This week we tackled the topic of the fair use policy and the blockers that certain artists and producers put on their music when it is used in other peoples content. I think this whole thing is just so petty on the artists point of view. You would really think that these old artists would want a revamp of popularity, because the people who listen to their music are quite literally dying off and the ones that are alive, like the ones that are our parents age, might not even be on Spotify or any streaming services.
One of the most prominent cases of this is the YouTuber Rick Beato. We watched a couple of his videos this week and I found it very interesting on his experiences. He says that almost all of his videos are demonetized and make no money. That is not even the worst of it that he will get from these artists. This makes me mad even not knowing the guy, but knowing how much work he puts into his videos. The worst is when they full on block his videos from even being posted and people seeing them. I just don’t get the appeal and need ro do this to a guy who is quite literally promoting your content.
In his latest videos he talks about the new TikTok trend where people ride a skateboard or a long board and drink cranberry juice to the song Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Just typing that was funny but this is 2020. But the point is that even the different song writers in the same band have different philosophies on whether to block a song from YouTube. Earlier in the year he created one of his videos for a series “what makes this song great”. This video got immediately blocked and taken off YouTube, but the thing was it was made by Fleetwood Mac (go your own way). At the time he thought oh they are just one of those bands that blocks people from making content about them. But when this new trend came about with the new trend with the song Dreams he started to wonder why his video got blocked and that didn’t. The reason is that Lindsey Buckingham write go your own way, and Stevie Dix wrote Dreams. Buckingham blocks songs and Dix does not.
This week we also looked at the streaming site Napster where people used to get their music online without paying for it, and depending on you ask, illegally. Now I am not in favor of this type of site at all. I am happy to pay my 10 dollars a month for a legal ethical streaming service. I think these artists need to make their fair share for what they put out, and the hard work that they put into to making, writing, and producing these songs. I think sites like this are ripping off these people and taking advantage of the system that can give us some great content.
Check out this article about the town hall meetings: https://apnews.com/article/town-hall-trump-biden-nbc-abc-b3b8d0b68e7c4628b095d082cd5a1a7e
SOCIAL MEDIA & SOCIETY 
I think that some of these artists need to chill out a bit. I don’t think that having a song in the background is that big of a deal. I think if someone is willing to promote your song even after 20 some years, that you should let them and be thankful people are still excited about it. I totally understand why an artist would not someone to rip their song, like the whole Napster situation but to talk about it, break it down, or promote it is helping them out. I don’t know if some of the older artists are in tune with how much these videos can boost sales even yet. Maybe Napster really did a number on them and scared them so much that they are going to hold onto everything?!! I do get wanting to protect the originality of some of the artists from 60’s, 70’s, 80’s. I also think that anything after that has basically already been sampled, broken down, and re-digitized anyway so what’s the point?
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I completely agree with a lot of the statements that you made here. Im more than willing to pay my ten dollars a month to get the music that I want to listen to and the fact that doing so supports the artists that im listening to every month is even better too. I don’t think getting music illegally is ethical at all and I totally understand why artists back then would be mad. Like your taking money that they could be making by downloading the songs illegally.
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