Complaining about the inevitable

Nate Anderson of Ars Technica collected a bunch of responses from copyright owners over the last 100 years about new technology (photocopiers, record players, mp3s, VCRs, etc.) that would ruin their livelihoods and/or culture. Here’s John Philip Sousa on the gramophone and player piano:

Under such conditions, the tide of amateurism cannot but recede until there will be left only the mechanical device and the professional executant. Singing will no longer be a fine accomplishment; vocal exercises so important a factor in the curriculum of physical culture will be out of vogue. Then what of the national throat? Will it not weaken? What of the national chest? Will it not shrink?

• copyright
• John Philip Sousa
• Nate Anderson