Why the Record Industry Doesn't Stand a Chance

Newhouse News Service ^ | Aug. 19, 2003 | JAMES LILEKS

[new cruelty]

Forget Napster. The newest place to steal -- sorry, "share" -- copyrighted materials is Earthstation 5. They claim 22 million downloads of their software, offer digital copies of movies still in the theaters, and boast that no one will be able to shut them down. They may have a point.

They're located in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank.

You can imagine the discussions in the Recording Industry Association of America's legal office: "You serve them with papers." "No, YOU serve them." (Pause) "OK, we'll send an intern."

Earthstation illustrates the problem the record industry faces: It's a big planet, it's wired together, and it's filled to the gunwales with pirates.

You've heard of Napster? So 2001. Now there's Kazaa. Now there's Grokster, whose corporate location in the West Indies just screams, "Come and get me, copper!" There's Blubster, another music-swapping program provided by a company in Spain. The day there are two servers in Greenland, the second will be devoted to letting 20-somethings in a Vilnius dorm room download Metallica songs.

The recording industry hasn't just lost control of its product; the product itself has lost its reason for being. The CD is as dead as the album, and for the same reason: Most bands have one or two good songs, a couple of so-so numbers and a half-dozen tracks of dreck you'll never hear again. We all know what CDs cost -- you can get a hundred blanks for a sawbuck. So why does the disc cost almost 20 bucks? Well, there's the cover art, the distribution, the advance to the artist, the cost of catering a five-week recording session for a band made up of ultra-vegans who eat only imported Irish loam, and of course the all-important $19.99 PROFIT.

You can't begrudge them a profit, of course. It would be nice if it trickled down to the average recording artist as well, but let's not be silly dreamers here. What really plagues the industry is an antiquated business model that requires putting out 10 tons of overpriced junk in the hopes that 3 ounces will make 11 tons of money.

But no one wants albums anymore. They want songs.

Unfortunately, they want them for free, and that's where the RIAA steps in -- with hobnailed boots. They've threatened file-sharers with huge fines for each download, meaning that kids with 30 gigs of "shared" music could face fines equal to the gross domestic product of sub-Saharan Africa.

The downloaders insist they have the moral high ground; they'll complain about the cost of the product, the unjust contracts musicians sign, the shoddy treatment the industry gave Blind Willie Simon in 1937, etc. They'll sniff that the musicians should give away the product and make their money touring, which is akin to saying restaurants should give away food and make their money selling souvenir forks. They'll craft shaky analogies to libraries -- as if the public library lets you take a book, make a perfect copy, and give it away to 4,982 people.

It's all a justification for the Internet's eternal problem: No one wants to pay for anything unless that something is nekkid women. And even then they'll complain about the price.

So what's the solution? Congressional hearings, of course. That'll fix everything! The creepily named Senate Government Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will soon hold hearings on the RIAA's dilemma.

But get this: The subcommittee's chairman thinks the RIAA is being "excessive." And he's a Republican -- Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota solon who admits to having used Napster himself.

Coleman has a point; copyright laws permit fines up to $150K per tune. There's no sense in suing some kid eleventy million bucks for file-swapping songs. On the other hand, no one is going to stop stealing music unless he's scared of being arrested, sent to jail and forced to share a cell with a smelly old hippie who sings Mungo Jerry songs all night.

But there will never be enough arrests or convictions to stop the hard-core downloaders; there will never be a technological fix that someone won't find a way around. Copyright violations will cease when enough people decide they're morally wrong, when the old explanation -- "But Ma, even senators do it!" -- doesn't feel right. When the Internet is governed by reason, decency and conscience.

Never, in other words. See you in Jenin.

[waverna]

except the companies can't come and lock you up!

[general_re]

Yeah, but we're past all that now, or we will be soon. Not quite as much business as there used to be for the whale-oil people these days - what a shame they didn't think to run to Congress and buy some laws to guarantee their continued dominance of the fuel business ;)

[discostu]

Shhh, don't give them any ideas.

[Revolting cat!]

