I interviewed punk legend and Dead Kennedys guitarist East Bay Ray for the August issue of Premier Guitar. For the most part, we talked about guitar playing, recording, and songwriting—as you’d expect. However, our conversation went off on a fascinating tangent when I asked Ray about his work as an artist advocate. The material wasn’t appropriate for Premier Guitar, so I am posting it here.
Two points to keep in mind when reading this interview:
- Obviously, the opinions expressed by Ray are his own and not necessarily the opinions of the Retro Chicken blog.
- I did not fact check the assertions Ray made about sources of funding, motivations, or quotes attributed to various corporations/institutions. Do your homework before accepting them as fact.
What projects are you working on now?
Right now I am mostly doing artist advocacy stuff. I am talking about how Google has turned artists into sharecroppers. Music is making money on the internet, movies are making money on the internet, books are making money on the internet, but that money is going to the middleman—the new bossman—which is Amazon, Google, Facebook. I live in the Bay Area—and there are 30-year-old billionaires here—and meanwhile independent artists can’t pay their rent.
And the billionaires are living on the backs of the independent artists?
Yeah. It’s a plantation system. Think about the 1890s, sharecropping got you cheap cotton, but it was based on exploitation.
The problem is they’ve also eliminated real journalism. Now what we have are opinion pieces and things paid for by corporations—like climate change and that stuff. I am real concerned about how we are going to have a democracy if people aren’t informed. Everybody has an opinion, but if the opinion is not based on facts and reality then it’s insanity. The University of California Berkeley Law School just put out, quote, “A study,” on the take-down notice system, which is where Google profits from. And guess who financed that study.
Google?
Yes. Google financed that study. This is the University of California Berkeley—one of the top 10 universities in the world—and their grad department is being financed by corporations. And this also happening in climate change and privacy. It’s, “What’s good for the corporations?” Not, “What’s good for the citizens of the United States?” They’ve taken over academia. Big Tech has taken over the Federal Trade Commission.
The big issue for consumers—consumers don’t really care about artists, they get stuff for free, it’s like the consumers have sold out—but their privacy is next. For example, a song I created is just a file on the internet. What about your social security number and your bank account? Those are just files on the internet, too. People are not realizing that they are just becoming cogs for these guys to make money on advertising.
And the other thing is that the news is advertising. As a matter of fact, you can make more money with lies. Everything is click bait. This why Donald Trump is so successful. He’s great click bait. He is generating billions of dollars for the internet companies. Billions of dollars. And the same thing—Google makes money off people advertising child porn. They make money off of people selling drugs from Mexico that kill people, that are not tested. It’s a crazy time.
We’ve been through this before. Human nature doesn’t really change. The Federalist Papers, from before the Constitution, has a great line, “If men were angels, there would be no need for government”—that’s James Madison. The internet people think they’re better than government and that they’re better than regulation. They’re going to end up just poisoning things and we end up with Trump as president—because he’s good copy.
He does make great copy.
There is a difference between a mob-ocracy and a democracy. On the internet they ask you, “What do you think?” Well, that’s good for selling ads, but that’s not good for democracy. You’re not supposed to think until you read up on the issue, discuss it with some other friends, and then make a decision. That’s how democracy works.
And you’re saying the universities are providing paid-for-order studies for the tech companies?
Absolutely. This is the Samuelson Institute at Berkeley Law School [The Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic]. There’s the Berkman Institute, which is also funded by Big Tech, at Harvard [Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University]. Our top universities have been bought. It is kind of reminiscent of Germany in the early ’30’s. Martin Luther King said, “Everything Hitler did was legal.”
My friend David Lowery from Cracker has a good line, “The new boss is worse than the old boss.” People don’t realize because these tech companies are kind of invisible, but Google, Amazon, and Facebook are the new bosses. They are worse than the old bosses because they are almost monopolies—you don’t have much choice. They are very reactionary—they are billionaires now—and they do not want the internet to change and be better for the users, because that would effect their bottom line. Corporations aren’t people, they’re psychopaths. They don’t pursue life, liberty, and happiness—they pursue profit. They’re psychopaths, but they control. Google right now has more lobbyists in DC than any [other] company right now.
Really?
Yes really. These internet companies are going to end up like ComCast, where people hate them, but they have the laws on their side.
What is the name of your artist advocacy group?
I am kind of independent now, but in Washington DC there is a great group called Copyright Alliance that combines music people, photographers, and film people. There is a great blog, the Trichordist, that David Lowery runs. Vox indie blog is good. Digital Music News is good sometimes—but I don’t think he quite understands how big the problem is. But nobody understands how big the problem is. None of the mainstream people understand how big the problem is. The New York Times has no idea what’s going on. The Obama White House has no idea how insidious this stuff is.
