Debbie Harry and her band Blondie long ago found fame and wealth in the music industry, but that hasn’t stopped the “Rapture” rapper from penning a piece for The Guardian that laments the current state of the music industry. Specifically, she singles out bits of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that allow streaming sites like YouTube to host unofficial streams of artists’ songs without penalty so long as no copyright complaint is filed by the label or artist.
But this is an impossible task. The search engine owners knew it would be impossible to enforce this clause when the law was drafted. I wouldn’t be able to stop people – and to be sure, many of them are simply fans who mean no harm – from uploading our music every time it happened. But YouTube and Google know better. They are profiting from the law; the people who make the music are not.
Harry continues, comparing herself to Taylor Swift, who argued with Apple Music over paying artists during an introductory period for the service. She also mentions Katy Perry and Nikki Sixx, for whatever reason, before asking “President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich to lobby Congress to change the DMCA,” and also really wants to know exactly when this lobbying is going to happen.
The whole thing (found here) reads as more naive than anything the daftest Bernie bro has ever had printed on a T-shirt, especially because she is pleading with politicians like Trump, Cruz, and Kasich to take measured action to benefit artists. Anyway, it’s worth a read. Watch the video for “Rapture” below — and it’s an official stream from EMI, too, so we know Harry will be paid.