Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Tempest in a tea pot dept. As promised, the flaskaland exclusive on appropriation without respect or decorum and the emotional fall out resulting from such misappropriations.
The following is a test of your moral stature. This is a thought-provoking scenario during which you will decide how you will act and who you want to be if you decide to write about music and music culture or even become a musician yourself .... there will be a number of questions.
Boys, girls, so you want to be a music critic? You're smart enough to write so you already know it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, right? But you feel strongly about music and think you might have some insights and enthusiasms you'd like to share with the world. So you decide to take a risk.
Let's pretend a pop musician sends you an email out of the blue to solicit your interest in his project and then sends you a record to review. What would you do?
Let's pretend you oblige because you're a nice guy, and cover the record. And then you even go out of your way and do an interview and get it published somewhere. You're not making a penny from any of this, but that's just how it is at the moment. The musician posts links to your work on his own website, which is the only permission of use he has been granted, so that must mean he likes the review, too.
But do you think that musicians really have any respect or appreciation for what you've done? Yes? If you do, you're probably wrong, you know. That's because you exist only to help them out in some way when they need it. And your reason for existing is now nearly over.
It's only a record review, and everyone, including the writer, knows it. And reviews generally have a limited life span.
But what if someone then takes your work and uses your review in their press kit without recompensing you in any way -- to publicize themselves and the record they're selling. That seems to go with the territory. Even without asking you, that's to be expected. This form of use benefits only the musician and the label in providing them with free publicity. The writer benefits in no real way.
But what if someone takes your review and reduces your stature. Let's pretend someone takes your review, strips your name off it, and publishes it as a review on Amazon. That makes it look like it's something that an anonymous Amazon music reviewer has supposedly written.
How would you feel about that? It's not really plagiarism (no one is assuming credit for your work). What would you call this if it happened to you? More importantly how would you feel about it? Granted, we all know we live in a cut and paste world, but still -- that's not very respectful, is it?
Boys, and girls, this is a little-bitty, teensy-tiny let's pretend story, right?
Matt Cibula wrote a very positive review for PopMatters and then went on to interview a pop musician, and now Matt says he's disappointed. His review has shown up a number of times on Amazon. The first few times, individual paragraphs were lifted and appeared as individual "reviews". He asked Amazon to remove them and they did. Now it's back again, this time lifted ver batim nearly in entirety and labeled as coming from "a music fan from Windhoek, Namibia". And exactly the same review has been cut and pasted on CD Universe. Who's putting it there? Not Matt. Not me. Who could have done this, and why? There are only suspicions.
Matt wrote me this morning: "I reviewed his record when no one else did, I interviewed him for another website when no one else did. Part of the reason I didn't consider this record for my top ten list is that I stopped listening to that record when I suspected that martin might have been behind the first theft of the review. (the bigger reason: there were at least 12 better records last year, if not 22.) if it wasn't him, then it's disappointing anyway, because it means that I've been turned into an advertisement without my permission."
This goes a bit deeper and wider than that. What is the emotional toll? Matt says, "It has, however, made me MUCH less likely to ever go out on a limb for an artist again; from now on, I deal with labels, through websites or magazines. and from now on I trust NO ONE."
Can't say as I blame him. Gentle reader, we don't know who did this. Why would someone do it? Just because they can? Do you think the person responsible for doing this stands to profit in any way or make money from these actions? If they are in fact gaining financially, do you think they're donating it to charity? .... No?
How about this next question: Do you think they'd be likely to move so much as an inch to help another human being in any kind of way?
Boys and girls, stealing has serious consequences (say: con-see-kwen-ses) because it hurts everyone. Stealing causes big problems for a family or a community (even an internet community) and seriously impacts future relations with others.
We've all encountered sociopaths -- we might know people who cheat, lie, steal, and generally mess around with humanity. They are always unfazed by the adverse effect their actions have on others. We can shake our heads in disbelief, and can't understand how it is someone we trusted, maybe even a friend, can do that to us, or do that to anyone. Their actions say they regard us poorly.
In thinking about them, we realize we'll never know what makes them tick. But because we sense that something is different, or wrong about that person, we'll simply avoid them in the future. The limits to trust have been damaged, and without trust there is no relationship.
So they might not remain our friends or associates after we discover that about them. But that doesn't bother the cheat, the liar, the thief, or the philanderer. They've sought you out and already exhausted what you can provide them with; they just move on to the next bunch of prospective victims.
We, however, are not so inclined to be so charitable in the future. The thief lives only for himself and prospers from his self-seeking opportunism. He might actually be profiting greatly and wallowing in splendor or living in a stingy, greedy, and selfish world all of his own, but either way it's hard to feel much compassion for him now. In stealing from one, he has stolen something from everyone.
He's influenced a once generous person who reached out in genuine kindness into acting less generously with anyone ever again in the future. Therefore, the thief has stolen from everyone, but he likely doesn't care.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[updated Thurs Feb 19, 10:08 PM
The reviews pointed to in the post above have been removed from both CD Universe and Amazon (Who, I am told, "takes accusations of plagiarism very seriously.") So if you want a synopsis, visit rockcriticsdaily and read all about it, read all about it, read all about it under 2-18 'NOT WHAT'S MEANT BY QUOTING 'LIBERALLY']
¶ 2/18/2004 02:46:00 PM
The following is a test of your moral stature. This is a thought-provoking scenario during which you will decide how you will act and who you want to be if you decide to write about music and music culture or even become a musician yourself .... there will be a number of questions.
