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Congressman Has Lunch With Mashup Artist
from the it's-a-start dept
A few months back we were all shocked to hear Congressional Representative Mike Doyle come out and praise mixtapes and mashups. Doyle wondered aloud during a hearing if these new creations were really all that different than Paul McCartney copying Chuck Berry's bass lines. He named Greg Gillis, a popular mixtape maker, as an example of a "local guy done good." Newsweek journalist Steven Levy thought it might be a good idea to get the two together, and sat in on a lunch between the Congressman and the mixtape artist and performer. Gillis explained that he pretty much worries all the time that the recording industry will shut him down and that if he wanted to pay all the relevant RIAA fees his albums would cost $100 each (even as the PR side of those same record labels ask him to promote their artists). Gillis notes that certain types of sampling would make more sense to be considered fair use, but Doyle admits that such a change in the law isn't likely to fly: "Some members don't even want to understand it. They just get a call from the [recording] industry saying, 'Bad'." Indeed. That's why other Congressional representatives joked after Doyle's original speech about Gillis, saying that they had no clue what he was talking about. Apparently, while Doyle is interested in actually understanding the issue, the same can't be said for many of his colleagues.
Reader Comments
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Mike Doyle, I like you and I don't even know you.
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google it
Seems as if he's from Pittsburgh. If he moved a few districs away he'd have my vote.
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Amazing...
Now that's truly amazing, too bad this guy doesn't want to run for president. We need someone willing to catch up with the times and isn't stuck in the pocket of the industries.
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WTFBBQ?!
Wow.
Mike, run for President!
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A quote
There's an Upton Sinclair quote I found on the Inquirer website: "It is difficult to make a man understand something when his livelihood depends on him not understanding it".
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Understanding...
Here's a thought: How do congresscritters decide what they need to understand and what they don't? If you think about it, these folks have to rule on large numbers of issues and it's impossible that they could be experts on everything from farming to oil to the internet. How could you decide what's worth learning about and what's not? Could part of the problem be that these guys simply can't tell what's important, and therefore are spending their time learning about the wrong stuff from the wrong people? Or is Upton Sinclair go it right on the money?
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Re: Understanding...
Three simple rules for understanding political issues
1) if some one is paying you to think one way about something you don't have to understand
2) If you want some lobbyist group to shut up about an issue then you don't need to understand
3) If no one is complaining or paying, you don't need to understand.
Sad to say, most people fallow those three rules. The only reason anyone would need to understand would be if they wanted to change things for the better.
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Re: Re: Understanding...
3) If no one is complaining or paying, you don't need to understand
The sad part about this is:
3) If none of the lobby/interest groups, corporations, or other politicians are complaining or paying, you don't need to understand.
Yes I left the public out of that on purpose.
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