Just this week I downloaded a copyrighted recording that I couldn't find in 4 record stores I visited last weekend (I ain't lying!) and then, if I had found it, I would have had to pay around $15 for an entire album of crap. I burned it on a CD and sent it to a friend overseas. That makes me a thief, doesn't it? Is Reverend Jim Bakker still taking confessions?

[pepsi_junkie]

If it wasn't for royal patronage (much more brutal than the RIAA could ever hope to be) Mozart WOULDN'T have become a world-renowned composer.

Hmmmm. Good. Finally something for the National Endowment For the Arts to do.

[discostu]

We'll see, I'm not buying that some massive revolution is coming. This thing looks to me like the new economy all over again. A lot of smoke and mirrors but in the end I think the record industry will remain basically the same. I have no problem with the RIAA going after copyright violators, I have problems with some of the changes in copyright law they push for, but at it's base I think the concept of copyright is good and deserves protection (from both sides).

IMHO the biggest change that will (and already is with iTunes) come out of this is the rebirth of the single. The CD boom really killed the single and the CD-single always sucked and nobody really likes them, but apparently the market never disappeared only the way to satisfy the market. iTunes seems to be the solution to that, The Stones seem to think so, you can criticize the Stones for a lot musically but never doubt their ability to make a buck.

[discostu]

Ugh, what a poorly run organization. I do think the government should support the arts, if for no other reason than the history of governments that stop supporting the arts tends to be pretty bad. But the way the NEA does things is so stupid.

[eno_]

It may kill recorded music. More accurately, it will kill the current system of providing recorded music. Is that good, or bad? Recorded music killed live music. Was music better, or worse, when it was delivered live? Unlike the Vth, which protects real property, the patent and copyright clause provides only temporary protection for the purpose of expanding the number of works in the public domain. It is anti-Constitutional to protect works in perpetuity, or to otherwise thwart the process of adding to the public domain. If current laws are a perversion of that intent, they are neither legitimate nor are they likely to actually meet the stated goals of the patent and copyright clause. In this case, the modern notion that music == recorded music, that intellectual property == real property, and that ownership should be perpetual (but not taxed like real property) is all very foriegn to original intent. Saying that music downloads are like theft of a physical object is, in that context, dubious.

[tullycraft]

There are a million and one ways for people to share music. p2p apps are only part of it. there are now 20 and 40 gig mp3 players on the market now. The hard drives will only get bigger. You can fit about 10 albums of high quality mp3s on one gig.

If they shut down the p2p apps, people will simply 'share' music via mp3 players and other portable electronic devices, and the internet never needs to enter the picture. Private, local wireless networks are also another potential avenue for file-sharing.

I don't know what will happen to the music industry, or any industry based on selling intellectual property -- books, software, movies, etc. Whether or not you think it's stealing is really not an issue. Technology may very well make these industries obsolete.

People made music before the phenomenon of mega-hit bands who could generate billions of dollars in sales came into existence. There are bands with small, devoted followings who don't make much money. Thousands of them, in fact. And lots of them produce good music.

I do buy the cds of bands I like. I've spent more money on CDs in the last two years than in the five years prior to that. I've also greatly expanded my musical tastes by discovering new music via file-sharing. Maybe I'm just a relic of a fast-dying age, but I do like to own CDs of my favorite bands... this has translated into several hundreds of dollars in music purchases over the last 12 months.

[tiamat]

xzins wrote:

Recording theft will kill music, not just music companies.

***************************************************

Sorry, FRiend, I can't agree.

People will sing no matter what.
And play, and dance and stomp their feet and clap their hands simply for the joy of it if for nothing else.

Even people like me, and I can't carry a tune if it comes in a bucket! LOL!

It's how we're made.

Tia

[Revolting cat!]

In the meantime, and totally below radar, Commercial recording studios going the way of the 8-track. Who's crying crocodile tears about the studio owners' and employees' children going barefoot, or do we only respond to manipulations of professional PR men paid to place articles about RIAA laments?

The paradigms are changing and the RIAA may just be going the way of the silent movies. They oughta get with the program and start investing in a futuristic technology like, oh say, Smellorama!

