The death of an era?
There was some irony in the last few days. Last week, the Supreme Court announced that software companies could be held liable for the mass copyright infringement done by it's users. The move came as a surprise, in direct opposition of the Betamax decision of the 1980s. The court cited that while there could be legitimate uses for peer-to-peer software, the predominate use of it was illegal, and therefore the software creators could be held liable for it.
This is something that I've always had a personal feeling for, as I'm a fan of dance music, one of two genres that have been traditionally very underrepresented in mainstream music markets (rap being the other). In the past, I simply could not get (legal or otherwise) most of the music that I was interested in. Much of the music I wanted was only available on "For Promo Only" 12" records. Note that "For Promo Only" means they don't sell it to anyone at any price. You basically hope you're on the promo list to get one, or illegally purchase one from someone who is. I refuse to believe that a company can claim they were harmed at all when they weren't selling a product to begin with.
In the pre-peer-to-peer world, I would spend weekends just shopping, hopping from store to store, hoping they had the music I was looking for. All too often, I'd walk out empty-handed, except for a full wallet wanting to spend it on the music I wanted.
Jump forward to Napster. It was an amazing boom. For the first time ever, so much of the music I wanted was available to me, period. Forget paying for it, I could get it at all. Not only current music, but years and years worth of music that I'd been searching for, finally I could get to it. I compiled a CD of disco music for a friend of mine who moved to SF in the 70s. It moved him so much, it brought a tear to his eye, flooding back memories of "back in the day." And not only published music, but tons of unpublished stuff, stuff one DJ in Nebraska had mixed on his own, or New York, or California. Or me.
So for the first time, I could mix together whatever music I wanted.
Jump forward to today. After getting tired of the current CD in my car, I put in "The House That Cosmic Disco Built," a CD I mixed together from music at that time. It still gives me goosebumps. Friends have called it the best CD of all time, "74 minutes of pure esctasy," and bow before me for a copy. And while I mixed the songs together, half of the tracks are not available for purchase. One of the tracks was a remix of "Move Any Mountain", by The Shamen. The original was done in 1991. In addition to the remixes, there were a series of individual tracks separated out with the titles "Mix It Your Damn Self." Someone unknown did exactly that, and it's the mounting finale of the amazing CD.
And I would have gladly paid artists for use of the songs, had they let me. But just like the Soviet Union of the 1980s, in the complete absense of a legal method of purchasing anything, a black market will form. In essence, that's exactly what happened.
Moving forward to today, I buy most of my music on iTunes. The idea of getting in my car, going to the mall, spending half a day in a store to hope to buy music I can't preview, only to walk out disappointed, I find absolutely appauling. And yet, I still can't buy all my music that way. Any music service has only a subset of the music available. Just as I wouldn't have gone to a Sony store, plus a Warner Brothers store, plus a Atlantic Records store (etc., etc.), why would I go to all these different services to get the music I want?
Shawn Fanning, the original creator of Napster, is attempting to create a clearinghouse for music, that combines all music services into a one stop shop. And yet, an underground is still formed. Those DJs from Nebraska (or New York, or California, or me) have no forum to publish their music and their mixes, even if most of the royalties go to the original artist. Same goes for the garage band trying to get a start.
I'm 100% for supporting artists. I'd gladly pay $0.99/track for every track I downloaded then, more for some. (In the day, it wasn't uncommon for me to pay $9.99 for a single 12", although at that price I would have been much more dilligent.) But I think the music industry misses the boat entirely when they assume everyone wants music for free. Everyone just wants music, regardless of the price. What is gone is the days of thinking people will just go back to hoping and praying their local music store has it, and paying $18 a CD when they want one track. (At the beginning of the peer-to-peer software, one statistic said that up to 60% of people who walk into a music store with a certain album in mind, and walk out empty handed because they didn't have it.) It seems like ancient history by comparison.
Besides, peer-to-peer is far from perfect. Much of the time you have no idea what you're getting, what the quality is like, and downloads can take forever, depending on the source. Compare to iTunes, when a full song can download in less than a minute. Still, only a fraction of the music I want is available on it.
But if you can't buy it, people will find a way to get it, whether they pay for it or not. I think the music industry should work to find a legal way for everyone to get (and pay for) the music they want, rather than spending all their time on suing everyone. Supoenas were never a great way to build a market.
This is something that I've always had a personal feeling for, as I'm a fan of dance music, one of two genres that have been traditionally very underrepresented in mainstream music markets (rap being the other). In the past, I simply could not get (legal or otherwise) most of the music that I was interested in. Much of the music I wanted was only available on "For Promo Only" 12" records. Note that "For Promo Only" means they don't sell it to anyone at any price. You basically hope you're on the promo list to get one, or illegally purchase one from someone who is. I refuse to believe that a company can claim they were harmed at all when they weren't selling a product to begin with.
