Do you remember that scene in The Graduate where he bangs on the glass with that terrible scream of hopeless dispair? As soon as I saw the TLA in the partnership pairing, my heart sank into a blank darkness of just such a powerless rile -- if any of you dear readers are citizens of that country and have an address you can write or call, please, please please, you have to get this corrected:

An alliance announced today between MSN Music and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings will make tens of thousand of historic songs from legendary performers of folk, blues, jazz and world music available online for the first time, allowing music fans to discover a diverse world of music and sound. The Smithsonian Folkways catalog of nearly 35,000 tracks, which is only available for download through MSN(R) Music in the United States
[ via MSN Music Makes Historic Songs From Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Available Online for the First Time ]

What does it mean? It means this much for certain: I clicked on the link to the archive and was immediately redirected to the terse and unyielding Statement of Requirements which begin just as my dispairing silent scream had feared. Do keep in mind, this isn't just the complete archival recordings of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lucinda Williams, Big Bill Broonzy, Lightnin' Hopkins and Ella Jenkins which are now predicated Microsoft MediaPlayer as the cost of the experience, but this is also the primary American collection of speeches, poetry and natural sounds.

How can I hope to underline what has been lost here: It's like Carl Sagan trying to explain the size of the cosmos. True it was all hidden away on out-of-print recordings and dusty library shelves and now it's (kinda, sorta, for some of you) online, but just take a stab at comprehending what it is that's being tacked to Microsoft's carrot-stick: It's the soul and roots of American bluegrass and folk singers, with the rural mountain ballads, hymns and melodies, old-time square and contra dances of the South and Appalachia; and the first country music, Piedmont and New York blues, Texas, Mississippi Delta, Southwest, St. Louis and Chicago blues, old songs, new songs, play-party games and poems, steam engines, typewriters and propeller airplanes, as well as sounds from the mid-20th century of a South African homestead, a children's camp, New York streets and playgrounds, monkeys, and sounds made by water, frogs, birds and storms.

And it all belongs to MSN now, for Windows users only, your 'perk' for allowing Microsoft to decide what you can and cannot play on your own computer.

Thirty pieces of silver

I'm sure the Smithsonion people just didn't understand the rammifications of their pact, I'm sure they all thought they were doing a Good Thing. In their own words ...

"The music in this catalog has influenced countless artists -- including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Jerry Garcia and Kurt Cobain -- yet it's often almost impossible to find. We're excited to bring these important artists and their work to a larger audience through MSN Music."

... oh and did we mention the cost of admission?

tragedy in the commons

More than just the loss of a free connection to this collective memory, this is a great loss to humanity, and it is an insult to the memory of those whose works are now used to entrap the unwary into Microsoft DRM. The estates of Guthrie and others should get involved in this, the Folk Societies too if they have any meaning left in themselves.

For myself, I've heard most of what's on those disks. I ran a record store once upon a time that was one of those rare places where you might actually find Smithsonian catalog items and I was fortunate to have had priviledged access to the Winnipeg Library's fine collection of vinyl for use in my radio shows. I've also heard real steam trains, and I guess that tells you about how old I might be.

But what about you, or your kids, or their kids. Will the only House of the Rising Sun they ever know be the RIAA-licensed Eric Burden durge? Will they ever experience the ripping rollick of the real and unskiffled Rock Island Line?

Please, I realize there are troubles in all directions, but let's not let the noise mask the culprits in their get-away. Those of you who, like myself, are not party to that nation, I don't think there's much we can do, maybe bootleg all the Leadbelly and Sonny Terry you can and stuff it into the Kazaa networks, I don't know. But those of you who do speak with tax-dollars behind your words, at least give them a call just to say what Woody said ...

"... anybody caught singin it without our permission, Will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."