By coincidence, I just saw Kid Rock live a couple of days ago. He basically stole a bunch of big riffs from rock legends, stitching them together in a neverending breakdown-chorus combo, which sounds powerful for the first 10 minutes and boring for the next 50. No wonder he’s cool with stealing - not just “stealing music,” but stealing anything, like gas from a gas station.
He’s being cynical, of course. In an interview with the BBC he gave a bunch of cool sounding statements which are well suited to uphold his cock-rock superstar attitude but offer little in the way of substance. Bottom line: he’s boycotting iTunes because it’s “an old system, where iTunes takes the money, the record company takes the money, and they don’t give it to the artists.”
“So the internet was an opportunity for everyone to be treated fairly, for the consumer to get a fair price, for the artist to be paid fairly, for the record companies to make some money,” he adds. Fair enough; I couldn’t have said it better myself.
But, at the end of the interview he states that “...we should level the playing field. I don’t mind people stealing my music, that’s fine. But I think they should steal everything. You know how much money the oil companies have? If you need some gas, just go fill your tank off and drive off, they’re not going to miss it,” adding “I don’t steal things. I’m rich.”
Now, I know it’s just him trying to sound cool here, but what he’s saying is stupid on so many levels it’s hard not to pick on it. First of all, he pulls the old analogy of “sharing music is stealing,” and it’s simply not true: you can’t duplicate gas infinitely without cost, but you can do so with music. Secondly, he’s dismissing any real issues there may be with piracy, music sharing and the record industry business model by stating that if you’re rich enough, you don’t have to care. I don’t see how this attitude helps the struggling new artists; furthermore, it makes the point of his iTunes boycott mute, as he’s obviously just doing it for (or because of) the money.
But it’s not just about the money. The fact that oil companies make a lot of money doesn’t mean you can steal oil, and same goes for the record industry. But, the fact that the record industry cannot cope with a new, overwhelming medium (Internet) and refuses to change its business model, instead resorting to DRM, threats, john doe lawsuits and imposing restrictions on the way we use the Internet concerns us all. With his dumb rhetorics, Kid Rock is supporting the record industry’s campaign to prove that sharing equals stealing, and his iTunes boycott - especially when you know that his latest single, All Summer Long, is, in fact, available on iTunes - doesn’t prove a thing.
[image credit: about.com]
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