We have a word in English to describe the situation, it is ‘dilemma’. My beautiful actor, painter, singer/songwriter and artist friends are without work. A vicious infection is spreading about and has closed down the opera house, the gallery, the movie theatre. A rapacious on-line attitude by the likes of YouTube and Google has usurped copyright and further emptied out the wallets of most creative artists who work in music. For a while, the concert hall saved musicians a bit after Youtube stole their material but now? We are in dilemma, the state of ‘there doesn’t appear to be a way to go’. WPA-style handouts, the sort of thing that saved Woody Guthrie, are not even being discussed by government. There exists no political will for those programs. What to do, what to do?
Better minds than mine are working away at some kind of solution but nothing is on the horizon. The great promise of the internet, that anyone can step up and do their art and find an audience, didn’t pan out. The internet based companies end up stealing the work, monetizing the art of others and paying nothing for it. We are going to pay a huge price for this. Interesting and new voices are not able to make a living from art. They are forced into obscurity. In order to live, they have to spend their energy and time on activities that rob the creative spirit and dull the skills. As one who has struggled to earn a writer’s notebook. I can tell you that NO, you cannot burn the midnight oil and be a good artist. In defeat, I accepted what work I could get when I was young and had to live. I spent 40+ years in a job that had nothing to do with who I was…simply because, “You have to make a living, write in your spare time.” You cannot be a musician/poet/painter as a ‘sideline’. It is a full-time, energy consuming activity. Tillie Olson wrote of this many years ago in her book, “Silences”. Check it out.
I can point fingers and blame but that is not a useful thing to do. Whom do we crucify? A modern music and entertainment industry that shied away from using their power, influence to convince government that internet providers should pay for content? A greedy, lawless and unethical world of tech-heads who flood the air with illusion: that music is free, that to read, listen, watch everything costs nothing while at the same time, reaping the rich fields of advertising money? What good is blame, now? Without political will to solve the problem, blaming is spitting in the wind. So, what do we do kids?
Robert On The Air 