"Fearless" Artists Come Out On Top

     Number one on the Billboard charts right now stands Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. (aka Lil Wayne) at 5 feet 6 inches. His opponent, 5 foot 11 Taylor Swift, drops her “Speak Now” album on Monday and many predict it to dethrone the incarcerated rapper’s reining “I Am Not A Human Being” record (released on his 28th birthday—a month ago today). The two couldn’t be more different aside from their shared superstardom, but both dominate the radio waves and iPod memory space of America. Chris Anderson describes the current media market as a “Long Tail” of targeted niches and scattered cultural communities, but don’t let this long tail fool you; the gangster rock stars and American sweethearts are doing just fine.

     Both of these contending artists have developed a massive fanbase by working hard and providing a quality product. Somehow standing their ground, these artists are finding ways to maintain mass appeal in the YouTube landscape that is contemporary music. Lil Wayne’s 2008 record “The Carter 3” leaked over a million illegal downloads before it’s official release even dropped, and he still managed to sell another million in the album’s first week in stores. Taylor Swift was the highest grossing artist in America last year and she kept it classy through all the Kanye West drama that ensued from a dramatic VMA ceremony.

     I talk a lot about the economy of entertainment and the pressures of piracy on creative wellbeing, but these two superstars haven’t lost their faith just yet. Don’t get me wrong, they have little to fear as far as finances go, but I think they reason they are so successful is because they put all of themselves into their music and they don’t fear the unknown. Both musicians care so much about their fans and their work that they don’t have time to doubt themselves. Both take creative chances and express themselves through their art, and fans can definitely feel it. It seems as if confidence in your work is the key to success, and the less you care about cash the better off you’ll wind up.

     Now, obviously not everyone can be as lucky as Lil Wanye or Taylor Swift, and there are plenty of artists out there who try just as hard as they do and go completely unappreciated. But there are also artists out there who take cookie-cutter lyrics from their record label, sing them to autotune, get drunk at awards shows and make it into the tabloids, but will never succeed the way a superstar does. Americans may have split into niches with the internet, but we haven’t lost our appreciation for a true, hard-working artist and we know one when we see it.

     Financial success shouldn’t be what drives an artist. It’s a rational necessity in some aspects to live comfortably, but even the billionaire billboard moguls know better than to give up on their art because of an economic downfall or a pirate-laden cycberspace. They work hard and deserve what they have, but the important thing about these two is that their motivation doesn’t come from economic success. Piracy puts its damper on entertainment, no doubt; but it also separates the driven artists from the fame-hungry frauds.

     On a personal note, I love Lil Wayne and hope his success continues with “I Am Not A Human Being” and his upcoming release of “The Carter 4.” He deserves it. Free Weezy!

What's So Bad About A Fad?

So “Jackass-3D” has been out for less than a week now and has already broken the record for highest-grossing opening weekend for a fall quarter film. We all know that James Cameron’s 3D smash “Avatar” remains at #1 for the highest grossing film of all time, and this new installment of the “Jackass” series seems to be riding that 3D wave more than anything. Now, that’s not to say that the movie isn’t great (I don’t know—I haven’t seen it) but I doubt the documentary-style, cultish flick would have done so well had it been a conventional 2D theatrical release.

Obviously piracy has taken its hit on the entertainment industry, but no one’s giving up without a fight. The music industry is cranking out live shows and festivals in order to rake in the cash that it’s losing to LimeWire and the like; clearly the movie industry won’t be losing its mojo any time soon either.  Some say 3D may just be a fad, but for now, this “fad” is continuing to break records left and right. Moreover, 3D movies are breaking the records of their own 2D counterparts that existed before the age of file-sharing. Toy Story 3D, for example, has grossed more than 13 times the amount that the first installment did, which was fairly innovative itself back in 1995 (before the Internet was ubiquitous and CERTAINLY before web-based piracy was an issue).

Even if 3D is a fad, isn’t that what the entertainment industry is all about? Color TV used to make people shit their pants. Now we watch it on our iPhones without blinking an eye. This isn’t to say that the sneaky pirates won’t find a way to share it for free some day, but for now, it’s making a hell of a lot of money. If something is broken, fix it, right? Well the traditional movie model is breaking, and 3D movies are trying it mend it. Whether they have potential for financial longevity or not, they’re working as a pretty awesome bandage for the moment.

Piracy frustrates a lot of people who care about entertainment. It frustrates me to no end on some days, but nothing short of an Internet shutdown or a time-machine are going to eradicate it from cyberspace, so industry changes like 3D movies and increased tour dates are just what the doctor ordered.  When the CD gave way to the iPod, sites like iTunes were created to reap the benefits of MP3 popularity. The entertainment industry should be no stranger to these technological shifts, and while piracy is a daunting one, they need to bounce back and fight hard. To win a battle you must play to your opponent’s weakness, and broke college kids in their dorm rooms don’t have 3D laptops, nor do software hackers in China. It is technology that put entertainment through this mess in the first place, but perhaps it is also technology that will get them out of it.

Me and Millco Sitting in a Tree...

