Roll Call : Musicians For An Ethical Internet

The conversation is now clearly about the unethical practices of corporations and companies profiting from the illegal exploitation of artists work without consent or compensation. As the 13 year war against Artists Rights has waged on, more and more artists are recognizing this fundamental truth, and speaking up.

Many artists are expressing the need for an Ethical Internet that should preserve all the rights and freedoms enjoyed in the physical world. Anyone who proposes that one set of rights (privacy, labor & fair compensation) must be sacrificed to protect another set of rights (freedom of speech), should be seriously questioned. Internet and tech companies need to innovate beyond the old model of illegally exploiting artists work as the basis for their unimaginative models and work to create new fair and ethical businesses.

Bono, Elton John, Eminem, Prince and others don’t need anything that Piracy is said to offer such as promotion, which is laughable at best. The Pirate Bay has made, and continues to make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS annually from artists via advertising (from Google) while providing no compensation to the artists what-so-ever. This is truly immoral and unethical, as well as being unacceptable as a legitimate business.

We hope that more artists will continue to speak up in favor of artists rights online in the pursuit of an ethical internet. What follows is a list of previous artists comments, compiled and attributed to their respective sources on the subject.

BONO
“…somebody should fight for fellow artists, because this is madness. Music has become tap water, a utility, where for me it’s a sacred thing, so I’m a little offended. The Internet has emasculated rather than liberated artists…”

LL COOL J
“My first question is this: Do people in the entertainment industry have the same rights as other Americans to fair pay for fair work?”

PATRICK CARNEY  / THE BLACK KEYS
“The guy [Sean Parker] has $2.5 billion he made from figuring out ways to steal royalties from artists, and that’s the bottom line.”

ELTON JOHN
“I am of the view that the unchecked proliferation of illegal downloading (even on a “non-commercial” basis) will have a seriously detrimental effect on musicians, and particularly young musicians and those composers who are not performing artists.”

EMINEM
“I think that shit is fucking bullshit. Whoever put my shit on the Internet, I want to meet that motherf***er and beat the shit out of him, because I picture this scrawny little dickhead going ‘I got Eminem’s new CD! I got Eminem’s new CD! I’m going to put it on the Internet.’ I think that anybody who tries to make excuses for that shit is a fucking bitch.”

JOHN MCCREA / CAKE
“The idea of making a living from selling musical recordings is sort of a quaint idea and is no longer really feasible… But I do think that if music is going to be free, then sandwiches should also be free. There should be some consistency and we should learn to cooperate better.”

ZACK HEMSEY
“…piracy is primarily motivated by greed – it’s a business, and apparently a very good one. There’s nothing wrong with someone making money, but if they are making money by commandeering and exploiting my work, and not even sharing any of those earnings with me to boot, then it shouldn’t be controversial to suggest their actions are less than admirable.”

DON HENLEY
“Theft of American products and ideas is no longer the hobby of teenagers with laptops; it’s big business, as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative warns in a recent report on the world’s most notorious illicit markets. And they’re not just stealing movies and music; they are stealing America’s jobs and  future.”

PRINCE
“Nobody’s making money now except phone companies, Apple and Google…It’s like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There’s no boundaries.”

DAVID LOWERY
“I feel that what we artists were promised has not really panned out.  Yes in many ways we have more freedom.  Artistically this is certainly true.  But the music business never transformed into the vibrant marketplace where small stakeholders could compete with multinational conglomerates on an even playing field.”

TRENT REZNOR
“Just because technology exists where you can duplicate something, that doesn’t give you the right to do it. There’s nothing wrong with giving some tracks away or bits of stuff that’s fine. But it’s not everybody’s right. Once I record something, it’s not public domain to give it away freely. And that’s not trying to be the outdated musician who is trying to ‘stop technology. I love technology.”

DAVID DRAIMAN / DISTURBED
“Make no mistake, however, that the culture that has been bred over the course of the last 10+ years of simply thinking that all music should be available for free is wrong, and immoral; plain and simple.This mentality has created an environment where it is more and more difficult for artists, particularly up-and-coming ones, to survive and sustain themselves. We, as artists, love and appreciate our fans more than you know. We know that we could not exist without you, but we don’t steal from you, not in any way, not ever. Wrong is wrong, no matter what color you paint it, or how you try to spin it.”

THE GRATEFUL DEAD
“No commercial gain may be sought by websites offering digital files of our music, whether through advertising, exploiting databases compiled from their traffic, or any other means.”

LOGAN LYNN
“What pisses me off is having over 91 percent of my personal intellectual property stolen, often before it even has the chance to be finished and released to the world. As a professional musician, a lot of time, hard work, and money goes into making a record. As an independent musician, that money comes directly out of my own pocket. ”

RANDY BACHMAN
“Digital online piracy is making it nearly impossible for Canada’s emerging artists to make it”

LUPE FIASCO
“People are trapped in the culture where music needs to be free and you don’t need to pay for it… who are you to have the right to tell me that I shouldn’t demand payment or feel a certain way for seeing people put my music out there like that? If I chose to do that, that’s one thing. But I didn’t choose to do that. That music was stolen.”

LILY ALLEN
“The world over, people are stealing music in its millions in the form of illegal file-sharing. It’s easy to do, and has become accepted by many, but we need people to know that it is destroying people’s livelihoods and suffocating emerging new British artists.”

TAIO CRUZ
“I could have been dropped from my record deal because so much was spent and so much of my album was leaked and not paid for. But luckily my label had great belief in me. File-sharing has had a very, very negative effect on my career, as it has on many others.”

In closing, perhaps this quote from Hemingway is also appropriate as food for thought:
“The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.” – Death in the Afternoon

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[ JOHN PERRY BARLOW ] [ HUMAN RIGHTS OF ARTISTS ] [ INFRINGEMENT IS THEFT ]
[ THE SKY IS RISING : MAGIC BEAVER EDITION ] [SF GATE BLUNDERS PIRACY FACTS ]
[ WHY ARENT MORE MUSICIANS WORKING ] [ ARTISTS FOR AN ETHICAL INTERNET ]