The last throes of an organization

I really should throw in the towel on higher education. After all, why pay someone to make you smarter, when there's plenty of money to be made from stupid? Not only is the American Society of Composers, Authors and Performers (ASCAP) stupid enough to think that they can shake down mobile carriers for ringtone "performance" royalties, some were apparently even paying it.

Don't get me wrong: I fully understand that the ASCAP is functioning like a court-appointed defense attorney who is professionally obligated to bend whatever testimony and procedure can be bent in her clients' interests. However, IIRC, these were the scumbags who tried suing the Girl Scouts for royalties on campfire tunes. [Consults with Almighty Google] Yep, I was right. (Wow, it doesn't seem like it's been that long...)

Anyhoo.

But here's what. The ASCAP's stupidity lies not in the fact that it's picking this battle, but rather that that it's declared war on the entity that should be its ally. Currently, the mobile carriers are licensing the music from the record companies, rather than individual artists. The ASCAP should, ultimately, be working to cut the record companies out of the deal. It should be scoping out the indie bands--combing YouTube, Viddler, iTunes, et. al.--and working to bring content from those artists directly to ringtone, even to the point of putting itself into the ringtone market.

Sure, it'll be an uphill climb. But the only other road leads to extinction. Why? Because the financial barriers to entry have dropped to almost nothing.

To put things in perspective: Elvis Presley paid four bucks--which was a lot of money for many eighteen-year-olds in 1953--to make one single record. Maybe a few dozen people could listen to it at any given time...at least until the vinyl wore out. Nowadays, for a few hundred bucks (between computer, internet connection, and a halfway decent webcam), a performance can, theoretically, hit the eyeballs of millions of people within a few hours.

Case in point: When Joss Whedon (of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," etc. fame) released the self-produced, self-financed mini-musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog" last year, his servers crumbled under the onslaught of downloads. I know: I couldn't watch it until after the dust from the initial stampede had settled. How did I find out about it? Word of mouth. Actually, no. Word of email, actually. From someone halfway across the continent.

Now, granted, Mr. Whedon had already made his reputation within the entertainment infrastructure. (But, for all we know, he may be giving the bird to the ninnyhammers who grossly underfunded "Firefly" before unceremoniously yanking it off the airwaves.) So did Prince, who's been self-produced (and taking home a significantly higher share of the profits) since he broke with Warner Brothers in 2001. The point is, however, that fifty-five years of technology makes more than a little bit of difference. Oh, yeah: And I'm still hoping that J. Michael Stracynski ("Babylon 5") does the same thing to flip off Ted Turner for what TNT did to "Crusade."

Ultimately, YouTube and its ilk and even marginally professional personal websites will do more damage to the entertainment industry than Napster, Pirate Bay, et. al. ever dreamed of doing. And not through piracy, either. But because enough talented people put in enough sweat equity backed by enough technical and marketing savvy to make a serious dent in the market for synthetic content. I won't call myself much of a music-lover, but I'm down with that. Not least of all if it keeps the next Britney or The Spice Girls off the airwaves.

Mind you, the middlemen, the gatekeepers, and self-appointed taste-makers will not be entirely cut out. There are too many people with more talent than actual dedication out there, after all. But the playing field has been globalized as well as made more level. Sure, your music video's chances of going viral are probably slim to none after you first toss it out onto the interwebs. But. You have the tools to lead people to your work. (Please use them respectfully and politely!) Better yet, you don't have to move to LA. You don't have to pay anyone to "represent" you...and hope that they take your calls once in awhile. And, for Pete's sake, you double-dog-don't have to be "vetted" by some "Oh by the way, which one's 'Pink'?" suit who wouldn't know The Jonas Brothers from The Mills Brothers from The Bacon Brothers from the Bellamy Brothers (or, for that matter, from The Pointer Sisters, The Mamas and the Papas or even Sly and the Family Stone).

And when the revolution engendered by Web. 2.0 itself "goes viral," it's Game Over for the likes of ASCAP. They'll be like the John Birch Society after the fall of the Berlin Wall--a.k.a. the textbook definiton of "lame." Personally, I'm too cheap--and, let's face it, too mortally un-hip--to pay for a ringtone m'self. But the larger issues do touch on the things I care about. Rather passionately, in some cases. And, in that wider perspective, I frankly don't see any other accolade than a Darwin Award for folks like the ASCAP. And when I see the screen door print on their backsides posted on Flickr, I'll call this soggy little marble we share an ever-so-slightly better world.