by Dr. David C Lowery

Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered.

Recently Emily White, an intern at NPR All Songs Considered and GM of what appears to be her college radio station, wrote a post on the NPR blog in which she acknowledged that while she had 11,000 songs in her music library, she’s only paid for 15 CDs in her life. Our intention is not to embarrass or shame her. We believe young people like Emily White who are fully engaged in the music scene are the artist’s biggest allies. We also believe–for reasons we’ll get into–that she has been been badly misinformed by the Free Culture movement. We only ask the opportunity to present a countervailing viewpoint.

Emily:

My intention here is not to shame you or embarrass you. I believe you are already on the side of musicians and artists and you are just grappling with how to do the right thing. I applaud your courage in admitting you do not pay for music, and that you do not want to but you are grappling with the moral implications. I just think that you have been presented with some false choices by what sounds a lot like what we hear from the “Free Culture” adherents.

I must disagree with the underlying premise of what you have written. Fairly compensating musicians is not a problem that is up to governments and large corporations to solve. It is not up to them to make it “convenient” so you don’t behave unethically. (Besides–is it really that inconvenient to download a song from iTunes into your iPhone? Is it that hard to type in your password? I think millions would disagree.)

Rather, fairness for musicians is a problem that requires each of us to individually look at our own actions, values and choices and try to anticipate the consequences of our choices. I would suggest to you that, like so many other policies in our society, it is up to us individually to put pressure on our governments and private corporations to act ethically and fairly when it comes to artists rights. Not the other way around. We cannot wait for these entities to act in the myriad little transactions that make up an ethical life. I’d suggest to you that, as a 21-year old adult who wants to work in the music business, it is especially important for you to come to grips with these very personal ethical issues.

I’ve been teaching college students about the economics of the music business at the University of Georgia for the last two years. Unfortunately for artists, most of them share your attitude about purchasing music. There is a disconnect between their personal behavior and a greater social injustice that is occurring. You seem to have internalized that ripping 11,000 tracks in your iPod compared to your purchase of 15 CDs in your lifetime feels pretty disproportionate. You also seem to recognize that you are not just ripping off the record labels but you are directly ripping off the artist and songwriters whose music you “don’t buy”. It doesn’t really matter that you didn’t take these tracks from a file-sharing site. That may seem like a neat dodge, but I’d suggest to you that from the artist’s point of view, it’s kind of irrelevant.

Now, my students typically justify their own disproportionate choices in one of two ways. I’m not trying to set up a “strawman”, but I do have a lot of  anecdotal experience with this.

“It’s OK not to pay for music because record companies rip off artists and do not pay artists anything.” In the vast majority of cases, this is not true. There have been some highly publicized abuses by record labels. But most record contracts specify royalties and advances to artists. Advances are important to understand–a prepayment of unearned royalties. Not a debt, more like a bet. The artist only has to “repay” (or “recoup”) the advance from record sales. If there are no or insufficient record sales, the advance is written off by the record company. So it’s false to say that record companies don’t pay artists. Most of the time they not only pay artists, but they make bets on artists.  And it should go without saying that the bets will get smaller and fewer the more unrecouped advances are paid by labels.

Secondly, by law the record label must pay songwriters (who may also be artists) something called a “mechanical royalty” for sales of CDs or downloads of the song. This is paid regardless of whether a record is recouped or not. The rate is predetermined, and the license is compulsory. Meaning that the file sharing sites could get the same license if they wanted to, at least for the songs. They don’t. They don’t wanna pay artists.

Also, you must consider the fact that the vast majority of artists are releasing albums independently and there is not a “real” record company. Usually just an imprint owned by the artist. In the vast majority of cases you are taking money directly from the artist. How does one know which labels are artist owned? It’s not always clear. But even in the case of corporate record labels, shouldn’t they be rewarded for the bets they make that provides you with recordings you enjoy? It’s not like the money goes into a giant bonfire in the middle of the woods while satanic priests conduct black masses and animal sacrifices. Usually some of that money flows back to artists, engineers and people like you who graduate from college and get jobs in the industry. And record labels also give your college radio stations all those CDs you play.

Artists can make money on the road (or its variant “Artists are rich”). The average income of a musician that files taxes is something like 35k a year w/o benefits. The vast majority of artists do not make significant money on the road. Until recently, most touring activity was a money losing operation. The idea was the artists would make up the loss through recorded music sales. This has been reversed by the financial logic of file-sharing and streaming. You now tour to support making albums if you are very, very lucky. Otherwise, you pay for making albums out of your own pocket. Only the very top tier of musicians make ANY money on the road. And only the 1% of the 1% makes significant money on the road. (For now.)

Over the last 12 years I’ve watched revenue flowing to artists collapse.

Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.

Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!

The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.

Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. Without going into details, 10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists begin to go into the black on professional album production, marketing and promotion.

On a personal level, I have witnessed the impoverishment of many critically acclaimed but marginally commercial artists. In particular, two dear friends: Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and Vic Chesnutt. Both of these artists, despite growing global popularity, saw their total  incomes fall in the last decade. There is no other explanation except for the fact that “fans” made the unethical choice to take their music without compensating these artists.

Shortly before Christmas 2009, Vic took his life. He was my neighbor, and I was there as they put him in the ambulance. On March 6th, 2010, Mark Linkous shot himself in the heart. Anybody who knew either of these musicians will tell you that the pair suffered depression. They will also tell you their situation was worsened by their financial situation. Vic was deeply in debt to hospitals and, at the time, was publicly complaining about losing his home. Mark was living in abject squalor in his remote studio in the Smokey Mountains without adequate access to the mental health care he so desperately needed.

I present these two stories to you not because I’m pointing fingers or want to shame you. I just want to illustrate that “small” personal decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly “love”. And it is up to us individually to examine the consequences of our actions. It is not up to governments or corporations to make us choose to behave ethically. We have to do that ourselves.

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Now, having said all that, I also deeply empathize with your generation. You have grown up in a time when technological and commercial interests are attempting to change our principles and morality. Rather than using our morality and principles to guide us through technological change, there are those asking us to change our morality and principles to fit the technological change–if a machine can do something, it ought to be done. Although it is the premise of every “machines gone wild” story since Jules Verne or Fritz Lang, this is exactly backwards. Sadly, I see the effects of this thinking with many of my students.

These technological and commercial interests have largely exerted this pressure through the Free Culture movement, which is funded by a handful of large tech corporations and their foundations in the US, Canada, Europe and other countries.* Your letter clearly shows that you sense that something is deeply wrong, but you don’t put your finger on it. I want to commend you for doing this. I also want to enlist you in the fight to correct this outrage. Let me try to to show you exactly what is wrong. What it is you can’t put your finger on.

The fundamental shift in principals and morality is about who gets to control and exploit the work of an artist. The accepted norm for hudreds of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time. (Since the works that are are almost invariably the subject of these discussions are popular culture of one type or another, the duration of the copyright term is pretty much irrelevant for an ethical discussion.) By allowing the artist to treat his/her work as actual property, the artist can decide how to monetize his or her work. This system has worked very well for fans and artists. Now we are being asked to undo this not because we think this is a bad or unfair way to compensate artists but simply because it is technologically possible for corporations or individuals to exploit artists work without their permission on a massive scale and globally. We are being asked to continue to let these companies violate the law without being punished or prosecuted. We are being asked to change our morality and principals to match what I think are immoral and unethical business models.

Who are these companies? They are sites like The Pirate Bay, or Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. They are “legitimate” companies like Google that serve ads to these sites through AdChoices and Doubleclick. They are companies like Grooveshark that operate streaming sites without permission from artists and over the objections of the artist, much less payment of royalties lawfully set by the artist. They are the venture capitalists that raise money for these sites. They are the hardware makers that sell racks of servers to these companies. And so on and  so on.

What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is analogous to changing our morality and principles to allow the equivalent of looting. Say there is a neighborhood in your local big city. Let’s call it The ‘Net. In this neighborhood there are record stores. Because of some antiquated laws, The ‘Net was never assigned a police force. So in this neighborhood people simply loot all the products from the shelves of the record store. People know it’s wrong, but they do it because they know they will rarely be punished for doing so. What the commercial Free Culture movement (see the “hybrid economy”) is saying is that instead of putting a police force in this neighborhood we should simply change our values and morality to accept this behavior. We should change our morality and ethics to accept looting because it is simply possible to get away with it.  And nothing says freedom like getting away with it, right?

But it’s worse than that. It turns out that Verizon, AT&T, Charter etc etc are charging a toll to get into this neighborhood to get the free stuff. Further, companies like Google are selling maps (search results) that tell you where the stuff is that you want to loot. Companies like Megavideo are charging for a high speed looting service (premium accounts for faster downloads). Google is also selling ads in this neighborhood and sharing the revenue with everyone except the people who make the stuff being looted. Further, in order to loot you need to have a $1,000 dollar laptop, a $500 dollar iPhone or $400 Samsumg tablet. It turns out the supposedly “free” stuff really isn’t free. In fact it’s an expensive way to get “free” music. (Like most claimed “disruptive innovations”it turns out expensive subsidies exist elsewhere.) Companies are actually making money from this looting activity. These companies only make money if you change your principles and morality! And none of that money goes to the artists!

And believe it or not this is where the problem with Spotify starts. The internet is full of stories from artists detailing just how little they receive from Spotify. I shan’t repeat them here. They are epic. Spotify does not exist in a vacuum. The reason they can get away with paying so little to artists is because the alternative is The ‘Net where people have already purchased all the gear they need to loot those songs for free. Now while something like Spotify may be a solution for how to compensate artists fairly in the future, it is not a fair system now. As long as the consumer makes the unethical choice to support the looters, Spotify will not have to compensate artists fairly. There is simply no market pressure. Yet Spotify’s CEO is the 10th richest man in the UK music industry ahead of all but one artist on his service.

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So let’s go back and look at what it would have cost you to ethically and legally support the artists.

And I’m gonna give you a break. I’m not gonna even factor in the record company share. Let’s just pretend for your sake the record company isnt simply the artists imprint and  all record labels are evil and don’t deserve any money. Let’s just make the calculation based on exactly what the artist should make. First, the mechanical royalty to the songwriters. This is generally the artist. The royalty that is supposed to be paid by law is 9.1 cents a song for every download or copy. So that is $1,001 for all 11,000 of your songs. Now let’s suppose the artist has an average 15% royalty rate. This is calculated at wholesale value. Trust me, but this comes to 10.35 cents a song or $1,138.50. So to ethically and morally “get right” with the artists you would need to pay $2,139.50.

As a college student I’m sure this seems like a staggering sum of money. And in a way, it is. At least until you consider that you probably accumulated all these songs over a period of 10 years (5th grade). Sot that’s $17.82 dollars a month. Considering you are in your prime music buying years, you admit your life is “music centric” and you are a DJ, that $18 dollars a month sounds like a bargain. Certainly much much less than what I spent each month on music  during the 4 years I was a college radio DJ.

Let’s look at other things you (or your parents) might pay for each month and compare.

Smart phone with data plan: $40-100 a month.

High speed internet access: $30-60 dollars a month. Wait, but you use the university network? Well, buried in your student fees or tuition you are being charged a fee on the upper end of that scale.

Tuition at American University, Washington DC (excluding fees, room and board and books): $2,086 a month.

Car insurance or Metro card?  $100 a month?

Or simply look at the  value of the web appliances you use to enjoy music:

$2,139.50 = 1 smart phone + 1 full size ipod + 1 macbook.

Why do you pay real money for this other stuff but not music?

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The existential questions that your generation gets to answer are these:

Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?

Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?

Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?

This is a bit of hyperbole to emphasize the point. But it’s as if:

Networks: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!

Hardware: Giant mega corporations.Cool! have some money!

Artists: 99.9 % lower middle class.Screw you, you greedy bastards!

Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!

I am genuinely stunned by this. Since you appear to love first generation Indie Rock, and as a founding member of a first generation Indie Rock band I am now legally obligated to issue this order: kids, lawn, vacate.

You are doing it wrong.

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Emily, I know you are not exactly saying what I’ve illustrated above. You’ve unfortunately stumbled into the middle of a giant philosophical fight between artists and powerful commercial interests. To your benefit, it is clear you are trying to answer those existential questions posed to your generation. And in your heart, you grasp the contradiction. But I have to take issue with the following statement:

As I’ve grown up, I’ve come to realize the gravity of what file-sharing means to the musicians I love. I can’t support them with concert tickets and t-shirts alone. But I honestly don’t think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.

I’m sorry, but what is inconvenient about iTunes and, say, iTunes match (that let’s you stream all your music to all your devices) aside from having to pay? Same with Pandora premium, MOG and a host of other legitimate services. I can’t imagine that any other legal music service that is gonna be simpler than these to use. Isn’t convenience already here!

Ultimately there are three “inconvenient” things that MUST happen for any legal service:

1.create an account and provide a payment method (once)

2.enter your password.

3. Pay for music.

So what you are really saying is that you won’t do these three things. This is too inconvenient.  And I would guess that the most inconvenient part is….step 3.

That’s fine. But then you must live with the moral and ethical choice that you are making to not pay artists. And artists won’t be paid. And it won’t be the fault of some far away evil corporation. You “and your peers” ultimately bear this responsibility.

You may also find that this ultimately hinders your hopes of finding a job in the music industry.  Unless you’re planning on working for free.  Or unless you think Google is in the music industry–which it is not.

I also find this all this sort of sad.  Many in your generation are willing to pay a little extra to buy “fair trade” coffee that insures the workers that harvested the coffee were paid fairly.  Many in your generation will pay a little more to buy clothing and shoes from manufacturers that  certify they don’t use  sweatshops.  Many in your generation pressured Apple to examine working conditions at Foxconn in China.  Your generation is largely responsible for the recent cultural changes that has given more equality to same sex couples.  On nearly every count your generation is much more ethical and fair than my generation.   Except for one thing.  Artist rights.

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At the start of this I did say that I hoped to convert you to actively helping musicians and artists. That ultimately someone like you, someone so passionately involved in music is the best ally that musicians could have. Let me humbly suggest a few things:

First, you could legally buy music from artists. The best way to insure the money goes to artists? Buy it directly from their website or at their live shows. But if you can’t do that, there is a wide range of services and sites that will allow you to do this conveniently. Encourage your “peers” to also do this.

Second, actively “call out” those that profit by exploiting artists without compensation. File sharing sites are supported by corporate web advertising. Call corporations out by giving specific examples. For instance, say your favorite artist is Yo La Tengo. If you search at Google “free mp3 download Yo La Tengo” you will come up with various sites that offer illegal downloads of Yo La Tengo songs. I clicked on a link to the site http://www.beemp3.com where I found You La Tengo’s entire masterpiece album I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.

I also found an ad for Geico Insurance which appeared to have been serviced to the site by “Ads by Google”. You won’t get any response by writing a file sharing site. They already know what they are doing is wrong. However Geico might be interested in this. And technically, Google’s policy is to not support piracy sites, however it seems to be rarely enforced. The best way to write any large corporation is to search for the “investor’s relations” page. For some reason there is always a human being on the other end of that contact form. You could also write your Congressman and Senator and suggest they come up with some way to divert the flow of advertising money back to the artists.

And on that matter of the $2,139.50 you owe to artists? Why not donate something to a charity that helps artists. Consider this your penance. In fact I’ll make a deal with you. For every dollar you personally donate I’ll match it up to the $500. Here are some suggestions.

Nuci’s Space.   This is Athens Georgia’s home grown musician health and mental health charity.  This would be a nice place to donate money if you were a fan of Vic Chesnutt.

Home

Music Cares. You can also donate to this charity run by the NARAS (the Grammys). http://www.grammy.org/musicares/donate

Health Alliance for Austin Musicians.  Friends speak highly of this organization.

American Heart Association Memorial Donation. Or since you loved Big Star and Alex Chilton, why not make a donation to The American Heart Association in Alex Chilton’s name? (Alex died of a heart attack) https://donate.americanheart.org/ecommerce/donation/acknowledgement_info.jsp?campaignId=&site=Heart&itemId=prod20007

I’m open to suggestions on this.

I sincerely wish you luck in your career in the music business and hope this has been enlightening in some small way.

David Lowery

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EDITOR’S UPDATE. 12:42 PM Central  6/19/2012 .  Trichordist does not allow any anonymous posting.  We generally like to verify people are using their real name or an identity that we can track back to a real person. We think think this keep the tone of the debate more honest and civilized.  But it takes a lot of work. This post has gone completely viral and we are getting thousands of visitors a minute.  While we normally enjoy our readers comments it’s not possible to verify and moderate this volume of comments.  We are just 4 guys doing this part time when we aren’t doing our other jobs.  If you feel like this somehow infringes your freedom of speech I would remind you that you have the entire world wide web to share your opinions about this article.  We will from time to time  continue to randomly select comments based on our personal whims for publication. We will also respond thoughtfully, nicely, rudely, absurdly or however we feel at the time. That’s our freedom of expression.

EDITOR’S UPDATE 11:12 PM Central 6/20/2012.  You realize we had over half a million visits to this site the last two days?   We will probably never get through the volume of comments.  However we are still from time time randomly selecting  comments and publishing. Especially people who’ve posted good, intelligent or funny comments before.  And many many of your comments have been great.  We especially enjoy those that maybe disagree but seek to find common ground.

Lately though we’ve adopted some totally random rules to cut down on the sheer volume.  If your IP address has “23” in it we immediately delete w/o reading.  If your wordpress handle has “girl” or “free” or “media” or “Tech” we delete immediately.  If you start with foul language or are extra angry we delete.  Unless of course we want you to look stupid then we publish your comments.   Today  we searched  for all comments that contained the words “market” “zero”  or  “marginal” and bulk deleted. This was specifically cause we don’t really want to explain that fixed costs really do matter and no matter what you heard from some idiot on the internet. If you play bass we delete.    Also “”McPherson”: bulk delete. The use of the words “consumer” , “ointment” , “dude”, “gatekeepers” and “dubstep” also resulted in a fair number of deletions. We are only joking about some of this.   If you feel that this somehow infringes your freedom  you have the whole free internet out there to express we’ve infringed your freedom.

1,039 thoughts on “Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered.”

    1. I agree – Thank you David Lowery! The hypocrites at corporate-sponsored NPR really do NOT care about working people and, aside from some feel-good gesturing totally ignore musicians. All they have to do is try to look cool, which they don’t, while making sure not to offend their corporate sponsors, which include ADM, Walmart, and a long list of other rapacious enterprises.

      1. Wait wait, what? Why the random NPR bashing? Corporate sponsored? They only get 17% of their funding through corporations. When you cut that down to just “ADM” and “Walmart”, I doubt it is above 10%.

        They’re the only national radio station sponsored by listeners, from which the majority of their money comes from at nearly 40%. I would assume they are a lot less beholden to corporations than your average radio station or newspaper that relies on ad revenue from businesses.

      2. I’m reminded of the story where Tom Watson@IBM refused a resignation from an engineer that lost money on a risky venture for the company: “You can’t be serious. We’ve just spent $10 million dollars educating you!”.

        I don’t think being vindictive against particular individuals has been a particularly effective strategy in the past – usually just results in a further entrenched attitude about greed. I’d say educate her and make her aware of how her decisions effect artists. Since she has chosen a profession where she is hoping to become a content creator, sooner or later she will become cognizant of the problem. And better sooner rather than later.

    2. Welcome to The Entitlement Generation, or The Me Generation, whatever you want to call them or they like to call themselves, most kids today under 40 are irreverant to the ethic standards their great grandparents fought for in WWII and in succeeding generations that built this country up. Unfortunately, we have ourselves to blame. The kids of the 1960’s generation that protested in the streets, smoking pot, free sex, politically oriented concerts in the park, and no I’m not talking about OWS…. they’re copycats….. the 60’s peace, free love, let’s all live in a commune folks brought this on all of us.

      Through theire very relaxed, I don’t give darn attitude about money and finances and my future, had kids. So they had to grow up and learn to be responsible citizens. Well, their kids grew up in a very relaxed home environment, which led to the grandchildren of these 60’s kids growing up to be The Slacker Generation. Well, the slackers are in their 40’s with kids, and their kids have learned fomr their parents and grandparents about how to be even better slackers. You fault the parents for how these kids’ behaviors and their look at life…. it’s all about what can you do for me? What can I get from you? I call these people Democrats today. They are the Obama followers who are more concerned about getting something from you than to go out and work for it themselves. This is the mantra of the Democratic Party platform today, not the Democratic Party that my parents were a part of 30+ years ago… and that holds true for the GOP as well. They have both gone to extremes… but I digress……

      Kids today are spoiled and their parents are not helping the situation any. I have a half a dozen friends with kids ranging in ages from high school up through college and after college, with the post college kids still living at home. The reason? They can’t afford to live alone in their own apartment. What! Who said kids have to have their own place at that age as an excuse for not leaving the care and feeding of their momma and poppa? Get out of the friggin house now, and live with a room mates. We’ve all done it, because we cherished our freedoms after college. We had a job, lived with friends or strangers because it was the thing to do… to be on our own, and our parents forced us to do it.

      Today, parents as far too permissive to act like parents. no matter how old your kids are, you are not their friend. You are their parents and it remains up to you to parent the kids, even when the kids are adults… if parenting is required…. and it seems it still does for a lot of kids, even in their 30’s and 40’s.

      So, it’s no wonder this college kid who downloads music from illegal and free websites has 11,000+ songs. Eventually, she will be caught and will have to pay the fine and the time, unless she’s d/l songs from China….. lol

      NPR? this radio network is a losing proposition these days, boring to listen to unless you’re stoned out of your mind and hanging out in your den on the bean bag chair reading about President Obama and thinking what he’s telling you is the truth. If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you’ll know that with him, what you see ain’t what you get. What you get is far worse than you can imagine.

    3. A letter to David Lowery…

      David, I don’t disagree with what you saying but I do feel quite strongly about the situation myself and my generation find ourselves in.

      I am a supporter of situationism, but given we live in a capitalist society its just not possible, nor is it fair to the creators of culture as you rightly point out.

      Speaking for myself, however, can I just make these points. It is not that want to evade paying for music from artists that I love but rather I don’t want to pay for music which I listen to once and cast aside because it is rubbish. I, a student, simply haven’t got the money to operate like this.

      I do use Spotify Premium, and am becoming increasingly aware of the injustice being done here, but may I add I regularly go to gigs to see the artists I most admire, big and small, I regularly buy merchandise, and regularly promote their music to friends and colleagues who otherwise would not listen to them, call myself and others like me, voluntary promoters, if you will.

      Anyhow, as you have pointed out this is not enough to sustain excessive living in the modern capitalist society we find ourselves in. Things have indeed changed and a generation of artists have experienced this change the hard way unfortunately. We have gone from a time of total control over cash flows in the industry to relatively no control. We need to find a middle ground that suits both the artist and the buyer. So I ask this…

      Why not create an organisation or a party, who operates like iTunes or Spotify but rather charges you proportionately in relation to how much you listen to certain bands/artists. Why can I not listen to say, Muse’s latest album and upon the first listen decide that is shit and get charged only for that listen? Say 0.5p a track for example? Why can Liars not reap the benefits of me listening to their new album on repeat over the past few days? Hypothetically speaking, you could even set barriers for total cost/ownership in that if you reach 1000 listens you stop paying and the music becomes free to access. Surely this is a fair way to operate giving power to the people and equally ensuring the best artists receive their dues?

      I want a system which is fair for me… and the artist.

      Kind Regards,

      Steve

    4. I too agree with Mr. Lowry except for one thing he overlooked: Emily said she wants to support the artists through streaming on-demand music… something like youtube maybe, but for music. Under that scenario the musicians would be getting paid a few pennies every time a song is streamed. I fail to see how browbeating Emily for proposing this solution is a good idea, since it appears she’s trying to find a way that supports both her love of music and the artists.

      By the way BUYING these songs would cost about $11,000. I have my doubts Emily or anybody else will be spending that much for music. I’ve spent around $1000 on Greatest Hits CDs, but otherwise I just look for artist-supporting sources like the radio.

      Why? Because I am not made of money. And no I did not spend thousands of dollars on a smartphone or cable or your other examples. My TV is free via antenna, my phone costs a mere $5/month, and my internet is just $15/month. I budget my spending because, like most Americans, I am not rich.

    5. “Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?”

      It’s because it’s far more difficult to steal the aforementioned items. The people who steal music would also steal iPods and data plans if the chance of being caught was remote. There have always been, and always will be, self-entitled people who disregard others.

    6. I think Emily has been upfront and honest; but as far as I can see, she is not doing anything wrong.

      Have I misunderstood or did she say she will pay for convenience i.e. iTunes; she never said iTunes was inconvenient to her as your response is making out!

      The fact that she downloads and pays for them at all is justification for her argument in my eyes. The issue I have is the free streaming that completely removes the incentive to go and buy. People listen and listen and listen and then get bored. I also understand that we cannot restrict the internet this way.

      The solution is to try and eradicate these scummy pirate sites and increase the costs of downloads if that is the way people continue to listen to music and it is the way they like to obtain music.

      Lets listen to our fans rather than vilifying them…we’ve all been there. I downloaded Altered Images’ ‘Happy Birthday’ for a birthday mix tape I was compiling…it was naughty of me, but I didn’t want the whole track. We’ve all done it!

    7. That was indeed excellent. It has challenged me to do the right thing as well (especially since my own income–book sales–is based on a similar moral paradigm). I know I have to delete the iPhone downloading app that I find myself using daily, but the joy of piling up the songs without personal cost is really addictive. And, I believe, there lies the problem. Like many other compulsions, we will jump through hoops to rationalize, justify and normalize our addictions. A brilliant, well-argued letter is only half the solution. More than likely, the other half will require a deep and honest self-intervention.

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  3. The amazing lack of self-awareness coupled with apparent moral blindness is what I find most galling. College kids copying music — whatever the increased in ease and volume — is not new. 20 years ago, I smuggled rare LPs out of the radio station library and took them back to my dorm room to tape. But the assumption that anything that can be taken for free should be, and that figuring out how to get paid for their work is the artists’ problem, has gone from a guilty secret to an open assumption. (Practically speaking, it of course *is* an artist’s problem how to make their vocation financially sustainable, but a little help from the people making off with their work would be nice.) The most telling aspect of the NPR piece to me is the fact that the question of how artists would be more fairly compensated by some Spotify-like future service is reduced to a parenthetical aside, clearly falling into the area of “not my problem.” What I don’t understand is this: If you a) enjoy art, and b) would like more of it, why are you not willing and indeed eager to help the artists whose work you enjoy? I do think it’s more of a cultural problem than a generational one: Students who’ve never had to support themselves financially are inevitably less sensitive to the value of a dollar — I doubt 35K a year without benefits means much to them yet — but the US has across the board become a winner-take-all culture, where failure to exploit every available loophole makes you not moral but a sucker. What we see in younger generations is merely the concentrated version of what we have allowed our country to become.

    1. NPR is all about lack of awareness. They criticize the world while taking their funding from some of the worst corporate abusers in existence, starting with General Motors and the Insurance companies that make sure the US is the only developed nation without health care for–you guessed it–musicians and other artists and workers.For those suckers who think they mean it when they say, “folks like you,” check out this list:

      http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3AXMNA8JIgVkYJ%3Awww.npr.org%2Fabout%2Faboutnpr%2Fannualreports%2FNPRSponsorsDonors08.pdf+&hl=es-419&gl=us

    2. Excellent point. Worse still, the winners buy the loopholes. The co-opting of all economic interaction that David points to takes what is possibly the most democratic of exchanges and turns it into ponzi fodder. This didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen as a result of consolidated individual effort, and David is also right that reversing it is only going to be possible in the same way.

      Government, unfortunately, suffers from the same sponsorship.

    3. I agree, but as a college student myself I can say the issue is often that we simply have no money to spend on music. I don’t have $10/mo to give to music or cable TV. I’ve given up TV, but I refuse to give up music. For that reason I largely listen to albums that indie artists give away for free, but that gets old. Fast.

  4. David, you have nailed it. This post is a keeper, and a new reference point for those who think that music should be costless. Copyright laws are there for a reason. Copyright protections are written into the Constitution to enable creative careers, since the beginning of the U.S. of A.

    1. Can you enlighten me as to which Constitution you’ve read anything about copyright in? Because I’m not sure if copyright was a big issue when the only non-verbal forms of communication were some form of paint/lithographs, handwriting or using one of the handful of printing presses on the continent…

      2. Precedent has oft been ignored concerning what is now known as the copyright clause, especially considering the prevailing opinions on the matter were largely cast out and rewritten in the 70s by the major film studios (namely Disney and Universal) as the result of throwing a tantrum at Sony for creating Betamax. The terminology actually used in the Constitution, which is what I was prodding Chris to answer to, referred to the work of craftsmen (i.e. people that make furniture, pottery, carts, buggies, horseshoes, etc), which would evolve into modern patent law, and sciences, which referred primarily to literature.

        Naturally the argument of the living document and an ever-changing judiciary would apply here as it has several times in the past — but I want to emphasize that history has shown it’s the group with the deepest pockets that tend to shape legislation and the judicial “activism” regarding this sort of thing… And Google happens to be worth over $70 billion and climbing. You referred to them as “legitimate” (your quotation marks, not mine) for contributing to websites they have absolutely no affiliation with (The Pirate Bay) and another that now exists as nothing more than an FBI seizure image (Mega*).

        You seem to know a lot about the recording industry — and I can certainly respect that — but you seem to know absolutely nothing about the technology industry or the culture that surrounds it. You also don’t seem to realize that the type of people this type of message, with all of its outdated information and misunderstandings of the internet, actually needs to get through to are not going to ever change their ways.

        Society is changing and this happens all of the time. I’m not saying piracy is ethical, but I do not think that censoring the internet — which is really the only way to *ever* stop the problem you perceive — is any sort of reasonable solution. The recording industry has faced similar problems many times in the last century: bootleg 8-track mix tapes being sold at truck stops in the 70s, high school kids recording songs off of the radio with cassette tapes in the 80s, kids swapping tapes and mix CDs in the 90s and the advent of p2p file sharing in the 00s. I assure you that there is nothing anyone can do to stop this without drastically infringing on the rights of everyone, even those who have never downloaded a song, movie or TV show in their life.

      4. Article One, Section 8, clause 8 of the US constitution: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

        I hope you aren’t American, that way I can assume you just don’t know the Constitutions of other countries. If you are American then I think you should read it. At least once.

      5. Article I Section 8 Clause 8 of the United States Constituion is commonly known as the “Copyright Clause.” This section enumerates the powers of Congress. On of their enumerated powers is to create a system for protecting the creations of scientists and artists. The language used in the constituion is “writings and discoveries” but, of course, the Supreme Court has held the word “writings” to apply to all sorts of things that didn’t exist yet in the late 18th century. Congress promptly acted on this enumerated power by creating our first Copyright Law during the second-ever session of Congress in 1790. The Statute of Anne, on which are copyright law was originally based, was created to give writers economic control of their own creations waaaay back in 1710.

      8. The printing press was actually invented in the 1400s and was in widespread use within less than 100 years. By the time the Constitution was written, printing presses were ubiquitous, and it was common for written works (including sheet music) to be reproduced by the tens or even hundreds of thousands within the author’s lifetime. So copyright has actually been a significant issue for more than 500 years.

  6. David,
    as a fairly well known Music Producer (inc. The Smiths, Blur, The Cranberries, Kaiser Chiefs) I would like to than you for so succinctly expressing the views I have held on this matter. I have appeared on TV, written blogs on my site (stephenstreet.net) and twittered my arguments about the destructive nature of illegal downloading only to be shouted down by ‘free-tards’ who tell me that the ‘business model is finished and to get over it’! To read a piece like yours has made me feel like I’m not alone in my views. Well done sir!

    Stephen Street

    2. Stephen,

      I actually wanted to say that I love your work. The Cranberries ‘Dreams’ is one of my all time favorite records.

      And to David, bravo for a thorough and well-written post. Thanks for summarizing our collective angst.

      Sincerely,

      Christopher Tin
      http://www.christophertin.com
      (2x Grammy-winning Composer)

      1. Yep, great to see people like Stephen Street commenting.
        Makes me feel like I’m not alone too.

    3. Artists also need to be paid fairly so they can afford the services of great producers like Stephen Street, and professional engineers and recording studios that have good gear and all the things that most people take for granted but are often necessary for producing great music….

  7. David, that is all very agreeable yet as a part of the concert photographers community I would like to read your position about one of the contracts that as photographers we are often handled at gigs. Those where the band asks us to sign a form that states the band will keep all the rights of any image taken for any use they want in change of no payment whatsoever in perpetuity in the Universe (I swear these are the words used).
    You may read plenty of examples here:
    http://www.facebook.com/MusicPhotographers

    As it is unfair to download music illegally (and I have a collection of about 2000 original CDs on my shelves with not a single illegal download to not feel guilty at all) it is as unfair the musician pretend something to happen on their behalf when then act the opposite way when it is in their interest. I.e. Asking us to give all of our work for free.
    What do you think?

    You may be interested to reading this exchange of opinions I had with a band promoter some time ago.
    http://liveon35mm.wordpress.com/tip-towards-the-pit-press-connections/management-madness/

    keep the good writing on and thanks for your time

    ciao
    Valerio

    1. I can’t speak for other bands. but we have always paid our photographers for our band commissioned promo photos. And allowed them to keep the rights to the photos. I believe record companies pay photographers but then keep the photos as a work for hire. But i have no details of these arrangements. I suggest not signing anything that forces you to give up rights without compensation.

      1. Thank you for your answer David,
        indeed I never signed and will never sign one of those.
        Yet they exist and are quite common by the same bands suffering from illegal download.

      2. I don’t think Valerio was referring to being the photographer hired by the band. That is a completely different situation and a different type of contract. I believe he was referring to photographers working a show in “the pit” independently, for publications, or wire services. Unfortunately it is becoming more and more common for bands to ask for rights grabs in exchange for *allowing* us to photograph the first 3 songs of a live show. Choosing to not sign a release that relinquishes my copyright means I don’t work.

        Speaking to your article, photographers of all genres are also subjected to a similar mindset – that it is “just” a digital image. There is definitely a “why pay for it when I can just download it and print it myself” mentality or “it’s on the internet, so it’s public domain” (yes, I have honestly heard that one!). There is often no consideration given to the preparation, knowledge, and equipment that actually went in to creating the image.

      4. Working in video, most of “my” images are created as a “work for hire” and all rights reserved by those that hire me. Nothing like music piracy, in my opinion, as I know this up front and have a choice…

    2. Hi Valerio, I’m a musician and I’ve actually had to stop allowing photographers (or even amateur photo or video) at my shows when one photographer repeatedly kept making money from my image without my permission. The most egregious offense is when they sold (imo) an unflattering photo to a magazine for an editorial piece without my permission and told them I said it was okay to use instead of the approved promo photos I provided (and paid for). There is another side to this coin and that is photography law does not side with the subject, whose privacy and rights to how they are portrayed, are often overlooked in favor of someone snapping a random picture–which you even have to admit cannot be considered “art” all the time (think paparazzi). Claiming ownership of someone’s image when their professional life is intrinsically tied to that image, in a live setting like a concert as opposed to a staged photo shoot where your lighting, angles, etc could be construed as your “art” and then expecting payment for random photos without limitations on its disbursement or exploitation of it, is in my opinion another form of entitlement.

    3. I don’t know about other bands, but we’ve always seen photographers as allies. The more photos you guys take at our gigs, the more publicity for us. Make as much money as you can – we hope you make bags of money! It means our name gets out there more. As for promo shots, we’ve been lucky in that our photographers have been personal friends of ours & we’re all aware of each other’s situations. Sometimes bartering has occurred – but we do always compensate the best we can.

      1. If only that was true and understoof by all bands… check what is happening around Stone Roses gig this weekend and photographers boycotting them

  9. Excellent article. As a record store employee for the last ten years, I have to ask: Where does buying used CDs and records fit into this? It’s certainly not stealing, but the artist doesn’t receive any money from used sales. Any thoughts?

    1. If we assume that the seller of the CD does not retain a copy after handing over to the buyer, then there is no problem. In economic terms, it does not destroy the supply and demand of the CD – unlike streaming where the supply becomes infinite – effectively making the price point equilibrium zero. (Of course, if you remove the assumption of the seller violating the legal terms by retaining a digital copy, then it effectively is the same as digital downloading).

    2. Buying a used CD at a yard sale or even from a used CD/record store is not at issue here. Second-hand sales do not steal from musicians or recording companies, any more than selling your used car should mean sending a percentage to Ford or Subaru. But if you could pop out an exact replica of a Ford or Subaru to sell while still keeping your original, then you DO owe them.
      What’s at issue here is the fact that we can so easily create or stream an exact duplicate of the original work, and thereby deprive the creator or owner of a work. This means you can “own” the results of someone’s hard work and creativity for no cost.
      As an independent singer/songwriter with music for sale on my website (billpfleging.com), as well as a writer and author (geekgap.com) I am painfully aware of just how broken copyright is in this country. Companies like Google are not just making music available for people without compensating the owners/creators, but books as well (books.google.com). Organizations like the American Society of Journalists and Authors (asja.org) have been fighting against Google’s assumption that they can simply scan every book that exists and offering them for free without compensating the owners for several years now. That fight is nowhere near over, and is still in the courts.
      This is an excellent piece, and states the case quite clearly. I can only hope that people read it with an open mind, an open heart, and take it as not an accusation, but as a recommendation for change. I will be passing it along to both my musician friends as well as publishing colleagues.
      Thanks you, Mr. Lowery.

      1. I have bought quite a few used CD’s and LP’s over the years (much of it out of print anyway), but I think the morality of it is questionable. When I buy a CD, the medium is irrelevant. I’m buying the right to listen to the song whenever, wherever, and however I want. I’m paying the retailer, distributor, label, artist, etc. for the privilege. If I buy a used CD, I’m only paying the retailer and previous owner. As far as the artist is concerned, I may as well have just copied the disc from the original owner.

        Look at the software industry. It is generally illegal to sell used software these days. You aren’t buying a disc. You are buying a personal license to use e software. When you buy a song, you are really just licensing it.

      2. If you could pop out infinite near zero-cost copies of a Ford or Subaru, you’d be living in a post-industrial post-scarcity utopia, and musicians would be too busy enjoying infinite access to replicators, holodecks, and AI doctors who can fix any break and cure any disease, to care how many records you’d copied.

  10. Dear David,
    I am an artist/band member for 25 years. I will say the name only to 1 show that we have put out 7 cds on our own label (The Zambonis) Have another band that signed and released a record with Reprise/Warner Bros (The LeeVees) and another (The Macaroons) who put out 1 cd in 2009 on the now defunct Indie J-Dub Records. I’ve been on all sides. Your response and your words here are so spot on it hurts. I tear up thinking how the bands that moved me to be who who I am and do what I do can no longer give me that joy because of the sad state of the FREE MUSIC GENERATION. I sort of came to terms with all of this but, with this post by you, I am enraged and saddened again.
    Meanwhile, creating new music is the coal for our souls.
    May you and all of us get a song in the next TRANSFORMERS movie.
    Love what you do and have done,
    Dave (Zamboni/LeeVee/Macaroon) Schneider

    1. This is why I love the Internet. Read a spot-on article on artists rights, stumble upon a comment from a local band you loved nearly two decades ago when you lived back in the Northeast.

      Dave, songs from 100% Hockey are on my iPhone as I type this, while my (legitimately purchased) CD is in a box in the attic.

      Keep fighting the good fight, folks!

  11. I’m not trying to earn a living with my music, but it still frustrates me that friends & family won’t throw down $5 for an EP or something… this is my heart! My self! This is important to me! Listen? No? Okay…

    This essay has inspired a passionate response in me. I’m so frustrated that so many of my friends, especially the younger ones, don’t even think twice, and repeat crap about bands making money on the road or whatever. Calling yourself a fan of a band but won’t pay for it. Spending $5 on a latte or $10 on one bar cocktail daily but won’t drop the same on music you get to keep permanently. Hell, $7 on overpriced stale movie popcorn, but music is worth less to you than that…

    I don’t know. I wish it wasn’t so pathetic. I wish people didn’t so easily subscribe to the ‘it can be done so it’s okay’ theory about computer stealing. It’s disheartening. And I have no idea how any of it will change for the better. The internet isn’t going away. The next generation don’t even remember life before high-speed. Music will never go away but I feel like the quality artists are going to vanish due to complete inability to support themselves. We’ll be left with giant corporate garbage acts (the shittiest acts are the best selling in the world), and the stragglers who keep on despite all odds. I dearly hope something changes that allows musician to decide when, where and how to monetize their artistic creation again, but I’m pessimistic.

    I loved this article. It fills me with pride, but also causes me despair because it’s a losing battle. =(

    2. I got told by a friend “JayZ’s album is only £6” in response to me saying that our CD (released by ourselves and artwork produced paid for ourselves but to a very pro standard) was £7.50

      HELLO?!! A) JayZ will sell a s**tload more albums than us therefore he can afford to sell at a lower price B) We’ve produced everything OURSELVES down to the mastering C) Support a friend why don’t you…

      Why is it friends and family are the least interested in this stuff? It offends me.

      Some guy in Germany who I don’t know from adam gives more of a toss that I went out and made an album from scratch than a friend of more than 15 years.

    3. I am happy someone wrote about this. People spend money on fancy phones, and all the things people feel they need today, and yet steal music — they let musicians face eviction and be unable to afford proper healthcare.

  12. Perhaps one of the most coherent, comprehensive, accessible responses possible. Thanks, very much – with your permission, I’ll be using this with my 10th grade Intro to Media / 21st Century Literacies course (along with the original piece to which it responds) in the coming year.

  13. Thank you sir – as technology insidiously embeds the inconvenience of fairness I’m glad it also provides the means for you and others to so eloquently point out the fact that it does.

  14. Awesome open letter. Thank you for articulating things so well.

    Another organization that helps artists through fiscal sponsorship is Fractured Atlas (www.fracturedatlas.org). I’m currently using it to help fund my next album.

    There are folks out there who generously support the music that they love. I know a lot of them and thank them at every opportunity. I guess I just find it to be a shame that they are having to pick up the slack left by so many others.

  15. Excellent piece, David. I tried to address this issue a few months ago with particular reference to the way the Spotify model discourages users from involved relationships with the artists whose music they consume. Some responses to my post were encouraging, but many seemed to suggest that I was “on the wrong side of progress”. I think many musicians are conflicted about the distribution model that streaming sites promote: they are excited about the global reach they can achieve, but frustrated about the reluctance of listeners to explore avenues for reimbursing artists. Sites like Bandcamp make paying artists extremely easy! Many (all?) artists on Spotify also have albums and songs for sale on iTunes or Bandcamp, but there is almost no traffic from the former to the latter. As an artist on an independent record label, I am pessimistic about the future of music and musicians. We aren’t going to be able to do this for nothing forever.

  16. Thanks David for this.
    Mark, and Vic, are greatly missed by me, and I did buy their music, and the Sweet Relief, CD’s.
    All five of my kids, are musicians, and the older ones realized the damage done, by getting free music. I am going to share some of your blogs with them, as they can pass the ideas to some peers. I’ll start explaining to the younger ones, how , just buying a CD, at a show helps. It feels good to hand the cash directly to the artist. Stealing music, is like taking a photo, of a painting, making a print, and hanging it on the wall. That just dosen’t feel right. If we can promote the idea, of just having a conscience, that’s a start.
    I believe, that anyone who pirates music, knows it’s not right. Musicians are gonna stop making music, and start looking for work in other fields.
    I’m sure some have stopped already.
    See you on Cape Cod. Just Two boat rides, from whet I live.

  17. An emotional response to a powerful post. David, I am consistently inspired by your gift for communication and proud to call you an ally in this movement.

    I was particularly taken by your kindness and generosity in responding to this young lady and your brilliance as a researcher and writer on your New Boss, Old Boss post which can be found on this blog.

    As we wade through the misinformation and distorted truth that has dominated this conversation, for too long, those of us who support artists are far better off with you on the court. The game my friends is about the future of music, film and literature.

    The stakes could not be higher.

    Sincerely, Will Buckley, founder, FarePlay

  18. This really is quite a fascinating read… I struggled with this growing up and long ago came to a conclusion I felt would solve my moral dilemma with music in general:

    I didn’t pirate it; I just didn’t listen to music.

    This kept me out of so many interactions growing up, but it also kept me legal and satisfied morally. Friends couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard the latest song XYZ, but it didn’t really bother me. I even went so far as to turn off the radio whenever I got in the car to go anywhere after getting my driver’s license. Easier to concentrate on the road when you’re not letting your mind wander through every chord.

    It’s only been here lately I’ve begun listening to music again, but still not wanting to pirate it, I decided to buy straight from the artist’s web site. I bought a single album from IAmSleepless. I then stumbled on the Game Music Bundles and participated in them all. The end result is a bunch of legally bought and paid for music. Nothing you’ll hear on the radio, granted, but all quite absorbing to listen to.

    I also tried a single album through Amazon’s music service. I have personal moral issues with Apple and all things “i”, so Amazon/Google will do just fine.

    I guess what I’m getting at is, music is nice to have, but not a necessity by far. I did without when I couldn’t afford it, and bought direct the one time I was looking for specific music. I currently have a small but paid-for collection that I listen to, and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by not pirating / buying music constantly.

  19. David,
    As a 19 year-old college student who does use file-sharing sites frequently, I found this article incredibly eye-opening. Most arguments against the pirate bay, etc. fail to persuade me due to their framing of the issue as one of theft. Your article touches upon this, but I find your emphasis on voting with your dollar, for artists and against corporations, much more persuasive. I am now considering canceling my spotify subscription and redirecting that money towards buying albums directly from artists. There is one point, w/r/t “convenience,” that I would like to address, however. I think Emily White’s choice of the word “convenience” was a poor one, but she does have a point, in that any decision for someone like me or her to purchase all our music legally would inevitably result in us listening to less music. The fact is, I do spend more than $17.82 on music a month; unlike White, I routinely buy CDs and LPs. In addition to this, I illegally download albums I’m curious about and rip CDs/hard drives from friends. This form of music transfer has resulted in a generation more open to new and strange forms of musical expression than any before. I might not have spent my money on a freaky krautrock album that had the potential to thrill or repel me when safer buying choices were available, but I was able to obtain the Can discography through illicit means, resulting in future purchases of more experimental albums. So, if I were to cease all illegal downloading, this would necessarily restrict my listening habits. For this reason, Spotify seemed heaven sent, and after the service launched I went months without torrenting, as I was able to sample everything I might want to buy. When I found out about the paltry sums it pays to artists, however, I became far more conflicted, and failed to come up with any ethical way I could listen to the same volume of music that I do now. I recognize that this line of thinking skirts dangerously close to the changing-morality-to-fit-technological-climate argument, but that’s not the idea I want to advance. I recognize that the ethical good may outweigh the musical-quantity bad side of the issue, but that’s an incredibly hard surrender to make for young people who define their identities at least in part through an active and vigorous engagement with music, especially when few reliable guideposts are available when it comes to spending money on music in a fashion that produces value for the listener and income for the artist. Basically, I think listening to music ethically is a more complex and difficult issue than those on both sides of the piracy debate realize (another issue: if you buy directly from the artists, how do you support independent record stores?), and I think a lot more work is needed on the subject. This article is the best I have read so far, and if you have any suggestions of further places to look, I’d love to check them out.

    2. Will- I think this is a great reply. I think it’s great when people learn, process information, and then actually change their habits because of intellectual growth. I thought I’d throw one more idea at you. Your one remaining argument for illegally downloading music sounds like a pretty good one on the surface. You download, you listen, you like, you become a fan. That’s great! Your world has been expanded and the artist has gained a new fan. Sounds like everyone wins, right? Some artists even advocate for this by giving their music away on their own website. And if that’s what they want to do, then I think that’s great as well. They own their music, and they can certainly do with it what they want. Here’s the problem, though – I’ll use an analogy similar David’s looting of ‘Net City. Let’s say you are a HUGE fan of Pepsi cola. You just think it’s the best thing in the world. You come up with this great marketing campaign for them, simply because you want to help them! You think that if everyone you knew would just try it, well, they’d be hooked as well. Which would be good for the company, right? They’d have new fans, and your friends would all have broadened their cola drinking spectrum. The plan is for you to run into the local Circle K and grab a case, head for the door as fast as you can without paying, then hand them out to your friends. You’re doing this for the benefit of Pepsi, right? So It’s all good. And maybe it’ll work, maybe all your friends will want to drink Pepsi now. The problem is, even if it does benefit them, you don’t have the right to make the decision to give it away. You don’t own it – the Circle K does. Or Pepsi does. It just doesn’t matter who it benefits, you can’t make decisions about what to do with someones else’s property. Make sense? Plus, now all the new fans think the best way to feed their Pepsi thirst is to run into a Circle K and grab some. Pepsi won’t make it very long like that, no matter how devoted the fans are.

      Hope that helps a little. I think you’re on the right track.

      Doug
      http://www.DandTW.com

      1. Doug, your analogy is a good one, but only to a point.

        A more accurate analogy would be one in which your theoretical Pepsi enthusiast had some magical means of duplicating cases of Pepsi. In this case he could walk into the Circle K, fabricate a case of Pepsi identical to the ones for sale, and then go out and spread the word about Pepsi. The vendor and producer of the product get no compensation, but they still have their original stock of Pepsi which they can still sell.

        I’m not sure if or how this changes the moral calculus of the situation, but to characterize an act as stealing when the original item remains intact seems at least like an imprecise use of language.

      2. Doug – I agree with your stance, but I wish people would stop making faulty analogies to physical products. Pirating music digitally is different from stealing physical cans of Pepsi (or whatever), which instantly reduces the available supply. However, digital piracy is still theft.

      3. thegertz – The thing to remember about the physical product analogy is that it depends on supply AND demand. Without demand, a can of soda is worthless. While supply (or lack thereof) can have an effect for sure, it is demand that really makes something valuable.

        So while the supply line may have changed, music is not suddenly worthless because it is somewhat intangible. (Back to David’s reminders about the devices everyone is hot to buy for their “free” music – without them serving as a delivery medium, all that freely snatched data is unusable.)

        Bottom line: If there is demand for music, then it has value. So there is no question that you are helping yourself to something of value created by someone else.

        How that fits into one’s morality, well…that’s up to them to work out.

    3. Your post brings up a whole other aspect of the music distribution business that is being changed by technology. You want to hear a variety of music to broaden your horizons, and you want to be able to sort of graze in the field before making a purchase. So you figure, well I’ll just get some for free and, if I like it I’ll pay for more.

      Once upon a time there was this great place for hearing a wide variety of music for free. It was called “radio.” College radio in particular used to be the place where you’d here the widest variety. Radios came built into cars and tuners were a default part of home amplifiers.

      Now most college students don’t even have radios in their dorm rooms and a lot of them don’t own cars. If they do own cars they don’t listen to the radio because they are all owned by massive corporations and play an incredibly narrow range of music.

      It is sad to think that people of Mr. Noah’s generation are listening to music alone all the time. When we listen to the radio, we are listening together. It was a whole different way of living. A whole different relationship with music. And with each other.

    5. you know, there has been a way to hear new music for almost a century. the radio. i understand that in a capitalist system, the radio isn’t good for experimental stuff or weird stuff or underground stuff. but the internet could just make radio shows easier to access/less financially based, and you could still hear music before you buy it. you can listen to records your friends own and hear music before you buy it. it’s not like we were all going into record stores and deafly purchasing music with no idea whether we’d like it. and now you can buy just that one song on a record you like!

    6. Will, thank you for your enlightened, well written and ethically admirable words. You have given this recording artist a much needed restoration of faith in your generation. Bravo.

    1. The problem with the ‘You pay for X and Y so why not music?’ argument is that the answer is usually fairly simple – people don’t pay for music because they don’t have to.

      If people could download mp3 players and laptops, they’d do that too.

      1. You are looking the other way at moral deficiency.

      2. The problem with that argument is that it’s pretty feeble. Justification for benefitting from other people’s work is “I like getting free stuff”? Internet technology has legitimised behaviour which, in all other areas of society, is frowned upon.

        I have a colleague who bangs on about “alternatives” like crowd funding – he sees these as exciting forms of investment without seeing that if he paid for his music,m he’d be investing in the same way.

        I think this is part of a larger trend – and hate to use the phrase dumbing down – but is this part of the current dislike for anything that involves experts or knowledge? This idea that anyone can do it – as espoused by TV talent shows where the contestant’s backstory is more important than their talent – goes wider than just the music industry. For all that I’m sure Emily White is a nice person who loves music, she’s 22 years old and has 11,000 songs on her MP3? Has she actually listened to them? All of them? Can she appreciate the craft that went into creating them or has she just downloaded them to say that she’s got the latest single by… whoever? Music is a commodity to many but it can be so much more. I don’t have any answers to this but information in this post about the wider implications and ethical issues surrounding “free” download sites and music should be better known. Then people can start exercising more choice and supporting musicians better. Many of us couldn’t manage to get through the day without them – so let’s celebrate and renumerate them.

      3. @floating pencil is right. It’s the ease with which it can be obtained (for free) that actually encourages all this.

  22. This article – or something like it – should be required reading for anyone using the internet. There are so many misconceptions out there about piracy – misconceptions I held right alongside my peers for many years. The fact is, if you buy a house with an orange tree in the back yard, you will go to the orange tree before you hit the greengrocer. Now that I’m older, and now that I have a little spending money to my name, I’m more than happy to buy albums and subscriptions rather than pirating them, especially, say, if there’s something unique in the liner notes. Unfortunately, many people my age disagree.

    1. I don’t get the orange tree metaphor? If I become self sufficient by growing my own food, somehow I’m a bad person because this hurts people who sell food? Or that I would only eat oranges and not spend the money I would have spent on oranges on some other fruit?

      If I’m spending my time making my own music, I’m somehow hurting other musicians because I’m not paying them for theirs instead?

      I used to live in florida and did have an orange tree in my backyard. I still bought oranges because they were better quality and I didn’t have to climb a tree to pick them. Either way, I wasn’t hurting anybody by having the orange tree around when I just wanted an orange.

  23. I’m confused – do we hire a police force in the ‘Net, or do citizens of the ‘Net simply have to will themselves to be ethical and good? Is looting the result of deregulation or a result of moral failure?

    1. People shouldn’t have to will themselves to make positive, productive choices. We believe the real problem is miscommunication and distortion by business men who have decided to profit from other people’s work with no regard for fair and reasonable compensation.

      We believe that if more people understood the consequences of their choices that many more musicians would be dealt with fairly.

      What “deregulation” are you referring to?

      Will Buckley, founder, FarePlay

  24. I feel that I’m a little more “moderate” than Emily in her “never buy” philosophy, but I think there are a few things to remember.

    Currently, media companies barely sell products and instead are selling access to media (which has it’s own set of issues). Since we are listening to music digitally,we listen to more music than ever before. Yet, the price points have remained relatively constant (about $10 or more per album). I no longer buy about…an album a month. Instead I listen to bits and pieces of dozens or more. Which would be a lot more money than $17.82 a month, and is impractical for any average person to buy. Today, supply is infinite, demand is high, which makes prices lower. It’s outright silly to base an argument, which acts as if we live in the 90’s, where we consume less content and buy CD’s.

    And to the people who complain about Spotify not being good enough, I think they miss the point. As an example, there was a story about a year ago from Mike Skinner of The Streets complaining about Spotify. I remembered a few songs, but was never into him enough to buy an album. The article kind of reminded me of the band though, and I thought, “Maybe I should give this a listen again”. Guess what? As much as I may have enjoyed listening to his music that evening, that “measly money” he got from me on Spotify, is more than he would have ever have gotten from me otherwise. And that’s the whole point of Spotify, it’s to aggregate money from a mass of non-buyers, for a lot more artists, to give content creators money they would otherwise NEVER SEE. Which doesn’t even get into whether or not those listens would make me a “new fan”, who would then see him in concert and buy future releases.

    1. Your post reminds me of some issues that I’ve had with the culture of copying, and it’s something I went through myself in the early part of the last decade. What I mean is the idea of having to have everything, or listen to everything. But how much are we really enjoying, or getting attached to? Why do we think that more volume, more quantity is necessarily what we need? I suppose the logic goes something like this: I need to have lots and lots of songs, but I cannot afford all of them, therefore I should not have to pay for them. But if you don’t value them, then why take them at all?

      We all have to make choices based on “costs” (monetary, or otherwise) all the time. But we give value to things that way. You wouldn’t argue that you need to taste more and more foods, but wouldn’t want to buy the whole items… you’ll just take what you feel like and therefore the food producers should feel lucky if they get a couple cents out of you.

      Try having some discretion and think about valuing and appreciating what you consume. It might even be more enjoyable and you won’t have to work so hard to make up moral rationalizations for yourself.

      1. Dear Fluxkit,

        What are you talking about? I am not addressing myself, I am talking about reality.

        If you are a business, it is up to your to create a business model that actually works and produces money.

        Here in the real world, if you have a lousy model, with price points that are impractical, based on outdated models that are no longer a relevant to reality, (ie physical media versus digital), then the result is poor sales, and piracy. I’m not saying piracy is good, or piracy should happen, but that’s how the music industry is.

        They’re willing to fight making accommodations, they resist making a better way to sell music, they resist actually competing in the marketplace.

        Let me tell you about economics 101. You have supply and demand. Supply is now infinite thanks to digital media. Demand is also way up because of the increased consumption of music. Yet, the price has remained relative. That’s what you call a bad business model if you want to remain competitive.

        This time, can you please address these points?

    2. I think the Spotify model changes this conversation completely — and I\’d love someone to address these points. Once you get into Spotify, every other way of accessing music seems so old-fashioned. The convenience gap is huge here — for the reasons noted above and others …. It can\’t be dismissed so flippantly as just enter your iTunes password (which is a strange argument, on another level, for many of us who have resisted buying into the Apple distribution monopoly — and have love had to discover an easy-to-use non-iTunes program and negotiate other parts of the paid mp3 universe — which have varying interfaces).

      And from what I understand, no one really knows the full compensation to artists from Spotify — as contracts are negotiated separately — and the number of total \”plays\” a song gets is also kept under wraps. I\’ve read in many places how Spotify has been a welcome revenue stream.

      That\’s not to say that putting all our eggs in the Spotify basket is a good thing — or the lack of transparency over compensation isn\’t a huge problem. But it seems like where action needs to take place is getting the all-inclusive streaming industry to agree to some basic standards for compensation.

  25. I admit I’ve downloaded some things — movies that were out of print and looked to be permanently so. Movies that were not available in my region. But if it’s for sale, I pay for it. Every single time.

    I’m an amateur musician and composer looking to put my own stuff out there. Happily I have a separate career that supports me more than adequately, with benefits. But I swear to you, every single time I think about this, I am endlessly grateful that I do NOT make music that appeals to kids. As a classically-flavored pianist who writes her own stuff, no club kiddos will EVER be lining up to pirate my stuff, and I intend to keep it that way. For the moment, at least the somewhat more middle-aged and classically oriented audience that is more likely to appreciate what I do is also more likely to pay for a CD. That will not be the case in the future, though.

    At bottom, the attitude is “gimme.” These are children who still can’t fathom just how hard their parents have to work to make things happen; they still think that the laundry fairies magically turn dirty clothes in the hamper into clean clothes folded in their dresser. It’s the same with music — the effort needed to master an instrument and compose is invisible to them, and they are just acting like an infant at the breast, consumption-only.

  26. I wonder how Emily would feel if she went to work every day and her employer told her “ya know, since other people sometimes don’t get paid for working at a radio station, we’re not going to pay you either…but we still need you to do what you’ve been doing”.

    GREAT article. As a musician (www.sosaveme.com) I appreciate you having our backs!

    Thanks!

  28. Speaking as someone who has downloaded music for nearly ten years, now – it’s not so much about convenience as it is cost. Yes, my macbook was expensive, and so was/is my iphone; but both my laptop and my phone are two items necessary to my life. My macbook contains all my notes, essays, presentations, contact information, scans of medical records, appointments, etc, and my iphone is an even more portable extension of this information, with the added bonus of being my tool for arranging job interviews, study groups, giving me important reminders, and keeping up with my family.

