August 26, 2009 Just say NO to putting an end to illegal music sharing.
There are plenty of artists that would like to rollback the clock to the days prior to illegal music sharing. I have come to believe that this would be a colossal mistake. I don’t say this because I believe that illegal sharing is justified; in fact I am against the ‘attitude’ entirely. Confused yet? This post is going to bring up a pile of unanswered questions like how would one solve the conundrum of enabling yet disabling? So please just consider the philosophical argument.
To eliminate or to throttle file sharing is an assault on your rights as an artists. Moreover, to eliminate or to throttle file sharing (in my mind) is an act that would reduce competition in the marketplace.
As detestable as you may think file sharing is, eliminating it or throttling it disables your rights to compete against other choices in the marketplace on the basis of price. And trust me, with a million songs being uploaded to the Internet a year, combined with advancements in music recommendation, you (the independent artist - and as a group) want to preserve every competitive option you have available to you.
Go back and read the about the Song Adoption Formula or the update to the formula titled Where Have All The Musical Geniuses Gone.
Any law, regulation or policy that prevents you or your songs from obtaining maximum listeners, spins, frequency or socialization - with the least amount of friction (translate: no perceived barriers between consumers and your songs) reduces your ability to compete (based upon price) against major label content.
You don’t want anything that prohibits you from charging whatever you want for your songs.
You don’t want anything that slows distribution, spins (within personal devices), frequency, or socialization.
Like I said at the top of the post, this brings up a list of other problems. However I would caution you all to truly consider if you want your government to act in a way that diminishes your rights.
I am traveling today. It may be hard for me to respond to comments.
Reader Comments (18)
there is NO WAY to end illegal music sharing
there ARE ways to prosecute abusers
don't confuse the two
"However I would caution you all to truly consider if you want your government to act in a way that diminishes your rights."
Are you implying that government has some other function?
On topic, though: I was recently discussing this with some midwest "trap music" moguls and they said they'd welcome a police state reaction to unauthorized file-sharing. They view that as major labels actively spending money to help them promote. Why? Because if it's illegal to pirate/share/download major label rap, then indie labels who own their content and give it away free will be a much more appealing option.
Their opinion is that if the big players want to drop a few billion making it harder to reach major label content, that's nothing but good news for independent players who've got their shit together.
Not saying I agree but I definitely respected the thinking.
Both good points.. I am concerned about an all-or-nothing solution sanctioned by governments. Serious penalties (France and now the UK) is the equivalent to throttling.
The purpose of the post is to encourage artists to frame the debate from an alternative perspective.
There are two issues with "sharing", aside from the fact that it's illegal:
1) Making money is harder. Sure you can get out there in front of people, but if they don't pay you anything, how can you make a living? There are ways around this -- licensing, premium content, live shows, petty theft -- but, you know, wouldn't it be great if it were harder for people to get your stuff for nothing? I think it would be. Oh, and by "get your stuff" I mean exactly that, downloads. Happily, streaming is a killer way to promote your music with giving anything away. Unfortunately, "sharing" is not streaming.
2) Copyright protection. You can get all philosophical if you want, but copyrights matter, and just shrugging your shoulders as the world runs roughshod over copyrights for musicians is not the best strategy. What to do? I think the number one problem with copyright law is the approval process. Let's say you want to obtain a copyright. How do you do it? Let's say you simply want to check on a copyright? Good luck. Uncle Sam needs to computerize the copyright office NOW. Here's my proposal:
• all copyright info would be digitized and put in a database, searchable from a browser
• once you find the copyright you're after, you send the holder an email. If the holder does not get back to you within ten business days, he forfeits his legal protections with regard to you, and you can use the copyrighted material in the way you requested (but not in any other way).
• going forward, all digital music copyrights would have the equivalent of an ISCI code for easier searchability.
• um... well, that's all I can think of for now!
Jeff Shattuck
www.cerebellumblues.com
Jeff, your idea points up the need for artists to understand and use metadata. So many of the submissions I get are TRACK 1.WMA or something equally as useful.
As for your core question:
"Sure you can get out there in front of people, but if they don't pay you anything, how can you make a living?"
Well, you impress them. This is exactly like busking -- or whatever performing in public with a Donations hat in front of you is called where you're reading this. I don't expect people to pay me for my music unless they liked it. I give away music for free and I get $20 from random people via paypal anyway.
Nobody deserves to make money simply because they put a lot of effort into something. Sure, artist XYZ spent five years making his acoustic masterpiece, but who asked him to?
"You don’t want anything that prohibits you from charging whatever you want for your songs."
Not sure I understand this... You can still give your music away or tell people to pay what they like for it.
Ha ha! Good one, Bruce!
Wait. You're serious, aren't you?
This is just to good an opportunity to pass up, so I'll tackle it on my own blog. However, there is a general business principle that bears reminding here:
Price wars are wars of attrition and end badly for all parties.
"You don’t want anything that prohibits you from charging whatever you want for your songs."
I'm not sure I understand this... if you choose to give your music away, you won't be prevented from doing so. Or if you do a Radiohead 'pay what you like' scheme. So how would it prohibit you from charging what you like?
Write great songs.
Perform them amazingly.
Engage your fans online and at gigs.
You'll be alright.
