As I sit here in Longmeadow, mooching my neighbor's wireless signal and waiting for X-Men to download, I thought this would be a good time to post. In response to Bryan's last comments about the wonders of technology and what that means for the future of shared media and the creative artist:
(actually, citing an example rather than responding...)
The other day, as I was watching an episode of Scrubs via internt TV, a song played during the show which I really liked. My interest piqued, I rewound the file to listen to the lyrics again, tabbed a new Mozilla window, typed those lyrics into a Google search, and found the artist/title of that song. A few more clicks had Soulseek open, and by the time the episode was over, I had a brand new song to listen to. I downloaded some more songs by that same artist, The Coral, and I found out they're a pretty decent band. I then seeded a Pandora radio station from them and found a whole slew of similar music that I'm getting into. After I took a break from the furious internetting, I realized something.
All of that stuff I just did, which took all of 20 minutes, would have taken an obnoxiously long time 10 or 15 years ago. I would have waited for the TV network to air a rerun of the same Scrubs episode in order to learn those lyrics (unless one of my pals managed to catch them), and once I had them, how would I figure out what song it was? "Hey, Diana, have you heard a song that goes something like this" at which point I'd awkwardly sing the poorly remembered tune. Assuming I finally tracked down the name of the song or who performed it, how would I get it in order to listen to it at my leisure? Sure, I could go buy their CD, but for the sake of argument let's stick to moneyless means of acquisition. I would need to find a radio station that played similar music, and then pray I'd be quick enough with the "record" button on my tape deck when the desired song finally came on. If I didn't mind the cut-off intro or the DJ's voice pre-empting the end, I would finally have my song.
I'm truly amazed at how far technology has come, and I'm eagerly looking forward to media being even more shared and boundless. However, the problem that's going to need tackling is, like Bryan said, how to provide compensation for those creative and productive forces. Because, while shared music and TV etc are incredibly attractive ideals, when property is owned by everyone, it isn't owned by anyone.
That being said, I'm so pissed that tvlinksvoodeedoo isn't working right now, and my addiction will have to be curbed for yet another day. Damn technology.
