News for Youse: In an Objectivist world, nothing is free and we'll all smell like Macbooks

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      Oh, drat: there was an earthquake in Chile. And while Stephen Harper was there? And he's … aw, shucks. All reports say he's fine. Sorry to get your hopes up, gentle readers. But let that be a warning to other countries wanting to play host to our prime minister. If Harper shows up, the earth itself will attempt to swallow him.

      Okay, we have little to no idea how this slid under our radar, but a coalition of Canadian companies is really upset about CBCmusic.ca, a friendly little website that streams music free of charge through the series of tubes that is the Interwebs. However, some private Canadian broadcast-media companies—including Quebecor, Stingray Digital, Cogeco Cable Inc., and the Jim Pattison Group—are just right pissed off. Since the CBC is daring to distribute music in a free sort of way (is the CBC run by peacenik hippies or something?), and since it's technically considered a nonprofit enterprise, the socialist public radio company is going to siphon away a gajillion dollars from those hard-working free-market capitalist corporations that don't prey on a gullible public at all. And golly gee willikers, that just ain't right!

      This terrible show of greed, er, concern over private interests has borne what is possibly the best quote to ever appear in a newspaper: “The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing,” Stingray CEO Eric Boyko told the Globe and Mail.

      Seriously, is that not the cutest, most Ayn Randian thing you've ever heard in your whole life? And just consider: if we'd sung it, you would have never heard it, y'know, since singing is now apparently only a capitalistic pursuit and no one better dream of having fun or making noise as long as Big Daddy Media might be able to make a buck off of it somewhere someday.

      Looking for somewhere to live in Vancouver's abhorrent housing market? Were you also really into 1980s action television filmed in our fair province? Sounds like you need to head over to eBay and bid on MacGyver's former houseboat. Chances are the thing isn't wired with explosives, but considering the MacGyver connection, stay away from the paper clips and used chewing gum lying about, okay?

      And finally, what can you get for the nerd who has everything? How about a signature Apple fragrance. Yes, now you too can smell like a Macbook Pro fresh out of the packaging. Okay, so it's actually a wacky art project created by a trio of Melbourne-based artists, but we're pretty sure those Randians (Randites? Is there a proper demonym for that?) are just itching to get their prickly little fingers all over it. After all, if it can be sold for profit, well... actually, that's really the end of our thought.


      Follow Miranda Nelson on Twitter if you want. You don't have to. It's still a free country... for now.

      Comments

      4 Comments

      Gentleman Jack

      Apr 17, 2012 at 10:30am

      "...Randians (Randites? Is there a proper demonym for that?) are just itching to get their prickly little fingers all over it."

      Randroid/Randroids.

      DavidH

      Apr 17, 2012 at 1:30pm

      In my area, the birds have started chirping and singing at 4:30 a.m. This is very annoying to someone who prefers to be sleeping at 4:30 a.m.

      I blame this largely on the CBC. If they were controlled by the Private Sector, birds would sing when they were told to sing, and only subscribers would hear them.

      All of this free bird singing is a first step towards communism.

      Birdy

      Apr 17, 2012 at 3:10pm

      These people like Eric Boyko are corporatists, not "free market capitalists"

      They want to use the force of government to prop up their profit margins, like any good fascist/corporatist. Let's not confuse that with a free market, and let's not pretend that the political world is a polarized Rand vs. Marx showdown.

      In a rational free society, intellectual property rights are inherently flawed and immoral because enforcement relies on the violation of physical property rights. (If you "own" a song, and I burn it onto a CD, my physical property rights obviously come before your conceptual fantasy rights, so you don't get to steal my CD by force to defend your ownership of a non-existent concept)

      Idea's don't exist, they are just concepts, and you can't logically own something that doesn't exist.

      DavidH

      Apr 17, 2012 at 3:59pm

      @Birdy: I suspect that you feel that way because there is no chance whatsoever - none, zip, period - that you would ever have an idea that anybody would want to steal.

      Like most, you are not a creator ... you're just a user.