[varon]

You can imagine the discussions in the Recording Industry Association of America's legal office: "You serve them with papers." "No, YOU serve them." (Pause) "OK, we'll send an intern."

LOL

[general_re]

Oh, sure, the record companies could take heed of the way the winds are shifting and adapt to the changing circumstances, but so far they haven't really betrayed the sort of intelligence that this would imply. So instead, the record companies might rediscover the fact that intellectual property is an entirely artifical notion, that only exists because society agrees that it should exist, and exists in whatever form society says it should exist - and if they continue the way they have been, eventually nobody in the audience will believe in the concept of copyrighted music at all. And then it will stop existing. But either way, I don't believe for a minute that this means the end of music.

Bye bye Mr. Industry Guy,
Drove my Napster to disaster but the CD's were fried,
And good old boys were thinkin' "freebies for I",
And singin' "this'll be the day that they die"...

With apologies to Don McLean... ;)

[George W. Bush]

Recording theft will kill music, not just music companies.

No, it won't. I'll be a little arrogant and tell you why.

Real writers don't write for money. They write because they must write. Real musicians do not write or play for money. They do it because they must. The same goes for all the arts. This is how they were created.

Music cannot and will not be killed as any result of how producing it is compensated. It simply cannot happen. I'm suggesting you don't understand the artistic urge very well.

Besides, protecting the outdated business model of an industry that exists by sucking vast sums of money from entertainment that glorifies copkilling, rape, defying parents, using drugs, sluttery, illegitimacy, etc. while giving the artists almost nothing but the right to make money from touring shouldn't really head the list on the conservative agenda.

But then, you should understand that I consider the modern music industry and Hollyweird to be so despicable that I will advocate destroying them by destroying their revenue streams by almost any means possible. And I keep in mind how the movie stars and rock stars like to spew the Left's line at gullible young minds. And how much money they spend on the Dim political machine.

BTW, I do hand out free advice and suggestions on just how to do these things for those who don't know already. I help lots of people with info on this. I consider it my duty as a conservative to deprive the Hollyweird/media machine of revenues and to make sure that people who do this stuff are more able to avoid being detected or prosecuted for it.

[quebecois]

I'm am somewhat conflicted over file sharing. While I understand the industry's complaints, I have a hard time feeling sorry for them.

They have spent the last few decades getting fabulously rich making music that has no other redeeming value than the fact that it mocks traditional values, attracts clueless teens to buy it, and corrupts them in the process.

Also, most of the folks in the music and film industries are raving liberals/socialists. I remember during Hillary's health care insurance scheme debate, numerous film and recording stars were supporting her (and the industries overwhelmingly donated support to the Clinton's). Now, as a physician, I'm offended by the fact that these folks seem to think that its OK for the govt to steal the product of my labor, but its an outrageous violation of intellectual property rights for teens to swap MP3s.

I think that file sharing may well destroy the recording and movie industries as we know them. But I'll mostly say "good riddance". They have corrupted american youth and mocked our nation's cultural and moral values for a long long time. I think that america was better off before the advent of modern youth culture and will be better off after its gone.

[discostu]

I don't think it would mean the end of music, but I do think it would seriously reduce the level of music in our lives. Live music is great but the simple fact is the reason our lives have a soundtrack (which they do) is because of copyright and mass distribution through centralized channels. If copyright falls apart that era will end. Of course eventually ALL eras end, that's how eras work. I'd just rather not be the generation that ushered in that particular end.

Oop, time to change CDs.

[xzins]

Some of it is anyway.

[xzins]

my point is the commandment about theft.

I guess real carpenters will feel compelled to build. That doesn't mean an employer should cheat them out of their fees.

[George W. Bush]

If copyright falls apart that era will end. Of course eventually ALL eras end, that's how eras work. I'd just rather not be the generation that ushered in that particular end.

You mean gangsta rap will die? This is a bad thing?

Maybe disco or punk will make a comeback then. Well, one form of nasty music from anti-American Lefties is enough to kill at a time...