In the pre-peer-to-peer world, I would spend weekends just shopping, hopping from store to store, hoping they had the music I was looking for. All too often, I'd walk out empty-handed, except for a full wallet wanting to spend it on the music I wanted.
Jump forward to Napster. It was an amazing boom. For the first time ever, so much of the music I wanted was available to me, period. Forget paying for it, I could get it at all. Not only current music, but years and years worth of music that I'd been searching for, finally I could get to it. I compiled a CD of disco music for a friend of mine who moved to SF in the 70s. It moved him so much, it brought a tear to his eye, flooding back memories of "back in the day." And not only published music, but tons of unpublished stuff, stuff one DJ in Nebraska had mixed on his own, or New York, or California. Or me.
So for the first time, I could mix together whatever music I wanted.
Jump forward to today. After getting tired of the current CD in my car, I put in "The House That Cosmic Disco Built," a CD I mixed together from music at that time. It still gives me goosebumps. Friends have called it the best CD of all time, "74 minutes of pure esctasy," and bow before me for a copy. And while I mixed the songs together, half of the tracks are not available for purchase. One of the tracks was a remix of "Move Any Mountain", by The Shamen. The original was done in 1991. In addition to the remixes, there were a series of individual tracks separated out with the titles "Mix It Your Damn Self." Someone unknown did exactly that, and it's the mounting finale of the amazing CD.
And I would have gladly paid artists for use of the songs, had they let me. But just like the Soviet Union of the 1980s, in the complete absense of a legal method of purchasing anything, a black market will form. In essence, that's exactly what happened.
Moving forward to today, I buy most of my music on iTunes. The idea of getting in my car, going to the mall, spending half a day in a store to hope to buy music I can't preview, only to walk out disappointed, I find absolutely appauling. And yet, I still can't buy all my music that way. Any music service has only a subset of the music available. Just as I wouldn't have gone to a Sony store, plus a Warner Brothers store, plus a Atlantic Records store (etc., etc.), why would I go to all these different services to get the music I want?
Shawn Fanning, the original creator of Napster, is attempting to create a clearinghouse for music, that combines all music services into a one stop shop. And yet, an underground is still formed. Those DJs from Nebraska (or New York, or California, or me) have no forum to publish their music and their mixes, even if most of the royalties go to the original artist. Same goes for the garage band trying to get a start.
I'm 100% for supporting artists. I'd gladly pay $0.99/track for every track I downloaded then, more for some. (In the day, it wasn't uncommon for me to pay $9.99 for a single 12", although at that price I would have been much more dilligent.) But I think the music industry misses the boat entirely when they assume everyone wants music for free. Everyone just wants music, regardless of the price. What is gone is the days of thinking people will just go back to hoping and praying their local music store has it, and paying $18 a CD when they want one track. (At the beginning of the peer-to-peer software, one statistic said that up to 60% of people who walk into a music store with a certain album in mind, and walk out empty handed because they didn't have it.) It seems like ancient history by comparison.
Besides, peer-to-peer is far from perfect. Much of the time you have no idea what you're getting, what the quality is like, and downloads can take forever, depending on the source. Compare to iTunes, when a full song can download in less than a minute. Still, only a fraction of the music I want is available on it.
But if you can't buy it, people will find a way to get it, whether they pay for it or not. I think the music industry should work to find a legal way for everyone to get (and pay for) the music they want, rather than spending all their time on suing everyone. Supoenas were never a great way to build a market.
posted by Joe Carlin at 2:39 AM
3 Comments:
Hi and hello there Joe Carlin, I get sidetracked easily these days. After spending many hours checking out websites looking for peer to peer related info. I decided to try some blog sites. I found much more usable and updated information on the blog related sites than the regular websites...this is very cool. I gotta get me one of these when I find the time. My site at http://www.p2p-mp3-filesharing.com needed some updated info. After that, I thought I would check out some of the other kind of blog sites. Some are pretty cool. It's been fun. Thanks Joe Carlin, mike
Hey Joe Carlin, nice blog site. Seems everybody has one of these blog sites except me. Even my sister has one, but she just likes to complain about everything....and I really mean everything. You know, the world sucks, etc...lol. She started it after her boyfriend dumped her. Originally I started out searching websites looking for peer 2 peer related info to improve the traffic at my site http://www.p2p-mp3-filesharing.com; then I decided to try blog sites. There are so many of them it's unbelievable. I never heard of or knew what a blog was until last year. Anyway, I'm trying to improve my site at http://www.p2p-mp3-filesharing.com and was originally looking for relevant information I could use. Got sidetracked a bit....lol. It was interesting. Thanks Joe Carlin, Mike
Hi Joe Carlin,
I was looking for information about file sharing when I came across your blog. The death of an era? doesn't really cover what I was after but it sure looks like it'll be useful. I'm off to find more resources on file sharing. Good luck and keep it up.
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