Now is the time to strike!

In a piece of stunning synchronicity with my last post about music and copyright in Ireland, a small war has broken out accross the waves in Eng-er-land.

Youtube, who have been making several poor choices lately (their ranking mechanism they have introduced recently smacks of censorship according to some of their more militant free speech advocating users), have failed to come to an agrement with the PRC and have started taking down all the professional official music videos from their site.

In the parlance of the interwebnetz, oh noes!

It is wildy held opinion that this situation is helping no one. Youtube is losing up to 50% of their most popular British videos, and the recording artists are losing their ads.

I'm sorry, I mean videos.

Full story here.

Anyway, the way I look at it is- this is a good thing for some people, and they're the people we all should care for more than the like of musical sock puppets like Leona Lewis.

There are many, many talented musicians who do not have huge backing from corporations, who, once again, don't care a fig for music but only for profit.

The music industry has been a conveyor belt for decades, but it seems to be getting worse and worse.

The "reality" era confuses me. The music is fake, produced pop. They show you how fake and produced it is. The music's awful. Yet, year after year people buy the X Factor winners single, only to tear them down when it's time for the next big thing. They laugh at these "winners", who are really nought more than pawns, and sometimes I think these people need to look at their own behaviour if they want to see something sad.

Why? What does anyone gain from this, save for perhaps Simon Cowell? X Factor is the same programme, year after year, with different people filling the same slots every mind numbing cycle (slightly edgy RAWK contestant, singer with a sad story from the past, singer who is overweight etc.). The conveyor belt is now visible, yet few seem to care. The editing is along the same lines as pro wrestling. It's actually blatant to a PW fan.

Even more insidious than this is the appropriation of rock music into the worst of pop stereotypes.

In case you wonder, "alt" and "indie" have actual meanings.

You are not "alternative" if you are in the charts. You are that which the alternative rails against. You are not "independant" if you are signed up to a major record label.

So here's my idea about Googtube not showcasing the big boys. Why don't you dig out a few actual alt and indie bands off of youtube, and give them a shout?

If you really want to be edgy, why don't you find some band who is young, and hungry, and deserves and needs your help.

You never know, you might even stop caring if the plastic music comes back.