[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I am both. I EARN a salary by working my ass off 40-50 hours a week, and I EARN extra $$ by creating artworks and trying to sell them to people.

No one gave a flying fuck about "artists" when it was the giant conglomerates who controlled the means of production, the means of marketing, and the means of distribution. The only people who gave a shit about Napster were these same giant media conglomerates, whose fully artificial and wasteful and self-gratifying business system went out the fuckiing window.

but you realize that the fully artificial wasteful self-gratifying model is actually possible because they are the only ones who can enforce the right of artists with some measure of success, yes?

because the artist alone is naked in the world. and so they must pay "protection" to a media racket by selling their rights to them.

because as little as they get, a little is more than the nothing they would get from the oh-so-generous (yeah right) public.

in other words, if we were a less cunning and thieving predatory exploitative species we'd all pay the artists directly and need no lawyers. we'd all be writing checks to cat power-- "thanks for those great moments! here's $1,000!". but as it is, artists need lawyers if they want to eat, and we can blame the lawyers all we want but that's just not being honest with ourselves.