#93 Music Piracy
March 30, 2008 by clander
White people have always been renowned for having ridiculously large music collections. So when file sharing gave white people a chance to acquire all the music they ever wanted, it felt as though it was an earned right and not a privilege.
When (not if) you see a white male with a full iPod, ask him if all of his music is legal. If he does not immediately launch into a diatribe about his right to pirate music, you might have to nudge him a bit by saying “do you think that’s right?” The response will be immediate and uniform.
He will likely rattle off statistics about how most musicians don’t make any money from albums, it all comes from touring and merchandise. So by attending shows, he is able to support the musicians while simultaneously striking a blow against multinational corporations. He will proceed to walk you through the process of how record labels are set up to reward the corporation and fundamentally rob the artist of their rights, royalties and creativity. Prepare to hear the name Steve Albini a lot.
Advanced white people will also talk about how their constant downloading of music makes them an expert who can properly recommend bands to friends and co-workers, thus increasing revenues and exposure. So in fact, their “illegal” activities are the new lifeblood of the industry.
When they have finished talking, you must choose your next words wisely. It is considered rude to point out the simple fact that they are still getting music for free. Instead you should say: “Wow, I never thought of it like that. You know a lot about the music industry. What bands are you listening to right now? Who is good?”
This sentence serves two functions: it helps to reassure the white person that they are your local “music expert,” something they prize. Also, it lets them feel as though they have convinced you that their activities are part of a greater social cause and not simple piracy.
If you bring up this issue with white person who says “nah bro, I don’t give a shit, Dave Matthews has enough money as it is.” You are likely dealing with wrong kind of white person.
In the even more rare situation where someone says “it’s all paid for, and it’s all transferred from vinyl.” You have found an expert level white person and must treat the situation carefully. 
Because of the availability of music online, a very strict social hierarchy has been created within white culture whereby someone with a large MP3 collection is considered “normal,” a large CD collection is considered to be “better,” and a person with a large vinyl collection is recognized as “elite.”
These elite white people abhor the fact that music piracy has made their B-sides, live performances, and bootlegs available to the masses. Their entire life’s work has been stripped of its rarity in terms of both object and sound on the record. The best thing you can say to them is: “vinyl still sounds better.”
However, it is recommended that you do not let this conversation drag much longer. If you let them continue talking to you they are likely to spend hours talking to you about bands you’ve never heard of and providing you with a weekly mix CD of rarities that you do not want.
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umm…. where does one find this so called “free” music?
(For research sake of course……..)
thepiratebay.org or limewire pro
http://hypem.com
or my blog(s)
http://colortronic.blogspot.com
http://selektor1.blogspot.com
shameless :p
Mix CD’s are sooooo 1998.
However, mixtapes never go out of style.
AMEN!
classic.
Well, it is true that Mexicans are more likely to be into piracy (also Chinese, Russians and all non-white people). What makes illegal downloading of mp3s unique is that it has crossed over to what white people like. White people are known for their respect of property rights. The fact that they are willing to forgo this in the name of music is remarkable.
Respect of property rights? HA! Have you picked up a history textbook lately?
Hilarious and quite true.
Well, well, where are we going to end, boy?
fifth
i’m glad to see that you haven’t started slacking on the blog because of the book deal. well done!
Great blog, but Mexicans made music piracy socially acceptable long before the Internet could only support MIDI. Indeed, lore has it that copies of Edison’s “Mary Has a Little Lamb” were on the streets of Mexico City before his tinfoil could cool.
Thank you for making me more “socially-aware”.
???
Does that mean a “Stuff Mexicans Like” is in the works…?
I would totally be down to work on “Stuff Mexicans Like” project if I had the time.
Well, there is now a site called Stuff Latin People Like:
http://stufflatinpeoplelike.com
That would be amazing. I am picturing it now. Low rider pickups, dead peoples’ social security numbers, immigration reform, Yard work. I hope it happens.
There’s a weekly tiangi mercado in Oaxaca city that’s unreal. In addition to the expected collections of narcocorridos, Juan Gabriel, Led Zeppelin, and Jean Claude Van Damme, some stands have selections of CDs and DVDs that would rival any white person’s favorite college town record store or art house cinema. Another one would qualify as the best classical music store I’ve ever seen.
For whatever reason I rarely saw American expats shopping there, but most are older than the white people this blog is about. They buy all their food at the Soriana, Gigante is just a little too Mexican.
Expert level ghostface^
You seemed to have learned from the entry on white people and travel by attempting to drop a local phrase, but to better impress white people with the depth of your familiarity with local culture next time, just say ‘tianguis’ which actually is a market (so it’s redundant to say tianuis mercado), and Tianguis are found in various other cities as well.
thanks for bringing up Oaxaca – an entry should be made for Oaxaca – white people love Oaxaca, but the wrong kind of white people, of course, love Cancun.
