By Johnny Kilroy

It’s not unusual to get a bunch of hill folk together, and to discover that a few of them brought instruments for a hasty jam.

Appalachians, in fact, carry their culture with them like a pocket knife.  They’re naked without it.  You can’t take a pocket knife into the halls of Congress, but you can’t go naked either.

That’s why many of the coalfield residents who attended the 5th annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington decided to be their own salty selves. When the time comes to sing, it’s okay to sing your song a little out of tune. Even if the story was lost on the suits, the air would be a little fuller for the effort. (more)

• 2010-03-13 : LMFAO [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Mr. Greengenes [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : The Roots [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Train [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Donegal Express [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Tossers [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Enter Haggis [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Street Dogs [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Along Those Lines [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Hotspur [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Charm City Saints [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Black 47 [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Scythian [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Ice Wagon [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Laura Lea Taraskus [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Jefe Solo [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : White Ford Bronco [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Sick Feed [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Rome in a Day [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Practically Einstein [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Dr. FU [Artist Info]
• 2010-03-13 : Once Okay Twice [Artist Info]

2/26/10 – David vs. Goliath

Examining the RIAA and the effect it’s policies have on the independent music industry

David Arditi – Author, Criminalizing Independent Music- The Recording Industry Association of America’s Advancement of Dominant Ideology
Teisha Marie – Independent Artist
Casey Rae-Hunter – The Future of Music Coalition

In its infancy, the internet was nothing more than a few people with computers connected over some servers that allowed those people to gather information easier. Many of those first users were researchers and librarians trying to figure out how to catalog data over distances (I can’t even begin to imagine using the Dewey Decimal System). One of the first things that these internet pioneers did was they developed Usenet Newsgroups. While the newsgroup has become (for the most part) a thing of the past, its legacy did leave two distinct features of the internet. First, Newsgroups have become more generally known as Blogging (web logging is a descendent of newsgroups) and today people subscribe to blogs with RSS feeds the same way that many people subscribed to newsgroups. Second, Usenet Newsgroups created a way to share files that would soon become known as file-sharing on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.

It is this second feature that concerns me here (as I write in the medium of the first feature) because file-sharing and P2P networks have provided the most hope and controversy for the music industry. Once programs were developed to facilitate the distribution of files over these networks, it gave users an opportunity to share files with other users that they may never have even seen before. What I would like to focus on here is that the networks and programs allowed users to share files.

Sharing a file is an altogether benign action. Right now, I am writing this in Word and I am saving it as a .doc file. Therefore, the article is both a piece of written work and a digital collection of 1s and 0s. If I were solely writing it on notebook paper, the chances of other people seeing it are slim to none. However, the act of typing it on a computer makes the piece both written content and digital content. In this form, I can easily upload it onto a blog, copy and paste it in another program and email it to colleagues. As soon as it is posted on my blog, people subscribing to this blog as an RSS feed can get a notification about its existence. At some point, I will probably link it on FaceBook by posting it on someone’s “wall”. The 1s and 0s are converted to different formats without me having to do very much to convert it. On the other hand, if I wrote this piece on notebook paper, I would first have to type it before anyone else would be able to read it.

One other place that I could store this file is on a P2P network. Using a generic file-sharing program (let’s call it X2X), I could store this file in a folder that I share with other people using X2X. The file is sitting in a shared folder on my hard drive, but when I am logged into X2X, the file is benignly sitting in my X2X shared folder online. As long as I am logged into X2X, people on the X2X network have the ability to see and download my files at the same time that I can see and download their own files. I knowingly participate in the exchange of files as long as I continue to use the program. There is an underlying agreement between users that they may download files from other users as long as they share files with others; along with that agreement is the understanding that I am allowing other people to use my files. When people download my article as a file, it is no different from me posting it on a blog. People can read it and repost it at will, without my agreement. There is no way for me to control the distribution of this file once it is shared, but this is not distinctly different from if I post it on a blog.

Chances are that this file is not the only file that I have in my X2X shared folder. There may be other articles within that folder along with outlines and works that are not mine at all: there may be articles by colleagues and pieces that I have read. Within the X2X network, I would be sure to find similar types of files in other users’ shared folders. As I find people that have similar interests to me, I benefit greatly from the access to their files as they benefit from my files. Our collective shared files begin to constitute a “creative commons” that allows us to grow. Most of these files are probably accessible online somewhere on the internet, but are scattered all around; however, finding people with similar interests gives each user access to a concentrated source of information.

Let’s assume now that the only place to find this article, along with my other work is within my shared folder on X2X. People get on X2X to search for articles within this collective commons, but have no idea that this article exists. One user searches for a known article that I keep in my shared folder and downloads that article; upon that user’s second search, s/he figures out that we have similar interests and decides to browse my files. Looking through my files s/he finds this article, thinks it’s profound and shares it with others. Through this process, the article becomes well known to X2X users (and beyond if they put it in some other format).

Now I have been dancing around the idea of file-sharing by focusing on .doc files. People have all types of files in their peer-to-peer network shared folders. Media files (videos and music) are by far the most popular items exchanged via P2P networks and also the most controversial. Independent artists (musicians in particular) began to use these vast networks to distribute their files online. These artists could store their recordings in a shared folder along with their music collection. As people browsed an artist’s music collection because of their shared interest in a genre (particularly niche indie genres), those people would find the independent artist’s recorded music. That music would expand into more and more shared folders as users found the music in others’ shared folders: the presence of the artist’s music would increase exponentially.

This use of P2P networks is a great tool for both musicians and music lovers, but the enemy of the music industry. In the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s the music industry, through the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), realized that the development of P2P networks would increase cheap competition and have a direct decrease in album sales. The RIAA immediately began suing file-sharing networks beginning with Napster in 2000 for violating parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It is important to note that the DMCA was developed by industries that stood the most to lose from internet technologies.

Lawsuits by the RIAA (and the MPAA) were initially against the P2P networks and later against users of those networks. These lawsuits were filed because it was assumed that the use of P2P networks was inherently illegal. The RIAA did not leave room for users using the network to distribute files legally; the situation described above about me writing this and sharing it with others is not permitted under the RIAA’s logic. It is clear that, for the RIAA, the NRA’s slogan “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is pointless – the RIAA could not buy the logic that the technology does not commit the crime, people commit the crime.

There a number of ways to go from here. Lawrence Lessig is fairly insistent that the good of downloading files on P2P programs outweighs the bad, but I’m not sure that argument needs to be made. The technology itself is not illegal; therefore, there is no reason to outlaw the technology itself. In order to understand what is going on with P2P lawsuits, people have to dig deeper. This is what I hope to do from time to time on this blog and in my own research and hopefully the arguments work.

A look ahead at music playing in the DC area in the coming week.

Monday 2/22/10

Bourbon Street: Noise in the Basement – 9:00pm

Tuesday 2/23/10

9:30 Club: Chrisette Michele – 7:00pm

Wednesday 2/24/10

Iota Club: Open Mic – 8:00pm

Thursday 2/25/10

Rock & Roll Hotel: Future Rock and Static Brigade – 8:00pm

Friday 2/26/10

Rams Head Live: George Clinton – 8:00pm

9:30 Club: State Radio – 8:00pm

Sunday 2/28/10