Waxy.org is the sandbox of Loudon Wainwright's "Something for Nothing" is an entertaining and fair commentary on file sharing, from a songwriter's perspective. Download the MP3 first, and read the lyrics below. (I'm not sure, but I think Loudon would approve.)
Loudon Wainwright III, "Something for Nothing"
You can pull one of my songs right out of thin air
Go ahead and download me, see if I care
In love, war and cyberspace, everything's fair
And it's okay to steal 'cause it's so nice to share
You're in luck 'cause last night, it happened again
I was feeling creative about twenty to 10
So I sharpened a pencil and I wore down its end
And now soon you'll have something to share with your friends
It took twenty minutes to write down this song
The tune's public domain so I didn't do wrong
I chewed up the pencil and the eraser's all gone
Scratched my head and my balls, but it didn't take long
Songwriting's not so hard, it's well-understood
Anyone can do it and everyone should
I'm sure you could write and sing something as good
With some balls and a pencil, I'm sure that you would
A PC's like a crowbar, it's only a tool
And music flows like water from a big public pool
But I wanna get paid for my work, but I'm a fool
Because trading and sharing's so awesome and cool
I don't mean to be flip, I don't want to be pat
Those Metallica guy are all getting too fat.
Free information, yeah, what's wrong with that?
Something for nothing, that's where it's at
And those moguls run labels and you call them all crooks
Because they crunch the numbers and they cook the books
But I signed that contract and I got my hand shook
Shaking hands with the devil, it's not as bad as it looks
You can pull one of my songs right out of thin air
Bootleg and download me, see if I care
In love, war and cyberspace, everything's fair
And it's okay to steal 'cause it's so nice to share
4:36 PM
Nice, can someone point me to where I can pay to download this as ogg/mp3 at a higher bitrate?
7:04 PM
Excellent! Where is this song from, and did Loudo give permission for it to be posted?
12:00 AM
“Something for Nothing” seems to be an ironic choice of song for a radio performance as it is (has been!) so easy to bootleg.
I think that the song is a plea for artistic/fiscal understanding as much as a condemnation of downloading bootlegging nerdy sons of bitches and while it displays Loudon’s penchant for, and ability to write clever songs to order it remains, for me, one of the weaker songs in the unrecorded canon.
11:37 AM
"Something for Nothing" is now available on his live album, So Damn Happy. The BBC Sessions is a better live introduction to the breadth of his work, but this album is fantastic too. Recorded at Largo, it's a great selection of newer material.