"Music Wants to Be Free"

As in "free beer" or as in "free speech?"

An interesting blogpost about the death of the Record Industry:

demonbaby: When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide.

Linking this specific blogpost because it:

• Was linked by a fellow ethnomusicologist.
• Is rather current.
• Contains interesting links.
• Represents a rather clear position.
• Mentions differences between participants in music-related industries.
• Is followed by a lot of comments, many of them interesting and even insightful.
• Comes from a former "industry insider."
• Has "dissent" in the title.

On the other hand, this blogpost:

• Is rather long-winded.
• Doesn't present much that is really new.
• Skips the issue of defining what music itself is (falling in the trap of equating recordings with the music).
• Focuses too much on "music as a commodity."
• Seems to confuse a few issues and terms (for instance "stealing" and "illegal").
• Fails to define "label independance" (apart from lack of RIAA membership).
• Limits itself to the "call your representative" type of action common in social politics in the United States.
• Comes from a former "industry insider."

Still, it might be a fairly decent representation of the current consensus opinion against the Recording Industry. And it might be a good jumping board for discussions of changes in the way music is conceived.