Boys, girls, so you want to be a music critic? You're smart enough to write so you already know it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, right? But you feel strongly about music and think you might have some insights and enthusiasms you'd like to share with the world. So you decide to take a risk.
Let's pretend a pop musician sends you an email out of the blue to solicit your interest in his project and then sends you a record to review. What would you do?
Let's pretend you oblige because you're a nice guy, and cover the record. And then you even go out of your way and do an interview and get it published somewhere. You're not making a penny from any of this, but that's just how it is at the moment. The musician posts links to your work on his own website, which is the only permission of use he has been granted, so that must mean he likes the review, too.
But do you think that musicians really have any respect or appreciation for what you've done? Yes? If you do, you're probably wrong, you know. That's because you exist only to help them out in some way when they need it. And your reason for existing is now nearly over.
It's only a record review, and everyone, including the writer, knows it. And reviews generally have a limited life span.
But what if someone then takes your work and uses your review in their press kit without recompensing you in any way -- to publicize themselves and the record they're selling. That seems to go with the territory. Even without asking you, that's to be expected. This form of use benefits only the musician and the label in providing them with free publicity. The writer benefits in no real way.
But what if someone takes your review and reduces your stature. Let's pretend someone takes your review, strips your name off it, and publishes it as a review on Amazon. That makes it look like it's something that an anonymous Amazon music reviewer has supposedly written.
How would you feel about that? It's not really plagiarism (no one is assuming credit for your work). What would you call this if it happened to you? More importantly how would you feel about it? Granted, we all know we live in a cut and paste world, but still -- that's not very respectful, is it?
Boys, and girls, this is a little-bitty, teensy-tiny let's pretend story, right?
Matt Cibula wrote a very positive review for PopMatters and then went on to interview a pop musician, and now Matt says he's disappointed. His review has shown up a number of times on Amazon. The first few times, individual paragraphs were lifted and appeared as individual "reviews". He asked Amazon to remove them and they did. Now it's back again, this time lifted ver batim nearly in entirety and labeled as coming from "a music fan from Windhoek, Namibia". And exactly the same review has been cut and pasted on CD Universe. Who's putting it there? Not Matt. Not me. Who could have done this, and why? There are only suspicions.
Matt wrote me this morning: "I reviewed his record when no one else did, I interviewed him for another website when no one else did. Part of the reason I didn't consider this record for my top ten list is that I stopped listening to that record when I suspected that martin might have been behind the first theft of the review. (the bigger reason: there were at least 12 better records last year, if not 22.) if it wasn't him, then it's disappointing anyway, because it means that I've been turned into an advertisement without my permission."
This goes a bit deeper and wider than that. What is the emotional toll? Matt says, "It has, however, made me MUCH less likely to ever go out on a limb for an artist again; from now on, I deal with labels, through websites or magazines. and from now on I trust NO ONE."
Can't say as I blame him. Gentle reader, we don't know who did this. Why would someone do it? Just because they can? Do you think the person responsible for doing this stands to profit in any way or make money from these actions? If they are in fact gaining financially, do you think they're donating it to charity? .... No?
How about this next question: Do you think they'd be likely to move so much as an inch to help another human being in any kind of way?
Boys and girls, stealing has serious consequences (say: con-see-kwen-ses) because it hurts everyone. Stealing causes big problems for a family or a community (even an internet community) and seriously impacts future relations with others.
We've all encountered sociopaths -- we might know people who cheat, lie, steal, and generally mess around with humanity. They are always unfazed by the adverse effect their actions have on others. We can shake our heads in disbelief, and can't understand how it is someone we trusted, maybe even a friend, can do that to us, or do that to anyone. Their actions say they regard us poorly.
In thinking about them, we realize we'll never know what makes them tick. But because we sense that something is different, or wrong about that person, we'll simply avoid them in the future. The limits to trust have been damaged, and without trust there is no relationship.
So they might not remain our friends or associates after we discover that about them. But that doesn't bother the cheat, the liar, the thief, or the philanderer. They've sought you out and already exhausted what you can provide them with; they just move on to the next bunch of prospective victims.
We, however, are not so inclined to be so charitable in the future. The thief lives only for himself and prospers from his self-seeking opportunism. He might actually be profiting greatly and wallowing in splendor or living in a stingy, greedy, and selfish world all of his own, but either way it's hard to feel much compassion for him now. In stealing from one, he has stolen something from everyone.
He's influenced a once generous person who reached out in genuine kindness into acting less generously with anyone ever again in the future. Therefore, the thief has stolen from everyone, but he likely doesn't care.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[updated Thurs Feb 19, 10:08 PM
The reviews pointed to in the post above have been removed from both CD Universe and Amazon (Who, I am told, "takes accusations of plagiarism very seriously.") So if you want a synopsis, visit rockcriticsdaily and read all about it, read all about it, read all about it under 2-18 'NOT WHAT'S MEANT BY QUOTING 'LIBERALLY']
¶ 2/18/2004 02:46:00 PM