    Add on top of this, car insurance, medical insurance, groceries, clothing, bills, rent, GAS (which in Southern California is murderously high; couple that with having to drive everywhere, and you’re looking at about $150 a month IF you fill up every other week; that averages out to some $1800 a year), and materials needed for class, including textbooks (which usually wind up being about $300 – $400 a semester if I’m lucky) and tuition, and monthly student loan payments… Basically, being a currently jobless twentysomething college student is freaking expensive. As someone who values music highly, and uses it to escape and de-stress, and religiously keeps up with the current output of their fifteen or so favourite musicians, the idea of paying $15-$30 an album is appalling (especially if you end up not liking the album; one of the safeguards of downloading music illegally is not having to pay for something you don’t like, and I can guarantee you that (as with movies) if we fans like the album enough, we’ll go out and purchase a hard copy; I do this when I purchase vinyl versions of albums, which I treasure). Occasionally you get a good deal on iTunes, where an album can be $5-$10 dollars, which is ultimately more swingable if I’ve got enough extra cash, but this doesn’t always happen.

    Would I like to pay artists for their amazing work? Of COURSE. They make dealing with my life a whole lot easier; but shelling out the cash for this kind of catharsis is just not always feasible, not for me. If I download music I try to balance it out by going to concerts and buying merchandise, but most of the acts I see (they tend to be indie, and thus cheaper) are in the $20-$40 ticket range; I lucked out in May and got a free ticket to a Coldplay show at the Hollywood Bowl, but out of pocket it would have been almost $100 to sit my butt down in nosebleed seats for a few hours. If I had to pay for it myself, I probably wouldn’t have attended, and I certainly didn’t purchase one of the $40 t-shirts. I love my artists, and want to help them, but record companies make it extremely difficult for their largely young fanbase, in the middle of tuition hikes and an overhanging recession and substantial unemployment, to support them financially.

    I would like, however, to point out Amanda Palmer’s kickstarter project, which was able to raise slightly more than ten times the original amount asked for ($100,000) in order to produce Amanda’s new album. There are 24, 883 backers for this project, and according to the numbers, about 3/4 of the contributors individually donated around 25$ or less; at least half of these contributors donated around $5 or less. Fans will scrape together what they can in order to help, especially if they know, for sure, that the proceeds are going to fund what they are supposed to fund: the artist themselves and the other musicians, producers, sound engineers, etc etc, that make music albums even possible, and not a corporation that largely screws its hardworking employees out of a lot of money.

    I don’t know, I’m rambling now. Ultimately I just think there is a lot more to the psychology of downloading music illegally than “oh it’s convenient”; it’s a constant inner struggle for many young (poor) music nerds, including myself.

    1. So it’s not a necessity like your macbook which you’re willing to pay for, but it’s a necessity as a catharsis that keeps you sane? Dude, it’s a couple clicks to find a band’s website and buy their stuff straight from them nowdays. Back in my college days, you HAD to pay a label for a copy of “Escape” or “Kilroy.” You had no choice.

      Nowdays, I’m reading Jeff Schmidt’s blog anyhow — why not ask him what avenue to buy his album pays him the most money, and then buy it through that means? $15-$30 an album” Come on. I spent $10 on Schmidt and $12 on Keating. These are simply not impossible amounts to put out.

    2. So since dessert isn’t “necessary to your life,” it’s OK to shoplift it?

      Seriously, I understand the appeal of things like Kickstarter campaigns, which allow you to push the cost of the services you use onto someone else’s back with impunity. I’ve operated a donation-supported Internet service for over twenty years. Let me tell you this: the successful campaign is a rarity. Were we fee-based, we would be able to offer a much higher level of service than we do scrimping to operate on donations. But there’s a big difference: we support non-profit projects that can’t afford to buy even the lowest-cost Internet services, and you support… your own entertainment.

    3. Three of the author’s band collaborators have recently had successful Kickstarter projects – one of them raising twice as much as was originally asked for. But aside from the occasional lottery winner, most Kickstarter projects help pay for some of the fixed costs involved in production. Or as Jonathan Segel put it, it’s a great way to start a project but not necessarily a good way for finishing it. Anyhow, Kickstarter is a great way to support artists, though I doubt that it will result in a way for artists to maintain sustainable life with family and bills.

    4. As for costs, a good part of getting an education is confronting the economic realities of supply and demand – allocating one’s limited resources to that which one needs and/or desires. When I was in college, there were days when the choice was between music and some other goods and services… And sometimes I chose music… and sometimes I didn’t. But those days I chose music, it was because it mattered much more than the alternatives. And that is that music that has stuck with me through the years. Oh well, lawn, etc…

    5. Bomba, you just sound defensive and I doubt you really absorbed much of Mr. Lowery’s post before working yourself into a defensive huff.

    6. Dear Bomba – may I paraphrase your above?
      “Speaking as someone who has written/performed music for nearly ten years, now – it’s not so much about convenience as it is cost. Yes, my macbook was expensive, and so was/is my iphone; but both my laptop and my phone are two items necessary to my life. My macbook contains all my notes, song ideas, presentations, contact information, scans of medical records, appointments, etc, and my iphone is an even more portable extension of this information, with the added bonus of being my tool for arranging gigs, rehearsals, giving me important reminders, and keeping up with my family.

      Add on top of this, car insurance, medical insurance, groceries, clothing, bills, rent, GAS (which in Southern California is murderously high; couple that with having to drive everywhere, and you’re looking at about $150 a month IF you fill up every other week; that averages out to some $1800 a year), and materials needed for my kids’ educations, including textbooks (which usually wind up being about $300 – $400 a semester if I’m lucky) and tuition, and monthly student loan payments… Basically, being a professional musician is freaking expensive.”

      How do you think the artists you supposedly admire pay all of THEIR bills? Music is their job, their livelihood. By not paying fairly for their music, you are, quite literally, depriving them of income to care for themselves and their families, regardless of whether they are on a major label or a private one.

      I assume you listen to your music on your iphone, thereby making it a part of your de-stressing routine. Would you go into the iphone store and say, “Would I like to pay you for this iphone? OF COURSE! It makes dealing with my life a whole lot easier; but shelling out the cash for this kind of catharsis is just not always feasible, not for me.” Would you feel entitled to walk out of a store without paying for an iphone or laptop or whatever just because you “couldn’t afford it”?

      You say it’s a “constant inner struggle.” Sorry, but it doesn’t sound like you are struggling very hard with the idea of stealing your favorite artists’ valuable commodities. I live in SoCal, and was a single mom raising 2 kids. Talk about freakin’ expensive. You find ways to cut costs to get the things you really want. I’m curious as to how much of your grocery bill includes Starbucks or beer. Do you go to Starbucks? How about getting coffee at McDonald’s (which is as good as if not better than Starbucks) and using the money you save to PAY for your music? Don’t eat out all the time. Just a couple of ideas. If you really wanted to, you could find ways. Or go without new music for a while, until you can save up for a new album. You WILL survive listening to the same old stuff for a bit, honest.

      I know of currently jobless twentysomething college students who think nothing of dropping small change on the ground and not bothering to pick it up. Drop 4 quarters, and that’s a song on Amazon. How much small change is in the cushions of your couch? You’d be surprised how much you can come up with if you try. Be creative. But be fair to your artists.

    7. Throughout the course of my life there have been things I wanted, but could not always afford. Strangely, my reaction was not to steal them. Instead I saved money and purchased them when I could afford it. If you can’t afford something, wait until you can, and then purchase it legitimately. You’re not entitled to an artists music because they’re one of your “favorite musicians”.

    8. Guess what, dude? Those artists who help you so much have to buy laptops and phones, car insurance, groceries, and everything else you spend your money on. Then they also have to buy instruments & supplies, promo material, web space…and maybe work a second job as well, because they need to keep regular money flowing like anyone else.

      So basically, you both have something in common. And they play & sing to help you make it through another day, another week. What are you doing in return?

    9. bomba. I was a struggling college student once as well, with many of the same expenses that you listed (though before the age of laptops and cell phones). My friends and I didn’t have much money for music. We bought less, but listened closely, repeatedly. Often wearing the vinyl (and needle) out. Albums were $6-$11. It meant a lot to us because it was a lot of money! We would listen together. Many a night was spent in a dorm room just listening and talking about music. There may have also been beer, I can’t say for sure. 😉 Some of those albums didn’t initially interest me; but many would later become my favorite albums. I think that if I would have had file sharing, I would have missed out on a lot of my favorite music.

      College is challenging. And I wouldn’t argue that it may be more challenging now than when I went. And it think you are absolutely right, that it is more about cost than convenience. I also think your are pretty insightful, and bring an honest viewpoint to Mr. Lowery’s reply. But I think that maybe it would ultimately benefit you more to consider quality over quantity when it comes to music.

      Just one opinon.

    11. Your Macbook? Unless you’re going to school for graphic design or video editing, you don’t need a Macbook to surf the net and write essays. You can save about $1,000 and still get a decent PC. The grand you saved could have bought you around 100 albums on Amazon, or bought a premium Pandora account for almost a year.

      Also, I’m in my late 20s and I worked through undergrad waiting tables. No sympathy here for my peers that have the luxury of not working through college. But, I had no choice—I come from working-class parents.

    13. I feel you – life is very expensive. And you seem like a thoughtful and motivated person, looking to build a future. I commend you for finding a healthy way to deal with stress (music), as opposed to so many negative options that are out there.

      I also see that you probably are completely unaware of the tone of your response – privileged.

      My husband and I have our own business and a family to raise – and in this economy things like going to a concert, or eating out or even a night at the movies are very very rare luxuries for us (a few times a year right now). When you state that you are an out of work college student, then I wonder how you are surviving – who is paying for the insurance (which so many cannot afford), etc.?

      As I said, I suspect you are unaware that you sound, well, spoiled… You are not poor. You may be struggling, but not poor.

      When I read your response, I couldn’t help but juxtapose it with this paragraph from Mr. Lowery’s post:

      “On a personal level, I have witnessed the impoverishment of many critically acclaimed but marginally commercial artists. In particular, two dear friends: Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and Vic Chestnutt. Both of these artists, despite growing global popularity, saw their incomes collapse in the last decade. There is no other explanation except for the fact that “fans” made the unethical choice to take their music without compensating these artists.

      Shortly before Christmas 2009, Vic took his life. He was my neighbor, and I was there as they put him in the ambulance. On March 6th, 2010, Mark Linkous shot himself in the heart. Anybody who knew either of these musicians will tell you that the pair suffered from addiction and depression. They will also tell you their situation was worsened by their financial situation. Vic was deeply in debt to hospitals and, at the time, was publicly complaining about losing his home. Mark was living in abject squalor in his remote studio in the Smokey Mountains without adequate access to the mental health care he so desperately needed.”

    14. If you can’t afford something, you don’t get it. That’s part of life, time to grow up. “I can’t afford it but I want it” isn’t a good excuse for stealing.

    15. Bomba: You’re unbelievable. You whine about all the costs you incur for your life, car macbook etc, and how can you possibly pay for a CD – Has it even remotely occured to you that musicians have to somehow make their way through real life too, and pay for things just like you? How would you feel if you couldn’t pay your car insurance because your boss decided not to pay you? I love the way you list your expenses like no-one else has them.

    16. With all due respect… I doubt you *need* an expensive laptop (Macbook) and an expensive phone (iPhone) with an expensive data contract for the things you listed. I get by just fine with a normal non-data-plan non-iOS/non-Android dumb phone and a relatively cheap laptop.

      Saying that your phone and laptop are necessities (probably true) and thus excusing the expensive choices (Macbook and iPhone) does not quite make sense.

      Also, $15-20 for an album? Are they really that much on iTunes?

    17. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND how people who are to the point of higher education can have such infantile, extraordinarily obtuse explanations for their behavior!! Essentially, ‘Waaaaah I want it I need it I don’t want to change my habits or my life so I can pay for it’. The arrogance and sense of entitlement is just incredible.

      Bomba, it’s swell that you are interested in providing charity to musicians, to help the ones you like make new recordings. But maybe if you and others like you just paid for what you use, those artists who provide you the catharsis you need so badly wouldn’t NEED charity projects. You say ‘Fans will scrape together what they can in order to help, especially if they know, for sure, that the proceeds are going to fund what they are supposed to fund: the artist’…..how dare you? You benefit from what you take illicitly because you really don’t want to pay for what you use, but you’d condescend to give money IF you think it’s a good cause? My disgust knows no bounds. It’s common thievery. And whoever is paying for your education is being taken for a ride.

  29. David,

    Bravo!

    Both iTunes and Amazon in their listing a copyright notice for downloads give a strong indication to whom they’re paying the 70% (minus modest aggregator commissions) of their gross revenues.

    But I agree that denying a major label these potential revenues is dubious. Let the courts decide the royalty issue “sale or license”.

    When we decided 2 years ago to put 99% of our catalog back in print by means of digital downloads we implemented a 50% payout policy but including controlled composition mechanicals and micropenny income streams. But we also eliminated all unrecouped balances, many dating back 30 years!

    I’d urge you to go back and conform the variant spellings of “principles” and “principals”. The principal owners of Megaupload have no principles. There’s a typo of “hudreds of years of western civilization”.

    Robbie Fields

  30. Hey David,

    While I think that you have written a very good argument to illegal downloading, I think that both you and Emily have suffered from some simple misinterpretations.

    First, the article that Emily wrote was in response to Bob Boilen deleting his music from his hard drive after being uploaded to the cloud. I’m not sure why this inspired her to write about how she never had to transition from physical to digital. Transitioning from physical to digital and transitioning from hard drive to cloud are two completely separate experiences.

    Ripping all of your CD’s to your hard drive is a much more arduous task then uploading your music to a cloud service. And if you take the next step and get rid of your CD’s, and gasp, vinyl LPs, it really is a a scary moment for a hardcore music collector.

    But back to your response.. Emily does not say that she stole 11,000 songs – she says that’s how many she has in her iTunes library. She says that she has only bought 15 CD’s to signify that she has downloaded from ITunes most of her music and has never had a large physical collection.

    She states: “But I didn’t illegally download (most) of my songs. A few are, admittedly, from a stint in the 5th grade with the file-sharing program Kazaa. Some are from my family. I’ve swapped hundreds of mix CDs with friends. My senior prom date took my iPod home once and returned it to me with 15 gigs of Big Star, The Velvet Underground and Yo La Tengo (I owe him one).”

    She also talks about ripping promos and albums from the radio station she works at – which you can hardly fault her for. Part of her job is to study and learn about music, and bands and labels send their music to these stations so that people can become educated about it.

    So, while I totally understand and mostly agree with your statements in this essay and maybe this was a good opportunity for you to take the time to express your concerns, I don’t think that Emily is necessarily your target audience.

    Rachel

    1. ” Emily does not say that she stole 11,000 songs – she says that’s how many she has in her iTunes library. She says that she has only bought 15 CD’s to signify that she has downloaded from ITunes most of her music and has never had a large physical collection.”

      I actually wrote NPR and asked for a clarification on that exact point and a few others.

      unless I am totally misreading their response then they let my interpretation that she only purchased 15 albums total in any form stand.

      Regardless. let’s look at the authors words. she admittedly trebled her library while working at a college radio station by copying station discs, that’s a significant portion of her library, 66% that she did not purchase. Everything I say about being a ethical fan still stands.

      1. Then maybe I did the misinterpreting, I read it as to say that she had not been a purchaser of physical music but of downloads. But if you took the time to clarify with NPR – bravo to you.

      3. For me, as a non-native speaker, her blog post implies that the main source for her music has been iTunes, and in that way she can not be considered as having “stolen” most of the music she is listening to. Her point seems to be that she is not buying physical albums.

        Thank you for an interesting post and discussion it has generated. Saw a link to it on the Facebook page of a Finnish musician friend. I am Finnish (and Finland is very much a country of effective enforcement of authors’ and performers’ rights), but live in Moscow, Russia, and here in Russia most of my friends are local working musicians and authors of music, promoters and such. Russia, of course, is a different environment than the US or Western Europe, both for the public and the musicians, and the question of piracy is here much more multi-faceted also.

    2. Also this quote from the author:

      “As monumental a role as musicians and albums have played in my life, I’ve never invested money in them aside from concert tickets and t-shirts.

      But I didn’t illegally download (most) of my songs. A few are, admittedly, from a stint in the 5th grade with the file-sharing program Kazaa. Some are from my family. I’ve swapped hundreds of mix CDs with friends. My senior prom date took my iPod home once and returned it to me with 15 gigs of Big Star, The Velvet Underground and Yo La Tengo (I owe him one).“

      2. I should complete the quote for her: ““As monumental a role as musicians and albums have played in my life, they could go starve for all I care.”

    3. The scale of the violation is not really that relevant. Surely some of the tracks she got from friends (fair use by itself) were downloaded by her friends from file sharing sites.

  31. I am 21 years old and over the past 5 years I have purchased hundreds of albums on CD or vinyl.It saddens me to think that Emily thinks our whole generation is in her boat, just paying for convenience. I fear though that people are losing the concept of an album. People are obsessed with playlists and buying single songs. And soon it will be near impossible for bands to fund making a whole album. That in the future records that are meant to be listened to as one cohesive piece or work will be gone. Thats what I dislike most.

  32. Yes. I’m all for the correction in our industry- music making should be a regular paying job, not necessarily a lifetime of guaranteed limo rides and excess. I like the new model of buying music directly from artists and investing heavily in the live music experience. But you have to pay for it. If you have the moment of “this *has* to be on my iPod or in my DJ set, then you *have* to cough up a dollar for it. It’s a dollar. And it matters. Every time. To me. Personally. I am a real person who has worked my entire life to be the kind of musician who can walk into a studio or onto a stage and contribute with my cello-y nonsense.

    Pay the dollar.

  33. I’d also like to know how many of these people who think that if you CAN steal something, you SHOULD — and not from labels, but from the artists themselves — actually know how to play an instrument. Back when recording became possible, John Philip Sousa remarked that there would be no more people playing music for their own enjoyment, that listening to and enjoying music would no longer take some investment of thought on anyone’s part. It would separate “until there will be left only the mechanical device and the professional executant,” Sousa griped. “Then what of the national throat? Will it not weaken? What of the national chest? Will it not shrink?”

    I will never manage to fathom people who claim to be “musical” and yet who do nothing but consume it to the point of hoarding — 11,000 songs? Come on! — and make no efforts to producing it themselves. This is another hallmark of these kids — they remind me of people who congratulate themselves on an active and varied sex life because of their vast collection of porn. If you truly love something, be it music or … other activities, you:

    1) put effort into mastering your own “equipment,” as it were, and then
    2) go looking for other people to share the experience with.

    Not doing that, sitting around and expecting music (or anything else) to be passively poured into your brain, weakens the throat, but it also weakens the mind. And the morals.

  34. As a personal preference (and it is a personal preference because I do not necessarily consider having something on your computer of cd shelf to be any different from streaming) I prefer to stream. I prefer to listen to the song as and when. This might fly in the face of all we know and love about music as a physical ‘thing’ that we own but we are where we are with technology and personalised streaming has proven to be popular. We can’t uninvent it.

    That alone is not a decision on morality because I expect the price I am charged to do this to reflect the marginal rate of revenue an artist should receive. Based on, I dunno, the average price of a full download divided by the average amount someone will listen to that download. Very back of cigarette packet but it’s a business model that could work.

    As a result I use Spotify and pay for it. My assumption is that the subscription I pay adequately reflects my usage. I do well out of it because I listen to a variety of songs once or twice which would be unworkable if I were buying each and every one (I just wouldn’t). I treat it like a radio and many music lovers only listen to the radio.

    It now transpires that Spotify aren’t even charging me nearly enough to compensate artists. What do you suggest I do? If Spotify wanted to charge me £30 a month and I knew it’d do the job I would pay it. I am not trying to absolve myself of responsibilty but there are people who like me believe there’s a market for ethical streaming services who simply don’t want to download.

    1. I’d love to hear more replies to this issue as well. A lot of us want something equivalent to radio to listen to music. But radio is a joke in a lot of local markets and is a shell of what it used to be. So, there is the option of internet radio. But how do you know artists are getting ANY money from those stations? At least paying for a subscription service as a means for ‘radio’ you know the artists are getting SOME money. So the bottom line is there is no ethical option out there for those of us wanting a modern alternative to radio? Those of us paying subscription fees thinking we are being legit aren’t?

    2. I respect your preference for streaming, and your original assumption was reasonable–that you were paying enough for the service you use to fairly compensate those who created the music. However, now that you’ve found out otherwise, I can suggest what you should do.

      Whether a company sells clothes for less becuase it doesn’t pay its workers a fair wage; or it sells first-run DVDs for $2 because they’re home-made copies and nobody who worked on the film makes a penny; or it offers a month of streaming for the price of a single album because it pays independent labels and artists about 1% of what other streaming services are paying: Stop doing business with this company, and spend your money with another that is run honestly.

  35. u know what – u r way to kind – the truth of the matter is Emily White is a thief -no excuses – artists deserve to be paid for their music. I can’t believe she is a GM of a college radio show and steals music from artists

    1. So, then I presume that all of your music is legally downloaded? Very few people can point fingers on this matter.

      Her job is unimportant in this scenario. If anything, it should make her more aware of what effects her actions (or lack thereof) cause. Outside of that, it really doesn’t matter. A teacher, a lawyer, a busdriver. It’s still wrong if any of these people pirated or shared music. It’s just that they would be less likely to be aware of their impacts.

  36. This was an excellent read…thanks. I wanted to point out another important shift in the content-creation business that is another big piece of this puzzle. It’s hard for me to lay all the blame at the feet of the younger generation that downloads for free. (This is, after all, a very consumer-friendly proposition.) The music business itself, specifically the labels, are complicit (whether they like it or not) in the now-established “standard” of doing business when it comes to music. Like all dinosaurs at a time of profound change, the dinosaurs cling to their tried-and-true methods with white knuckles. They only know what the spreadsheets from previous quarters tell them. This is why they did not go out there with MP3 compilations when the format appeared. This is why they did not open up their own digital storefronts. This is why they did not reduce prices when physical media began to fade. Instead, they hemmed and hawed and ended up shifting their control of the music (and by extension, the artists) to technology companies in California who could see which way the wind was blowing. It is unfortunate that what has resulted is that the entities that actually sell music today have very little motivation to represent the interests of the actual artists. And the record companies are left fighting over scraps.

    1. They aren’t hanging onto the old way anymore, though — they created Spotify, which enabled them to screw artists over as much as or more than the old model. They were perfectly happy to race wholeheartedly onto the net once they found a way to monetize it for their armies of lawyers and STILL pay a pauper’s pittance to the people whose efforts actually created the product.

      And supposedly “revolutionary” kiddies who break their arms patting themselves on the back over how radical and future-oriented they are suck it up like they’re at a trough. These students are also dinosaurs, but there are millions of them. Music pirates, download kiddies, major labels … they’re all screwing over the musicians while claiming to be “fans” or “on the artists’ sides.”

      1. We agree that Spotify is an unsustainable business model for musicians and we encourage artists to remove their music from their service.

        Will Buckley, founder, FarePlay

      2. A point I made above, Will, is that it needn’t be unsustainable for musicians. It suits my listening habits to have a streamable royalty-based service which I and many other people would gladly pay properly.

        When musicians take themselves off Spotify, have you calculated how much additional revenue they then get from people buying their albums as downloads/CDs instead? I would be willing to bet it’s almost nothing.

        Whilst if an artist isn’t adequately compensated through a mechanism you are right to advise they withdraw from it but I honestly don’t think they benefit from not being on Spotify either. If Spotify didn’t exist I’d rather suspect there would be a net loss to the music industry due to the sheer number of casual listeners who don’t want to pay for physical copies or downloads but also don’t want to illegally copy.

        There’s a market there and it’s sustainable if we actually bothered to think about it properly.

      3. That argument doesn’t make sense, though — it’s not a matter of benefiting from Spotify at that point. It’s that you will be totally obscure if you aren’t on it, and financially screwed over if you are. I know that the beauty of capitalism is supposed to be that it gives people “choices,” but I’d really rather have some nicer choices.

        Seriously, I have a day career that pays very well. As an amateur musician, WHY should I even bother putting my stuff out there, no matter if people want to hear it or not? What argument can you make to me as a non-starving musician to put my stuff on Spotify that doesn’t amount to “you’ll get kicked in the face if you don’t let us kick you in the stomach?”

      4. Collectionpoint, first this an argument that unauthorized file sharers have put forth for a decade; free unlimited access drives sales. Perhaps it has, but if you look at the 60% drop in music sales it is a hard point to make.

        If you step back and look at the Spotify/Cloud model closely, it is not good for musicians, nor is it good for the future of music?

        There is no question that the compensation model is not good for musicians.

        There is no question that when fans don’t have to purchase downloads, but can create playlists that they can share for free with their friends it is not good for musicians.

        There is no question that when Spotify rolls out corporate Apps, starting in July at the London Olympics, that enable companies like Reebok, AT&T, etc.

        to stream music on their websites instead of licensing music it from the artist
        it is not good for musicians.

        Is the cloud coming and can we avoid no. Do you musicians need to roll over and take the scraps that are offered them? No.

        When Spotify is willing to pay musicians market value for their work, fine. But it is not up to the artists to underwrite Spotif’s business plan to acquire VC financing and a global brand. Unless Spotify is willing to give musicians an equity stake in the company as they have with the major record labels.

      5. I think you have misunderstood the point. I’m talking about streaming as a business model rather than necessarily Spotify’s current business model. But since you ask:

        Wider recognition; a forum outside your current one. All it takes is to be added to a playlist, or attached to a “similar artist” on one of the apps and you have a much, much wider sphere than your current one. I have heard music by artists on Spotify who I seriously doubt have even physically sold one album in my country. I’m not going to go to your website or your show; I will go on Spotify though. Going on Spotify is as effective as you can get, combined with a blog tip-off. It’s romantic to think anyone gets recognition “organically” but Spotify is a risk-free way for the “consumer” to follow up on a recommendation.

        If you do it properly you only allow a few songs on Spotify. You give people a teaser, like radio and singles used to do. Bam – album sales. Album sales to people who would not know a single thing about you otherwise and would not take the risk otherwise. It’s an incredibly old fashion marketing strategy but totally relevant in the current climate of risk-averse cash-poor consumers.

        Plus if we get Spotify right then there is the appropriate level of royalty. I’ve already said I’d pay a lot more than I do if it meant the artists were getting that. How are they screwed over then?

        Taking music off Spotify individually can only be some sort of self destructive behaviour. I’m pretty sure there’s a more effective way to prove your point and get a compensation structure that works. Collective bargaining, label solidarity, general industry pressure. If you take your little band off Spotify on your own, Spotify won’t miss out. You probably will.

        What bugs me is people conflate the illegal downloading argument with streaming from sites like Spotify. Illegal downloading is a direct competition and threat to legal music purchasing. Streaming is a substitute, it can also be a facilitator for legal purchasing if you do it properly. If you wanted it to be, it could be the thing that kills off illegal downloading. Instead of this romantic notion of an-album-as-an-experience, be realistic; find a way to embrace the casual, non-committal consumer. Rather than deride them, find a way to charge them for the way they want to listen to music or lose them to illegal downloading.

  37. Lucid analysis – right on! As an artist and the operator of an indy label I agree with everything here.

    I’ll add another, wider thought. When I think about how we used to “get into” music (I’m 52), there were limitations on the amount of music we were able to possess and control (as records). Buying a 45 or an LP was a big deal, required saving money and a somewhat considered decision. When you bought one, you listened to it over and over – literally wearing the grooves out of some (well, smoothing the grooves, I suppose). There was a depth of relationship with one particular song/album/artist that I think created a certain kind of perception. Almost every musician of my generation who I know has a story of a very small group or series of albums they listened to like this, played along with, learned, internalized.

    Now, I wonder, with every song ever recorded available for free, are young listeners having the kind of intimate relationships with the actual music that were created by the limitation of access? Is today’s method of dissemination creating more numerous but more shallow feelings for and understanding of particular works? And if this is the case how does that affect the style and character of tomorrow’s musicians and their audiences? Ultimately, how will that affect the quality of music?

    Jes’ wondering….

    1. For context I’m a 23 year old from Seattle. I spent the majority of my childhood moving around in parts of the country that were dead zones as far as culture is concerned. My options for music were whatever country, shitty rock and general top 40 stations Clear Channel was willing to pay for. I bought CDs when I had the money but local music stores had lousy selections at best. My parents were big fans of Meat Loaf and The Beatles.

      While in high school I won a small iPod and decided to start buying iTunes giftcards so that I could purchase music online. In 2005 iTunes had a smaller catalog that it does now but I was exposed to this whole new world of music. I started buying all those albums I had heard about but never gotten to hear. I had a long list of music I would work through every time I collected a paycheck.

      Jump ahead 3 years and I found myself in a strange position. I couldn’t use iTunes since I had taught myself how to use linux and was running a Gentoo install. I could have run iTunes in Wine but I wasn’t interested in supporting either Apple or Microsoft. I still had an iPod but only because I couldn’t find anything on the market that provide comparable storage capacity. I even swapped out the OS on it so I could get it to support FLAC. I learned how to properly rip my CDs and dropped around 200$ on headphones that would come close to doing justice to the music I loved. I would pirate songs from donation supported invitation only private trackers. I downloaded hundreds of albums a year. I’d give each of them a straight listen through. Most I deleted, the ones I liked I’d go out and buy other albums from the artist.

      I started getting into more experimental music, older music and music with hyper limited releases. Around that same time I found myself out of school and buried with loan debt in the middle of a historic recession, something we shouldn’t ignore when griping about those young folks not paying for their music. I already owned my laptop and my iPod, I got my internet access from libraries and friend’s houses. I was dumpster diving and gardening for my food but still paying for shows, buying shirts and donating through paypal/bandcamp/you name it.

      I made less than $5k in 2011 and I spent around $1k on music, all of it went to the artists or to independent labels or to DIY venues. I also pirated a hell of a lot of music. I’ll listen to a track and if I like it I’ll download an album to give it a fair shake. There are albums I’ve listened to enough to wear the grooves out. I only found most of those treasures by digging through histories of genres and reading reviews and finding music that was actually moving. When I could afford it I gave money to those artists. If I loved them enough I gave them money even when I couldn’t really afford it.

      This is way too long for a comment but I think if you ignore the value of allowing a 20 year old to hear out of print jazz or little known turn of the century classical or weird 60s outsider artists or fetishist noise music then are part of the problem of bland mass market corporate garbage.

      Yeah we need to pay artists. No piracy is not theft. It is piracy. It isn’t an easily parsed issue, if you can write a coherent moral proclamation for or against it then you are only taking part of issue into consideration. I live with musicians and I’d like to write. I’m on the road with a documentary film crew right now. Believe that I GET that artists need to get paid. If you are making art right now you have to be willing to accept that people will want to experience your shit for free. Both fans and artists need to work together as a community in order to figure out come up with a model or models that will satisfy the needs of both sides.

    2. While limitation of access might contribute to one’s desire for something, I would argue that the emotional connection to music is as strong as ever for us young people–just not for everything we listen to. There are a select few albums or individual songs that I’ve listened to over and over and over, dissecting the lyrics for possible meanings and relating their messages to my own life. My favorite albums move me to tears. (As an aside, these are the albums that I will continue to purchase physical copies of.) Then again, there are also many, many songs that I own which are emotionally disposable to me. They’re still fun to listen to, but they won’t stick with me through the years. I think we’ve seen an increase in the amount of emotionally disposable music, but I don’t think that necessarily means that the truly moving and exceptional music has gone (or will go) away.

    3. I know of many young artists that allow people to ‘name a price’ or offer freed downloads. I’m not sure how they monetize their work. I’d guess that most of them don’t do it for a living. But the music is wonderful and no one seems too bent out of shape about the money aspect. The community is really great actually.

      Maybe the future will be defined not by a group of professional musicians but by a mass of hobbyists who share their work. At least that’s the kind of music I consume now.

      Maybe that’s where a lot of the tension between the generations comes from. Much of the media I consume and create is shared freely with my peers in a loose mutual exchange. When I want some sort of media from older adults it always comes down to money, so I don’t partake.

  38. Excellent article. I am a sound mixing engineer, and it has gotten very difficult to get gigs, simply because the artists are not making any money.
    It makes me really angry to see my generation and younger kids just taking music and not valuing it.

    1. Are you saying local bans have to record, release albums, etc, BEFORE they can get gigs? I thought you started playing gigs (weeknight shows, open mics, whatever you can scrounge), at clubs that hire good sound guys, before you made the decision to invest in studio time.

  39. Really thoughtfully written and tastefully handled – I’m sharing right now, thanks for this.
    I’ve been thinking (and writing) about this a lot over the past couple of years. (http://earwormreview.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-develop-good-music-buying.html)

    I guess I’m smack in the “millenial” camp.
    I use Youtube and the free version of Spotify to “sample” albums. If I like it, then I buy it, in a trickledown pattern of artist first, record store second, and thrift shop/Amazon third, with eBay as a last resort. Ultimately if I can’t afford to buy it new, then I want my money to do the most good elsewhere.
    I don’t do illegal downloads and I only do legal downloads as a last resort, i.e. it’s an exclusive track that’s not available in physical format.
    (This is purely personal – I derive so much enjoyment from my LP & CD collection that I’m willing to pay more to have that. Plus, reading liner notes has connected so many musical dots, I can’t even tell you.)
    I have a good job and no debt, but drive everywhere and live in a high cost-of-living area. I live super-frugally in order to afford physical media and live shows. It’s purely about priorities.

    1. I am in complete agreement with you!
      I often use Spotify to ‘road test’ an ablum and then most of the time I will go on to buy it.
      I am a huge fan of having a hard copy of music, i.e. CD’s and buy them ideally from the bands website or merch stand to cut out the middle man, then and independent record shop as they need all the help they can get too. It feels more satisfying knowing that you’re money isn’t being stuck into the ‘high rollers’ namely iTunes, Amazon and HMV.
      It is definitely about priorities and respect for artists and small labels.

    2. Yes. And the Swiss musicians are contemplating suing their own government for violating human rights treaties/Trade treaties and their own national laws protecting artists. Basically the swiss government study said: ” Look kids are saving money on music and buying VIDEO GAMES instead. So it’s okay.”

      In other words the government forced music artists to subsidize the video gaming industry. Totally not fair. And i’ll be glad to have this argument with you in long form if you like. I’m very well versed in that study.

  41. Pingback: Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered. | Valley of Steel

  43. as the wife of an incredibly hard working, pavement-hitting, blue collar musician, i kind of want to kiss you right on the mouth right now.
    we are VERY lucky to live in austin, tx where my husband’s health insurance is covered through the city thanks to an active musicians political base. but my children and myself, (also an artist, employed outside the home part time as well as self employed full time) are not covered and are ever hustling to cover bases.
    i’m so grateful that my husband gets to do what he loves. but he works his ass off and is on the road nearly 50% of the time, which, with a family, is a challenge when the two of us both need to be working in order to make ends meet.
    part of this argument feels almost as though it stems from some weird depression-era mentality that we should not make money doing what we love. that we perhaps should be require to struggle financially if we choose to do what we love, and we should certainly not expect to be compensated in any way that might lead to a ‘comfortable’ lifestyle.
    albiet that might sound hyperbolic, but aside from our austin-based community who tend to be highly attuned to the rigors of the musicians lifestyle, most folks still seem to believe the mythology that musicians and artists are not doing anything but writing an occasional song and playing an occasional gig. as i’m sure you’re aware, the writing and playing only seem to account for about 10% of the work of executing a sustainable music career. and yet the accepted compensation for the work, all told, often seems to ignore this reality.
    anyway, my husband is happy, and i am happy, and we love our life. our children are fed, we have a nice home and an amazing community. I often fear sounding whiny when i talk to folks about the devaluation of the work of artists thanks to entities like spotify, etc.
    thank you for doing such a beautiful job of clearly and cleanly stating the behind the scenes of this weird disassociation that is taking place in the world of art and music.

    1. I applaud and admire any one who still pushing to play music Full time here in Austin. I live and play here as well and had to break down and get a 9 to 5 cause I just couldn’t afford to play music full time any longer. Good for your husband and your family. Keep pushing!

  48. Damn this is a good – articulates what I’ve been feeling for years. It’s kind of unfashionable to admit to thinking music piracy is wrong. It’s as if you’re a goody two shoes, spoiling the free bonanza. Is that a sign of collective guilt though? And if it is, does that mean the tide is turning? You’re absolutely right that it needs to come from the grassroots.

  49. I agree with what you have said and stand for. It is indeed morally wrong to steal music/anything, HOWEVER, what the hell do you expect to happen in a society where, for the most part, the people, like recent college grad Emily, who are stealing are being told by so many of YOUR peers (as you are a college prof) in “higher education” that “There is no one truth.” and “What is right for me is right for me, and what is right for you is right for you. Just be true to yourself.” Well, of course it is “right” for them to take these songs, and of course it “feels good”, and they sure are being “true to themselves”. Im sorry, but your pissin in the wind with this “logic”.

    You said “What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is analogous to changing our morality and principles…” But dont we “change” our morality all the time? Its not just the “Free Culture movement” that is shooting from the hips in regards to morality, but it’s our entire culture that we currently live in! Some might say premarital sex (regardless of hetero or homo) was formally immoral – but now it is not considered immoral, in fact if you say it is immoral then you are backwards and dogmatic and adhere to archaic ways of thinking… if there is no one truth, if there is no inherent right and wrong, if there is no one cannon of truth, then we should not only be surprised when people do what ever the hell they feel like (because “its right for the” and it feels good”), but we should expect it.

    You cant pick and choose morality and decide what someone else is doing is wrong while in the same breath your telling folks to “just be true to yourself”, because it sure is true that they dont want to spend a 10 bucks on album. Either we need to embrace a source for one truth, or just do whatever the hell we want (our we can legislate the “current” “truth” of the day).

    There is only one truth for this, and all issues, in regards to the life and soul of a human – seek diligently for that truth and you will find it.

  50. While I admit that I don’t agree with your conclusions, please let me congratulate you on an excellently worded, well-thought out and compassionate argument. If we had more people on both sides of the equation willing to dedicate this kind of thought to the problem, we might have reached some kind of workable solution by now.

    I think this is an issue that pretty much everyone in the arts is wrestling with: writers, artists, filmmakers, photographers, publishers, and of course, musicians. As a writer, I’ve seen my career fall off a cliff in just a few years — I definitely have a dog in this fight.

    But it’s hard for me to come down on Emily or her perception of the “Free Culture” too hard. We can’t lumber her with the responsibility for a changing marketplace. We are, all of us, trying to sell buggy whips in the age of the automobile. Progress has come, the business model has changed, and we must figure out a new way of doing business.

    It seems we are returning to the days when an artist enjoyed a small following that funded his or her works, and that artist spent the remainder of their time working a proper job to eke out a living. As much as we would like to be able to follow our muses and work to our talents alone, it’s just not a sustainable option anymore.

    The very technology that has made it so affordable to produce art has led to a glut of artistic output. I don’t think illegal downloading is the reason individual artists can’t make a living from their work. It’s because there are simply too many artists for a population to support. Every other person you know is probably either in a band, making amateur films, trying to sell their images or a print-on-demand book. The mistake we make is that we think the same people who download things for free would otherwise pay for them if there was no other way to get them. I fear that’s wishful thinking. A collection of 15 CDs is about right for an intern (read: not getting paid much, if at all, and possibly carrying college tuition debts) of Emily’s age.

    Finally, the argument against the “downloading generation” might be a bit more effective in a flush economy. At a time when nearly everybody is doing what they can to either find a job (or two) or hold on to the one they have, it’s hard to drum up a reasonable amount of sympathy for the financial plight of the musician alone. I must admit that grossing $35,000 without health insurance actually sounds quite nice to me at the moment. (And for the record, I’ve never illegally downloaded a song. While I’d like to say it’s because of the moral imperative involved, in my heart of hearts I know it’s because I like the bands who make the music I listen to and I want to support them any way that I can.)

    And until some manner of justice is seen to be done to the investment banks that helped to land us in this financial malaise in the first place — thereby making Emily’s chances of landing any sort of gainful employment infinitely smaller — I think we will all have our work cut out for us convincing her that her downloading is any kind of financial menace to society.

    1. You could not be more correct, Aaron. We can’t all be fighter pilots, and we can’t all be full time musicians. Can’t we get back to playing music for the sheer enjoyment of it?

    2. I agree with you that David has presented his case quite well. As someone who has created content as a writer, photographer, record producer, videographer, served as a music publisher, artist manager,

      1. I don’t know why this cut me off in the middle of a reply, but if this can be put together please do so…and just about every other position in the industry outside of artist for over 35 years, I would like to say the entertainment industry is leading the new economic model for civilization. As an artist, I have rarely profited monetarily from my artistic efforts. I have given almost everything away, even though I am currently trying to write a book. The truth is I have a need to create. It is an obsession that would be tainted if I were to make any substantial money from the creation. I haven’t been overly successful, but my work has been widely available, and I am certainly proud of what I have done…including the food delivery, computer technology, tree service, and other jobs that have sustained me and my family while I was creating. It has worked for me. It has made me a better artist. It has earned me a great reputation and numerous friends. The lack of outrageous amounts of money weeds out those not truly dedicated to their art.

  51. My issue with the author’s premise is iTunes itself. I find it objectionable that we’re not dealing with vendors of our choice, but a proprietary software locked to a single marketplace; iTunes. Oh, sure, I can import music from OTHER services INTO iTunes, but it’s not a two way street. The author forgets or chooses to ignore the fact that we spent a better part of the last century dismantling monopolies of this sort.

    Pre-digital, I could buy albums or tapes from any outlet I chose, play them on any device I chose, purchased from any vendor I chose. Of course, back then radio was worth a damn, so I could also listen to great new music – for free – via the airwaves. Now one or two companies own all the stations, and they’re all playing of computer-generated charts to appeal to the broadest demographic possible, so the airwaves are bereft of anything worth listening to anymore.

    The author may not mind the intrusive assimilation our lives by products like iTunes or FaeceBook, but some of us value our freedom more than convenience. We don’t want to sell our soul to Apple, our lives crammed into Facebook, we don’t want to have to choose between Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or even Mac or PC. We want freedom, not virtual enslavement to one proprietary technology or another.

    I fully support paying for the arts you access, but don’t smugly blurt out “just use iTunes” and think you’ve said something worthwhile. It is in fact a part of the problem, not the solution.

  53. This is the reply I sent to Emily:

    “All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it. Is that too much to ask?”

    We all want what we want when we want it. Getting older means coming to terms with how to compromise and accommodate all of us simultaneously being in that space. My guess is that the musicians we *all* love want to make the music they’re making and afford to live at the same time. So some advice? Do unto others. Find a way to give something back to the artists who’ve shared their work to you, and when you do, lead by example. Share what you’ve learned with the rest of us so we can follow suit 😉

    D

  54. One issue that has uniquely affected generation i is this: the amount of music available to purchase is exponentially higher than it was 15 years ago and previous. To think that 11,000 songs is roughly 1000 albums is to realize that Emily White owns a significant portion of the inventory of any retail music outlet, with the exception of mega stores only found in large cities. That is to say, Emily White owns the equivalent of every album available at your local chain store/big box/independent retailer. Before this generation, no one could have consumed that much music at such a young age. I’m 29, and I own upwards of 400-500 cds, and I consider myself an avid music fan, not to mention my pursuits in musicianship. What anyone who owns this much music will attest to is that, despite having an extensive library of songs, we all have our old standbys. How many hundred times have I listened to my favorite albums? When people lament the prohibitive cost of buying music, they should really consider the investment they are making. How many people have 2 iphones? That would be absurd–only 1 can be useful at a time. Instead of needing the 100 song/month allowance that Emily White has averaged in her music consumption, why not use more discretion in attaining music such that the commodity itself has more value? I assume people download songs that they listen to once or twice–what person would discard an iphone after 1-2 texts/calls/apps? No one would, yet we have allowed music to be so valueless that nearly every person under 25 thinks of downloading songs not as shoplifting but as free sampling. After all, it’s not stealing if the product is offered for free. Hence, bands from Radiohead all the way down need to decide how important free exposure is. What David Lowery’s figures did not mention were the astronomical increases in amateur bands/musicians. How many million people have songs, original or covers, available on youtube for streaming? It’s as if society has changed from everyone that bought The Velvet Undergound’s debut starting a band to everyone that bought a Beatles album starting a music career. One of the sad ironies of the music industry is this: for decades, the morally responsible have been denied record contracts in favor of the libertine and the morally pliable ingenues. Had record companies pushed for civic responsibility rather than excess as their means of employing artists, perhaps this debate would be moot.

  55. David wrote: “The fundamental shift in principals and morality is about who gets to control and exploit the work of an artist. The accepted norm for hudreds of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time. (Since the works that are are almost invariably the subject of these discussions are popular culture of one type or another, the duration of the copyright term is pretty much irrelevant for an ethical discussion.) By allowing the artist to treat his/her work as actual property, the artist can decide how to monetize his or her work. This system has worked very well for fans and artists.”

    You cannot use this disinformation to support your argument, which I agree has merit. But there is no support at all historically for the notion that for “hundreds of years of Western civilization” there has been “accepted norm” as you have described it. Quite the contrary. From the beginning of music printing around 1508 through about 1750 the process was that you had to apply for a permit to print music from either your city state or the king of the territory where you lived. Then they would determine how much of the compensation you could have, whether you were the printer or the composer, and in those days if the composer wasn’t the printer then that was nothing for them. In the early 18th century you begin to see the first large-scale publishers of music who could operate with some autonomy, such as John Walsh in London or La Cène in Amsterdam, and these folks were out and out pirates, paying orchestra players to make copies of music written by prominent composers and to publish them without even the knowledge of the composer. Breitkopf and Härtel in Germany departed from this trend by actually working with, and paying, composers, but that would be a single-time payment with no residuals.

    Once fully fledged commercial publishing gets underway in the U.S. around 1820, it’s still the same deal, and the compensation was very modest, especially when you consider the wide distribution and popularity of sheet music in that era. It wasn’t until the establishment of performance rights organizations such as ASCAP (1914) that we begin to see profit sharing between commercial publishers and composers/lyricists, at least in the U.S. And in the intervening time through about 1980, it was more often than not that both publishers and record companies found ways to get around compulsory kinds of agreements, or simply not to enter into that kind of an agreement with an artist. Back in the 1930s, artists didn’t look to recording as a major source of compensation, and perhaps they should have pressed for better contracts then. Management would insure the better contracts that came after World War II, when the demand for music far outstripped the supply.

    Is that an excuse for what you call the “free culture movement?” No, of course not. But to say that bad deals for artists seldom happen, even today, is an untruth, and sometimes the deals are bad on the other end as well, such as the business with the Morrises, Mariah Carey and EMI early last decade. The Copyright office never establishing a copyright for sound recordings until 1972 and the elimination of the renewal process are among major contributing factors in this issue in a historical sense.

    If the “free culture movement” is backed by corporations, then it should be the other corporations affected by it that should be leading the charge against them. As far as the public knows, however, they are only going after the 71-year old grandmothers whose progeny pursue illegal downloads; we both know that’s not true, but they did it once, and it proved a poisonous public relations move. They need to address that in a way that sticks in people’s minds. That the very young — the major target audience for major music industries — feel that it is okay to not pay for music at all is certainly not the right thing, however their apathy has been cultivated, however unintentionally, by major interests. But also we really need to find a viable replacement for the 45 rpm single; the inexpensive format that everyone found favorable to buy, and use, to their hearts’ content, while providing enough profit to keep the hits coming. A 99 cent digital download is not quite the same thing.

    Uncle Dave Lewis
    Lebanon, OH

  56. Thank you, David. Following you on FB I know have been working on this concept for a long time. As a studio owner I have watched the changes in how music is made and how it’s distributed by the bands and musicians at the DIY level. Many have songs to share, but are not certain how to get their music out to an audience without simply giving it away.

    I agree that the “Free Culture” movement does need to rethink their personal standards. It is obviously not “free” nor does it promote culture/the arts in a meaningful way. The issue of “free” has become a right rather than giving away something special.

    First, easy access (such as downloading music) just gives us more stuff to collect on our devices. The devices “hold” X amount of songs and we have the choice to decide what we put on our MP3 players, phones or computers. Often we let technology make our decisions “if a machine can do something, it ought to be done.” We simply fill up our devices (it’s free and doesn’t fill up our shelves!) and complain about the musical content later.

    Yet today’s listeners have more access to hearing music before purchasing it. Complain as they may, they can listen to songs prior to downloading them–they have that choice. Back in the olden days, we either purchased the single or the album. We all have our share of disappointments, but were willing to make that financial plunge. That world changed with the technology and we can’t go backwards.

    We shouldn’t give up on technology, trash our computers and break our iPhones. We should approach our consumption of technology instead of “looting” music because someone else is doing it.

    A final point: this free-for-all approach to music and the arts has lessened the quality of what we hear. Folks are willing to obtain a copy of low quality files because it’s free, not because it’s good. But this is a whole other debate . . .

    1. There’s an on-going “trickle-up” disease in the music business. Regardless of whether you blame the current trend on the greed of the recording labels in the ’60’s to 90’s or/and the constant innovation of the tech age, everyone is being cheapened. Music fans become thieves; artists become beggars; but worst of all, the music product has, for the most part, returned to a quality of Edison wax cylinders. Studios, engineers, and producers like those that gave us the White Album, Dark Side of the Moon, Pet Sounds, The Nightfly, and Thriller don’t get a chance to record, improve and mature 99% of the current musicians sourcing to the internet.

      This generation of young people are missing out on so much. Just as reading, dining and traveling broaden other senses, the listening to well produced music – no matter the genre – trains our ears to hear intricacies that deepen the aural experience. It feeds and challenges the mind. Internet music CAN be deep and pleasurable, but instead it’s usually about as textured as talk radio on cheap 60’s car speakers on a long stretch of country road. “Tourette”-like experiments using distorted electronic effects on regurgitations of old sound bytes or true diamonds that remain in the rough.

      Those of us that design for, equip and staff the recording business have suffered too. We miss the innovation and creativity that happened in the studio. We miss the sublime sound of a well-produced album/cd/vinyl. Luckily we still had enough engineers and facilities that knew how to make a vinyl master when this “dinosaur” of audiophile resurfaced. The human brain is designed to hear the difference between crap and superior levels of reproduction. Enough fan demand for professional product would keep the recording industry alive.

      Days of the big labels and studios are pretty much gone. They shot themselves in the foot with $18 cd’s and, like David says, the greedy moved into the down-loading industry. The remaining recording industry is mostly comprised of independently owned and operated facilities and they don’t look to rip off the artists that put dinner on the table.

      Buy your music. Ensure there will be great sound in the future to feed your ears.

      1. I really enjoyed your response until the last line. You point (quite adeptly) point out that almost all areas of the music industry are suffering a cheapening. But then you say, “Buy your music”, even though you’ve just pointed out all the good reasons why people do not buy music. ‘

        “Internet music CAN be deep and pleasurable, but instead it’s usually about as textured as talk radio on cheap 60′s car speakers on a long stretch of country road.” This can’t be argued. But what kind of devices are out there to play music non-digitally for the masses? Nothing. This point is moot because the hardware industry supports mp3 and mp4 formats which inherently supports the digital music industry.

        “Enough fan demand for professional product would keep the recording industry alive.” I agree with this, but then why do you say, “buy your music?” Why should consumers buy music which you’ve already admittedly is of lesser quality with no options of “professional products” to choose from? The industry needs to create professional products before anyone chooses to listen to them.

        “Days of the big labels and studios are pretty much gone. They shot themselves in the foot with $18 cd’s and, like David says, the greedy moved into the down-loading industry.” Again, agreed, and again, why is this a reason to buy music?

  57. Beautifully expressed, David—
    Heck, you can even take the “big corporation” aspect out of it….it’s theft, plain and simple. Couching it as “sharing” is deceptively sinister.

    1. Theft is one way to think of it. Another is that, if there’s already a gang rape in progress, what’s the harm in a random bystander joining in and taking a poke of their own, as long as they have a relatively small penis? The victim won’t even feel it!

  58. I am going back to vinyl. I like having something in my hands with artwork, liner notes, and the occasional poster. I think that the vinyl experience would help regenerate music sales BUT I bought the new Rufus Wainright and it cost damn near $40 and did not include mp3’s. WTF ? It seems like the majors will do damn near anything to screw over the public and the artists. I understand that vinyl costs more but MERGE does it without charging some ridiculous amount of money. You can shame the buyers all you want but the labels have to do their part as well by treating the people who actually DO buy music with some bit of respect.

  60. Someone needs to send Bob Lefsetz this excellent blog entry. Bob is a widely read blogger in the music industry, and he’s constantly claiming that it’s perfectly okay for artists to not expect to get paid for their music. He claims they can make their money by touring and should just give their music away for free or for cheap. Unless an act is the Eagles or the Rolling Stones, there is no way the average artist can make a living touring the country even if they have any kind of following.

    1. I’ll go farther than that, actually: as I point out to my students, some types of music don’t perform particularly well; some take too many people to perform properly – thus making them ideal for local recording, but impossible for touring profitably; others are niche. Whether so-called pundits realize it or not, saying that musicianship’s profitability must shift to live performance narrows significantly the breadth of music which can be MADE profitable. Recorded/studio work is a discrete art form; to insist that it isn’t is no more fair than it would be to insist that the production of all film should shift to theater in order to remain profitable, merely because films can be pirated and downloaded, while live theater cannot be pirated by definition.

  61. As with many of the world’s problems/challenges, until our technologies and market infrastructures link the consumer directly with the producer, EVERYONE will keep looking for ways (likewise via technology and market structure) to hang on to more of their own pennies (or dollars in the case of the multinationals). This because the multiple middlemen cost us all more than the actual value of the product, not to mention more than the producer will ever earn themselves. Everyone is trying to get ahead, or stay afloat, in a cesspool of consumerism and its inherent marketing stench. (in related news from Greece: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/06/2012611102126662269.html)

    35K average musician salary I think is a fair bit high, by the way. At least by Austin musician standards, which is another topic altogether….

    I fault our system far more than I fault this average college student. In fact, I don’t fault her at all. For example, the Canadian, French, and Danish systems of supporting musicians present examples of how a society might not have to ridiculously just hope for the best in terms of the evolution of Spotify (as suggested in this blog) in order to keep food on the table of musician’s families. Yes, those systems are far from perfect, but the American system is far from humane.

    For the record, I do my music listening via youtube, haven’t bought music anywhere other than buying CDs from the stage at concerts for over a decade, and god knows I respect musicians, being a poor one myself. This is the world we live in, technologically speaking, as opposed to ethically speaking, in my view.

  62. I am probably exactly the target of this essay and I agree with most of it. Still, it doesn’t seem fair to castigate Emily for not paying $18 a month for her music collection. I think Emily, I, and most people I know who download music, would love to pay 18, or even significantly more, dollars a month in order to be able to have access to the kind of music libraries that exist outside of the official channels. There just isn’t that kind of service available. Donating to the abovementioned music charities, in the alternative, seems like a great idea.

    I understand that David is arguing for a thoughtful, responsible approach to technology that allows us virtually unlimited free access to music. Still, we know that very few of the songs in Emily’s library would have translated into real sales. Would it better if she never heard any of those songs?

  63. First I want to say that I 100% agree with what you have said and stand for. It is indeed morally wrong to steal music/anything!!!!

    HOWEVER, what do you expect to happen in a society where, for the most part, the people, like recent college grad Emily, who are stealing are being told by so many of YOUR peers (as you are a college prof) in “higher education” that “There is no one truth.” and “What is right for me is right for me, and what is right for you is right for you. Just be true to yourself.” Well, of course it is “right” for them to take these songs, and of course it “feels good”, and they sure are being “true to themselves”.

    You said “What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is analogous to changing our morality and principles…” But dont we “change” our morality all the time? Its not just the “Free Culture movement” that is shooting from the hips in regards to morality, but it’s our entire culture that we currently live in! Some might say premarital sex (regardless of hetero or homo) was formally immoral – but now it is not considered immoral, in fact if you say it is immoral then you are backwards and dogmatic and adhere to archaic ways of thinking… if there is no one truth, if there is no inherent right and wrong, if there is no one cannon of truth, then we should not only be surprised when people do what ever the hell they feel like (because “its right for the” and it feels good”), but we should expect it.

    You cant pick and choose morality and decide what someone else is doing is wrong while in the same breath your telling folks to “just be true to yourself”, because it sure is true that they dont want to spend a 10 bucks on album. Either we need to embrace a source for one truth, or just do whatever the hell we want (our we can legislate the “current” “truth” of the day).

    There is only one truth for this, and all issues, in regards to the life and soul of a human – seek diligently for that truth and you will find it.

    1. Ah, so it’s those dadburned moral-relativist professors at fault again. Do you really think youngsters learn their ethics from educators who tell them to do whatever feels good? I attended a fairly liberal liberal-arts college, and I promise you I’m at least as moral as you. (And I pay for music.)

      P.S. There is no one cannon of truth. There is also no one canon of truth.

  64. I couldn’t read this article and not comment.
    Firstly, this Emily White; whoever she is, wherever she is, I would love to give her a full on slap around the face, for not only being an imbecile and a hypocrite but also for making the rest of our generation look and sound like a bunch of selfish little idiots.

    I am also 21. I was a student for two years and I still only work 4 days a week on a rather low pay. I spend 1/2 of my income on rent to my parents and owning and driving my car. However I still have an iPod stuffed to its 8gb capacity and am the proud owner of almost 140 CD’s and about 30 vinyl.
    I would say that I personally purchased around 110 of those CD’s and have been purchasing them for lets say 5 years. If the average CD in my collection is worth about £7 I would have spent around £150 a year on albums. I would be inclined to say I spend at least a further £100 a year directly on Gig tickets. Although I still feel guilty if I swap a CD with a friend because I cant afford to buy it that month and that I use a spotify free account at home for the albums I have yet to buy!

    Now this Emily may ask ‘why spend that much money on music?’
    Simple- BECAUSE I LOVE MUSIC! And more importantly I respect musicians and I would feel incredibly guilty if I didn’t purchase my favourite bands album! It is just what you do in life!
    Lets say you are a keen swimmer, you either have your own pool or you pay to have lessons/ use public pools. You don’t climb the fence of a garden that has a pool in do you? That would be irresponsible and taking the piss!

    I just find it hard to see why this article wasn’t to ‘shame you or embarrass’ her. I feel like it should be! People like her are exactly why the music industry is taking such a financial beating! If you care enough about it, you have to invest in it instead of watching it burn and complaining about it afterwards!

  65. David,

    Thank you for this very thoughtful and well informed open letter (your words speak the truth as I see it as well) . I am a professional musician and recording engineer in Los Angeles and have seen the industry decimated to the point where it has basically eaten itself due to lack of support. I was fortunate to have my track “Gemini” placed in the Video Game Guitar Hero 2 back in 2006 and thought “well surely record sales from this will finally get me out of the red for all of the expense and investment.” – no dice…

    Funny, all the new fans I gained from the game consistently contact me to ask… “When are you going on the road / where can I see you live??” when I reply “I wish I could afford to tour, but file ‘sharing’ has made that impossible” they usually write back.. “Gee I hope things improve!” like the problem is me and they have no part to play in this…

    Well, the problem is not me and it took a long time for me to realize that. I had all these people becoming fans of my music but I had no way to reach out and really engage them, especially in a live setting. I became cynical, depressed and disenfranchised with music.

    Since, I have realigned my priorities and have come to much happier place with music… But, I doubt that I will ever really pursue it as my sole source of income anymore as unfortunately the price is just too high.

    The saddest part of all of this is that you can take a society’s “Temperature” by it’s artistic and cultural offerings and how well it treats the people who make it. This patient is downing in the kiddie pool.

    Sincerely,

    Brian Kahanek

  66. I understand that artists want to make money from their music and their frustration at the industry, but why should anyone (including the “horrible, lazy, entitled” gen ys) have to go out of their way to make sure you get your money. It’s not our responsibility to “fix” the music industry or intensely research each and every avenue of music.

    No, it’s not right to use an illegal site to download 11,000 songs, but to preview a song on spotify? Like any other product, I’ll be more likely to buy it if I can get a free sample first or can get a taste of what it would be like to own it. If I like the song on spotify or from listening to my friend’s cd, then I will go out and buy the whole thing. And on top of that, I’ll buy a t-shirt, poster and concert tickets. Why are artists above any other “product”?

