Primarily, Gunderson is a member of the English Department at San Diego Miramar College and from his occupation his audience mainly consists of intellectuals who are familiar with his style of writing. File- sharing may not be the typical topic of educated individuals, but to get their attention he has to impress them by using fancy and large vocabulary. Considering his occupation, Gunderson is not the type of individual who has experienced file-sharing because his views seem to research based. For example, Gunderson expresses that “music fans” are not to happy about how high prices are, and that is why most people are engaging in sharing files. He is a supporter for what the music industry declares illegal, but not once he mentions himself actually participating in file-sharing.
Gunderson article includes different views on mash-ups, file sharing, pricing and the music industry itself. The argument he makes for file-sharing is to inform music fans about easier access and low pricing that can be obtained when exchanging files. The message he is conveying for file-sharing is by criticizing the music industry and insulting producers.
The term “bedroom producer” refers to individuals who makes music within their homes, basically anywhere but a recording studio. By using that particular word, Gunderson is trying to attract artists who participate in creating their own music and distributing it online. Gunderson argues, “Artists once had to play the record companies games in order to gain access to precious time in a recording studio, today a “bedroom producer” can create a professional sounding album with a personal computer alone”. That change has occurred over the evolvement of the technology and music industry. He directly proves that artist could be successful without the interference of recording companies or a super producer who has the “magic touch”.
As Gunderson makes a strong case of how “bedroom producers” could be successful, he also argues that the “digital communism” is what keeps the heavy flow within the music industry. The way Gunderson combine the words digital and communism it catches a reader’s attention because when a person thinks of the word communism it is often thought of in a bad way. In this new age of flourishing technology, Gunderson refers to it is as “digital communism” because music has its own source of gaining control because of the radio, commercials, and videos that are introduced to the world. Before the sudden outbreak of technology, the music industry had music fans brainwashed into buying albums. Now that certain individuals have easier access to gain music, the music industry lose consumers more and more because consumers depend upon their own sources- Internet, file-sharing.
Today individuals practice file-sharing, independent producing and sales on the Internet that record company considers as illegal. Gunderson states, “They preach a new economics: the communism of simulacra, the unrestricted sharing of digital copies without originals. This new economics deterritorializes the culture industry; it threatens all industries that have gatekeepers of information. As a supporter for file-sharing, Gunderson explained how it creates both pleasure and pain. For artists who wants to break into the business those methods are useful for them, but as for artists who wants to sell albums their outlook would not be so good. Gunderson explains how people Gunderson states that communist countries centuries would not be able to withstand the usage of cheap commodities. He states that a century later those same countries became vulnerable. He provide factual evidence of how today everybody uses some “illegal” process of gaining access to music.
As I have mentioned, Gunderson used terms such as “bedroom producer” and “digital communism” to attract readers beside his intentional crowd. He provided good evidence that proved what he was arguing which supports homemade work over the record company’s. Gunderson’s purpose of writing this article is to inform individuals who have no clue as to gaining easier access to free music. The targeted audience may read this article to see does Gunderson’s argument worth to support. Overall Gunderson paper is tough to understand the meaning but looking between the lines and the large vocabulary words, his argument had a purpose. It take the words of one man to spread knowledge and Gunderson informed many on both sides of the argument.
