This has been a good week for artists speaking out for their rights. I highlighted earlier this week a number of independent artists on an indie label who spoke out against infringement of their creative works. There have been other positive voices as well, nicely summarized by my friend Chris Castle on his blog.

One voice Chris points to is Bono’s, who had a compelling op-ed in The New York Times recently, arguing that infringement doesn’t hurt the superstars nearly as much as it hurts emerging artists; it can actually lead to some of those artists not pursuing their craft, at which point we all suffer. He has pointed this out repeatedly. I blogged on a previous statement he made in this regard last year, noting he was “offended” some viewed a piece of music as no different from tap water.

Chris also noted a nice piece of writing by Krist Novoselic in The Seattle Weekly titled “Why I Agree with Bono.” Mr. Novoselic, a music legend in his own right, expressed disappointment that a nifty technology like Twitter had been used by many dismissive of artists’ rights to figuratively light Bono on fire. Some of us who have been online for decades are not surprised by the vitriol one finds online. But many artists I have spoken with, particularly independent artists trying to build an audience, have shared with me how hard it is to speak out on behalf of the rights of artists when so many online will attack anyone who dares defend their rights.

I have long maintained the shrill opposition to artists’ rights you see on some blogs (and now in tweets) is not reflective of society at large. The online world distorts perception and reinforces our “digital hollows.” But it’s a nice trend to see more and more artists speaking out. Nearly 12,000 individual artists spoke out when they signed our letter to President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Let me conclude by quoting Chris on this point:

It is encouraging that artists are standing up together and opposing the utopians and swarms of digital natives–not only in their own interests but in the interests of people they don’t even know.

Well said.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 11:55 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under Obama, blogging, copyright opponents, culture, p2p, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.