The destruction of journalism is basically the destruction of democracy. What is the press? The Fourth Estate? There is no free press and there is no free academia now, when you have Harvard and Stanford and Berkeley bought off. Tax payers don’t want to fund these things so the corporations come in, “Let me help you!” Google is no different than the Koch brothers. “We will fund climate research”—basically it’s their bottom line. You know Apple and the whole privacy thing? That’s good for their bottom line. Ultimately somebody’s going to hack that—their iPhone.
Someone did. The FBI hacked the one used in the San Bernardino shootings.
Yeah. That’s why the head of Apple said, “We are trying to protect everybody’s privacy.” I said, “This is code. Somebody’s going to hack it.” To me, it smelled fishy. Then I realized it was a PR move to get everybody comfortable.
Even before the [founding of the] United States, the authorities had the right to warrant. They had the right to search your house with a warrant. You have to realize, what is the alternative of no warrant? You have what is called the “Black Internet.” That means you can hire murderers over the internet—if there’s no government. “If men were angels, there would be no need for government.” And do you think men are angels?
Not at all.
Exactly. I had this discussion with somebody about peer-to-peer internet. People have these utopian dreams, but all utopias end up being a nightmare. This utopian dream is that peer-to-peer will eliminate hierarchy in society and eliminate hierarchy in the workspace. I said, “That is already happening. Peer-to-peer is happening with ISIS and lone-wolf terrorists.” It’s already happening. The problem is that these tools are so powerful that the biggest asshole will do much more damage than normal people.
Somebody on Twitter said, “Crowdsourcing is better than an individual opinion.” I shot back, “So does that make a lynch mob smarter than an individual conscious?” He said, “I wasn’t talking about a lynch mob.” I said, “A lynch mob is crowdsourcing of justice.”
True.
It’s true. And he would not admit that. I think in one article I saw, some utopian guy said, “I thought the internet would change humanity for the better and I realized it’s not.” I realized what [it is that] all these utopian guys are stuck in, [they think] the internet is going to change human nature and it’s not. What it’s going to do is empower bullies and assholes. That’s what ISIS is.
Do you have any connection with Melvin Gibbs?
I did for a little bit a year or two ago. I don’t think I met him. I talked to him on the phone and emailed with them—they’re in New York and little bit too associated with the American Federation of Musicians. I think they are not quite seeing the big picture. To me, it’s not just about artists. Musicians are just canaries in the coal mine. Like I said, my music file being taken and used to make money by some third party like Google or Facebook is exploitation, but then they can take your family pictures and do the same thing. That’s what the public is not realizing.
The bottom line is: who owns the files on the internet? Do you own them or does the crowd own them? Facebook, Amazon, and Google, their position is the crowd owns them and the only reason they support that is because that is how they make money. If people can use your files without consent, how can there be liberty? If somebody can come in and take your house without your consent, how can there be liberty? Somebody can come in and take your intellectual property, how can that be liberty? If something that you created—put blood sweat and tears in—if someone can tap in and take your family photo and use it for anything they want, how can we be free? I am trying to connect musicians with privacy and your own digital files. The individual person needs to own the stuff on the internet. Everybody is getting free stuff, but it is free marshmallows while they have their hand in your wallet and your life. Google is the biggest corporation in the world right now and they talk about privacy, but they are really anti-privacy underneath. It is very 1984. “We want to protect your rights.” Apple is in a business mode to protect your rights, but they want you to put more and more stuff on your phone so they can sell you a bigger phone. They are trying to pretend and say, “Oh the government cracked it.” Well yeah. That’s what the internet is like. People should not put that much on it until they get some rights. Have you had a credit report done?
Sure.
Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s the credit companies could keep information on you and didn’t have to tell you what they had. There could be incorrect and wrong information. It wasn’t until there was a federal consumer law that gave consumers the right to see whatever information was held by these credit companies. This is why Google is taking over the government—taking over the Federal Trade Commission—because at some point, hopefully, somebody will realize and say that you should be able to go to Facebook and say, “I want to see all the information that you have on me that you are selling.”
Because they are mining your data? They know everything.
Yeah, but you want to see it. Do they have the right? Did they get you social security number when they shouldn’t have it and you never gave it to them? Do they have pictures of people you don’t want them to have? Do they have pictures of people that are not even you that show “you” standing next to some terrorist, calling it “you,” even though it is somebody else?
They have everything you give them.
At some point, in order for liberty and democracy to continue, a citizen is going to have to have the right to go to Google and Facebook and be able to take information away from them or correct information. It all comes down to people using your stuff without your consent. It is headed toward these corporations controlling us.
They are the new totalitarians?
Yes. Totalitarians in t-shirts and Nike shoes. And you don’t even know it is happening [laughs].