    Why is asking for convenience such a horrible thing? Every other industry strives to offer this to their customers, but once again, people who want music have to jump through hoops to spend their money.

    Books, magazines, clothes, movies…all of these things are shared among friends. It’s a natural part of the purchase path and is a great way for artists to gain awareness and new fans. Once again, if I borrow a CD from a friend and like it, I’ll buy the next albums or the previous ones.

    I’m so tired of being lectured on what fans should be doing right to pay their favorite artists. What are artists doing to make things good for their fans besides living out their own dreams and having the career they dreamed of?

  67. Mr. Lowery- I was one of your students at UGA (seminar class) and generally have the same attitude/ situation as Emily White, but I have to say that your article is so well done that I have no choice but to convert and show all music lovers I know this article. You touched on so many different points, that there is no counter argument except the feeling of entitlement that my generation has about creative content (over stimulation to blame? I don’t know, but…) Thank you so much for sharing this- I am moved and completely inspired to change my ways.

  68. I agree with a vast majority of points you made. I’m someone who spends an absurd amount of music per month (about 15% of every paycheck, if I had to guess) spread around albums, merch, concert tickets, etc. One point that I feel most everyone misses (mostly those who are arguing your side of things) is that there is a huge moral disconnect for many people because when they pirate music it feels different than when they steal something tangible–no one is left without that specific object when they do something. It’s like if I borrowed your coffee pot, made an exact copy with no explicit costs to myself, and gave it back to you. I have the item, you have it as well, and the seller lost a sale. A difficult thing for many youngsters to grasp, I think.

    Additionally, the reason people buy their cell phones, internet, computers, web connections, etc. is because they’re not singularly useful. Music is one thing that serves one function (for the most part): to be listened to. It’s not a gateway for other things, it’s the end product. Cell phones, internet, etc. are all gateways and utilities.

    I’m a huge proponent of services like Bandcamp that give entities a large amount of utility in working out pricing models and such that really work for artists and labels. The same model doesn’t work for everyone, and no one should expect that it would.

    In my very humble opinion, I think the most important thing is to figure out how to get the consumers and suppliers in this model to figure out what works the best for each side. Both sides, when speaking about the majority, appear to be unwilling to come to a compromise and it’s really causing a lot of issues.

    As someone working in the music industry, I want to find the solution for everyone, but I have no idea what it could be. I think that something similar to the Spotify model is a great first step, but as you illustrated, is obviously not even close to a permanent solution.

  69. David,
    Couldn’t have said it better myself. I am, however, attempting to cover this topic–and many others–in my book about the history of ASCAP, which is nearly finished. I’d love to use portions of this article in the book, if you’re willing to let me do so. Or perhaps chat with you about it on the phone. If you don’t recall, I once did a story on you and Greg Lisher for GUITAR for the Practicing Musician. You can respond here or email me at bruce.pollock@netzero.com

  70. Why is it assumed that musicians should be able to make a living just by selling their work when other artists sustain themselves through “normal jobs” or commissions. Artists who are able to make a living exclusively selling their work are few and far between.

    I can get copies of any painting online for free, and from my experience you don’t get artists complaining about this or have collection groups suing people for “making available” their work free of charge.

    So first I’d like to hear an argument for the assumption that musicians deserve to make money exclusively through music, then maybe the rest of your argument, which was well thought out and very well argued, would have more weight with me.

    1. no one is making that argument.

      I’m simply suggesting that if an artist is selling something, and you support that artist and like that music buy it.

      1. I scanned though most of the replies looking for Liam’s viewpoint, which seems close to my own.

        I do make a living mostly from music. The amount I make is pitifully small, though growing. I seriously doubt that I will be able to make more money than someone who sweeps floors or stacks shelves or works on an assembly line. As a pure red socialist, this is fine by me.

        I earn money from music entirely by teaching but I take the composing and performing side of my work very seriously. I don’t have any product up for sale at present – I’m happy for people to listen to work in progress or download, for free. When I do release an album I expect the monetary return to be tiny.

        I do not write music so that people will pay money. There is small circle of people for whom my music has a profound meaning and I hope it grows

        I do this because I am wired to do it.

        Elsewhere in these replies people have referred directly or indirectly to consumerism and society where we want and can have everything on demand. There is an opposite pole to this – equally pernicious, that you might call ‘producerism’. It’s the idea that if you produce people will buy – and – that if something is to have any value, people must want to pay for it.

        And don’t we just know it – this creates a vast festering heap of mindless consumer culture spam

        Mankind has a long history of art for art’s sake. This has been a blip on the graph and it’s over.

        Perhaps we are on the verge of a real change – hopefully towards a post economic society. It has been the case for some time that if you want the very best software – you look for the free stuff. Linux is better than anything microsoft produces because it brings together the efforts of people whose only concern is excellence – doing something for its own sake.

        I agree, if an artist puts something up for sale, they should be paid if there is a transaction.

        But, my advice to artists ( I’m fifty four, I can give advice ) is: forget trying to sell it. Go and practice some more.

    3. The argument that you can get a painting online for free is a little odd. Sure, artists post images of their work online all the time, but they’re usually 72 dpi. Not exactly museum quality. And…yes, as a visual artist, I can tell you that I most certainly would not allow unauthorized use of my work if it were a) being broadly distributed without my permission or b) used for profit without my knowledge and agreement. That’s just basic stuff. Illustrators, cartoonists, and designers get into dustups over this kind of thing all the time. Have a look at this recent example of an artist getting annoyed at unauthorized use of his work:

      http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/digital-culture/social-web/the-oatmeal-vs-funnyjunk-an-online-morality-tale/article4350216/

      Now, as to the rest of your argument: artists “deserve” to make a living from their work as much an accountants, trick-ropers, strippers, and politicians do. This country has some bizarre Puritan damage that tells us that if something is enjoyable, it isn’t work. This leads to all kinds of distortions in relationships between creators and clients, and the public. There seems to be a great sense of entitlement in some quarters, a feeling that one is entitled to entertainment, and that because it’s entertainment, it should somehow be “cheap”.

      Now, I’m all for art being accessible to everyone. That’s why I became a cartoonist instead of taking an art-world track. If you want to buy my art, I’ll sell you an original. If you want to buy the mass-produced book that that art went into, or take it out of the library, you also have that option, and my blessing. If you want to print it off the internet, well, go ahead, but it’ll just be a pixelated, shrunken printout, the pictorial equivalent of a 5th-generation cassette (ha ha, remember those?). I realize that the music and publishing worlds are probably very different, but in the end we’re all just trying to keep the roof over our heads.

      I hope this wasn’t too much a digression. Thank you for this very well-written and well-thought-out letter.

  71. Thanks David for your extremely cogent analysis of this persistent problem that music’s most avid fans continue to sow the seeds of destruction of the art, and artists, they presumably hold so dear. We have 13,372 songs in our library and, except for a very small number which were offered free directly by the artists, we have gladly paid for every single one. The well-being of the artists who make the music is essential to our own well-being. It’s just that simple. I hope everyone who is stealing music (or any other intellectual property for that matter) from artists they profess to love will read your article and rethink what they are doing.

  72. Overall a wonderful commentary on the intersection between the music business and digital technology. Many thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts so thoroughly and succinctly.

    There are a few points of disagreement as well. The first is a counterpoint: the revenue model for the music industry is broken, and the music industry itself broke it. Whilst I feel for independent artists and your stories are difficult to read, the music industry developed a highly complex business model to maximise value extracted from artists and consumers. The way in which rights and licensing are structured benefit large corporations at the expense of individuals on either side.

    There is still money in music, however, it’s been atomised into micro-payments. Further, where the industry relied on physical barriers – media – for content management, those barriers do not exist now.

    And that upheaval is not exclusive to music. Photography companies fell to digital electronics companies. Microsoft is stagnating in the face of ‘cloud stuff’. Technological progress consumes business models. Problem being in the music industry is that it wove a web so complex and intricate that it’s now mired in the past and being eaten alive.

    Jurisdictional rights alone are an archaic form of price discrimination that now strangle the industry. Devices and data move fluidly across geographic boundaries, however ‘legal’ content does not. National players are struggling to block content flows. However, the day ThePirateBay.org was blocked in the UK, MalaysiaBay.org – a full mirror – sprung up. And there’s 40 more like it.

    In essence, the music industry as we knew it before iDevices, broadband, and mobile data is over. The music itself was never valuable, it was access to music. Previously that came via radios, CDs, cassettes, CDs, and physical media. Now, copies are costless. Thus music is being priced to its true value. If we reverse the lens, what kept music expensive before was the monopoly of the record companies on production. It was a fake version of exclusivity. They had a good run, and now it’s over.

    And it should be over, because there’s not an extreme amount of differentiation between products. There is a great variety, however much of it serves the same purpose. And I say that as someone who adores (and purchases) volumes of music.

    The way the music industry is acting – and the way your opinion reads – is that there is a definite ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in terms of media and content. The right way is the old way, every copy was priced and musicians could make a living. The wrong way is the new way, where control has been completely lost and everyone is losing money.

    I would posit that the greatest problem with the music industry – and by extension, artists being paid – is the expectation that the way the industry used to exist should be perpetuated. I don’t see any reason why music should escape the same fates that have befallen other industries. There may well be similar stories of depression in typewriter repair-men, blacksmiths, or film lab professionals. It’s difficult when technology moves on, but that does not make technology wrong.

    If anything, there is the larger social issue of privatising gains without requirement those gains be used to support the society that enabled them. I doubt record executives are feeling the pain as much as individual artists. The former are losing luxurious; the latter are losing houses. But, as mentioned, the music industry hung itself when it’s business model became based on labyrinthian contracts and monopolistic distribution platforms. And artists gained for a long, long time from that model. Not as much as they should have – on that we can agree – but it’s uncouth to complain about both sides: “We didn’t have a fair share then, and we don’t have a fair share now. At least we could live on the fair share we had then.” If artists are never being paid enough, artists are overvaluing their work.

    And whilst you mention there are ‘fewer’ musicians today. There may be fewer self-identified musicians in Western markets, however, more music coming out today and that music is more diverse and beautiful that I have ever heard. I am embarrassed at what was considered ‘experimental’ on MTV in the late 90s. As the music industry dies, so does ‘mainstream’. Small artists do not need ‘mainstream’, large corporates do. As the music industry suffocates, it’s being replaced by a most wonderful explosion of creativity at the margins.

    Back to your question of why do we value the devices but not the music itself? We do value the music itself, it’s just not as valuable as some of us want to think it is. And before saying how unfair the world is, it seems to be going quite well for DeadMau5 and many others. If one finds the world unfair, sometimes it is best to revisit one’s expectations.

  73. Hey David-

    Great rebuttal.

    One big gripe I have about iTunes and CDs is CDs are cheaper to produce than previous formats. Delivering an AAC file is even cheaper. Why haven’t the labels passed those savings on to the customer? I think it would have helped reduce a lot of harm that not passing the savings have done. That’s just bad PR and seems like a big motivator to go Free.

    Also the other big motivator for Free…the current label’s ingenious PR stunt of taking advantage of suing nameless people. Fuck you, you stole from us so we’ll abuse your system to right this wrong. Fuck you, you just shat over the people’s legal system, time to make a better mouse.

    1. didn’t they? albums went from $18 (2002 dollars) down to 9.99(2012 dollars)

      Also I can not speak for the record labels actions. I’ve had my legal fights with the industry myself.

      I’m speaking for artists like myself.

      1. Not really. Downloads of new albums are often >$12, and for older ones they’re often more expensive than the CD.

  74. I realize that it is the students and young adults that are downloading the music, but I think it is important to note that perhaps the parents and the generations above those downloading should take some responsibility for creating a culture where downloading music illegally is acceptable. There was one commentator that referenced a “gimme culture.” A culture like that isn’t created in a day or even a decade. It involves growing up in a society that condones that sort of attitude and behavior. I’m not saying that those downloading music shouldn’t be held accountable, but I think that in order to effectively “correct” this trend, the demographic that is viewed as causing the “problem” needs to be greatly expanded. Society raised a generation of arguably unethical and spoiled students/young adults, and now unfortunately, the music industry is paying the price.

    1. Eventually, you need to start taking responsibility for your own actions. There comes a time, when the tiller is in your own hands, that your life is no longer your parents’ doing.

  75. TANSTAAFL

    I am a performing musician and songwriter and recently released my 7th music CD. The music business has been transformed along with the technological revolution. I have been blessed with being able to make a living with my music training full time. I constantly educate myself to be a diversified musician, engineer, and educator. I have no choice, I have to hustle to be a freelancing self-employed artist.

    The ethics of the so-called free culture are a symptom of our society in general. Music inspires us in so many ways. For example, Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” became an anthem for the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Woody Guthrie’s impact is well documented and the song “Amazing Grace” was a story of slave trader becoming an ethical human being. So I think we all agree, music is a valuable art form in our society based upon free expression and free markets.

    In 2004 I attended the Future of Music Coalition Conference in Washington DC at George Washington University. The internet revolution was in full swing and the ethics of P2P file sharing was being debated by the musicians and the technologists. I remember well a Q& A with US Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) and I asked him how does US law deal with music theft on-line and how can teachers teach ethical behavior in our schools? His reply was less than inspiring, he couldn’t even control what his son did on-line with his music.

    David Clowery’s article clearly demonstrates how people love music, but do not make the intellectual leap of logic to wonder how an artist earns a living while they (the music lover) gets music or movies for free. In the days of record stores (and I am one of those former record store employees) the only time we were able to get free music was when the label reps gave the staff free copies to play in the store. We were able to catch the shoplifters in those days (a few battles took place, worthy of Hill Street Blues).

    How did all this wonderful technology come in to existence? The digital revolution came into being because the United States government thought it was necessary to launch the space race during the Cold War. Computers, satellite technology, cell phones, fiber optics, micro-processing, robotics, bio-medicine, and the manned landing on the Moon was all made possible by R&D that had its birth in the space program.

    All the technology that allows easy and free access to your favorite song, film, Youtube clip, and on-line news (another casualty of the free culture) was imagined and brought to reality by those engineers and scientists that made NASA great.

    And finally, the real name of The Grammys is NARAS – stands for National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

    When you fire up the laptop or Smart phone, remember Tanstaaffl (There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch)

    Cheers, Mike Dawson

    For Reference:
    http://futureofmusic.org/

  76. This article is very interresting and well done, but I still think the music industry just deserve the problem they have. To be honest this is their fault.

    Not because they are not moral enough, nobody really care. We all know that the moral excuse is just that, an excuse.

    This is because of the overall experience.

    It has always been possible to listen to all the music you wanted legally, for free. Just think about the radio. Just think about music TV channels. You don’t have to pay for that. And the radio / TV channel pay for the music. Well not free, but that already a sort of global licence. The radio pay for the music and everybody can listen to it as much as they want they don’t pay for it.

    So music is already free. And that’s not new. And artists are already paid for that. The radio and TV system made very little space for a paid system, and so except from some paid TV channel that was mostly it. Nobody was complaining that the radio was an unethical system and that it would prevent artist to make money. In fact that was the contrary. Being a broadcast device it helped some lucky one to became famous and make more money.

    Ethically we have no problem.

    No, the problem is majors and artists made more money in the past by selling disks and CD. You didn’t have to pay to listen to music, but paying would give you great benefits: like listening with better quality and when you wanted it, without ads. So you paid in the past for the ‘premium’ version. And if the CD broke you had to pay it again. When you upgraded from disk of one size to another or from tape to CD you had to buy the music again. The major weren’t complaining.

    The problem is today, the premium version, you can have it for free. And it is as good or even better than the paid version.

    Yes, we have apple. Apple echosystem works very well. But because it provide an even better experience than the free legal or illegal alternative. You search for your music, you click to have it and it is synched automatically to all your devices.

    But apple is just a small part of the market. If the majors managed to craft the same experience apple users have, but for all devices, they would make even more money than ten years ago.

    Please stop looking for excuse, and try to craft a better user experience! Adapt to modernity. Artist make less money because their representative failed to adapt.

    PS: If you wonder, I own an iPhone, I own a mac… And I pay for my music, thanks.

  77. David, this is such a masterfully written piece. Thank you. I wanted to add an additional perspective.

    I’m competing for jobs with Emily. I’m in mid-career, but I’m a journalist who’s had some freelance work published, and I was a staff writer for a Web site for a time.

    I mention this because in journalism, a very similar and parallel shift to what’s happened in the music industry has taken place.

    Magazines, newspapers and media platforms are expected to produce engaging, factual, well-reported news and feature writing. And yet people do not always pay for that writing.

    This is more a result of industry changes and choices (e.g. to release content without a paywall on the Internet) and not necessarily a choice on the part of readers to simply not pay (they were not asked to initially).

    But I’m drawing this parallel because Emily is, in fact, an INTERN right now. Someone who is, by the definition of the role, likely working in an unpaid capacity.

    I would challenge Emily to go to any job board and look around for jobs in her field, particularly in radio, a job market that has shrunk even more violently and permanently than print journalism.

    She’s likely to see job posting after job posting after job posting for interns to do the work that trained, qualified professionals used to do.

    It’s because the work of journalists has been devalued, or expected to be produced for free, in much the same way as the work of artists and musicians has been.

    And also because those diminishing revenue streams feed a vicious cycle – the less money that comes in, the fewer staff members who can be paid a sustainable wage, the more interns needed to make the hamster wheel run.

    And that leads to a much bigger question for us culturally – how we value work, and how we define it.

    I hope Emily reads this and sees the connection. I wish her the best, but I suspect she’ll soon feel the direct effects of people not valuing the work that you do and the content you create.

    http://elegyandirony.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/music-monday-the-value-of-music/

  81. FYI, David. I just bought a CD of “Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey” and I’m happy I paid the money for it. To think that I’d have to lose your band(s) because you are all starving to death makes me sad. PLEASE PAY THE ARTISTS FOR THEIR WORK.

  83. Sigh. Lefsetz (who is also a passionate music lover) also seems to think that musicians can make money (to make up for not selling records) by just selling high-value access experiences to fans. (Eg., have a one-hour lunch with Rocky Rockstar at Olive Garden for $250, to make up for 25 copies of his song he is not selling….) To me this is just — crazy. That you should have to be a complete extrovert with very low personal boundaries, in order to make some living in music? Not right.

    I’m 50something, grew up with vinyl, then 8track, cassettes, CDs, back to vinyl, mp3s, ipod, cloud, yada yada. I’ve had a paid Spotify account since last fall but I confess to having really mixed feelings about that now, after learning how poorly artists are compensated. My moral workaround is just: “You can listen to that record once on spotify. But if you are going to listen to it more than that, you … gotta buy it.” The service does have me listening to many artists I’d never have risked money on any other way, and — has resulted in subsequent purchases from them. It’s kind of too bad that there is not some built-in control on Spotify and other streaming services, actually, for there to be a limited number of free listens. I realize of course that this very wish marks me as a neanderthal.

    I do also make it a regular practice to listen at Spotify to albums I have already purchased, ensuring that some further pittance gets paid to the artists. But I think I’m an anomaly. (I write, sing and play music myself, too, not for money but for love — so this mindset no doubt makes me more inclined to put myself in the shoes of the ones who are chasing the dream…) And i agree with the poster above lamenting the probable demise of the album as a cohesive work, vs cherrypicking of single songs. We are losing something.

  84. It’s all about the music here and that’s where it started but it doesn’t END there, folks. I’m a WRITER, not a musician, and although the piracy isn’t as high-profile, perhaps, as somebody admitting to only buying 15 CDs and owning 11 000 songs – it happens in our neck of the woods, too. And the writers also get hit with a lot of sites wanting to “publish” work – sites which can’t pay “At the moment” but which offer heaps of “exposure” (i.e. work for free, writers, and support OUR hobby and/or our passionate desire to wear teh label “editor” by giving us the work which might otherwise go for enough to buy your cat its kibble or you your ramen noodles for a couple of days…)

    The basic thing is, there is no such stuff as “free culture”. All the stuff you know as “Art” comes from someone’s talent, someone’s imagination. And if you aren’t willing to support that talent and that imagination, *you will lose them*. Yes, there will still be songs. But there may be no NEW songs.

  85. This is much too deep and important a topic for me to do it justice in a snap reaction, but what pops into my head is this — a song is not a hack.

    I get the Free Contenters, I really do, all the way back to the phone phreaks. (I’m old enough to have actually grown up in a house with a rotary phone — A phone, singular — black and foreboding in the… R-O-T-A-R-Y…nevermind…)

    But if we want to recapture some working definition of value for music we have to turns to basics, to aesthetics. And aesthetics tells us — in part — that the beautiful, or praiseworthy, or valuable is a difficult thing done well. And not just anything — a coherent whole, something which stands alone and tells us something about ourselves and/or our world.

    Music does this; mere hacks cannot.

  86. This is a terrific piece; cogent, thoughtful and, I think spot-on. I know you come from the music side of it, and it’s a little easier to have sympathy for musicians, but damn, we need a voice like yours on the TV/Movie side too. People thinking that downloading a TV show or movie for free is a perfectly reasonable way to consume entertainment is a sad, sad thing–and even sadder, the big entertainment conglomerates–while caterwauling about piracy–are not helping the artists in this equation much at all (the writers’ union struck for months in part to try to redress some of the wrongs, to little avail, ultimately). Broadcast television might have “felt” free but it never was. And facebook “feels” free too, but of course is not. People–whatever age–need to undertand that artworks and pieces of entertainment do not just magically appear. They are finely wrought, by human beings, who should be fairly compensated.

  87. I’d like to use this in the copyright session I do with first-year music majors, if that is okay with you. I also use the interaction the composer Jason Robert Brown had with a high schooler. My biggest goal – once a student has been told, they can at least no longer claim ignorance.

  88. Pingback: Right On, David Lowery, Right On.

  89. To emphasize on the last point I made a bit more: the idea that downloading music is killing artists’ careers, even when the option of buying is very much alive, is based on the faulty logic that anybody who makes a record must be given money and stardom. Anybody can put together a few songs, call it the greatest album ever made, and demand compensation, but it doesn’t work that way. Good music tends to find an audience who supports it and its creators, and its followers can generally be expected to invest at least some of their money in the artist’s creation, whether it’s the $10-20 it takes to buy a CD these days, or $15-30+ it takes to go to a show.

    I like to believe that the reason the latest Ke$ha or Jessie J album (read: collection of singles) isn’t selling 2.5m copies in first week sales is because people are smart enough to stop wasting their money on fad music, and that the people who still buy CDs are investing their money a bit more wisely by “shopping around” as it were, to discover music that they actually care about.

    Another factor these folks like to ignore is that it no longer costs an artist $50,000 to record an album. It can be done with a computer and a few microphones in a basement. Therefore, artists don’t technically *need* a label to fund them anymore. A side effect of this is that many more niche artists and genres are popping up. It’s daft to expect the latest Earth record to break five million sales in its opening week because there probably aren’t even five million different individuals who listen to Earth.

    The 1980s are over.

      1. A lot of my favorite music is made exactly that way. So, no he’s not.
        Most of that music I downloaded for free, legally.

    2. “Anybody can put together a few songs, call it the greatest album ever made, and demand compensation, but it doesn’t work that way. Good music tends to find an audience who supports it and its creators, and its followers can generally be expected to invest at least some of their money in the artist’s creation, whether it’s the $10-20 it takes to buy a CD these days, or $15-30+ it takes to go to a show.”

      Nobody’s demanding compensation for putting together an album.

      People are demanding compensation for anyone LISTENING TO that album in chunks larger than a fair-use taste of it.

    3. Wow! To be stating/implying that people won’t pirate music if it’s “good” is arrant nonsense. Even Emily White surely considers many of her 11,000 songs “good” and “cares about” them, yet she hasn’t paid for them. And judging from her comments, she’s more moral in this area than most of her millions of peers.

      Yep, the ’80s are over – but copying music for free is just as wrong now as it was when you had to use tapes, and of course it happens in infinitely vaster quantities now.

    4. I don’t know where you get your budget information but (in my experience) $50,000 is about the average budget for a fully produced independent record now a days. It may sound like a lot of money but it isnt. In 5 days of recording you can easily spend 16 grand on session players alone, not including a producer, engineer, assistant engineer, or the $700-$1500 a day for studio time. You can do a recording at home for less money, but if you want a product that can compete in the marketplace it’s usually in your best interest to spend some money and get qualified individuals involved.

      1. Here’s the future of production: “Siri, new track.”

        I don’t doubt your snapshot, sparrow. But I have grave doubts about its shelf life. The same technological forces which busted apart an entrenched distribution system over 20 years are hard at work on the production side. I’d say we are roughly at the Napster stage — alarm and denial.

  90. I’m in a group that just got back from playing NXNE last weekend and I must say that.. the idea of mentioning that you have anything for sale is absolutely pointless. I watched at least 10 bands mention that they had merch or even vinyl for sale and nothing. I didn’t see one person buy anything, of course I saw them give it away though. We don’t even mention we have anything for sale at this point. In the past we’ve given away cds and records at shows to anyone who will talk to us or show an ounce of enthusiasm, only to see them wind up on ebay or half.com. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this is an expensive hobby and I have to enjoy it first and that is why I keep doing it. We spent over $10,000 dollars in 2011 making a record and promoting it through a reputable promotional company. Guess what our download / stream returns are to date? $200! Yeah, pretty dumb and we are one of the ones who are doing well.. getting critical success, magazine features, festival invitations..etc. In the end I own the rights to my own songs, I record and control everything about it and the whole point was for people to hear it so until the golden locket is found I’m fine with that. I think people are getting too hung up on the money trail. “You must pay me to do something I love to do and also give me money so I can buy the things to do it”. I believe this mentality is a joke. Many of our most beloved artists died in poverty doing what they loved. I’m not going to make any real money doing music unless I start writing Coldplay knockoffs for music soundtracks or join an 80’s cover band to do weddings. I think some of these musicians who are bitching the most remind me of the republicans who want everything to be 1954 again. Well these guys want everything to be 1994 again. It will never be like that again. We need to evolve mentally and see it all as just an expensive spiritual journey and if your song gets on the twilight soundtrack and everyone cares for 5 minutes enjoy it and realize all things are fleeting. Let’s not attach economics to art anymore and we’ll all be much better for it.

  91. Reblogged this on Happy Artists and commented:
    Here’s an extremely well-written letter to everyone that chooses to not pay for music (or use Spotify.) So well done.
    Author= David Lowery (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven.)

    1. Wait so you’re lumping together all the Spotify users with pirates? How does that work? Spotify is all ‘above board.’

  92. As a professional musician who entered the national indie scene in 2003 and daily feels the sting of music piracy, I thank you from the deepest depths of my being. As of today, most of my musician friends have taken to pursuing music part time. These are people that write and have written songs that to this day own my soul. They are beautiful, well-crafted, meticulously written pieces of magic. And now, for most of them, they have all but stopped. It’s like being strangulated by someone who loves you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been personally contacted by fans asking where exactly they can download our music via torrent sites. Or that they love our music, and when I ask what albums they own, they respond, oh, I don’t know, I just burned a bunch of songs from my friend. For me, I will make music and put out records even if I’m relegated to living in my van. But frankly, that day doesn’t seem very far off. So, thank you. I hope your blog resonates with people. I will certainly share it with our fans and friends.

    Mike TV
    Get Set Go

  93. I understand and appreciate your thoughts on this, David, but ultimately I think you’re on the losing end of this back and forth.

    Nobody has “the right” to steal music. I used to do it in the past, but I have a paid Rdio subscription now and will buy the albums I like the most on iTunes. As I read through your comments, I was asking myself, “Who gets to decide what an artist’s product is worth? And if it turns out that it’s worth less than a living wage, what then?”

    I don’t think there’s going to be much success in trying to convince people to feel bad about downloading free music, or to paint services like Spotify or Rdio as the next round of baddies. The solution, in part, is to find creative ways to get artists the money they deserve (which may unfortunately be less than their product has deserved in the past). Not all painters or photographers or sculpters make a living on their art — we may enter an era where not many musicians get that privilege any more, either.

    Maybe when the number of excellent artists dwindles, people who want good music will be willing to pay again.

    1. Hi jason.

      I think I am not on the losing end of this argument.

      there are tons of examples where people choose to pay more for something because it’s ethical.

      green products.

      Fair trade products.

      There are also a ton of examples where people could easily steal, cheat and not get caught and people continue to pay.

      I used to be a paperboy in a pretty bad neighborhood. I used to marvel in the fact that no one would ever steal the neighbors newspaper. It happened maybe 2 times in the 4 years I was a paperboy.

      I think it has a lot to do with how people visualize “who” they are stealing from. In my paperboy experience people don’t steal cause they see it as taking from their neighbor.

      when I was older I ended up working at the same paper as the assistant circulation manager. I would sometimes have to fill the newspaper racks with papers. I would often watch people put in a quarter and remove 5 or 6 papers and distribute them to people standing around in front of the liquor store or supermarket. In this case they were stealing from a Company. it made a difference to people.

      If you notice in all my pieces I specifically put the this in terms of what happens to the individual artists when people make unethical choices.

      I believe file sharing has thrived specifically cause people see it as cheating the record company instead of the artists.

      In my “paperboy” terms I believe if people see artists as their “neighbors” and not a “company” they would gladly compensate artists.

      And again i’m not saying spotify is necessarily a bad thing. I’m saying the market is not pricing spotify right because their is a free alternative. very different things.

      I don’t understand why you are so jaded that an appeal to reason, morality and ethics is such an annoying thing. You know artists like me have the law, constitution and international trade agreements on our side. Would you prefer we resort to these solutions first?

      1. Also your threat of “having the Law on your side” and “resorting to it” … go for it! It’s naive to think that musicians haven’t tried everything they can!

        You present this article like “this is what I do first _before_ going to the Law” but actually this article is _all_ you can do, this is it!

      2. I hear you, David, but what about those of us that pay the $10/month premium charge on a service like Spotify and realize — as everyone will inevitably realize very quickly — that there is no reason you need any other way to access/purchase music.

        If I were to go and buy an mp3 file — or a CD at an artist’s concert — I would be doing it purely out of charity. I would then turn to the real/virtual trash can and throw it out. I don’t need it. Spotify and Rdio, or whatever, all of which have their technical issues, are close enough to the perfect music solution (all music anywhere, anytime) that it feels incredibly antiquated to talk about “buying” music in a traditional way.

        I’m not saying you are “losing the argument” — you aren’t — you are the side of justice and the world, I do believe, will always bend that way — but you are risking, I believe, offering an irrelevant solution to the problem.

        I’m one of those people that buys green, fair trade, etc — and I’m ready to pay whatever it takes to having a thriving artistic community (especially in an era when our government, local and national, continues to run away from that responsibility).

        So what about a solution that looks something like this:
        -start making concerted, coordinated efforts to expose and shame next-gen streaming services like Spotify/Spotify users into upping their contributions to artists
        -encourage users of said services to support their favorite bands by adding to at least one of their other revenue streams: seeing them in concert, buying merchandise, etc.

        I know that all sounds a bit pie-in-the-sky, but I think it is much more realistic than expecting people to pay for something they don’t need anymore.

      3. I’m just saying pay for music you like. I don’t really care how. I pointed out the artist gets the most when you buy a physical cd or download directly from the artist. Vinyl is good but has high marginal costs.

      4. David – I think your paperboy analogy is spot on and that it ties in with how our generation’s experience with the music industry has influenced the attitudes toward paying for music that the generation now in their 20s has.

        When CDs arrived in the early ’80s and we were in high school/college, there were two flavors of music (labels): corporate and obscure. After a few years, the marginal cost to major labels of producing CDs plummeted, but their prices remained unjustifiably high. This lack-of-pricing-transparency douchebaggery made us cynical about record companies. (Plus they tended to follow the usual American business model of overpaid executives and disposable underlings.)

        Enter the ’90s. A lot of us read Steve Albini’s “The Problem With Music,” which fed that cynicism some steroids. We heard stories that even renowned indie labels — SST comes to mind — were screwing artists over. Whether these stories were actually true isn’t really the point — the line the indie press was selling us was that not only are big record companies evil, but even owning a modestly successful indie label was likely to turn you into a greedy asshole.

        So take that attitude you cited, that stealing from a Company was a lesser evil — if an evil at all — and combine that with a growing sense that all music labels were Corporate in one sense or another, and you have a pervasive nihilism about the entire music industry. I think this nihilism took an already difficult to eradicate human tendency and magnified it — so once broadband arrived, there was no credible moral barrier to wanton downloading in people’s minds. (Also: Having Lars Ulrich as your spokesperson is never a good idea.)

        I think this attitude still prevails even as the music landscape has changed. There are a lot more opportunities to make sure that money goes directly to the artists. There’s a bit more transparency around the cut that services like iTunes or Amazon take from the artists. (Although i do buy music, i have never bought a single track from iTunes. While it’s convenient, and i have no doubt that it will be a major factor in helping to get people to pay for music, i have no interest in sending my money to Cupertino.)

        Any solution that aims to change people’s minds (instead of just using the legal system) is going to have to rely on educating people out of the old “record company” mindset. Buying recorded music straight from the artists or their homegrown music label puts food on their tables just as directly as buying a concert ticket does.

        Although i have to admit that the pure carrot approach is not likely to make an enormous difference soon enough for the benefit of today’s artists. David, you gave examples like green products and fair trade coffee. The problem with this model is that they’re essentially niche products/services that have a small following even in robust economic times. For many people, ethics is a luxury item; appealing to the better angels of our nature rarely works on its own. That said, the blunt instruments of DRM, 100+-year copyright, and RIAA lawsuits — ill-conceived ideas all — are even less likely to turn the tide.

        Keep beating that drum, and kudos to you and the educational work you’re doing directly with da kidz. You know, they’ll get off your lawn a lot quicker if you drive your car up on it… (Ah, 1986…)

    2. Jason,

      You declare that “convinc[ing] people to feel bad about downloading free music” is a losing proposition, as if morality is a popularity contest, and implying that David is an aggressor out to upend innocent people’s worldviews.

      This line of rhetoric comes along in arguments over many topics: one side calls out the other for inflicting guilt. Generally, this accusation is made when the side making it begins to recognize (at least on a subconscious level) that they have lost the argument and that their beliefs can no longer be reconciled to their personal values. This tactic allows the arguer to discard the troublesome line of reasoning by turning its source into an aggressor with a disruptive agenda.

      It’s basically the rhetorical equivalent of covering one’s ears and singing “I’m not listening to you.”

      You also blithely claim, with zero corroborating evidence, that the creative output of musicians is worth less than in the past, and that perhaps they don’t deserve to make a living at their art.

      And by noting (again, with no evidence) that there are just so many excellent artists out there and that we consumers just have so many choices, you imply that artists should view the opportunity to share themselves with us as a privilege. They should never expect to be compensated when we are providing them with something far more valuable: an audience.

      We can go down that road. We already have, as the staggering statistics David posted bear out. Fewer musicians, fewer bands, and a far smaller pie for them to share. Techno-libertarianism gone amuck.

      We can’t keep up like this if we want to keep our culture strong. Eventually the arts will disappear in the country if artists lose the ability to make a living. All we’ll be left with is whatever the big media conglomerates can sell to the lowest common denominator.

      1. “…we’ll be left with is whatever the big media conglomerates can sell to the lowest common denominator.”

        You mean like how the music industry has operated since at least the 1950’s?

      2. As context: I used to, but no longer do, steal music. Now I simply download most music for free from artists in online communities that I’m a part of.

        I think the creative output of artists may be worth less than in the past. Music is easier to create and share than before, and as such there is a lot of it. I choose to take free music and there’s more of that than I can really listen to.

        The artists I listen to largely do think that simply being heard is a privilege (I know I feel that way about my art). And none of us do ‘expect’ to be compensated for our work. We do it out of passion, after all.

        I’d say that there’s no risk to culture in these communities, either. Rather, they ARE culture. Sure only a handful of us are successful enough to make money at it, but we do it anyway and seem to be doing quite fine, thank you.

  95. To raise awarness of the damage that illegal downloading is causing, I propose The Day The Music Died.” An a TBA date on which for 24 hours musicians everywhere create no music. This means no gigs, tour dates, sessions, lessons, jingles, commercials, soundtracks, scoring, radio, interviews, etc. for one 24 hour period. We should also encourage media outlets, radio stations, iTunes, etc. to also go black for 24 hours.

    https://www.facebook.com/daythemusicdied

    1. They won’t even notice — thanks to recorded music. They already get most of their music “fix” from commoditized recordings. If Billy Joel refrains from playing music for one day, people can just listen to the zillions of recorded versions of his music for that long.

    2. That sounds horrible. Why would you want to deprive so many people of creating music? Seriously, imagine Mozart and Beethoven were recording today. Would you want them to _not_ record for a day?

  96. The individual responsibility thing in the face of widespread social phenomena is nonsense. Emily is absolutely not “directly ripping off the artist and songwriters” — she is merely freeloading. This is a prisoner’s dilemma. Any given individual has such a small impact that they will make no change to whether music gets made or not. It is only the cooperation of lots of people that funds production. As long as lots of people are freeloading, someone who chooses to pay is paying more than their fair share. Telling Emily to stop freeloading and instead become one of the suckers who pays while everyone else continues to freeload is simply bad advice. The solution here can only come from a social shift that gets everyone to coordinate somehow in how we fund things. We need to make funding convenient and fair, and this will NOT happen by berating individuals to be “ethical.” You can dismiss collective, governmental or other ways to deal with this socially, but your individual-responsibility solution is D.O.A. Simply put: complain all you want, but there’s no empirical scientific evidence that these issues can be solved on an individualistic basis.

    Oh, and even if you didn’t intend it, the arguments you brought up are in fact straw men. It matters not that some (many even?) people believe them. These aren’t legitimate arguments, they’re ignorant ones. Showing that ignorant arguments are wrong is a straw-man tactic. You aren’t dealing with the legitimate arguments about the social good of being free to share things with friends and neighbors. Sharing is not bad. But doing so while freeloading is bad. Freeloading is the problem, sharing is not.

    Your looting analogy is pure BS. Emily didn’t loot anything. This is just nonsense. Taking records from a record store means the store has less. If you don’t want to just have all of your arguments ignored, then make more effort toward intellectual honesty.

    The concerns about ad-based and other profit models that relate to people accessing media freely are serious issues. That’s what deserves discussion. By including junk ideas and straw-men and lashing out about individuals being unethical, you’re obscuring the important and valid problems.

  98. I’m just not clear why anyone would want the majority of their music library to be stuff they ripped for free online. To have this mindset, it would be difficult to pursue a career in the arts, because to do so, one must love the arts therefore strive to preserve it.

    On this end, because my fan base supported me, I qualified for my home mortgage based on my internet store. That was 2003 and would not be the case today.

    Here are some sobering figures for us indie artists out here flogging the road full time.

    Glory Days: 1000 CDs = $15,000.
    Now in 2012 (Please gasp when the note the pay cut): 1000 downloads of your CD less digital distribution % roughly $6.99 a CD = $6,900.
    A .99 cent download less digital distribution % less % paying royalties if you cover the song = .59 profit per download.
    To make a 12 to 14 song record you are looking at roughly 10 to15 thousand. If you hire radio (to get on NPR and the likes) and publicity for promotion for say, three months, you are looking at 16 thousand dollars. In a demographic like mine, I still need to print a few CDs. After graphics and manufacturing, tack on an additional 1500. Total cost on a lean budget? In the ballpark of 33,000 give or take a few thousand.

    If the CD is illegally ripped? $0 earned for a 33,000 artistic endeavor.

    Dear artists, poets, dreamers, and songwriters, if this is the future of music, we better prepare now.

    1. “To have this mindset, it would be difficult to pursue a career in the arts, because to do so, one must love the arts therefore strive to preserve it.”

      Yes, to pursue a career.

      A career.

      That’s the problem.

      Everyone has careers.

      It’s like Hegel’s quip “there are no more philosophers any more, only philosophy professors.”

      In this case, “there are no more musicians, only music industry careerists”

  100. In general, I agree with your premise, David, but I have to disagree with your assessment of the impact of Spotify. As someone who at one time had a collection of more than 10,000 LPs and 3,000 CD’s, I paid for that music, but had to give it up for reasons of space. I use Spotify to remind me of those great albums I once owned and also to discover new artists that I might not be familiar with. But I no longer feel the need to “own” the music. If I do, I purchase songs on ITunes. To me, the problem you have with the small royalty fees being paid by Spotify is outweighed by the fact that it drives people to discover new music and ultimately purchase it.

  101. Pingback: As I was saying about piracy recently … | mediatedlife

  102. Just wondering – why is MOG a more “legitimate” service than Spotify? They have the same business model, same price plans, I can’t see where the significantly higher artists’ royalties could come from.

  104. What about people who are against both pro file-sharing and anti-software patents? And who make a living writing code while also contributing to open source projects (“giving it away for free”, and expecting to get things for free)?

    As a business model it works – the internet (including this blog) runs on free software, the masses of people get to consume and produce information and culture at no cost or negligible cost, yet software developers and sysadmins still make good money doing custom development for people who want to pay for it.

    What about music-making is inherently different?

    Also, I’m totally willing to post a track listing of all 9,500-odd songs I’ve downloaded in my lifetime and send these artists a personal thank you along with a dollar if they get in touch with me. Why can’t we (the quant-musician-software-engineers of the world) design a system to make that as easy as downloading a bunch of mp3’s.

    1. Can’t edit? First sentence makes no sense – should read “What about pepole who are both pro file-sharing and anti-software patents.

    2. @ tomnycga

      The application you seek already exists, it’s called “itunes” and you can go there right now and pay 99 cents for each and every of the 9,500 songs you’ve downloaded illegally. I’m sure all of those artists would appreciate it.

      1. What if I don’t want to enrich Apple in the process? The “Meet the New Boss” essay argues that Apple is part of the problem, doesn’t it?

        What about the bands who aren’t on iTunes? What about the musicians who are long dead – do I still owe their record label?

        Do I still owe the dollar if I downloaded an album, listened to 2 tracks, and decided I didn’t like it? What am I paying for – the experience or the artifact?

        How do I pay more to the bands who really meant something to me but got screwed by their labels and quit the music scene 10 years ago? Do I want to enrich the same companies that exploited them?

        I don’t want to pay $10 up front to try something I may not like – so why isn’t there a system yet where I can pay what I feel to the musicians who mean something to me?

      2. Sorry Tommy, Itunes works just fine. You weren’t arguing about paying for something you might not like. You were asking how to pay $1 each for your 9,500 songs, and itunes is the way to do it.

      5. Just to split hairs — this is the Internet, after all — he was saying he’d be willing to send the artist a dollar for each song. Buying it from iTunes won’t do that; the artist will get 69 cents. Maybe. Now, 69 cents IS better than nothing…

    3. Let’s see… the fact that you insist on turning other people into day-laborers just because you choose to be one?

      Or, less pointedly, the fact that people choose to pay for custom development and let the results into the common because they expect to profit on the results of that development no matter who else gets to use it — a proposition lacking in entertainment, now that we are beyond the age of the royal patron.

      1. Actually the “day laborer” argument is kind of my point. Most people do work, and then get paid for their time.
        Why should people expect to create one thing once and then collect residual income off of that thing forever? Because the hours they put into it were longer than the hours other people put into other kinds of work? You could make the argument that there’s a lifetime of experience that goes into creating a musical recording, but you could say that about the skills that go into any art. A chef doesn’t get residual income from cooking a great meal – they still have to go back into the kitchen and cook every day.

    4. That is a pretty ridiculous claim to post Tomnycga, because 1) nobody wants to read a list of 9500 things you downloaded, and you know that, and 2) why should the artists have to find your list and request payment for their products? If you want to pay them personally, find their addresses online and send them money if that’s how you feel. Or, y’know, buy the stuff legit. Also, arguing that you wish there was a way that artists could be compensated while you would not have to pay them does not change the fact that this system is not in place, and you were aware that there was no such system when you chose to download the aforementioned 9500 tracks.

      1. Actually, tons of lawyers have their minions scouring the internet for playlists of the songs that people have downloaded so they can sue those people for thousands of times more than the retail value of the CD, because the’ve Managed to get laws passed that say that making a CD available for others to make free copies of is the financial equivalent of breaking into somebody else’s property and making off with their cash. They’ll use police state measures to accomplish this – like coercing internet providers into giving up their users records.

        And as far as building a system that would let artists know who’s out there listening to their music, so they could get in touch with their superfans and try to get them some payment – that system already exists in parts. You have Last.fm, which lets people upload and share playlists of the songs they listen to the most, and then you have Bandcamp to direct “pay as you wish” money to the musicians, and people are starting to understand and use the Kickstarter model for all kinds of things. Add something like google alerts to ping a musician when somebody plays 50 of their tracks in a row – “Hey you’ve got a new fan” instead of “Hey, somebody’s stealing your stuff.” You just need somebody to create the next iteration of these systems. (Seriously – pay me for my time and I’ll put together a team and build it – or come up with something better than the thing I came up with after giving it 15 minutes of thought.)

        Maybe 1960 through 1999 was a bubble economy created by artificial scarcity and we’re seeing what people are actually willing to pay when you don’t have to pay just to try something out. Maybe there’s way more musicians getting their product out to smaller groups of fans thru Bandcamp and Youtube and Myspace and Soundcloud who aren’t registering on the metrics that were developed to track album sales.

        And if Ken Griffin reads this, he can get in touch and I’ll send him a check for the full retail price of “Horsedrawn Wishes” since it’s not for sale on iTunes, and since it’s a favorite album of mine, which I discovered years after the band split, from downloading a dozen odd albums from music blogs one weekend in 2007. That one was the only one from that batch which stuck with me, and here I can’t give the guy any support. Usually if I DL something and I like it, I’ll go see the show if the band is on tour, or buy a CD or something. If the band and or record label are long gone, then what? Am I still an unethical music fan for getting into some obscure band long after they’re a functioning business entity? Or for sampling a bunch of stuff that doesn’t interest me? (Hard drive space is cheap – there are thousands of songs on my computer I’ve listened to once. Probably hundreds I’ve never listened to. I don’t see this as any different from checking something out from the library and then never reading it. The band I didn’t like doesn’t lose money because I have a copy of their album sitting on my hard drive I would have never paid for. Is pay for it, like it or not, really an ethical business model?) Maybe I’m the outlier but probably half the music I have is mid-century jazz and classical recordings, and obscure-ish rock from the 70’s thru 90’s.) I still spend hundreds of dollars per year seeing live music (again, mostly musicians I found out about thru file sharing), and usually pick up a CD at the show if it was good.

        If Spotify and iTunes suck, and privacy-violating corporations like Google suck, and the major labels suck, then why are we going after the fans for downloading? Lack of healthcare sucks for musicians, but it sucks for all Americans. Same with the criminalization of addiction. Why not free music and free healthcare? So why not spend your limited time trying to improve things for everyone instead of going after a bunch of broke kids who don’t have the money anyway (recession, you know?) Last year Americans got fed up with how the financial sector has taken over our government and formed communities of mutual aid in opposition to the corporations, and they were crushed by the police state. The same police state tactics (the surveillance, the violation of privacy at least) that are held up as a last resort for musicians who want to get paid. Why support this system at all?

        Ultimately, who has bankrupted more people, the quants or the downloaders?

        I’m spending my limited time going after the quants, and their enablers in Congress, and building free/open/private alternatives to corporate web services. (And seeing my friends’ bands when I have time.) Calling the fans unethical and tapping the loaded gun of legal remedies that you keep in your back pocket seems like divide and conquer, and not a good way to build solidarity between broke musicians and their equally broke fans.

    5. For the record, Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation proposes taxing memory and internet access in order to support content creators.

    6. Agree entirely. I’m a software engineer and would be S-O-L without free software. I feel the same way as a musician. Without access to music I would basically have nothing. The world this author imagines is the world Microsoft imagines but transposed to music instead of software: a world where everything is “owned” and royalties are extracted for use. Explain to me again how ownership works? Isn’t the story of Peter Pan still owned, and like, if I wanted to put on a high school play I have to pay someone (not the author) some royalties?

      1. Incidentally it’s so ironic that this blog is on WordPress but morally opposed (nay, outraged! full on narcissistic supply mode) about the equivalent of WordPress in music. (i.e. free access to music)

        If software developers were not gracious enough to devote their time to something they love for the good of all humanity, and then give it away for free to all humanity, you wouldn’t have this blog –you’d be stuck on some Microsoft piece of crap paying $5 per post or something.

        If only musicians were as gracious as software developers … but of course every musician is de facto a narcissist (though perhaps not all suffer from NPD– but most do!) …. So that probably plays into it. Software developers tend to be masochists and musicians tend to be narcissists. That’s why we have such amazing free software out there but all these narcissistic ego-trippers demanding to make a living instead of being happy that someone even listened to their tune (which is the correct attitude from my viewpoint).

    7. If you’re sincere, sign up for iTunes Match. 25 bucks a year.

      You would also be honoring your favorite artists by listening to generally superior versions of rips you have presently on your devices.

      This begs the question : why is iTunes Match struggling so far to gain traction? Because it costs money and it takes the frisson out of the daring picaresque adventure of file sharing.

    1. Just a note to point out w/r/t streaming services, that as a former Pandora employee I am very aware that they pay immense amounts of money in royalties every month, money that they make by selling advertising or subscriptions. Every song is paid per spin the current $0.0015 to SoundExchange and (here’s the tricky part) a “percentage” of the company’s income is paid to BMI/ASCAP, and while I do not know what that percentage is, nor how much it is every month, it is millions of dollars.
      However, when BMI/ASCAP get this money, they don’t necessarily pay out per spin (though they could have that info exactly if they wanted it), they pay out on a polled average, like they used to do with college radio back in the 80s – take one day’s playlists and extrapolate. I’ve seen this work for an against small acts.
      All that said, because the company wants to stay in business, they do lobby very heavily (remember Tim W in 2006 versus establishing royalty rates in congress?) for lower royalty rates, despite claiming all the while to be pro-artist. Whatever. I guess there is a built-in oxymoron between being a business and being pro-artist.

  106. Nice article! This could be said for any industry: music, book, photography, art. Thank you for explaining this complex problem in not so complex terms. In our world of “something for nothing” many sites make it oh so easy to stiff “the little guys.”

  107. A very good, thought out, albeit biased, article. Thank you.

    Since you appear to not know, and for others that may not, Google is making a foray into the music industry, or at least the distribution channel. Google Play: http://play.google.com

  108. It’s not a matter of being lazy, or not wanting to pay artists – I think the key issue is that the record industry is stubbornly resisting adapting to the changes in technology, with which music is listened to. Rather than innovating to adapt, providing their customers with media in a manner fitting to technological advancements, they’ve resisted the opportunity to grow and change and instead made things more difficult and complicated for their customers. Further, alienating them through their methods of enforcing the “old ways”. There was an opportunity to continue making money, and they turned their noses up at it — and their customers went to those providing what they wanted, unfortunately, they were pirated file sharing sites. It was iTunes that provided a legal, consistent means to acquire music – and finally the ability to pick and choose songs, as there is little worse than buying an album and realizing it’s garbage aside from one or two tracks that you just effectively paid $14-17 for. I suppose it’s our short life span that prevents us from grasping the concept of a dying industry.. unless one considers history and the life & death of industries and corporations.

    There is little to no effort being made by the industry itself to meet customer demands, they’re instead demanding customers either stick with the tried & true money machine that suits the labels — not the customers, or risk a lawsuit.

    I’ve moved to music streaming. I have 5 devices, and a record player (which I do actually buy albums for..) and the most efficient solution for new music, in addition to my existing 300 gigs, mostly paid for — some shared by friends, who also paid for it (and with the silly 5 licenses for each song, legal).. I use Spotify. I pay $10/month to listen to nearly every song I could every possibly want to hear, on all of my devices. My playlists, my song choices when I want to hear them (unlike Pandora) and I don’t have to sync each device nor worry about losing my music collection should a mishap occur. If I don’t have wifi, I have the option to make them available offline. I discover new music, new artists, and share them with my friends. Considering how many I know that actually use YOUTUBE, of all things, to listen to music, at least there is some revenue generated.

    The industry could adapt and capitalize on this, but they won’t.

    An article on streaming and it’s popularity today – http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/tech/web/music-streaming/index.html

  110. I logged in just to say how glad I am to have broken my sanity-saving “never read the comments” rule this time. Excellent, civil responses and discussion on a thoughtful, well written article. Thanks to all of you.
    As a 45-year old who used to work in a used record store and sold all the records I collected over that time for smokes and cheap beer and cover cahrges at the Rat, Gunratty’s, etc. back in Boston, I actually feel bad for the kids who won’t be able to feel bad about pissing away their own album collections, the relics of their own personal culture. On the other hand, they’ll never have the joy of shaking their head as they buy “Double Nickels on the Dime” on a *fourth* damn format, loving every minute of it.

  111. Has the music industry historically been built on the wallets of college students? I doubt it. There is a lot of generational rage here, but this is an industry wide problem because the people with money are not buying music, not because the broke people are stealing it. Morally and from a creative professional’s point of view there seems to be little difference, but economically it is huge. The music industry seems to have been at war with the “college kids” for a decade, when the real money walks out the back door.

    It didn’t help that there was no viable legal digital market until what, 2005? And even then it was so poor quality, so DRM locked, and with such a small selection that it was hardly workable. It wasn’t until 2007-8 that things really became easy. That’s a lost decade for the music industry, with two recessions thrown in there as well. Truly brutal, no way around it. And it isn’t like it was a cushy gig to begin with.

    Hopefully direct downloads + kick starter type upfront funding will be part of a new solution. See Amanda Palmer and Louis CK for examples of success in that model. There are flaws to be found easy enough, but at least they are treating their fans as fans and not the enemy.

    Any solution will not involve people listening to less music than they are now. That is the new normal. Get-off-my-lawn blog posts by professors are not going to change that. The question is, how you are going to make money now that anyone can hear your music? I really doubt that music is dead, it has been around too long for that.

  113. The most important detail in the article that seems little recognized is the 25% drop in professional musicians since 2000. This decline will continue. Therefore, perhaps the most ironic musical legacy of Emily’s generation is that theirs will be the first cohort to produce no legendary, enduring artists of its own. First the musicians’ money disappears, then the musicians themselves.

    1. Theirs is the first generation to regard music in an exclusively passive vein. They don’t MAKE it. They honestly think it just drops out of the sky for free, like rain. They’re the musical equivalent of the people in the spaceship in Wall-E.

    2. “no legendary, enduring artists” hahaha that sounds like your fantasy, because then that would mean your taste in music is better than everyone else’s. Oh wait, you don’t believe that all the pop music out there is horrible do you? And that electronic music is a joke? And people stopped making good music years ago?

      List for me 10 enduring legendary artists from 2000-2010 and I will start paying attention. (There are 100s). All too often I hear complaints about “not enough good music” or “decline in quality of music” from people who are unaware of literally hundreds of amazing musicians.

    3. What made these acts “legendary”? Could it have been marketing pushes and PR? Could it have been a lack of other options?

      We love looking back at the so-called legends and tooting the horn of creative apocalypse… but this is not the world we live in anymore. Creativity will not die or even fade just because the next Led Zepplin or the next The Beatles or the next Louie Armstrong didn’t get rich. We as creative humans have a NEED to express ourselves musically, whether we’re being paid for it or not. The fact that some very few people make decent money at it is little more than a flash of luck.

      If you are a musician for any other reason than to make music, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG, and YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

      Sorry for the all caps. 😉

  114. To counter your argument about iTunes convenience: I won’t buy music if I can’t find it @ 320 kbps MP3 (or preferably lossless format) or higher, rendering iTunes and Amazon’s stores useless. So I essentially only purchase music through Beatport (which is obviously limited when it comes to non-electronic music) or through physical mediums… I refuse to pay for an inferior quality file just because it’s convenient.

  116. I was both a bit shocked to read Miss White’s original post at NPR, but pleased. It re-sparks the debate, which most people of Miss White’s generation consider a done-deal.

    The message is: “Content creators, get in line to give your work away for the pleasure of possibly earning a bit of anonymous attention somewhere out over the inter-waves.” Result: “art” will be made solely by the already-wealthy, and/or it will be of increasingly poor, throw-away quality, because none but the already-wealthy will be able to afford to make art that requires time and deep effort to produce.

    Thank you for your response, Mr. Lowery. It is one of the finest I’ve yet read re: the debate. I DO have problems w/current copyright laws in regards to sampling (where I side w/Mr. Lessig and Co., to a certain, qualified extent), but you have gotten to the heart of the matter here in a fashion that applies to any currently working content creator. Kudos.

  117. Thanks for writing this! As a young twenty-something who doesn’t download/stream music (or movies) illegally, I feel like this letter could just as easily be written to the vast majority of my friends who see no problem with it and think I’m strange for feeling a moral reason not to do it.

  118. Thank you for the informative post. I agree that artists deserve to be compensated for their work — the question is how much. $10-15 for a physical copy may still make sense (for collectors at least), but $1/song is surely too expensive for mp3s, which cost very little to copy and redistribute. Production costs have also plummeted. How much are mp3s worth? The most interesting part of this post was the royalty figures — which by my calculation come out to about $0.20 / song ($2139.50/11,000). That seems quite fair, but it’s 5x more than we’re currently being asked to pay. So although I remain unconvinced that we should be paying artists the full asking price of $1/song, this article has convinced me that $0.10-0.20 / song is reasonable. From now on when asked to “Name My Price” on bandcamp or elsewhere, I will go with that rate (rather than $0.00).

  121. I totally agree with the premise that the artists should get paid, but the author has some fundamental flaws in his argument.

    First, by assuming that the ONLY reason you have an iPhone, laptop, or an internet connection is to download music. I’m fairly certain that most people would have each listed item anyway (because iPods and Macbooks are good for a lot more than just downloading/playing music), so you can’t fairly factor in the whole price of the hardware in this equation.

    Second, the biggest audience (the younger generation that downloads the stuff) just doesn’t have the disposable income to buy $1000s worth of CDs. This is no excuse, but a lot of artists would completely go undiscovered without Spotify, Youtube, or whatever other free(ish) service people use. When you’re 16 years old, $20 is a lot of money to gamble on a band you’ve never heard of, or to explore a genre that you don’t typically listen to.

    Lastly, the royalties argument. In my entertainment law class, my professor, that is currently an entertainment lawyer who deals with music contracts daily, has taught the class for more than a paltry 2 years, and used to be a musician himself, painted a much different (and more accurate) picture of how artists are compensated. To say that in the “vast majority of cases” artist do not get ripped off is naive, at best. You BARGAIN for your contract with a recording studio, and if you don’t have a large enough fan base when you go into the meeting, you are not going to have much bargaining power, and will basically be left to take whatever the studio will pay. PLUS, this isn’t even factoring in money they charge the artist for things like CD cases (yeah, the band pays for that out of their share). Sometimes the recording companies also get a percentage of merchandise sold–EVEN IF they have no hand in the production or distribution of the stuff.

    Emily White may not have her facts straight, but neither do you. If you want to convince people to pay for music, make a sound argument. Don’t try to use deceiving statistics to get your point across.

      3. For those who don’t:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lowery

        (My apologies, David: I didn’t know. I guess I just have different musical tastes, though I certainly was aware of CvB’s name. 🙂

        FWIW, this 47-yro has always bought music, across the formats.

        I tried LimeWire briefly when it appeared, but quickly felt guilty and as soon as I could, replaced any downloaded tracks with purchased ones. (I make my living writing software, and was aware of similar issues with warez.)

        I’ve since even asked an artist directly on his e-mail list how he’d be best compensated when I buy his band’s music. (Surprising answer: buying a CD directly from his online store in Sweden. Even with shipping to me in the US, that was best for him!)

      4. Brian, that wasn’t a “burn” at all. It was merely David showing his lack of tact. Just because you are a musician that is quasi well-known in some groups (not my age group, I assure you) doesn’t mean you are an expert on entertainment economics. You can work at Wal-Mart for 30 years and still not be an expert in trade goods and commerce. And no, that reply did not make you look cool. You’re over 50 years old. Act like it. Maybe actually respond to the points I made?

        The funny part is that David has yet to approve my follow up comment (I’m not very hopeful of this one getting approved either). Great job playing the gatekeeper David. You’re doing a well following in the footsteps of the big, bad, greedy companies you mention so highly in your letter. Let’s keep approving the comments from people that believe everything they read and block an informed commenter’s opinion.