There are some White people that like visiting the primitive amerindian culture in Oaxaca, but they are mostly baby-boomer old farts.
Actually, the right kind of White people bypass primitives and head straight for the Riviera Maya and all the awesome resorts.
Mexican “culture” and poverty-ridden villages can be found in the USA today, there’s no mystery to it.
Isn’t “oaxaca” a hotbed of corruption and violence lately?
Only the wrong kinds of Whites think ‘oaxaca’ is “neat” or “cultural”.
Oxy10, I’m sorry to say that it seems you must miss most of the humor of this blog. Riviera Maya (which is inseperable from Cancun, by the way) will never be for the white people concerning this blog – at best they may go once in their lifetime, and then lose much time and standing among other whites trying to explain the trip away, perhaps with a visit to some ruins (unless their peers aren’t aware that Riviera is the same as Cancun, which is possible), and they will be tormented with guilt for years. Cancun is THE working-class/low middle-class tourist destination for whites – there is nothing ‘bourgeois’ about it.
Cancun is wholly unacceptable. Ruins no longer suffice to explain this trip away – too common. The only acceptable story:
1) Started my day at the resort (add: I was only there b/c my parents had a free timeshare exchange that needed to be used. add further: I HATE timeshares).
2) I had to get away from the tourists so I spent my day at an out of the way cenote I discovered. It was incredible and the little town nearby was amazing/so authentic.
3) Yeah, I did go out in Cancun one night. I figured it be be hilarious to check out the clubs. Boy was I right. I can’t believe people go there and think they’ve “been to Mexico.” (white people love insulting other people’s statements by throwing quotes around them mockingly).
4) I’m planning a trip to Guadalajara for next year.
Oaxaca has a weekly organic farmers market. White people LOVE it.
you should submit it as a “white spot”
Por supuesto!
When I was in Mexico last December, I wanted to buy some Mexican t-shirts for my sons. I couldn’t find them at the mercados or tianguis because they were all selling bootleg NFL, Abercromie & Fitch, Hilfiger, or rock band t-shirts. I wanted some t-shirts that had a Mexican theme, but everyone wants American stuff white people like.
I finally found some Mexican t-shirts in Coyoacán.
Hey, Gustavo, I bought your book, ¡Ask a Mexican!, and I lend it out to everyone I know so that they don’t have to buy it!
But that’s not bootlegging, right?
http://davidrodriguez.us
That figures a non-White is sharing an anti-White book around. That thing was actually my library’s collection. It doesn’t take long to see the clever anti-White racism it contains.
Hey! #3
fuck you, scott
This is so true!!!
genius
LOL you must view http://www.youarewhatyoulistento.blogspot.com
every white kid does this
This is incorrect. White people pay for more music. Evidence to support this would be record sales, verses ring tone sales.
Artists “white people like” sell more albums and more mp3 files than “stuff white people don’t like”, which sell more ring tones, but less albums.
Rap, pop, and R&B, are hurt the most by music piracy. They make more on ring tones, probably because they are easily recognized in lo-fidelity phone sound, and because people can’t as many ways to pirate ring tones as regular albums.
Its truly un-white lol, to pirate music at all, as you have said before, white people tend to love anything the more authentic it seems. Pirated items are not considered “authentic”, and if it is found out by other white people that a white person gets pirated music either on the streets, or off the internet, they would be considered a phony.
For me, I buy authentic albums or mp3s of the artists I like. Gotta support the artists to encourage more.
WTF…when is the blog for Tibet coming out?
Duh…White people love Tibet. They prefer a theocracy where 99% faced an annual starvation. They like it because the 1% that had all resources wore cute robes and prayed to a god that was strange and not like their parents’ god. The god in the robe ran like a scared chicken to India to make wise, thoughtful statements about inner peace. It requires nothing but lip service and a Free Tibet bumpersticker to care about Tibet. That is what makes it so rad for whitey.
yes, many white people (and generally most people who would like to consider themselves socially-aware) seem to like the cause of Tibet, but perhaps this is because these people ACTUALLY value a peoples’ ability to choose the manner of their own governance, lifestyle, and laws in accordance with their own societal values. Do you honestly think that white people “prefer a theocracy where 99% faced and annual starvation” because “the 1% that had all the resources wore cute robes”? Do you know anything about Tibetan Buddhism or Tibetan society and culture, before or after the Chinese invasion? As someone who has spent quite alot of time interacting with Tibetans in exile, I can confidently say that your comment shows, without a doubt, that YOU like ignorance and stupidity.
