Monday, April 28, 2008

bloodlines of legitimation

AKMA notes the curious fact that the "legitimate" online offerings from music companies typically offer no added value, no lyrics, no liner notes, nuthin', in other words, that would differentiate the "legitimate" from the pirated file.

I'll add this one to the pile of examples of USian Grifterism (a pile which includes, among other things, certain forms of mortgages, FEMA, several major corporations and the entire Bush Administration).

For the record co's, the thing that makes their pay-for-it files "legitimate" has nothing to do with the listener, or with the music, or with the quality of the file. It has to do with the contractual relationship of the corporation to the property.

This is the working definition of legitimacy in USia. It's also the reason we have no culture, no community, and no public forums for consensual intelligence. Legitimacy by contract is not love. It is the blood of USia, and it's poison.

imhfo, of course.

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2 Comments:

Blogger AKMA said...

Tom, I'm still in awe of your prescient Napster essay from 2000.

It hurts to think what a little of you vision could have accomplished over the eight years since then, had the industrialists paid attention and followed your clues.

Heck, it would make a big difference if one of them started paying attention now.

4/28/2008 10:13 PM  
Blogger Tom Matrullo said...

Thanks AKMA, but - the clues weren't mine - they were "in" Napster and its effects - hard for contractualists to attend to the very thing they kill.

4/28/2008 11:23 PM  

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