Happy birthday to the phonograph. In 130 years John Phillips Sousa’s dire predictions haven’t come completely true:
“The time is coming when no one will be ready to submit himself to the ennobling discipline of learning music. Everyone will have their ready made or ready pirated music in their cupboards.”
Sounds rather modern, eh? It might be useful to remember that resistance to participatory culture (Keen, Gorman) has a history. Technologies that have changed the way information is made/distributed/consumed have generally made a group of people mad and have changed the world.
“These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country”
Yes, and blogs are making us all less good with the brain thinking.
More good quotes from that hater JP Sousa in Lessig’s Free Culture
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