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.

[Petronski]

Recording theft will kill music, not just music companies.

After all, there was no music before the RIAA.

[lelio]

Take out step one and two and ask yourself how likely it is that step 3 will take place.

Step 3 will more likely take place as:
a) the band is more hungry to tour as that's how they get their money
b) they can charge more for a ticket as the concert goers didn't spend $15 on the CD
c) more people will hear the song as its being actively traded

People don't go to concerts as they look at album sales and say "once it reaches 1M in sales I'm so there"
Now an argument can be made that since the band / label didn't get the money from the CD they're not in a position to fund an expensive tour.

The way I see it the world's going to move towards iTunes and the freely downloadable music by artists that are looking to break into the business.

[Voltage]

Music is already dead.

Nothing decent has been written since Rakhmanonov died in 1943, although a lot of 'people' do seem to like 'Kill the Pigs' by some sad rap group.

[StriperSniper]

Does anybody 'know someone' who has used this?

[xzins]

Pirating music means that they get ZERO money for their efforts.

You can't live on love for long. They'll probably work at UPS, raise kids, and play locally. Because they'll never get nationally known.

[myself6]

Music can’t be killed but the companies can.

...And that is a good thing!


We kill the music industry, and we wipe out a HUGE contributor to the socialist democrats in this country. We also wipe out a huge negative influence on popular culture. We minimize people like Madonna, Sheryl crow, etc by wiping out the music industry. After that is accomplished we can wipe the floor with the movie industry. This would be a good thing for the same reasons.

The left continues its stranglehold on the popular culture because of the media. So we either control the media or we decimate it, and thus defund the socialists.

What’s more important, the constitution or Star Wars part 6 that’s really part 3?

[Jumper]

Economic warfare by those who act as terrorists may have "further" sealed their fate. Image how betrayed the leftisits and liberal newsrooms across the Country (including Hollywood) after their complete sellout to support any anti-American Socialist cause.... And now they attack America's Media:)

:) - just can't quit smiling about this:)

[Petronski]

Pirating music means that they get ZERO money for their efforts.

Because income from recordings is the only income they receive, right?

[Revolting cat!]

Oh no! Save the music! There woulda been no Mozart without the RIAA. Bach, Beethoven? Fogettaboutit! Save the whales, save the RIAA!

(Save the propagandists who persuade the gullible sheep that downloading a bunch of zero and one bits is "theft"!)

[BlazingArizona]

Recording theft will kill music, not just music companies.

The success of Apple Music Store proves that consumers who download are primarily motivated by convenience, not theft. Apple's $1 somgs are "outselling" those free amateur rips. "Free" music bears a high price in the number of fake and virus-filled files distributed by P2P apps that cram your system with spyware.

[Age of Reason]

I wish I could record a days work and then sell it over and over again whenever someone needs a job done.

Now those who sing for a living will not be able to do it either.

I console myself with the knowledge that the more money artists make, the worse their art becomes.

Now maybe we'll start to see some good music for a change.

[general_re]

Ludwig sez "If it wasn't for the RIAA, I never would have become a world-renowned composer!"

[discostu]

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.

[general_re]

Even Michelangelo had a day job. What can I say? Lots of rich and vain people out there who sponsor other art forms these days - why not music?

[.cnI redruM]

I think the internet will give the world a choice. Either

a) We can have a 'virtual world' and put anything we want out there online. or

b) We can have realistically enforceable intellectual property rights.

I wouldn't be shocked if the legal community were to basically surrender in the attempt to enforce intellectual property because of the legal difficulties in enforcing what travels over the internet.

Very few countries are able to completely control what goes online. Ours will never be either unless we completely changed what we defined as property or what we defined as speech. One or the other will eventually have to be limited.

[indianaconservative]

I thought Al Gore invented music.

[discostu]

That what the record companies are. They took it out of the hands of government and put it in the hands of corporations. Same method new name.

[Revolting cat!]

Just desserts, the cat says! Greedy RIAA killed the product containing the basic unit of value in popular music, yes I mean the single, the customers find other ways to obtain it. Duh, Rock Around the Clock (or My Way for you Bloated Elvis fans) is not a double album!

[Ed Straker]

How about the fact that it's an industry. It has nothing to do with music, it's a manufactured product.

[Snuffington]

Recording theft will kill music, not just music companies.

There was music long before the technology to record existed, so I seriously doubt it.