s God opposes Natural Rights and the artist’s/creator’s wealth flows into Sergy Birn’s pockets.)
Google heavily promotes Trey Ratcliff, and by making him a prominent “Suggested to follow” in google+, they have given him over 4,000,000 followers.
Trey writes: “As this future becomes more and more plain to me, I see a rapture of sorts, where old-school photographers (musicians/filmmakers/writers/reporters/etc.) clinging to the old-fashioned ways of doing things will be “left behind.” So much of the irrational behavior and anger is usually based in fear (fear-of-change, specifically), but it doesn’t have to be that way.
When it comes to sharing your photographs online, you can go in two directions. You can put small images online, watermark them and then spend some or all of the week chasing down people that have used them inappropriately.
Or, you can be like me.
Offer up all your creations (music/photos/films/books/words) in maximum and beautiful resolution to the will of the web. The web, and the universe, has a certain flow to it. You can become one with that flow and enjoy the ride. You can let the opportunity of what-can-be motivate you rather than the more poisonous fear-of-loss.”
–stuckincustoms.com/2012/02/13/why-photographers-should-stop-complaining-about-copyright-and-embrace-pinterest/
Trey writes, “Or, you can be like me,” but in reality, not every artist who uploads their content for free will be chosen to hang out with google founder Sergy Brin for photo-ops:
http://www.photigy.com/awesome-days-at-google-photographers-conference/
I’m not sure that this is a scalable business model–that every artist who uploads free content will get a Sergy Brin photo-op, but it doesn’t seem like Trey cares about other artists. And thus, as pointed out on this blog and elsewhere, the fact is that there are less working musicians today than a decade ago. Such is Ratcliff’s rather bizarre “natural flow of the universe (which Sergy himself does not partake in)” where the money/publicity flows to Sergy and him.
Nor will every artist be given “an hour with said artist” at a google conference:
http://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/2012/05/hanging-at-the-google-photographers-conference-part-iii/