    2. you really should spend a couple “paltry” years trying to work in the business before you go around thinking you are correctly regurgitating college lessons

    3. I’m not sure theJoey05 knows who he is, yet.

      Hey, Joey! If you have received anything but a F from your esteemed professor, kindly honor him by naming him here. For that matter, go ahead and name your English language instructors, too. It would be terribly ironic if you were to claim class credit for this real world post you’ve made here.

      Of course, Joey, you could be an ignorant fool spoon fed nonsense and half truths by your professors. Here’s a suggestion : spend an afternoon or 2 at Barnes and Noble reading the definitive tome “This Business of Music”.

      If you don’t feel compelled to buy your own copy after reading a chapter or 2, you are definitely wasting your money on college courses.

    4. “You bargain for your contract with a recording studio”???

      You may want to see what other classes are available. Joey.

  122. Great post. I must admit that I have long been guilty of the same thing as Ms White. I’m 19, and for a long time I legitimately had no other option. I had no money and my parents could not afford to give me any for music, so I just downloaded. I still do, I’ll admit, but that’s only because I’m a member of the impatient generation. I can’t bear to wait the time between an album leaking – which is just an inevitability now, really, isn’t it? – and the release proper. That said, I now buy the albums where I can, though I’m far from wealthy so I’ll look for the best deals. One thing, I will note, that will get me to pay any reasonable price? Bundles. CD + a poster? I’ll pay whatever. CD + a t-shirt? I’m in. I’d say that it’s hugely lucrative to exploit those who love to have these bits and pieces of bands they’re fans of. Plus, I’ll always go see a band when they tour (I live in Australia so it’s usually infrequent) and a lot of the time I’ll buy a t-shirt from the merch table too, where possible.

    I have 5000 songs in my iTunes library, but only 2700 of those are on my phone and actually in rotation. A lot of what’s not is albums I’ve downloaded, listened to once or twice to see if I liked them, and never listened to again. I don’t know how much I’m doing wrong there…usually you can stream an album for free beforehand anyway, and if I don’t actually like the album, I shouldn’t really have to pay for the full thing to find out if I do, right? I’m a bit iffy on that one. One thing that I think bands should do more often: kickstarters and stuff like that. If I could give $20 directly to the band after downloading their album, I totally would. It’d be nice if the “Radiohead model” could be streamlined. I know that the UK artist Lone Wolf has recently funded the release of an album thanks to a Kickstarter project. It’s a good method of incentivising people to contribute, interact, and give directly to the artist. It might not work for all of them but it does for some, at least.

    In any case, my point is that I don’t consider my actions right, but I am doing what I can to rectify them.

    1. So that burger you got from McDonald’s didn’t sit well, so you should get your money back? You knew what it was and you still paid for it. Same goes with “bad” music.

  123. David,

    Beautifully stated. Agree completely. And remember that independent filmmakers are in the same sinking boat.

    I’m at the point where I believe something drastic needs to be done about it. I’ve lost all sympathy for those who download illegally. There is no argument in their favor.

    Gorman Bechard
    filmmaker

    1. “Who would pirate independent art? That’s not right”, I’ve heard said

  124. After reading both Emily White’s original post, and David Lowery’s response, I had my own response to the issue. First, I’d like to thank David for responding to the original post, and bringing it to greater attention…when I first read Miss White’s post, I had a pretty strong knew jerk reaction, but I wasn’t totally sure how to put it into words because I understand that music consumption in the digital age is a very complex issue with no easy solutions. But after spending a little time on the matter, here’s what I had to say:

    Two days ago, Emily White, intern for NPR’s All Songs Considered wrote this post for the show’s blog.

    Since then, the post has become a little controversial for many, and one of the best responses came from David Lowery here.

    This is my own response to both blogs:

    Let’s face it. There’s a reason Emily White is only an intern, but still, you’d think an American University student would have better writing skills…at 21, she should be about done with her degree…

    The fact of the matter is, her “article” or whatever we want to call it reads like a high school homework assignment written on the bus on the way into school the morning it was due…

    She says she has only ever bought 15 cds in her life, but that she did not illegally acquire “most” of the 11,000 songs in her iTunes library…she needs to explain how that’s possible, because the methods she mentions in her article are, quite literally, illegal according to RIAA standards. She also says that she “understands the gravity of what file sharing means” to musicians, but to the likes of people like me, clearly she doesn’t…more infuriatingly, she makes no attempt to maybe explain the gravity of the situation she claims to have such a great understanding of.

    There are plenty of young people who do actually have a grasp on the situation, and would be far more capable of explaining how file sharing and the internet has changed the music industry forever, far better at explaining the resistance that many from the younger generation tend to have for physical music, and what it is that a younger generation is looking for from a music consumer standpoint. The problem is, Emily White is NOT a CONSUMER of music. She is, as several people have already pointed out, a thief. Though she claims that she didn’t obtain her music illegally, she clearly does feel guilt about her actions. She’s just having a hard time coming to grips with who or what she is (as is the case for many 21 year olds) and saying the words, “I am a thief.” She uses convenience as her excuse, and backs it up with the fact that she doesn’t have a need for PHYSICAL copies of her favorite bands’ music. That’s fine. I have lots of friends who don’t see the need for physical copies of music. The digital age has lead all of us to change our approach to music consumption in some fashion or another. It’s fine to breath a sigh of relief at the amount of space in your apartment you’ll be able to reclaim by getting rid of your record collection and making the switch to digital. But there are a lot of ways to gain access to digital copies of music without having to outright steal it…

    This article could have easily drawn attention to the fact that most record labels have an option for just a digital download of an album, that there are sites like bandcamp where artists have control of their work and pricing that work (including sometimes offering a song or an EP for free with the hopes that you might then buy the album for $10).

    Lowery might not have written a perfect response, and I tend to agree that he glosses over what exactly the Free Culture movement is, or at least what the intentions and real purpose behind the movement are. But the fact remains that people and corporations (which might be repetitive, since corporations ARE people…right?) with questionable moral values are finding ways to manipulate the purpose of the Free Culture movement and distort it for their own self gain.

    The thing is, the world is changing technologically much faster than we can keep up with, too quickly for us to figure out how to deal with all the repercussions and implications at each step before we move ten more steps forward. The internet is probably the most influential “invention” or technological advance since irrigation, and the world is never going to be the same. But we still haven’t figured out what the world is going to be. What people are doing today on the internet is only an extension of a growing mentality in this country. People see the greed and self-interest motivated tactics at the top level of society (if it’s even fair to talk about corporations and corporate greed as some part of society), and this sense of self entitlement to grab at whatever scraps there may be seems to grow and prevail. My favorite part of David’s post was actually a comment from a reader:

    ‘…the US has across the board become a winner-take-all culture, where failure to exploit every available loophole makes you not moral but a sucker. What we see in younger generations is merely the concentrated version of what we have allowed our country to become.’

    Emily White is the epitome of this trend…there ARE plenty of cheap AND convenient ways for this girl to legally access the music she instead chose to illegally access. She was just trying to fling out excuses to make herself feel better about an activity she partakes in that she KNOWS is morally wrong, but she wants to be told that it’s okay because “everyone does it.” But the fact of the matter is, that’s exactly the problem…EVERYONE is doing it.
    I’m disappointed in NPR for not forcing this girl to write a more critical piece about a really controversial topic that probably could benefit from some in depth contributions from someone who doesn’t remember when the internet was not a thing. And if I were her advisor/teacher/person in charge of her internship, I’d let her know just how sub-par everything about it was (meaning with a grade reflecting her poor skills, lack of insight on any level, and seemingly half-assed approach to the task), on top of pointing out that she comes off like a self-entitled little twit, and she better thank her lucky stars that she has an internship now, because she’ll probably never be able to find a job in the music industry if people like her continue to “require…the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it.” Yes, Emily, I’m afraid that IS too much to ask.

    (You can view my original post responding to the issues here: http://petuniafist.tumblr.com/post/25387915283/my-own-response-to-emily-whites-blog-post)

  125. Another USA-centric take on the argument, whoopee. Those three simple steps you talk about? Outside the USA, nearly impossible unless you want to shop with Apple. I don’t. Spotify finally made it here, and while it’s not my preferred method of listening to music, it’s getting my love now. Mind you, I’m from the CD buying generation anyway.

    1. Another argument based on the notion that your right to hear something trumps the creator’s right to control it and to be compensated fairly for it.

      1. Why is it not that way? The constitution makes it clear that copyright exists to incentivize creative production for the benefit of society, not to empower authors and publishers…

    2. Amazon has an mp3 shop in non US territories, as well.

      But why this villification of Apple, Inc?

      I am no fan boy. No Apple hardware, ever. As a producer, they make it tough for me as I need a Mac to upload to the iTunes servers, so I use an aggregator for my marginal releases.

      But dang it, Apple Inc. pays out 70% of gross receipts. I have an album on iTunes and I receive $2.80 net from a $3.99 download. Even accounting for mechanicals, I receive far less for the $17.98 vinyl version, released by a wonderful company who is on a hiding to nothing trying to make a profit from physical product.

      Far from being USA centric, Apple, Inc. pays royalties monthly to anywhere in the world (apart from the “Axis of Evil”!).

      Apple, Inc. is songwriter friendly as they promptly take down songs for which royalties are not being paid. Outside the USA, Apple, Inc. themselves pay those royalties.

  126. I think people really do want to pay for music.. but things still haven’t settled into a place where digital music purchasing fully ‘works’ online.

    In my opinion it should be around 50c per track / $5 per album & count as a discount towards the purchase of a full priced hard copy. This would convert a MASSIVE number of people from pirates into full time purchasers.

    Its sad that people in the music/content industry often feel their interests pitted against the people in the free culture movement – artists & free culture people are similar in type on the whole and should be able to get along (i am in both camps as a start up founder & film maker).

    One thing thats key – we can’t use copyright control as a reason for lessening internet openness and freedom – in this situation society really is the looser.

    People consume more media than ever before, and the means for payment and distribution have never been more accessible – once the content industry stops fighting against the internet and focusses on what works in this environment the money will flow – more so than ever before.

    The part of the music industry that internet threatens most is not the artists but the marketers – marketing on the net can be much more organic & socially driven. This is why the major labels feel threatened because this is where they claim most of their value.

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  128. There’s a BIG difference between a DJ / music journalist saving music they’ve received for review / promotion to their computer / iPod, and the average Joe seeking out music and intentionally stealing it. When I send a CD to a journalist or DJ, I expect them to listen to and enjoy the CD, or download the tracks I’ve sent them to their computer / iPod. That’s not stealing. I’m giving them a free sample of my music in exchange (hopefully) for their free services of promoting my music. It’s an in-kind swap. A symbiotic relationship. There’s nothing illegal about it.

  129. ” In the vast majority of cases, this is not true. ”
    I stopped reading at that point — sorry bro, it IS true.
    Over the past 10 years, I know tons of bands that have been dropped by their labels and they were way more successful on their own. I’d rather give money directly to a band — I don’t see a need for labels anymore; bands and producers should get all the money. Labels should just go the fuck away for good – that way it would be perfectly clear who you’re ripping off. I don’t want to give my money to some guy who wears a suit, goes into an office every day driving a BMW and his job is in marketing or management or some bullshit like that. FUCK that. I want to give my money directly to the artists — which is why I refuse to support ANY artists that are on major labels. Indie labels are fine; so long as they’re not dominated by a certain element that cares nothing about music and only about money; and most indie labels are all about the music.

  130. While this is a very well written article, and David makes many strong, valid points, there is one point that is very misleading. David mentions that the number of album sales is down 64% since 1999. The problem is that 1999 was the year with the most records ever sold in history.
    http://www.undercover.fm/news/13896-music-sales-down-to-one-album-per-person-per-year
    Any valid comparison should note trends over time and not compare static figures from a benchmark high. Any decent statistician would shit all over this misuse of statistics. If you’ll harken back to 1999, you might recall that this was the height of the CD reissue boom, where baby boomers were spending huge boatloads of money replacing vinyl with CD’s. After this process was over, album sales SHOULD have declined. In addition, David is looking at album sales in a total vacuum. What is more relevant is the total amount of money spent on ALL entertainment per year/ per capita. This figure has actually risen, BUT the share of money being spent on music is lower. This is likely due to competition from new forms of entertainment, i.e. video games, etc… What is implied in this article (and explicitly claimed by the recording industry) is that illegal downloading is directly responsible for the entire difference in album sales from the 1999 peak to current levels. This is simply wrong! While I have no doubt that illegal downloading plays a major role, it is not the ONLY reason why album sales have declined. My purpose in bringing this point up is that if you want to talk about these issues honestly and forthrightly, you need to present the correct statistics to back up your arguments!
    While I sympathize heavily with David’s arguments, I think he needs to step back and look at both sides of the issue. CD’s and records are relatively expensive. $15-17 for a piece of plastic that contains music that can be obtained for free presents an easy opportunity to cheat the system. If CD prices were lower, I bet that music piracy would not have become such an issue. After buying many hundreds of CD’s and vinyl records, I don’t feel bad about downloading some music for free. ((And if YLT is reading the comments (they posted this article to their Twitter). I’d like to point out that I own a physical copy every damn song you’ve ever put out: My disposable income is limited, so if I couldn’t have downloaded some music, that would have meant less money to you (and WFMU).)).
    The ultimate solution will likely be that musicians also need to find new sources of revenue such as commercial licensing (which has recently exploded in popularity for indie bands), increased concerts/merch revenue, and album bundles (Matador provides an excellent model here).

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  132. A response from a customer (but a good customer, I hope, I’m just another doofus who picked out the chords to “Sweethearts” back when I was 20 years old): I do have to say that compounding all of these issues — incredibly — are the overall conditions of the American Economy,

    I will probably buy Cracker’s next CD. I don’t download free stuff.

    But that’ll be it for the year (seriously, Land of Milk and Honey was my last purchase, no joke), and that’s a little sad, but it’s only because like the hard working musicians described above, I am not so well off myself.

    Basically, if the economy improves, and the value of my job improves to the point where I am paid 20% more per year, then I’ll take 3% of that increase and probably spend it on all the music I’ve been missing for the last 5 years (including Vic’s last CD, that I never bought, regrettably). That 20% would be disposable income.

    Hope that makes sense. I don’t download free stuff. But I don’t buy much either, if anything at all.

    If there’s any industry I can think of that truly can’t function without a robust middle class, it’s the music industry described above. You’re not selling Escalades to the 1%, you’re selling good times to the 95% that — at this time — has no disposable income.

    1. “You’re not selling Escalades to the 1%, you’re selling good times to the 95% that — at this time — has no disposable income.” Good point Kevin 🙂

  133. Thank you, David, for this column. I’ll bookmark it for future discussions with the “intellectual property must be free” fools.

    A couple of questions, though – this is the first I’ve heard of Spotify screwing over musicians. Are there any links where I can read more about this? Does Pandora pay a better royalty rate? Also, I subscribe to eMusic: do they pay fair rates as well? As long as I’m paying money to these various services, I’d like as much as possible to end up in Aimee Mann’s pocket, or James McMurtry’s, or Bob Pollard’s. Hell, I’ll even stream some of your stuff, too!

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  135. This is an extremely well written piece and it has clearly hit home with a lot of people, but, as a musician myself and someone who sympathises with musicians trying to earn a living from what they do, I think there is a fundamental flaw in the whole thing.

    Ultimately, it rests on the supposition that there is an inaliable right to exclusivity over making electronic copies of your work. It would be nice to think of that as a ‘natural right’ but why should it be so? Surely the idea of that exclusivity was thought up at the time less than a hundred years ago when mass production made that kind of thing possible for the first time. (I don’t know where your ‘for hundreds of years’ comes from). Enshrining that exclusivity in law was a neat idea, it worked because the means of reproduction were not accessible to the masses, and a pretty good one from artists point of view (notwithstanding that it was record companies that derived the greater benefit). I think that exclusivity was a good thing, for artists and the growth of music as mass entertainment. But is it an inaliable right?

    The fact that so many young (and not so young) people see nothing wrong with making electronic copies, now that it is so easy, and the fact that they DO draw a distinction between copying something and stealing a physical object, actually supports the idea that this exclusivity is somewhat artificial. There is a kind of natural morality at work that stops most people from stealing physical objects but that is absent in the case of file sharing. That gulf is not because people are being morally inconsistent, it’s because they know instinctively that copying is NOT theft. The analogy with looting from a store in the part of town without a police force is completely false.

    They also know that making a copy of a recording does not automatically mean a lost sale. Only the person doing the copying knows for sure whether they would have otherwise paid money for a download or a CD. In many (or most) cases I suspect the answer is no they wouldn’t.

    I know this is a painful thing to swallow but I just think that the era in which the copying of recorded music could be restricted, controlled and policed is absolutely over.

    It’s not pretty. The prospects for a musician aiming to make a living from their own popularity have never been great (although many signed artists have of course made an artificial living for years without recouping advances etc), and those prospects are probably more slim than ever.

    I think it will inevitably mean a massive cultural shift in the way that people make and communicate their music. People will need to do a lot of rethinking about the all the norms of what bands do, and how music is made. I don’t know where that’s going any more than anyone else, but the old ways are gone. Things have already changed irreversibly and haven’t stopped changing yet.

    1. Bob – You lose me with your talk of “inaliable right to exclusivity” (I suppose you mean “inalienable”, but I’m still not clear on what you’re getting at). _Of course_ I have the right to control distribution/reproduction of something I create.

      “There is a kind of natural morality at work that stops most people from stealing physical objects but that is absent in the case of file sharing.” Different degrees of criminal behavior; naturally, more people participate in the latter because it’s easier and they’re less likely to get caught and punished. That doesn’t make it OK.

      Someone who takes the fruits of my labor without paying for it is stealing from me; “whether they would have otherwise paid money” for it is irrelevant.

      1. thegertz – i think what he is saying is that you _DON’T_ have the right to control distribution/reproduction of something you create. Not anymore.
        What i’m interested in is similar to this idea – if i buy a CD, what do i own? What is mine? If i buy an mp3, which i do, through emusic, is it mine? Is ownership even RELEVANT these days?

      2. Actually, you don’t have the right to control distribution of everything you create. If you draw a picture on the sidewalk I can snap a picture of it and put it on Flickr. If you tell a joke at a party, I can “steal” it from you and tell it at my own party. You can invent a super cool game like Scrabble, and I can copy it, (with caveats for trademark protection). Even things that can be copyrighted have varying lengths of protection in varying countries, and even within our own country. Eventually, everything ends up in the public domain. We as a society have arbitrarily decided that certain creative works are eligible for copyright, and others are not. There is no simple “of course” about it.

      3. Re:
        “Of course_ I have the right to control distribution/reproduction of something I create”

        You can claim any right. Without the ability to enforce it, the claim is useless. Music files are small and transmitted very quickly in a large number of convenient, inexpensive, barely-detectable ways. The genie is forever out of the bottle. For better or worse, once you’ve released a piece of music, the whole world can have it, for free. The insanely irresistible ease of freely swapping music has already crushed any ethical considerations, with which most people are not even slightly burdened to begin with.

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  137. When I was in my prime music listening years (late teens, early 20s), I was also desperately poor. Like, I could eat for an entire week on the 13-17 dollars it would have cost to buy a CD in the late 90s. I bought maybe a CD a month, and everything else I bought used – mostly cassettes, as they were usually 50 cents a pop. And then later in college I bought a lot of used records.

    The sad conclusion is, if you could magically stop free downloading (and album copying and used CD/tape/record stores), I’d just have to stop listening to as much music, and I’d probably listen to a lesser variety of music, and my tastes would be less adventurous. I’d stick to a couple of artists like I stick to a couple of restaurants I know I like, and maybe buy more old music the culture had already told me was good. So while some artists would be would be able to make a living, I can’t imagine some bands, like Animal Collective, would have gotten as popular as they are if most fans would have had to buy their very noisy early records.

    I notice the NPR crowd was pretty angry on the blog comments for her original post, but your post got me thinking….

    Could this be applied to libraries and used book stores? I use the library for most of my reading, and occasionally buy from bookstores, and rarely buy a new book. Isn’t this just as unethical as downloading music? Sure, I pay some tax money for it, but do the authors see any money from the libraries? Is it unethical to pay for a used book? Were video stores also unethical? I worked at one for a while, and one 20 dollar DVD could be seen by hundreds of people who could have made the filmmakers thousands of dollars had they all bought a DVD to own. But instead, we middlemen made a few hundred bucks.

    I’m not really arguing with you – I actually agree with everything you say. I just know that if I had to pay for all culture, I’d do it – on a much smaller scale that would cut out a lot of artists altogether.

  138. I think it is wise to leave the ethics of illegally downloading out of the equation. Ultimately, the act of buying and selling music is an economic proposition… a scenario in which the commercial rules of engagement don’t always neatly coincide with social codes of conduct.

    People like to think ethics are a cut and dry thing… it’s either RIGHT or it’s WRONG. A problem with this thinking is that it’s a big world with lots of valid points of view and real life experiences, and when it comes to codes of behavior, very little is truly definitive. Trying to frame the issue of illegal downloading as a question of right or wrong guarantees that sufficient grey area is getting put into play, which will give enough people the wiggle room to get out of changing their behavior.

    However, by emphasizing the bond between artist and fan, creator and audience… that one doesn’t exist without the other… this seems to be a more effective way of bridging the divide. By illustrating the fact that artists will not be able to continue to provide the immeasurable enrichment to our quality of life without our financial support, that is addressing the heart of the matter.

    And aren’t we seeing that today in the proliferation of crowd funding sites? The artist says, hey, this is what I want to do and I can’t do it without your (the public’s) help. And people respond. I don’t claim that crowd funding is The New Model, but it does bring artist and public closer together, and it shines the spotlight on the importance each group has to one other, while simultaneously kicking all the obfuscating variables to the curb.

    Artists make our lives better, and by supporting artists, we make their lives better, which means they can continue to create, which makes our lives better, and on and on and on.

    I really enjoyed your open letter, David. The repetition of the praise for it in all the comments is well deserved. Just really well thought out, and I appreciate that your expressions of honesty didn’t sacrifice any of your compassion.

    Cheers.

  139. I have made an attempt to create a set of ethical “ground rules” for my own listening in this digital era, and would appreciate any feedback or suggestions that anyone has on it! If you can, please leave a comment at my blog post on the subject here: http://wp.me/pwbPQ-nj
    I think it’s about time to start coming up with concrete steps that consumers can take to fight the cynicism of Free Culture and listen to music ethically. I hope that you chime in with some suggestions.

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  141. Major problem with your math though: You say “So to ethically and morally “get right” with the artists you would need to pay $2,139.50.” Well sure, if she were to pay the artists directly. But in actual fact if she bought each song on iTunes at an approximate cost of $2 per song, it would cost her $22,000. That’s more like $180 a month rather than 18. Let’s not fudge the numbers here. I’m sure Emily, like many people in my generation, would be willing to pay 11c per song, if we knew it all went to the artist. It’s paying $2 and knowing that only 5% is going to the person you’re listening to which hurts, especially once all those $2 purchases add up.

    I personally used to be like Emily and now try to buy everything legitimately, but the truth is that it is expensive, there’s no fudging around that fact. As young people and students, we don’t have as much money to spend. We are on lower incomes. As concerts/operas/theatre tickets have a student/youth rush, I’m sure a lower price for those who can prove they’re under 30 for example would be greatly appreciated and taken up. The problem is that this system is never suggested and I imagine would be difficult to administer online. But there is a reason why cheaper tickets for young people and students exist, and I think you’ll find that people naturally start buying more music as they start earning more.

    Basically I don’t believe, from my discussion and observations, that my generation has avoided paying for music as a moral decision, it’s more a financial decision than anything else.

  142. Awesome, totally on point writing by David Lowery.
    David makes it pretty well, damn clear, what part we all play in this mess and how truly easy it can be to put it all back together, better than before. I could write a book on how many ways we could implement the spirit of what he has written here. Our unbelievable technology coupled with open minds and good hearts could restore some sanity to a devastated industry in very short span… I digress from the dream… There will be no love lost for music and music will continue to be made under any conditions, but In the interest of what is right & fair, the good fight needs to continue.

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  144. I love Spotify. It’s the best technological improvement in my life since I bought my iPhone. I’d love it if someone could explain just how Spotify is exploiting the artists represented in its catalog. Are these artists being forced to sign licensing agreements at gunpoint?

    I spent some time in the music industry as a songwriter and performer. I had a record deal and released several records. I’ve heard many, many, many artists complain about how their record company was ripping them off; about how their contract was unfair. But in the end, they signed the deal. Their signature was on the contract. When my label was making $5 for every $1 that I made I was tempted to gripe but wasn’t that all spelled out in the deal that I signed? Mr. “fireandair” wisely wrote that we need “to start taking responsibility for [our] own actions.” He couldn’t be more right. If an artist doesn’t like the terms of a record contract then they shouldn’t sign. If they don’t like the terms at Spotify then they should go somewhere else.

    Contrary to popular belief no one has the natural right to earn a living in a particular manner. Many people, for better or for worse, were privileged to have the opportunity to earn a living in the music industry for a time. For many that time seems to be coming to an end. It’s time to find another way to make a living.

    As for the apocalyptic argument that downloading will lead to the end of content, well, I say hooey! Music isn’t going anywhere. Musicians have been around for thousands of years (some might say millions). How long has the music business been around?

  145. I don’t see how this is any different to any other article blaming filesharing for the little guy doing badly.

    It’s just not how it works, regardless of what common sense tells you.

    There’s a lot of false assumptions here. For example asking someone is it really that hard to download from iTunes to your iPhone(notice the product placement, though I’m sure you’ve already have) when a lot of people have a strong dislike for the kind of DRM involved in iTunes, or dislike Apple products in general.

    The falling income artists are seeing is largely due to people spending their money on more things. In the 90s there was simply less to spend your money on. Now everyone needs a video game console, a smart phone, a netbook, a tablet, a laptop, a desktop etc. which is probably a problem in of itself since we’re spending more on physical devices than content. You ask why people spend money on these things but not music, there are a number of reasons but a lot of it’s down to people being made feel like they need these devices. This is the fault of other corporations and consumerism and general, not so much the individuals.

    A lot of people have also lost faith in the music industry in general. Most of what’s given to us is rubbish and most people who have actual taste will be turned off by it. This results in the rather paradoxical situation where those who fileshare the most often also buy the most music, simply because they’re more exposed and involved overall.

    But filesharing isn’t to blame and there’s no real scientific consensus that there is.

    I don’t like people giving “Free Culture” a bad rep because it IS NOT about refusing to pay artists at all. It’s about the ridiculously restrictive nature of copyright. If anything it’s more about sample

    Bandcamp and Soundcloud, which use Creative Commons licenses, a derivative of “Free Culture”, has done far more to help ailing artists than any of this posturing and fingerpointing. It helps people feel like they’re getting involved in music again instead of having it prescribed to them.

    You say the intention isn’t to embarass her, but I just see one big emotional appeal, you even drag in people who end up dying due to lack of money, etc. and use weighted language such as saying that artists are *owed* the money that was spent on other products. This won’t bring anyone around to your side, at least not honestly.

    There are deeper problems at work here that cause artists to suffer. In general if a band is failing, they aren’t going to be prominent enough to be widely shared.

    I struggle as an artist, but never would I blame it on filesharing, because it’s lazy and doesn’t address the real problem. Articles like this might look shiny but ultimately they’re only trying to get us to take a step backwards instead of addressing the problem in a more meaningful way.

    It *is* down to governments, and large corporations to do something about it because they’re the ones who are taking issue with it, and they are in a position to do something about it. The average person really isn’t and it won’t make much difference to the average artist if they end up buying an album they would have downloaded(but this isn’t really a fair representation, again, and it’s pretty sad that there’s still the assumption of a lost sale in here despite everything else that’s said>)

  148. Pingback: Representing a musician’s perspective « theMaxOnline

  149. Great article overall. However, this:
    “I’m sorry, but what is inconvenient about iTunes…aside from having to pay?”
    sounds like it was written by someone who has never actually used iTunes.

    1. iTunes is so simple a three year old could use it. Aside from some tracks/artists not being available, it’s super easy to use. Not understanding your comment.

  150. Thank you, Mr. Lowery. I came across this article while taking a break from a Pro Tools session and had to laugh at the timing. I am working on my third full-length for this particular band and I know I won’t see a dime for my work, although we get nothing but rave reviews. I didn’t start making records until the current downloading culture was in place (I was a 14 year old in the Fox balcony watching the Key Lime Pie tour) so I’ve never had any hope of making money through my art. We all just make salads and drone into telemarketer headsets until we have enough money set aside to go to a studio for decent drum and vocal takes, and do the rest in our rooms, direct. Reading your post made me sit a little taller, knowing that someone of your talent is making articulate, heartfelt arguments for a cause I hold dear. Bless you.

  151. Thank you, this was a great post. I can’t tell you how many times over the past 15 years, I have had my illustrations ‘stolen’ and the indignation I received from students, teachers and professors when I tell them to take down my work or pay for it. Every beginner web designer thinks they can just take because the “Internet” is free. I’ve even had some of these people explain to me why I’m wrong… I’ve had the concept of sharing used as an excuse or my favorite: “If you don’t want to share your work, don’t put it on the web…!” Usually, I am acting on behalf of Clients who’ve had my work that they paid for stolen! I spent a week burning my entire cd collection into iTunes and I am happy to say, I have paid for all 1822 songs and 500+ audible books. This probably why I only have 1822 and not 11,000. I also don’t drive a Porsche, because I can’t afford one. I don’t shoplift and that is actually what you are doing. There is no difference between stealing a a digital album from slipping a CD into your pocket and walking out without paying.

  152. I am mid-30s, have played and made music all my life, and I teach music (the *hard* parts of it) at the postsecondary level for a living– at the moment, anyway. I grew up on the music of folks like Mr. Lowery, along with Vic Chesnutt (I purchased Mr. Chesnutt’s last two records on vinyl mere weeks before he took his life). I have great admiration for many of the commenters above, like Stephen Street, whose astounding work has always soundly defeated my own slapdash home-studio creations.

    But the game *has* changed. No matter how much you chide downloaders, they are going to download. They will find justifications for their actions, and some of them *are* sound. The labels *have* made many millions on the backs of artists for years, and there are just as many guilty fly-by-night indies who have royally hosed the artists on their roster as there are major-label tragedies to report.

    There are, luckily, many of us in the middle ground. We want to see artists get paid, and we want to legitimately own their product. But we no longer see the point in financing a middleman, or multiple middlemen. Why am I paying $15-30 (yes, $30– not an uncommon price for reissue vinyl) for a record, knowing full well that if I’m lucky, *maybe* a dollar or two will ever find the artist? Wouldn’t I be better off just pirating their music and sending them $5-10 through Paypal directly, if that option were offered?

    We hold services not just like Spotify, but also iTunes and Amazon, in contempt (and I say this as a guy who pays for Spotify Premium every month). Who knows what kind of royalties will be allocated to the artist? That’s black-box stuff, determined in an agreement between the labels and the service. The accounting appears to be wild-West kinda stuff. People complain not just about how little they make from Spotify, but from these services where folks pay a la carte for content. So what if my conscience is artificially eased by buying a record through iTunes? The core problem alluded to by Mr. Lowery– tech corps get the grab, artists get squat– is seemingly not solved at all by such accounts. I’m usually convinced that when I buy a legit MP3 download through such a site, I’ve wasted my money.

    Artists are increasingly turning to the self-funding services like Kickstarter that so many folks have alluded to above, often with astounding success. But I’m not convinced this tactic will work forever, any more than “pay what you want” works for indie artists without a religiously devoted fanbase (which they probably built up in the days of “the old industry”).

    Thankfully, it is cheaper than ever to record at home. This is something folks like Mr. Street know only too well, and it’s to their chagrin… and to mine too to an extent. But the days of the record-label advance are numbered, if they aren’t already more or less over for every artist that isn’t an “artist” (emphasis quotes).

    Artists need to do it for themselves however they can. They can self-release and self-promote online. Pricing is everything. There are lots of folks who have “done the math” and have come up with a different idea of a fair price for an album than the old industry has historically charged. Put out an album for $5-8 as a download, offer a few tracks for previewing, good-hearted folks won’t balk. Offer it in FLAC for those who want it, with no “quality penalty,” and offer PDF fake “packaging” in every download. This is how you put your $5-8 download on par with a $15 CD and encourage consumers to buy what you have for sale.

    I’m past the point of lamenting record stores or labels. The future is all about the artist.

    And I disagree that the government should be totally uninvolved; I think we *do* need to be thinking about artists moving forward– if music is so important to us, and I think we can all agree that it is, some kind of federal agency should be created to make sure that new music keeps coming under the current circumstances. Several European countries have offered financial assistance to their composers for decades, and their composers are often doing much more interesting things than ours are– because ours have to teach at the college level just to survive.

    It would be a horrible idea to regulate the Internet, but let’s cut out the capitalist middleman altogether– this is the source of the downloader’s “justifications.” Let’s make it possible to make and release interesting music without having to grow up with a trust fund as a prerequisite.

    1. Cap’n :

      I am not going to persuade you to love the labels. In most cases, I have done rather better in my “down the road” dealings with bigger labels than smaller ones.

      However, in both iTunes and Amazon, a copyright notice is given to indicate who owns the rights to the downloads offered and this is generally the same entity receiving gross receipts from the online store.

      But I won’t hold my breath about the masses rushing to iTunes to support their favorite artist selling direct without the middleman.

      Your conclusion is a non sequitor : “Let’s make it possible to make and release interesting music without having to grow up with a trust fund as a prerequisite.” Unless that capitalist is willing to invest in tour support for a “baby” band, there will be nothing but trust fund babies on the road.

      1. It’s not a nonsequitur in context; while I didn’t elaborate much on my idea of a government agency to support artists, I’m suggesting that we need to go to an, ahem, “semi-socialist” model for music, at least for recorded online music. It will likely never happen in my lifetime, in part because of our tendency in the US to keep arts and government separate, in part because of our well-entrenched corporatocracy and all of the established entertainment interests still making big money on their back catalogs and lobbying to keep it that way.

        But in an ideal world, with the Pandora’s box of downloadable music having been opened long ago, we’d abolish record labels, turn over ownership of all masters to the government, and put a federal agency in charge of tracking legal online purchases and playback. With no profit motive at the upper ends of distribution, artists would get paid fairly for once, and probably no less slowly than they currently get paid from online purchases.

        In nearly all cases involving a product released on a label, the copyright holder *is* the label. The services take their cut, the labels go next, and who knows if they will accurately report and pay out sales to the artist. Contracts on back-catalog stuff were often drawn up long before the concept of legal MP3 downloads were a glimmer in S. Jobs’ black-turtleneck-eye, with all manner of royalty loopholes for “non-standard media” (record club sales, promos, etc.) often written directly in, and who knows how– if at all– the label will ultimately opt to pay out such an artist.

        Tim Quirk of the once-major-label outfit Too Much Joy posted a great writeup on his own personal experience with the legal-downloads problem a few years ago, and I consider this a must-read for anyone thinking that a paid iTunes download is better than an illegal one. I can’t imagine the situation has changed all that much based on the various complaints I still hear from artists about iTunes / Amazon payout. http://www.toomuchjoy.com/index.php/2009/12/my-hilarious-warner-bros-royalty-statement/

      2. Not only is it a non sequitor, it is also out of touch. For the first time in history it IS possible to “make and release interesting music without having to grow up with a trust fund as a prerequisite”. That is a fact.

  153. Fantastic argument David. Think I’ll make my grandkids read it. Maybe a bit deep for them, but if it gets them thinking…
    BTW, I enjoy listening to “Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart” regularly. Thanks for a lot of good music.

  154. I want to offer one shred of sympathy to Emily White, who I think is really just a product of an entitled, “gimme that now, “i do it because i can” culture:

    I think those who have been railing against stealing music have been too narrowly focused on torrent sites and the likes of Kazaa, Limewire, Napster, etc. You’ll notice that Emily doesn’t use those services — probably because she understands that those are firmly in the camp of stealing music and she gets that doing so is wrong. But I also think this means she probably doesn’t see ripping friends’ CDs or promos sent to the station as stealing music — “how is it any different from giving or getting a mix tape?” she might wonder. If SOMEONE paid for the music, and I KNOW that person, and I’m actually touching the product and not getting it from some server in Russia, isn’t that better?

    For that reason I’m guessing she’s feeling pretty shocked and embarrassed by the reaction to her original post.

    That’s where the whole ethical debate about music thievery has missed the mark because it has failed to make it clear that “stealing music = having music on your device that you didn’t pay for, regardless of how it got there = unethical and wrong and hurting musicians.” That whole middle piece to the equation has been missing for me (and I’m guessing for many) right up until I read this post. Right or wrong, that’s the case.

    As a college student in 1999 I crushed my poor little computer under the weight of the files I blissfully grabbed from Napster and Limewire. When someone (namely, my music-fanatic uncle) shamed me thoroughly for the practice I moved to paying on iTunes for most stuff, and buying CDs of artists I really wanted to support. But I’ll still rip a CD on to my computer and pass it on to a friend in the same way I’ll buy a book read it and pass it on. I get the difference — with the CD I’m still keeping the music — but is the distinction really that great? Isn’t it potentially worthwhile if I pass on a CD that the friend really loves and they go on to buy something in the back catalog (which has happened a number of times)?

    This essay has given me a lot of food for thought. Thanks for writing it.

    1. Emily – Nice thoughtful post. Bear in mind, though, that if you pass on a CD that a friend really loves, while keeping the music yourself, you are promulgating a morality that says to your friend, “Why not just download that band’s back catalog for free?”

  156. I once had a quick, simple conversation with a young woman about her consumption of “free” music. I asked her if she stole paintings from museums and galleries or books from book stores. “Of course not,” she replied quickly. “Well, then why are you stealing music from me and my fellow musicians?” I proffered. She blushed, smiled weakly, and looked down at her shoes. “I’m sorry,” she replied. I can only hope that she had changed her ways, but sadly probably not.

    2. I think this is a poor argument. Metaphysically and, I would argue, ethically, stealing a painting from a gallery is something different than downloading copies of songs on the internet.

      1. You’re arguing semantics – My partner is an artist and we constantly have to guard against people stealing her work off the net in order to make prints for free. Just because somebody doesn’t steal the master tape doesn’t mean they’re not stealing. The internet has created a culture of no responsibility, no accountability , and no ethics.

      2. You are exactly right. I see this from both sides: I have two brothers who are professional musicians (one owns an indie record label as well), and my husband and I license artists for the products our company makes. We constantly find our artists being ripped off on the web, and my brothers are dealing continually with the issues talked about here. It is unconscionable, the outright theft of artistic work that seems to be justified for some by the mere fact of technology. Like, if I don’t pull it off the wall, or break in to their office to take it, it’s not theft. Metaphysically, or on the plane of reality I live on–either way–it’s all theft.

      3. Yep. I think the internet, and its cloak of anonymity, has released the worst of humanity into the world, namely, the ability to steal, insult and pry with impunity. Our morality is in the toilet, and frankly, I don’t see it getting any better.

      4. Luis, I enjoy your comments. But I disagree here … like David, I have always dealt ethically with photographers, often given them their first commissions. So, too, with illustrators. In the new morality, cutting and pasting art is regarded as a “skill” but without the admission that it’s akin in moral terms to the entertaining skills employed by an adept cat burglar.

        Recently I have had to upbraid 2 different college professors who have “lifted” images for their blogs, without their making attempt at attribution, let alone seeking permission. One of the professors hides behind the skirts of the DMCA in posting mp3’s. “Too much work” to seek permission, after all he’s a poet first, an academic second, he explains. If copyright owners object, he’ll take down. What an enlightened individual!

      5. Actually Kev, I’m not arguing about semantics. If I break into a museum and steal a painting I have deprived that museum of some thing. I now have it and they don’t. Downloading a picture from the internet does not deprive anyone else of that same picture. Metaphysically, there is a real difference, not just a semantic difference. I’m not going to argue that the act of copyright infringement isn’t illegal but I will argue that it isn’t clear that it was immoral.

  157. I have to say this is a completely agreeable premise. Piracy, if not a direct theft of product, is an effect on the person’s purchasing habits going forward. As there are stories of where you can easily point out people losing money to this changing culture as there are those who have somehow made it work, it does mean there’s a good and bad thing occurring with this idea. And with any idea it should work out the bad while keeping the good.

    I do also agree that if you reduced the distance between the producer and the consumer, they are more willing to compensate them in person than they would through this weird congregation that is the internet.

    But this is just a reflection of the “habits” of this generation when it comes to media. And I think the solution is going to be something more than telling kids to “buy shit.” I guess there should be a push to get people to “buy shit they like,” because you do seem to see them disconnect between “stuff they like” and “the people who make that stuff,” such as the perception of the industry in between, or there perception of the profession as a whole.

    I personally don’t like solving this problem of piracy by “taking away” though. A person is still better off with piracy, being able to be entertained while maintaining a sustainable budget, and I don’t feel right making one party worse off so another party is better off. Of course this only works is when the consumer here does make the drive to start contributing to the creators of their long loved entertainment, but you do clearly state that is not a guaranteed case. Which makes my previous statement hypocritical.

    So really I got nothing. I don’t work in the field, I don’t know people in the field, I am just a consumer in all this doing what I feel is in my better interest.

    So can I say this? I have my buying “habits.” It would be nice if artists could sell things that matched these “habits.” And it would be great if all this could work out.

  158. Pingback: If you download music and don’t pay for it, read this « Seamripper

  159. Some issues that pop up for me whenever I encounter this debate:

    So I grew up in Malaysia, where piracy is rife. There are a few reasons for this: due to censorship and intensely draconian media laws, a lot of legit productions are unavailable. The prices of those that *are* available often do not correspond to the possible incomes of those that are most likely to purchase it (RM40 for a CD corresponds to about a week’s worth of lunches especially for a young person, the most likely purchaser). Also it wasn’t until very recently that Malaysia (and many other non-Western-world countries) were even allowed access to things like Paypal and iTunes, because of assumptions of high fraud.

    From 2001 to about 2006 (or maybe after), much of the Asian world was blacklisted for tours because of 9/11 and the assumption that being in Asia was a security risk. There were bands cancelling gigs in Malaysia and Singapore (the latter being especially super-safe to the point of paranoia) BECAUSE of 9/11, even though neither country had nothing to do with it! (Never mind all the other assumptions about safety that people make about countries in the region.) This is especially unfortunate given that a lot of bands, even super mainstream ones like Backstreet Boys and NSync in the 90s, were often MUCH MORE POPULAR in Asia long before their home countries ever noticed their presence.

    So you have a bunch of people who really enjoy the music but have *no opportunity* to show that support monetarily. They’re priced out, they’re denied access to gigs or merchandise or even just *buying stuff online*, Internet connections took a while to even be strong enough for downloading. When the easiest most accessible option is a pirated RM5 CD – why not? What else can you do, pay tons for a flight ticket to another country to see a gig? (I’ve done that, and I’m not alone, but it takes a certain kind of financial privilege to pull off.)

    Now I reside in Australia, where yes I do have better access to Internet and only just recently got a regular job so I can afford paying what it costs. There are a couple of artists that I would throw ALL THE MONIES to if I could – but here’s the thing: *they’re not making it possible*. And largely I would posit this as the problem of the recording company, but I wonder how much of a say the artists get in this too.

    Artist 1 had a pretty kick-ass solo album with a major label that is now out of print. I have been searching all over iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, whatever, can’t find her. I ended up having to buy the CD off someone in Korea just so I could get the music again. (Funny thing is that I originally got the CD some years ago winning a radio competition.) She/her band hardly ever tour Australia (they did recently for the first time in a LOOOOOONG time) and they’re not likely to for a while.

    Artist 2 is a little more accessible – his current stuff is on various means and since he is from Australia (though not based here anymore) I have been able to see him live, sometimes paying a few hundred to do so. Note though that these are on pretty low incomes and takes a SIGNIFICANT amount of my budget to do so. He changed labels halfway through his career, and the stuff from the time he was on a major label is *unavailable*. I can’t find it on Spotify or iTunes (though his newer stuff is up), not on his website. If the guy had a crowdfunding campaign for anything I’d probably chip in a huge bunch because I love him that much – but the options aren’t always there. Sometimes I’ve resorted to sneaky illegal downloads of old songs because *that was the only way to access them* – but I’d pay him if he let me.

    And that’s just the artists I adore, the ones that are close to money-is-no-object territory. There are many others whom I’m happy to chip in a bit, but not high on the priority list, and there’s only so much I can do. Sometimes I can’t even chip in because options to pay them are arcane. (And bloody hell Apple and iTunes, talk about Big Corp.)

    Then there’s region-blocking – “this track/video is not available in your country” what is UP with that?! Or requiring a credit card when getting one is a difficult process (though Visa/MC debits are getting more popular thank God). In Australia the culture of philanthropy isn’t strong – I’m an artist myself who doesn’t qualify for a lot of gov grants due to my bridging visa, so I’m a big campaigner for alternative sources of funding, yet I’ve been told that this is a “neoliberal” idea because the Government’s role is to do most of the funding. Yeah sure, let me know when they start looking at people who are already marginalised from media, from representation, from access and give us a fair go.

    TL;DR: Issues are complicated, the non-Western-privilege world often gets left out even though they get a lot of shit for piracy, and I’m not sure we can just pin the blame on one party. There needs to be a cohesive effort at looking at the *structures* that lead to inequality – trickling down to fair compensation for artists, including defeating the notion that art isn’t worth funding.

  160. The reason most people see downloading music as a legitimate activity, I believe, is the record companies’ initial ignorance and subsequent legal action regarding sites like Napster. When the internet was a new entity, and free songs were being offered, your average person did not understand that it was illegal to download them. They paid their monthly fee to AOL, or whomever, and assumed that whatever they found on the internet was legal. (Why would companies give you access to illegal material, right?)

    When mp3 sites began to pop up, they were ignored by the out of touch establishment at the record companies. The heads of these companies had little idea that the internet existed, much less what was actually available on it. The younger, hipper execs who actually tried to use the internet as a legitimate marketing tool were either laughed off or, even worse, rebuked for “giving away music.”

    I worked at Wherehouse Music and Tower Records during the late 90’s and early 2000’s, when the final boom hit. Labels went out of their way to bleed customers of money by jacking the prices of CDs higher and higher, while discontinuing the popular “single” format.
    Customers were being forced to pay $20 for cds that had 2 decent songs by manufactured bands. (There, of course, were a lot of exceptions.) By the end of my tenure, the entire customer base felt abused and disenfranchised. When the mp3 revolution hit, they were ripe for it.

    As I said before, most people initially thought what they were doing was ok. Try as we might, record store employees fought an uphill battle trying to educate customers as to why they should pay so much for something they could get for free. They generally laughed in our faces. Instead of educating the public, and launching their own music services, the labels fought back with lawsuits and “unrippable cds.” (Most of which were unplayable in regular players.) Once mainstream (i.e. rich) bands like Metallica started suing fans of their music, it was all over.

    Steve Jobs was the only person who could either charm or bully music executives into allowing him to sell their music. By then, however, the floodgates were opened and the labels suffered irreparable PR problems.

    The Napster generation fought against the exploitative practices of the record companies by downloading their music and shunning physical product. Most record stores, like Tower, were unable to cope with the decline of record sales and shuttered. This new generation, Generation Facebook, has probably never even seen a record store. To them, even Itunes is an outdated concept. They don’t store music; they stream it. I believe a lot of them don’t know that its wrong because they have never been exposed to another option.

    I’d like to state firmly that I’m not agreeing with, nor excusing, their behavior. I’m just offering my opinion on why it’s happening. The bottom line is that record companies should stop treating music fans as criminals. They should listen to what the fans want, and partner with the software creators to legitimately give it to them. Instead of giving Britney Spears or Lady Gaga millions to make a new album, spread that money to educate and fulfill the music consumer.

    If reports are true, and the major labels stop producing CDs by the end of the year, I believe they will actually put themselves out of business. Recording music doesn’t cost as much as it did even 10 years ago. Almost any band with a decent knowledge of computers can produce a quality disc for a couple of thousand dollars. They can also make their own deals with Itunes and have their discs pressed fairly cheaply. No, bands aren’t going to be handed large advances any longer. They will be forced to struggle to make money off of their product. They will have to play more shows and market themselves in new ways. However, I still believe they will be able to make it. The collapse of the record companies will merely put an end to the extravagances of manufactured pop artists like Katy Perry. It will return the power of the industry to the indie labels and the smaller artists who are quicker to embrace new technologies and adapt.

    I offer that final paragraph not as a seal of approval for illegal downloading, but as a cautiously optimistic view point of where the industry is heading.

  161. This was a good read. Thank you for posting. As a musician I’ve never been gung ho on making music for commercial interests, i make/play music because I love the craft and pursue other work that pays. So spiritually, it’s fullfilling and unrealistic sites of great commercial success aren’t placed… when did people start paying for music anyways? when did people start paying for a painting? Isn’t art only ‘worth’/$$$ what some is willing to pay for it? Just looking from a slightly different angle… YOU are the ones putting a price tag on your art.

  163. I enjoyed reading your article, and I wish I had been as eloquent and persuasive as you years ago when I tried to make my young son see the connection between his activities on Limewire and the fact that daddy wasn’t doing nearly as many record dates as he used to before all this file-sharing started. He’s got the message now, and I hope other young people learn from you.

  164. FWIW, Some artists vehemently disagree with David and don’t think Emily White is necessarily part of the causal chain that leads to artists killing themselves (which was a rhetorically cheap move btw). Here’s an excerpt from and interview with Jeff Tweedy by Wired:

    WN: How do you feel about efforts to control how music flows through the online world with digital rights management technologies?

    Tweedy: A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that’s it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it’s just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work.
    Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music becomes a collaborator.
    People who look at music as commerce don’t understand that. They are talking about pieces of plastic they want to sell, packages of intellectual property.
    I’m not interested in selling pieces of plastic.

    http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/11/65688?currentPage=2

  165. Pingback: “Free Culture”: NPR intern has 11,000 songs in her collection. Has only bought 15 CD’s in her entire life. « The Rhetorican

  166. Well think about this – if you had the ability to receive a free iPhone vs paying $500 for it would you take the free iPhone instead of paying? That is the way my generation (18-25) think about all of this. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, (and I agree that people should be supporting their artists so they can continue to make music), but that is the mindset for everyone my age that does download music illegally.

  168. In china, where most things are pirated, or fake CD’s sold by street vendor. You simply must be asking… how do the musicians make $$ there? well, actually, they make money hands over fists.

    The music and game industry has adapted there. The musicians are paid to do ads, tv show title promo videos, department store openings and events. The recording studio become the talent promotion agency. The artists or the studio don’t care about piracy anymore, (some even subtlety encourage it.). They have adapted. I’m not saying it’s a better system, I’m claiming they have found a new business model making money, adapted to new tech, and dealt with the issue this new tech brings, fairly successfully. It’s time for us to evolve too.

    Most games are free for download, but keeping a user accounts and getting new characters / items cost some $$. Their game industry also doesn’t give a damn about piracy.

  169. I love both the attention and intention in this whole conversation. Adding my own voice in: I do not believe that music was never supposed to cost money. If you look at the long history of music and its artists, you’ll see that making money from recording music was little more than a short-lived fad. I believe that good artists will evolve and survive in time, and I’m happy to be able to have an enormous and wildly diverse music collection on my computer, even though I work for minimum wage. Maybe the time has come for musicians to go the way of writers, painters, dancers, sculptors, and other artists who rarely make great wealth or reach notable fame from their efforts…yet, they produce amazing work that resonates with people regardless.

  170. I find it interesting that many people will happily purchase E books for their kindle while not paying for music for their ipod.

    I wonder if the music industry had jumped onto digital sales right back at the beginning, how different the economics would be today….

    1. Exactly Chris. Lack of proactive thought and the overwhelming greed of those who were making far too much money, back in the day, also need to share blame for the current mess.

  171. There’s a fundamental economic dilemma that is left out of this discussion. This post paints this issue way too black and white. It is much less a moral debate. It is simply supply and demand: there is no overhead when it comes reproducing digital files. When you have an infinite supply of a product the demand is null.

  172. David,
    Thank you for being the Wendell Berry of anti-music piracy. We so needed a champion and you are a great one.
    Joan’s brother Leo

  173. These articles tend to gloss over the fact that, while spending for recorded music has fallen, spending for live music has increased. Also, for years music buyers have felt ripped off. They purchased albums for years, but were disappointed by the overall quality of the record.

    Profiting off of recorded music was the fad. How much money did Mozart ever make off of a record? To me, focusing on live music is the way to go.

  174. A great article, and comment thread (so rare!)

    I think that there is another important question that needs to be considered in this debate: what kind of role is the far greater ease of creation and distribution of music (and indeed most forms of creative content) playing in this perceived devaluation?

    A couple of other posters have touched on this, and it doesn’t effect the central premise of David’s response to Emily, but might it be as much a contributing factor (if not more) to the decline in artistic revenue as suspect youth morality?

    In a webosphere teeming with artists clamouring to be noticed, there may be hundreds of bands willing to ‘do the same job for free’ (see also: music synchronization services with databases full of ‘sound-alike’ band who willingly have their music played on television shows etc, for a marginal sum).

    Again, this doesn’t take anything away from David’s argument, and certainly doesn’t imply that if one person is doing it for free, we all should. What it maybe does raise though, are other (perhaps more philosophical) questions around the implications of the democratising effect of the digital era on culture and taste and artistic value.

  175. Pingback: False Choices, Free Culture and Music. | K-Squared Ramblings

  176. I don’t think the argument that Emily should consider paying the $2,139.50 that the artists would have received. She probably wouldn’t have been able to ethically acquire 11,000 songs or that price. To be fair to her, she should consider having had to pay something closier to $10,890 (11,000 x $0.99) over 10 years. So, each person should budget approximately $1,089 per year of $100 per month for music. This figure represents a more realistic and fairer estimation of the value of the music she has acquired.

    Secondly, while I appreciate your passion for ethics and artists, I don’t think your proposed solution to this debate will prevail. Unfortunately, for many of the reasons you cited above, it is not likely that people will pay for music as a result of heightened morals or increased policing. The solution to this debate, one that is rooted in technology and allows artists to profit, hasn’t been implemented yet. As soon as I recruit a web-design team to implement my invaluable idea, we will be able to return to enjoying music by artists who remain in control of their careers and profits.

  177. This is an extremely ENTITLED generation whose values include trying to have what they want on demand with no consequence to themselves–zero concern for any but the self, no ability to postpone gratification and so little empathy, appreciation, wonder and love for art–in a word: Narcissism. Unfortunately, the most apt analogy that applies to the situation is that : it takes extremely healthy people to empathize with and to ACT to help the victims of violence, and the premeditated stealing of artists’ work is an act of financial violence–most people do as all dysfunctional people do: look for a reason, any reason at all will do, to blame the victim for the plight that the victim had zero part in creating, then feel justified in walking away without caring at all, let alone acting to help end the violence. The issue is: no one cares AND a lucrative, parasitical system is set up, not unlike the moneymill that divorce court has devolved into, where NON ARTISTS are making a killing at the expense of the victim artists, many of whom can in no way, shape or form afford to have their hard work support OTHER people’s families. No matter that people like Vic Chestnutt are a valuable, precious, irreplaceable contributor to society, art, and wonder and the owners of Spotify are not at all. So, I applaud the beautifully written entreaty by Mr. Lowery–whose every album I have bought, loved, kept and played all my adult life–a lesson I let my kids SEE ME DOING just as they have never seen me download anything I haven’t paid for. I would urge this lesson that I and all the unfortunate victims of physical violence have learned:no one cares, victims are blamed then discarded and the only thing that ends bullying is to bully them back and get them where it hurts. Bullies ONLY understand violence, and while being like them is anathema, letting them teach you how to treat them is a wise lesson to take away. As Mr. Chestnutt’s tragedy so sadly shows: there are VERY REAL CONSEQUENCES to stealing from other human beings even if a narcissistic generation chooses to pretend otherwise.

  178. I don’t think the argument above is fair, that Emily should consider paying the $2,139.50 that the artists would have received. She probably wouldn’t have been able to ethically acquire 11,000 songs or that price. To be fair to her, she should consider having had to pay something closier to $10,890 (11,000 x $0.99) over 10 years. So, each person should budget approximately $1,089 per year of $100 per month for music. This figure represents a more realistic and fairer estimation of the value of the music she has acquired.

    Secondly, while I appreciate your passion for ethics and artists, I don’t think your proposed solution to this debate will prevail. Unfortunately, for many of the reasons you cited above, it is not likely that people will pay for music as a result of heightened morals or increased policing. The solution to this debate, one that is rooted in technology and allows artists to profit, hasn’t been implemented yet. As soon as I recruit a web-design team to implement my invaluable idea, we will be able to return to enjoying music by artists who remain in control of their careers and profits.

  179. used to be anyone that was going to record and release a song had to have a record contract. you had to go to a recording studio and an recording engineer would record your music with the help of a producer all under the control of the record co. now, any one whether you are a musician or not, whether you’ve learned how to play a musical instrument or not, whether you have any musical education or knowledge of music can with the aid of a computer, audio interface, microphone and some software make a recording that be released to the world… via myspace, facebook, cdbaby and all the digital delivery system. it’s a musical oklahoma land rush. with your mules, wagon and tools stake your claim and release you records… the industry is in a panic. technology has made this all possible. how do you stop a snow ball rolling down a hill? face it music is going to be free. how are you going to collect? the only way to make it is to have another occupation. the working musician is a totally different entity though. live music is still “alive”. go out to see a band, a singer songwriter, by cds from them. support their music. although there not much money in live performance.
    the bar has been so lowered now, what used to be rejected by record companies as not commercial or saleable has passed through. how many cds are there out there? how many digital downloads are available? to many to actually listen too in a life time.i wish you all good luck and good music. i play three or four times a week i host an incredible open mic. and have a small recording studio doing exactly waht i want to do and helping real musicians see there future.
    michael lindner alleyonemusic.com

  180. Will,
    You certainly do touch upon many unavoidable and thought provoking points, and I appreciate that and your viewpoints. I think that the problem is that while someone cannot get a new computer, iphone, etc. for free, he/she sees that music is available for free– as well as everything from Windows 7 to Men’s Health– and seizes that opportunity. I agree, that the vast majority of the time a person will abuse something that they realize is immoral, but will continue to do so without any repercussions. It is a very perturbing situation we find our society in, and I think that its clear that it will only get worse unless we as a group of consumers change our antics in some significant way.

  181. While I am for fair compensation to artists the writer’s reasoning is flawed. He assumes that Emily should have paid about $2,500 for her 11,000 tracks. Or the roughly 20 cents per track in Artist royalties. But since iTunes charges 99 cents per track Emily would have actually had to pay nearly $11,000 for those tracks on iTunes. Who is getting the other $8,000 ???? from any RATIONALE business model – even 99 cents for a track on itunes is overpriced.And add the fact that itunes ONLY works with PC’s and Apple mobile devices and YES dear blogger, it IS inconvenient.

    The writer also knocks services like Spotify and Pandora both of which I use and pay for. There are maybe 2,000 tracks I listen to. Amortized over the annual subscription fees I am paying about 50 cents per track- more than twice the 20 cents per track the writer claims I owe the artists in royalties – and that’s just to RENT those tracks. So WHO is getting screwed? Frankly, I think 40 cents per track is fair- that is TWICE as much as the artist is entitled to in Royalties – so let the record labels and the media outlet split the remaining 20 cents.I mean REALLY! when I am RENTING those tracks (or even say BUYING them for 40 cents – if that were actually possible) the record labels and the media distribution outlets have very negligible costs (other than royalties which are taken care of in the ARTISTS’ half of that 40 cents). There are no CD’s to stamp, no advertising costs to promote the tracks on Pandora or Spotify, no cover art to pay for.

    Frankly, if this blogger finds that Spotify and Pandora are “rippng off” artists, what does this blogger think of SiriusXM and good ole FM radio???? Since i listen primarily to SiriusXM and FM in my car (which is where I spend at least half of my music listening time) does that make me a scab also, since I don’t buy the CD’s and play them in my car CD player as well????

