Thank you! The Spring WI-Global Forum is closed.....

...but the discussion, we hope, will continue!

The Spring 2008 Forum has closed but we will still be moderating and posting comments. So we invite authors and blog visitors to continue to read, think, and send thoughts along. WI-Global awards -- both the Forum and the Undergraduate Paper Awards -- will be announced 6 June 2008.

We will reopen the Forum, with a new topic and another opportunity to engage with your colleagues and blog visitors from around the world, in Fall 2008.

To learn more about WI-Global, and to keep up to date on schedules and announcements of the reopening the Forum, check back here, visit our website, or email us.

Our best wishes & thanks,
The WI-Global Team.

Afro-pop and Everything Else With a Hyphen

I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the band Vampire Weekend. They're a band born out of an Ivy League University, playing Afro-pop music that sounds like it was made specifically to be played after an episode of the Hills on MTV or to be featured as a great "emerging artist" everywhere you turn. What I mean by this is that their music is at the same time fresh but also nonthreatening. Not much American music has an African influence, and I will admit I enjoy Vampire Weekend's music. What I wonder is how many African artists with much of the same sound will gain mainstream success in the U.S.? My guess is probably not many.

Why is this though? Is it purely the business model that says that five clean-cut white guys straight out of college are more marketable than an actual African music group? Or is it part of American culture to take one phenomenon and mix it with another, forming something new? American music history is rich with the beginnings of blues and jazz, and the eventual development of hip-hop and rock and roll. Then again, I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn't only an American phenomenon, but something that happens around the world. Music goes through stylistic changes not only through the new ideas of individual people, but possibly more often through influence of other types of music from different cultures and groups of people.

Music is a creative outlet that reflects the artist's experiences and often his or her culture. Since most of human existence involves our relation to one another, it is no wonder that music can be influenced by so many different styles and genres.

What is your favorite band or artist that mixes seemingly different styles, genres or regional influence?

[As an end note, I thought this was a pretty interesting and relevant Wikipedia entry on Jazz Fusion.]

Levelling the (Musical) Playing Field

Yet another advantage of the widespread availability of the Internet is access to a wider range of music. Most of the bands the I listen to from outside the United States I have discovered through the Internet.

Websites like MySpace allow just about any musician with a piece of their recorded work and a computer with Internet access to share their music to anyone around the world. This system allows music promotion to be more democratized than ever before (see my first blog post). Listeners will buy the music of and support the tours of the bands they enjoy the most, despite geographic barriers. A great personal example of this for me is the artist Teitur. The singer is from the remote Faroe Islands, a province of Denmark. I discovered his work through an online music forum with people of similar tastes to mine. Someone had posted a review, saying that it was one of their favorite albums of the year, despite the fact that he is so unknown. So I first listened to a few of his songs on his MySpace page, and eventually decided to buy one of his albums on iTunes. Now, a few years and albums later, Teitur is on a U.S. tour and I have a ticket to see him perform live in Minneapolis just after my exams end.

I've had a similar experience with much of the music I listen to from other countries, and I would guess that if you asked just about any artist of the effect the Internet has on the amount of listeners, they would say it allows for a dramatic increase.

The Internet is also a great tool for discovery since it not only connects listeners to artists, but also listeners to one another. This can be in the form of aforementioned networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, through forums and blogs, Internet radio sites like Pandora, and even hybrid websites like last.fm that are part social networking, part music discovery. Last.fm is an especially great example, because it tracks the music a user listens to (using a plugin to Windows Media Player or iTunes), and then gives recommendations for new artists based on their taste, and shows them their "neighbors" or people who listen to artists most similar to yourself. This sort of website is beneficial because listeners can discover new artists that they will most likely enjoy quickly, and artists are promoted and found by users most likely to enjoy their style of music.

