Nirvana's Bassist: I Don't Understand Having ISPs Regulate Copyright Files, But I Support Bono's Position Anyway
from the speaking-from-ignorance...-and-admitting-it dept
It's one thing to speak from a position of ignorance, but admitting it and still then taking a strong position? That's something special. U2's Bono kicked off quite a firestorm by insisting that having ISPs monitor everything was a good way to deal with unauthorized file sharing online, citing China's success with internet censorship (failing to realized that it hasn't been that successful in reality). This resulted in widespread criticism of Bono and it appears that Nirvana's bass player, Krist Novoselic, has stepped up to defend Bono (found via Karl Bode). But what's stunning about Novoselic's "defense" is that he flat out admits he doesn't really understand the details and still defends Bono:I'll admit that I'm not up to speed on having ISPs regulate copyrighted material, but here's why I agree with Bono on the idea of compensation for content providersSo he doesn't understand the issue, but he supports Bono's position anyway? Yeah, that's reasonable. And the worst part is the end of that sentence. It implies that some people out there don't support compensation of content providers. That's silly. Everyone supports the compensation of content providers -- they just don't support that compensation coming from some sort of involuntary tax put on internet connections. Assuming that being against ISP tracking and payments means that there's no other way for content providers to get paid is simply wrong.
The rest of his post is interesting, but either pulls out some old canards or is self-contradictory. For example, he confuses "value" with "price" by warning that music can't be worth nothing. Yet, at the same time, he goes on and on about how great things like YouTube and Twitter are for promoting his music -- while also wishing they would pay him for promoting his music. He never seems to put two and two together to realize that by promoting music and bands, a fan base is built up that helps an artist make more money -- and YouTube and Twitter are doing this for free. Prior to the internet becoming mainstream, if a musician wanted to communicate with fans, it was an expensive and time consuming direct mail process. Now Twitter has made that free for bands. Before, if a band wanted to get fans to see its videos, it had to hope it could get them on MTV. Even after the internet came about, communicating with fans was still expensive and time consuming, as was posting videos. Twitter and YouTube have made these things much easier, faster and cheaper for bands. And he's complaining?
Filed Under: bono, copyright, filtering, isps, krist novoselic