    If the artists and thisblogger have a beef it is with the record labels not the listeners.

    As for the bloggers antectdocal stories about his tortured friends’ who killed themselves, by the bloggers own (although muted) admission, these tragic individuals were addicts with siginicant mental illnesses. Kurt Cobain made LOTS of money – actually so did Jim Morrison. Actually so did Amy Whinehouse. No amount of money solved their addiction problems or paid for any help. Why does this blogger assume that his tortured friends could have been somehow “saved” with bigger royalty checks. Hell, from researching the bloggers friends, its unlikely that under ANY scenerio EITHER would have sold enough CD’s to earn any significant income. No, this blogger just throws out a sob story to try to guilt the reader. Well, bullshit.

  182. Funny, but my comment about how downloading a few free songs led me to spend hundreds on music I otherwise wouldn’t have purchased and how that makes the issue a bit more complex didn’t seem to make it through “moderation.” Odd, that.

  183. Great Article. I am a music addict. I do download music more as a forum to discover music. Once I know I want to listen to it I buy it from the artist. I have over 3000 vinyl records , growing daily and will continue to until I can’t afford to buy them anymore. CD’s I don’t buy anymore as I don’t enjoy the sound and the art of it as I do with a vinyl record. If more people can see it as I do and use downloading music as a form of learning what you like before you buy it. I think many artists would benefit and the listener will benefit, both artistically and musically through better sound.

  184. Pingback: Singer-songwriter (and Univ. of GA instructor) David Lowery explores the economics and ethics behind "free" downloaded music. « Economics Info

  185. It’s a brilliant read, and I wholeheartedly agree with the need for artists to be recognised and remunerated. However I’ve heard the argument before that downloading a pirate copy of an album is somewhat a way around owning a legally downloaded track which has restricted usage through Digital Rights Management.

    ‘Owning’ a track yet only being able to play it on certain devices causes users to go down an alternative route (sometimes more convenient and quicker) to get their music.

    Downloading music legally and legitimately has become easier over the last few years, but the restrictions caused by downloads are part of the catch.

  186. If there is an independent filmmaker, author, or singer/songwriter that I love? I buy their DVD, book, or CD. I pay full price. For me, it’s like tipping at a restaurant – if you can’t afford to tip 20%, you can’t afford to dine out. If I like a song or movie and can’t afford to buy it? I DON’T SEE IT. If I want to read a book that I can’t afford to buy, I make a request at the library. Same with DVDs or CDs.

    And this kind of thing pissed me off LONG before I became an independent artist. I’m thankful to have a spouse with a nice income, and you’ll never hear me crying poor. But I know artists that do all kinds of stuff to feed their families – things you’d never expect someone who walks down a red carpet to ever have to do.

    It is because of this kind of tragedy that I swore to share every dollar Paradise Recovered earns with the folks who helped us make it. I could never keep it all to myself.

    There’s a myth that published artists are rolling in it and can afford to give it away. The sad thing is that these folks are some of the most generous people you’d ever hope to meet. The fact that people steal their art is tragic.

    By purchasing art from an artist you enjoy, you’re paying for their health insurance. You’re helping them pay back their student loans. You’re sending their kids to college. You’re keeping the lights on. You’re helping them pay their rent so that they can continue to create art and music for you to enjoy.

    Don’t steal. It’s never justifiable. Think of the art and music we could have in this world if people actually paid for it. Maybe art and music careers would be valued, and maybe schools wouldn’t put art and music programs on the chopping block first. Just maybe…

  187. Your breakdown of a typical record contract seems to differ quite a bit from other sources I’ve encountered:
    http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

    I think you have good points. Artists should be supported, but not the traditional distribution models that exist. Bandcamp! It’s only mentioned by two other people in the comments, which is crazy. Crazier I feel is that you yourself Mr Lowery don’t mention it. iTunes is awful.

  189. The ability for a very few pop musicians to create careers for themselves out of clever turns of phrase and a couple of strummed chords is an accident of history. Just as I don’t feel the need to shell out $.99 every time I admire the architecture that litters my physical landscape, I don’t feel the need to pay every artist .99 for a three minute aural diversion. I have 62000 tracks on my iTunes library and I have purchased 1500 or so vinyl albums and CDs. Lots of Camper Van in that collection. How much more do I owe the industry? Can you break it down for me? Industries come and industries go. The music industry may not have too much steam left in it. People will still make music and people will still listen to it just as they have done through history.

    1. Also, it is In very poor taste to imply that Vic’s death is a result of people not paying for music. Alt country was a 15 minute fad 20 years ago. That might have more to do with his not making as much money. Every musician I know lives in squalor. Musicians making even a modest 35 grand from their musicis very, very rare. I’ve played in lots of bands for fun and even tried to make money with it when I was younger. When I realized I couldn’t make the type of money I would like I decided to do something else; I didn’t botch about how people aren’t spending enough money to support me

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  191. David, as a musician of the same age, I have to say there are so many flaws in your argument that I find it kind of shameful, not the very least the smarmy condescension in it.

    First, every download is not a sale. Neither is every listen. File sharing is the radio airplay we couldn’t get on commercial radio because the majors bought the MDs through their “independent promoters.”

    File sharing is the mix tape of the internet age. Out of the 100s of plays on commercial radio, I might have bought a record from 1 out of several hundred plays. So Emily has 11,000 songs on here iPod? Who of us actively LISTENS to 11,000 songs? I bet a REALLY involved fan might listen to an entirety of 100 cd length releases a year – let’s be generous and say 4 a week, 200 a year. That’s about 2000 songs total. How people actually USE music is important. Maybe you could HEAR a 11,000 songs in a year if you just left the thing on all the time, but someone has to be aware of the music to like it enough to buy it. Someone come to a party and brings a play list and I suddenly have another 100 songs on my drive. They’re a bunch of ones and zeros re-arranged on a disc – no one had deprived the cd store of a cd.

    What’s more likely to happen is that on the rare occasion that a tune makes me want to listen to it twice, I’ll go check out the rest of the band. If I like the music, I’ll buy more of it.

    We’re all frustrated with not being able to make some of the money we used to make before the bottom fell out of the market. December 2007 seems to be the line for my band. For years we’d average 100 people and suddenly it was down to 60. Those people didn’t stop buying $20 tickets because they could get my music for free – we’ve been doing that since at least 2004 – they stopped making the shows because a whole lot of people lost their retirements and then their jobs and we all stopped buying luxuries.

    Then the popularity of iTunes took us back to the days of the singles market – you don’t have to buy nine garbage tunes to get one decent one.

    Even so – I’m still making more than I was when I had to depend on the interests of a label to be heard. I’m still collecting more rent on my tunes via download than I was selling in the 80s and early 90s because I could only be heard then via word of mouth or at live performance.

    So your moral quandry is not as black and white as you and other major label industry people want us to believe.

    This has turned into a tome and I’m not halfway through – and I realize what a wast of time it will actually be to write an essay – so let me say this: there are long time working musicians who disagree on your stance. (You and I are the same age – I went and studied music in college.) Most of us are far better off in the “free” culture than in the days of the gatekeepers. More people are hearing MY music than ever before.

  193. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. That is the only true way to get folks to open their minds- by not having a condescending tone, and being respectful.
    In this world of spiteful, vitriolic one-liners, this is refreshing!

    Todd Harper

  194. I found your letter despicable. How can you write an article that claims not to want to shame anyone while linking piracy with the suicides of two artists, deliberately implying that things like Megaupload were to blame for their deaths. Just because you say that is not what you were doing doesn’t change the fact that it was exactly what you were doing.

    Meanwhile, you completely fail to point out that copyright law disputes prevented Dark Night of the Soul (a collaborative album between Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, and Vic Chestnut among others) from coming out. How did those collaborators get around copyright law? By selling a book with a blank cd and putting the album on services like Megaupload.

    I am sorry but that was wrong of you and you should be ashamed for even mentioning them in your letter.

  195. I am a musician, indie record label owner, and father to a ten-year-old son. I talk with him very often about downloading music and the ethical implications of not paying for it. His meals, clothes and allowance all come from the sale of music, he clearly understands the implications! I think all parents need to discuss this topic with our kids so “the next generation” will respect artists and understand that we deserve to be paid just as ethically and morally as Apple, or Verizon, or Warner Brothers. The difference is that most artists aren’t even breaking even on their art (and most of us are in the 99%). Kids are smart and they know in their heart what is right and wrong. Teach them when they are young before they can believe in the “inconvenience” of doing what is obvious and morally clear. Thanks for writing this David. SamR — Projekt.com

  196. Pingback: David Lowery is the man. « Radio Acting
  197. Pingback: SNIPPETY // Same-Sex Marriage + Free Music Ethics + Nalbandian + Fairfax | dave miers dot com

  198. Reblogged this on Oboe_Alli's Blog and commented:
    This is a great take on why NOT to download music (or other things) illegally! I totally agree with this dude and I now purchase, borrow or rent (from a library or netflix) all my movies and music.

  199. Pingback: NPR Music Gets a Letter | Digital Music Insider

  200. Hi David,
    Your bandmate Dave Immergluck is a close friend of mine. I also briefly knew Mark Linkous when he did some work in Asheville, NC at a studio I worked in. All I can say is 70’s Honda Motorcycles 🙂 I still have 2! Most of the people commenting on your post seem to work in the industry. As do I. I won’t bore you with the facts!

    I just want to say thank you and I hope this article spreads like wildfire. It seems it already has. I hope that people who buy and do not buy records will read this. It’s a shame that it’s something that has to be explained. But that’s the sad world we live in. The film industry is next. They still have budgets. It will take longer but it will happen. I’m scared to imagine what the music industry will be like when the film industry starts to tip.

    We just have to all stick together in some way or another. And we must most importantly pay for music and enjoy it. I feel guilty having music for free unless it’s given to me. Because I know all of the hard work that went into making a record. Sure I’ve enjoyed some songs in my car on spotify when I absolutely had to hear a Stones number I didn’t have on my ipod. But I have those records. I’ve bought them. And if something comes out I want I will buy it. But I’m not over Emily’s generation. I am not far behind her though. It seems that a generation to blame is an excuse. I firmly believe it’s a personal choice. Hopefully some of these kids will wise up and make a choice for music.

  201. David,
    I’ve followed your thoughts about the music industry and stealing music. I was enlightend and enjoyed your writings about the new model (tech) vs the old model (record compaines),recently.

    It is appalling that Emily, speaking from a recognized and respected platform (NPR) would say these things. But YOU ARE shaming her by being sarcastic, and using the emotive events of Vic and Mark’s death – who did not die because people stole their music. They died because of mental health issues.

    So let’s call a spade a spade. I actually think Emily should be ashamed of herself and good job too.

    Neville Elder

    1. Completely agree with your point about Vic and Mark’s death. Just because you say “I don’t mean to point fingers” or “I don’t want to create a strawman” doesn’t mean that you can blurt out whatever comments you want without a consequence. I feel bad for Emily because you don’t know the full extent of her actions as a consumer, and she even says she goes to concerts and buys merch (musicians get a huge cut from merch sold at shows). You’re using a quickly written blog post as the source to write a massive diatribe against her and her generation.

      However, the financial aspects of this article are spot-on, and I agree with most of the points, but honestly the attempt at linking Vic and Mark’s death with illegal downloading is almost embarrassing. I know the author probably didn’t mean to seem insensitive, but that was a huge, unfair assertion to make.

      1. The quickly written post? I see no evidence of that. It was post for the day for blog for National Public Radio. Our national radio network! That’s a big ass platform.

    2. The financial world of journeymen musicians is opaque.

      We hear of the superstars falling on hard times. This is about the equally world class musicians who have played on or created your favorite music but who never earned what Nick Lowe called “elephant dollars”.

      Yes, let’s think about Nick Lowe. Where would a guy like him be now without his one unimaginably unlikely bolt of good fortune, having a song on the biggest selling soundtrack album of all time?

      He’s 63. 2 years to go before receiving his UK state pension, assuming he has made contributions during his career. US Social Security? He would have needed a U S company making contributions for him over 40 quarters.

      Nick has a young son. When his son was conceived, the music industry was hurting but artists like Nick still received a lot of song royalties, sufficient for a middle class standard of living. That income has been annihilated, not decimated. Forget about middle class or working class, jobbing “name” musicians are in the underclass now.

      I know a lot of guys lucky to be touring Europe each summer. But they’re just one failed tour from not making rent. Those quarterly checks that used to banish their financial cares can’t even pay for a tank of gas these days.

      Suffice to say there’s a lot of real desperation out there.

  202. Thank you for presenting this in a well thought out manner. I would toss out the thought that so many people have more music than they can really ever associate with, at one point I owned 1100 some odd CD’s and a few hundred cassettes, there were some that I never even got around to really listening to.
    I have my favorites which I listen to all the time, I would think 90% of my selected listening is encompassed by about 2500 songs. I found new bands as I grew up by listening to the radio, discussing music with friends and swapping CD’s along with the occasional mix tape, in that aspect I did acquire a very few songs w/o purchase, though if I liked it I would go out and by a real copy. There was at one time a thriving community that stayed up late to listen to the college stations in hopes of stumbling across something new and fantastic, and then buying it and having a listening party, we went out, paid the 5-10 bucks or sometimes free entry at local venues to listen to small traveling acts, bought their merch. and expounded their virtues. As much as the artists deserve thanks and support, I am also saddened by the fact that the fans of music have for the most part lost the experience of really picking up on and sharing music. Quantity at free and no effort robs not on the artists, but also the listener of the quality found by active pursuit and acquisition of music.

    Nutshell: you might have 25000 songs to my 2500, and they may have cost you nothing but I’ll love and treasure every single one I have far more than the dollars and effort I spent finding and acquiring them.

    Thanks and enjoy the day as it finds you,

    Paul

  203. Most of you, including David, misunderstood Emily’s blog post.

    >She doesn’t talk about “illegal downloading” at all. Your opinion of those is irrelevant to this case, because she didn’t do it and doesn’t talk about it.

    Her post is about how she does not buy plastic CDs or digital collections of songs. She doesn’t have to. Before, she had to, now she doesn’t. The art for the story shows a broken BURNED CD. Again, whether she “should” is irrelevant.

    >It doesn’t follow that a digital copy you haven’t paid for has “ripped someone off.” I have a digital copy of this blog on my computer right now, and I didn’t ask anybody’s permission before downloading it. After I copied it I discovered that the author appears to be giving it away. OK. So if I then say that out of 11,000 things I’ve read, only 15 were books I bought, does it follow that all the rest represent authors who have been “ripped off”?

    “Now, my students typically justify their own disproportionate choices”
    You can try to explain digital media to the confused, but you don’t have to justify it, any more than you have to justify internal combustion to someone who makes horse-drawn carriages. In fact, you CAN’T justify the ubiquity of digital media because it’s a fact, not a belief that can be rationalized. Emily doesn’t believe in free music any more than she believes in gravity.

    We consumers did not choose the ubiquity of media in our current lives — it was thrust upon us too. We often express regret, sympathy, compassion and guilt over its existence when older musicians complain about dwindling income. We’re sincere. But don’t be fooled by that into thinking we have the power to not need smartphones and broadband and instead have money and desire for plastic CDs again.

    “The accepted norm for hundreds of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time” – not true. The right to swing your arms ends at the tip of my nose. Ask people who own VCRs. Ask people who sell used records. Ask people who play music at a house party, or sing in the shower, or make mashups, or perform as DJs. We err toward the greater good, and exchange of media over the Internet without threat of penalty is what makes even this discussion possible. Do you value this blog?

    But even if your copyright statement were true, it’s irrelevant to this discussion. Emily’s actions were based in traditional legal and moral values (if you believe that her boyfriend’s dump onto her hard drive was intended as a mix tape, which they both did). She didn’t change, the media changed.

    “What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is analogous to changing our morality and principles to allow the equivalent of looting.” DAVID’S opinion is the radical one. He proposes that technology changes morality, that previously moral behavior like making mix tapes is now “the equivalent of looting” only because you can fit more MP3s on a hard drive than singles onto a cassette tape.

    And there is no such thing as “the corporate backed Free Culture movement.” I didn’t need a movement to copy David’s essay onto my computer for free.

    >Emily said she got most of her music ripping copies sent to her college radio station, which is probably 100 percent legal. Our college radio station has an agreement with the powers that be that allows DJs to do so. Yes, that’s right, your labels GAVE HER PERMISSION to “rip them off.”

    Your whole section on math is mostly likely based on a false, ugly assumption.

    I am beyond tired of folks claiming “looting” without spending one second investigating the terms of a situation and whether a right to copy was actually granted. You’re asking us to consider the fine print when you will not do the same. Lead by example. And yes, MPAA and RIAA, this means you too.

    In today’s media world we have permission to get unlimited unpurchased copies without so much as violating an unenforceable civil claim. “But even in the case of corporate record labels, shouldn’t they be rewarded …”? If the copying is legal, then by law, NO. Nobody gets to renegotiate after delivery because they think they got a bad deal. Only Tony Soprano would force that issue with a straight face, which is where the term MAFIAA comes from.

    “The reason they can get away with paying so little to artists is because the alternative is The ‘Net where people have already purchased all the gear they need to loot those songs for free.” Again, what do you want us to do? Not buy smartphones? Buy CDs and let them gather dust? Buy MP3s and immediately delete them for space?

    >Here’s a deep irony – I see several names on this thread I recognize from my collection, and of course I know Mr. Lowery’s work. I first encountered all of your music when I copied it into a device in my home for free, without your permission and against your labels’ wishes. The device is called the radio, and at one time the music industry tried to make that type of copying illegal, just as it is trying to do with many types of file-sharing. The Supreme Court ruled against them in the 1940s. Rest assured, if it wasn’t for free downloading I would not know who any of you were and would never have spent money on Cracker shows, Camper Van shows, the Smiths’ “Strangeways” album (bought used on LP and new on CD), etc. etc.

    Again, if such downloading in 21st century technology should now be considered “the equivalent of looting,” it is not a “Free Culture movement” proposing a change to morality and principles, it is you. Until you at least acknowledge this, you will get nowhere with me.

    >I have to admit that Mr. Lowery’s clean, crisp irrationalities on this subject have made me doubt I’ll ever again pay to see him live. Don’t assume you’re at rock bottom financially, guys. I just spent 6 hours on this post. I’m invested and my chips are on the table.

    We all have to live in these times. You are not immune. We suffer and adapt together or one of us falls behind. Calling a 21-year-old a looter because she listens to 21st century radio and cassettes instead of buying plastic discs is not a show of solidarity with someone who is probably also getting a raw deal from 2012. If you can’t feel that solidarity, what is your worth as a communicator? Who can relate to your work? What universal truth does it express?

    “Over the last 12 years I’ve watched revenue flowing to artists collapse … I present these two stories to you not because I’m pointing fingers or want to shame you. I just want to illustrate that ‘small’ personal decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly ‘love’.” If David doesn’t understand how much we’ve ALL lost in the past 12 years – if he thinks the music industry crash exists apart from the crash of just about everything else – how can he speak to us as an artist?

    Millions of people lost their homes. Millions of college radio DJs can no longer find reliable work. There is nothing small about the personal decisions these people are forced to make every day to make ends meet. When David used the word “small,” the bell rang and class was over.

    He doesn’t live in our time anymore. He lives in his own parallel world where the Great Recession only happened to middle-aged musicians, and they are just a single cultural shift away from being back to 1995 cash flow again.

    I wish he were right. If I could restore 1995 by buying 10 CDs a month, I’d have a moral obligation to do so. It would be worth it just to run from the airport ticket counter to the gate again.

  204. As a graphic designer working to help promote the artists, I’ve been feeling it as well. There is a trickle-down economy at work. I’ve seen my budgets shrink to a fraction of what they used to be – to the point where I have to work 18 hours a day just to make ends meet. Thankfully, I’m still busy. But more and more I’m being asked to do the same work for less and less. What I do for a living has been completely devalued, thanks to music and video piracy.

    1. I don’t think it is piracy that has devalued graphic design, it is a supply/demand situation – there are far more people who are willing and able to do graphic design nowadays than there used to be, partly because of software advances. You can argue that you will do a better job than many of these people, but that doesn’t mean clients are willing to pay for that ineffable “betterness.” Photography has the same problem – 20 years ago if I wanted a decent portrait of the family, I had to go somewhere and have a pro do it. Now I can do it myself with a consumer grade camera, do basic corrections with free software, and get results that are plenty good enough. Technological progress sometimes eliminates entire professions, like the guys who used to light streetlamps or the riders for the Pony Express.

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  208. David, I greatly appreciate the suggestion at the end of your post in regards to donating to charities that support musicians. However, most of the charities appear to American and to mainly support American musicians. As a Canadian, who has download some Canadian music, it would be great to know how I could give back, not only to those artists, but to the regions they hail from as well. If you have any knowledge concerning specifically Canadian charities, or charities that explicitly mention helping Canadian artists, I would appreciate you passing it along.

  209. I like to write music in my free time, and most of my friends also write music. Some of them are really good at it too. All of us freely exchange and upload our music on the internet. In my case, I don’t care about money. If someone is listening to and enjoying my music, that’s more than enough for me.

    I understand it’s different for people who do music for a living. I just wanted to put my thoughts across.

  210. hmm… interesting that you get to publish an article and the world can consume it for free. the author (you) doesn’t get paid, the publishers (wordpress) don’t get paid, i doubt even the person who designed your site got paid. If i were a writer I think I would be a little frustrated that you have devalued my work simply by offering up free articles to anyone who can read.

    I’m a musician and have been making recorded music for about 10 years now. I dream of nothing else then figuring out a way to be a responsible bill paying adult and still get to play music for a living. But i think you have missed the point entirely about what the internet and file sharing have meant for not only musicians but artists of all types. Big entities making money off the back of an artist is as old as time and especially when it come to recorded music. So while its sad and should be fought against its boring. There is a chance to be innovative, creative, and progressive in ways that we couldn’t even think of before. I for one don’t think its wrong at all for Emily to have taken that music… it was hers to take

  211. This, to me, is more of a question of advancing technology than declining morality. When you steal something, it’s not there anymore, and no one else can steal it. when you download music digitally, you are tapping into a virtually infinite pool of information that almost everyone has equal access to. The laws of supply and demand would dictate that if there is an infinite supply of something, it has no value. If CDs rained down from the sky infinitely, would you pay for them?

    I’m a serious musician, and I consider the most important part of my life to be writing songs. However, I believe firmly in the idea that something that doesn’t exist in the physical world doesn’t have monetary value. CD’s, vinyl, T-shirts, live shows, etc, all of these you can feel and touch, all of them require materials and energy to create and coordinate and therefore have monetary value. For example, if I write, record, and print an EP, even in the most minimalist way, I’ll ask people for at least a buck for it. Uploading a song into the digital realm is a completely different story, because it can be duplicated ad infinitum at no cost to me, therefore I absolutely have no reservations about giving my music away for free digitally. Quite simply, I feel that just sinking a lot of time and energy into something doesn’t automatically qualify you for monetary compensation. I’ve spent more than a decade of my life developing my musical ability, and I don’t realistically expect to ever be paid for the hours I spent doing so the way I would be if I had spent them on the clock at some ‘real’ job. And yet here I am, with no regrets and no sense of entitlement.

    I will add to this that I have never illegally downloaded music, simply because I am pretty much computer illiterate, having devoted the time it would have taken me to learn even the most basic internet trickery to things like, go figure, making music. But if I were to dabble in this ‘music piracy’, I would only use it as a means to bypass the risk and disappointment of dropping $15 on a CD and not liking it. If I really dig an artist, I support them, plain and simple, to the best of my ability. I pay for concert tickets, CDs, posters, vinyl and t-shirts. But I flat out refuse to drop money on something than doesn’t exist in a physical sense. All information should be free, call it Free Culture thinking, call it hippie idealist mumbo-jumbo, call it whatever you want. Sharing information, not just music, but all kinds, makes it easier for human beings to understand each other and in turn makes the world a better place, and therefore should never be restricted. That’s what’s so incredible about the internet, the ability to instantly connect with people you never would otherwise. The possibility of people around the globe rocking out to my tunes, and furthermore corresponding with them, is exiting and satisfying enough for me. As far as I’m concerned, the more ears to hear it, the better. Any money made in the process is a welcome bonus, but nothing that I expect. As cliche as it may sound, if I expected money, I’d be doing it for the wrong reasons.

    I’ll end my comment by paraphrasing a quote saying that human beings are the only animals that pay to live here on Earth. Interpret that as you will.

  212. I am disappointed to hear that Spotify is not compensating artists adequately. I have recently (in the past few months) become a huge fan of Spotify because (I thought) while listening, I was helping to support many artists who would have otherwise never been heard or paid. Through Spotify, I have the ability to listen to entire albums and decide which cuts I want added to my library. I have wished for Spotify to add an option to purchase directly via Spotify rather than having to purchase from Amazon.

    I view Spotify much like a radio station online (commercials included). I also, listen to free audio streams on NPR and my community radio station of which I am a supporting member of. What is the difference from listening to Spotify versus NPR and community radio online? I have to ask.

    I conscientiously don’t purchase CD’s (or LP’s) anymore is because of the toxic pollution plastic waste causes. I download MP3’s from Amazon frequently because I feel it is more environmentally responsible. However, I can’t afford to this all of the time. Does this mean I shouldn’t listen to free streaming audio? I REALLY value the ability to listen to streaming audio from NPR, community radio and Spotify and I hope the blessing continues so I can discover more talented artists who would have otherwise gone unheard and unrecognized.

    BTW, In the 1980’s and 1990’s I was a manager of a record stores in Texas and Florida. I witnessed the mass marketing of artists (by corporate executives) that were not musically worthy and also witnessed so many VERY talented artists tossed on back burners because they weren’t pretty or sexy enough. It was so frustrating and sad.

    Until today, I felt like music was flowing freely again into our homes without the censorship of corporate record store executives and commercial radio. I felt like I had a choice again but I also felt like something really good what coming from it all.

    I consider myself a morally conscious individual. You have given me much to think about. However, I am confused and would really appreciate some feedback given my perspective.

    Sincerely, MZ

  213. In the interest of accurate portrayal most of my collection is now ripped, and my own foray into the acquisition of songs without paying the artist was via the slew of Imported live recordings which I purchased of many of my favorite artists, Also I failed to mention the discovery of music via the MTV, because it still hurts to remember the loss of that source of music perusal.

    Paul

  214. Did you even read her article? Emily White does pay for music– she just pays for it in digital form. Where do you get the message that she pays for none of it?

  215. I feel like there is a massive assumption in this entire piece that needs to be discussed – does everyone who wants to make a living though music have a right to do so? Linking the death of two musicians with the rise of piracy makes those musicians sound hoplessly idealist and/or lazy – most of us have a dream job that we’d love to do, but most of us choose instead to do a job that lets us earn a living. I would like to climb mountains for a living, but I am not good enough for a sponsorship, so I work a 9-5 job and climb at night and on weekends. If Mark or Vic weren’t able to support themselves with music, they could have made the same hard choice the rest of us make every day and gotten a job. It is ridiculous to pin their deaths on piracy.

    I don’t like the way David disingenuously lumps Creative Commons in with pirates. That is like saying the folks making Firefox want you to steal a copy of Microsoft Word. In his “The Net” metaphorical neighborhood, he is implying that the food banks giving away food are as bad as the looters stealing food from the supermarkets. I’m not thrilled by that metaphor anyway, as copyright infringement is fundamentally different than looting, even if neither are ethical. To make the metaphor more accurate we must explain that the stores being looted have an infinite supply of the goods being looted.

    I think the argument that we are paying $2000 for gadgets just to enjoy our music is off the mark. When all I had was a binder full of CD’s, and Napster was just a gleam in Fanning’s eye, I paid money for a computer. A computer and smartphone are a sunk cost, a cost I would be paying regardless of whether my music was on CD’s or in the cloud. The only dollars most people allocate specifically to music hardware is a portable MP3 player. But 15 years ago I had a portable CD player, so I don’t see a real difference there.

    As an aside, I am curious why David doesn’t attack libraries the same way he does all the other companies making money by sharing media. Surely they are depriving musicians and authors of money every time they loan out a book?

    For the record, and since we’re using anecdotes here, I haven’t bought a physical CD in 15 years or so, but I have spent thousands supporting my favorite artists, (many of whom release their music for free) by buying their music in digital format, going to shows, buying merch, etc. I would not have found some of these bands if they hadn’t released their music with a Creative Commons license.

  217. maybe someone could set up a website that artists can have a donate to account, “me, the one who made the music you love and got for free. And for every song we steal we find the artist on this site and donate $0.10-$0.15 per song to the artist. If thats the average of what they get paid anyway. That way the new way of acquiring music for free doesn’t have to change, but those of us that want to be socially responsible have a way to give directly to the artist. And maybe soon that consciousness will spread. I certainly would not have any problem paying $0.15 a song.

    1. You are missing the point. Artists own what they do, and have a right to be paid for it; you have no right to acquire their “product” for free. You act like musicians are asking for charity. What do you do for a living? Is your compensation charity, or rightfully earned from your talent, labor, and value of whatever product you might make?

  219. Kidos, does anyone know how much the artist gets from iTunes?
    i usually purchase albums from that source, for convenience and now we can retrieve any lost songs. Some artists do not release CDs, as the Motels did in 2009 with “This”- I wanted to ask Martha Davis about this but we never touched that subject during her after concert signings in NYC.

  220. Reblogged this on Shelby Live in Australia and commented:
    As some one who is adamant about her responsibility to pay for all music downloads this aweseome post is more than ample vindication of my many ‘soap box’ episodes on this issue. People you need to pay for music – illegal downloading is theft plain and simple. Further more if you don’t support your favourite artists how will they continue to produce the music you love?

  221. The one point that this article fails to address is that most people aren’t willing to pay 10 – 15 dollars per CD anymore. I know there’s the consideration that a lot of people go into making a CD (the audio engineers, producers, talent, guest talent, CD artist, marketers, arrangers, composers, musicians, lyricists, managers, etc. etc.) but consumers can’t be expected to pay a price they don’t believe is fair. Honestly if every CD costed only $5 I would have no problem paying for them, but $15 a CD is just way too much and I like way too much music. Even when I used to pay for music, I would buy them new from amazon or ebay and find them at wholesale prices, never paying more than $7 a CD. What needs to happen is the system needs to be completely reinnovated to pay musicians. We can’t keep trying to back musicians by touring and CD sales alone. Musicians need to stop expecting people to pay a buttload of money for stuff they can get for free. Artists need to ban together, stop signing major label contracts which ain’t gonna do shit for them, and encourage ad companies to sponsor them on some sort of cloud network instead of illegal downloading sites. Then the public can still get their music for free (or paid if they wanna get rid of the ads), companies will still get their name out, and musicians will be finally be paid. Even now, artists can just upload their songs legally on youtube and get ad revenue from the number of hits they get. These are the measures that need to be taken. Either that or reduce the price of their CDs to something people are willing to pay for.

  223. I agree that we, as fans, have a responsibility to support the music we love. That being said, I think there are a few shortcomings with this argument. First, I think you are putting an awful lot of words in Emily’s mouth. She isn’t advocating theft, but rather pointing out a simple fact of life. In the digital age, it is no longer useful to think of music economics in terms of physical product. We also live in an age when Amanda Palmer can directly raise 1/2 million dollars for a record directly from fans, without any creative controls being placed against her. She doesn’t have to worry about distribution, storefront supplies, radio play, etc. This is a new age. As we progress, the system will continue to decentralize. As such, yes, we will see fewer massive mainstream artists. But we’ll also see more artists that would have never been given the opportunity to escape the gatekeepers. Audiences will naturally grow smaller, but there will be more of them. The economics will work itself out.

    The second major question I have here is whether or not we are still in a place where the value of art is purely economical? Does art exist without an equitable exchange of money? If music can only be valued in economic terms, doesn’t it make sense that as it becomes less expensive to move the ‘product’ to the market (technology cutting recording and administrative overhead/dismantling the label system), the expected value of that product would also naturally decrease?

    Here’s what I keep thinking about; If an exchange of money is absolutely necessary for the creation of music, how do we explain Husker Du, Black Flag, Mission of Burma, The Replacements, The Minutemen, and the Dead Kennedys? The art will always survive. With that faith, I have a problem judging someone else for how they choose to express their own support.

  224. This has needed to be articulated for a long time, and you did it brilliantly. I’m going to forward it to every young, misguided person I know.

  226. David

    This is all very fascinating, and thanks. I agree with your fundamental argument but I do think you’ve oversimplified two points.

    (1) A song / music cannot be likened to material sales.

    I spend an embarrassing amount of money on music every month. Like, a lot. 99.99% of that money is spent on vinyl records, more than half of which are new. I also download a shit-ton of music, some legally but mostly illegally. I do not use either of your two justifications for my downloading — I often download music to try before I buy.

    Maybe most of the vitriol directed at the record labels (and thus the justification to steal music) is from the horror stories of bands being chewed up and spit out by the majors (see the oft-pirate-cited Albini’s “The Problem with Music”).

    But not for me. No, I am still furious over the dozens and dozens of CDs I purchased as a teenager after seeing a buzz bin video on MTV and rushing out to Sam Goody, only to come home to realize that I had been conned into spending $15 on a piece of shit.

    Is it totally moral to steal something that I may or may not end up buying? Isn’t that like stealing a pineapple from a grocery store and then only paying for it if it tastes good? According to your analogy, yes. But I really, really don’t think so.

    I’ve taken a cue from my father, the most honest man I’ve known. He used to go record shopping with his friend Jerry (this would be from about 1972-1982) and buy stacks of records. They’d return to one of their homes and listen to all of it, and they’d tape most of it and exchange it. They were stealing music, the same way Emily ripped cds from her friends. But if they liked something, they’d go out and buy it for themselves.

    Have you never taped a friends LP or CD? Or made or received a mixtape?

    Now, with that in mind, Emily’s situation sounds a bit like Ron Livingston’s penny dish argument in Office Space. Taping LPs for friends is a bit different than ripping every CD in a radio station.

    BUT the fact is a song is NOT a pineapple. It is not a piece of merchandise. It exists in a different ecosystem than a pineapple. Free music has been available to consumers for much longer than the internet has existed – available on the radio, on TV, and on homemade cassette tapes.

    I know radio stations and MTV had to pay royalties and we had to suffer through commercials, and that cassettes were lower-fidelity versions of illegal MP3s, but my point is that the system is more complicated than you make it out to be.

    (2) Illegal Downloads caused the downfall of the major label system.

    I’m not going to argue that they didn’t contribute, or weren’t by far the biggest factor. But do you remember what was on the radio when the industry started to crash?? 1999? It was AWFUL. It was arguably the worst era of mainstream music ever. Creed. Korn. Britney. Limp Bizkit. KID FUCKIN’ ROCK. I can’t even force myself to recall any more because it makes me sad. I used to love listening to the radio and for a few years there I just couldn’t turn on the radio without getting nauseous.

    The “bets” the industry was taking in the late 90s were shitty fucking bets.

    Around 2003 I had a long conversation with a guy who made a small fortune marketing back catalog recordings in the 80s and 90s. He retired early because he could see the industry was going to crash. He was well aware of Napster and Kazaa but pinned the blame on his employers: they were marketing songs, not artists or albums.

    You remember what happened in 1998? “Now that’s what I call music”. The stupidest thing the industry agreed to.

    Sometime in the 60s, labels stopped marketing one-off singles and started marketing the acts themselves. The strength of the music industry stemmed from these investments.

    But for some reason, in 1998, “Now” hit US shores. Labels reverted to the pre-Beatles model… get a song out there, hope it strikes a chord, and make as much money off of it as possible, and move on to the next song.

    Again, I can’t argue that illegal downloads weren’t the mortal wound. But there’s more to the story than just “People started stealing”.

    So yeah, great article. Thanks a ton.

    I just noticed that a vinyl copy of Kerosene Hat sells for close to $300 on Discogs. Time for a vinyl reissue? I’d buy that for sure.

    Take care,
    David

  228. I rarely purchase songs. However, I rarely rip songs now. I noticed that someone has to be getting screwed by me getting free music. Instead, I stream music through youtube and others.

    1. @Shay,

      Trust me. We’re getting screwed without lube by Google owned YouTube.

      A recent blog post of mine :

      “Harry Fox YouTube Royalties Arrive …

      We have circa. 500,000 cumulative plays on our song copyrights. We consistently average 2000 paid downloads per month on iTunes and Amazon, say $150 per month in mechanicals. Now to represent years of lost business on YouTube :

      FED WIRE CREDIT VIA: SIGNATURE BANK/026013576 B/O: YOUTUBE LICENSING OFFER LAKE SUCCESS NY 11042 $123.02”

      To translate for the non industry types here :

      The Harry Fox Agency represents dozens of our songwriters who have composed and released hundreds of compositions on recordings including one by Yo La Tengo(!), The Offspring, The Vandals and numerous other “name bands”.

      For all the YouTube plays for the last decade, we’re receiving $123.02 (minus $15 wire fee) for everything and everybody.

      For those who received huge checks, please let us know.

  229. There is one thing that occurred to me while reading these comments. It may be somewhat sidebar, because by and large I agree with the bigger topic being discussed. What was interesting to me was that, as sometimes happens, a minor point (to the author) is what created this dialogue, rather than her initially intent behind the blog.

    Her point, by the way, was that physical media is essentially a factor for previous generations, not hers. When she says that she has 11,000 songs and only purchased 15 CDs, it seems like she means exactly that: CDs. When she says that she doesn’t think she or her peers will pay for albums, that she wants convenience, again she is referring to her theme: that digital access is much more convenient (and ingrained in today’s youth) than the packaging. Again, I agree with most of the points the author of this current post stated, but this one I disagree with: I don’t think she saying that is is inconvenient to pay for music. I think she is saying that it is inconvenient to drive to a store and find a copy of the physical album.

    She also says that she did not illegally download the majority of her songs. Based on this non-specific statement, it is possible that she paid for digital copies of the bulk of her collection.

    Do I think this is likely? Probably not, based on what she stated later. But to me, it brings up another interesting point. From the blog post, it seems that she differentiates piracy from the kind of album swapping you might do with your friends. For her, one is unethical and the other is a sort of community building exercise. And, honestly, how many of us have not created a mix tape or CD for a significant other?

    What this boils down to is degrees. Is putting together your fifteen most romantic love songs for your sweetheart technically wrong? Technically yes. Would we look at someone who did so differently than the person who pirated those same fifteen songs from the Internet? Probably.

    My points are these: Let’s not fully vilify her, given that we are basing our judgments on something she hasn’t necessarily said. Second, with so many factors in today’s world that people 20 years ago never even considered, sometimes it can mean that the root cause is something different altogether. In this case, maybe it is the idea that swapping albums with your friends isn’t really any different than downloading them illegally, because either way an artist’s music is being disbursed with no compensation.

  230. We own a destination recording studio. We poured everything in our hearts and pockets into building it, and the musicians loved it and did great work here. But, business slowed and rates dropped and we thought we were going to lose it. In desperation, we advertised the lodging-only as a vacation rental. Now we collect the same day rate for the same building WITH THE STUDIO LOCKED OFF. We are booked all of the time (even into 2014), with folks putting deposits down a year or more in advance. The irony is really painfully sharp when I realize I am renting this place to a person who is a musician, but can afford to vacation here because they are not a PROFESSIONAL musician. Many of them use the money they have made in other professions to rent studio time while they are here. Next summer there is a person coming who’s wife explained that at one time he was one of the top concert pianists in the country, but realized there wasn’t enough money in it. Obviously, he chose a well-paying alternative — in addition to the lodging, he will be renting studio time. The whole thing is surreal sometimes.

    1. As a studio designer, builder and special systems tech I physically understand your situation Corrie. 🙂

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  232. I just wanted to post a minor rebuttal, but first, I need to point out that I’m not familiar with the groups Emily mentioned in her original post (which I only just read a few minutes ago after reading your post), and so I’m not familiar with her music collection.

    I’ll also add that my music collection is miniscule compared to most (about 3,000 songs).

    That being said, about 2/3 of my personal music collection was freely downloaded… legally.

    Granted, that legally free music is done by artists you probably have never heard of. But my favorite music site is Jamendo, which only has music that is licensed under the Creative Commons license, which allows for free download and re-distribution (that is simplified a bit, but it is easy to look up the Creative Commons licenses to get the full story). The license is applied to the songs by the artist, and these artists apparently are more interested in getting their music heard than in getting money for it.

    The remaining third of my music collection was paid for, whether through CDs or through online music purchasing sites like AmazonMP3, Rhapsody, Google Play, etc. (I have never had an iTunes account, but I’ve also never had an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, nor do I want one, so I don’t need iTunes).

    (On a side note, I found one artist on Jamendo. They released two albums for free on that site, which I downloaded and thoroughly enjoyed. They then released a third album on Amazon, which I promptly purchased).

    I’m not a “pirate”. If the artist expects to get paid for the right to listen to their music, then I either pay for it or I don’t listen to it. But if an artist is willing to make their music freely available, then I have no qualms about freely obtaining it.

  233. Love the post, David, and have been a fan for a long time. I totally agree that artists need to be compensated more for their work but I have a little problem with your numbers. You say that the minimum amount an artist should receive is 10.35 cents per song. This is totally reasonable but I have never seen a legitimate pay site that has songs that you can download for this price. Even if you took in all the other factors and bumped it up to 20 or 30 cents per song, I think that more people would begin to open their wallets. The regular price for a download is around one dollar. Where does the extra 90 cents go? Itunes is charging over a dollar now per song and entire albums range from 7 to 10 dollars. In the climate that you are describing above, it will be difficult to bring back all of the people who can get it for free with these prices. A CD at a concert usually costs 10 dollars and I get to check out the liner notes in the car on the way home. To charge this amount for a digital download is ridiculous. If I go with the numbers that you quoted above as fair compensation for the artist and even bumped it up some, an entire album of 12 songs should cost no more that 4 dollars. I’d love to see a pay site that has these reasonable prices.

    1. If the download is $0.99 that’s the retail price, the wholesale price would be about $0.70. The sound recording owner gets that wholesale price out of which it has to pay the mechanical royalty $0.091 currently. The artist royalty will vary depending on whether it is calculated on a wholesale, retail or revenue share basis (this is what the “Eminem case” was about in part). David is describing a royalty based artist deal.

  234. Mr. Lowery –

    I was hoping to seek permission to use your letter as a reading in my “introduction to music” class at the high school level. Yea or nay?

    Is it possible that the use of the word “convient” in the original article was to say that today’s consumers would pay for the convience of a monthly charge to access a cloud-like library?

    ZE

  235. I agree that folks like Emily should pay for works they consume. I completely agree that people should not download copyrighted material without the authors’ permission. I also agree that compensation for artists is a consumer-driven process, as large corporations have for decades merely exploited artists rather than meet their obligations to artists.

    I disagree, though, that the Free Culture Movement is a monolithic entity,nor that the goals of those who support freely shared music and software are all ignoble. I choose to share my music for free, not because I disbelieve in intellectual property (in my day job, I’m even licensed as a patent lawyer), but because I believe that sharing can help advance folks’ ability to use songs creatively in their day to day videos and audio recordings.

    I support your call for people to become artist-centered in terms of paying for works that are for sale. But I think that the “it’s the free culture movement” strawman that is the problem is not the most apt way to describe the problem.

    I think that your indictment overlooks the problems caused by the corporate record industry, and its insistence upon adhesive contracts and unprofessional accounting. I applaud your effort to get folks to realize that the pirate-party-style abolition of copyright is not a solution, I disagree with your us v. them assessment of the situation, which lacks the nuance to address the myriad of problems faced by artists, who do not begin nor end with a “free culture movement”.

    There is some force in your point that the pendulum has swung a bit in favor of corporate device makers, after a generation of MIckey Mouse copyright extensions. But we all remember the old days of payola for shelf space and airplay. The 99% of artists did not thrive in this world, either. The technology creates the opportunity for true artist independence. To overlook the opportunity inherent in the situation is to be nostalgic for a “good old day” that was only good for a few.

    So I agree that people should pay for music that artists sell, or refrain from listening to it.
    I disapprove of unauthorized downloading, and disagree with “pirate party” thinking.
    Yet I never want to go back to the RIAA world, and liberally licensed music will be part of the ticket to a better music culture.

    The problem with the post is that it equates unauthorized downloading with the goals of a more open, legal-sharing rights culture. This is not the lesson Emily should learn–a kind of RIAA fantasy. Emily might learn instead a simpler lesson–don’t use things you did not buy–and leave behind the “free culture” diversion.

  237. I’m so thankful for this post, it lets me know I am not alone. As an independent artist I have casually mentioned a variety of these points to my own fans for years and never felt heard so I am glad the conversation is still out there. I posted an entry on my blog last month titled “Hey Can You Spotify Me Some Cash?” just to inform listeners on the royalty situation. Unfortunately I found myself under scrutiny (of course). “Quit your bitching” “Maybe you should find another job” “I support the band on tour instead” “If you don’t want me to listen on Spotify don’t put it there” were commonplace replies when my entry went a little viral. What bothers me most is that no matter how delicate you approach the issue as someone who’s career and well being hang in the balance, you can still be perceived as the bad guy. There’s little sympathy for the livelihood of musicians. It’s become a dark “Hey, just shut up and be grateful I listen to you at all.”

  238. If you ignore the ever-growing ever-looming white elephant in the room-the radically changing global economy increasingly squeezing the disposable incomes of little guys from every direction-this article does make sense. And the small pink elephant of legal downloads is still another elephant-sized elephant to ignore when agreeing with this article. Why consider that people with increasingly squeezed pockets have chosen en masse to pay $1 for single songs with the same regularity they once paid $16 for an album when you can just ignore it? Never mind that a starving artist can’t get healthcare or that an artist wouldn’t be very fair in hanging his suicide on kids downloading music. But to tell the truth I can’t see it because there are a couple of elephants sitting on top of me and I am beginning to suspect there are some other elephants in the room crushing the sense out of me as well.

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  241. It’s not so much her fault as it is the tools used to rip and distribute the music without consent. It’s the same thing as someone holding the door open to let his friends in the theater to go watch the movie – he paid for the ticket, they didn’t. The one who rips the CD into a file and shares it, is basically doing the same thing. But for her to rip CDs from the station’s music library, I’m kind of surprised she’d openly admit to doing it. Is an MP3 or FLAC a “duplication” of content on a CD? But I’m sure we’re just going to see more subscription services pop up as a way to hear a variety of music. But the music industry didn’t take a loss just from file sharing – the 90s had a big boom because people were replacing their vinyl and cassette copies with CDs. Once people were able to turn their music collection into digital files, no more need for replacement copies.

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  243. Thanks for the excellent post, David.

    One edit I’d really like to see, though, is a source for this:

    “Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!”

    Not that I doubt you, just interested to know where it came from.

      1. A few things are at play that make this revenue decline unsurprising.

        Kids these days mostly buy singles – hence – part of the reason decline in total spending. Suppose “Low” became a radio hit in 2012. How many full albums could you expect to sell – supposing piracy did not exist? Kerosene Hat would have generated just a fraction of the revenue it did in 1993…no matter how many charting singles it had.

        Another major factor is the people who actually buy complete albums – people like (age 40) – buy a small fraction of the music as we used to (I estimate I buy 1/3 of what I used to 10 years ago). We’re square now – we don’t have the time to keep up with the Bonaroo acts because we’re busy raising children, maintaining homes, and trying to keep our jobs.

        Worst of all – change will never occur with the corporations. You’ll never get major corporations to voluntarily share their profits fairly with musicians. Most sad, politicians will never enforce copyright law and force the corporations (Google, Comcast, Silicon Valley as a whole, etc) to share revemue with musicians. It’s naive to think ANY politician cares enought about musicians to buck their donors and cronies.

        Musicians are going to have to go the way Tyler Durden to get fairly compensated by corporations. It’s hopeless.

        Lastly, who could predict that people would be willing to spend a ridiculous amount of their discretionary money for their iphone, smart phone data plans, ipad/ipod/macbook, high-speed internet, gaming systems, online gambling, pervasive government-sponsored gambling (as a form of revenue production), cable television, etc? Discretionary money for music has been siphoned off.

      2. Not to nitpick, but Bain Capital and Bain & Company are not the same thing. The former is a venture capital/private equity financial services company. The latter is a management consulting company. The former was created out of the latter, but they are very different entities with very different functions.

        Excellent post, though. If, hypothetically, I stole Vampire Can Mating Oven, where can I pay you for it?

  244. Excellently written David. As a musician, I ran into this problem over and over… until I created an entirely new financial tool to make it right: http://patronism.com. In a nutshell, it’s a pay-what-you-feel subscription platform that empowers artists to crowdsource a predictable, ongoing revenue stream directly from their audience. It’s like a fan club on steroids. While the artist is empowered by their audience to make new work, it simultaneously empowers the members of that audience to feel powerful about their ability to change the world in one specific, tangible way… and as a bonus they “get” all of the content the artist chooses to share with them – blogs, videos, background info, tracks, b-sides, works in progress, etc.

    It turns out that recorded music is just an artifact, not the real thing. About 1880 we started thinking wax cylinders, vinyl plates, magnetic tapes and tee shirts were actually the valuable part of music. It’s true that those things are the parts you can trade easily for money, but they have no intrinsic worth; No one buys a shirt at my show because they walked in without one.

    So the wrong question these days is, “What will you pay for this stuff?” The answer is always, “As little as I can get away with, while publicly wringing my hands about ethics to make myself feel better.”

    The right question for a musician to ask is, “What can you chip in to make sure I can keep doing this thing you love?” If they’re doing something people value, and they offer that kind of invitation, about 20% of their audience will jump in the fray with them and toe the line, because this is not just the artist’s problem. The audience, including Emily, is asking, “What can I really do to help?” The answer is now as simple as, “pay what you feel, subscribe, and guarantee the continued production of this work.”

    And now that Patronism has grown to over 100 artists, I can say that the average is over $13/mo per patron. And because the subscription is pay-what-you-feel directly to the artist you love, each one has a different average, directly proportional the depth of connection they create with their audience. My personal average is over $18/mo, so even by your math I’m breaking even… and as a result I can afford to continue making new music on behalf of my patrons, for everyone to share.

    And while I can only depend on about 20% of the people who like my music to actually subscribe at some nominal rate of their choosing… everyone is in the 20% for someone or something, and they will fund its success if invited to participate.

    And I think that’s a paradigm shift worth embracing.

  245. Like emily, almost all of my music in my iphone, ipad, ipod and all in my hard disk are downloaded from the internet. I courageously can say and admit that. Some artist may have different views in piracy, free information, free music, free downloads, torrents, etc. but in my opinion, these definitely give knowledge to curious people. I learned quite a lot by listening to a lot of music, lot of movies, lot of books and other source of knowledge. If someone is really a fan of a band or an artist, he will really support and buy their album. Some artists prefer to let them listen the album first and let their audience decide if they want the original copy of their album. That’s what I do, I listen to them first if it’s crap then why would i buy it. Honestly, i really don’t prefer buying cds, it has no value to me except for the effort of the album covers. But I will buy vinyls, it has more value, it’s more emotional and have more meaning to be a fan. Art itself is not about money or economics! it has never been. Be grateful if someone loves your song and your art form, if you gain profits from it, then count it as your blessings.

    1. Agreed. but again. if an artist is offering their work for a price, asking you to support them in this manner, do you just take it and say “be grateful someone loves your art”. Why is it your choice to decide in what form the artist is compensated? especially if the artist has made his/her preference clear. I know you are trying to appeal to a higher ethical and moral principal her by taking the talk our the economic realm. But you actually just ended up highlighting the exact same ethical contradiction.

  246. I noticed Mog was specifically mentioned over Spotify (maybe I’m reading too much into it) but is there a streaming service that’s better in regards to artist payout.

    2. Rhapsody.

      Among the digital radio services, both Sirius and Pandora are in a different league.

      As David says, the Spotify hype does not reflect the paltry payouts so far, outside of Scandinavia. If the hype was indicative of their performance, we’d be seeing low 4 figures monthly.

      We started off in Europe with them for 1 euro the first month. We have not come close to 100 euros monthly, including now the USA. This is for a label!

      1. Above (somewhere in this comments section), I responded to somebody re: Pandora and royalties. They pay, and it’s probably as much as they can do and remain in business. It’s not really enough, IMHO.

      2. We recently received our first pay statements from our digital distributor for two streaming services:

        * Rhapsody: $.0091 per stream
        * Spotify: $.0008 per stream

        I know which one makes me happier.

  247. Appealing to morality isn’t going to get you anywhere; it’s all about the economics. Technology changes the incentives, and morality follows the incentives, so get off your high horse and develop a better business model if you want to keep jamming out. In the meanwhile, the rest of us will keep plugging away at our real jobs.

    And by the way, contrary to your suggestion, there was no golden era for copyright protection. The life of the average musician throughout history has always been one of struggle. Want a life with financial security? Don’t be a professional musician. And PS, you can still be a musician and have a day job.

  248. I am a musician and pay for my music since I recognize the fact that the musicians I like simply won’t be able to keep doing what they are doing without compensation. I also very much agree with the points brought up here, in particular the issue of who is making money off of the file sharing. (Shouldn’t ISPs have to make payments just like restaurants and hotels that use music to increase their value do?)

    Having said that, I think it is unfortunate that some commenters are condemning the younger generation. My experience is that in many ways tastes and interests are far more eclectic than when I was growing up and this probably does have something to do with file sharing (not that this justifies it, I am just pointing it out). I don’t think this attitude is going to help make the case and I also have to wonder what we would have done as a broke 18 year old music lover presented with a near endless supply of new music.

    What make the original essay so good is that it avoids that type of condemnation and may actually be convincing to at least younger people who are thoughtful.

    1. Exactly what I was thinking. Frankly, this is only a generational problem in that earlier generations simply didn’t have the easy access to the tools making music sharing a reality. Intellectual piracy has been a problem for pretty much as long as there has been a concept of intellectual property. It’s distressing to see a repetition of the age-old “these damn kids” argument. The problem isn’t that young people are terrible, it’s that we, as a society, haven’t yet come to terms with the fact that technology is outpacing our moral understanding of the world, and that the lay-person’s understanding of the music world is really skewed. Dismissing young people as a bunch of horrible, self-absorbed narcissists isn’t really an argument. It’s just insulting.

  249. Does David think that the UGA Music Business Certificate program he teaches at is a worthwhile endeavor and not just another big corporation (albeit a non-profit one) bilking the young for money in an otherwise dead end ‘education’? Baby don’t ya go, don’t ya go into Westwood? Right David?

  250. Another issue: I object–and sometimes express my objection to the people in charge–when I go to a dance performance done to recorded music instead of live, or when a Big Organization (like my university) puts on recorded music instead of live as background entertainment. Not so clear-cut an issue, assuming that payment for the recoded music fairly compensates the performers; but coming from a family of performing musicians, I have a strong preference for supporting live performance.

    But perhaps I’m on the wrong side of this myself, when I perform at a wedding in a group which is made of non-union musicians. We’re none of us making our livelihood at performance, and we’re definitely low-end pricing for this service (and maybe that’s all we deserve). Is our group hurting the local career musicians by not being union and underpricing the union groups? Or are we just making it possible for low-end weddings to have something to accompany the walk up the aisle? (I’ve been to an enormous range of weddings, from essentially zero-cost to Huge Productions; I know the difference between those able to put out a reasonable spread and thread-bare productions that don’t spend any dollar unnecessarily.)

    Steve Harris

  251. The argument I find missing from all of this, David, is this: in an economic reality where things are given away for free, how do we adjust the signal-to-noise ratios in favor of the craft of music?

    Where currency is freedom and art is no longer traded as a commodity, people who tend not to know any better and will listen to anything someone tells them to download, will do so willingly & in the act of downloading subliminally accept any and every aspect of the music they receive — regardless of the work that went into it or didn’t — as somehow equal. I would argue that as a false reality, a world where craftsmanship and quality is berated in exchange for the half-finished, odious crap shack, a virtually endless outhouse of free entertainment resting at our fingertips in the same ebullient luxury as what is paid for.

    And then, of course, because taste is so varied and subjective and the concept of “what is good music” is an argument as old as the first note conceived, so who am I to put a price on what I think is fair to ask for my own work? How do I compete with all the mediocre, half-finished odes to fake self awareness borne of someone’s failed attempts at “finding themselves as an artist”? What right do I then have to choose not to mention or compare this type of work to that of someone who eats, sleeps and breathes the process?

    Trey Anastasio of Phish, a band whom I don’t personally care for but certainly respect, said in an interview with Anthony DeCurtis 12 years ago that he feared that music would eventually only support advertisers and no longer support artists.

    Trey said: “I have a very strong opinion about Napster. I think there are probably people that don’t see the big picture, and what’s going to happen is that advertisers are going to start getting paid and the artists aren’t. The way the artist will get paid is to be attached to an advertiser. And I’m strongly against music being attached to the selling of a product.

    “That being said,” Anastasio continues, “I think the Internet is going to open up a lot of possibilities with music, and the shake-up of power is exciting to me. But I think that people should just be aware of the whole picture that when you’re downloading music you’re putting money in the hands of corporations for advertising and taking money away from the performers.”

    Today, the only revenue streams for the artist are, much as he predicted, advertising, revenues (or film/tv/trailer placements), sponsorships, and touring. The sad part is that the same opportunities are open to anyone with the right connections, a strong social media presence and the shameless chutzpah to spit out anything that comes to mind. The signal-to-noise ratios are deafening for people who have devoted themselves to the craft of music. Thank you for a brilliant post & one which I hope opens the discussions on this subject again to a generation in need of more than freebies and filters.

  252. “I also find this all this sort of sad. Many in your generation are willing to pay a little extra to buy “fair trade” coffee that insures the workers that harvested the coffee were paid fairly. Many in your generation will pay a little more to buy clothing and shoes from manufacturers that certify they don’t use sweatshops. Many in your generation pressured Apple to examine working conditions at Foxconn in China. Your generation is largely responsible for the recent cultural changes that has given more equality to same sex couples. On nearly every count your generation is much more ethical and fair than my generation. Except for one thing. Artist rights.”

    The ironic part is that it’s mostly artists who are at the forefront of raising awareness for these causes whether they be fair trade or same sex.

  253. Hi David,

    Thank you for such a cogent and powerful piece. You’ve managed to distill a complex debate into a simple act of consumer choice. Forgive me for oversimplifying but… by downloading music illegally, you cast your vote for technology corporations that exploit artists, and against the artists themselves.

    As a musician, I find this to be the most powerful argument against music piracy.

    But I have an ethical dilemma, and, if you have the time, I would welcome your feedback. I’m a jazz musician and as such I spend a lot of time listening to, studying, and transcribing records. I buy albums by current and living artists, but I download music by deceased jazz artists. Here is my reasoning:

    1) Since the artist is no longer living and producing music, I do not feel that I am cheating the artist. I am shortchanging his/her estate or record label. Not ideal, but not morally reprehensible, either.

    2) Many of the albums I download are for study or transcription as much as “pure listening.” In a sense they are my text. Jazz musicians used fakebooks for 50+ years before Hal Leonard published “The Real Book 6th Edition.” Many still do. If I could afford to purchase every album I wanted to skim or study, I certainly would. But that would cost me $4-500/month on jazz records alone… when I can’t spend more than $50-60 on music in a month.

    3) I purchase the albums I love, often in multiple formats. It’s pretty much impossible for me to walk into a record store without buying an LP. When it comes to jazz, I typically purchase the albums I know deeply.. those which go beyond being a “text to study” and have become an essential part of my emotional and musical life. At that point I purchase them to “cast my vote” in favor of the music I love (Milton Friedman would be proud).

    What do you think? Does this seem like a legitimate artistic justification, or the rationalizations of yet another disenfranchised music pirate?

    Thanks again for your insights… a superb article.

    Cheers,

    Rami

    1. Hi Rami,

      Since we are in the same genre, I feel I can relate to you, but I’m going to have to disagree. Point by point:

      1.) If you are cheating the estate of an artist, in many cases, you are cheating his/her family and dependents. True, they may not have made the music you are listening to, but I am fairly certain they’d want the their descendants to benefit from their labor. Wouldn’t you?

      As for cheating the record label, I get it. They are a big and bad corporation. But by not paying money into that system, you are taking money away from the pool that they can use to sign another artist who is deserving of a spot on their roster, assuming it still has an active jazz label (Blue Note).