@ Matt. In my attempt to be concise - coupled with reckless writing, that statement was not clear enough. The price you set (your price, the price you charge) is not the only component of price. You may be able to set your price to zero, but there are other costs associated with the acquisition of music, especially if you equate time to money. Even the burden of forcing advertisements upon people is part of the price of acquiring music (for one example). You should have the OPTION of offering (not saying you should do it - just preserve every option) the lowest price in the marketplace, and government should not be truncating that right.
@ Krzysztof - OK just leave the link to your blog post. I will visit you there. Capitalism is a war of attrition. What's your point? Cheers.
"You don’t want anything that prohibits you from charging whatever you want for your songs."
That statement could actually be used to argue the reverse. i.e. Illegal file Sharing prohibits the artists fighting for it to be banned from charging whatever they want for their songs.
Personally, I don't agree with how the fight is being fought. I believe the authorities should catch people if they can. But I don't believe in shutting down or pressuring the enablers & ISPs to get to the offenders. There's some serious lack of judgement right there.
^^It's a pretty time-honored corporate straegy to get government to do your heavy lifting for you. It definitely made it possible for BMI/ASCAP to survive. Another great parallel is the pharma industry -- if it wasn't for gov. co-operation, their profit margins would be way smaller.
Are they fascists or just good capitalists? I'll leave that to people with more time on their hands to debate. But it's definitely not poor judgement.
Premiuim content will always be sought after and paid for. Free downloading enables the end user to make informed decisions on purchasing premium content, and significantly improves the artist's mass exposure, which translates to putting butts in the seats at concerts and merch coming off the shelves. Gone are the days of picking up an album on a whim before you've even heard the music. People now have the freedom to figure out what they like quicker and re-engage faster. Information should always be freely shared.
@ Joe,
"Illegal file Sharing prohibits the artists fighting for it to be banned from charging whatever they want for their songs."
Agreed completely - it's a dilemma for sure.
Great point by justin "Nobody deserves to make money simply because they put a lot of effort into something. Sure, artist XYZ spent five years making his acoustic masterpiece, but who asked him to?"
Tips are a friendly thing. If people like you, they'll do it. Once you start the bargaining thing, it puts minds in the business mode.
Is the CD really worth $5? as opposed to "I loved the show, here's a $20. Thank you!"
"To eliminate or throttle file-sharing is an assault to (your) rights as an artist"?!?!? Are you serious?!? To eliminate the illegal file-sharing of copyrighted work PROTECTS our copyright. That's it, pure and simple. If you want to go and give away YOUR work, feel "free" to do so, but don't make my work "free" in the process. I have a right to earn a living from my music & art, just as you have the right to give away what you want for free. Nevertheless, the carefully wrought laws that cover intellectual property (IP) and copyright have been in existence for some time, and they serve to insure that those of us who spend our lives creating can earn a living from same.
If you want to know what the truth is, read my Open Letter on the "Upcoming CD" page of my website, www.leighharrison.com -- and keep in mind that since I sent it, I have now received enormous responses from artists, musicians, and organizations all over the world who agree with me, including The Copyright Alliance, ASCAP, BMI, and Release The Bats.
And -- contrary to the beliefs of some people who endorse piracy, pirating does not create a world of "consumers sticking it to the big corporations." In reality, the ones who suffer are the tiny companies, and even the huge corporations such as major movie studios are composed of thousands of people making the movies -- the people who lose out when there's no money to fund another movie are the hundreds of film editors, wardrobe girls, gaffers and computer animation people. The piracy of music, film, and other IP results in theft of income from millions of other creative people who are also consumers, struggling to earn an income, just like you and me.
Piracy is theft. if you want to give your work away, that's your choice -- but please don't foist your desire to "file-share" on the rest of us.
"The piracy of music, film, and other IP results in theft of income from millions of other creative people who are also consumers, struggling to earn an income, just like you and me."
Is there really any evidence from that? Most of the music I've pirated, I was never going to buy. I download albums to check new artists out -- most of them aren't what I'm into. Their album gets deleted from my hard drive and that's the end of our relationship.
If I didn't have access to that album for free, I simply never would have listened to the artist.
Also, you seem to be doing something very common in our cuture -- reification. This is confusing a concept for an actual, concrete reality. Laws on paper don't "insure" anything. Prohibitions against murder and marijuana have done nothing to abolish either.
"To eliminate the illegal file-sharing of copyrighted work PROTECTS our copyright. That's it, pure and simple."
This is the same straw man that Bruce's original article invoked, though: re-write that sentence so it's about murder instead of file-sharing and you'll get a sense of how absurd it sounds to me when either one of you talks about "putting an end to illegal music sharing." That's not a realistic goal or a realistic worry.
Finally: you really don't have any inherent "rights" to earn a living from your work. You need to work for that. Trying to legislate or argue illegal filesharing out of the picture is on par with getting more of the world's 6 billion inhabitants to speak English and like whatever genre you're working in.
The real world constraints that artists have to deal with are concrete. The same technologies that make digital album sales and iTunes income possible is the exact same technologies that enable illegal file-sharing.
Smart artists and labels have much more realistic, grounded concerns than this. I think that's reflected in the fact the only band you could evoke in your support is an obscure West Coast goth outfit. Of course The Copyright Alliance, ASCAP and BMI agree with you, that's their job.