Comments

Elliott Wilson can't use Twitter to promote music piracy? I thought this was America!

Who knew you could get banned from Twitter just for promoting music piracy.

Even though it probably says that somewhere in Twitter's terms of service[1], Elliott Wilson was under the impression that those rules didn't apply to him, because he's the greatest hip-hop journalist of all time, of ALL TIME, as stated in his Twitter bio (presumably written by himself), and also, more importantly, because he's the hip-hop blogger who's most attentive to a tall's Israeli's needs. (Nullus?) Today, in one of his patented "sidebar posts with actual writing in it," he argues that his Twitter account shouldn't have been temporarily suspended last night, because "no rap blog has supported the consumption of music legally more than RapPravda." You see, while other hip-hop blogs post links where you can actually download a song for free (and probably get some sort of virus in the process), RapPravda only allows you to stream music, for the most part. If you want an actual mp3, you have to pay a dollar to download it from iTunes, or, more likely, either consult the Google or check any number of other rap blogs that all post the same shit.

Never mind the fact that in this age of music streaming services like MOG and Spotify, and bullshit music you wouldn't want to listen to twice anyway, you don't really need the mp3. The difference being, the TIs get paid when you stream a song via Spotify. Spotify takes the money it makes from the ads that pop up every few songs and splits it with however many major record labels are left at this point, and some fraction of that - maybe a penny per song played - trickles down to the artist. Even when you play a music video on YouTube I think the TIs have got it set up to where they receive a few shekels. How in the world it was decided that it's kosher, to abuse a metaphor, to post music for free on the Internets, as long as it's stream only, is beyond me. And apparently it was beyond the TIs, as well. I'm assuming they understood how RapPravda works when they called one of the chinamen at Twitter and had him shut down Elliott Wilson's account. They just didn't give a shit. RapPravda isn't any more legal than Nah Right and its ilk, it's just less useful.

The bottom line seems to be, if the TIs can make a dollar from selling something, and you're giving it away for free, someone's going to call the cops on you. But if it's something that quite literally has no value in the free marketplace, then who gives a shit. That's why there's no problem with the vast majority of music posted on rap blogs. (I'd say 99.9%, via "Jeru the Damaja.") You think these bum rappers would be paying fat chicks to email Hulkshare links[2] to every blogger whose address they can find publicly listed if they could just as easily upload that shit to iTunes and charge money for it? Pshaw! That's why the only time you hear about these rap blogs having a problem with an mp3 it's in the case of an artist people have actually heard of (e.g. Lupe Fiasco vs. Nah Right), in which case the argmennt that the artist benefits from the promotion of having their music given away for free via the Internets is even less valid than it is in the case of the typical artist whose music is given away for free via the Internets, which is to say mostly invalid.

[1] That's what a website's terms of service is for, right? You guys know I was pre-med.

[2] It's called Hulkshare because you pay a fat chick to email the link for you.