Oh, Instagram

Note: I do not use Instagram. I have not read their new terms of service, nor do I care to.

So, Instagram can sell your pictures. Pictures that they are hosting on their servers for you, for free. Who've allowed you to do this for quite a while, and, y'know, have a right to generate some income for the service they are absolutely, without question, providing (it's a stupid service, but everybody thought it was "so cool," so kudos, Instagram). And everyone's SOOOOOO shocked.

First off. You put your crappy pictures of you and your friends showing each other your butt cracks while doing shots of Everclear on the top of the water tower on Instagram. Because you just needed all of your friends to know what a jackass you are. Those one hundred and fifty pictures of your cat that you felt you wanted to makes sure your nephew saw? Yep. You posted them.

You also posted these things to pretty much the entire internet. There is no way around that. It's time to get real cozy with the idea that one you digitize your precious things...nobody gives a shit if it's "yours:" anymore. At that point, "private" is a joke. Nobody cares if you might, possibly, want to make a little money off it, or if you might object to someone else taking your intellectual property and make a tidy profit off it.

Does that bother you? Hmmm- sounds familiar.

Sucks when the shoe's on the other foot, huh? Maybe the folks that got your picture from Instagram might pay you for another one, huh? Maybe?

The Cost of Piracy

I caught this article on bleedingcool.com.

I'm always frustrated, and amazed, by people who feel, without reservation, that there's nothing wrong with this. Even beyond this guy, who's just blatantly making money on the backs of someone else's property. Yet, still the reason this guy thinks it's OK is indicative of a social mindset that's rampant.

Music, comics, digital books, it doesn't matter what the content is, there seems to be a vast disconnect to the idea that someone created it, someone put up the money to put it into a professional format, and someone paid to distribute it. Just because something can be made into an ephemeral format, like a digital file, has reduced the value of the work, the work itself, to nothing.

I get that the comics companies haven't yet figured out that the digital format should be less than the physical product. It'll come. They're too busy trying to appease the retailer market right now, because it's the only income stream they can count on. That might change if they embraced the $.99/$1.50 for a digital book price point, but they're scared.

I don't believe that would change the mindset, anyway. You can download a song for $.99 on Amazon, which I think is very reasonable, and you usually pay less if you buy the whole album in one fell swoop. Not that anyone cares about full albums anymore, except us fogies. Yet, piracy is rampant, and musicians can't even look at their actual music as a source of income anymore. It's a loss leader to try to sell T-shirts and other merch, and the profit ratio on that stuff is piss-poor, too.

Yes, Gene Simmons will sell you anything with "KISS" on it

There's a blues/rock guitarist I follow a bit named Joe Bonamassa. Extremely talented, works a lot, tours, and I got on his mailing list. I get e-mails about new music, but mainly it's about bobbleheads, or expensive lithographs. Which is fine, but I despair that music isn't about music anymore. It's all KISS, now, branding focused.

Which has always been, and will always be, part of the picture, but I worry for what will ultimately happen. It already kinda has, I firmly believe, for example, Marvel is more a movie company now, than comic book publisher. The needs of their movie/TV arm are driving choices in their comics publishing. "Corporate Synergy" as an editorial strategy. That makes me sad.

And I get it, brave new world, and all that. I understand you have roll with the times, and adapt. I think there are very smart people who've figured out how to give away their music, or comics, or novels, and make up the difference with ancillary revenue sources. Good for them, but I, again, am sad that the idea, the intellectual property, the story, the song, the germ that's supposed to drive the whole engine, is not the financial focus.

Plus, it's easy for Radiohead, or Neil Gaiman, artists who've established their "brand" under the old system, were marketed by large record labels and publishers, and now want to treat this as like checking out books form the library. Artists who either give away their work, or publicly state they aren't concerned. They've already established other revenue lines, and their value to their audiences. That's their right, and I support it, but what about the kid making demos, or comics, or writing in his basement? He doesn't already have a movie deal, or a world tour set.

