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Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog Slam Free Culture on Art-Grinder ‘Masters of the Internet’

Ceramic Dog

Now that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have soured on free culture, and David Lowery stays steady ranting at college kids, it’s time the notoriously underpaid world of the avant-garde jumps into the fray. Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, the art-rocking power trio from one of SPIN’s fave guitarists, is set to release their second album, Your Turn, on April 30 via Northern Spy. And if “Masters of the Internet” is any indication, they’d probably prefer if you didn’t download it, you freeloader.

Over a crunchy, Residents-gone-Battles death-march, Ribot yells, “Download this music for free! / We like it when you do! / We don’t have homes or families to feed!” The whole thing is a headbanging rant against the entitlement of the “free culture” generation and how they expect free music and a constant stream of free content, like free MP3 premieres (oops). 

Ribot continues, “Our labor has no value! Content is our name! We are nothing but material fed into a machine to feed the Masters of the Internet!”

Anyway, please listen to the song for FREE HERE SPIN WORLD EXCLUSIVE MUST CREDIT SPIN.COM because for whatever reason they’re letting us post this. 

:audio=0:111409:song:Masters of the Internet:

UPDATE: Marc Ribot responds to this post: “A number of people have asked us what’s up with ‘Masters of the Internet,’ he says. “Do we hate our fans? Are we Luddites? Well, no and no. Here’s what we think: We don’t really expect much from asking people who are downloading stuff for free to voluntaristically pay up — although, yeah, we could use that dollar right about now, and we support Trichordist’s Principles for an Ethical and Sustainable Internet. We don’t know what the ultimate solution is — but we know it isn’t the impoverishment of musicians and defunding music. And we know it isn’t pretending that no one is being hurt. Corporations are making huge profits from the ads on “free” sites, from selling the hard- and software that make illegal downloading possible. They need to give back a portion of their billions to the people who do the work: Hey, we love our tech toys too, but an empty iPod is just a crappy paperweight. Giving us back part of the value we create would make a real FREE culture possible — one where fans get what they need, AND creative community workers get paid. Bread and Roses, baby!”