#TrueStory | @NahRight Rants on "The Mindnumbing Inconsistency of RapWebMarketing"
(In regards to the “Diddy- Dirty Money feat. Swizz Beatz - Ass on The Floor” Video)
Funny story about this video. Like 10 hours ago somebody from Puff’s Blue Flame Agency sent me a link to the video file and let me know it was cool to post it if we were interested. This is common practice and it happens pretty much every single day with music and videos from all sorts of artists, major and independent. For the most part, when it comes to videos, labels and promo people tend to upload them to some generic artist Youtube account or something. Some folks send the raw file, but not most. By sending the file, you give the blogger (or video site like OnSMASH, etc.) the opportunity to “premier” or “leak” the video in their own customized player, or on their own Youtube account or whatever. Except that, in reality, you can’t just upload it to your Youtube account and post it. It’s not that easy. See with this particular Diddy-Dirty Money video, when you try to upload it to Youtube, the robots that monitor uploads for copyrighted material immediately detect that the audio on the clip is a song that belongs to a copyright holder, and the sound is completely stripped out of the video. So then you’re left with a useless video clip with images but no sound. So at that point my other option would be to upload it to my personal Vimeo account. But wait, can’t do that, because under Vimeo’s terms of service, I’m liable to get my entire account deleted for uploading content I didn’t create and hold no copyright to.
So under normal circumstances, my third option would be to send it over to my good friends at OnSMASH and ask them to upload it to their video player, but for obvious reasons, that alternative wasn’t on the table. In actuality, if OnSMASH was still around, this whole rigamorale would be unnecessary because they would have already had the video up for viewing and/or posting. But that’s not the case and so my options are limited. Sure, I could go create an account on some shady video site with questionable or non-existent copyright policy, but you know what? I don’t fucking feel like it. Not for this video. Hell fucking no. I haven’t even watched this shit (I lost interest 9 hours ago), but the song wasn’t all that to begin with.
So now, here we are 11 hours later and the video is finally getting posted. ELEVEN HOURS!
That is like 500 years in internet time, and something like a millenia in rap-internet time. So that’s 1000 years of theoretical lost promo time, and in turn, thousands and thousands of lost views for this Puffy’s Angel’s commerical. Not to mention that I checked my RSS feeds before I started writing this post and only a handful of the blogs I would have expected to see this video on had posted it. I guess it’s safe to say those bloggers that didn’t post it had similar Youtube upload-robot problems? What an absurd world this rap blogosphere can be. And believe me, I could care less how much promo time Puff or any major label artist gets, they get too much as it is, I’m just trying to make a point to the people who make their living making and selling music: Help us help you. Why do I have to go out of my way to post something that is benefiting you? The answer? I don’t have to and I won’t.
The fact is, the only reason I’m even posting this shit at this point, after all of this nonsense, is so I can talk about the nonsense. So I can talk about how freaking absurd it is for an artist’s camp to send media out to bloggers, with the clear goal of getting coverage by those blogs, only to have those same bloggers impeded by the a system put in place by the very same copyright Nazis that the artist is under contract with. Because God forbid Billy in fucking Wichita puts a video of himself driving around in his car with “Airplanes” playing in the background and gets a couple hundred thousand views. Oh no, Big Content isn’t gonna have you making $20 on AdWords if they don’t get their cut. Hell no, somebody get Immigration and Customs on the line.
But it’s not even about Youtube’s copyright robots. That’s just a sympton of a larger problem. And I’m also not saying that copyright is a problem. What I’m saying is, it’s a new media/entertainment industry and it’s a new day. These (mostly failing) corporations are so busy falling all over themselves trying to protect pennies that they are going to simultaneously destroy what could be one of the greatest things that ever happened to music: the internet. Because let’s face it, the internet and music (and video, film, etc.) are made for each other. The possibilities are literally limitless. There are plenty more billions to be made in this business, if you know how to make ‘em.
But then again, who am I kidding here? Clearly they don’t know how to make ‘em. It’s pretty obvious that these companies suck at the internet. And they hire people who suck at the internet and then they promote them. And then they teach their children and their children’s children to suck at the internet, and that’s why there are people out there who still use Internet Explorer and send me unsolicited music on Twitter.
And that is a big reason why we’re all (bloggers, artists, labels) in the fucked up situation we’re in now. You know who has some power to help though? Artists. You guys need to step up and show some nuts man. You guys talk real tough in your raps and you say you support these sites when you have an album dropping, but then I don’t see you running up on your label’s VP of Legal demanding that the threats stop. If rap blogs helped you sell records, or launched your career, or got your name back out there, then guess what? It’s time to man the fuck up and put some pressure on those labels that you claim work for you. Stand up for something before there’s nothing left to stand up for.
But that isn’t going to happen though is it? I’m not holding my breath. Them slick tongued execs will have your little heads gassed up and convinced bloggers are out to destroy you quicker than their assistant can say “free Kush in the conference room”. So why rock the boat. Might as well just let the chips fall where they may until we come to the inevitable: no major label artists, of any genre, on any blogs. Do yourself a favor and prove me wrong.
This is a process that has happened before and will have to happen again. Big Content always runs scared from new technology and they pretty much always end up folding. It happened with the big Hollywood studios when the TV was invented, it happend with VCRs and it happened again with portable mp3 players and DRM. They stay losing because they are wrong and greedy, it’s just a matter of standing up to them, making them see the error of their ways and sticking around until they bow to the inevitable. I plan on it, how about you?