Good Will Hunting
My friend and ex-band mate – . . . let’s call him . . . uh . . . Randy – Randy and I were in this band – Ok, actually, we WERE this band – called ‘Defective Replicas’. We spent one long summer in ‘98 in a barn, recording 8 songs that we wrote together. These songs became an independent CD called, “Here, Hear.” In fact it may be the most independent CD of all time.
Anyway, Randy was recently at the local Good Will thrift store hunting for vinyl records, because that’s the kind of person he is, the kind who looks for vinyl records because for one thing he says, “they sound better than CDs and mp3s.”
“Yeah,” I say, “At least until they’ve been played more than ONCE and/or become scratched and sound like not even music anymore.”
Ok, that was a tangent, but the other reason he looks for vinyl is because the Home Copyright Act states that if you own one legitimate original copy of something you are permitted by law to make as many copies on as many OTHER mediums as you wish provided that they are only used in the home of or by you, the owner.
So when Randy found an old Duran Duran LP at the Good Will, he bought it for the handsome suggested post-consumer retail price of $.50.
Now, once he owns a legitimate copy of “Hungry Like a Wolf” he has absolute legal permission to possess as many burned CDs or ripped mp3s as he wishes. And as a footnote, Randy is a 38-year-old man who recently purchased on EBay several packages of Duran Duran trading cards, not to resell, but simply to have and own because, “They are cool, Man.”
He has recently began to apply this moral to video games as well, purchasing Atari 2600 cartridges of Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Q-Bert, and Frogger at garage sales 6 for a dime, which legally entitles him to download the bootlegged MAME arcade versions of all these games, which he plays on a nightly basis via a mind-blowing custom video game console that is a little bigger and quite a bit more impressive and complicated than the cockpit of a fighter jet.
Now, as far as the 100s of songs and video games of which he owns only illegitimate copies, I think Randy has every intention to acquire the lawful formats very very soon.
Ok, this is a tangent of the tangent although I really think it’s a worthwhile detour. Oh, and trust me you’re going to need its comic relief to get you through the day after reading this pathetically sad ending but let’s get back on the main road here:
While browsing the old records at the Good Will, a familiar CD spine catches Randy’s eye. He pulls the CD out of the rack: “Defective Replicas: Here, Hear,” which means that one of the 11 people we sold it to back in 1998 decided it wasn’t worth their shelf space and donated it to the Thrift Store.
That’s a king-size B-slap in the face. I don’t understand it! As Randy relays this story to me, I immediately realize where we went wrong. Had we charged more for the CDs, perhaps this Music Donator, this Rock Hock, whoever he is, would’ve realized its immense value and held onto it, setting goals to listen better with the intent of finding a richer artistic value, a deeper meaning, and a new insight for living with each spin.
Now, like me, you probably can’t imagine how this story could get any sadder, but it does. The twisted ending will probably dawn on you in slow motion like when you finally realize that Bruce Willis’s character in The Sixth Sense has been dead all along.
RANDY: . . so I picked it up.
@M: What?!?! What do you mean you picked it up?
RANDY: Well, I never had my own copy . . . or I gave it to someone intending to get another and never did; I thought it would be nice to have one and it was only two bucks, so I bought it.
@M: !
RANDY: I listened to it a few times too. It had some pretty good songs on it, man.
He bought it . . . he . . . bought it . . . he actually bought it.
Well, later I get to thinking it’s not such a bad thing; for this reason, and I think though he played it off with no sentimentality, Randy was a step ahead of me: I think he realized that he was rescuing the lonely recording from an even worse fate, like a long lost child, a runaway.
Perhaps it would’ve been found by a curious someone who would’ve cared for and loved it, but as a good father, Randy just couldn’t take that risk. He couldn’t bare the thought of this disc remaining un-purchased and ending up in the dumpster in the dirty alley out back.
Randy had to pay its way and take home the unloved unremarkable CD, like the prodigal son who had not properly earned his keep in the world.
Anyway, Randy was recently at the local Good Will thrift store hunting for vinyl records, because that’s the kind of person he is, the kind who looks for vinyl records because for one thing he says, “they sound better than CDs and mp3s.”
“Yeah,” I say, “At least until they’ve been played more than ONCE and/or become scratched and sound like not even music anymore.”
Ok, that was a tangent, but the other reason he looks for vinyl is because the Home Copyright Act states that if you own one legitimate original copy of something you are permitted by law to make as many copies on as many OTHER mediums as you wish provided that they are only used in the home of or by you, the owner.
So when Randy found an old Duran Duran LP at the Good Will, he bought it for the handsome suggested post-consumer retail price of $.50.
Now, once he owns a legitimate copy of “Hungry Like a Wolf” he has absolute legal permission to possess as many burned CDs or ripped mp3s as he wishes. And as a footnote, Randy is a 38-year-old man who recently purchased on EBay several packages of Duran Duran trading cards, not to resell, but simply to have and own because, “They are cool, Man.”
He has recently began to apply this moral to video games as well, purchasing Atari 2600 cartridges of Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Q-Bert, and Frogger at garage sales 6 for a dime, which legally entitles him to download the bootlegged MAME arcade versions of all these games, which he plays on a nightly basis via a mind-blowing custom video game console that is a little bigger and quite a bit more impressive and complicated than the cockpit of a fighter jet.
Now, as far as the 100s of songs and video games of which he owns only illegitimate copies, I think Randy has every intention to acquire the lawful formats very very soon.
Ok, this is a tangent of the tangent although I really think it’s a worthwhile detour. Oh, and trust me you’re going to need its comic relief to get you through the day after reading this pathetically sad ending but let’s get back on the main road here:
While browsing the old records at the Good Will, a familiar CD spine catches Randy’s eye. He pulls the CD out of the rack: “Defective Replicas: Here, Hear,” which means that one of the 11 people we sold it to back in 1998 decided it wasn’t worth their shelf space and donated it to the Thrift Store.
That’s a king-size B-slap in the face. I don’t understand it! As Randy relays this story to me, I immediately realize where we went wrong. Had we charged more for the CDs, perhaps this Music Donator, this Rock Hock, whoever he is, would’ve realized its immense value and held onto it, setting goals to listen better with the intent of finding a richer artistic value, a deeper meaning, and a new insight for living with each spin.
Now, like me, you probably can’t imagine how this story could get any sadder, but it does. The twisted ending will probably dawn on you in slow motion like when you finally realize that Bruce Willis’s character in The Sixth Sense has been dead all along.
RANDY: . . so I picked it up.
@M: What?!?! What do you mean you picked it up?
RANDY: Well, I never had my own copy . . . or I gave it to someone intending to get another and never did; I thought it would be nice to have one and it was only two bucks, so I bought it.
@M: !
RANDY: I listened to it a few times too. It had some pretty good songs on it, man.
He bought it . . . he . . . bought it . . . he actually bought it.
Well, later I get to thinking it’s not such a bad thing; for this reason, and I think though he played it off with no sentimentality, Randy was a step ahead of me: I think he realized that he was rescuing the lonely recording from an even worse fate, like a long lost child, a runaway.
Perhaps it would’ve been found by a curious someone who would’ve cared for and loved it, but as a good father, Randy just couldn’t take that risk. He couldn’t bare the thought of this disc remaining un-purchased and ending up in the dumpster in the dirty alley out back.
Randy had to pay its way and take home the unloved unremarkable CD, like the prodigal son who had not properly earned his keep in the world.
Welcome home, little buddy; glad you’re safe.
posted by @m @ 10:41 AM
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