As a person who’s had experience first hand with Tibetan Buddhism and what it had once stood for, I can safely assume that your knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism is based on the universal accepted doctrines of Buddhism in general. The Tibetan sect of Buddhism is not so honorable as you think. Their special attention to something akin to mysticism and rigid social and religious hierarchy is a perversion of Buddhist principles.
My ignorance footnoted and documented:
The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation–including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation–were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.”21 Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. 22
In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who was raped and then had her nose sliced away.23
Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”24 As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.
If you’re trying not to look ignorant, a good first step would be to refrain from taking an entire speech of political scientist Michael Parenti ( located on his website at http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html )and posting it as your own thoughts.
I did not post it as my own thoughts…I prefaced the whole statement by saying it was “documented and footnoted”. Then, a colon follows and a long script from an article follows. It even has the fucking footnotes from the article! What indicates that am I the documentor? That is all you can come up with?
Anyone can make strawman/ad hominem argument, but no one has yet to challenge the facts.
bloody ‘ell.
Both systems are horrible. It is you that puts a favorable light on the theocracy. In fact, many people of Tibet’s theocracy were left out of the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in dismal proportions. Your exiled leader fled his people. Noble heros will lay down their lives for a cause and many have done so. You are not ignorant and I do not like stupidity. We all have more to learn. Peace be with you. You need to put on your cute robe with your friends and find your inner peace. (Also, put your “Free Tibet” bumper sticker on all your Volvos.)
This topic also brings up a tangental but no less insightful observation, white people love pirates.
Opening day– boo yah
http://www.PeeYourPantsForTheBrewers.com is back up
i didnt poop my pants
This means your ready for your new big boy underpants, damn!
But, black people love bootleg DVDs.
black people like to steal things
White people like car alarms.
according to this white people like to steal music.
white people don’t have to steal anymore…
white people stole my country.
You can have it back, now…we’ve fucked it up enough.
You’re welcome.
THIS BLOG HAS OFFICIALLY “JUMPED THE SHARK”THERE IS NO GENIUS HERE ANYMORE
The phrase “jumped the shark” sure has jumped the shark, once lowly blog posters are using one blogs they’re reading.
I would have said so too with San Francisco, but this post was hilarious, true and “insightful” (ok, not really insightful, but well…you know).
Keep writing guys. They can’t all be winners
SUGGESTION FOR STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE: BLOGS!!!
SUGGESTION FOR STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE: CLICHES
Suggestion for stuff white people like: Stuff White People Like
SUGGESTION FOR SOMETHING WHITE PEOPLE LIKE:
BLOGS!
right — especially blogs on WordPress since it’s got the “new web” vibe that only people with money and education would pick up on.
basically this site is talking about bourgeois people, and of course most of them are white, but it’s really anybody who grew up in mainstream US, and has access to money and a college education.
i’ve always said the real social function of bourgeois whiteness is to oppress the white working classes. you’ll notice that’s really the only group it’s OK for them(us) to dislike.
i’d like to see a posting about the “authentic” sort of hip-hop that white people like: def jux et al.
$0.02,
rs
—
white people like em dashes.
I love dashes–I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I couldn’t toss a few dashes into the mix. Seriously–as though I don’t appear serious to begin with–I really think dashes add that something special to whatever I am writing (although parentheses are pretty damn close in the pecking order of punctuation).
white people like “;” and like to boast about the fact that they know how to use it.
haha I use it all the time; it can be used like period, sans the period
dash right – we do
hoping somebody would catch that
rs
that reminds me of ways black people tend to operate on the internet:
* they use extra, unnecessary modifiers (instead of “i like hamburgers”, it could be “i like me some hamburgers”.)
* they use less punctuation and caps (“HEY DOES ANYBODY KNOW THE BEST NEEDLE FOR SCRATCHIN HOLLA BACK”).
* they have less “cutting edge” mail addresses and blog spaces (stuff like “nateballa_2007@yahoo.com” instead of “nathan.jones@gmail.com”)
a lot of this is synonymous with a certain level of formal education — presumably the connections between ethnicity, income, and education have already been well-covered here.
rs
“i like me some hamburgers” – guffaw-guffaw!! who says that? ghettoMcUrkel? if you are gonna try and imitate a black person in order to make some kind of point, please try and make your imitation more accurate and up to date. know what
i´m sayin`?
I’m calling for to talk to you.
All ur base r belong 2 us!
ghettoMcUrkel?! my god you just made my day thank you
I’m from South Louisiana, and this sentence is of the kind I’ve heard all my life… from white and black people… So perhaps we should take location into account.
It’s also hilarious, the sentence. HILARIOUS.
is it too late to get stuffthebourgeousielike.wordpress.com?
