A culture cannot forever survive under the unyielding weight of commerce. Like other forms of art, Music cannot maintain its cultural relevance and vitality when detained by the fetters of economic efficiency and financial decision-making. Perhaps if Music were just a form of fleeting entertainment, its vigor would not be of such consequence and thus its discussion of little national import. However, throughout history and to this day, Music continues to be a vital element of communication and an essential tool that people use to understand themselves, their society and their place in the world.
- Opening lines of Common Muscial Sense.
Common Musical Sense
Just as Fitehouse was getting ready to take on the Music Industry, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began bringing students to court for file-sharing. While they claimed that file sharing was behind their recent fall off in sales, they provided no empiric evidence to back this up. Fitehouse knew it had to be more academically rigorous then the clowns at the RIAA. Moreover, the band recognized that the media was not challenging the RIAA's basic assumptions about file sharing and thus letting them frame the debate. Fitehouse had to get the word out that the biggest threat to the vibrancy of our musical culture was not file sharing, but the recording industry itself. In seeking a format within which to frame these ideas, the Band's Minister of Propaganda looked to Thomas Paine whose words electrified the emerging American nation during its darkest hours fighting for independence from the British crown.It was clear what the band had to do: publish a pamphlet!
The Fitehouse propaganda machinery went into overdrive and the pamphlet was sent our to hundreds of members of the national and collegiate press. The reception of the band's treatise was phenomenal. The pamphlet was not only covered in the traditional print media, it began to make its way through the ethers, popping up on various web sites and discussion forums. Indeed, it even made its way into academic circles when Robert Danay cited Common Musical Sense in his article "The Case of Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing of Music in the United Kingdom" published in the International Journal of Communications Law & Policy.
Fitehouse soon realized that the scope of its document was too important to limit its publication to the United States. From its world headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, the band initiated a series of web press conferences in various foreign languages to promote the pamphlet across the globe. To view the press conferences, chose your preferred language from the list on the left. To watch in full screen mode, click on the icon to the left of the player's volume controls.
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