The Grammy awards went past 10pm last night so I watched a bit of it that was interrupting the local news. They had some exec give a speech. His first point was about the cuts to arts funding and how the federal government should spend more on the arts. His second point was to introduce a new public service spot discouraging downloading music for free. They showed the commercial whereby some kids are dancing at a club. Then they show a girl downloading from her computer some music. Simultaneous with the download completing, the music goes off at the club. The point obviously being that if you download music for free, the music stops. I hate to think that America would stop producing our brilliant musicians and artist like Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. The horror. But I'm curious as to why if the point is to introduce more youngsters to music, wouldn't it be best, since the government is cutting funds for the arts supposedly, that the music industry would encouage free downloading? That way kids, whose arts funding is being so needlessly cut, would be introduced, at no cost, to the quality products the music industry is putting out? I have a better public service commercial idea. Have the young girl downloading music from her computer like in the original commercial. But on the split screen, have Justin Timberlake walking up to his ATM machine. Simultaneous with the girl completing her download, Justin's ATM machine says, no funds available. What a powerful message that would send to the arts community!
But isn't the NEA getting a funding increase? Misguided, in my opinion. No, we red-meat Republicans don't think art is sinful (at least, not all of it). We just feel great art doesn't need govt. help. Great art and artists can flourish without govt. money. Besides, some of what the NEA has endowed hardly qualifies as art. As for music downloading, give me a break. The recording industry STILL refuses to compromise, insisting on preserving the current market system. I'm sorry, but I cannot and will not pay $15-20 dollars a CD for all the music I want. I would be perfectly willing to pay $10 a month for premium music downloading service. But the recording industry won't hear of it. So screw 'em. I'll take my chances with Kazaa.
Why, yes, the NEA is getting a funding increase in the latest Bush budget. But, that point was only made by this exec to get the cool factor going for him. His real point was the second one which was about protecting his and other's empire. The bottom line is the music industry is just that, an industry, a business. It cloaks itself in the term art, since every other business faces some form of government oversight and control. You can't manufacture anything you want unless you are cloaked in the term art.
