I remember back when the record industry was trying to destroy Napster (this was like in 341bc before we invented iPhones and dogs) and there were studies coming out showing pretty conclusively that piracy increased record industry profits by introducing media to new markets, while the people who did pirate things were overwhelmingly people who were too poor to by them. But despite more or less having proof that pirating both increased their sales and that pirating did not take any sales away from them they still went on a berserk rampage against file sharing that has had consequences to this day.
To me it's one of the strongest examples that capital will forgo profit in order to maintain social control.
My buddy got so much cool ass foreign music off Napster before it got killed. It was an awesome time to be 16. We burned so many mix cds just packed with tracks. Gotta fill up those 80 minutes! What only 78 minutes? Cram one last 1:30 hard-core punk song in there. Waste not - want not.
In some ways it was terrible, but in other ways there was a glorious, wild lawlessness to it. Mystery and danger, exploration and wonder. Impossible connections with people a world away.
I remember back when the record industry was trying to destroy Napster (this was like in 341bc before we invented iPhones and dogs) and there were studies coming out showing pretty conclusively that piracy increased record industry profits by introducing media to new markets, while the people who did pirate things were overwhelmingly people who were too poor to by them. But despite more or less having proof that pirating both increased their sales and that pirating did not take any sales away from them they still went on a berserk rampage against file sharing that has had consequences to this day.
To me it's one of the strongest examples that capital will forgo profit in order to maintain social control.
My buddy got so much cool ass foreign music off Napster before it got killed. It was an awesome time to be 16. We burned so many mix cds just packed with tracks. Gotta fill up those 80 minutes! What only 78 minutes? Cram one last 1:30 hard-core punk song in there. Waste not - want not.
In some ways it was terrible, but in other ways there was a glorious, wild lawlessness to it. Mystery and danger, exploration and wonder. Impossible connections with people a world away.
The miracle of the 99 minute CD would not have been wasted on you.