WARNING! Swearing and emotion ahead. if you’re not human, don’t read on!
Those of you that know me, know that I have strong feelings about this, and if you didn’t know that, you know me well enough to know that I would do :)
I’m going to lay this out simply, with no opinion, and let you come to your own conclusions.
iTunes will now let you encode at “iTunes Plus quality” – great.
I have several hundred CDs- all paid for.
I encoded them, with iTunes, in 2001 – it took *ages*.
They’re encoded at 128kbs – not the best, you can hear the clipping.
Can I convert them to “iTunes Plus Quality”? – well no. How do I prove I own them?
What’s the fucking point? – totally.
I bought that shit. The first time around. And excuse my language, but I’m just having my face rubbed in it. Well look, it’s two thousand and fucking nine, this should be a non-issue.
I paid for the content, not the file.
Let me repeat that with emotional emphasis.. and this should drive home several things.
I *paid* for the *content*.
I really want to reward creativity. That means paying artists for their awesome music, and their time spent sharing it with me.
There is nothing in place to reward *me* for paying them. This may sound stupid.. but this is a huge issue. You (record labels/industry at large) have this all wrong. We are not criminals, but you’re encouraging me to steal from you by not letting me have the things I’ve already paid for.
So.. fuck you. Fuck your business models. I hope you just go away.
Artists… we love you (on the whole). Love us back by enabling us to *pay* for your content.
And don’t think that you TV and film producers and distributers are any fucking different. There’s a reason I openly admit to downloading Battlestar Galactica. It’s because I *really* like it! But it’s aired a week later in the UK, which is basically inviting me to download it on a Saturday morning from the US (including Sci-Fi channel overlays, I don’t care if they’re there.. just like I don’t care if there are messages about the Oscars on films I download.). I like it that fucking much, a few days matters!
We want your content. Your content is good.
But enable us to reward your creatives appropriately. Seriously.
You’re not helping your industries, which we like, by clawing on to the behaviour that, let’s face it, fucked you into the position you’re in now.