I can name that contradiction in three notes

Would that my first real article had been on a local story, but this caught my eye while reading some news elsewhere. From For Radiohead Fans, Does “Free” + “Download” = “Freeload”?, about a study of Radiohead's attempt at pay-as-you-see-fit marketing, only two out of 5 "customers" are willing to pay for "their" music:

During the first 29 days of October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the “In Rainbows” site, with a significant percentage of visitors ultimately downloading the album. The study showed that 38 percent of global downloaders of the album willingly paid to do so, with the remaining 62 percent choosing to pay nothing. The percent downloading for free in the U.S. (60 percent) is only marginally lower than in the rest of the world (64 percent).

“I am surprised by the number of freeloaders,” said Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures and well-known music aficionado. “The stories to date about the In Rainbows ‘pick your price’ download offer have been much more optimistic. I paid $5 U.S. and had no reluctance whatsoever to take out my card and pay. It’s a fantastic record, the best thing they've done in years. But, this shows pretty conclusively that the majority of music consumers feel that digital recorded music should be free and is not worth paying for. That's a large group that can't be ignored and its time to come up with new business models to serve the freeloader market.”

I'm not surprised by the number of freeloaders -- people have been taking music and artists for granted pretty much since its discovery. In Atlas Shrugged, this fact is illustrated in the character of Halley and his concertos. In recent history, one need only look back to the dawn of Napster to see just how much musicians are taken for granted. It's nice to have numbers to quantify it, however. Too bad the figure sucks for Radiohead. It doesn't bode well for other artists, either.

Was does surprise me is the oxymoron that is the term, "freeloader market." There can be no freeloader market, because freeloaders by definition have nothing they wish to freely offer in return for the product of your efforts. For someone to even suggest the term seriously and sincerely is frightening.

The proper label for this 60% segment of the music-acquiring population? Thieves and looters. Musicians, you would do well to recognize the brutal nature of your "fans" and condemn it. The only new business model that you should seek with regard to these thieves is none at all -- concentrate instead on your paying customers who truly value your abilities instead of taking the product of your efforts for granted.

Folks, music is a process of discovery! Music is invented! Music is the product of minds, and those minds deserve to be fairly compensated for their efforts.

About me, about this blog.

Welcome to JohnstownGalt.

JohnstownGalt the blogger is a 35-year old IT worker hailing from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. That's me. I describe myself as an objectivist, an artist, an atheist, among other things. I am not a Democrat, I am not a liberal, I am not religious. I am strong-willed, independent-minded, and rationally self-interested. I am not your typical Johnstown resident.

I was born here (as I often joke, with an overwhelming suspicion that something was horribly wrong with the world), raised Catholic (a religion I've since renounced, along with every other) by two loving parents near Pittsburgh, PA, mostly, and moved back to Johnstown approximately 14 years ago to work.

Johnstown the city is an incredible place to live and work. It has a low cost of living, no traffic to speak of, relatively low crime (if you disregard the drug problem), fabulous year-round scenery, and an overwhelming desire to destroy itself by hitching itself to the wrong wagons, making the strangest political bedfellows and doing its best to drive those who have actually been improving the region out of the area. For an objectivist, it's kind of like living in a little miniature Atlas Shrugged.

Ah, Atlas Shrugged.

Aside from scripture, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged the book polarizes people like no other work of literature. You either love it or you hate it because it's dead-on correct, and you either recognize that fact or wish to evade it. No other work of fiction -- not even holy scriptures -- peg existence, humanity, truth and morality so well. (It's also completely internally consistent, which is more than you can say for any work of scripture.)

I had the opportunity to read this book while away at a week-long conference I attended at the behest of the powers that be at my place of employment at the time, at which I met and dealt with a number of lobbyists, political appointees and their pork-teat-suckling, pull-mongering compatriots in both the private and public sectors. The coincidental timing of those two events could not have been better. Reading the book on the airplane and in the evenings and being able to see facets of it unfold during the days was like sharing a private joke with Rand herself. The experience changed my life, and help me to fill in a lot of the pieces I'd been missing in my own private search for answers to life, the universe and everything. I grasped the philosophy easily, and adopted it. Since, I've not treated a personal relationship, professional relationship, or even a newspaper article quite the same way again.

Ah, the newspaper.

The Tribune-Democrat is Johnstown's newspaper. As far as newspapers goes, it's a little pricey for how thin it is most days, but it's a fair paper. It keeps me up-to-date and informed, gives me a little daily intellectual workout, and above all, lets me work up a little health anger at what goes on in the region, state, nation and world.

The Trib, like most papers, has a readers' forum, to which I occasionally submit articles. It's also no source of entertaining and enlightening opinion from others in the region, most of which I disagree with. I have three main complaints about the reader's forum, however:

1. You're limited to 250 words.
2. They edit submissions _very_ poorly.
3. You can only submit 1 letter every 30 days.

Hell, I could submit 12 essays a week if I had the time and they'd let me.

Which brings me to JohnstownGalt the blog.

JohnstownGalt takes its name from John Galt, one of the protagonists of Rand's novel. Most critics like to call him a "superman," or a "hero," but he wasn't. As the book points out, he's an ordinary man, one capable of living as man should, according to his reason and towards his own
ends.

When the mood strikes and I have the time and energy to do so, I'll be posting my objectivist , "ordinary man's" take on news and opinion covered in the local media. It's my goal to write at least three times a week, but I'm not going to guarantee that quite yet. I fully admit that I'm doing this for the sole purpose of amusing myself by standing and shouting from my own little soap box. If you find it entertaining, informative or outrageous, more power to you. I just think it'll be fun to deliver an objectivist take on Johnstown and Johnstowners.