Pitchfork: The Social History of the MP3 →
I give you “Music Rules,” a set of printable worksheets for teachers, who most certainly don’t need more externally-sanctioned frameworks telling them how to teach, let alone one that draws on a pedagogy built to create unthinking allegiance to an illogical law. Here’s an actual excerpt— this isn’t a joke— that draws on Cold War fear-mongering and a strategically-chosen new word (“songlifting”) for its rhetorical effect:
“Now find out if songlifting is a real problem in your community. Use this chart to interview family members and friends about where they get their music. Bring your findings back to class and combine them with those of your classmates. Use your data to figure out how much songlifting occurs among the people you know. See for yourself by completing the calculation below.”
I really do like the word “songlifting”, even if the semanticist in me has misgivings about how accurate the analogy between “shoplifting” and “songlifting” is: [insert theft/piracy distinction argument; note lack of a shop in songlifting; note the predicate rewrites the victim and context of shoplifting with an object type thus equating victim/crime and object]. Also one can shoplift anything and talk about it normally, but it’s funny saying things like “He songlifted five songs” or “What songs did you songlift?” or “the songs she songlifted…”.
