Move Fast and Break Things by Jonathan Taplin review – the damage done by Silicon Valley

Taplin's starting point is the music of Levon Helm and the Band, but the fight against the spoiled brats of Google, Amazon and Facebook is much bigger

In 2012, Jonathan Taplin took part in a public debate with Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, about what the digital economy was doing to the creative arts. Taplin, who had once been manager of the Band, and was the producer of Martin Scorsese's magnificent film of their farewell concert The Last Waltz, had a particular grievance about the fate of his friend Levon Helm, the Band's drummer. Helm was suffering from cancer, but had been forced back on the road at the age of 70 to help pay his medical bills because the new culture of "free music and movies" had destroyed his income as a recording artist. Ohanian, clearly a little chastened by this tale, wrote to Taplin offering to help "make right what the music industry did to members of the Band". He suggested a reunion concert or album, funded by kickstarter, and launched on Reddit.

Taplin's reply, which he reprints here in all its eviscerating glory, points out that this plan won't work because in the meantime Helm has died. Moreover, he tells Ohanian, "It wasn't the music industry that created Levon's plight; it was people like you." He concludes: "You are so clueless as to offer to get the Band back together for a charity concert, unaware that three of the five members are dead. Take your charity and shove it. Just let us get paid for our work and stop deciding that you can unilaterally make it free." Ohanian, unsurprisingly, did not respond.