mikkipedia

January 26, 2012

"Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan."

—

Jonathan Coulton is wise.

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/

You know, I know Mr. Coulton slightly, and he is a nice guy, but come on. Really? It’s that simple? And yet how odd that those who have been most successful with this, folks like him and Neil Gaiman are… what’s the phrase? Oh yeah, straight white guys tapping into an already-networked affluent following of tech-savvy other straight white guys, namely geeks. Yes they also have female fans. Women can be geeks! I KNOW. But as someone who has benefited from this very same phenomenon to a much lesser degree, I really have to call out this faux-wisdom for the meritocracy myth that it is.

It is not an automagical process on a level playing field, Mr. Coulton, Mr. Gaiman. You know this. It doesn’t take away from your art or your success to acknowledge that you are embedded in a system ginned up to send people just like you straight to the top. “Make good stuff and make it easy for people to buy it” is so simplistic as to be grossly insulting. People have been making good art and trying to make it easy for people to buy it since the dawn of time, and it’s no accident that somehow, weirdly, it’s straight white folks, mostly men, who still keep ending up succeeding at it! Every single movement of independent music, art, and literature has foundered on the level of distribution ( remember when Caroline went under? and every other zine distributor or independent record distribution company?). The internet is not going to solve this any more than desktop publishing or the postal service did, because it is embedded in the very same system.

I HAVE ABOUT 290,000 MORE WORDS ON THIS BUT NO. I like Mr. Coulton. I like Wil Wheaton! and Paul and Storm and all the gang. But it’s not a fluke that the gang is who it is.

(via so-treu)

9:21am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Zu71EyFOjqzI

(Notes: 6,203)