      2.) You argument here is a little Jeff Goldbloom-Jurassic Park-ey (the whole “preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should” issue) Entire generations of musicians learned this music one album at a time, during eras where they could not just copy cd’s or files. They may have borrowed from friends or teachers, or just learned on the band-stand. I believe this is why you generally find pockets of high jazz activity to be very localized to small regions around the country, historically (Kansas City, Harlem, etc). In the end, you don’t really NEED every song or album you get your hands on (no matter how much you may think you do), you just WANT them, and that’s a huge difference.

      3.) Your statement here is the bane of every independent artist who produces an album. You only purchase what you love and “know deeply”. If every consumer was like that, then no new and unknown (to the national and international jazz community) artist would ever have a hope of having anyone buy their album unless they had already gotten a huge amount of publicity (which is hard to get). I don’t know where you are located, but how does an artist in NYC or Italy (2 places I live and work), ever sell an album to a consumer like you in a place such as Idaho or Mexico? New artists absolutely need a consumer that will take a chance on things they do not “know deeply”.

      Believe me, I sympathize with your plight. Perhaps my location affords me opportunities you might not have to listen and learn, therefore making my position easier. But in the end, every consumer has a choice, and by making yours I believe your are undercutting the scene as a whole.

      Cheers,

      Joseph

    2. Check out the National Jukebox at the library of congress online. TONS of public domain music from the turn of the last century — legally free and clear, no moral grey areas involved in listening. There’s more jazz there than you know what to do with, along with tons of other great niche stuff like old folk, blues, klezmer … and COMPLETELY available, with no moral stains to accompany them.

    1. not condemning creative commons per se. it’s voluntary. that’s different from the free culture movement. that is mandatory. look around the blog. there are other writers who go into great detail on the sleight of hand behind this.

      1. No, Creative Commons comes from “Free Culture”. Most of what you’re saying is completely incorrect and it’s extremely disrespectful to blame a movement who’s done far more to put money back in the pockets of artists for filesharing just because it believes in laxing ridiculous copyright laws.

        Most of your assumptions are incorrect here and I don’t like this unbacked conspiracy theory being pushed to defame people who really do believe in the artist being in control. I would appreciate the mistaken usage of “Free Culture” being corrected as an avid supporter of Creative Commons. People often make this mistake with the “Free Software” movement as well(though that’s a bit more crazy either way), but there’s no excuse for not educating yourself.

    1. actually i’m right there with you on the ISP/distributor front. Just not in this blog. This article was very specific. It was only about ethical fandom. File-sharing between individuals is an ethical issue. I don’t make it a legal issue. Giant corporations making money distributing music without permission on an industrial scale? that is a legal issue.

  256. “Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?”

    Because no risk-free manner of theft has presented itself. I would have thought that was fairly obvious.

  257. While I agree with much in this article, I am disheartened to hear such a negative attitude towards my generation in both the article and the replies I see here. Like Emily, I am a 21 year old student and a college radio DJ. Unlike Emily, I spend a great deal of money on buying my music. I absolutely LOVE the feeling of going to the store- what few that remain who sell music- and buying an album hot off the shelf. Two of my favorite artists, The Rocket Summer and Jukebox the Ghost both came out with new albums two weeks ago and for months I was counting down the days until I was able to go out and hold physical copies of them in my hands. I love being able to read the linear notes, lyrics and view the artwork as a physical print and not digitally. Not only do the musicians put a great deal of time into the songs themselves, but artists put so much into creating cover art. If physical forms of music disappear one day, then visual artists will lose money too. The thought of this makes me cringe and it is something that I hope never happens.

    And in defensive of my generation not all being so bad, might I note that I’ve even pestered my friends in bands to give (or sell) me a physical copy of their album even though I had already bought all of the songs on bandcamp. I have even gotten full albums of music from friends, but still went out and bought my own copy of it. I spend literally over a thousand dollars a year on going to concerts and while much of that money is the dollars I spend on putting gas in my own car to get there- I still spend money on buying their CDs, merchandise, concert tickets and even tip money. I have even bought CDs of bands I wasn’t crazy about and only listened to it once or twice after I bought it, but I have no regrets because I know that I helped a musician.

  258. LBOYI read the article and I’ve seen a lot of replies, counter-replies, rebuttals, etc. Most everyone here is being relatively respectful so I’m going to take a shot…

    1. Mr. Lowery makes a lot of good points, some of which I, the music-lover (and Spotify subscriber) was not aware. Many of these points seem backed by some artists and producers for whom I have a lot of respect (Stephen Street? Holy cow) so I know they’re not solely the opinions of a lone wolf here.
    2. This newer generation’s points about minimizing the role of the middleman corporation in the equation are valid and must not be ignored. The old model of some fat, corporate label-guy putting out all the cash to discover young talent, paying advances and charging ungodly sums to the artists for the investment which they will make up with successive works is neither fair, relevant or necessary anymore. So why are the labels still so prominent?
    3. The points some users have made about the cost of music are ALSO relevant. These are your customers; if they’re broke, they aren’t going to be able to spend money on your product anymore. Charging them pay-per-play, charging the stations in reverse-payola schemes, a-dollar-a-song digital copy costs (come ON, you’re not even printing CDs for that!), $100 a concert ticket for something they don’t even really *own* is not really supporting your fans, either. I’m not accusing anyone of being bourgeois but perhaps some of you don’t actually know or remember what it feels like for that $40 to HURT coming out.

    It seems like the model we have now is disastrous and unfair NOT just in that the artists aren’t being fairly compensated, but also that the end-user is being nickle-and-dimed to death by an industry that refuses to accept change and treats its own customers as the enemy instead of catering to their needs and factoring in both costs AND benefits of a technology that makes distribution so cheap and easy. Let’s examine:

    1. It used to be called “payola” and as I remember, stations were paid to play songs more frequently in effort to “push” them onto the listener. Now that push is free to you and you want to CHARGE per play? Come on.

    2. In the case of the college-kid “whining” about not being able to afford to pay…Um, how cavalier of you to completely disregard that choice between groceries and the newest Pretty Lights piece? Back in the day, this kid could have popped a cassette into a double-player/recorder and copied her boyfriend’s Head On The Door” or “Bona Drag” …or Casey’s entire, freaking Top 40, for that matter. Back in the day, this college kid (your MAIN listener-base, if I’m not mistaken) would have purchased an album or two a month, MAX. The problem isn’t just that we’re consuming more at a faster rate and are unfairly using what we can’t afford to pay for, but that we are *expected* to consume so much. I don’t think, with all the growth you’ve assumed in your figures and the vaster array of artists who dilute the practical amount of money/resources spent by your listener base that you could survive either if the listener stuck to just buying a single album per month.

    3. And in the past, you would have had to provide the music, the medium (cassette, CD, Vinyl, etc), pretty, printed material made for all three mediums, posters and stands and promo materials to hang all over the local Record Town in the mall (that the teen employees invariably took home) and a host of other silliness.

    The changes in the way technology has made the music deliverable and marketable and *consumable* have made the entire industry broader and better, in my opinion. I am no longer limited to the selection at Bleecker St Records, for instance, if I want Acid House or The Pixies or the Cocteaus…or anything outside of Q101 or Z100 or whatever mainstream station is playing the latest garbage by Mariah Carey and Nickleback. YOU, the artist, have a much more effective vehicle to circumvent the “machine” so-to-speak so you don’t have to sit and hope enough college stations play your music that eventually it makes it to Malibu Sue’s “Shriek of the Week.”

    Now, I’ll let you in on a secret: I am not a frequent downloader…I’m just not. I haven’t been since the whole Napster situation left a bad taste in my mouth. What I *am* is a mixtape consumer. I listen to DJ mixes, compilations, etc that others have made. I don’t buy a LOT of music but I hardly steal any, either. I have a Spotify account which, I’m sad to find out isn’t doing their job. I’ll cancel it. I have a Netflix account too. I don’t need to steal movies because I’ve got plenty to keep me entertained. If I want something not on one of the two services, I’ll rent or buy. Every once in awhile, I’ll snag a song illegally that I just can’t find on iTunes or Spotify (most recently, that song was “Boy” by Book of Love. LOL) My point is: I would be more than happy to spend, say $15 a month on a service that lets me access music the way Spotify does but with good quality, constantly growing and TIMELY selection/availability and a fair usage model that doesn’t allow music to just “expire” from my collection (or be stolen from it). My point here is: I AM YOUR PAYING CUSTOMER. And you are alienating me!

    Let’s sit down together and design a service that offers the most value and convenience for the consumer with the highest compensation for those who directly had a hand in producing the work…and let’s leave Geffen, Capitol, Island, Maverick and whoever else has historically small personal investment to BIG profit ratios at the children’s table, okay?

  259. To follow up on my earlier point: the copyright interest in a work of expression is not the same thing as a property interest in a tangible object. The fundamental difference, of course, is that the work of expression is a non-rival good; one person’s use of the work does not by definition preclude the possibility of another person’s simultaneous use of the work. Obviously, this is different than, say, the finite tract of land.

    The law attempts to treat copyright in a fashion akin to our traditional notions of property by imposing this exclusivity (i.e., this thing is mine and therefore I can exclude you from using it) in order to promote intellectual productivity; and NOT because the creator of the work of expression has some moral or natural right in preventing others from using it. And unlike traditional property, where self-help is available for defense of the property, protection of copyrighted material necessarily involves the invocation of government monopoly and availment of government protection.

    To this extent, arguments that sound in an artist’s moral entitlement to profit from her work of expression appear inconsistent with the legal basis for that entitlement. And perhaps this is reflected in our cultural sentiments — that we don’t care so much about the artist as we do the art. And I don’t think this is unreasonable, given that the whole point of the copyright system is to produce more art.

    To be sure, there are many other ways to create incentives for the production of popular art besides the current system of copyright (William Fisher, in his book, “Promises to Keep”, has some interesting suggestions.)

  260. I just had an idea….. to start a site called ADD – Artist Direct Download. It would be like myspace merged with Pandora and would be open to Artists of all types and would cut out all middlemen. I don’t believe that paying media conglomerates for culture is a good idea either. Who’s with me.

  261. Reblogged this on Soli Deo Gloria and commented:
    This was a very eye-opening piece for me regarding the music industry, artists’ rights, etc. If you like music and have any appreciation for musicians at all I hope you give it a read too, it’s a little long but very important. Support the musicians you listen to!

  262. As nice as this is, I think this is completely unrealistic and I think you are trying to hold back the tide with a small wall. Technology changes everything – it always has. Wasn’t that what the Industrial Revolution was about? And, for example, I don’t think people who sold horses were happy about cars. And, there have been a lot of changes going on around us. I worked with print companies who used to make tons of money. We would come and look at our ads on beautiful four color proofs and they would send film to all the magazines (cost an arm and a leg, was time consuming) and I personally know two that went belly-up. Talk about depressed, the owner of one of those companies had invested a lot in machinery right before his business crashed and burned. He didn’t commit suicide but he had a serious heart attack from the situation.

    I realize art is different (BTW, I buy all my music not least because it’s simpler for me) and I want to protect the artist as much as the next person but….you’ve got to be realistic as to what’s going on. It is also much cheaper to put out a song, almost anyone can do it and the structure there used to be to introduce artists to their (potential) fans is very different. I worked at a record label in the 80’s into the 90’s and I saw sad changes there, too. Instead of letting artists build their fanbase, they were expected to bring their fanbase in and/or, if it didn’t hit right away, it was over. But, I digress…

    I think you need to be looking at a changing business model. (1) I think there should be a protection on the digital track where, if it isn’t unlocked correctly by a legitimate buy, a virus is loaded onto the device that takes that song and also, any other music it finds on the device that is unpurchased – or maybe all their music. Most people will not download from a site if they think they are going to get a virus. Also, I think there should be a tracking label embedded in songs so you can find where it comes from and how many times it’s downloaded so you can charge them from #3. (2) There should be a baseline price and if a company goes below that (like Spotify) there is a tax to balance it out – a tax that is supported by the ISP provider who will have to pay the tax themselves if they don’t collect it. And, that tax funding could go into an Artists Fund…(3) Maybe any device that plays music has to put x% into a royalties kitty when it’s purchased (sliding scale for this one…?)- an advance/assumption of how much music is going to be played. (4) Maybe companies like Pandora build a playlist of everything you’ve “liked” and then presents you with it at the end of your listening session and you can purchase it at a lower price for all the songs or more for one at a time….

    I’m not sure – I’m just winging it here but, I think expecting people to just do the right thing is naive, truthfully.

  263. This may have been stated in a previous comment, but I would say that the number of unpurchased songs that this woman has on her computer is irrelevant. What is relevant is how much she’s played them. Maybe, in the end, this doesn’t amount to any more than someone from my generation might have played cassette dubs of albums that others had bought or might have been listening to records or tapes purchased USED (transactions where the artists involved received no compensation).

  264. As a working musician, and occasional recording musician, I largely agree with what the author has to offer. But, I feel he should be careful when he throws out statements like the following as evidence:

    “The accepted norm for hudreds of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time.”

    This is ludicrous. The idea of artists “owning” their work didn’t even come into play in a financial sense until the advent of “sheet music” in the 19th Century and then, especially, sound recording in the 20th Century. With few exceptions — Stephen Foster (composer of “Camptown Races” and other classic 19th Century American tunes) comes to mind as one exception — it was very rare for composers to make much of a living off of printed music; the mechanical reproduction of the day.

    Beyond that, because the author here does state multiple hundreds of years, most successful artists, indeed all of the classical artists from the Renaissance through Enlightenment — you know, the ones we learn about in Art/Music History Classes as the greatest artists in history? — they remained viable because they had patrons and commissions. Bach didn’t “own” the Goldberg Variations when he was finished with them; Goldberg commissioned the piece and as such owned it. Likewise, a patron provided the means of survival, and a comfortable lifestyle for an artist they were especially drawn to. An artist in this situation was a show-piece the patron could trot out to impress friends and colleagues. Any art that the artist created under this patron belonged, not to the artist, rather to the patron. Very not different from a record label I would suggest.

    For me, this oversight withing the body of this piece really diminishes the power of your other arguments, despite their common-sense — or at least common-felt — nature. As an artist, I would love for everything else you say here to be 100% right on, but there are so many reasons why it’s simply not that cut and dried.

    Music has only been “property” in a modern sense for about 200 years. Our copyright laws are utterly pre-historic when it comes to protecting artists in a digital age. The whole idea of “ownership” or “theft” is terribly fluid in this day and age.

    For example, as a teenager I never felt the least bit of guilt or even had an inkling that I was violating any laws when I would sit with my boom-box, listening to the radio, waiting for my new favorite song to be played and instantly hitting “record” on the cassette deck as soon as it began. This is clearly the pre-cursor to file-sharing. And, VERY few people at the time, or even now, would have much problem with such behavior.

    These days, the direct analog would be for me to go to YouTube and use my pro-grade audio suite to record the audio signal and then convert to mp3. The quality – depending on which YouTube format the uploader used – might approach that of a file I download from a P2P site. But, because I went to the effort of finding a stream, recording it myself, it is quite a bit different than if I just went and got it off of Pirate’s Bay.

    So, there’s two competing things here: 1) How is personally recording a song off of the internet any different than personally recording a song off of the radio? And, if it is the same, why wasn’t there an outcry 20 and 30 years ago when teenagers across the globe were doing just that?! and 2) If it is the same, and the quality isn’t much different than what one would get off of a P2P site, why not just go the P2P route?

    Then there is the issue of “theft”. If I break into your home and steal your CD collection, you no longer have the CD’s. If I take photos off of your walls and dresser, those are gone too. But, if I make a copy of a file you have in the cloud or on your hard drive, you still have the file. I haven’t taken *anything* from you. AND, now I have a version too. This sort of exchange is unprecedented in human history (outside of ideas or theories), and our laws have come nowhere near close to handling this paradox: I stole it from you AND you still have it. That simply isn’t “theft” in the traditional sense.

    I know its sacrilege to suggest these things. I want to get paid for my art too. But, if people love my work enough to share it with everyone they know, who am I to put a halt to my music spreading around the world??

    Maybe the root problem is our obsession with money and profit? Until my grandparents’ lifetimes music was very predominantly a communal process. Even the greatest artists didn’t do it so they’d be able to buy food and shelter themselves; they did it because they were called to, and because their lives were better when they were creating and society benefited from having music all around them.

    IMHO

  265. The truth is the real argument is “it’s ok to download music because the sale of recorded music business is doomed anyway, and my buying music will have a minimally incremental effect on the music industry while having a massively detrimental effect to my own financial well being. While it is perhaps unethical to steal music it is probably less unethical texting while driving, speaking badly about a friend, eating meat, giving less than 40% of your net wealth to starving people in Africa. The difference is, it is more illegal than those other means however we are living in a situation where the legal risk is virtually nothing. The question is not whether it is unethical. The question is does the value of unlimited access to universal music outweigh the negative value of a potential lost sale of a virtual product.” The truth is people generally want to be ethical sure, but most people are willing to be a little unethical in exchange for something they desperately want, unlimited access to digital music. The fact that the music industry spends so much time trying to fight copyright infringement, a doomed battle to begin with, as opposed to creating altenative revenue streams (AFFILIATE MARKETING AND LEAD GEN) is a big reason why it’s doomed. There are very few email lists as poorly monotized as that of musicians. Why not instead of selling an album, give it away with a free trial of netflix. Netflix pays 20 dollars for each person they sign up! Artists would make way more that way then they ever would from selling albums.

    If you had a machine that could make illegal pirated copies of any car/jewlery/house in the world, and you knew everyone else was doing it and you knew you couldn’t get caught, would you do it? Keep in mind the question is a free house that no one is losing. Sure it will hurt the housing market but no one is losing their car or house and you get a free massive house and sports car. This is the example people use when they say “You wouldn’t steal a car”. But if you said “would you make an illegal copy of a car if you knew there was no way you could get caught and all your friends were doing it?” I think you’d find a lot more people living in massive houses and driving corvettes.

  266. Don’t you think this kind of thing is inevitable in trying to create a neutral and open information structure? Every person has a moral obligation to make their own choice ethically, this is true, but do you support enforcement of a moral code?

  267. Want to listen to music for free? It’s actually pretty simple: listen to a good radio station. What? There are no good radio stations where you live? Start one. It takes a lot of time and money, but it’s addictive.

    Meanwhile, about music being expensive…A couple of years ago, for a class I was teaching on the history of recording, I priced out how much a song typically cost in various eras, using the Inflation Calculator to put it all into constant dollars. The result? A downloaded song from iTunes a $0.99 is the cheapest recorded music has ever been. Some prices from the past, rendered into 2006 dollars::

    Caruso and others – Sextet from “Lucia” $146.07/song (the highest)
    Acoustical record on budget Oriole label, 1914 – $2.46/song
    Standard-price record, 1934 – $5.65/song
    Premium-price record, 1934 – $7.53/song
    Elvis LP w. 14 songs on it, 1955 – $2.06/song
    Beatles LP w. 12 songs on it, stereo, 1966 – $2.05/song
    CD w. 16 songs on it, 1983 (year CD introduced) – $1.89/song
    CD w. 16 songs on it, 2006 – $1.00/song
    Digital download – $0.99/song

    Never been cheaper.

  268. I also don’t pay for all my music. I’m not proud of it,but let me tell you why i don’t.
    I really wish that i could buy all my music.

    I listen to most of my favourite songs on youtube. Because it’s free!!!
    I buy the albums i love.I have all of Linkin Park’s albums.
    In my country(Romania,the land of shit) the minimum wage is 600 lei ( 180$ more or less)
    Let’s say i get paid 1000 lei (Lei being the currency in romania) ~ almost 300 bucks.
    From 300 bucks i have to pay rent,eat for a month,bla bla bla.Public transportation,Cell phone bill,gas bill,electric bill and all other sorts of bills. Clothes and gas for my car.

    Don’t get me started on Gas.I don’t know what the price for gasoline is in the US but here it’s like 0.9 $ per litre. And to make you understand, 6.5 $ per american Gallon. How much do you pay for a gallon of gasoline,or diesel?(They’re at the same price)

  269. when my first husband introduced me to your band, he copied big dipper onto a mixed tape for me. the next day, i went out and bought the album. now, i have an ipod, and i always purchase my music. to me it’s like going to the record store and browsing. if i hear a song i like somewhere, i always try to buy it. thank you for writing this. it’s a debate that i’ve been having with other people for a few years now. and thank you for all the years of wonderful music you’ve created that has made up the soundtrack of my life.

  270. “Looters on Radio” : a reply to David Lowery’s ‘Letter to Emily White at NPR’

    Musicians aren’t entitled to a certain level of profit, which is somewhat arbitrarily determined by the state of our technology at a given time, any more than buggy-repairers were entitled to their same profits once cars got invented. Time was, it was the sheet music that sold – not the recordings. Should guitar tablature websites be outlawed too, since they take compensation away from the producers of guitar tablature books? Lowery’s historical naiveté here is profound, as he yarns idyllic fairy-tales: “The accepted norm for hudreds [sic] of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time. … By allowing the artist to treat his/her work as actual property, the artist can decide how to monetize his or her work. This system has worked very well for fans and artists.” Leaving aside the question of whether artists have been fairly compensated throughout all of Western history until this moment, what of that Pandora’s box called RADIO which once promised to forever destroy the lives of working musicians? After all, why on earth would anyone buy the record if they could hear it on the radio for free, right? Yet can one imagine the history of Rock ‘n Roll or Jazz without it? And might how we reacted (and over-reacted) to that invention give us a clue as to how to treat this new invention, the Internet? Because amidst all the Ayn Randian focus on the individual creator, what’s most lacking in Lowery’s perspectives and those who share it may be a recognition of the commons – the community of listeners (“the looters”) which makes artistic creation worthwhile and our shared cultural context from which individual artists arise.

    Yes, the golden era of CD sales is over. This isn’t a “social injustice” and 14-year-olds aren’t to blame for it. It was a technological innovation, and thanks to it, more people today are better able to listen to more music than ever before. For those of us interested in spreading music first and profiting from it second, that’s an unqualified societal good. The guilt-tripping of music consumers into limiting their appetites to protect some out-dated business model, to me, puts one squarely on the wrong side of history (…not to mention the wrong side of tact. Sparklehorse committed suicide because his fans “unethically” chose to enjoy his music? That’s truly shameless.)

    Look, if someone were to loot a record shop, they’d be depriving anyone else of having access to those records. That’s theft and/or destruction of private property. However, when someone copies a file, they do not similarly deprive anyone else of having access to that file. It’s the difference between stealing a sheep and cloning one. The above article misses this basic conceptual distinction in labeling us all “looters”.

    Tell me, in Lowery’s utopia, am I still allowed to hum a tune in my head, or should the musician be compensated for that duplication of their copyrighted material as well? Can I sing along in my room, or should ASCAP shut me down for that, as they attempted to do with karaoke bars? Can I lend a record to a friend, or does that abuse the artist by not making my friend buy their own copy?

    For someone so concerned with rights, Mr. Lowery, you sure don’t seem to appreciate these *freedoms*. Had a buddy not linked me to Napster in 1998(?), I still might be listening to only classical music and Billy Joel. The diversity of music I was exposed to on that site blew my doors open. As a teenager, I would’ve never been able to afford all the life-changing sounds I heard by browsing people’s libraries from all over the world. I’m now a musician and a radio DJ and I am morally certain that I would be neither had it not been for my swashbuckling lawlessness. And I certainly haven’t stopped. From Napster, I went straight to Soulseek and have never needed another file-sharing program. [Soulseek, incidentally, seems ever on the verge of failing to cover its operating expenses and funds itself by user donations – not exactly the “powerful commercial interests” Lowery conspiratorializing.] I typically purchase my top three or four albums of the year (from San Antonio’s lone local record store, Hogwild Records), but only after I’ve listened to them all year long at no charge. When money is tight, it doesn’t do to gamble. The last CDs I bought were St. Vincent’s ‘Strange Mercy’ and Radiohead’s ‘King Of Limbs’, but I’ve likely listened to 100 or more albums since, from beginning to end. I do probably convince others to buy albums due to my DJ-ing gig, but I’m not hiding behind that. I also attend at least one concert a month, and am seeing Here We Go Magic tomorrow at my favorite venue in Austin, The Parish.

    That’s me. So when anyone starts treating listeners as criminals, I get upset. When anyone starts reducing something I consider sacred to a mere commodity, I get upset. A song is not just a sellable good; it’s a bit of magic that, when let out into the world, belongs to everyone. Music is not just entertainment; it’s an integral part of culture. A 14-year-old in Texas, via a file-sharer in California, listening to Blackalicious for the first time when they wouldn’t be likely to otherwise – shouldn’t that precise moment be the non-negotiable part of this whole equation? Yet somehow the pricelessness of music appears to get lost in the numbers, especially when one presumes, by some holy writ I’ve yet to see, that 11 tracks deserve no less than $19.99 plus tax (from this point forward until eternity, and adjusted for inflation). That’s why when someone says they’ve got a superior compensation model, they first need to demonstrate that there will be no loss in our exposure to as much music as is humanly possible. For me, that’s goal takes primacy. No one should have to put a quarter in their car radio to hear something new, and as implied above, perhaps it’s best to think of the internet as one giant car radio.

    So, Mr. and Ms. Musician, yesterday you made a good living selling a thing that today not as many people want to buy – or, more often than not, *can afford to buy*. Why did you ever feel you were entitled to that standard of living? Why did you not prepare for the eventuality that it was a fluke or a fad? The vast majority of musicians have never gotten the big bucks, and this didn’t start with the mass migration away from cassettes and CDs. Why does every musician at every awards ceremony say, ‘It’s all about the fans’ or ‘It’s all about the music’, if they’re so willing to exclude people from hearing their music in order to drive its price up. Since the tone of ‘lecturing the young’ resonated throughout Lowery’s piece, maybe it’s the younger generation who need to reply sternly to the old guard: ‘life doesn’t owe you anything’; ‘nothing was promised to you’; ‘get a day job’; ‘life isn’t fair’.

    The truly disheartening aspect to this whole debate is the presumed absence of a people’s movement and the attendant de-politicization of music advocacy. It may seem like arguing for the plight of the starving artist is as a-political as it gets, but we settle for crumbs when musicians and other artists ought to be protesting in the streets for a guaranteed income and for national endowments for the arts. Why does Lowery not spend his time advocating for these solutions when faced with broke artists, instead of asking Ramen-nourished, in-debt-up-to-their-eyeballs college students to pay and instead of assuming that the previous way of marketing music is the only game in town? He writes that this ordeal is not the fault of corporations, it’s our generation’s fault, but what of musicians’ ethical obligation to resist a world ruled by corporations? Isn’t defending that industry a dereliction of our duty? We ought to be using technology together to make the dominant players in the music industry obsolete, not cozying up to them as they try to squeeze the last drops of capital from a declining market share. A crucial confusion in Lowery’s argument is his appropriation of anti-corporate rhetoric at the same time as he writes “in the case of corporate record labels, shouldn’t they be rewarded for the bets they make that provides you with recordings you enjoy?”. To present oneself as struggling for “the artists” against “powerful commercial interests” is laughable when it really masks a conflict between two sets of commercial interests, with us musicians and listeners caught in the crossfire. Of course it’s difficult to make a living as a musician, which is why we could use more public and community monies from the Baby Boomers – whether through municipalities or kickstarters – and less derision directed at Generation Ys, the very people who actively sustain the culture of music through their appreciation and participation. And what if someone is even more broke than the artists they can’t afford to repay Should there be no music for the poors? How is THAT an anti-corporate stance?

    in sum: *we ought to make the pie bigger instead of pettily fighting over increasingly smaller slices of it*. That means letting as many people as possible into this big concert called the Internet. Because once music loses its higher aims, it becomes just another industry – which is why, even for those who don’t like to think about it, the tasks of art and politics are inextricably tied. …perhaps a point of agreement.

  271. As an economist and a radio producer at the same time I couldn’t agree more.I felt somehow relieved since most of the people were calling me capitalist b**** just because I was telling them to buy their music and not freely downloading it. I am in love with music and that’s why I prefer to buy all the songs that I play in my radio show. If we are not supporting the artists then they will not create music (simple demand and supply law of economics) and thus we will be held responsible for the musical poverty of the future generations.Just think our parents (because they were buying their music) left us the inheritance of great bands and artists (i.e. Beatles, Rolling Stones, Ramones, Buzzcocks, Jacques Dutronc etc), my sister’s generation (80’s and 90’s) left us with other great banks like the Cure and the Depeche Mode. Why my generation shouldn’t be able to leave as a cultural inheritane great bands too?

  272. With approximately 30,000 albums being released each year, how do you propose people buy every album? Surely the market is too saturated for every download to equate to a lost sale?

  273. Emily most likely had the labels’ permission to rip the CDs at her radio station. At the college radio station where I work, the station has secured that right in an agreement with the rightsholders. It allows the DJs to copy music onto their laptops for review as well as playback over the air.

    So David, you made a really stupid assumption that undercuts this entire article and blows your math right out of the water.

    You want listeners to fuss over the contract terms of a LEGAL service like Spotify, but you’re entitled to just assume that every music file not from a “purchased CD” is “stolen” without investigating or even a second’s thought? Given how much legit free music there is around us, that’s embarrassing.

    And how could you assume that the artists didn’t approve her copies? What if the files were by the likes of Amanda Palmer or Drake or Skrillex or Frank Ocean or the hood Internet or Girl Talk. Who told you you spoke for those people? You obviously don’t, and I think it’s more likely a 21-year-old owns their files than old Cracker records. You didn’t even ask. Nobody on this board or on the NPR board has even considered this … which is not a good sign that you’re an educated group. We can’t even begin a dialogue from this position.

    The sad fact that so many people are linking from the NPR article to this one – and worse, that so many people are lustily repeating your mistake of assuming Emily’s copies were illegal because she didn’t purchase them – shows how much of an education gap there is on electronic media issues, even among Internet users. It’s like evolution vs. creationism, facts vs. “morality.” I won’t convince you, because you are preaching belief as the rejection of fact, but what do you hope to gain? Or these commenters? Theft is not always theft but a zealot is always a zealot.

    If nothing else – lead by example. You want morality, try being moral.

  274. Reblogged this on A.S.M.O. and commented:
    If you’re a musician share this.
    If you download music for free read it.
    Thank you.

  276. There needs to be some service that musicians can use so people can pay for the music and then download the tracks, and it goes directly into their music player. There needs to be a gold standard service so people can pay the artists directly – with the download service getting a small fee – and everything works seamlessly. was way too much profit made by the giant music companies that was viewed as unearned by the music buyers in the 80s and 90s, where you pay 10 to 20 bucks and the artist sees very little of it. Also, the price of a CD never went down as technology advanced, making people feel the music business that was apart from the artists was greedy – which much of it was. I loathe piracy, and am weary of Spotify and other services like it, but I also loathe the music industry that still set prices of digital albums at 10 bucks on iTunes or Amazon (though Amazon does have much better deals quite often, and the best option for everyone would to pay the artists directly. You can do this now, but it’s not as simple as ITunes or Spotify, and I do believe the consumer is stil worried that they won’t get their product if they buy it from the artists directly as downloads sometimes fail and it becomes a big mess.

    This has been meandering, but my point is that I think the artists can benefit and their business greatly helped if there was a universal, known reliable way to download the music directly from them and it all went onto a great music player instantly and seamlessly.

  277. Thanks David for your letter. I am tired of people who have nothing at stake, telling me that my 10 albums on Spotify is “the way of the future man”, and it’s the way it is so get over it.

    You are exactly right, people (corporations, the dudes at Spotify, Download sites) are making millions of dollars from me and my fellow musicians, so let’s not pretend we are all having to give up our rights. Just the people that laid the golden eggs.

    And yes, record companies, on the whole, would honor their contracts, regardless of what Steve Albini said. I guess they threw in the towel.

  278. Colin Meloy sent this link out, and I’m glad he did. A great article, with a sound message, but I believe there is one issue not addressed, that of the value of music. The record companies have created (or at least marketed and made acceptable) a product with no inherent value. If you download an mp3 you don’t own it, you own the rights to store it. You can’t sell it on, lend it to a friend or return it for a refund; it comes with no lyrics, liner notes or packaging; They costs the record companies nothing to reproduce (an argument that they created themselves with the CD pricing debates in the late 80s); the quality is only really acceptable for listening on portable devices. Yet the record companies expect people to treat an mp3 as if it were a CD when it comes to the issue of ownership.

    When I was young I used to borrow and lend LPs and tapes with friends – it was how I found out about Bowie, and Zappa, and Eno and goodness knows what else. It was part of the publicity process, the word of mouth that money cannot buy. And some of those tapes were copies, every bit as illegal as a rogue mp3. But here’s the difference: we all knew that the copy was just a copy. A dodgy C90 with handwritten song titles (or no titles at all) is no alternative to a lovely 12″ vinyl record with a lyric sheet or a fold out sleeve, or a great piece of art on the cover. Even CDs have been able to maintain a little of that magic since sleeve designers realised that 5″ and 12″ needed to be treated differently. But herein lies the problem with an mp3: the copy is the same as the original, no matter how much you pay for it. And sharing is as much a part of the pleasure of discovering music as it was in the 70s, so people will always copy.

    I don’t download music and I never have, even though most of what I listen to now is on my iPod. I buy CDs, occasionally vinyl, and – with a young family and a mortgage – if I can’t afford a new CD I wait until I can or I don’t buy it (I can’t accept the idea that downloading for free is justified by lack of funds.) But if, in 1980, the tapes you could buy in the shops had been identical to the copies my friends had given me – poor quality, no picture sleeve, no lyrics – then would I have rushed out to the shops to buy an original copy as soon as I’d saved up my pocket money? I believe the answer is no, and that is the choice that the mp3 generation is faced with.

    1. Unlike Chris, I’d suggest that “owning” an mp3 has SOME minimal inherent value, even if that value is approaching zero as we become a society with 24/7 wifi. But this is a meaningless statement without some sort of comparison – as in “inherent value compared to what?” And it is also meaningless unless we have a line beyond which “value” crosses into “expected monetization”, as long as we’re also assuming that artists should be able to devote themselves to art full-time, in order to ensure that the “best” art can be made.

      And so Chris leads us towards something that I’ve been contemplating for a while: a hierarchy of value, which would at least streamline and clarify the sorts of conversations we’re all having here (and which the original NPR blogpost author is involved in, too, whether she realizes it or not.). Having such a hierarchy, which was ratified by artists and law, would go a long way towards making this discussion of “what is an X version of a song worth”? no longer a discussion of opinion, but a discussion with clear touchstones of law and ethics, and allow us to stop having the peripheral and distracting “reduce to zero” conversations like several here, which (falsely) say that since it’s so haaaaaard to justify buying and reproduction of digital media is infinite, as long as I only copy from the radio station, it’s okay not to pay.

      Such a hierarchy would probably run from “most value” to “least value”. For music, it might range from “degraded/partial free samples” (lowest value/ too low to monetize) to “organically-produced, intimately-presented, one-of-a-kind physical media” (highest value). It would have to be grounded in technology as-it-is, so it might have to change regularly; it might include value-adder things like scarcity and proximity to the original (a painting is worth more than a reproduction of the original), size/scale/depth, aggregate and companion information (liner notes, physical storage media), the ability to reproduce and time-shift (time-shifting being the primary argument for owning an Mp3 as at least somewhat “value-laden”). It would take a while to hash out, and there would certainly be various related discussions about who pays FOR the value in each case, but it would need to include the following: if there is value above a certain line, the artist should get compensated (if and when she chooses) whether that is through promotion which clearly and undeniably LEADS to monetization, or through sheer monetization.

      I don’t believe this is an impossible task; I do believe it is a necessary precursor to “settling” this matter, even as technology shifts. If we’re not interested in doing this, of course, then these conversations can’t actually go anywhere, because our terms aren’t defined. In that case – and ONLY In that case, since I’m a partial free-marketist who nonetheless believes that society has an obligation to ensure that art is and can be produced, and that the art that IS produced can occur broadly, rather than being limited in type and scope by the market itself – then I’d switch to advocating for the mechanism that many other countries use – higher taxes, and a guaranteed subsidy for artists at a minimal lifestyle, after which they can survive on art at or just above the poverty level w/ health care until they figure out how to commercialize – that is, until they can get enough fans, patrons, or product placement to get them into the true middle class or beyond.

  280. > Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.

    It is unfair to compare today’s level to the highest level ever. Please take an average for 1950s-2010s and we will see that we are well above it. Music sells much better it did in the great 70s or 80s.

    > Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!

    1. But it is much higher in total.
    2. So what? Who says “spending on music” is a value? Consumption of music is a value and music has never been so consumed in the whole human history as it is now.

    > The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.

    But the number of all musicians is higher than even in the whole human history. And the number of music albums released every years is astonishing. And this is great. And this is important, not how many of them make money. There are so many other ways to make money.

  282. Pingback: Pissing Into The Ocean, or How To Embrace The Internet «
  283. Pingback: David Lowery’s Open Letter to Emily White | Gaunterella

  284. I have come up with an odd form of penance. I am now trying to directly give artists $10. If I go to a live show, I walk up to the merch table and lay down my cash. The amount of space both physical and in MB format that downloading or buying physical albums takes up is not functional. Yet I do want to support independent artists. I also listen to plenty of corporate music that I do not feel the same debt to. I wish there was a website set-up for this kind of artist support.

    When Louis CK put out his latest live video, he did it via individual purchases. In his statement he acknowledged that he was making it in an easily reproducible format and taking a risk distributing this way. But in his follow-up email, he reported it to be a huge success. I was all to happy to pay him directly for his work.

  285. David- great piece in defence of musicians, and our need for revenues.

    Unfortunately, I think you misread Emily’s original piece. It’s not about pirating, it’s about preferring to buy (not pirate) digital to physical media. She makes it clear that she expects to pay. She does not rely on the the “big music is evil” arguments.

    All she is doing is reflecting the growing preference for buying tracks digitally over whole physical albums. We musicians can embrace this by realizing that what we lose in a $15 CD sale, we can and need to make up in volume by the sale of individual tracks.

    No one cool enough to read your letter, including Emily, supports illegal file sharing.

  287. Firstly, I’ve read most of the comments here (and skimmed a few) to make sure I’m not repeating what’s already been said as I don’t think I can say anything in agreement that hasn’t been written with far more eloquence or feeling in response to this extremely well-argued open letter.

    But I’d like to offer a thought on what may go some way towards being a part-solution – much of the difficulty in getting through to the ‘free music’ generation is in the choice of language bieng used in the area and debate. It swings from ‘free’ to ‘theft’ most of the time, with ‘sharing’ being used as a morally positive term and a neutral term such as ‘downloading’ being used to describe the action of acquiring music without paying for it. Who will voluntarily listen to an argument when their actions are being described as theft? Who will view it as theft when it’s described as a ‘download’? I know I certainly wouldn’t listen for very long if I knew I didn’t ‘take’ anything belonging to another person. That’s why the action needs to be personalised, describe it as ‘borrowing’ – utilise a ‘Borrow’ and ‘Buy’ button side-by-side on iTunes, Amazon etc and/ or the artists’ websites, with the ‘Borrow’ option being a seven or fourteen day trial version of the full song or album that cannot be replicated and that won’t play after the expiration of the trial, not described as a ‘free’ trial for that lends itself to the notion that music can be ‘free’. Remove the concept of ‘theft’ from the debate when trying to connect with the ‘free music’ generation, let them come up with the ‘theft’ response themselves when they know they didn’t return or pay for something they ‘borrowed’. Those who will take what doesn’t belong to them and keep it will always do so – some people cannot be civilised – but reminding the greater majority of people that it does belong to another person, i.e. the artist, may do so.

  288. I would be really interested to hear whether the author has seen different patterns of downloading in different countries? Certainly in the US and UK it is rife – (I am a hard working touring musician who makes nothing after two albums released). However in countries like Germany, kids there are crazy about buying merchandise, they even still love vinyl there!

  289. If we eliminate money, we’d solve all of these problems in one swoop, right?

    Why does everything have to be monetized? Because that’s the way it is and the way it’s always been so it’s the way it always has to be?

    I give away my music for free. I just want people to listen.

  290. Reblogged this on Pagans, Saints, and Potatoes and commented:
    Regarding “free” music, file-sharing, and artists rights…

    “I would suggest to you that, like so many other policies in our society, it is up to us individually to put pressure on our governments and private corporations to act ethically and fairly when it comes to artists rights. Not the other way around.”

  291. Sure, and I think I’ll wander around to Emily White’s apartment and steal some stuff while I’m there?

    This cheap little sow makes her living by playing music recorded by other people – whom she refuses to pay for their work.

    She’s even proud of having stolen their work.

    DJ? What kind of ‘profession’ is that?

    It’s something that TALENTLESS CROOKS LIKE EMILY WHITE do, apparently.

    Hope the Police find ya, “Emily”.

    Best regards from a working musician.

  292. One thing I think you’re missing is the assumption that had the music not been available for free, that Emily would have bought it. I don’t think that’s true. I have gotten some CD’s from the library to put on my Zune, but frankly, I wouldn’t have bought them otherwise. That’s not because I don’t want to, I just don’t have the money. And this brings up another point: libraries and used record stores also share some of the blame, because they offer music and other media either for free (in the case of libraries) or cheaper and without royalties (in the case of used record stores).

    But other things must change in order for artists to see their incomes return. Primarily, CD’s must be worth buying. Why do we give greeting cards, rather than just writing “Happy Birthday” on a Post-it note? The Post-it delivers the same message for far less money. We buy greeting cards because they have added value. They have artwork, and a funny or touching message that expresses our feelings for the recipient. CD’s should offer similar added value. I bought LP’s in the ’70s partly because I knew they’d have lyrics, photos and other extras inside. Now I feel lucky if a CD I buy even lists the musicians. If CD’s were worth the $15 they charge for them, I think they’d sell many more.

  293. David, There is probably little I can add to the multitude of comments you’ve received, but I just wanted to say you’ve showcased the problem brilliantly. As a musician and songwriter, it will come as no surprise to you that I agree with every word! Well done, Sir.

  294. yeah i don’t know mate. Radiohead seems to earn serious money and their customers can pay what they want. I support artists by going to concerts and buying merchandise, hell most of the stuff i listen too is shit that you can’t find on itunes, or a record store, and if i’m lucky i can import it at the added price of import, but the artist still only get a fraction of that price. you tell me if i’m ethical or not if i am downloading an album of someone (be it a free album or not), telling all my friends to listen to it while simultaneously buying tickets to all concerts and buying all the merchandise at said concerts that i can afford. which hurts the artist most?

    me downloading the album, or me buying tickets, promoting said artist to all my friends and people that i meet, and me buying merchandise?

    see, the problem with filesharing and illegal music is that the big corporations puts restrictions on your digital copies when bought (that is, they put restrictions on your 1’s and 0’s), such as making sure that you can’t listen to your bought and paid for album anywhere but the device you bought it with. they also tell you what to listen to. the big labels will fight piracy with all their hearts because with piracy the consumer decides what/when/how to listen to things, instead of the labels. loose control of the supply, you loose control over the market, simple as that.

    buying albums won’t save musicians. it will save the big labels, who is consistently ripping off musicians. going to concerts and buying merchandise, and hell, even donating to musicians, that will save the declining income of the music “industry”. making sure the money goes where they belong: to the artists.

    and yes, you can make an entire album in your basement with just one mic. take a look at dizzee rascal, for example. or soulya boy. or just about any electronic dance producer out there (deadmau5 anyone? i was in the same electronic music community as him and when he was the first artist to be rpomoted by the label this community started, suddenly he became famous. he was sitting in his bedroom, mind you).

  295. fantastic article! i just wanted to point out a couple of things: 1. you mention ads on filesharing sites. this is how beemp3.com is making money, yes? here is a crazy idea (but it just might work): what if instead of beemp3.com, it was warner bros? meaning, what if the record companies found a way to get paid via ads? isn’t that how most sites make money on the web? ads? (this is not an accusatory question or suggestion. i really would like to know). and 2. “yo la tengo” is awesome — “you la tengo” is a typo)

    cheers.

  296. You’ve talked in detail about how the industry has changed as a result of piracy. However, question I still have after reading your article: why is there any responsibility on consumers to change their behaviour? While there may be a sense of ethical obligation there’s definitely no risk in relation to getting caught by the law.

    Consumers hold the purchasing power and if the industry cannot find an efficient way to remunerate artist then another industry structure will take it’s place, surely? Because music is always going to exist, irrespective of whether it’s profitable to produce. If an artist is talented and willing, they will make good music irrespective of whether there is a profitable music industry to support them – and if they are not willing, there will be a musician who is.

    Cheers and thanks for the great article!

  297. David, I’m with you on most of this, but as another person mentioned above, you seem to be a bit off base with Creative Commons. You say:

    “These technological and commercial interests have largely exerted this pressure through the Free Culture movement, which is funded by a handful of large tech corporations and their foundations in the US, Canada, Europe and other countries.”

    The words “their foundations” links to a funding document for Creative Commons. You’ve essentially equated the free culture movement as a whole with creative commons licensing individually, which is just plain not accurate.

    One of the main arguments that moves me in favor of Creative Commons is that it is a great way for a novice to license their creative work in order to encourage a flourishing public commons. I am not, personally, going to try to make money off my creative works that I make when I dabble in web design or other pursuits. So I am happy to license my content to make sharing easy, in the hope that I can both give and take from this public commons as I need it. I could likewise imagine encouraging an unknown artist to selectively release a few tracks using a Creative Commons license in order to try to build an audience. Once building an audience, an artist can then, of course, choose different licensing to monetize their subsequent work.

    I personally buy all the music that I own. Many of these purchases are inspired by listening to a free Pandora stream. For me, they are complementary acts. I also use and create Creative Commons content. I do not feel that I am at war with myself, despite your simplistic argument that these are opposing forces.

  298. Pingback: I Own About 700 CD Albums. « TheSteinbergPrinciple

    2. I’d like to potentially challenge the validity or ask for clarification on the concept of the music industry business model being the same for ‘hundreds of years’. That seems hyperbolic at best, misleading at worst.

      1. Trust me, he’s right. It’s “hundreds of years.” Music predates audio recordings, and many of the same issues that surround audio recordings surrounded published notation, which for centuries was the only way music could be recorded and re-experienced.

  300. David,

    You also make the statement that

    “Since the works that are are almost invariably the subject of these discussions are popular culture of one type or another, the duration of the copyright term is pretty much irrelevant for an ethical discussion”.

    Because you are discussing popular culture, I’ll grant you this exception. But I do think that the growing length of copyrights, funded and lobbied for by major corporations, are absolutely an ethical topic. Creative content can be locked away for the life of the author plus 70 years. For corporate-owned works, it is 120 years after creation (or 95 years after publication). We’re no longer talking fair compensation to the artist, who is long dead, but the continuation of a content monopoly that directly harms the public good.

    This starts to get a bit murky with respect to popular culture, when one realizes that with our original copyright terms, Star Wars would have entered the public domain some time ago. By now we could have seen a flourishing creative period as this work, and many others, were re-imagined. It’s a shame that we have let our legal system be bent to the purpose of corporations rather than the public good.

    1. again my point is not to quibble about length of a copyright term. there are legitimate arguments to be made about the term of copyright. That’s a dumboff when we are agreeing but you’re still arguing with me.

  301. Thank you, Mr. Lowery. This article does deserve all the praise it has received. However, I do believe there is an underlying problem that some responses in the comments seem to have touched on, but not fully stated (if I missed one, I apologize).

    Typically, when this issue comes up, the stress is put on the misuse of technology (in this case Spotify, “download” sites, etc) on the consumer (read: demand) side. But not as often is the stress put on the artist (read: supply) side. In short, if we can blame consumers misusing technology for the sake of convenience, then we have to understand how this same technological convenience (vis a vis the ability to record, produce, and distribute digital recordings) has played a role in causing the formation of the current attitudes in the music-consumer marketplace.

    In full disclosure, I’m a “professional” musician (someone who makes their entire livelihood, however small, off performing, composing, and teaching it) in a rather niche genre (“straight ahead” jazz). Being an avid record collector myself (and a person who hates to download simply because I like having a physical collection), I’m sure anyone who is a fan of my preferred genre would agree that in the last 10 years we have seen an EXPLOSION in the release of recordings produced by smaller, boutique labels as well as independent artists producing albums entirely on their own (often today with the help of Kickstarter). In the 90’s, when Jazz labels were having a small resurgence due to the post-Wynton Marsalis “young lions” movement and the desire to celebrate some older artists who now were “legends”, you had a few major labels…Blue Note (EMI), Novus/RCA, Verve and Impulse (both owned by Polygram/UMG), Warner Bros, and Sony/Columbia. I am purposefully omitting some labels that produced “smooth” or other types of Jazz. Yes, you have some smaller labels (Concord and Criss Cross come to mind) but for all intents and purposes, there were very few options for the burgeoning scene of musicians to record. It is not uncommon to find that many of today’s most respected Jazz artists only ever had 1 (one) major-label recording to their name. While there were of course artists who had long careers on major labels (Kenny Garrett [Warner], Branford and Wynton Marsalis [Sony/Columbia], Brad Meldhau [Warner], and Joe Lovano [Blue Note] to name a few), there was mostly a steadfast roster that rarely changed, and when it did you usually found that it was for MAJOR talent (apart from some of the choices of Sony/Columbia, you’ll find most major-label 1-offs went to now-highly-respected artists).

    In the late 90’s you had a convergence of events the led to today’s situation:

    1.) Due to the changing economy in music and the dwindling of interest in this type of Jazz, major imprints either folded entirely (Impulse) or dramatically cut their rosters (Verve, Warner Bros.).

    2.) There was an explosion on the supply side due to 2 generations that had by then benefited by the introduction of Jazz into formal education. The amount of jazz education programs around the country multiplied immensely during the 70’s and 80’s (and still is), making “jazz” and music overall a career-option for kids who didn’t want to be CPA’s. This resulted in a supply-base of often-highly skilled workers who now had money (via student loans) invested into this career path with a very poor return rate.

    3.) Prices for the technology that enables the production of recordings experience deflation and the technology itself evolves to the point that anyone with the right computer set-up can operate a fully functioning recording studio and the artist can self-release those recordings with little to no physical packaging required, cutting the cost of production dramatically.

    Due to these factors, boutique jazz labels started springing up everywhere (Sharp 9, Fresh Sound, Palmetto, etc). As the years of this new century have passed, we have seen more and more labels of this sort pop up, to the point that some of the smaller labels of years past are now considered as close to “major” as you can get (Criss Cross). In addition, it is common for many artists to entirely self-produce albums either with the hope of getting it on one of these labels or just releasing it for themselves on Amazon or iTunes.

    Today, I would contend that due to the (relative) ease and low cost of recording and distribution, there are MANY more artists and new releases today than there were just 15 years ago. I did read the stat about there being 25% fewer musicians today. I call BS on that figure. The only real way anyone could find that out is by taking that stat from IRS filings and how people classify their “work”. That number could easily be misconstrued to people not claiming what is often under-the-table income (illegal, obviously) or perhaps they are making the majority of their income in a non-music field, and thus wouldn’t be classified as a “musician”. In general, that number is too perfect to trust.

    Now, however much we like to calls those labels “evil”, the fact of the matter is that they acted as gate-keepers for the consumer, assurances of quality and a name you can trust. In today’s market place, the independent recording faces 2 challenges:

    1.) People have to understand how the “label” process often works. The artist many times has already recorded this album on their own, and paid out of pocket. What the label does in those cases is merely buy the recording (and often times demanding the rights to the songs) from the artist. This allows the artist to recoup the money spent and get some advertising for themselves. In cases where the label is paying before production, you will receive a small sum for the full production (in many cases, to my knowledge, about $5,000), giving up the same rights. What the artist is really getting out of this is recognition by association and having the distribution issues handled, including publicity.

    2.) If truly independent, and I would dare say this is the vast majority of modern Jazz recordings, the artist obviously retains full rights, but the out-of-pocket expense goes up dramatically. Having many friends who have had successful Kick Starter projects, I can tell you that they usually are not recouping all the money spent on the production, distribution, and publicity for their recording. In these cases, it the publicity that the truly independent recording struggles with.
    And that brings us back to this article. The fact of the matter is that the modern consumer just has TOO MANY CHOICES. In other words, there is too much supply. An artist today, when selling their album on iTunes or Amazon, is not just going up against new and recent releases and some of the more popular offerings from legendary artists (as your average “shopping mall”-music retailer might have), they are competing against EVERYTHING EVER RECORDED!!! (A little hyperbole, but not too far from the truth). If you are the average music consumer (let’s assume that most people who are truly die-hards about music care enough to not “steal” it), why would I EVER pay full price for anything beyond what I’ve heard of or been told that’s good. If I go to a store like Amoeba, where I can actually find new and unknown artists, how do I pick between any of 100’s of new albums that I’ve never heard of? More often than not, that consumer makes the choice (if not by recommendation of the record store employee, which I used to be) based on something as insignificant as the album cover. In the digital world, those factors apply much less. Ergo, the consumer really has no reason to purchase anything. In that world, services like Spotify (that pay meagerly) or even YouTube (which do not pay at all, in most cases) are the only hope an emerging artist has of ever being heard by anyone not in their zipcode.

    I’ve rambled, and I apologize, but my point is that fair pay will never be achieved until supply and demand equalize. If we can categorize the morals of consumers as greedy for downloading music they don’t pay for, then you can just as easily categorize the morals of artists flooding a marketplaces with music no one wants to pay for as equally greedy and self-serving.

      1. No, but it does partially explain why the attitude towards the arts is what it is, therefore creating the conditions which you write about. There is a huge difference between music “mavens” (as Malcolm Gladwell would describe them) and the casual consumer base. In the end, any real economic change is going to be caused by a shift in the attitudes of the general consumer, not the maven (who I assume is the “fan of the arts”). Supply definitely affects the general base, and also makes it harder on the maven to gather enough information in order to form opinions that spread out to the general population.

        It’s the white-noise created by excess supply that partially leads to the the attitude of the type that says “there is so much of this stuff just lying around, why should I ever buy it?”.

      2. I would argue the number of releases has nothing to do with it. of 75,0000 releases 2010. 60,000 sold less than 100 copies. The consumer doesn’t really interact with “the long tail” of releases at all. these songs sit unknown and unsearched on the virtual shelves of itunes. And when you look at what is most popular on file sharing sites (pirate bay has a top 100 chart) you see it’s almost all mainstream major label recordings.

      4. I’ll respond to the last comment here since the “reply” button doesn’t seem to work….

        Yes, I would agree with your point on that, but I would say the more niche your genre becomes, the more there tends to be equal footing in terms of publicity for new releases. Miles Davis and the Beatles will always sell more than Unknown Artist X, but Unknown Artist X may sell more than U.A. Y. The economics for the new independent artist very much exist in that “long tail” and the longer that tail becomes the less money there is to spread along the entire thing.

        One more thing, you state in your piece that people are more willing to pay for fair-trade and green products. This is just a question, no argument here, but do you believe that this reflects the position that music holds in people’s lives, more than the intrinsic value of music itself? I would suspect that people place food (even coffee) higher on their list of necessities for living than music, which for most is a periphery luxury. Is the fair-trade/arts comparison a fair one overall?

  302. Could someone please direct me to the part of iTunes where the songs are just 20 cents each?

    I know you were ignoring things in your monetary analysis but you lose some cred for doing so. Since the purchase price for most songs is more like $1 to $1.50 each it would cost Emily closer to $100 to $150 a month, not the paltry $20 you ascribe her to. So to say it is just the cost of a case of beer or whatever simply isn’t true.

    To tell her she is ignoring facts and then do so yourself makes you almost as bad as her.

    1. did you read the article? I subtracted the part of the sale that goes to the record company and itunes or amazon mp3. the whole article is about what she shows the artist. very clearly explained. next.

      2. You’re not allowed to subtract the part that goes to the record company, amazon, etc. Beacause we have to pay that when we purchase a song. If i could only pay the $0.20 per song directly to the artist, I would.

        What about the remaining $0.80 that the song costs? Is she off the hook with the record companies, amazon, itunes? Why is she morally obgliated to pay the artist but not the supporting infrastructure?

  303. Pingback: An attack on the ethics of music piracy | Screenagers.me

  304. This is a really good piece, but it makes the classic error of all anti-downloaders in assuming that every illegal download is a lost sale. That is not true.

    While Emily White is clearly in the wrong, I doubt even if she had paid for all the music she could afford, she would have paid for all the records she downloaded illegally.

    And if she had not had the option of downloading, that would mean she would not have had the opportunity to hear and and enjoy all that music. That’s a real benefit of the opportunities the internet has opened up.

    People should of course pay for music when they can, but for music lovers the situation isn’t quite as black and white as that.

    1. well then she would owe even less to the artist and then then she really has even less of an excuse for not paying the artists she loves.

    2. She could listen to (over-the-air or Internet) radio and experience music when it is programmed and when royalties are paid by the broadcaster for one-time broadcast — then if she likes it she can buy it. Or she can listen to 30 to 90 second tasters of songs. This is not a new issue — just a new notion of entitlement.

      1. Not sure how others feel about 30-90 second samples – and David and other musicians, I’d be very interested in your take here – but I never understood them, honestly.
        Would you commit to buying a poster if you were only allowed to look at it for 90 seconds before making the decision to buy? How about if you could only see 25% of that poster? Would that be an effective way to make a purchasing or patronage decision? Should it be?

        In the case of music, if we accept that songs are art, then to break apart that art and allow exposure to only part of it should lessen the power, and in some cases should/could corrupt or undermine the artists’ intent. And the net effect seems to me a methodology that favors only a certain type of song – the repetitive hook-laden song – over the narrative and sonic journey…and whether the market should determine and narrow so significantly what TYPE of art is viable in this way is an exercise to the reader, here, though I allow that previous technologies – most notably the 45 and the LP, plus the economic advertising model of radio – favor certain song lengths, as well.

        Would MUCH prefer to see someone figure out an IP-locked (or device-locked) method of hearing a whole song a small and finite number of times before a user is “locked out” until they are willing to buy – the equivalent to both NPR’s short-term streaming model for new and pending releases (which I like very much) and to “you can browse all you like, but eventually, the store will close and if you want to keep looking at this poster, you’ll have to buy it.”

      2. get your point but there is radio, pandora, music blogs, spotify, and shit virtually every song is on youtube.

        I’m clocking out now. back to my real job.

    3. That’s right, it’s not true. People download far more for free than they would ever buy, but the knock on effect is that they don’t buy the things they otherwise would have done. Emily’s final comment tells us everything:

      All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it. Is that too much to ask?

      It’s the internet-fuelled, ‘I need this now’ attitude, and the perceived entitlement at no cost. When I was 10 years old and I desperately wanted the new Adam And The Ants LP I had to wait until my birthday to get the money to buy it. It was only a couple of weeks, but my god it felt like forever. My parents would give me a monthly allowance as a teenager and it pretty much all went on records. And they were worth every penny, and I loved most of them and I played them to death. By demanding music on tap it becomes less worthwhile, less valuable, more disposable.

      If I want to preview an album or an artist I’ve heard good things about I go to MySpace. I listen to the radio. I buy the music mangazines with free CDs and play them in the car. After a few listens I usually have one or two more CDs to add to my wish list. But when I want the whole album – which invariably I do – I buy a CD, usually new, sometimes secondhand. There are enough ways to listen to a song without having to pay for it and staying within the law.

  305. David, I would be interested in a listing of streaming sites that legitimately support musicians and which do not if you have one available.

    For example, I knew Spotify was ad-supported, and I assumed that was because they paid the royalties that they were supposed to, apparently that is not accurate though. How about sites like Rhapsody who I purchased a subscription with?

    Would love to hear your thoughts on this, if you have time.

