| The Internet has changed everything and can now serve as the salvation for which the artistic community has been waiting for decades. Throughout the history of our civilization, with each major breakthrough in communication we have become exponentially more peaceful, tolerant, and educated. The Internet is the ultimate backbone of communication because it is virtually instant, self-sufficient, worldwide, and has no central authority. It is a network of computers that can easily compensate for the loss of an individual connection point much like the neural network in your brain can easily compensate for the loss of one brain cell. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for anyone to control and is ready to distribute almost any form of media present in popular culture today. |
| The record companies, movie producers, television producers, and visual arts production companies have all held artists in their firm grip through their control over the infrastructure of distribution. They know an independent artist can’t afford to open their own record store or art gallery, or start their own television station and production company, so they convince young and eager artists to sign away their work because it is the only opportunity they will have to reach anything larger than a local audience. These corporations then attack companies like Napster, and discredit file sharing publicly as theft, when anyone with any degree of intelligence knows that the only artists who suffer from piracy are those who can easily afford it. Art has suffered as a result, since now it is big business, and our top acts, movies, and television shows seem to be of the worst possible quality. It is clear that this will happen when money, rather than artistic passion, is what drives the selection process since sex and violence will always sell more than intelligent discourse and peace. Our artists used to be those who challenged us and pushed our species further, now they just often seem to be appealing to our basest of instincts. |
| It is for all these reasons that I want nothing more than to teach anyone that is willing to learn, free-of-charge, how to convert their art into a digital format and distribute it themselves on the Internet. Through this, I hope to make whatever small effort I can towards putting the business and the profits back into the hands of artists instead of production, distribution, and advertising corporations. Any artist, if they execute it properly, should be able to produce, sell, and distribute their own artwork absent of a reliance on existing corporate infrastructures by exploiting the unprecedented network of consumers that the Internet now offers them. |
| Also, feel free to e-mail me anytime at derek@dereksweet.com. |
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