         I have found my social bookmarking soulmate. Their name on citeulike.com is Millco and we are perfect for one another. While I have just started learning about social bookmarking, Millco seems to be a seasoned veteran. They cite many scholarly articles on the topics that fascinate me: piracy, experience, consumption and production, creative industries, technology, psychology, and aesthetics and design. Millco doesn’t do much tagging, but I can’t blame them for that, because I’m lazy about tagging as well. When they do tag, however, they use words like “music”, “experience”, “piracy”, “p2p”, etc.—things that are extremely applicable to my research interests.

         Millco doesn’t add many comments, but they are very thorough in their research and bookmarking. They mark articles that are frequently bookmarked by many other users and usually show interest in scholarly, academic articles. They have bookmarked about 100 pages since they joined the site in May of last year, and just about every one of the articles in their library sounds like something I would take interest in. Even if an article doesn’t relate to my research directly, it somehow relates to my other interests (academic or personal). They bookmark often; generally more than a few times a week.

        While Millco doesn’t use tags very often, the article titles speak for themselves. I’m glad I can now see all of Millco’s library, because I would love to further my research on piracy and file sharing using some of their resources for my own reading. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a person studying communications like myself, because their academic interests are so incredibly in line with my own.

Check out their library!

Research Paper Abstract

New media technology holds massive potential for world betterment, but it also poses many cultural and societal threats to the creative industries. The illegal sharing of creative content commonly referred to as “piracy” is one of such threats, and researchers in the field nearly unanimously agree that piracy impedes the music industry financially. Much scholarly research has been done in the last decade to analyze the scope and effects of piracy, but most of the contemporary research lacks a solid, stable solution to the ever-increasing issue. Thus, the purpose of this study was to survey young adults first-hand and assess the potential effectiveness for live music revenue to counter the negative financial effects of piracy. Findings revealed, in fact, that neither illegal music downloads or live music expenditures were significant among the sample, but that knowledge of intellectual property law was astoundingly low. Implications of this research are that increased education on file sharing laws would financially improve the music industry more effectively than live music promotion would, thus more industry effort should be put into public education on the issue.

Another Comment...

Here is another comment I left in response to a post about anti-piracy law and Google's role in the debate:

I don't see how this law would benefit Google at all. They make money off advertising, period. They shouldn't have to be the copyright police and not accept money from sites who are infringing copyright laws. If those sites are blacklisted, Google loses revenue from those advertisers. They're a pretty morally sound company, but I doubt Google feels too badly about who they're advertising. They need money to do what they do, and they take it form whoever will pay for it. Retail stores don't NOT sell pants to sex offenders or drug addicts, right? I'm sure Google will survive even if many of their sponsors are "blacklisted," but to claim that it will benefit them is a stretch. If anything it will set them back. It's not like Google should get in trouble for advertising infringing sites, that adds extra police work for them when they have enough on their plate as it is. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for playing for the content you consume and reviving intellectual property rights, but Google is a middle man who doesn't owe anything to content creators. To say that Google "encourages" and "sustains" online piracy is a little much. They might bot be combating it, but it's not their fault that piracy-based sites get traffic. The blame is all on the sites themselves, and it's not fair to bring Google into the debate when they are just the messenger. Google is going to advertise the sites that are the most popular--that's what they do. If pirating sites can afford to pay for ad spots on Google, that's not Google's fault. I agree that this claim is a bit of a stretch, and I doubt anyone at Google felt that they were "between a rock and a hard place" when it came to ad revenue from piracy sites.

Response to Mark Cuban's Long Tail Update

Below is a comment I posted to Mark Cuban's article "Are You A 1 Hit Wonder Or A Meal Ticket?"

Check out the article and my comment below:

I think that a lot creative content producers have definitely surrendered to the paycheck. There are shows on the air that are flopping like a fish out of water but won’t quit until they’ve milked it for all its worth. They don’t care at all about stopping while they’re ahead and preserving their reputation in history because there’s never any insurance that their next project will get noticed. Not that there ever was, but now more than ever, the chances of getting lost in the clutter are immensely high. I think niche markets and content in the “long tail” are nice and all, but combined with today’s challenges of piracy and file-sharing, the creative industries are flat-out suffering in the hands of new media (economically at least). Those who genuinely make art for fun are loving it; after all, a drumming cat can get more than 1,000,000 views on YouTube faster than a talented band can these days. Those who seek sheer exposure are certainly advantaged, but their work is typically of a lower standard than those who do it professionally. And we can all understand how professional content creators are vulnerable in the long tail.
The content that is succeeding most are experience-based arts like live concerts or 3D movies. Some industry players are adjusting quickly and skipping the sitting-and-sulking phase, which I think is as commendable as it is bold. Surely some advantageous attempts at industry change will fail, but there needs to be a shift in order to revive spirits, and taking a stab at it is the first step. The long tail is in full swing, and it’s a game-changer than can either be detrimental or extremely beneficial–it just depends on how willing artists are to adjust and take risks. Those who aren’t will fizzle out, and those who are have the potential to completely reinvent a culture-shaping American industry.