Protect the Art & the Artiste

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By Mayborn Lyngdoh R

Music is one of the most beautiful art forms. Music is pure, unique, unabashed and untainted until the past generations.

Music metamorphoses and originality is quickly diminishing.

However, musicians are still clinging on to dear hope, and that last thread of an artist’s string.

In the last year, I have vehemently spoken against cover artistes who are too comfortable working on someone else’s sweat and blood to make money, rather than working on one’s originality.

We all have role models and singing tribute songs are well-appreciated.

I thought cover artistes are degrading art and its beauty, particularly those who borrow tracks and sing to them to make money.

Ironically, the worst is here. We now have third-class reactors in the market who do not know how to dissect art productively with their constructive contributions; they are quick baiting praising wolves.

Zero inputs!

It’s insulting to see third-class crows, being praised for reacting, and legit artistes who work day in day out perfecting the art for years, being ignored.

Their job is to play the video, particularly music videos and praise like possessed madmen, while sometimes mock like a thirsty crow.

They talk about helping the artistes, the locals in particular, and make money out of someone else’s investment. It takes years to perfect and present the art conceived, on top of that the money invested. For some, they do not recover the amount.

And out of nowhere, reactors come into the picture, play the video on top of one’s video, react horribly and make a ton of money for doing absolutely nothing and looking stupid.

What kind of market are we creating for our artistes? We are choking them.

This pricks me like a thorn, as this is the biggest insult to art.

People need to wake up and choke these wolves who have zero productive inputs.

It’s also a shame that the artistes’ fame, reputation and ingenuity are controlled by reaction videos of artistic mockery.

Like genuine cover songs, the genuine reaction is also important to help the art and the artiste's progress.

Honest constructive criticism is the fuel that runs the train of the art forward. Music, dance and song cannot grow in isolation.

There is a great need for a collaborative workforce. There is beauty in the truth, a facade will not sustain for too long. Open the doors of productive and honest inputs. Help art by giving to art and not just stealing from it.

Meghalaya’s demographic is barely thirty lakh. If we’re not honest, we’ll exhaust ourselves of our potential.

Solution:

I request all local artistes to register for copyright. It’ll barely cost Rs. 2,000-3,000. The advantage of copyrighted work is that it does not matter who uses your work, be it illegally uploading your video onto Youtube, or reacting to your video on Youtube, all the traffic will be generated to you, and your account.

Artistes, irrespective of differences, must work together on this one thing. Eventually, it’s you or them. They must perish to make way for art.

With extreme cases, you can file for copyright infringement and claim Rs. 1.5 lakh (minimum) for damages.

TO ART AND FOR ART!!!

(Disclaimer: The views and opinion expressed by the author and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of TNT-The Northeast Today)

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