By Tom Mulhern
Years ago, someone once described to me a phenomenon in terms of a water bed: You push down on one place, and you know some other place is going to pop up, but you don’t know exactly where. This concept fits nicely with what’s happened with Internet audio over the past year. The rapid proliferation of music on the Internet made so many people want to upload, download, and exchange audio. That was the "push down." Then came the "pop up": Someone screamed "Copyright infringement!" and then, boom, the lawsuits started. Suddenly, Napster and mp3.com, two major sources of downloadable digital music, were threatened by the the likes of Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Metallica, and Dr. Dre.
Before you take sides and jump on the RIAA, napster.com, gnutella.com, mp3.com, or anyone else going 'round and 'round on the issue of Internet piracy, we should all recognize that a large part (if not the biggest part) of the so-called piracy problem is the consumer, because many consumers don’t realize that making and distributing copies of audio, video, software, or books is piracy, and therefore illegal. While everyone is taught early in their lives that sneaking out of a store with a candy bar is stealing, and that copying someone else’s answers at test time is cheating, most parents and teachers haven't quite gotten around to instructing kids about intellectual property rights issues.
Who can blame 'em? After all, it's still a pretty new, ill-defined area of law, and even the lawyers can't agree on where some lines should be drawn. And how do you explain to someone who’s, perhaps, 10 years old, the ramifications of ripping mp3s and/or distributing them over the Internet? Can you imagine your mom knocking on your bedroom door when you were a kid, admonishing you with something like, "Jimmy, when listen to mp3s instead of buying CDs, you realize that musicians, producers, publishers, distributors, jobbers, and ad people don’t get paid." To the average person, young or old, what’s the difference between listening to songs broadcast over the radio or streamed over the Internet? Zilch. Nada. It’s music, plain and simple.
The ease of Internet downloading makes it a very different proposition than pirating cable TV (for example). It's easier to download songs off of Napster than to climb a pole and connect a wire to a box to get free HBO. All it takes is a mouse click. Add the fact that almost everything else on the Internet is free, which makes many people assume that everything is free. This makes it very hard for someone to know what they should or shouldn't take. And, if someone offers you something for free, should you ask whether they should charge you? Even if everyone knows the rules, the ramifications, and the copyright law inside and out, let’s face it: Some people are going to make copies of any music, whether it’s on CD, cassette, LP, or on a server.
However you feel about downloading free music, it’s clear that you have absolutely no right to rip mp3s from your CD collection and make them available on the Internet for anyone to listen to. It’s not your music to give away, unless you composed it and recorded it. This gets back to parents teaching their kids not to steal or give away things that aren’t theirs to give, including music, movies, and software. As an adult, you should already know this.
Should we assume it’s the beginning of the end for online music distribution? Ha! While the legalities are being battled over, the "majors"–record companies, computer companies, and other media providers–are teaming with mp3 providers. Venture capitalists are pumping money into these so-called "pirates." Do these sound like the symptoms of an imminent death? Hardly. Everyone knows that online distribution of music is the wave of the future, and they’re waiting for the dust to clear before they begin to capitalize on it. The biggest problem so far has been one of synchronization: getting the means of controlling distribution in sync with the medium. As soon as there’s a way to cut down on illicit copying and distribution, and as soon as there’s a way for the artists and record companies to make sure that they aren’t working for free, then we’ll see many more companies offering music over the Internet. (Gee, record companies may have to rethink charging $17.99 for CDs!) In addition, many artists have put 2 and 2 together, and realize that if they sell their music direct via the Internet, they can sell it cheaper while realizing more of the profit–cutting out the record companies and stores altogether.
Okay, we know about the war between the big record companies and the big online music distributors. But what about independent musicians? They don't seem to have much say in this debate. Unlike the record companies and the RIAA, who have huge profit motives and legions of lawyers, most not-yet-famous musicians don’t want to be in this battle, can’t afford to fight either side, and are simply trying to get some exposure; the Internet has shown itself to be a great forum. Some sites cater exclusively to indies: Places like riffage.com provide an outlet that wouldn’t exist in the traditional radio or retail worlds–assuming a band had the money to go into a studio to record, get a CD mastered, and then press a thousand discs. A band can record into their computer, do the mixing, and release the music, without ever seeing a studio, signing a single contract, or laying out a single cent (aside from the software and computer, that is).
Several recent articles cited a study that said CD sales were down in areas around colleges served by Napster. Not a lot, but by a measly four percent. They blame downloading. Well, maybe it is because of downloading. But maybe not all of the students are downloading Metallica, Sevendust, or Smashmouth, or otherwise "stealing" from the corporate trough instead of buying Metallica, Sevendust, or Smashmouth CDs. They just may have found that there’s a whole lot of great music that doesn’t come from the "majors," and the fact that it’s free, or cheap, makes it that much sweeter. This new phenomenon may be the big break that independent musicians have dreamed about forever. Keep your eye on this; another part of the water bed is bound to pop up.