Life in the Network

If Clifford, the big red dog that he is, ever decided to run when Emily Elizabeth (his young owner) wanted to walk, I doubt she could stop him. He stays with her though, I'm assuming, because she provides him with love, some kind of monster-chow, and a place to live. Not to mention adventures by the dozens. This is getting a little sidetracked by my love for Clifford...let me recontextualize for a second. The analogy is hopefully pretty clear, though I could never come up with one quite as fitting as Mr. Barlow in his "The Next Economy of Ideas" article. And although he seems a bit eager for anarchy on the web, in my opinion, I feel his case was extremely well-supported. I especially liked his notion of selling nouns versus ideas, and the inverse relationship their business models seem to take. It was as if he had anticipated Valenti's argument in this week's featured interview, "If I go down to the hardware store and buy an electric lawn mower and I take it home, and three weeks later my wife runs over it in the driveway, I can't take it back and get a new one. I can't get a backup" he says. And that is true, if you're in the business of selling nouns. Personally, I have always had a problem with the sale of digital music. Quite obviously, it is the direction everything is moving, and who am I to hold on to my nouns?
My main qualm with the disappearance of physical music vehicles (i.e. albums, cassettes, etc) is the malleability of value in digital goods. It would be naive, I feel, to blame this on increasing technology. Rather, it is the application of conventional business models on contemporary services and venues. The internet has torn apart all we know about ownership, so who is Jack Valenti, or now Dan Glickman to hold on to their nouns?
However, getting back to my point, the ability of a business with distribution rights to alter value at whim is what I fear the most about this revolution. Whether or not we're all pirates and whether or not Steve Jobs tries to straddle the fence in tribute to his fanboys and girls, the files are still owned by someone. Someone, more than likely (not, by any means always) with a boatload of cash to sink our ships and desecrate our skull flags. Perhaps the most disturbing quote that rings in my head from this week is the one Krista posted earlier regarding the new, un-DRM'd tracks available on i-tunes. Not the fact that they are free of the nuisance that is DRM, but that fact that they are offered in "a higher quality than the 99-cent tracks." This frightens me because it seems that a song and its digital representation should be altered by the artist and no one else, unless for artistic purposes (I don't want to slam hip-hop artists that sample tracks, or the internet superstars famous for their mashups, I'm all for recycling). Why should a middle-man, like EMI, or the jobber Jobs, be able to alter a product that should, in all rights, be direct communication between the artists and those that choose to listen. Did Shakespeare's benefactors offer his works with some of the poetry slightly marred? Or include King Lear's third daughter for a couple more ducats? Just the fact that Valenti was 82 when he finally retired stands as testament to the established entertainment-industry's distance from its consumer base, or distance, for that matter, from reality.
I truly want to believe Barlow's case for the future, and his declaration that the war is already won, but I have serious fears about the post traumatic stress disorder that will undoubtedly leave the arts and entertainment section of our culture shell-shocked and shaking for awhile.