  306. I would direct any reader to very smilar events in the past; American Federation of Musician bans (strikes) on sheet music sales, radio performances, record sales and the payment of royalties for replaying recorded performances on the radio and TV, as well as the controversies in our lifetime of blank cassette tapes and file sharing sites such as Napster. Note that in each case the newer technology always prevails. What David Lowery misses is the collision of the The Pursuit of Happiness (recorded music in this case) vs the commercial interests of the creators. As technology has become more consumer friendly so has the creation of music become easier, and thus the labor pool become more crowded. 100 years ago choices were limited to amateurs, either using sheet music to play together in the parlor or composing original songs or playing traditional folk music, or professional union affiliated musicians playing in symphonies and vaudeville shows. Professional musicians/composers/​publishers virtually controlled all opportunities for performance both through laws and intimidation. It was through the pioneering work of people like Ralph Peer and Alan Lomax that the monopoly was broken by creating a new market for recorded folk music and (non-union) performance. Again, here we can see who won this struggle. My point is, and I suppose I am unique to be both a historian and a musician, it would seem absurd from our modern perspective for sheet music to be controversial. Uncompensated downloads are the unauthorized reprints of today. The technological genie is already out of the bottle, that is until someone comes up with a new way to make money from music. All that said, I sure would like to see some monetary return from my CD sales, iTunes sales, YouTube plays and activity on Spotify. I am not holding my breath. In other words, whether we like it or not and despite any emotional attachment that we might have, music is no longer the commodity it once was due to new technology. So, we find ourselves back in the parlor playing music for enjoyment rather than the profit enjoyed by very few.

  307. As someone who was on the bridge of generations between CDs and the free download era, I remember spending quite a bit of time at record stores and spending all sorts of money before they were widely available. I also remember costs for said CDs skyrocketing to something like $18, so your assessment of what Emily owes today didn’t make sense for those of us in 2000 who were spending a huge chunk of our minimum wage jobs on risky investments of albums we couldn’t preview part of the time–and a much bigger investment than our 70s counterparts. You also flippantly disregard the highly publicized reports when artists were totally being exploited by the big labels–something that stuck out in my mind at the time, at least.

    Today, those prices have gone down (probably to encourage people to buy them), except with digital downloads you lose both the record store experience (since most of them are dying anyway) and also, I’ve lost downloads that I’ve actually purchased. The nice part about the digital era that I feel like I’ve been exposed to more artists this way, and feel more inclined to going to their shows, where they make the bulk of their money. I do try to support musicians, but I disagree with the guilt trip assessment (even though you try and state three times that you’re not trying to guilt her after inserting shit like a disconnected suicide as some sort of parental shocker–that was totally unnecessary, by the way).

    But anyway, if it’s any consolation, most of the big downloading spots have become shut down anyway so I’ve had to buy the last several albums I wanted, as will people like Emily–unless she continues in the industry where she’ll probably get press downloads for free anyway.

  308. This problem will go away overnight if the music industry does what the film industry did – price things at a point the market wishes to pay. Once upon a time, the film industry was certain that DVDs, although priced between $50 and $80 at the time, would spell the end of the film industry. Now, many (if not most) films actually only turn a profit when DVD sales are factored in. DVD sales have been a bonanza for the film industry. The music industry continues to price CDs at a level that encourages people to be scofflaws. I do not condone that, but the real remedy is obvious: for back catalog music especially (because recording costs have long been recouped), I’m convinced that $4 per album, 35 cents per song is the level at which people won’t bother to pirate anything. It’s also interesting that this pricing leaves ~15 cents of headroom (based on Mr. Lowery’s example), which could be split by the labels and the hosting service. That reduction in price (~60%) is also roughly what the film industry decided was effective. Economies of scale are massively powerful forces. Just saying.

    Oh yeah, that pricing would be for lossless formats such as FLAC, ALAC, etc. The improved quality of Blu-Ray has also been another bonanza for the film industry as people backfill their collections (i.e., pay yet again for the same content) with better quality versions.

    One reason many people download music is that the only other way to obtain lossless music is to rip the physical CD. What’s up with that? Hello? McFly? Hello?

  310. I stopped reading this when the author said “In most cases artists do get paid by the labels”. THIS IS FALSE PEOPLE, the label needs to be paid back for recording costs during production and many times the record that was recorded doesn’t even sell enough copies to pay the label back in full…so the bands are NOT getting paid most of the time unless they tour. If anything, most of the time artists are in debt unless they’ve been spending weeks and weeks on the billboards.

      1. What’s amazing me on this thread is the amount of people trying to pick holes in your argument. Can’t we all see that taking an artist’s music without paying is THEFT? We can dress it up any way we like, modern economics, supply and demand, yada yada yada..it’s JUST WRONG. If people didn’t hear the penny drop when you made the looter analogy, then it’s simply because they have their fingers in their ears going ‘la la la la la la…’

  311. I’m curious to know what you think about a few things.

    You talk a lot about downloading in how it negatively affects artists. But what about how it positively affects artists? Every album I have ever purchased – which is a huge number, every concert I have ever been to, every piece of merchandise I have ever bought, was preceded by downloading at least one album by that band.

    From the bands I know personally, their business model revolves around gigging and merchandise sales. The distribution and sale of their albums – which makes them almost nothing regardless of whether they are purchased legally or not – serves only to attract people to their shows and merchandise. I even know bands that “leak” their own albums to the internet, because they know that the more people that hear their music, the better off they will be when they tour.

    And a side note on one other thing, where you say that the number of professional bands has decreased. This is just untrue – unless it is in how you are defining “professional”? I suppose if you define it as ‘making a living from doing nothing but music’ then it might be true, but that wouldn’t be how I would define it. The music world if anything, has grown tremendously. I listen to music at least 10 hours per day every day, and I can’t even keep up with the output of just the bands I listen to regularly – let alone the millions and millions of other bands out there.

    Perhaps my opinions are coloured by the fact that aside from classical – which doesn’t really fit the band format or standards – I mostly listen to jazz and metal. With few exceptions, bands of those styles didn’t really EVER make money from record sales.

    1. You misread the article is all i can figure. Not against downloading legal versions of the songs. just pointing out that not paying for music and artists you love is ultimately unethical.

    2. First, those bands’ business model revolves around gigging because you have already taken away their ability to profit significantly off their recordings, so they need to resort to being day-laborers who only get paid for going on stage.

      Second, there has been a way to explore music without capturing it for decades: it’s called “radio” — internet or otherwise, royalty-paid. But the “what I want when I want it” selfishness seems for many of you to trump the ability of bands to have copies of their music available on-demand only to those who pay for the privilege.

  312. Pingback: A discussion on music pircay, equally applicable to image copyright and theft

  313. HA! Cool read, a bit long. I found this in the comments: “Students who’ve never had to support themselves financially are inevitably less sensitive to the value of a dollar — I doubt 35K a year without benefits means much to them yet”. Very well said!

    I am a working musician that has the privilege of making a living through playing gigs as a sideman/leader and I also have the privilege of a huge student loan, so I know what 35k and no benefits feel like.

    I don’t think blaming the youth is the way to go.
    Also, anyone can speak whatever they want about the quality of music and especially the new big selling acts, but the fact is that people seem to really enjoy the music.
    On the other hand, from my own experience, I have seen a blues bar in Copenhagen been subsidized by the government and it’s no secret that many EU countries support their art through their governments and other organizations because they came to realize that art should exist inspite of lack of money in it. Running an opera doesn’t seem like a profitable business in the world we live in, for instance, so they decided, “We’re going to help these guys, because obviously they can’t run on their own, and this is going to benefit for a better health of our society”.

    The biggest/best jazz artists of America tour the EU and love it and are being loved over there. Just to return to NYC and play a gig at 55 bar for 50$ to a crowd of 5 EU tourists who happen to be there and maybe a few jazz students… This is what I have seen. I don’t think blaming the youth and their moral is the way to go and in history it’s alyways been wrong to do that. The youth was blamed with Rock And Roll, pardon, ROCKNROLL, when it came out, and look at where we are now. Go back with all forms of art and you see the same thing. History repeats. Every generation has to learn again. I think a possible solution is the government stepping in and taking care of the arts (and education).

    Which won’t happen in America because the Arts create critically thinking, hard to manipulate masses and that’s the last thing the government wants. Interesting times we live in, indeed 🙂

    Also, I try to always remember that Music does not owe me anything. Just because I am good at it and know it, doesn’t mean that Music has to support me. It may not seem right, but I believe this is reality. I don’t play for free because I am lucky right now (read – working hard), but I love Music and will keep making it regardless of financial situation. It’s always been like that.

    Don’t blame the youth.

    There is an old Bulgarian saying that goes something like this: “He is not crazy who eats the free pie”, meaning the crazy one is the one who gave it to them (sorry for the lousy translation).

    Don’t blame it on the youth.
    We made them.

  314. This is fascinating stuff. Thanks to my friend Dennis for informing me about this site.

    Entire books have been written about the evil record business; the tales of greed perpetrated by record companies, publishers, managers. The stories told by artists about how record company execs live the high life while artists are barely able to pay for food, rent etc.

    and yet… the artists are the ones who get hurt the most if you download illegally. No matter how you slice it, free doesn’t work if you want to have a career.

    In the old days, we made mix tapes we gave to friends who maybe did not want to buy their own copy of an album; in my case, pre-recorded tapes were of such poor quality that I wasn’t going to waste my money on them. The record companies cried foul. ‘Home taping is killing music’ they said. The solution was that the industry received a royalty on every blank tape sold.

    Napster was a brilliant, albeit diabolical idea, that the record industry did not see coming. An entire generation believed that you can get something for nothing. Instead of co-opting this technology, the record industry fought against it for years. A sea change occurred, and there is still no consensus as how to deal with it.

    I think the industry should get a royalty on every device sold. I think Google, the cable providers, Verizon etc should pay up too. I also think record companies and publishers should play fair with their artists. Artists in the USA do not get paid when their records are played on the radio. (songwriters do, via ASCAP and BMI ) That may apply for Spotify and MOG too ? ( correct me if I’m wrong) That needs to change. I think a lot of industry practices, evolved over decades, need to change quickly.

    All I know is that artists have to speak up and educate themselves and their fans. Support an artists website; support Kickstarter and other sites which raise money for artist projects; And yes, buy their CD’s and LP’s ( they sound better than iTunes you know ! ) You’ll feel better

  315. Emily statement: “But I honestly don’t think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.” is terrifying for musicians at first read so full of arrogance and assumption, but this is how her generation has been raised – with a sense of entitlement. The way to adapt the music industry to this (‘paying for convenience’) is to streaming rates and DL sales. Nobody’s going to start buying CD’s again.

    ‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.’ – Darwin

    I’m getting tired of moaning about missing liner notes and ‘the good old days’. What I want to know David is how do we adapt? How do we get per unit sales and streaming rates raised? What are you actually telling your students?

    Neville

    1. I i suggested. through encourage those who like an artist to buy their music, pay for downloads, subscribe to a streaming service that pays artists fairly.

  316. Brilliantly put. I’ve been making this argument (poorly) for about a decade (usually drunk and angry at parties). Especially since Napster put the record store I worked at out of business. Anyway, now I have a link to forward to people that says it exactly. Cheers.

  317. There are really great thoughts here, and it is a very well written statement. My only question is: will those stealing music take the time to read it?

    I’m sure some will, particularly as this is gaining more viral attention on facebook and tumblr, but what would be great is a cliff notes version, or even flow chart, of this article.

    Simple, direct, well-thought out communication that’s easy to digest. That’s what the music industry needs most.

  318. I am glad you are not shaming them, but I will. If you download music for free, you are stealing. How would they like to graduate from college, get a job and suddenly be told, you are working for free. Or, even better, we are going to set up a website and if people want to pay you, then they will.

    I don’t understand this generations lazy morals. Stealing is stealing and Itunes is too easy and simple to use. Plus, they have awesome customer service when you make a mistake.
    Amy W.

    1. And they also take an unjustified 30% cut and Apple exploit people in china and is evading billions in taxes. But if they have great customer service, well, right, give them our money.

  319. Great article David. Very good read.
    I hope it will spread around.

    I have many times met people that say they would never dream of paying for music.
    It is weird for someone that loves, collects and makes music.
    But i think the problem lays in lack of respect somehow.
    That many people are not really listening to music but just consuming it.
    When there is no effort, no work, involved in acquiring the music. It just becomes something like water, you just open the tab and let it run. You would not do that in place where water is precious and hard to get.
    Same way with music. When you had to work (or get your hands on some money), go to a record store, physically be involved in the process, shuffle through hundreds of records, give someone hard earned cash for it and get your ass home to open it, smell it and put it on the phone. That involves some effort. Convenience has nothing to do with it.
    This would possibly make you respect that someone made an effort to actually make this piece of work.
    Spoiled kids that can get whatever they point at usually end up as rather uninterested (and uninteresting) and respectless to the efforts other put into things. They just know how to conveniently point to get stuff…look at it for a while and throw it into the corner. They just get greedy but not interested in what they get. Want more..
    That is unfortunately what seems to have happened to generations coming of age now.
    It´s a quantitive experience, not qualitative. Sound quality does not matter so much as how many gigabytes of music you have.
    And listen to it from the computer or mobile device through bad speakers/headphones.
    I have met someone that proudly showed me her mobile-phone that she actually thought played “cd quality” out of the speaker.
    A research has been made comparing compressed audio to none compressed audio and it turns out that young people actually prefer the sound of the mp3. It feels more natural and normal to them.

    Its quite sad to see that a young, music interested person that actually is a DJ, that wants to spread the love of music, wants a future in the music industry actually shows so little respect for it. And seemingly not knowing it. But its good she brings it up and this article will surely help her on her way. The “Free everything” mantra is a almost a cultish thing, religious propaganda going on. Which brainwashes and screws innocent youth up, just like other religions.

    I personally love to spend the little money i have an music. Be it straight from artists, from shops or second hand. I even payed more than i had to yesterday for something on bandcamp. There was a choice of a minimum amount to pay, for a tape and download. I thought that was a nice gesture so i payed a little bit more. It was really easy and convenient by the way.

  320. The morality of whether or not an artist should be paid for content is irrelevant to the economics. Markets don’t care. Markets simply function within vaguely predictable ranges of outcomes. The economics of content production in a digital age of easy duplication and distribution are completely different than the economics of production and distribution when specialized capital equipment and know-how were required to get that content into the market. What has happened is costs have plummeted and the producers ( be the record companies or artists) have not dropped prices to meet the new demand curve. I would contend that 99 cents per song is far too high for the new reality. Why? Let’s look at examples.

    1) Authors have moved from selling novels via paper to novels via kindle ( similar to the Album to mp3 transition) The price dropped from $10-$30 to $.99-2.99 per novel. At that price it is cheaper to buy it than to pirate it. Little DRM is required.

    2) Photographers have moved from selling physical stock images and rights at a rate $5,000 per image and up to .25 to $20 per image on micro stock sites.

    The three major economic factors that are impacting these changes are:

    A) Vastly more consumer/producers joining the content production fray as production barriers drop. This creates exponentially more competing product across a wide variety of content forms and genres for any consumer to choose from. A world of plenty reduces market tolerance for over-pricing.

    B) Vastly reduced cost to distribute ( each additional “album” or “novel” costs so little to produce/distribute that we can barely measure the money in micro fractions of cents).

    D) Large volumes of perceived “free” distribution or “free content” produced by talented amateurs. These are free after the sunk cost of computer/internet/electricity. They can be had for no additional cost.

    My own firm deals with this reality daily. We invested millions of dollars and 20 years of human labor into building software that would sell for far higher pricing just a few years ago. Yet, the market demands mean we have to charge a small fraction of the cost/worth of the product. We also had to give it away for years to gain traction. Had we not lowered the price to the new reality of our market, we would be out of business.

    If musicians really want to stop piracy, they need to match price to market reality. The fair price of a song is the point where people will pay for it and not pirate it. Authors have found it, photographers have found it. While there will always be “superstars” who can charge a premium, the majority of the bell curve has to charge the fair market price that includes all reductions in cost and infrastructure and all changes to the competitive content landscape. It also has to account for the downward price pressure constantly exerted by millions of content producers who will simply offer their music for free, because they want to share their music and don’t rely on it for income.

    We’re likely looking at 5-10 cents per song, which has its own challenges due to payment processing. Regardless of that challenge, or the shift in expectations that must occur, the shift in market reality is not a moral question. It is a simple supply/demand/competition reality.

    1. “The morality of whether or not an artist should be paid for content is irrelevant to the economics. Markets don’t care. Markets simply function within vaguely predictable ranges of outcomes.”

      Actually it isn’t. You should think about this harder.

      Also given that one of the main points is why do we let technology (read markets) dictate principals and morality instead of the other way around, give this is one of the main points your response is funny. thanks.

      1. You’re going to have a flurry of comments to deal with so I don’t expect a fully formed response. However, “think about this harder” is not quite as robust as your original argument. 🙂 As for technology equating markets, they are not the same, although tech does facilitate and influence markets by changing fundamental mechanisms and altering the business cycle.

        In fact, without technology, there would be no possible way to charge someone for a recording of music and no radio to promote. All musicians would be compensated only for live performance with no economy of scale to create significant financial gain from being a successful artist. So, just as we let tech completely dictate the business model of music previously, the new reality of tech fundamentally alters that business model. The only reason an album could cost as much as it did is that the barrier to entry for production and distribution from a capital expense standpoint was so high. That barrier is now dramatically lower, so the retail price of the product needs to reflect the new technological reality. Live by the sword. . .

        The market participants who do not adapt to the change, be they producers or middle men like the record companies, will cease to be in business. The transition is painful and inevitable.

      2. Mr. Lowery should have ended his post after listing the items that today’s youth spend extra on for moral reasons. His economic argument, void of a free market context, only bolsters the immoral reasoning youth use today to illegally download music.

        Technology has always dictated morality, since the beginning of time. So we need to progress the discussion beyond that. Mr. Lowery’s post has proven that youth are willing to spend money, now it’s time for artist to devise a more profitable way to market their art.

      3. It absolutely is. Yeah, aggregately, millions of people “control” the market, but you and I can’t just sit here and define the impacts that technology, economic conditions, culture, and other variables will have upon the how the market will ultimately define what is and is not an acceptable price point for a particular good. You’re right, the market shouldn’t dictate the way we approach the world from a moral standpoint, but you are also presuming that morality is A. static, and B. completely justified from your perspective. What if I believe that it is a greater moral crime to support record labels and distribution media with 85 cents on my dollar to propagate a broken business model than to give artists a meager 15 cents? You’re basically saying “I want my money, and don’t give a shit who you have to support to get it to me, because you’re in the wrong by not adhering to the status quo model.”

        I think you should think harder about that perspective.

      5. I think Mr. Ford’s argument is spot on and shouldn’t be dismissed off hand. This is a matter of changing markets, not morals or ethics. As someone that has worked in the business of labor for most of my career, I feel like this is reminicient of a doomed “buy American” campaign. Yes in a world of morality we should all be willing to pay a dollar or two extra to keep our neighbors from getting that pink slip from the small appliance factory on the other side of town. But markets don’t run on morals.

        There are many positives of the technology of digital reproduction that are lost in this discussion – the long tail theory being the most notable absence. Two evenings ago I caught a clip of a Beth Neilsen Chapman song in a movie and was able to download the album from Amazon the moment that movie was over. 15 years ago I would not hold out much hope that the Goodies in my town would stock a 15 year old album of a not quite top 40 contemporary artist.

        That being said, Mr. Ford is completely on point when he states that the expected of the marginal utility of the product in general is close to zero (and possibly negative when factoring transaction costs.) The music industry is better served attempting to control any of the variables it can (tightening guild regs to prevent oversupply, broadening the customer base as a way to increase revenue, offer superior differentiated product via preferred online retailers etc.) Trying to campaign to change consumer behavior is unfortunately a fools errand.

        Its also worth examining why the marginal value of studio produced music is zero. It almost feels in someways like a throwback to a by-gone era. I bought a Counting Crows album of cover songs last month and it conjured up a mental image of a dutch master painting a family portrait for a wealthy patron. It might as well be a found relic of the 1600s. The entertainment market today is flooded with multisensory inherently social “experience” products…video games, alternate reality media, social experiences…neither you nor I may like it, but that is the market. An artist seeking stardom may do better courting the devs of the next Tony Hawk release for PS3 (is that still cool?) than they are a record label. No one will pay $9.99 for an album they know they’ll never sit and actually experience because they are too busy “multi-tasking.” Offering the same product to a totally different market is the golden recipe for revenue decline. People want to share their instagrams, not their Vermeers. The challenge for the music industry will be how to enhance the experience of the product to make people want to purchase it.

        And if its attractive…they will purchase it. In droves. One thing we’ve never had a lack of in this, the richest nation on earth, is consumer spending. What the market is trying to say is that its all mostly meh. I think of it like Facebook – since its free I’ll play – but (like most everyone else) I really don’t care about 90% of my so called “friends” making certain models of monetization (ie subscription fees) impossible. And yet – its still got a decent market cap for a free product. That’s just an example of course – but no one is trying to clutch to a cultural historical significance of buying an email inbox for AOL for $12/mo.

        I’m just saying, don’t blame Emily for being rational. And I certainly don’t blame you for having your perspective. Trust me, my industry is -poof!- gone too and it stinks. If you are entering an economic market trying to become, as Leonard Cohen put it, a worker in song…either in the front or back the traditional road will be a hard one. But if y’all could just get to an uneasy truce, I still think there’s a ton of money and music to still be made.

    2. Tony,
      You make an interesting point, my interpretation of which is that music as a download is not worth what it costs. On Amazon I can often buy an album on mp3 for £7.99, or buy the CD for the same price! Often a secondhand CD can be had for next to nothing. I’m a CD person, but if I was looking at the value of an mp3, with its inferior sound quality, lack of packaging, no resale value etc etc, I would say that it should be a markedly cheaper option, perhaps £1.50 for the album. The record companies are trying to sell you nothing for something, against a background of a generation who wants something for nothing.

  322. David,

    Amidst the cloud of comments, I don’t expect you to see this one but I figured I’d give it a shot.

    I used to think this was a bad vs good moral thing… but I’ve moved past that. I now view the whole intellectual property theft thing as merely a market equilibrium thing. Whether we agree or not, music and artists are overpriced. The market cannot bear the weight, so crime has blossomed as a natural extension. This is true for any market scenario, for any product or commodity. If you overprice oil, crime goes up, wars start, countries go crazy, etc. If you overprice houses, people lie on their applications, appraisers lie about the values, banks look the other way, look at the mess we are in. The market is simply trying to “tell us” that music just ain’t-all-that. So there’s the big corps still trying to prop it up on one side and hopeful artists hoping they can make a living.. and just as fast the market is pulling it down on the other side.

    Am I wrong? (p.s. I don’t personally pirate music, I listen to the radio, and buy what I like).

    1. In 2012 dollars the beatles albums would have been 40 bucks. albums in 1998 were listing at $16-$18 ($22 ish in 2012) Sales were higher then than now when albums are $9.99.

      1. That response proves nothing – it doesn’t mean that any of the prices you mentioned there is justifiable based on market conditions for the product you receive. Again, these things don’t occur in a vacuum – sales were obviously higher in 1998 because the music industry had a nice, tight funneled control on distribution. Today, they don’t have this funnel, and the market price for music is likely substantially less than the $9.99. The market price may be as low as $5 per album.

      2. Could it be that with the dearth of available options (as opposed to Beatles-era when music in general had far less readily available variety) people were willing to pay more? His argument makes perfect sense to me.

      3. David, I don’t understand your reply. Doesn’t the fact that albums cost more in 1998 than now prove the Bill’s point. I wrote another reply about this before seeing this exchange. Price go up and down based on availability, among other things. With the birth of the internet, music/media is very very available. When labels controlled LP & CD production, there was a scarcity and prices were higher (not to mention it actually required more resources to produce a CD than a file). Lots of things go down in price as availability changes. Salt used to be like money, now it’s a “cheap as chips”. Hand written books used to be available only to nobles and church elders (before the printing press), films used to be only viewable in movie theaters using large reels of film that cost hundreds of dollars and projectors that cost thousands. Now I can watch a film on my computer on Netflix. Of course I don’t want to pay the same as when I had to go to theater to see it. 1998 prices are based on a monopoly. The internet has broken the monopoly and everyone is still trying to figure out how to put it back together in some sensible form.

        I think everyone should read “How to Fix Copyright” by William Patry.

      5. Yes it is all a conspiracy. What he says does not matter, only that he works (currently) for google. He has been writing about and working in copyright for many years. What he says makes sense to me.

    2. Overpriced? Some maybe. I charge 10 euros for my album. I wrote, performed and produced it myself. I paid for the CDs to be reproduced, the packaging to be created – a nice 6 panel digipak. I worked for months on this. Am I asking too much for 18 original songs? Or should I be expected to give them away? 10 lousy euros, and people still want it for free. I’d rather starve to death.

    3. @Bill Cushman,

      I tend to agree that music is overpriced in the general market place. As a label, we have consistently gamed iTunes to find price equilibrium, the greatest number of sales at the lowest price point yielding the maximum or close to maximum revenue.

      This response can also serve as a response to the snarky question from someone seeking 20 cent downloads on iTunes. We offer them. We have 20+ track collections selling at the $3.99 price point in the USA and as low as $2 in foreign territories. We’re at iTunes’ lowest price point for single downloads – 69 cents, which the customer invariably later reclaims as they buy the rest of the album and receive a credit.

      Due to U.S. mechanical licensing constraints it can be ruinous to go as low as my dream price of $1.99. In fact, our pending re-issue of the 1981 “Music For Teenage Sex” album by Baby Buddha will be available worldwide, EXCEPT the USA as it contains too many cover songs and I don’t want to deal with the internet’s morality police.

      Once again, there are low cost alternatives to iTunes and Amazon. But “cost” is not “free”.

  323. David,

    Thank you for a thought-provoking article. I would like to add a somewhat divergent perspective, while still applauding you for stimulating debate. I will dive in with a few thoughts and comments that come to mind.

    The two personal stories you present are sophistry, whether intentional or not. The fact is that correlating suicide, depression and struggles with addiction with illegal downloading is a stretch at best and highly manipulative. I appreciate that your friends’ struggles have had a marked effect upon you, but the issues involved are much deeper. If this country focused more on true quality of life and less on consumerism and profits, we would have better health care and better understanding and resources for mental health. If our country had focused on actual evidenced-based drug policies, rather than draconian war-based metaphors and the creation of a massive law enforcement and prison economy, humane treatment for addiction would be much farther advanced.

    What has actually happened is that America’s corporate profiteering and cynicism has finally come home to roost. Please remember that this is the same music industry which:

    1. Consistently censors “obscene” language, editing musical works of art for public performance.
    2. Frequently pressures artists to change album art to make it more palatable to the major retailers, such as Walmart.
    3. Degraded the medium of radio into the mindless churning of heavy rotation formats aimed merely at selling advertising and disposable musical product.
    4. Engaged in numerous shady practices around these advances you refer to, including racking up inflated expenses for engineers, studio time, producers etc.
    5. Saddled many artists with producers and other company watchdogs to interfere with the creative process for corporate interests.
    6. Constantly remarketed/reformatted/remastered the same material for revenue purposes, often creating a technically inferior product.
    7. Inadequately promoted freshman albums, derailing promising young careers.

    And that is just off the top of my head.

    The paradigm is changing and the issues are complex. Obviously, the entitled teen or twenty-something that rattles off a shallow justification like “record companies rip off artists…” has put very little thought into the actual issue. Yet, this generation is a direct product of a society that greatly undervalued many artists who you and I can name, not to mention those who were great but undiscovered. The life of artists and musicians is difficult; they belong to a bohemian underclass that suffers from many of the afflictions of any underclass, plus others unique to their specific subculture.

    I would also like to raise a few other points:

    1. Musicians pirate too. Distribution of culture is something much greater than the mere sale of mechanical product. Mixtapes, bootlegs, simple cassettes from vinyl and now MP3 torrents circulate amongst musicians and music lovers. I also mention in passing the “tapeheads” of Grateful Dead culture. From those who love the Dead, I understand these recordings are a much truer representation.
    2. Digital distribution is fraught with unnecessary complexity created by corporate agendas. From the annoying DRM issues and the low resolution of iTunes MP3s to the almost bizarre lock in attempt by these media purveyors. Do I commit myself to a iReality: buying from, playing on equipment by and storing with one corporation? That is a far cry from picking up a record from your local record store, playing it on your Dual turntable with a Shure cartridge, through a Marantz system. It smacks of unwholesome monopolies.
    3. Misuse of copyright law (despite your upcoming arguments) has contributed to people’s cynicism. There is the obvious example of Mickey Mouse, but also the unfortunate reaction to sampling that happened in the ‘90s. The viciously capitalist reaction to perfectly legitimate original works utilizing sampling had nothing to do with IP and more to do with money.

    In the larger sense, I think these dilemmas are the natural offshoot of a society that lost its way on many fronts before this current issue. We have created ultimate consumers, and now technology has enabled them to circumvent certain of the mechanics of industry. Our society failed to emphasize the true intrinsic value of creative output and we are seeing the ramifications.

    For example, PBS produced a wonderful documentary series, called the History of Rock and Roll. It is no longer available, even though it should probably be used in schools worldwide. Even the YouTube version that became available has had the audio removed from certain episodes. This series could do nothing but create new fans for old catalogue or, more importantly, broaden the horizons of music lovers.

    We live in a society where musicians, writers and artists are not venerated and supported, that spends millions on political media campaigns, cuts music and art programs to the bone in schools and makes the cost of further education prohibitive to all but the wealthy. You should not be surprised if the rarefied evolutionary result of decades of cutthroat consumer culture is a wholly new breed.

  324. Pingback: Many fits of rage were had over the reading of these three articles…. | Alix Reads Too Much

  325. David, I’m still curious: how do we fight the signal-to-noise ratio of free? There’s so much free stuff being given away, some of which is really quite good, that it seems an affront to ask people to pay for music nowadays. As I’ve transitioned from music blogger to managing two bands, I’m caught in the vacuum of free and trying to rally the troops in favor of the “temporarily free” model. To break a new artist these days seems to require them to give something away for free — not the whole house, but maybe the sink. If it catches on, great. If not, too bad.

    What do we say to Billy Corgan here who seems to think we have to give it all away?

    http://mashable.com/2012/05/01/billy-corgan-revolution/

  326. Great post, David. I’m glad to see it’s reaching so many people. I’m trying to make my writer friends see that this applies to us as well – or, it will, as publishing moves more into the digital realm. Thank you for your insights.

  327. You hit the nail on the head here. This is almost the perfect response to folks with this mentality. Well done!!!

  329. I’m stunned at how many replies/posts here have actually used “I can’t afford all this music” as a justification to download.

    One’s inability to pay for something doesn’t justify taking it/stealing it. There is no other part of our commerce system that allows this to happen, but people seem to think it’s just fine when it’s done to artists, musicians (and increasingly, writers).

    The perceived success of the artist, or the perception of how much money he/she/they are making, should not be factors, either.

    1. Further, it’s crap. The person in question could afford the bright and shiny gizmo to which she downloads….as well as, I am quite sure, every new incarnation of technology or, at least, updating to said gizmo. It’s a choice. If you really can’t afford it, then you shouldn’t have it.

      I really do not understand, at any level of my being, the character of the person who feels entitled to enjoy the fruits of another’s labors and talent without paying for it.

      The oft repeated snark that musicians should just be happy that people like their music is especially infuriating.

      With the ability to put any content at all our on the web (including blogs and forums like this!), there has come a tendency for anyone who writes something on Facebook to perceive himself as a writer; anyone who plays air guitar on You Tube to consider herself a musician; anyone who posts video to think of himself as a filmmaker. And thus it’s all equivalent, all fair game, no qualitative difference in value. It’s bogus nonsense, of course; my little cousin the freeloader may be flattered when people see his lameass movies online, but flattery is cold comfort to the real artist who produces film or music or writing or visual art as his real work, and needs to make a living.

      If you enjoy their work–watch it or listen to it or read it–you NEED TO PAY FOR IT. Otherwise you are no better than a thief. Sorry, but that’s the word for it.

  330. The practical issue here is how to compensate artists in this modern world. It might be satisfying to shame each individual who confesses to obtaining digital music without paying for it, but I wouldn’t invest too much capital in that business model.

    Broadly, we’re in a world where the only argument in favor of paying for digital music is the moral one. I’m not saying that it _shouldn’t_ be persuasive, just that it hasn’t been, at least for a lot of people. Likewise, I do think that artists deserve the right to charge what they want for their work and to sell it in the manner that they like, but the preferred model is, for obvious reasons, having a lot of trouble competing against FREE. I think that it’s wrong and unfortunate that artists need to compete against FREE, but that seems unlikely to change.

    What bugged me about this post is the condemnation of the “free culture” people. I consider myself one of them, but I also believe that piracy is wrong and that artists deserve to be compensated for their work. One idea that I’ve always liked is a tax on computer hardware and other platforms that tend to be used to copy songs, with the revenues distributed to artists. Strictly based on politics, such a scheme probably won’t come around, but there are other solutions. Finding a way to make a Spotify-type service work for artists (I know that they are terribly compensated by Spotify right now) seems most promising.

    I believe that this post gets the moral argument completely right, but I suspect that winning the practical argument would be better for artists and more conducive to their continued creativity.

  331. Hey David, Thank you for the well-written article.
    I am a musician myself. Let me start light by saying I’ve bought many CDs in the past, and once those CDs become scratched and unplayable, I do not believe it is fair for me to pay for the same music again (even though I have, sometimes 2-3 times, after the CD gets worn out, because it’s certainly my responsibility to take care of those CDs, I guess I’m just messy sometimes lol)
    Up to this point in time, I’ve recorded 8 albums at home, that I’ve got paid next to nothing for them. I am willing to share my music openly to those who cannot afford it. But I know a person is probably lying if they are telling me on their laptop that they cannot afford a $5-10 music album that I’ve worked very hard on. For one of my albums, I found a way to put it on itunes, I was told it would be a one time payment, and the album would remain on itunes, and that I would receive 100% of the royalties because of this payment. Sadly, I got paid very little of those royalties when my friends supported me, and then later I found out my music album was removed from itunes (I suppose businesses change their terms of “service” at will these days to generate more revenue and save a couple bucks? I’m not sure, to be honest)
    For the next album I did after this one, I decided to host a personal website (with a monthly fee), and when I released the EP I worked very hard on. A couple people supported me, to whom I am very thankful to. But I could not keep up with the cost of running the site monthly, so I had to watch that dream also fade away from me.
    After this, I decided I would share all my music for free, just to get the awareness out there of the work I was doing. A few listened and downloaded my complete discography at that point, but I guess they didn’t like seeing that I was ‘giving up’ on getting money for my work, when really in truth it was they who never had the time to send me $10 for the albums it took me months and months, and a lot of work, frustration, tears, and feelings of devastation to finally get to a point where the albums were completed.
    I am musician. I do not see myself working being or working as something other than that, and my family and closest friends are aware of this and support me fully on this choice (or calling) I have made an agreement with.
    I rely on playing music now in order to make money, so I can either download the music from the internet for free, or have no access to listening to the music I’d like to, IF there are not enough people willing to purchase my music. I do own a macbook, it’s pretty beat up, but it works. So I am not in denial about, you know, owning lots of expensive stuff and not being aware of it. Last week, I sold my electric guitar so that I could buy a set of headphones that I really liked, and I guess needed to listen to music (because being happy was a very important priority at the moment). I had lost my job and apartment on the same day.
    I honestly do not really care where morality falls into play here anymore. I am going to be honest and clear and come out and say that in the past I have attempted to take my life, because the unfairness of all this has just been so overwhelming at times. I’ve come to a point where I’m starting to hate when people say ‘I love your music’. It just feels like a lie to me. If you love my music then for the love of God, help me. Your words are nice, but maybe express your love through the actions of supporting what it is you love. (and yes, I do mean money).
    Hopefully this testimony helps.
    Cheers.

    – James

  332. I’ve always felt like it’s my own fault, but I used to cherish music much more when I had to pay for it and I couldn’t have or listen to anything I want. I remember going into record stores when I was in high school (maybe 1995) and finding and buying a vinyl copy of Daniel Johnston/Jad Fair Album. It was special and a surprise to find. Maybe I’m spoiled as a NYC kid, who could get lots more stuff, but I imagine there was a lot more regional pride and support of local labels and bands. At this point I feel completely overwhelmed by the choices and volume of music I could listen to. I’m feeling old. The last of the pre-internet generation. -Jack Lewis (bro to Jeff)

    1. I guess I should add, I don’t buy much music, or even download much. I just don’t get much music new or old. And I miss it. I’ve been making my living playing in a small cult’ish indie band (Jeff Lewis band) for 10 years. I see the only way we survive is on the road. I wish it wasn’t the case. I know many other acts who just can’t tour all the time, or aren’t that good a live act.

  333. Start an Occupy group to take this on? You’d think that happily giving tons of money to MegaTech for shiny new devices every 18 months without paying for downloads would earn you a scarlet letter under the Millennials’ new paradigm, but no. Hey, if they can be convinced that buying local and wearing hemp clothing is good for society, then maybe we can also convince them that fair trade for music exists along that same continuum.

  334. This article is spot on. It saddens me that so many people are keen to devalue something they claim means so much to them. And despite what some apologists say, there really is no excuse for downloading or ripping an album ‘to see if I like it’. Most legal download sites will let you listen to clips of the tracks, and many albums are streamed in whole or in part on sites like YouTube or SoundCloud. It’s actually never been easier to try before you buy. So, music fans – if you like what you hear, and you want to own it, buy it. Music is not even expensive to buy: $1 for a song that you get to keep and enjoy as many times as you like for as long as you like, is a bargain.

    It baffles me, as an artist, that a music fan would happily fork out for a t-shirt or a gig ticket, but not an album. You might see an artist live a handful of times, but listen to their album hundreds of times. If the music became unplayable and the t-shirt became unwearable, which would you mourn the most? For me, the recorded music is what takes the most effort to produce, and, as a fan, what gives the most pleasure. So it stands to reason that recorded music should be the main source of income for an artist.

    To those who shrug and say ‘well that’s just how the world is’, I’m sorry, but that’s not really good enough. People made the situation how it is, and people can make it different. Starting by realising that there is a human being on the other side of the tracks they love to listen to. The alternative is that many artists become unable to make ends meet and thus unable to make new music. This is something no music fan should want.

    To those who have claimed that copying isn’t theft: selling digital music is essentially charging a person to make a copy of your track for their use and enjoyment. The copyright notice on musical works makes clear that the only person able to make or authorise copies of the track is the copyright holder. So if you make a copy without permission (including without paying), you are stealing. Just because something can be copied, does not make it valueless. That is why copyright laws were enacted in the first place.

  335. A Fairy Tale:

    There is a farmer and a fruit stand. The Sunny Farm Corporation owns the fruit stand, in fact it owns all the fruit stands around. The farmer offers 100 apples to Sunny which says, “Sure, we’ll give you a nickel for each apple WE SELL, but you will have to donate 50 apples first for the upkeep of our fancy fruit stand.”

    “Fine, says the farmer.”

    The Sunny Farms fruit stand sells apples for $2 apiece and $1 for a small slice, and sales are slow. When they close for the weekend, they LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN. Little Emily comes along and says, “Yummy, apples!” and takes one.

    This happens with lots of little Emilys and before the stand opens again, all the apples are gone!

    “Sorry,” says Sunny Farms to the farmer, we couldn’t sell your apples.

    Now, of course, all the little Emilys are bad for taking an apple, but who has actually screwed the farmer?

  337. Downloading music and not paying for it is wrong, let me be clear. But I think what partly feeds into the downloading issue is the way the record companies handle it. Stong-arm tactics/Lawsuits against people that can not afford lawyers leaves a bad taste for many people, it certainly can’t be helping PR on a broad scale.

    also what i don’t understand is that you rarely, if ever, hear youtube mentioned in the debate. every song imaginable is on youtube. yet, any web based converter, of which there are probably hundreds, can turn that youtube link into an mp3. sure, it’s not whole albums downloaded at one time, but neither was the original napster. A lot of artists are putting their own music on youtube, you would think they’d be aware that someone could turn that into an mp3 in a few clicks. This has always just interested me, I’d be curious to know what umbrella this would fall under legally? same as torrents, different??

  338. And in regards to Lefsetz response (http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2012/06/18/the-david-lowery-screed/) to this I just came across, I disagree with premise of “Most people don’t want to hear your music.” It’s a question of exposure. I’ve never heard of either one of you until yesterday btw.

    And as poorly written (especially in tone) as that article is, we are akin in thought. Especially in that “We’re in the midst of a wrenching transition. Anybody who says they know where it’s gonna end up is just plain wrong. But one thing’s for sure, we’re not gonna be where we started.”

    This is the crux of most discussions I have with musicians when it comes to pirating – what was working needs to evolve. Gov’t Mule’s Mule Tracks (http://www.livedownloads.com/music/4,119/Govt-Mule-mp3-flac-alac-downloads.html) or similar sites like for Phish are excellent examples. The weird roll out of Bjork’s Biophilia and integration of apps is an interesting example. The basic preceding question then is how does an artist get to this point? How does an artist that is basically unknown get their kickstarter or artistshare projects funded?

    I don’t have answers, but I think they are out there in various forms… maybe the return of the single and destruction of albums save for the grandiose nature of the classic concept or double album. Maybe it is even a rebirth of the gigging musician and endless tours? Who knows…

    I do think these discussions in jazz and classical circles are the precursor to music as a whole. And in the end I think it comes down to expectations of the artist and listener buy in.

  339. I released a Camper Van Beethoven box set via spinART (my label) – I like David. My concern is not with his point – artist’s music has value and they should be properly compensated. – it’s that many of the statements he makes are not accurate thereby undermining his credibility.

    Previously, artists were not rolling money. Most were not allowed it into the system by the gatekeepers. Of those that were, on the major labels, over 98% of them failed. Of the 2% that succeed less than a half percent of those ever got paid a band royalty ever.

    How in the world is an artist making at least something, no matter how small, worse than 99% of the world’s unsigned artists making nothing and of the 1% signed, less than a half a percent of them making a single band royalty ever?

    Finally, as much as I hate to say it, being an artist does not entitle the artist to get money. They have to earn it. And not everyone can …

    Next, there are some things stated by David that factually false.

    David talks about royalty advances to artists. What he fails to mention is that the artist uses their own advance to record the masters and then assign ownership or control of the masters to the label. The artist does not “own” the thing they created. If they do recoup the advance, they do not get back the right to their masters. In addition, the majority of the advance goes into recordings, not into the artist’s pockets (with rare rare exception). Managers, and in some cases, lawyers, also take a % of the advance as a “fee”. Now add to this that labels include marketing, video and tour expenses as part of an advance that needs to be recouped.

    David states artist that self release are not “real” record labels”. Someone better tell Civil Wars there are not a “real” – over 3 million units sold as their own label.

    David states: “… artists would make up the loss through recorded music sales.” This line is just flat out false. Artists never expected to make money from recorded music sales as they never recouped their advances. They expected to make it via gigs, merch, endorsements and other income streams.

    David states that over the last..” 12 years I’ve watched revenue flowing to artists collapse”.

    This is empirically false. Revenue to labels has collapsed. Revenue to artists has gone up with more artists making more money now than at any time in history – the question is, is it enough.

    David states: “Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.”

    And volume is up over 10,000%. The Net revenue into an artist’s pocket off the sale of recorded music is up over 700%. As one example, a band royalty on a $17.98 CD was around $1.40. If an artist sells just two songs on iTunes they make the same.

    David then states: “Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies.”

    People dont buy 8-tracks anymore either but this does not mean there is a problem with the industry. This statistic shows how consumers shifted how they consume and buy music from albums to individual tracks or streams.

    David then states: “10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists begin to go into the black on professional album production, marketing and promotion.

    Not true. Flat out and dead wrong in the new music industry.

    David then states: “On a personal level, I have witnessed the impoverishment of many critically acclaimed but marginally commercial artists.”

    This may be true. As the music industry model changed, those few that may have benefitted in the old model got hurt in the process.

    I agree with the point that music has value, but David needs the right ammo to fight the battle.

    Jeff Price
    TuneCore

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  342. I made a comment pointing out that you are wrongly blaming “Free Culture” for this problem, when “Free Culture” has resulted in the Creative Commons licenses used by Bandcamp and Soundcloud, which have probably done far more to tackle the problem than this sort of ranting ever will.

    That comment was not approved. While this is your blog, I think this sort of censorship in place of admitting a mistake shows how vindictive the supposed “artist defenders” can be. Apparently as an artist not only my opinion, but the facts I bring to light don’t matter because they don’t fall in line with the reactionary status quo.

    http://www.free-culture.cc/

    ^ This is where Free Culture comes from, essentially. It is not consistent with your strawman at all.

  343. As a 26 year old, I will admit to having pirated music…. before i actually had a job. As soon as I had disposable income, I began actually purchasing music on a very regular basis. The only thing I pirate now is music i cannot buy. I will make extraordinary effort to find some way to buy the music from the artist before I revert to needing to pirate it. and even then, I will try and buy SOMETHING of theirs to help support them.

    I can understand when kids who don’t pay $2000+ for their toys don’t get that not spending their allowance on music does affect the music industry.

    thank you for this wonderful article.

  344. Wow! What a great article. I’m actually a bit more of a book person than a music person, and this totally brings to mind $1 downloadable books.

  346. not that I disagree but availability is a major factor here. not all artists are available through “convenient” music store and if they are, there still might be limitations regarding your location. A lot of labels can’t distribute in every country due to legal issues (just like movies) which delay releases and makes things inconvenient. torrent and filesharing make everything available everywhere for everybody, in an instant.

  348. I do not know or understand how artists are compensated. But can someone explain to me why so many artists encourage their fans to listen to their music on Spotify? (i.e. @GracePotter & @dirtyheads on Twitter in the last 24 hours)

  349. Yes I did read your article. Perhaps you could have taken far less time to read my simple comment. You title the section “So let’s go back and look at what it would have cost you to ethically and legally support the artists” but then you analize costs based on 20 cents a song. I realize you are only talking about the artists share but…

    EXPLAIN HOW TO LEGALLY BUY MUSIC FOR JUST 20 CENTS A SONG BY ONLY PAYING THE ARTIST(S)??????? It isn’t possible. Most music is around $1.00 a song. So for her to have done this ethically and legally, which is what you titled this section, she would have paid at least $11,0000 or $100 a month.

    I realize only a portion goes to the artists but YOU CAN’T JUST PAY THE ARTISTS. You have to pay everyone.

    NEXT

  350. Pingback: My Quiet Life » a response to this guy’s response to this other thing on the internet

  351. Hi David,

    I do appreciate your article and understand your lament but, I think it’s not a proper counterpoint to Emily White’s article.

    I, like most of the commentators on this page, read your response prior to her article and approached her article with a bit of partiality. When I read her article though, I also read the article she was commenting on…Did you?

    Her article was a commentary on her generation’s preference to owning music digitally over physically.

    In reading her article, I find little evidence to support the accusations of of her being a “music pirate”. Except for some gifting and trading when she was young…and radio promos…(she is working as an intern at a radio station, nothing wrong with that….part of the perks for not getting paid, eh…) she gives the impression that the music she owns has been purchased and/or otherwise legally downloaded…

    She states the following… inflammatory if taken out of context, no doubt…

    “I’ve only bought 15 CDs in my lifetime. Yet, my entire iTunes library exceeds 11,000 songs.”

    “I wish I could say I miss album packaging and liner notes and rue the decline in album sales the digital world has caused. But the truth is, I’ve never supported physical music as a consumer. As monumental a role as musicians and albums have played in my life, I’ve never invested money in them aside from concert tickets and T-shirts.”

    “But I didn’t illegally download (most) of my songs. ”

    “But I honestly don’t think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience”

    In the context of her article, I concluded the following…physical music (LPs, CDs,cassettes, etc…)is of no interest to her, it takes up physical space…she, and her generation have little to no interest in accommodating this, or liner notes, credits, album art or physically experiencing the product of music media. She prefers to pay for downloads of individual songs by the artist and not the albums as a whole, kinda like back in the 60’s when everyone bought singles.

    What is sad about her article is that in removing the physical from the purchase, there is less appreciation/respect/understand of the tangibility of the art and it’s creative process. There is a removal of connection with the performer’s art and struggle.

    You don’t like a song, you delete it and it’s gone…

    I will admit that, perhaps, she should have contemplated the (understandable) reaction to her choice of title for her article…maybe she did…at least it has restarted a dialogue…

    I am looking forward to her response…

  352. Counter-culture has committed cannibalism! As the artist generated ideal of individualism over corporate cronyism has grown, it seems to have turned on its very creator and consumed his wealth.

    This is another lesson in being careful for what you ask for because you might get it. In this instance the youth were asked by people in this very industry (entertainment) to rise up and be free from corporate ideals and that most things should be “free”.

    I don’t disagree with the OP here, I just believe that the artist layer inside the entertainment industry is in complete denial here because they are the very people that pushed these ideals of sticking it to the man in the first place. At the very least the OP realized that this is an issue for individuals and personal morality and not a government issue (see SOPA)

    I guess what goes around comes around.

  353. David, Thanks for posting this. My favorite line in this letter is “Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!”
    Ultimately, I think this may be the best argument for getting today’s youth on board.

  354. @Kolby Manning regarding your comment that anyone can make a record on their computer, etc. Try making this on your computer. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/miriamswell4. This would not be possible.
    And musicians who make albums with musicians keep musicians employed. Playing music is different from using a drum machine and loops etc. Having a real drummer, a real space to record in, a real vibe in the room to create real music together is part of what we do and in turn, also keeps us alive. I just disagree w/ your point of view. But I am glad you still have the right to voice it. I have the right to get paid for my art. It is copyrighted. And I own that copyRight.

  355. Pingback: why should it be free? | Cellolady's Blog

  356. Emily,

    You should make sure that David Lowery knows how grateful you are (or should be) for his extremely thoughtful and detailed comment to your blog. He was actually way more kind than you deserve. Intellectual property is just that – “property”. It belongs to the person or persons who created it. Taking it without permission (which generally includes compensation) is STEALING, plain & simple…We often find things that are quite “convenient” or easy to STEAL. That doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s still STEALING… And this is even worse, because it affects the artist (or the “little guy” in relative terms) directly.
    I disagree with David, in that you should most definitely be ASHAMED! If you have any conscience at all, you will abandon this ridiculous discussion of trying to justify STEALING, and change your habits immediately…..and be thankful that someone hasn’t come to arrest you like a common shoplifter. You should also do everything in your power to influence those around you to change their habits as well.

    Bill Cool / Charleston, SC

  358. I completely agree and it is a tremendous shame that artists have to struggle with this do much. By the same token, Emily is almost certainly not being paid for her work at NPR. The same goes for almost any young person pursuing anything other than tech or finance. I certainly see the struggle in convincing someone in her position to pay for someone else’s work while everyone seems entirely comfortable not paying her for hers.

  359. Pingback: Music Industry Quixotism (Or Why Emily White Is Right, And David Lowery Is wrong)

  360. Thank you for an articulate and well researched piece. I am afraid that my response will be somewhat less so. I would like to primarily respond to your question “I’m open to suggestions on this.” and note that despite having read something on the order of 300 comments do not see much in the way of constructive suggestion here. While I can not offer a panacea i will toss out a suggestion or 2.

    First i would like to suggest that the problem has precedents and is deeply rooted in the human psyche. Socrates wrote a piece on why people are just, concluding that it was almost entirely enlightened self-interest (pointing to repercussions in the beyond). More recently research has shown that the liklihood of being caught is a far more significant deterrent than severity of the punishment. Until there are better ways of catching digital theft it is unlikely to abet significantly.

    Historically, artists of every stripe have not made out particularly well financially, nor have those whose work is the intellect: authors, philosophers, teachers, researchers…. On the other hand, we set our own hours, do work that we like and find rewarding, do not have to wear a suit or follow someone else’s agenda… There are other rewards. Am I suggesting that this justifies not paying artists, or not paying artists reasonably well? Resoundingly no, but my feeling is that we live in a shallower time than most, where many if not most are middle men with little to offer, making money piggybacking on other people’s work and/ or content. There is not a simple “fix” for this. A good many people seem to think they should be compensated for penning a link. This is a broad social problem and reflects the values and mores of our time.

    Back to the point at hand; what can be done? I;d suggest that this is a social issue. Many commentators noted that people are more likely to be chastised for not participating in the mass theft than the other way around. As you pointed out, it’s a generation which has been mobilized against other abuses, maybe (as Richard Dawkins is trying to do in another area) it can be changed with a meme? While I do not believe people should receive applause for doing what they ought to do, perhaps feeling like an outcast or outright pariah would do something. That, however rests on personal and social conscience (which may exist, may be changed).
    More concrete is the carrot/ stick approach. What if you could not buy a ticket or band merchandise without a numbered, watermarked stub which was enclosed with the cd (or digital download?) I suspect the venues, merchants, whose business rests on (a band’s) content might support that.
    Some, who produce posters, t-shirts, might even do pretty well supporting a propagating a more socially responsible meme.

    Before I get trounced with the “poor student” argument, or “need to sample” i will point out that there were many many students before you, most of slim means (and we all paid for our entertainment). You can sample music at legitimate download sites. That is an option which did not exist for those before you.

    While I feel as thought i have gone on too long already, I;d like to add a plea that the music industry does not go where MPIA has gone. I have not bought a movie in years because it would require me to replace perfectly good equipment to enjoy something I just bought (while i suspect that those who illegally download have a work-around for hdmi). it is a solution which penalizes legitimate customers more, if not exclusively.

    My fginal suggestion would be what you have done, and what i am responding to: engage the community in a conversation (keep it on topic). Why are we talking about how OK (or not) it is to steal from musician rather than discussing the original question, how we stop it? and also point out that we are already seeing watered-down content: serialized e-books and novellas, art which goes direct to poster or postcard. If you do not compensate people for their time, ideas, effort they will put it elsewhere. The other alternative? Maybe we will return to the days of the court jester where only the elite can afford entertainment.

  362. There is a HUGE difference between owning/investing in an artist, and just having his/her album in your streaming queue on Spotify. I’ve found that the older I get the more I want to support and invest my money in the things that matter the most to me. If an artist truly touches me, and not just in a sense that I remember the words to their song, but truly changes the way I think and feel about the world, then they deserve my money and I will gladly purchase their record to own a physical copy of it so that they can keep making MORE music.

    But to say Spotify and some of these streaming music services are part of the problem is just wrong in my opinion. Do you want music to just be heard by those who can afford it? What kind of world is this? For thousands upon thousands of years music hasn’t cost anything. If it can be heard than it belongs to the people the moment the song is aired. It’s like saying we need to simply forget the song as soon as we hear it so that our brains can’t store it illegally in our own human memory!

    This is the bane of being an artist. If you’re in it to make money, then you’ve obviously forgotten the point. If you are humble, then the money will come to you naturally. It might not be a lot, but at least it will come from people who purchase your goods/services with a purpose and not just because it’s the hot new thing.

  363. Emily, you have indicated that you have a concience by the fact you are even questioning the moral implications about all things fair and just. A virtue not present historically with big record companies, agents and the governing bodies when it came to a fair and equal share with artists. Not until a more demorcratic process of being able to get your music heard took away the agency they had and their control of things crumbled. Quite a big time frame there too. And I don’t mean that this is a positive thing. It is anything but.

    I completely agree with David that you should always do the honest thing and pay. Everyone knows that. No doubt also that everyone knows if you choose a career in the arts, then no one owes you a living. I need not have to explain why. It is pretty obvious. However I do want to ask you that if we all did as David here suggests, though the majority already do, and always pay for our music, would you be cofident that all artists were paid thier justly deserved equal share? Historically that hasn’t been the case. But we can forgive. But if, as also suggested by David, you shouldn’t rely on businesses, the governments that facilitate their fit and proper operating standards accountable transparent, how can you be satisfied that everyone around the industry is doing the right thing just like we all are? Well human frailty and history tell us that is not possible in the imperfect world but we’ll work with it. Governments, the rule of law that allows them to function at all together with business have to be open and transparent for there to be any industry at all. These are facts and if we don’t demand that at the very least, getting itunes to work properly will be the least of our worries. Let us ask some of the musicians in Syria how they feel about getting screwed over by people downloading their music without paying for it. Seems like a treasonable idea really doesn’t it. They would tell you but they were probably killed by thier government when they asked if they would be a bit more open and decent.

    Pay for what you want isn’t anything you need to be told too much. By nature most do. But be very wary of anyone asking you to feel responsible for an industry’s ability to profit along with the motivations behind asking such a thing.

    Joshie.

  364. I believe we’re missing the bigger picture here. All of these moral arguments make sense but it’s not the way economies work. Not for any length of time. Let’s not forget that musicians have been strumming and singing since the dawn of civiliation but only in the last century did recorded music become their primary form of income. Record companies arose because recorded music required capital and equipment unavailable to musicians and with the simultaneous evolution of radio as a marketing medium the current economic structure was born.

    Alas, technology giveth and technology taketh away. With digital technology the recording companies have become an anachronism and will join the buggy manufacturing industry very shortly. Pull this lynch pin out and the entire model of the music industry collapses.

    But that’s actually the good news, in the long term. A new model will evolve, most likely one in which the recorded product becomes the marketing tool for the real source of the musician’s income. I can only hazard a guess as to what that will be, but I suspect it will be performance in one way or another … or both. New income streams always arise as others fall away.

    Already, musicians are building far more intimate relations with fans through the internet and, while people are unlikely to pay for an “object” that’s available for free, they WILL pay for an experience. The more intimate the better. As communication technologies develop I suspect most musicians will begin to earn most of their money directly through their network of fans rather than corporate intermediaries, perhaps through “nearly live” interactive performances or some other way of “touching” people that is only now emerging. In any case, the days of the musician as celebrity “product” are probably done, and good riddance.

    In the meantime, as the new economy shakes itself out, fans get heretofore unheard of opportunities to sample music from anywhere and anyone without the restrictions of time, space, money, or the questionable judgement of professional shills. And musicians can reach out to people and places unavailable in the past and build a loyal network of fans with whom they can actually communicate.

    It’s all good. Music, like Life, will always find a way.

  365. I think what often gets lost in the debate is the actual value of music. I would argue that a large part of the problem is that the price of music really hovers near zero. The reason is that there is an enormous amount of supply, and with each new release it gets larger. Prices in the past have been dictated by the scarcity of the medium on which it was delivered, not the true value of the music. What I think we are seeing now is a normalization of the value of music.

    In addition, the costs of production, marketing and distribution have come way down. This opens up the industry to a much broader base of musicians and changes the dynamic of the business greatly.

    While this sucks for musicians, the idea of the mega-millionaire rock star is a fairly modern phenomenon. Traditionally there hasn’t been a lot of money in the business and most of it came from the performance aspect of it.

    When you add this into the largely unethical tactics of the RIAA and MPAA, and the fact that in pursuit of their objectives they seek to undermine fundamental technologies of a growing market, the perception that the music industry has taken exorbitant profits and seems to have a general disregard for the fans, it is not surprising that there is a backlash.

    The reality is that the music industry is based on a broken and dying model. Musicians should be able to make enough money to survive, but they need to rethink how that is done.

    I am a musician, I have songs for sale on iTunes, and I have them available for free on Soundcloud. I purchase my music. I contribute to artist like Jonathan Coulton and to Amanda F. Palmer’s Kickstarter campaign. I think these people are finding new ways to monetize their art. I do that because I want to see them able to produce more good works.

    I also play out and see the clubs that don’t want to pay, because there is a thousand other bands who are willing to play for free. That’s the way it is though, a lot of supply and little demand.

    A performer is entitled to do what they wish with their art and price it how they wish. I also understand the marketing and overhead of major label distribution. I would suggest that anyone who wants to pirate music should look to all of the artists out there without major label distribution, but are making great music. Some of this is free, some of this is monetized in a variety of creative ways that might provide greater value to the consumer. I would also suggest getting out to shows and directly supporting artists.

  366. I’m curious what you think of services like Microsoft’s Zune Pass – $10 per month for unlimited access to Zune’s collection of music, but you lose access to all the music procured this way if you quit paying (their old version was $15/month, but you also got to keep 10 songs per month permanently). I’ve never seen information on how Microsoft compensates artists/labels, but they were one of the first services (if not the very first) to offer this kind of access, and I don’t recall seeing any label complaints in regards to it. Coupled with the Zune software’s “Smart DJ,” I always thought it was a great way to discover new music, and it makes that 3-step process you described even easier, since your password is saved in the Zune software..

