This post was originally supposed to be simply about Cass McCombs.
On how I loved his music ever since I’ve seen Jerry Hsu skate on top of his “Sacred Heart” in the “Bag of Suck” video, on how I loved the music even more when I discovered his latest and more toned down album “Catacombs”, how I listened to the album to death during my time in Copenhagen and how I just rediscovered the album on a boat while watching a beautiful sundown.
Instead this post is now a rant about geoblocking. When looking for a good quality link for his “The Executioner’s Song” video I had to find out, that his record label Domino Records has blocked all of his videos in Germany.
During the last years the so called geoblocking has become an utterly annoying trend amongst record labels around the world and the worst part is that I honestly can’t understand why they are trying to do with that.
I understand why sites like Hulu lock out everybody except for US resident. They want to save bandwith and target a narrow market with the advertisements they show. Still questionable, but there is a chain of thought going on.
On the other hand Youtube operates globally. You’ll have to endure their ads tailored to your viewing habbits weather you’re in the US or the Tundra. The record labels don’t have to pay to have their videos on there and it’s not their bandwith they are wasting, so why give all the fans a massive smack in the mouth and tell them they are only second rate because they happen to live in some other country? I believe that especially the smaller indy acts like Cass, who often times get a big part of their fanbase by word of mouth (or word of post in this case), heavily benefit from people having access to their music on the web.
I even think that this whole situation is neither the artists or the labels fault but some legal issue mindfuck that everybody holds on to without even thinking for one secont what this communicates to the people locked out.
The funny part is, that the video and the music gets out anyhow. I managed to find the video to the above mentioned song by some other user who has reuploaded it. The only difference is that now the video and audio quality is massively degenerated, so when the record label really wants to exercise control over it’s content it is really just giving it away to other people who can’t give it the same care and thought they can.
Don’t fool yourself people. The internet is a wide open place where ideas and content will be delivered to the ones who demand it. Any attempt to interfere with that is bound to fail.
I don’t know if this will be the case forever or if at some time in the future governments and big corporations will manage to put the handcuffs on this wonderfully free vehicle but until then, enjoy Cass McCombs beautiful song.
August 18, 2010, 3:52pm, Comments 