How does WMG expect to make money off music no one is hearing?

Recently I've become addicted to YouTube. I recently found that I can watch gay story lines from TV shows and movies from around the world. I need this. I've been watching straight romantic story lines all my life but being a gay man something is always missing. I don't mind it really. I mean if there were no straight people there would be no people, so I'm not one of those people who seems to think gay is better and everyone should have to have gay representation. I do think gay people have money and if you want that money you should represent them. After all money from gay people is still money. Spends exactly the same, and whether you accept gay people, appreciate them, or just tolerate them, if you have a business it make sense to be inclusive rather than exclusive.

But still, I need this. I need to see people like me fall in love, move in together, have commitment ceremonies, have children through a surrogate or adoption, or even fostering. I need to see people like me have careers, friends, and family. I need it because we all need things we can relate to. It's just different watching it all happen to a straight couple.

So I've been enjoying watching a lot of clips on YouTube. Unfortunately I keep running into this "This video contains content from WMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds" This, is Warner Music Group finding some song that belongs to them in a clip on YouTube and blocking it because they haven't gotten money for it from YouTube, or the uploader. Now I know how copyright works. It doesn't matter if there are 1,000 videos with the same song in them out there. As long as you block 1 you're showing you are protecting your content, and therefore if someone uses it to make money you can go after them. If you don't make at least one show of trying to protect your content, litigation will fail. The offender can say "well look at all these infractions and you've never gone after one of them, why am I so special." and actually get off.

Now, my assumption is that because YouTube is advertiser supported that they are making an argument that YouTube/Google is actually making money off their content. Not a bad argument, splitting hairs really. They could be going after something more substantial, but YouTube is easily assessable. Question is who would watch a clip over and over to avoid buying a song when you can get it off iTunes for a dollar.

This is where I have a problem with their strategy. They want to get money from YouTube every time that video with their song is played, and Google is probably saying we don't make money off it every time, why should you?

Like I said I've been spending a lot of time watching these videos on YouTube the past couple months. I've also found in these videos a lot of music I would not have otherwise heard. I don't go to clubs, I don't watch TV, I don't listen to the radio (I used to listen in the car but then every day on the way to work, they would play that Enya song from Lord of the Rings Return of the King, and I would have to fight to stay awake. Enya to me is like Valium. I think the station thought that it would reduce road rage, but millions of people all fighting to stay awake at the same time while driving, to me, doesn't decrease traffic accidents) and after working in a video store for 13 years, I don't watch many movies any more. So except for the few TV shows I do watch, and videos on YouTube, where am I going to come across this music they are trying to sell?

There you go. I've spent over $90 in the past 2 months downloading music off iTunes. Mainly music I've heard in these video clips. So since I've seen at least a hundred of these "This video contains content from WMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds" I guess Warner Music Group has been the only music seller that hasn't benefited from my new obsession. WTG WMG! How do you think you're going to sell music no one is hearing? I mean I get it. I remember the golden days of Napster. But guess what? Now I'm paying for it and you are missing out. Enjoy!

I love iTunes btw! I cannot tell you how many times in my 41 years I've bought a whole album for one song. I cannot tell you how many times I felt so ripped off, because I heard one great song on the radio, bought the album (vinyl, cassette, CD and some times multiple times when I did like most of the album because I bought the vinyl but then no longer have a record player, so I bought the cassette, or I have the cassette but why not have it on CD, or I bought the CD and can't find it so why not buy it off iTunes) only to listen to it and find I like that 1 song and that's it. Oh and here is my favorite. You hear a song by the original artist in a movie, so you buy the soundtrack and it actually has a different version of the song that was in the movie. Now if I like that one song I can preview the other songs and if only that one song is floating my boat, I only have to buy that one song. Fantastic! Thank you iTunes!

The Talk with your gay son

I've tried to find this everywhere and I'm suprised the video is so hard to find. Having "The Talk" with your kids is hard enough, but being a straight parent talking about sex to your gay son or daughter must be even more difficult. One of the sweetest father/gay son relationships on TV is Bert and Kurt Hummel. Manly, Stoic, Bert Hummel, sometimes doesn't know how to talk to his gay son, but he's nothing but supportive to him and always willing to fight for him. This is the relationship most gay men wish they'd have with our fathers. We don't expect, "Yay! You're gay!" but we do hope that the example of the adult male in our lives, loves, supports, accepts us and never stops trying raise us to be a good man, even if it's a good gay man.

So when Burt (at Blane's suggestion) sits down to give Kurt "The Talk" I wasn't disappointed. Kurt and Burt have The Talk

While not wanting to delve into the specifics of gay sex, Bert basically says to Kurt, you matter to me, and my hope is you matter to you. I must have watched that scene a hundred times. I wished I'd had someone to say the same thing to me.

The first time I had sex was 2 weeks before my 16th birthday. I'd fooled around before then but this was my actual first time. He was tall and blond, sweet and charming, and I thought I was falling in love with him. What I didn't know was that he was a jerk who was just trying to use me for sex. That would have been okay with me, if he'd not acted otherwise before we had sex. Afterward he acted kind of jerky, told me not to fall in love with him, and that he would probably dump me in a couple of weeks. He did.

