Radiohead, Copyright and Popular Music

Interesting story about a guy who had to shell out 350 dollars to quote Radiohead lyrics in his book. Even though he was able to quote from many other bands, books, and even a separate Radiohead album for free. Even he had personally met the band before, and had freely let them quote his own works in their concerts. Gives a good idea of how fucked-up the worldwide copyright system is. And reminds me why I prefer to just ignore the whole corporate copyright system. (Never mind that it's quite convenient to do so.)

(On that note, I wonder if local band Parokya ni Edgar had to cough up for their parody of Radiohead's "Creep" (I forget what the actual Parokya track title was.)

Apparently, even posting song lyrics online is illegal, btw. Or at least according to copyright lawyers. I'd think that the band Radiohead itself wouldn't mind these things which supposedly infringe on their copyrights, but of course, the corporate structure which they play under would not stand for it. Maybe the world would be far better off if copyright protections were limited to individuals and not corporations? In the modern-day world of the internet, there's really no need for large recording companies any more, they are just large dinosaurs who refuse to admit the coming ice age.

Actually, now that I think about it, I have seldom actually paid for music before. When I was in HS, I sometimes (rarely) bought cassettes. As for CDs (audio CDs I mean), I have never bought any audio CDs, pirated or otherwise. Most of the time, I would indulge myself by listening to FM radio or music videos. The downside of this, of course, was that my musical selection was limited to what the big recording companies deemed important enough to promote.

These days, with MP3s, my selection is a lot more varied, since I get to pick and sample more music via P2P downloading. I don't even listen to radio anymore, at least not intentionally. I pick up new songs by hearing about them from friends or over the internet. Whenever I'm listening to a new band, I never know if they're popular or not. I recently started to enjoy Dashboard Confessional; I liked Vindicated when I first heard the Spiderman 2 OST. I didn't need the confirmation of public radio (which came about two weeks after I got my hands on 3 full DC albums) to know I liked the song, and the band. My playlist these days is mostly populated by Dashboard Confessional, Matchbox Twenty, Gin Blossoms, Switchfoot, Rivermaya, Sponge Cola, Sugarfree, Bamboo, Maroon 5, Counting Crows, Better Than Ezra, Live, Coldplay, Lifehouse etc. Not exactly on the leading edge of popular music, but at least I picked up thse bands by myself without relying on recording companies jamming them down my throat.

This rambling post was brought to you by the letter N.