Is it OK for musicians to profit from their labor?
September 23, 2000
by Eric Svetcov
This was written in response to the ZDNet article, “Stanford, MIT stand up to Metallica.”
This would be one giant non-issue if everyone simply admitted that it's OK for a band to profit from their own labor.
Ultimately, our labor is the only thing in life that most
of us have to sell in order to make a living. Why is it that folks who "trade" music believe that the labor that goes into creating music that is recorded and distributed should be worth $0?
Is it fair that
musicians who work hard creating music should be entitled to NO compensation? As I recall we fought the civil war because people chose to value certain labor by certain people to be worth $0. Should musicians also become
uncompensated slaves to our desire for entertainment provided for free? Does it really make sense to create a class of people who exist only to please us, but receive no compensation in return?
Desire for free stuff
aside, this seems a little unfair....don't you think?
Eric Svetcov
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