Everyday Pirates: Illegal Music Downloding and International Copyright Law

The relatively new widespread use of the Internet and fast connections has allowed people from all around the world to easily access and download all types of music. This phenomenon has led to many questions about the legality of this practice, especially across borders with differing copyright laws. Peer-to-Peer programs, such as BitTorrent and KaZaA interesting cases of these issues, because the files are not stored in any central location such as a computer hard drive or server, but are shared among users. A website like The Pirate Bay which is essentially a search engine for .torrent files is also difficult to sue (though companies have tried), because it doesn't store nearly enough information about its users to incriminate them. Also, in the specific case of The Pirate Bay, the owners themselves would be difficult to sue because they are located in Sweden where copyright laws are less stringent than in the United States. Although they were raided and taken in for questioning in 2006, the investigation was dropped within three days and the site returned to normal use quickly. Some people in Sweden, including the owners of The Pirate Bay believe that the investigation was conducted with pressure from the United States and organizations like the MPAA and the RIAA. If the government did do this, it is considered a serious violation of of the political norms in Sweden.

These examples bring to light some interesting ways that international law and domestic laws operate. The record companies argue that overseas programs are allowing people to participate in illegal activity within the United States, and thereby their activity is illegal. But can someone be arrested for doing something legal in one country that is illegal in another? For example, if a person bought drug paraphernalia in one country where that drug is legal and the person went back to their home country and used it where it is illegal, how can the paraphernalia maker be held responsible since they did not produce it in an illegal context and could not predict its illegal use?

It is generally agreed upon that people are liable to the laws of the country they reside in and not to the ones they do not live in. There are some exceptions to this rule, however, in international law. When it comes to international copyright law, there are two major agreements. The first is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works which says that any artistic work holds an international copyright the instant it is in a 'fixed' state, no application to hold the copyright is necessary. Most countries eventually signed on to this convention. If they had not, they eventually faced some of the same policies in the second important bill, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This agreement was made through the WTO and is quite far-reaching in its protection of intellectual property rights thanks in part to heavy lobbying from the United States. It also set in place some very specific enforcement mechanisms which give it more weight than the Berne Convention. Getting back to music downloading, some critics of copyright enforcement point to the fact that copyright law is meant to promote unique creations and prevent others from claiming someone's work as their own, not to ensure that the artist or inventor gets every last dime on the duplication of his or her work. Others say that the music industry is to blame for failing to adapt to the digital medium, and is making the wrong choice by suing its current and potential customers for copyright violations.

While I may tend to agree with these general sentiments, most U.S. courts have sided with the record industry on the issue. It should be interesting to see what happens to the music industry both domestically and internationally over the next decade due to these rapid changes in the way that people access and listen to music.

International Security and Music

In today's world, it is difficult to read a newspaper, watch TV, or surf the Internet without coming across the issue of international security and terrorism. The issue, in fact, is so far-reaching that it has even come to influence the music industry.

The first major instance of this is when singer Cat Stevens (also known as Yusuf Islam) boarded a plane from London to Washington D.C. His name had shown up on a U.S. security watch list, and his plane was redirected hundreds of miles away where he was held for questioning. After all of this, he was sent back to the UK. Islam had been an active participant in the peaceful Muslim movements within Britain, and had made many statements condemning terrorism and the events of September 11th, 2001.

This is not the only time artists have been blocked from entering the U.S. About a week ago, a Swedish band called the Field was prevented from entering the United States border and was forced to cancel their North American tour.

Possibly the most notable instance of Homeland Security's interactions with artists is that of M.I.A., also known as Maya Arulpragasam. The Sri Lanken hip-hop/rap artist had gained quite a bit of sucess and popularity with her debut album, Arular, and was about to record her sophomore record with producer Timbaland when she too was prevented from entering the United States by the Department of Homeland Security. So instead, she toured the world recording her new album in many different regions including India, Trinidad, Liberia, Jamaica, Australia and Japan. The result, titled Kala, became an international success and was deemed the best album of 2007 by Rolling Stone Magazine. In the song "Paper Planes", M.I.A. sings:

"I fly like paper, get high like planes
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name
If you come around here, I make 'em all day
I'll get one done in a second if you wait"

In this song, M.I.A. alludes to not only her personal experience at the US border, but also policy decisions within the United States relating to Homeland Security and immigration issues.

All of these occurrences bring up questions about the way that we control our borders. Clearly, we do not want terrorists to enter the country, but at what level are we detaining too many innocent people? This goes beyond cancelling tours an relocating album recordings. How does our border policy affect relationships with other countries, their citizens and their artists? Because of its wealth, the United States will most likely still be a place that artists want to tour and promote their work, regardless of border policy. Perhaps the growing accessibility to music online will allow artists to broadcast their music from across the globe regardless of US border patrol (but that's another blog).