See there are those people who can have one-night stands and enjoy them. I envy those people, but at the same time feel sorry for them. Sometimes it's so empty. It's like Miss Celie says in The Color Purple, "It's like he's going to the bathroom on me." It was years after I saw that film that I got that. See I tried the one night stands with random strangers, and I always felt so empty afterward. It took until I was in my 30s to realize why. See we grow up only seeing the most out there portion of the gay community and that's what we see gay people in that community do. Random sex with Random strangers. Like trying to fulfill a sexual bucket list. Don't get me wrong, straight people do it as well, but they have examples all over the place of a different way to live. Gay people, especially when I was growing up, did not. We only had the one. (Well two if you consider staying in the closet and living a lie.)

So in my 30s I had sex with a friend, it was only a couple times and it was great, and we remained friends. We didn't fall in love, sex didn't complicate our relationship. We were friends who had a flirtation going that proceeded to it's logical conclusion. It was the first time I'd had what I considered great sex. It was then that I realized what was missing. The emotional component. I loved him, as a friend, but I wasn't "in love" with him. The difference is I cared about him and he cared about me, and for once I'd had a random sexual encounter and didn't feel empty afterward. I was 30 years old and just realizing this.

See the idea as I was taught it was that men have sex for the sake of having sex and women for love, and I am a man. So I should be able to enjoy random sex. The difference in me is that I have to feel something for the person I'm having sex with. Not convincing myself I was in love with that person, or on the other hand wanting a house, a picket fence, a dog, a cat, and 2.5 kids with them either. I just have to give a shit about them, and know they give a shit about me.

My hope is that someone will watch Kurt and Bert's "Talk" with their teenage son and say "Couldn't have said it better myself! I love you! Here's your pamphlets! Don't stop there though, there is a lot of information on the internet that most gay men don't have about gay sex but should!"

That was another thing I didn't learn until my 30s, and Brokeback Mountain didn't help with that either. Guys (straight and gay) the spit and stick it in method is dangerous. I know a lot of straight guys want to do anal with their girl friends, but please! learn a bit about it and she may even let you do it twice. If you hurt her, guess what? It's a one time deal.

On a related topic, and this is something I just have to say. There is nothing worse when a gay guy tells his straight friend (or potential friend) he's gay than for him to react with "I'm not gay!" like he's just been told he has cancer and is in denial. I can't tell you how many times I've been having a great conversation with a guy I either know or am pretty sure is straight, and the conversation inevitably comes around to the question, "So, you got a girlfriend? So, Are you Married?" etc etc. This is usually the time when as a gay man, you feel that honesty is the best policy, and you reply, "Nope, I'm gay." Now maybe it would have been better to reply, "Nope, I'm gay, and looking so if you have any friends ..." or "Nope, I'm gay, and if you happen to have any gay brothers at home that are as easy to talk to as you ..." or something like that but the other guy usually comes back with an almost shrill, fight or flight reaction, "I'M NOT GAY!" Which feels kind of like you would imagine being shat upon feels.

Now maybe he thinks at that moment, that since I'm gay and I'm having a good time with him, I thought it was something more than it was. I don't know cause he's never told me. I usually come back with "Yeah, I assumed." "or Yeah, considering I just met your wife ..." or "Yeah since you've been talking about your girlfriend for the past half hour ...", and unless he redeems himself rather quickly, I walk off. See it's isolating enough when you're gay having male friends, but when you're starting to get to know someone and they've already treated you like you're something they stepped in, you tend not to want to stick around. Just sayin'.

The essence of what I want in that moment, can best be explained by a scene in the movie, As Good As it Gets. The scene is with Greg Kinnear and Jack Nicholson, who though out the movie have developed a weird little friendship. Greg Kinnear is gay and Jack Nicholson is obviously older, and OCD, and not really that great with people in the first place, so having any friends, much less a gay friend is unusual for Jack's character. They have this scene where Jack says something that makes Greg laugh and then Greg says "I love you." Now he isn't saying, "I love you I want to be your boyfriend," or "I love you, let's have sex." He's just saying I love you as a person, as a friend. Jack's response, hit me to the core, and it's the kind of reaction I would hope to get from a straight friend "If that did it for me, I'd be the luckiest guy in the world." Now I find it so funny that as many times in my life that I've witnesses some straight guy ruin that moment, that Jack Nicholson's socially inept character gives the perfect response.

You have to understand I've had a few straight guy friends, who I cared about a lot, who've treated me more like their girlfriend than they have their girlfriend. Opening doors for me, buying me stuff, hugging me a lot, touching me a lot, I even had one that was much taller than me, who would pick me up in a hug, twirl me around, put his face up to mine so our foreheads were touching while smiling broadly. It made me really happy, until he did it one time in front of his girlfriend and her best friend and I saw their reaction. Their faces said that they thought we were a lot closer than they were admitting.

Then things got complicated and rather confusing for me. I loved the guy but didn't think I stood a chance but it became obvious in that moment that his girlfriend did, and her best friend saw it as well. It also didn't help that he broke up with her shortly after that. We aren't friends any more. I wish we were but I, at the time, couldn't just be happy with being his friend. I'd felt more and I couldn't convince myself he didn't want more as well. Who knows where we would be today if I'd just been able to accept the relationship for what it was and been happy with that. I was 19 at the time, felt lonely, wanted a boyfriend, and didn't feel like I had many options. If he hadn't acted like he was one, even though he'd said the opposite, it would have been so easy to do. That's not what happened though. Maybe some how we can find a way for straight guys and gay guys to be friends without the confusion.