Well, look what popped up, from my demonic YouTube algorithm: my co-headlining appearance in conversation with David Byrne at the New York Public Library from 2012, when my book FREELOADING was about to be published:
FREELOADING did not sell particularly well and faced some “structural headwinds,” let’s say, yet it made an impact on the overall piracy/digital culture argument and opened the door to a number of memorable events and meetings, such as this special night in NYC. David Byrne turned out to be a major supporter of the book and we went on to collaborate on some activism with the Content Creators Coalition.
Until this was posted to YouTube, the talk was only available on the NYPL event page, in a not-so-sharable format, so it was interesting to see it appear on YouTube and feel a bit of genuine excitement. Ironic, because I was only there on stage due to a book devoted to calling out the distribution of unlicensed digital copies, which is exactly what this is. On YouTube, no less: a huge source of the persistent “value gap” for digital music.
Alas, copyright is filled with gray areas when you dig into the details, but my main argument was always to focus on consent of the artist to find clarity. In this case, that’s me, at least in part.
Sure, I consent.