YouTube and Napster
Sep. 18th, 2007 08:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angstzeitActually, it wasn't Napster but a better, similar thing that I got in on the last of. Started with an 'A' I think. Anyway, I was mighty sad to see all that go. I could have, have, and will, go off about the music industry in general, but that's not my point here. I was the poster boy for the Napster clones. Mostly I used it to get easy access to rare, unpublished tunes and to check out songs--I actually bought CDs based on checking out tunes on some peer to peer thingy.
But that was so a long time ago. It's YouTube now baby! And while I probably do not appreciate all the wonderfulness that is YouTube, I am thrilled that rare video from the past (AKA before some of you were born :)) is now available to anyone (well actually me). Then and now I could give a crap about the latest hit song or video. I want access to the old, the odd, the WTF?
What I fear is that bandwidth will evolve to the place where movies really can be exchanged beyond odd people that will spend three days or more downloading a crappy, compressed version of a movie. Will the powers that be destroy all in their path to ensure their hegemony? I hope not.
To get slightly into the politics--I do differentiate music from cinema. These days any talented person with access to a good computer and some hacked software can put out music that puts the 70s production values to shame. And more importantly, damn near equal what's coming out from record companies today. Certainly video has done similar things to the visual art but the gap is still very wide between Joe Blow with a video camera and an expensive production. Yes, a lot of crap is put out by big studios that is easily trumped by creative people with video cameras--but there are still some VERY good productions that quite simply CAN'T be made cheaply. Cinema and music are not the same, and the same standards don't apply.
I hope that YouTube and its successors can find some cooperative level with the powers that be such that great cinema at all levels can continue to be available. Along with those wonderful clips we'd all be without but for this medium.
But that was so a long time ago. It's YouTube now baby! And while I probably do not appreciate all the wonderfulness that is YouTube, I am thrilled that rare video from the past (AKA before some of you were born :)) is now available to anyone (well actually me). Then and now I could give a crap about the latest hit song or video. I want access to the old, the odd, the WTF?
What I fear is that bandwidth will evolve to the place where movies really can be exchanged beyond odd people that will spend three days or more downloading a crappy, compressed version of a movie. Will the powers that be destroy all in their path to ensure their hegemony? I hope not.
To get slightly into the politics--I do differentiate music from cinema. These days any talented person with access to a good computer and some hacked software can put out music that puts the 70s production values to shame. And more importantly, damn near equal what's coming out from record companies today. Certainly video has done similar things to the visual art but the gap is still very wide between Joe Blow with a video camera and an expensive production. Yes, a lot of crap is put out by big studios that is easily trumped by creative people with video cameras--but there are still some VERY good productions that quite simply CAN'T be made cheaply. Cinema and music are not the same, and the same standards don't apply.
I hope that YouTube and its successors can find some cooperative level with the powers that be such that great cinema at all levels can continue to be available. Along with those wonderful clips we'd all be without but for this medium.