In the old days, that kind of marketing plan would be called selling out. I try to imagine a punk band in the late 70's looking to T-shirts and keychains as their main income, and it's just...ridiculous. Bill Watterson was against licensing his strips for coffee mugs, let alone taking a check for a Calvin and Hobbes TV series. Now, I'm not a militant about it, I get that this is the way of things. I just feel like an artist should be able to sell his art, and make a living. If that makes any sense. He or she should also have the option of NOT using cafe press to put their logo/characters/face on a pair of panties to make a living.

Yes, I'm old, and I'm growling at the kids to get off my lawn. That, however, doesn't make my point less valid.

My Blossoming Love Affair With My Kindle

I love my Kindle.

I've always considered myself a Luddite, but it seems that whenever I'm able to really use a new digital format, I go apeshit for it. It happened with MP3s, and now it's happening with digital books.

I've read more in the last two months, since CByrd got me this Kindle for my birthday, than I had in the eight prior. Where before I'd been happy just listening to music on the train, because I just didn't like hauling books around, now I have the svelte little unit that holds even the largest books. Since I got a cover for it, I'm not even that scared of dropping it anymore.

It's allowed me to finally get started reading series that I'd "meant to" look at for a long time. The Hunger Games, for instance. Now, after thinking about it for, literally, years, I'm digging into Dennis Lehane's Kenzie and Genarro books.

There's quite a few of those, so my plan is to alternate each one with something else. I'm reading the first novel, A Drink Before the War, right now. After that will either be It's So Easy by Duff McKaga, Contents Under Pressure: 30 Years of Rush at Home and Away by Martin Popoff, or Roger Ebert's Life Itself: A Memoir. Then back to Kenzie and Genarro to re-read Darkness, Take My Hand.

The Lehane books are actually research, in a way. I've got a noir idea bubbling inside, and I loved Darkness the first time I read it, and Drink Before is just as good. I'm going to be stealing, style-wise, at least.

Do you know how long it's been since I've planned out my reading? A long flippin' time.

I'm also enamored with the Kindle's ability to display .pdf files. This make the seemingly unending script reading I have to do much easier. Where I used to be hunched over my laptop, burning my eyes out reading scripts. Or, endangering entire forests by printing out scripts. I can squint a little and read it off my easy read Kindle screen. (Still wish I could enlarge the print, alas.)

Kindle - Has my vote.

Never thought I'd hear new Alice in Chains

But here I am, writing a blog and listening to the new album, When Black Gives Way to Blue, streaming on their website.

Good stuff. I'll probably download it next Tuesday morning.

Yep. Download.

I gave in.

I have to admit, it has more to do with space than anything. I have a ton of DVDs and Blu-Rays, and the CDs have become something I'd like to slip into storage, and use that space for more movies. It's gonna be a little while before I want all my movies on a computer. Plus, I mostly listen to music on my Zune now, I rarely put in a CD at home.

It's gonna be a long damn time before I want to watch a movie on my computer.

Like, forever.

This is barring travel and such...I can certainly see myself watching a movie on my laptop during a flight or something. Even HULU, can't stand it, can't stand watching stuff on my computer. Don't even get me started on watching somthing on the Zune. I mean, it's neat to watch The Guild or something on the train, but if you think I'm EVER going to think watching The Dark Knight on my Zune is anything more than a novelty, you are seriously high.

We've already ruined the moviegoing experience because Bob and Jane Idiot can't understand there's a difference between renting a movie and watching it in your living room and GOING TO THE MOVIES. Y'know, sharing an experience with others means shutting your mouth and not having a full-volume conversation because Jane can't make heads or tails out of the plot for Austin Powers. Or my personal favorite, when the complaints begin because the plot isn't crystal clear from frame one. Does no one understand the concept of WATCHING THE MOVIE, and maybe getting what's going on from that?

No wonder Hollywood makes movies for morons, this is the audience. This is why we have Transformers 3 coming, folks....

*sigh*

Gives me a headache. Seriously.

Now you can watch on the train! The time when a movie was an event to give your full attention to is long gone.

Yet, I keep going, because I LOVE movies, and because I believe that in a crowded room of people is the way they are to be seen. When it works, and we all work and react in consort with the film...it's transcendant, beautiful.

You can't put that on a Zune.