i bet you're wondering why i called you here tonight...

Ignorance or Indifference to Exploitation?

nobody@vox.com(mr. adam zavala) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:16:13 -0700

It is with great shame that I must confess that I have never taken the time to really give Billy Bragg's music a listen. But I've long been familiar with his politics, and I always admire an artist who isn't afraid to infuse their socio-political ideology into their craft. It is in this sense that I admire Billy Bragg a great deal, despite having listened to fewer than ten of his songs.

He notably chose to remove his songs from his myspace page in the past because he felt the terms and conditions of MySpace were suggesting that any content a user (or in his case, the music owned by a musician) uploads to the site then becomes, in effect, the property of MySpace and they are then free to use it as they will. His protest contributed to a widespread response against MySpace's terms and conditions and they were subsequently changed.
More recently, I have read (around the internet) that he had spoken at SXSW about the difficulty artists face in making a living as musicians in the internet age. I was glancing through last Saturday's New York Times when I came across an editorially written by Billy Bragg about this very subject, entitled The Royalty Scam.

To paraphrase what I gleaned from the article, Bragg asserts (and I agree with him, though I still see other benefits to having a MySpace page for my music) that these websites, such as MySpace, which allow users to upload their music are benefiting from this content (vis-a-vis advertising revenue) which encourages more viewers and users to come to MySpace (e.g.) to listen to bands' music, and are doing so without paying the artists any royalties.

I'll let Bragg complete this point:

The claim that sites such as MySpace and Bebo are doing us a favor by promoting our work is disingenuous. Radio stations also promote our work, but they pay us a royalty that recognizes our contribution to their business. Why should that not apply to the Internet, too?

This is an idea that I had never really given much consideration to in the past, but I must say that after reading this, I agree. Again, I see other benefits to having my music on MySpace, namely the immediate accessibility for and to fans, old and new. MySpace has allowed by of my bands to expand its fan base and form new connections and gain valuable resources which has led to much growth. There is an amazing grassroots aesthetic for lower-tier independent bands, or bands signed to small indie labels, and it's just convenient to have access to such a wide range of resources within just a few clicks.

However, this does not negate Bragg's point: these websites are benefiting from having other artists' work as free and feature content accessible to anyone, with or without an account. This brings me to a couple of points I want to raise:

1) While the benefit to this may be miniscule in scope for one or two small-time music acts (I'll use my bands an an example), when you look at smaller acts as a collective whole, that's still an exorbitant amount of viewers and visitors that are confronted with advertising (which is where these websites really make their money). In fact, on MySpace, advertisements are the very first thing on the page. Just look at Paper Brain's MySpace page if you don't believe me. We don't have TOO many daily visitors, but each of them are exposed to the ads, and at some point, someone will click on one of those ads. Multiply this by god knows how many bands are on MySpace who have one of these someone's.

2) Take this point and expand it to more widely known bands who get thousands of hits each day on their MySpace page. Let's just use Radiohead as an example: at the time of this writing, they have had nearly 20,000 unique song plays today. I'm no statistics junkie, but I'd venture a guess that they had about, at a minimum, 10,000 visitors today. Imagine how much money MySpace makes daily in advertising revenue from Radiohead's MySpace page alone. And does Radiohead see a dime of that from MySpace and the folks at NewsCorp.? Nope. Not even close. And why not? As Bragg points out in his editorial, radio stations pay artists royalties for using their music because the radio stations are making money by using artists' music to draw listeners who then are exposed to advertisements in very much the same way that MySpace and it's ilk are doing. Something seems amiss...

The question then is what do we do about it? Unfortunately, I don't have much of an answer. For me, I feel very conflicted. Perhaps the benefits that I speak of are merely an illusion -- or as Bragg says, disingenuous. Afterall bands existed and succeeded on just as small of a scale as they are now well before MySpace came along. Perhaps the MySpace dillema has made it even worse for artists by flooding the market, so to speak, with a particular commodity (in this case, music) which has made it more difficult for the most "well-deserving" artists to obtain the attention of the people they mean and need to to help them succeed. Indeed, it would seem that I am in a one-sided relationship with MySpace afterall, and not the symbiotic one that I have been led to believe (though much fault and naiveity of my own.) But again -- what do I do about it? While I'm now more aware of this exploitation and denial of rights by MySpace, I don't quite feel exploited just yet. Perhaps its a mild indifference, but I just don't see myself bowing out just yet. But I'm an idealist more than a pragmatist (not to an extreme, though...), so I wouldn't be surprised to see myself removing myself from this machine, because, really, it isn't right. Whenever anyone benefits financially from the inclusion and use of an artist's work, that artist should be compensated in tangible and real terms, not in vague and empty promises of the benefits that comes from exposure to new fans and influencial people -- a promise which, given the current climate, is a very unlikely outcome for the vast majority of artists who choose to participate in this system.

