And so, the music industry has been destroyed by file sharing in the era of internet freedom. Big deal. The supposedly new-found independence of musicians and their audiences under this new order is a big sham and all triumphalism on this account is an act of history denial and self-deception.

The history of popular music is inextricably linked to the development of the music industry. It is what it is because of its love/hate relationship with the industry. The duplication of the band format and the establishment of genres is not a happy accident and ‘independent music’ is a contradiction in terms. It’s OK to like popular music and hate the industry at the same time but it’s ridiculous to think that an art form can ever free itself from its past.

The notion that the fall of the industry freed its labour force from its chains and that the music listener has ceased to be a consumer is equally ridiculous. Popular music does not belong once more to the people; it never did. It may have become impossible to eek out a living as a music industry serf but this just means that this labour force has to make a transition to other occupations as such arise with the emergence of new services and consumer products.

Crowd funding is the principal expression of this act of self-deception. Of course the money doesn’t come from the record industry any longer. But the fact that your pay-cheques come from somewhere else doesn’t make the music free. Twitter all you like about it, you’re just a big endian to the record industry’s little endian. As for those who pride themselves that they have sidestepped this problem by joining an institutionalised form of music – their guild-mentality and desperate infighting for public funds makes them pitiful.

It all comes down to this; that the compartmentalisation of knowledge, that is the art of acquiring skills in order to become something for someone else rather than to become yourself, is subject to change over time. The division of labour in a changing society requires this. But never mistake the disappearance of one industry for sudden freedom in its stead. It’s just the shape of your shackles that have changed. Your title may be new but you’re still just a human resource; a variable, a widget.

It’s in the interest of other industries that we believe that a certain measure of independence has been achieved in some area of human existence. Therefore, it is in our interest to stop fooling ourselves that this is the case. Go ahead and fund your favourite music, but if you truly want music to be free, never do it out of your own pockets. Steal that money from your employers. Exploit, exploit, exploit! If we must be widgets we might as well create some thrills from it…