Ben Swank.
As
Steve reported yesterday, Jack White and his cronies over at Third Man recently stirred up a moderate serving of Net-troversy when they opted to begin auctioning some of their own releases on eBay. This, of course, angered some of Third Man's Vault members — 3M's innermost circle of mega-fans — who cried "fan exploitation." Mr. White's online response was swift and stern, but now Third Man honcho and local man-about-town Ben Swank has issued his own response, which comes in the form of
a Guardian UK op-ed. In it, Swank makes no bones about being a capitalist, practicing capitalism in an industry noted for its constant struggle "to stay afloat," and still attempting to give the people what they want. The long and short of it:
But charity donation or not, why can't a business hawk its own wares on auction sites? I'd argue that the record industry is in trouble, and anything we can do to stay afloat should be condoned. If there are people out there willing to pay for the item, and there certainly are, then why not provide it to them directly and cut the "flipper" out of the picture? The artist and label put the work into the release, so they should profit from it. ... We're going to continue [auctioning our own releases on eBay]. We're also going to continue all the contests, giveaways, pop-up shops, random mail orders, subscription services and manufacturing of insane new vinyl products and any other ridiculous idea that strikes our fancy.
So, you see, some might call Third Man the proverbial Hand. The Hand feeds the starving masses — or rather, the relative masses who (in this instance) have very specific tastes. Some of these audiophile devourers bite the proverbial Hand, intercepting these sonic morsels and serving as very unofficial middlemen — they jack up prices and,
as DMX might say, they "snatch the plate." Yes, that's capitalism. But so is reclaiming control of your own wares — although, some might argue that moving away from the limited-number, mega-exclusive-release model could curb the whole "fighting over morsels" problem to begin with. Anyway, what is Third Man doing in all of this? They're snatching the plate back. I'm telling you guys, there's a DMX lyric for every issue in life — especially when it comes to capitalism.
