Thursday, October 22, 2009

gitmo soundtrack

while i support their opposition to the interrogation practices, it's an odd strategy to attack torture by way of musicians' intellectual property rights. copyright isn't mentioned in the article, but the only reason that (for example) R.E.M. would have an interest in determining whether it's music was used to torture detainees is if the band had some kind of right to dictate how their music gets used.

i'm assuming that the u.s. government purchased the music legally and didn't make any money by playing it to the detainees. if that's true, then the bands really shouldn't have any say on how their music was used. that doesn't make using music for torture okay. i'm just saying that it's not okay because it's torture, not because it's using the music in a way that the musician wouldn't approve of. torturing people using the music of pro-torture musicians is just as wrong as torturing people with the music of anti-torture musicians. the musician's position on torture isn't the problem with musical torture.