Heh indeed. Especially music blogs like Discobelle and BoomKat
“Everybody says there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY white country and ONLY into white countries.”
“The Netherlands and Belgium are more crowded than Japan or Taiwan, but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating unquote with them.”
“Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to “assimilate,” i.e., intermarry, with all those non-whites.”
“What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black countries?”
“How long would it take anyone to realize I’m not talking about a RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK problem?”
“And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and what kind of psycho black man wouldn’t object to this?”
“But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable conservatives agree that I am a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.”
“They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white.”
“Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.”
What kind of race are we talking about? Foot race? Car race? Horse race?
I thought the topic was music piracy.
If music = nazi I’m outta here.
This blog is about what white people like. If a bunch of hot white girls wanted to go to Africa, i don’t any black men would mind. I have friends that are black so i know
HUH?
Wow. This comment section is really starting to attract the weirdos.
http://www.jtcinc.blogspot.com
Check it out!
getting great reviews. In particular, check out this hilarious post:
http://jtcinc.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-evening-with-anna.html
These guys at
http://www.jtcinc.blogspot.com
are getting great reviews. In particular, check out this hilarious post:
http://jtcinc.blogspot.com/2006/03/my-evening-with-anna.html
McCain hates geniuses.
did you see this shit on http://detentionslip.org today about some white vegas school district using “rap” to get kids to take tests? so terribly bad.
http://detentionslip.org/2008/03/with-sign-round-your-neck-that-says.html
Rap is not a bad why to educate kids. Teachers now-a-days like the ones when I came up were boring. They made things that are so easy difficult.
I am teaching English in Japan. I have children 2 years and up reading English. Well, only one of my two year old students read. I have mostly 3 year old and up reading.
How? It is called rhythm. what ever it takes to get these kids to learn is a great thing. if you have a better idea, participate, don’t hate!
It is all love. Don’t be fooled. Slavery was a way to capitalize on profit, only.
The rich cares nothing for a fool, black, purple, red, brown or white.
Proud of your words my son…
i think he’s white
Yes, Ralph Duncan is definately white.
Ralph Duncans may be definately white, if so maybe I’m not his mom because I’m not white. Must have been a mix-up in the hospital before I took the baby home. I guess it was darker in my day then I think. Wow, you talk about a wake up call. Well, I enjoyed raising the child anyway.
I still love that w…???? boy.
Uhmm…so his father was cheating on me…wonder did she like the child she raised, never mind…I don’t want to know!!!!
wtf?
Speaking of white people…
http://www.johnmccainisyournewbicycle.com
With all due respect= You are so way off base you make my head want to explode with how dumb you are.
And everyone else is right about Geraldine being an opportunistic bitch.
Im going to start calling opportunistic men “bitches”, because its not fair that only women can get the privilage of being “bitches” when they are ambitious, so im assuming men are bitches too because they do the same thing. Am I right?
Totally!
Men are also called “motherfucker,” “asshole” and “son of a bitch”.
and bastard
Hello, I am Black. We have a term “Bitch-made-niggas” This for Black men that let women (any color) control them like a puppet.
So, yes, men are bitches, too.
There is a flip side. In the now-a-days, Bitch is not a bad word. This is in the world of hustlers, pimps and players, also known as professional, skilled, and blue-collar workers in “White” people’s terms.
Women have to have qualifications and prerequisites to be a bitch. The new meaning of bitch in White people’s terms is a woman that knows when to act or not act to take advantages of any forward power moves to include acquisitions of businesses, especially those of promising wealth for generations to come.
Basically, the new bitch sees everything as an opportunity. She is, also, keen to the fact that everything has its time, place and period of growth. Acting with extreme care she “The Bitch” takes advantage of every risk, getting out when things are near the peek and buying up everything when things are at their lowest.
Just info.
In my day the B word was dark. In this day the B word is light. That word is still dark to me and I prefer it to stay with the original meaning which belongs to a female dog in heat. Well when I think of men calling each other dog the B word fits ok in that senario.
what on earth does the color of ones skin have to do with anything…
Oh, Bitch is also a female dog!
If you look further up, you will see where some thought that Ralph Duncans was white because of one of his comments.
But, in the phrase “Bitch-made-niggas”, the bitch doesn’t actually refer to the man, but instead to the woman controlling the man, right? So it’s still calling a woman a bitch. Sort of like the phrase “Son of a bitch”–the person being insulted isn’t the bitch, his mother is the bitch.
On the contrary. We’re dicks. When was the last time you heard a woman called a dick?
Women become a dick when they get a chicboner.
McCain hates Ferraro, Wright, Obama and smiley faces.
Hey, I hate smiley faces. Does that mean I am an ancient republican?
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