Feross.org

When artists do work, they should be paid — no one is debating that. Musicians are paid when they perform at concerts, when they sell discs, and when they compose for someone. Artists are paid when they sell their artwork, when they are commissioned to make art, and when their art appears in art museums.

However, artists shouldn’t chase down and sue every adolescent who copies their work without advance permission. The job of artists is to create stuff — and for that they should be compensated. They should not necessarily be compensated for the distribution of their work, especially when computers and the Internet make it trivial to distribute bits at a near-zero cost.

At the end of the day, artists should be paid when they make stuff. Mozilla is a great example of a company that understands this. Let’s say that software engineers are artists for the sake of this example (in many ways, we are artists). So, Mozilla engineers get paid when they’re designing, programming, and submitting patches for Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey. Yet, when the time comes for the software to be distributed, Mozilla engineers are not paid anything. All Mozilla software is free (as in freedom) and open source, as governed by the Mozilla Public License.

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I’ve long believed that modern hip-hop and R&B suffers from too much post-production. Average singers can wail away in front of the microphone yet sound amazing on the radio, after the post-production techs have fixed all the mistakes. This is why all the music on the radio sounds so similar — it’s all pitch-perfect.

Today, I discovered just how little talent it requires to make a modern pop song.

MacBook Pro + Built-in Mic + GarageBand + AutoTune + 1 hour =

Feross Aboukhadijeh – Amazing

VS.

Kanye West (ft. Young Jeezy) – Amazing

Go ahead and click PLAY above to give my cover song a listen.

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It’s always nice to see the mainstream guys mimicking the little guys.

Remix culture for the win!

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Flash animation about war and how it’s happened so many times before.

(See this flash animation and more @ FreeTheFlash.com)

For what can war but endless war still breed?

– JOHN MILTON, On the Lord General Fairfax

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Note: This is the last post in a series of posts about freedom of speech on the Internet.

You should read:
Part 1 – Remix Culture
Part 2 – Broken Promises
Part 3 – Network (Classic 1976 Film)
Part 4 – Concentration of Media Ownership
Part 5 – George Orwell Rolls in His Grave
Part 6 – The Internet Revolution and Citizen Media
Part 7 – Remix Culture (…again)
Part 8 – Threats to Freedom of Speech on the Net
Part 9 – Yes We Can Regulate Culture with Copyright Law
Part 10 – Lawrence Lessig = Awesome

And now on to Part 11, the final post….

If I’ve driven any point home in my last ten posts, its been that freedom of speech is a basic, essential characteristic of western society. The Internet – what was largely an unanticipated consequence of military funded research – has turned out to be the most important democratizing force in the history of the world.

The Internet’s success has largely been due to its free and open nature. Its importance to the functions of western democracy, as well as its power to bring information and democracy to the rest of the world should not be underestimated. The flourishing of a “remix culture” has made possible new forms of social expression and Internet conversations that give power and influence to the young people of the world.

The Internet has been such a powerful force in the world for freedom of thought, freedom of information, and freedom of expression. We should not let anyone — especially powerful companies and governments — mess with our Internet.

It’s our job to increase the protection for free speech on the Internet and do our best to reform out-of-date and unjust government policies. We are the only ones who can protect our rights from those who seek to oppress us.

And with that, I will end my final post on this topic. Whew! Glad that’s over! Hopefully I haven’t bored anyone too much over the past few weeks. If I did my job then hopefully you learned something new and feel motivated and excited about freedom of speech on the net and want to support new and better copyright laws, net neutrality, and other related initiatives!

If you’d like further reading, then check out SaveTheInternet.com and SaveTheNews.org.

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