A Quote by Dan Smith

When we started making mixtapes, we were just ripping stuff off YouTube and DVDs, naively thinking that because we were putting it up for free, it was gonna be fine. — © Dan Smith
When we started making mixtapes, we were just ripping stuff off YouTube and DVDs, naively thinking that because we were putting it up for free, it was gonna be fine.
The fact is I look at what's happening to this country, I look at the way China is just ripping us off, I look at OPEC the way they are ripping us off with the oil prices. I mean, people are gonna be paying six and seven dollars a gallon for gasoline very, very soon; and you're gonna be up to $150 a barrel; and they wouldn't even be there if it weren't for us.
I remember the moment in which we were taken hostage in Libya, and we were asked to lie face down on the ground, and they started putting our arms behind our backs and started tying us up. And we were each begging for our lives because they were deciding whether to execute us, and they had guns to our heads.
I remember when I first started putting things on the web and people were writing about it. I totally didn't keep up with what was going on because I wanted to present stuff in museums and galleries and have some presence on the web. I feel fortunate to have posted stuff in the beginning.
I loved it. I just thought I wanted to stay in college forever. I came to New York all by myself; I didn't have any friends there. But it was fine. I felt comfortable. I started thinking, 'Maybe graduate school?' I was really cool with people who were smart, who knew stuff. It's very romantic and stimulating.
We filed suit against YouTube before the Google purchase. At the time I went after YouTube, I thought it was a small company ripping off our copyrights.
What a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind; ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were free when they were cast out of their homes—free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger.
Swishahouse, it started off as just a crew making mixtapes and that's when I got down with it back in like 1998. It wasn't a record label at first. It was all just for promotion, for fun, and we just had a crew representin' for our hood.
When you're just making something in your room, you're not thinking that this box with a screen is gonna make you famous. You don't think you're putting yourself out there, because you don't see it on the other side.
I think the Internet has developed at this incredibly rapid pace because of net neutrality, because of the free nature of it, because a YouTube can start the way YouTube started.
But I think it shortsells any idea when you say there's a similar part to something else, like 'aw man, 'The Avengers' is ripping off 'Batman.' You've got people running around in outfits.' Of course, there are outfitted people and there's superhero stuff, but it's not just ripping off 'Batman.'
I think that we're gonna start seeing more and more people who started as a YouTube personality and now have their own studio, and they're gonna start creating things: story-driven stuff, longer-form stuff that people have an opportunity to enjoy.
I started off dancing and playing sports, and I joined the drama stuff, the theatre stuff in middle school because my friends were involved, and it was kind of the cool thing to do.
My whole career began because I was always putting my music on the Internet. By the time I had my first tour, I had an audience everywhere I went, because people were listening online. I started with a website, Jasonmraz.com, pre-YouTube. You could e-mail me directly, and I would send you a CD.
I think David Yates was just like, "You've got on with it for a few years, I'm gonna let you off the hook." And also, I think it's because the action side of stuff that we were doing, it was going to be very difficult to do all that with all the prosthetics on. It was gonna be hard work, and I think they just said, "You know what?" I think they put a level of trust in me, as well. They said, "You know, we're gonna let Neville Longbottom lose the fat suit, lose the teeth, lose the Adolf Hitler hair."
My question is, if you think this stuff is fake news, why watch it? There's no value in it. Unless you're entertained by it and you have boundaries and the stuff's not gonna affect your mood, fine and dandy. But if it's gonna frustrate you, make you mad, you're not missing anything turning it off.
Units were coming to combat with DCGS because it was their tool kit, so to speak, but they basically had it boxed up and parked in a corner. They were using off-the-shelf stuff they were having to buy prior to coming into the theater.
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