To read the rest of Billy Bragg's editorial, The Royalty Scam, simply jump on over to it at NYTimes.com

And speaking of Radiohead, listen to this song, because it's been suck in my head for four days now:

Radiohead - House Of Cards (Scotch Mist Version)

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Vox Hunt: Writing - My Favorite Writer

nobody@vox.com(mr. adam zavala) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 10:00:54 -0700

Show us your favorite writer.

kurt vonnegut friedrich netizsche

daniel quinn karl marx

john kennedy toole j.d. salinger

charles bukowski mary shelly

douglas adams george orwell

ken kesey thomas paine

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ode to nathan

nobody@vox.com(mr. adam zavala) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 09:51:40 -0700

this is nathan

This is Nathan. He is my best friend in all of the world. Ever. No doubt about it. The stories we have between us are endless. He's the smartest, kindest, and the most fun person I've ever known.

On Friday, Nathan is moving away to Berkeley, California to go to school for landscape architecture. This is a really great thing for Nathan to do. He has the eye and the heart for it.

Nathan knows probably everything there is to know about snails. This is a unique field of expertise, which only serves to make Nathan all the more interesting.

Nathan and I lived together for a couple of months several summers ago, a time I like to refer to as "the best summer ever." In this time period we both turned 21 and became avid beer drinkers, infrequent bathers, and ramen innovators.

Nathan has the best laugh I've ever heard. He's also the greatest arm wrestler I've ever known (I've only beaten him once, and I don't lose to too many people.) Also probably the most environmentally conscious people that I know.

I can tell you this: I'm going to miss Nathan more than I've ever missed anybody. He's always been a really wonderful and supportive friend. It's going to be really strange to have Nathan gone so far away for so long. Tomorrow we are going to get drinks, and then he will be gone. I feel really sad about all of this, and I'm trying hard not to let it get to me. But I really feel this great sense of dread for this pending loss.

Nathan had a going away party on Sunday and it was a really wonderful time. It was good to see many of the friends that I have met through Nathan and Sage (his lady), and it was especially nice to goof off with Nathan and Darren once more (a past time we all enjoy). Here are some video clips that I took at the party.

i have good aim

nathan dances and plays air guitar

Nathan's going to be missed greatly. There are a lot of other things that I could say, but I'll save it. I just wanted to make sure the internet knew how much I am going to miss Nathan.

I've never been to California. But I suppose now I will be making a trip south.

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i went to ikea

nobody@vox.com(mr. adam zavala) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:13:29 -0700

i went to ikea

So I finally got around to heading out to the Ikea that opened up here in Portland recently, and boy was it an experience. It's not as if I have a lot of money right now, so I wasn't going to there to go shopping, but I really just wanted to look around because I had never been to an Ikea before.

The Ikea is located out in North Portland right by the airport. We had a bit of a challenge navigating the route to the store because we couldn't really figure out which roads went to the store. When we got near the store, we noticed that aside from the regular parking lot located right in front of the store, there were two large fields a bit farther away from the store that were designated for Ikea parking. We had to park in the farther field because the place was so busy. You can see in the photo how far away the store is as I point to our eventual landing point.

The store itself was pretty fantastic, lots of great products for reasonable prices. As I said, I don't have a lot of extra spending cash right now (due to being unemployed for a month and a half), but I convinced myself to purchase some small picture frames that were 4 for a dollar. I got six packs of these to decorate my walls with, which is exciting because my walls have been bare since I moved in to my house back in June. The store is designed so you sort of zig-zag your way through all of the departments until you reach the checkout registers (and the food court which serves hot dogs for fifty cents -- though i can't eat them...)

The crowd was a bit overwhelming, I have to admit. It wasn't as if i wasn't expecting an Ikea store to be crowded as hell on a sunday afternoon, but I still didn't enjoy it. I have some minor anxiety attacks occasionally when I start to feel crowded by large groups of people. Jeni calmed me down, though, which was nice.

I've always been a bit wary of Ikea, not exactly sure how to feel about the place. I guess I just let my perception of the store be determined by the "ikea nesting instinct" from fight club, but upon further review, I've come to the conclusion that I can give my business to the company in good conscience, given their commitment to conducting their business in a socially and environmentally responsible way.

In all, the store is a nice place to get all kinds of odds and ends for around the house, and I plan on going back as soon as I get a little more money. Though I anticipate I'll continue to build much of my own basic furniture (shelves, media storage, etc.) rather than buy them.

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i woke up richard

nobody@vox.com(mr. adam zavala) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:44:02 -0700

richard wakes up

Richard came over last night at 2:00 AM. He lives about an hour and a half south of Portland, and came up last night. But he went out to a bar to meet up with another friend of ours. He came over well after we all had gone to sleep. But this morning, I think I woke him up when i came down stairs.

I have a lot more stuff to post, I've just been really busy. I'll have more stuff this week.

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QotD: 5-word Life Description

nobody@vox.com(mr. adam zavala) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 15:52:10 -0700

What are the 5 words that best describe your life right now?
Submitted by mojito.

This is easy:

1) Non-stick skillet
2) Bed, Bath, and Beyond
3) Numerology
4) Epsom Salts
5) Hip Hop Abs
6) Non-conformity

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