    1. Like many people i’m not familiar with the zune. But that is a good question. would you like to research and write something? we always consider submissions.

      1. I don’t know if I have enough information on the industry to write something helpful (definitely more of a consumer), but in a quick survey I was able to find out that they leave the terms of royalties up to the individual labels, and I was able to find two online-distribution labels who had their royalty formulae spelled out in semi-plain English.

        Reverbnation has the following terms:
        Zune Pass Streaming: 50% of gross -or- $0.01/stream (capped at 60% of gross) -or- number of customers multiplied by $5 – all pro-rated.
        Marketplace purchases: $0.70/track & $8.40 (front), $7.00 (standard mid) & $5.60 (catalog). Videos @ $1.40

        Tunecore features these terms:
        Marketplace purchases: $0.70 per song sold individually and $7.00 per album with 11 or more songs sold in its entirety.

        Zune Pass Streaming: Zune Subscription Revenue x Proportion %(Tunecore Artists ÷ Paid Subscriber Plays) = Tunecore Artist Music Sales for Zune Subscriber

        If you are really interested, I can certainly try to do more research. I sent an information request to Zune’s PR department to see what they have to say. Given that Windows Phones and Xbox 360s also use Zune’s marketplace (and the Zune Pass), I can certainly see this information being relevant to more and more artists as Windows Phone gains more market share.

    2. I can’t speak specifically to the Zune revenue model, but there is something interesting that Bing is doing: One-minute samples of every song on an album, with a “buy” link that allows you to choose Zune, iTunes or Amazon’s MP3 downloads.

      For instance, the new Hives album can be sampled here:

      http://www.bing.com/music/albums/detail?q=The+Hives+Lex+Hives&albumID=50B73907-0100-11DB-89CA-0019B92A3933&artistID=6F580600-0600-11DB-89CA-0019B92A3933&form=ETMUNA

      This is similar to how Amazon handles song sampling on their service, but since it’s hosted outside of a commercial sales site, and since this album comes up in Bing when you do a search for the band, I’m guessing it’ll eventually drive more sampling traffic than Amazon or even iTunes do on their own.

      I’ve already been pointing people here if they insist on being allowed to download a song before purchase, to be sure they’re going to like it. If you aren’t sure you like an album after getting one-minute samples of every song on it, then don’t buy it. You shouldn’t have to steal the whole thing to get an idea of what it’s about.

      Incidentally, this plus Pandora has opened me up to a ton of new music, which I then buy via Amazon. (I won’t touch iTunes, because I can’t stand their proprietary software nor their DRM. I want to be able to copy my music to any device I own, in perpetuity, rather than being beholden to Apple.)

      Honestly, virtually everything is available for legal digital downloads and streaming now. There’s no longer a format excuse. Anyone still pirating isn’t doing so because it’s convenient, but because they believe they’re entitled to free entertainment.

      1. I have noted that microsoft is doing some interesting things lately. I’ll have to research that for when we “rate” the technology companies later this month.

  369. I couldn’t disagree with this argument more. Especially Lowery’s attempt to discredit the Free Culture/Creative Commons movement as being corporate-backed after harkening to the record industry.

    Belieb it or not, I do pay for the majority of music/movies/tv I consume, *out of convenience*, not ethics. The stuff that I can conveniently acquire for a small fee I pay for because I enjoy dealing with a trusted service or host. The things that I can’t download readily, cheaply, and officially I find for free. But so often the reason I can’t actually pay for the stuff I want is because record labels and studios have made it nigh impossible for the consumer. If you’ve ever visited the Kinks section of a record store trying to find anything that isn’t from their craptastic 70’s era you will be familiar with this problem. Record labels “bet” on artists, but when they fold they also hold. Labels and movie studios hold artist’s work hostage – they don’t look out for artist’s “rights”.

    There IS money to be made selling your work online for those who adapt to the online model. For most artists this means they will make the most income by working directly with their audience (Louis C.K., Bandcamp). The new and successful era of record labels (Burger, Gonner) doesn’t even bother with licensing; They simply help the band create a product and distribute it, and because technology has made it possible for anyone to produce media cheaply, studio costs often don’t even factor into the equation.

    The key is adaptation. Pining for the glory days of those philanthropic record labels is folly. Let’s stop pretending we were better off when the music business was a gated community that only the best could enter, or forget that those decades saw most artists struggling to pay their bills while a handful of executives and superstars made millions.

    And let’s not take seriously the writing of anyone who insinuates that another person’s downloads are responsible for two artists’ suicides, then sheepishly claims they weren’t insinuating that very thing! “I present these two stories to you not because I’m pointing fingers or want to shame you.” Really? You mention two struggling artists who killed themselves in an open letter to a person who you mention by name because you *don’t” mean to shame that person???

    Finally, I would like to point out that the very technology that makes it possible for people to illegally download music also makes it easier than ever for ANYONE to create their own music, sell their own music, and claim their own music without signing away their musical “rights” to companies who will do everything in their power to make sure those artists can’t reproduce their own work without paying a percentage. That allegedly-vile, corporate-backed Free Culture movement that Lowery bemoans has exploded the walls between creativity and the common creative person, and removed the barrier for entry into the art/film/music world for everyone. The flow of cash required to be a full-time paid artist may be less available today because of technology, but technology has made it so that ANYONE can produce art now. This means we are going to continue seeing a trend of there being many less millionaire artists, and a lot more part-time artists who are finally making money for their work even if it’s not a full-time gig. It means we’re going to continue seeing a trend of independent and local artists replacing top 40 on the average listeners playlists. It means we will continue seeing the rise in popularity of live performance. Embrace this change!

  370. Pingback: The Bulletin Board: Music Ownership | Austin Town Hall

  371. Wow – followed a link from FB to your post – wonderfully written and informative. Hope it hits a note with even a few people who’ve taken their “right” to free music as something that has no consequences to those making the music they enjoy.

  372. Best article I’ve EVER read on this subject. Every person in the world should read this.

  374. When you work in radio or retail, you get a shitload of free music, and I can say from experience 90% of it is garbage. Emily just took what was handed to her (along with a line of hype). If you want to blame someone, blame the label or distributor’s sales or radio rep. BTW, this stuff is made to be given away. Most of it is stamped “Not For Sale”. I pay to stream and I pay to download, but back in “the day” I had tens of thousands of promos go through my hands when I was working record retail.

  375. Well aren’t I a mug!!! In the 70’s I bought the album, the 8-track, AND the cassette of any band or artist I liked. I did it out of respect. I could have taped songs off the radio for free, but I didn’t think that I was a spoiled over-educated brat whose daddy got her her job! Emily is a hypocritical ingrate, and if I had any power in the music industry be it radio or label–I’d NEVER hire her.

  376. Artists need to be more vocal about this, and it does not mean every now and again, they need to put their foot down and say, “I am of value”. If you don’t speak up no one will know it’s an issue and if you don’t value yourself no one will value you either. Music is a business & musicians need to be more interactive with what’s going on. Look at what James Petrillo did to give musicians more royalties… “His most famous actions were banning all commercial recordings by union members from 1942–1944 and again in 1948 to pressure record companies to give better royalty deals to musicians; these were called the Petrillo Bans.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Petrillo There are ways to make things better but you can’t sit back and allow someone else to do the work for you. One way is to make yourselves strong and that can be done through great leadership, voicing your concerns daily and through unions. Music is of great importance to people throughout history.. stand up for yourselves & claim your value within culture.

  378. I’d like to add a personal addendum to my comments on the new music economy.

    My daughter is a “budding” professional musician. She has released an EP and is working on her second. She has played in some impressive venues — El Mocambo and The Opera House in Toronto, Capitol City Music Hall and Ritual i Ottawa, Club Soda in Montreal. She has a very loyal network of fans in both Ottawa, where she lives and in Toronto where she studies vocal jazz.

    She turned 19 last December. It is very unlikely she would be at this stage of her career if it weren’t for her savvy use of modern tech. All of her music, audio and video, is available online and through that she’s developed a following. Her Youtube channel has attracted fans from places she has never played. She’s participated in (and won) a number of competitons which, these days, all have a significant online component. She has a “presence” online.

    Because of all this, she has a following that she never could have developed so quickly in pre-digital days. And the online stuff is like a resume for live gigs. It has won her not just money but valuable recording time and proffesional legal and marketing services as well.

    Exactly who will be signing cheques for what I don’t know, but I have no doubt what so ever that she will make a living doing what she loves. It may not be through the sale of recorded music, but if you can make something people need or love, you will be compensated. It’s an immutable law of economics, free market and otherwise.

  379. What a fantastic article David! I must admit that I too spent some time (back in the days of dial-up) ripping music. Since then, I have switched to using iTunes, exclusively for my music purchases. The ironic part is that it is FAR more convenient for me to purchase a tune, download it to my device and have it in “My Cloud Library” within minutes, than it was to go through the process of ripping it off. I wish more people could understand the real “economics” of what you outlined above ($18 a month), and grasp what a difference it would make if the world could embrace the morality of it all.

  380. Reblogged this on Searching for my truth… and commented:
    This is an excellent set of arguments against getting music for free. Now that I make enough money I buy things when I can, trying to offset those who are simply taking. And to make up for what I didn’t pay for while I was poor.

  382. I see. Musicians “play” music and because it isn’t really “work” and what they create is ephemeral, they shouldn’t be paid. But people who make tangible products for the marketplace, that’s different. They should be.

  383. I think you missed the whole point though. I get all my music through streaming. I am paying for it. I want to support the artists. But there’s no legal means to do so. I am paying Spotify, and am getting everything through that – but you call that out as something that isn’t working.

    I don’t want CDs any more. We’ve all moved on to something we like more. And I WANT to support the artists I like. But there’s just no legal means to do so. And I see this article almost seems to say that the proper response is for all of us to stop doing what we’re doing and go back to what we were doing ten years ago. I don’t WANT to go back to what I was doing ten years ago. I want the music industry to catch up to what I’m doing NOW.

    I wish they’d stop suing everyone. I wish they’d stop insisting that we change what we’re doing with technology. Catch up, and give me a legal way to listen to music and pay for it!

    Spotify did, and I’m happily paying them every month. If you don’t like that … give me a legal alternative, don’t just insist that I go back ten years!

    1. No legal means? Come on. There’s a bass player around, a serious indie works-a-day-job guy, whose music I absolutely adore. I’m reading his blog anyway, so when he says, “Hey if you go to this site and buy my album, I’ll get some dosh from it,” he’s practically TOLD me how to get his music legally and in a way that will make it easiest for him. Two clicks later, it’s mine. What on Earth could be simpler?

      Jeez, go to Google, enter the name of the band you like, and I can guarantee you they will have a link to their stuff on Bandcamp. Just go BUY IT. No legal means to give musicians some money? You have got to be kidding.

      1. He’s referring to a methods of ‘radio’ type streaming like Spotify. According to the article, bands aren’t benefiting from the pay subscriptions services. These are the closest thing to the new radio out there though. He brings up a valid point. Not everyone wants to own every piece of music they hear. Some want a service the just plays music, and radio is horrible nowadays.

      2. People seem to forgot, the main innovation of the internet is not knowledge (a case could be made that we are stupider than ever and the quality of information is declining with a signal to noise ratio that approaches zero), and it is not entertainment (play used to be more interactive and less zombified). Nope, for better or worse, the number one innovation of the internet is communication.

        You’d think that the internet would make us more invested in the artists as individuals in that there are so many new communication avenues between artist and audience, rather than creating a wall of separation. For example, as an avid fan of the above author’s works, there’s dozens of places that I can go to ask what he thinks about my downloading habits and what is the best way to legally acquire the music. Doesn’t mean that the artist has to like me, or I the artist – the art can stand independently, independent of personalities – but I do find it odd that people don’t at least try to wonder about and explore the person on the other end of the art.

      3. Exactly!! One of the strange paradoxes of this whole issue is that, while the people who download thousands of pieces of performed music present themselves as music lovers, they treat it as pure product, much more so than before the technology changed. There seems to be little real connection for them between the product and the artist; otherwise, it’s hard to imagine so many of them being so self righteous about it, when most of us confronted with doing harm would skulk away in shame.

        The soulful nature of the back and forth was partly due to the whole experience of the album and cd cover–liner notes, graphics…..it was a real conversation. The relationship between musician and listener–indeed, any artist and her audience–should be a two way street. I owned an art gallery for 7 years, and learned that what makes buying real art satisfying, is largely that relationship, even if the two sides of the transaction never spoke. Otherwise, it’s arguably really just something nice on the wall.

        These music ‘lovers’ who think they are entitled to a free soundtrack think they are privy to such an amazing musical experience, with their earbuds in, solitary, rocking out to yet another anonymous, tinny tune, but without the whole of the experience, its just some nice noise.

        In any case, they need to pay for what they use.

    2. Am I getting this right: you want streaming only, rather than downloads, right? Is there a particular reason for this? If it’s a matter of storage space, why not use one of the dozens of cloud services? Amazon and Sky Drive, for instance, can host tons of stuff you can access online from anywhere. You don’t need a 16-gig iPod to store your tunes anymore.

  384. While it might not be great for the artist, it isn’t going to change any time soon. Wait until 3d printing technology gets a little more advanced, people can and will be downloading everything they possibly can and wont be paying for those either.

  387. This is secondary to this discussion, but still important. I would like to know how people like Emily (i.e. people tethered to an almost exclusively digital MP3 music collection–legal or illegal, and/or streaming services) listen to their music. I’m talking the actual, physical act of hearing it. As an artist, I worry that there is an entire generation of music fans used to listening to songs through terrible computer speakers or crappy earbuds. Further, as avid music fans, do they not realize that streaming services like Spotify or downloaded MP3’s are of inferior sound quality, even when played through good speakers/headphones? I get that the average person doesn’t care about these things, but I would expect self-proclaimed music enthusiasts to want the best possible listening experience.

    I think there’s a link here to the original topic. Isn’t there an intrinsic value to hearing a song that is as close as possible to the artist’s intended version? Is this how we, as artists, can monetize our music? I can see a future where data speeds are an afterthought and streaming music services are able to stream lossless WAV files of songs. Is there a way that artists, by focusing on the quality issue now, can use the idea of quality as leverage when this happens? Can we cause the music buying public to associate paying for a song with getting a better quality version of it?

    -PD

  388. Have seen lots of buzz and pushback around the interwebs, some of it with the theme “the genie is not going back into the bottle; chuck the oldthink and get with the newthink.” Which, to me, is stupid, because — ripping someone off is ripping someone off, no matter how ubiquitous the practice becomes. Labeling it the “inescapable new paradigm” does not make it any more okay.

    One aspect of the situation that I rarely see addressed in the “musicians will just have to make money touring” argument is that it’s an idea that will grossly disadvantage female musicians, over time. Despite social evolution, the cold, hard, enduring truth is that women who have children tend to be less free to go off and gig for many weeks a year. I do not doubt that male musicians miss their families when on the road, but typically it’s women who will agonize most over such a requirement. The shrinking ability to derive any income from purchased music will force some very unhappy choices, over the long term, for some very talented female musicians.

    1. It will also pose a problem for female musicians when people like Bob Lefsetz claim that you can be successful if you just drop all personal boundaries and invite your fans over to your house or start auctioning off your clothing. For a female musician (I’m thinking of one whom I won’t name because I don’t want to drag names into this) with a well-known and well-monied husband, maybe she’ll be safe, but a no-name chick looking to build a career up from nowhere is taking serious risks with her life and safety by letting strangers into her personal space.

      Normal, completely unknown women everywhere need to worry about stalkers already — now try going into court and bringing charges against a “fan” who you let into your home. When you have a FB page up that advertises a chance for strangers to come into your home.

      I guess these guys either don’t even think about it or figure that there will always be a place for women in the music business — as groupies.

  389. …wow. I just spent most of the first half of my day READING!! So very much to ponder. Firstly, David,..I know nothing of your music. What I (now) do know is that you strike me as someone I would enjoy talking to about many things. Your ‘handling’ of the “nay-sayers” and (my term, not yours) PINHEADS on this thread is nothing short of pure diplomacy. I deeply appreciate that. Class…
    As to the issue, with you 110%. No argument at all. Glad a friend hipped me to it. I do wonder, however, (ha!…there you were, waiting for that!) about many of the, shall we say, ‘inequities’ of the overall situation.I, like a few here, am (mostly) a jazz musician but will play whatever i can to pay the bills. Have been full-time since getting out of high school during the dark ages. Of course, most of what I am influenced by is by players long dead now. As there is certainly no point in trying to gild the lily here I will jump to the ‘solutions’ portion of the debate. It seems to me that convincing people to pay for what they are, at present, swiping, is a tall order and, as long as there are self-possessed capitalist bean counters out there leaping to point out any flaw they can in your article with idiotic rants about what music is ‘worth’, a comprehensive solution is hard to imagine. Ok, yes, “pay the artist for what you want from them” (period) is certainly the core solution. In the same way that you would pay someone to paint your living room. Hence, ELIMINATING ANY MIDDLEMEN (and I say that in a loving way of course…) seems to be step one. Not really complicated stuff. You want it, you pay the one who made it.
    As many have already said, you have provided a great document here and I hope it can help us all stop struggling a bit (especially those like me who have been stressing about all the unfairness of this biz for more than 40 years!)

  390. Its a shame in a country so consumed by entertainment there is a feeling that it is a right to have it for free or for discount. This problem is not just isolated to the music industry. It was the first but will not be the last. Book Publishing Companies and authors are about to see the same thing if the industry doesn’t take steps to preserve itself. You already have half price and resale bookstores that make a profit off of authors works but yet the authors sees none of it. With the advent of the Kindle (basically the equivalent of an mp3 player) books will be pirated as well. The film industry will be close behind.

    As a working musician it is amazing to me when fans come up and tell you they burned your cd. I actually saw a guy bring a burned copy to a friend of mines show and ask their band to sign it. However, I do understand the disconnect from fan to artist. Most people do not have an understanding or can make the distinction of how different the pay scale is from the artist in the club and the one in the theaters and then the ones in the arenas.

    I have been doing this for 11 years and I have seen in every avenue in the industry a decline. Its hard for people to see that the very thing the say they love is chocking to death, because their to busy enjoying the free meal.

  391. I thought this was somewhat inappropriate. You are a 50-yr-old professor and professional, and an established blogger; she’s a 21-yr-old intern. Ms White wrote ten paragraphs, you wrote 3,500 words. I think the scale and tone of your response is not matched to her initial article and it’s a little bit bullying. And the use of Ms White’s first name was too familiar and borderline patronizing.

    You’re using a single college student — one who, as you say, is more on your side than not — as a scapegoat for complicated issues about which you have thought very deeply; it’s an asymmetric conversation. I appreciate that you have strong feelings about music and how it’s consumed, but it wasn’t Ms White’s fault that your friends passed away, and it’s unfair to bring up something so tragic in a blog post addressed to her.

    The points you make are good ones, and important, but they seem more directed at your students.

  392. This is such a brilliantly written article; in fact, it’s next to impossible to argue the points made here. I’ve always paid for music and am consistently shocked by how many people I know (including liberal, caring, intelligent folk) that rationalize this kind of stealing. I’ve sent this article to all of them, and have not received one response yet. Interesting.

    The problem is that logic often does not work in situations like this (hell, in most situations in life — very frustrating!), and since this letter/article is bursting with fact, logic, and reality, many will not be able relate to that. Frustrating as hell, but at the very least we can hope that at least a few will change their behavior after reading what’s been written here.

  393. Hello,

    All kinds of work has been devalued in the Unites States, not just entertainment and/or musicians. Regular people are struggling with less, and trying to find some dignity because there is little or no value for the work they can provide; the means of living that they are still willing to produce.

    If there would be ANYTHING that I would try to convey to the younger generations, it would be that we need to find a way to rejigger our own social infrastructure and relationships in order to restore the value that we are all capable of contributing, both at a local community level and more broadly. As sad as I am about Vic and Mark, your response spoke almost nothing about the “non-internet/non-free music” issues that impacted their quality of life. There are bigger things happening right now that go beyond just convincing people to pay more for music via their corporate service providers. The whole system is in upheaval, and there are great musicians in each and everyone’s local communities that also need to be part of the puzzle for a better, more sustainable future. As they say, “It takes a village”.

    Regards,

    David

  394. Dear David,

    I agree with everything you said, except on the victimization of musicians. Musicians are the first ones to steal from other artists in a form or another when they have the chance. I have seen countless musicians, even the well-off ones, use photos that didn’t belong to them and use them on their sites, Facebook pages, and so on, without crediting the photographer, often on the assumption that if it’s a photo of them it must belong to them, with total disregard of time, effort an money the photographer spent on the photo. I have seen musicians using sites like DesignCrowd or 99Designs just so they could spend less for their album artworks instead of paying for a professional to do the job, and they didn’t care if the winning bid was by a nameless kid who had stolen graphics from other artists and reposted them as his own. You cannot pay? Right. At least ask for permission and credit the person when the person deserves it. Make sure you’re not infringing copyrights before complaining about stupid kids downloading your music illegally. It’s a vicious circle, the dog biting at its own tail, you see?

    “Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!”

    So in return musicians will stick it to the graphic artist/photographer that instead of complaining all the time about web-theft is working his ass off to accept commissions that sometimes pay just a few bucks as he cannot afforf to live by means of the art he likes alone.

    Musicians often don’t respect professional work of others, so why are they complaining all the time, as if technology is damaging their art only? I would like to see musicians that show sympathy for the art of other artists (artists that are not in their close circle of friends and acquaintances, that is) before I can 100% sympathize with them.

  395. I agree that this is a well-reasoned response. And I appreciate the author and others willingness to engage the issues openly and honestly. In that spirit, I’d like to raise two additional matters for consideration.

    One thing I’ve been curious about in all of this is why artists don’t put more pressure on Google and others that serve ads to pay royalties? After all, we have a streaming service that offers free access – without any passwords or firewalls – to streaming music subsidized by ad revenue: broadcast radio.

    Many of the same arguments we now have about digital distribution and artist compensation are the exact same as earlier complaints about radio.

    Why is Google any different when it refers users to or serves ads to sites that provide access to music?

    One other issue that is worth considering. A key complaint of those who advocate for Free Culture is the shift in ownership rights associated with digital distribution. In many cases, buyers must submit to onerous systems that restrict their rights as legal owners, and in some instances a fee amounts to a rental (with access to music contingent upon continuous payments). No right to transfer or legally sell digital content is not just inconvenient. It fundamentally changes the nature of the transaction. Even in services like iTunes, I risk losing hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of music when I get a new computer. Paying for a physical copy afforded some measure of protection against this, provided there weren’t additional “protections” built into the copy itself. (protections for the distributor, by the way, not the owner).

    1. “Even in services like iTunes, I risk losing hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of music when I get a new computer.”

      Err, no.

      Besides the standard “5 computers authorized” allowance per account, where even a new computer can be added when an old one is dropped, I have found iTunes customer extremely accommodating with requests to re-download TV shows.

      Still worried? The $25 per year iTunes Match set up should allay your fears of losing your investment.

      Or you could spend $100 on a portable terabyte drive.

      1. Robbie, you made my point when you talked about the scheme used to create false scarcity for a digital resource (“authorizing X devices”). You further underlined it when you offered me several ways to hedge against potential loss. The potential for loss is real. And preventing it is non-obvious for many users who must go out of their way simply to keep “owning” what they’ve legally paid for already.

        I did lose ~600 tracks off of a first-generation iPod (with the wheel that actually moved) by the way when a failed synch accidentally overwrote the device with a blank library. After hours on the phone, I was able to get some of the tracks “reauthorized” in iTunes so I could download them again, but only about 1/3 could be recovered. This doesn’t count tracks lost that I had ripped from my own (legally purchased) media for listening on my digital devices.

        So yes, it can and does happen. I couldn’t claim in on my homeowners insurance either, incidentally, like you can when your roof fails and rainwater destroys physical media.

        None of this in any way authorizes illicit behavior. But let’s not pretend that there are not real problems that consumers face when trying to do the right thing. One thing the Free Culture movement has done well is push back against the image of consumers as criminals. Listeners could use some help from artists brave enough to make things easy for customers already committed to doing the right thing. (see Louis C.K. for a great example)

  397. An artist relying on selling recordings to make a living is a historically recent phenomina, and a historic anomoly. There is nothing to prevent an artist from making money the way artists have historically — by giving paid performances and doing commision work. That, combined with holding down a day job, is the way artists have survived and thrived throughout history. Why should the artificial scarcity created by recording lables in the 20th century change the historic role of the artist in society?

  398. One might also point out to Emily and other young people like her who hope for a job in the music industry that illegal downloading is the reason they probably will NOT get that job. My music industry friends with years of experience and success have been laid off due to low revenues.

  399. My 14 year old son was impressed with a friend of his who’s been downloading movies, music , etc. Then I asked him, how he’d like it if he spent three years writing a book, (which i did) or years studying music, and someone steals it off the internet. He got the picture, after that. Simple understanding-right? Yet so few people get it.

  400. Mr Lowery, it’s always a surprise to read something well thought out on the internet, so thanks. I broadly agree with you, but there’s another side to the issue.
    To start, your example of Sparklehorse is, to me, a bad choice.

    Let me set the context:
    1. I love Sparklehorse.
    2. I’ve got storebought bought as new vinyl and cd copies of all the albums, I’ve got the singles, the 7 inches. I saw him in concert 3 times (2 of which were amazing). If he’d released more product, I would have paid him more of my money gladly.

    And there’s the rub.
    His main albums were released 1995, 1998, 2001, 2006, 2010. Should he be paid when people want to listen to them, absolutely. Should it, for a moderately succesful artist at best, count as a fulltime job’s pay? I don’t know.
    You write that his income decreased substantially in the last ten years. He didn’t actually manage to release more than one album in the last 10 years of his life. Could it have something to do with this?
    That Dark night of the Soul fell foul to politics is regrettable. And I don’t mean to belittle the very tragic health and drug related issues which kept him from releasing product. Should there have been a societal safety net in place? Certainly. Should the record industry have provided that safety net? I disagree. The plain truth of it is that during large periods of his career he wasn’t producing anything… What was I to pay him for?

    Of course Sparklehorse is just an example. Artists release very little recorded product these days. Compare it to an artists’ workrate in the 60s and 70s and you know what I mean. That’s no issue for the bigtop artists, but moderately succesful musicians will have to adapt. They have to create their own cottage industry, bind a dedicated fan base with regular releases, some high profile, others more for dedicated fans, some from the vaults… Finding new angles to interest their base. Etc. It’s a hard graft, I don’t doubt it. But you know, maybe they have to get used to the fact they’ll have to release several items each with a moderate profit, rather than 1 product every couple of years and expect to live off it.

    Of course, theft is still theft.

  401. Very good article.

    My problem with buying cd’s (or online music) is that very very little of the money actually goes to the artists. Going by the number’s in the post the artist gets 19.45 cents per song. So out of the $6 (6 song) EP I bought earlier today the artist gets $1.17 and the other $4.83 goes to the vendor/record label. Then with online purchases via iTunes for example. The artist gets ~15% of the sales of a song so on song that costs $1.29 they get $0.15.

    Atleast for me it is rather hard to justify lining the record labels wallets while the artists themselves barely see any of the profits. Personally much rather buy merch or the cd’s from the artist themselves at a concert.

  402. agree with all the major points. but… on the other hand to go after the consumers (little people) and hold them responsible (even in part) for a failed industry seems a little wacky. it reminds me, somewhat, of the argument about listening to commercials if you are to enjoy the program… if artists want people to buy their art, then they have to produce art that people want to buy. i’m not making an ethical argument, but a retail claim; unless there’s a desire to possess something, a consumer ain’t letting go of their already scarce coin — it simply won’t happen. back in the day, when i bought a record rather than tapin’ it, i did so because there was something contained in/on/with that record that i wanted.

    i believe that artists should be funded by taxes, grants, and the public generally as the corporate model leaves us with tits adorned with pinwheels. maybe a union too? but i know me, and i’m way older than the intern addressed here. i’ll pay like this: i go to the show. i’ll buy a cd if it’s fucking brilliant. aside from that, i’ll just stay home and practice the cello.

  403. I’ve been in the business as an agent and a manager for over 30 years now, this is a wonderful, smart, well written article that should be read by as many people as possible, both music buyers (or stealers) and people within the industry. Two friends from my days at the Frontier Booking Agency (FBI) in the 80’s both posted the link on Facebook, I too have shared it on Facebook and am emailing the link out to as many people as possible. In my mind there is NO justification for not compensating an artist for their work. People pay for those iPod, iPads, iPhones, laptops, desktops, etc. in order to play the music, no one ever thinks those things should be free because someone has to be paid to manufacture and sell those items, why do they think the music that someone spends time creating should be free? A question for those people who think music should be free to take at will – Does whatever product or service either you or your parents sell or offer to perform, is is free? Don’t you expect to be paid for the goods or services you provide so you can pay your rent, buy food, pay tuition, pay for your healthcare, etc? Why is it any different for a music artist in your minds?

    By the way, lots of passionate, well written comments on this thread as well, kudos to all of you!

    Cheers,
    Rick Shoor

  404. Excellent article. Valid points, all. I agree wholeheartedly. There is one aspect to this discussion that I have not seen touched on (forgive me if it has been somewhere among the comments) and I’d like to add it as an addendum more than as any kind of counter to what you are saying – which I think is spot on.

    That is the issue of access to the arts.

    I see a lot of discussion of college students and young people wanting more music than they can afford and maybe one comment regarding limited disposable income, but no real discussion of class. The truth is, there are a large number of people out there who simply cannot afford to buy music. I’m not sure who all is reading and contributing to this wall, but someone who can’t afford to buy music might not be being cheap, they might simply be poor. $10 or $15 (or $17/month) may not sound like much to a lot of us, but it is a huge amount for some. And given the choice between a life necessity and music, the choice is obvious. The ability to have a fulfilling music collection is way out of reach for a lot of people. I think more and more folks are falling into this category, unfortunately. It includes the very poor, for sure, but affording the basics – a place to live, transportation, health insurance – let alone making progress – providing for children, retirement, etc. – is more than enough for a lot of people to put ongoing investment in music on the back burner.

    That is a tragedy in my opinion. Music is not a luxury and it’s not just entertainment. It is a vital part of our lives. No, the solution should not be to steal music. Without question we want artists to be in control of their work and to be fairly compensated. Yes. Amen. 100%. What we don’t want is to turn music into something only the well-off have access to. That hurts all of us. (It has largely happened already to theatre, which is truly sad. Just take a look at ticket prices on and off Broadway and at most regional theatres. Or just look at the audience.)

    I don’t buy that anyone with a computer (or, importantly, access to a computer) or a phone can afford to buy music, for a number of reasons. People have phones and computers for many reasons, and frankly, it is hard to get by in this world without them any more (as others have mentioned).

    And let’s not forget, some of these people who are unable to afford to buy music might be artists themselves. Artists need the exposure to the work of other artists to become great artists themselves. And they may need access to significantly more than what they can save up for. These artists could be young people from less privileged backgrounds who might never become artists at all without this kind of exposure. We can’t afford to exclude them. (I experienced a mild form of this frustration as a young person. I grew up watching better-off kids around me amass enormous CD collections, while I [who was a burgeoning musician, of course], could afford next to none. I had to find other ways to gain access to the music I was interested in.)

    Again, this does not take away from the problem you are addressing in any way, which is rampant. I simply want to call attention to some folks who could very easily slip through the cracks in this debate. There needs to be a place where people without a lot of money can experience music – new music included. We created public libraries to do this for literature, and we need something in place that will do the same for music. (While there is a certain amount of music available in libraries, it is usually paltry.)

    The point is, you shouldn’t have to be independently wealthy to be an artist, nor should you need a lot of money to have substantive access to arts and culture. Whatever solution we come up with, we need to make it a priority to level the playing field.

  405. David,

    As a musician (30 years, 4+ instruments) and software engineer (15 years), I have watched many friends who are professional musicians struggle endlessly, as I’ve watched the open-source / digital revolution march on unabated.

    Something that has been touched on briefly by other commentators but is often overlooked is the following: when you digitize anything, you turn it into data. For practical purposes these days, data has no cost. You acknowledge this in your post when you talk about the market setting the cost to copy an mp3 to essentially zero.

    I’m not reiterating what others have said, that economic reality trumps morality. I’m saying that although an artist DOES control the right to price their work, and SHOULD be paid what they ask, when we distribute our work these days, we are effectively setting the asking price to zero, at which point every dollar paid becomes a donation (“please don’t copy this, please pay for it instead”). If you only put out vinyl, you can reasonably be sure that most people aren’t going to invest in the digital conversion process. But how many people are doing that? The DRM wars are over, and the hidden cost of people being able to download a rights-free digital version of your media is worked into that 99 cents per song, just as the hidden costs were included in blank tapes a generation ago. A shabby price? Maybe.

    My question is, would MOST musicians be doing better these days without the filesharing revolution? I’m thinking back to the early 90s (when yes, I bought Cracker albums) – CDs, radio stations, MTV. Arguably, the booming economy (ironically, a bubble of the same digital revolution) did more to help most professional musicians during those years than anything. Further, there was no internet for most people when Paul’s Boutique came out (royalties eventually paid, but how many other examples are there?), and the Grateful Dead (please tape and trade our live shows) had the most profitable tours. I believe that the current situation is not the anomaly: the brief period when distribution and units-selling held sway was the anomaly, and it served to create the heap, onto whose pinnacle some musicians climbed / were thrown.

    Bob Marley worked as a welder. Philip Glass drove a cab. Even court musicians in Europe would teach.

    As far as my sophomoric understanding goes, for most of human history, music was a function of the community, and a musician was like a shaman, honored and supported because of their intrinsic value to all. Then, like the healer, the musician became either the property of the elite (court composer), or else a traveling salesman (playing for supper), or an amateur. There was a brief flourish after the industrial revolution, when a middle class could afford to pay for performances and shows, and composers could sell sheet music. Then came recording, which first amplified (by exclusivity) and then crippled (by universalism) the ability of musicians to gain a following and tour.

    In physical presence, sound vibrations produced between people are ephemeral and invaluable. A digital representation of that is nearly the opposite. I don’t believe that the best is for musicians to be paid for their creations – I believe the best is for them to be honored, revered, and supported by the community as they once were (and still are, in some parts of the world). On the other end of the spectrum is playing for your supper. Isn’t everything else shades of grey?

    I know that sounds like the kind of thing that might make professional musicians want to punch you in the face, but most of the professional musicians out there are not making a living as songwriters, and lots of them are playing for pay and not exactly loving every minute of it. They have been (rightly) bitching about this since before 1995. The vast majority of those hewing to their own visions are toiling for little financial reward, and were doing so long before the internet.

    I loved your piece, though, for pointing out how the Free Culture movement (online version anyway) is supporting global mega-corps.

  406. As an artist, this is the best thing I’ve read on the subject. It’s really hard to understand why people don’t understand that stealing is stealing is stealing, but this is precisely one of the reasons I’ve decided to actually share sales profits with fans – every month, I give half of what I earned rom my set up at bandcamp’s site to a random person who bought the music directly from me – and on that site, they still have the option to download it for free. If they choose to get it free, they still are required to provide an email address, so I can build my base and interact with them. I’m not well known, and I don’t make enough from music to make a living yet, but I think what I’m doing will at least minimize piracy by the time I’m established.

  407. Someone upthread pointed this out but Emily’s generation isn’t going to pay for music because they don’t feel that they ‘own’ anything – it’s be paying to rent it.

    And when you rent something and people are giving away samples why wouldn’t you just continue to sample?

    It was fairly late in iTunes before you got an actual MP3 instead of an account locked apple proprietary format. Most new computer programs come only with a ‘license’. Same for some new textbooks. Her entire life she’s been told that even if she pays money she doesn’t actually ‘own’ whatever she purchased. I can’t play the physical copy of Bioshock I own because the DRM server is down.

    Now smartphones and computers are physical objects that you ‘own’ in so much as that you’ve agreed to a EULA just to use. Cars are next.

    Her entire generation has been told that they were just renting anything they would ‘purchase’ until it was obsolete and could be taken away.

    How are you going to get anyone to ‘invest’ in that?

  409. As a lifelong musician, I can respect the sentiment of this article– it’s unfortunate that the value of music has reduced so drastically in the past ten years. But the bottom line is, recorded music has stopped being the retail opportunity it once was. People know they don’t have to spend $13 for a CD any more and they’re never going to do it again. We musicians need to figure out other revenue streams — film scoring, video games, ring-tones, whatever. But the good ol’ days of selling recorded music is over. And going on for paragraphs about internet stores being robbed, etc isn’t going to change anything. We need to let it go, the tide has turned.

    And there’s no point in scolding this poor girl for doing what is perfectly normal these days. Yeah, technically it’s ‘stealing’ but she’s also hearing music that she would never otherwise hear if she had to pay for it. And it’s valuable to the artists to get their music heard.. even if it’s by the new freeloading culture.

  410. sorry for the disconnected response (commented earlier about the relevance of a Music Business certificate program — you need a wordpress.com acct to reply again) but I have read the article and you browbeat Emily for not following a model that has been broken and failing for a long time. the biz that Cracker operated within in the 90s is gone. Emily and her generation are shaping the future of this new listenership and we need to find the ways in artists can profit from this listernship — the model needs to change. as a 15 yr professional in this business (mostly from the concert promoter/touring side) it wont be like it was when you were signed to Virgin and on MTV. its no longer sustainable in that way. that biz cannibalized itself. sure artists should be paid. and sure megaupload and pirate bay are bad. Emily doesn’t seem to be building her song collection from those services. social sharing among friends is different. being an intern at NPR and ripping a cd, different. label reps, interns, everyone at the majors would use your product as currency in LA when I was there. trading CDs for concert tickets or exchanging them for cash or credit for other (better) music. it was a social commodity. ethical? who paid you those cds? bands? i mention your Music Business Certificate class at UGA because like music & education is also cannibalizing itself.. admitting students into programs in such a volume with varying disciplines that it will never yield a real world job. is that ethical? i get it. you landed a job based on your experience, great. will your students when they finish? i understand that you’d like things to be the way they were but we’re old and Emily is young. the business needs to adapt.

  411. Fantastic article, but perhaps it could be just as effective while being drastically shorter? Like this:

    “The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.”

    End of story.

  412. I know this is asking a lot, But I am a musician with many of the same views as David. I am 33 and have been in bands all of my life with no real amount of money to show for it. I have toured and have been/ are in bands That have been are on labels such as Teenbeat and Kill Rockstars. I have many opinions about the topic of fairness with compensation in the music industry. I work on a blog Synconation.com and would like to have a conversation that can be recorded somehow with him on this subject, by phone or in person that can be filmed. Please let me know if this is possible. I think it is a very important thing to have this out there. One musician who is seen as successful and another who is seen as not so successful talking about this in a public forum. Two perspectives on this for everyone of the younger generation now to see.

  414. It is not proper nor fair to copy, music, in this case.

    How do we stop it? Ban all CD manufacturing? Ban CD burners? Ban uploads as well as download?

    Digital Rights Management? Busted in what a few hours?

    It’s her generation, it’s all generations.

    Copying and bootlegging is nothing new and so far, people shout and twist, it’s not right, but, no company nor person has found a way to stop it.

  415. David – truly great post, and a philosophical argument I find myself in with degrees in both music and sociology and as an active member of the music community in a mid-size market. On the one hand, without Napster (I was 12 when it hit) and subsequent file-sharing, I would have been exposed to perhaps 1/10th of the music and would have been deprived of days when I listen to literally dozens of musicians, finding ones that I would never have heard and that have truly shaped me into a diverse love for music.

    So let me ask you this to be a devil’s advocate: I pay for perhaps 8 CDs a year. I go to, let’s say, 75 paid shows a year. I put up 6-8 bands a year in my house and show them around. I run a local independent music festival that entertains thousands of people and I have not taken a paycheck from it in 3 years.

    Now, I know I’m an extreme case, and I can only assume you wouldn’t tell me that I should be paying for the scores if not hundreds of CDs worth of music I sample or listen to in a year. But an absolutist argument that taking massive amounts of music for free, especially as addressed to an intern at an incredible music program and someone active in their music community – frankly a GM at a college radio station probably gets scores of CDs sent to her by people begging them to listen to and promote them… so at what point does it wrong? At what point have I earned the due that I owe to the musician? Is it when I pay for a ticket to their show and a few beers to keep the bar that has taken a chance on them in business? Because there’s, in my town, $20 right there.

    is it really fair for you to bash her mentality? Or are you yourself siding with the record company’s mentality that music should be paid for in terms of a CD (or similar product) delivered? I think that the general shift in society, at least the people who are trully supportive of the music scenes, is actually moving towards people who don’t want to pay for music and in fact believe they truly owe something to the musicians, which is why all of the above Kickstarter etc. conversation is amazing.

  416. I found Emily’s viewpoint shocking. How can you call yourself a music lover if you don’t support the musicians in some financial way, i.e. paying for live shows, downloads, CDs or vinyl, or other related merchandise? It’s very important to see this topic from the side of the musicians we’re robbing. Historically, artists typically get taken, so better efforts should be made to protect their livelihoods.

  417. Reblogged this on Interior Lulu and commented:
    This is a brilliant piece of work by David Lowery at the Trichordist. It’s intelligent, well-informed, and avoids the usual mud-slinging and land-grabbing of moral high ground that goes with the subject.

    I’d be really interested to see Emily White’s response.

  418. Three thoughts I wanted to add:

    1. Ms. White’s tone suggests to me that she does not realize that the ripping she’s done from physical copies of CDs legitimately acquired by friends, family, and her radio station is just as illegal as the brief, youthful indiscretion of illegal downloading she admits to. If she does indeed misunderstand copyright law, this kind of ignorance may be a legacy of the era when people borrowed and made tapes of LPs — and who ever heard of anyone being prosecuted for home taping, right? Did anyone in the 1980s and 1990s proudly boast of their collection of 11,000 cassette tapes, and never having bought an LP of their own? Back then, home taping meant more work for less results: you had to physically borrow and return the LP, record the cassette and label it, make room for all these tapes, settle for lower quality audio, and the inconvenience of having to fast forward and rewind to hear the track you wanted. Today, a few seconds of time gets you an identical digital copy, whether it’s downloaded from a file-sharing site, or popping your friend’s CD into your computer. Let’s also not forget that in the days when home taping was a new concern, the record labels did actually pursue fees from the manufacturers of black audio tape — today, I suspect, there would be an outcry against this kind of regulatory move as an offensive corporate bailout of a naturally dying industry.

    2. Ms. White says she believes her generation will not pay for albums, but for convenience. But would they even pay for the system she advocates, where all music you could ever want is electronically available on demand, albeit for a price? Or is she implying that illegal downloading is a product of the lack of convenient ways to enjoy music across multiple platforms? My smartphone, portable digital music player, and computer already can sync up to each other. I can access a shared library of music on various devices within my wifi network, including wireless speakers, my TV, or other computers. Ms. White wants what she wants, when she wants it, how she wants it — but she neglects to include “for the price she wants to pay.”

    3. This leads to a point that does not apply specifically to Ms. White (since Ms. White does wish to see artists she respects get paid for their work). It’s frustrating that the same people who accept the idea that there’s no point in restricting the free sharing of music because the technology makes it so easy are often the same people who would turn up for a 99% rally. By making it harder for any entertainer, artist, or those who facilitate their work (e.g. producers, engineers, marketers) to make a decent living, you relegate the role of artist to the privileged classes who can afford to pursue it as a hobby because they don’t need the primary income — if that’s not 1%ers, then perhaps it’s 3-5%ers (the jump down from the 1% bracket to even 2% is significant). If you claim to be concerned about socio-economic justice and giving those less privileged a place in the media industries, you can’t also expect entertainment careers to be built on unpaid internships, musical careers to grow by artists offering free downloads, or visual artists to work “for the exposure.”

  419. David, what are your thoughts on “pirating” tons of music, deleting most that you don’t like, but buying what you do (and can)?

    i don’t recall the specifics of some of my points on this subject, but here’s what i can get from piracy that i can’t get from Amazon or iTunes: i guess the biggest, most obvious, is music discovery. and there are several parts to this:

    regarding completion: multiple artists have said that a song is not its 30-60 sample. and i don’t know about you, but i’m not going to go off a verbal urging from a friend (or a radio show’s expert critics from, say, Sound Opinions) and go out and buy an album without hearing it, and in whole.

    regarding availability: maybe i’m a hipster to some extent (ok, i’m not), but almost none of what i like gets radioplay. (and that’s a whole other ball of wax. the main issue being pay to play, and that’s even IF you can find a station that’s not programmed from one of the coasts, there may not be a station for your format/genre, even IF you want to pay $thousands for just that one city.)

    and if you want to pay spotify/pandora/rdio, their coverage is spotty at best, and you don’t even get “ownership” of any of the music, not even a song to keep. so what else is there? the aforementioned 30-60 second samples?

    and i guess that moves towards convenience: do you really have time to visit every band’s site (if they even have one) to see if they have longer than 60 second samples? or would you prefer to search in one place (e.g. bittorrent tracker, gnutella-based p2p, usenet-based service)?

    “billionaire” Gabe Newell (of the piracy-riddled PC gaming world) puts it that you have to provide a better service than pirates. and the RIAA and other music cartels put too many roadblocks in the way for anything to change (for convenient music discovery) at least “at internet speed.”

    however, circling back to the original issue, the biggest annoyance to me for buying music online is the lack of lossless (uncompressed) music files on iTunes and Amazon (who are rather staggeringly extensive in their *purchasable* library). most of my electronica purchases are from beatport, as i CAN get what I want there. however, i don’t wish to buy the OTHER 2/3 of the music i like that’s not available in this pristine form. i’d rather turn the lossless files into a file that *i* consider high quality (smaller than amazon, and actually higher quality than amazon). or a passable low bitrate one for a cellphone or portable.

    in wrapping up this possibly fragmented, random collection of thoughts, here’s mine: i have yet to see a viable way for music discovery other than thru this frowned upon piracy. because isn’t that what the majority of what piracy is about? i can’t count how much music i’ve bought after being a “dirty pirate” and liking what i discovered. i own 46-48 of my lastfm top50. i wouldn’t have bought ANY of those not played on US radio, otherwise, as i would never had heard it. and that’s probably 80%+ of my collection.

  420. Yes, but….For the record, I don’t take music without paying for it, ever. I’m over 50, and I buy CDs.

    I am an artist with a band. What I would like to point out is that crime does not happen in a vaccuum. In my youth, I once met a man who was cheating on his wife, and I said something a little judgmental. His reply was that, if the marriage had been good, he wouldn’t have been disloyal.

    The abuse of artists by labels and all the other vendors down the food chain has not been slight, before the tsunami of file-sharing hit. One statistic is that 50% of royalties were never paid to artists in the pre-internet days. In my own case, my first record label never paid any of its artists royalties, sending us inventory (and disproportionately little quantities). What was I told by lawyers and other artists? “At least you’re getting some exposure.” Many of us tried to sue. The laws don’t make it feasible.

    So I suspect that at least a part of the climate in which music file-sharing has taken place is one in which the public knows that many musicians were already getting the shaft. They figure that the big-name artists are doing pretty well for themselves, and the others would probably never have seen a penny anyway and are glad for the “exposure.”

    Right or wrong–and, yes, it’s wrong–it takes one into the morally gray area where things like this happen. If the corruption and wholesale cheating of musicians weren’t in place, it would be a little more black and white, I suspect.

    Most of us not-big-name artists have only ever made significant CD money when touring, on that concert night. I have made more at one concert than in a year of selling in the stores or on Amazon. For bands like mine, the damage is not in file-sharing. It is the disaster that has happened to touring bands. Those dozen concerts we used to play, pre-recession, in the US and Europe, put cash into the pockets of every musician in the band, year after year. But since arts funding has ground to a halt, so have the tours. And when we don’t tour, we don’t sell significant numbers of recordings.

    So–to support the musicians–do more than buying the tracks. Go to the concerts, buy a ticket, and buy a CD if you like the show. And, while you’re at it–ask your local Public Radio station to feature local musicians–and not just the edgy new ones, but artists of quality across the board. These things would make a difference, and would be a blessing to folks whose only questionable choice in life was to follow their muse.

  421. Greetings David,

    Wonderful letter – so many well-considered angles. I would like to do a related interview with you for a television/internet program I produce in Charlottesville. Our July show deals with one of the points you come back to repeatedly: that it is not up to government to govern us when it comes to equity, equality, mutual respect and consideration.

    I tend to find, though, that I am on the fringe of the dialogue regarding how the music industry is being influenced by “outside” forces like technology. My focus for nearly two decades has been how musicians can influence our own industry, and so many of the same lessons that you share with Ms. White apply.

    Your letter to Ms. White reminds me of Mark Knopfler’s lyric in “Solid Rock” – “When you point your finger ’cause your plan fell thru you’ve got three more fingers pointing back at you”, in the sense that Ms. White has all sorts of folks she can point to who could see to it that artists get paid for their music. But she conveniently ignores the three fingers pointing back to her.

    Likewise, musicians. The dialogue always seem to be about what “they” could and should do to evolve the successful artist model alongside the evolving audience dynamic that is our reality. It is a victim mentality.

    But musicians are showmen, and showmen is the American word for shaman. We are dreamers, visionaries, and healers. And we are creators, capable of re-creating our experience. Recreating, like those who play do… Not only “play” as in instruments, but those who recall that all the world is a stage upon which we put forth our best show of how we envision Being Human; how we would bring the Opportunity of Humanity to Life given the freedom. Those who recall that no one tells them what to do – in every moment they are free to choose, and are doing so. In the words of Mr. Stipe, et al…

    “Smack, crack, bushwhacked
    Tie another one to the racks, baby

    Hey kids, rock and roll
    Nobody tells you where to go, baby

    What if I ride? What if you walk?
    What if you rock around the clock?
    Tick-tock, tick-tock
    What if you did? What if you walk?
    What if you tried to get off, baby?

    Hey kids, where are you?
    Nobody tells you what to do, baby”

    Thanks again for the great response to Ms. White – truly hope we can get together sooner rather than later for a taped chat.

    Best of Now, always,

    Greg Allen Morgoglione

  423. I partially agree with the author, but I don’t think he really nails the problem. I don’t think people really want to “not pay” artists. It’s just that for a long period of time, you had two options: buy a horrendously overpriced album OR not pay the artist. Unfortunately, by attempting to keep record prices near $20 even as the non-payment alternative became particularly viable with Napster, the record companies essentially trained a whole generation to not pay for records, even as the Internet created the technical possibility of distributing music at a much lower cost and price.

    Additionally, it became widely known that in the record company business model, artists rarely see any money on record sales after their advance–which, by the way, pays for the recording process, and the living expenses of the entire band and its management. Selling records has never been a great deal for the average artist. And contrary to the author’s suggestion, just because a record does not sell enough for the artist’s advance to be fully recouped does not mean that the record company lost money on it. The advance is recouped out of the artist’s royalty, which is a small (often single-digit) percentage of the revenue of a record sale. From the much larger portion that the record company gets on each sale, they actually recoup the money they spent on the advance long before the artist finishes paying it back out of their royalty. Appealing to the morality of the customer to support a morally bankrupt business model is a losing proposition.

    Even as record sales revenue to music companies and artists has been on the decline, there has been a silver lining. With today’s music fan having the ability to listen to a much wider array of music than MTV and radio had offered, the genre landscape has greatly diversified. Twenty years ago, the music landscape couldn’t have supported the dozens of mega festivals that have sprung up. Savvy artists are finding new ways to get revenue through licensing deals for advertisements and soundtracks. An entire industry of music applications has popped up, shifting some of the revenue to software developers, who are artists in their own right. I’m not saying any of this forgives filesharing–simply that it’s not all doom and gloom.

    I think the solution is to start selling music at a reasonable price. I will buy tons of albums if they are priced at $3/each. At $2, I’ll take a chance on bands I haven’t even heard of. But at $10-20, I’d have to really really want it. I think a lot of music consumers feel the same way, and if prices came down dramatically, the increase in sales volume would lead to an overall gain in revenue. Fortunately, companies like Amazon are experimenting, as we speak, to find that sweet spot. For over a decade, I spent nearly $0 on recorded music retail (although I bought dozens of albums directly from bands), but in the past few years, I’ve bought a couple hundred reasonably priced albums on Amazon.

    Bottom line: we can spread the blame around all day, but consumers vote with their wallets, as well as their morality. Artists aren’t going to get their fair share until the industry belatedly recognizes the new reality and some serious industry changes are made. People want to pay for music, just at a fair price.

  424. Great facts to make your case. I’m old, 60, and I’ve never could understand how younger people could rationalize stealing. Most of them don’t have the balls to go steal an iPod, but brag about all the music they steal. Their personal statement is: I’m willing to be a thief if it’s easy.

    I’ve bought a couple thousand albums in my lifetime, LP and CD. Now I subscribe to Rdio and Rhapsody. How do artists feel about paid subscription music?

  425. This article certainly raises some awesome points. I don’t pirate music, and I will stop using Grooveshark. However, there are many awesome kids who support the artists in other ways, for example, by purchasing merchandise or attending concerts. and how can they want to support an artist if they neglect to pay for music before hearing it?

    Check out this music video to watch someone support an artist only after not paying for the music: http://vimeo.com/30331715

  426. I work, yes, work in music retail. We are existing and surviving because there are quite a few adults, children, teens, tweens, millennials who still want to buy physical CDs (Adele’s 21 CD just went back to #1 on Billboard), DVDs and BluRays. I am still surprised to see teens each buy their own copy of Rush. But, there is a small, maybe 3% minority who feel that they have the right to steal from our stores because big, bad corporations are corrupt and won’t miss the money ( yes, when our detectives catch a thief, that is one of the most used lines on why they stole.) But, any businesses, small or large, hurt when more than 0.10% of their inventory walks out the store. We all pay for this.

    Ever walk into a music or book store and wonder where all the neat music box sets are, or the $75.00 art book that use to be on the shelves for you to flip through, spill coffee on, tear out pages that you wanted or just put in your backpack and walk out? Those items are no longer stocked because of what I stated.

    In other words folks, stealing is stealing.

  427. I definitely agree with this post, however, as someone who used to live in a country with very limited access to international currency as Venezuela, I feel the need to say that stopping this completely isn’t always possible. I lived in Venezuela most of my life, and because of policies infringed by the government people there can only access a very limited amount of US dollars (the kind you use to pay for a song on iTunes), therefore, not only purchasing through iTunes or any other medium is extremelly expensive and difficult, but pretty much the only way for one to access music is through piracy (considering 8 out of 10 cds issued internationally don’t even make it to local record stores). That unless you’re loaded with black market dollars to spend or are able to travel outside the country frequently, which is hardly ever the case.

    Fortunately for me, now that I’ve moved some place else I have the chance to “pay back” to those musicians that I love and support by buying as much of their music as I can get, but what I’m trying to say here is that sometimes, there are some special scenarios to consider in this fight and everything isn’t always so black and white. I know for a fact Venezuela isn’t the only case like this.

  430. When I think of the millions of dollars spent on promoting an album, based on a single; only to find that I bought a 15$ single with 10 other very uninteresting songs, I don’t feel bad or immoral when I don’t pay for music. Art made for money is not art. Art is something you do because you love it. If you are lucky enough to have people appreciate your music, that is payment enough. Monetary compensation is a result of hard work and talent. 35K a year to be a touring musician? I’ve worked twice as hard for half as much, doing a job that I hate. I would love to get 35,000$ in 365 days to do what I love! As a musician, I agree that getting paid is awesome! But the payment to return ratio was so low, that, now that the consumer has the upper hand, the moneys going in the “wrong direction”. Web sites merchandise, promotion, special events. That is how you make you mark/money. It takes allot more than Wolfman Jack to spin your record nowadays! A song isn’t enough, we know that. And if I end up with an album i did not pay for, I will buy a T shirt, I will go to a concert, I will “like” their video on Youtube. It’s absurd and appalling to think that cutting an album is enough to get paid. Are you actually listening to what passes for music? Those A-holes owe me!
    I would love nothing more than to get every cent coming to me, but I am an artist, not a capitalistic. It’s the combination of the two, that are truly appalling.
    It is because of the influx of record-able media that gives us so much to chose from musically. I find it hard to believe that Mr. Lowery, you never had a “mix tape” with songs that you did not pay for. It is the fact that the piggy bank, we call the music industry is collapsing, and much like the American Auto Industry…it should! Also Ethics, and Morals are suggestions based on over all religious and social consensus, It is unethical to expect for me to not realize that the Lil’ Wayne song I’ve heard for the 4th time today isn’t making some revenue for the radio station. The way I look at it, Power 106 and Lil’ Wayne owe me for making me listen to those god awful Erectile Disfunction ads!

  431. The thing I find really sad is that ‘good’ radio has practically vanished. There are a lot of us who want a service that is the equivalent of radio though. We have 2 options, internet radio where it’s a complete unknown if anyone is getting any money, or a subscription service/satellite where we assume someone is getting some money. In my case I gladly pay for a subscription service, to replace a medium that was once free…. but according the article by doing that I am harming bands. So what are the alternatives? I LIKE to have something like radio around. I don’t want a hardcopy of every song I have ever heard.

  433. Excellent article. The only thing that David didn’t suggest that I might have, was to listen to music on radio stations instead of thinking you had to “own” a copy of it. Radio stations pay the royalties required , and the musicians get the money. In the instance of “public” radio stations, or listener supporter radio, they also give many indie artists a platform from which to expose their music to a broader base than friends and family. I realize that this is also much more easily accomplished in an internet setting, but if you’re concerned about the musicians getting their share of the money they are owed for their intellectual property, it’s an equitable trade-off.

  434. This was an astonishing, necessary read; it’s illuminating to see the human cost of music theft, and how tragic it can become.

    May I ask how you came across those statistics? As a member of Ms White’s generation I’m conversely an advocate of paying for music, but this sort of information eludes me.
    I’d particularly be interested to know whether there is much variance in artist royalties between major and independent record labels. I’ve heard horror stories and songs of praise about how well or atrociously Indie labels can treat their bands, but I’d relish the opportunity to find out more.

    I think you’re right that this generation of listeners would change their tune (no pun intended) if they could see the damage their doing, and articles like this are a wonderful part of revealing that. If only this information were easier to find…

  435. Well said, David.

    And I am appalled at the numerous tech sites who are bashing your post (e.g. TechDirt). I certainly don’t see your post as a cry to return to the old ways.

    The system is clearly broken. Yet, I think most kids would say they want to support artists. But they don’t trust “The Man” (whomever they think “The Man” may be).

    The current generation of young people listen to music like people in my generation listened to the radio. We’d flip through numerous stations to hear the songs we liked. If something were really good, we’d go buy the 45rpm or LP. Spotify and Pandora are like radio stations to the current generation. And people don’t want to pay to listen any more than we would have paid to listen to the radio stations of our day. The access to “listening” has increased tremendously. And it’s on-demand now.

    It’s a problem, for sure. And I don’t have any answers.

    Music has become disposable. Jonathan Franzen wrote something in one of his books to the effect of “a song nowadays costs as much as a stick of gum and lasts about as long”.

  436. David,

    I found this article very interesting and it truly does make me proud of my increasing record collection on my shelves that I’ve bought either New, or used from Local Businesses. It’s very refreshing to feel some support on this issue as very few members of my generation quite understand the gravity of pirating like we do. I truly hope that either this knowledge will be spread or that streaming services like Spotify will be able to find some sort of way to support artists. It could be possible that a website will arise created by artists and for artists to share their music with their fans in a way that would be backed by legitimate advertising. I know that this may be a daunting task in such a morally askew era, but I truly hope that the starving artists of the world will be able to overcome gluttonous hearts of the corporations. I’m a fellow Georgian as yourself, and will hopefully be attending The University of Georgia next Fall as an eager student ready to hear more of your intelligent and well written lectures.

    Lucas Carver

  438. David,

    I did read your post, but not all the replies, so I apologize if this was already mentioned.

    I think most people are OK with paying for music – as long as that price is realistic and the product is worthwhile. $2000 for 10,000 sounds is quite a fair deal. If I could get $20/month and play unlimited music, I’m sold. Unfortunately, the music companies have ensured that I cannot do that. As Emily said, she’s not against paying for music – it’s just that paying should be on her terms, not the record companies’.

    I could possibly pay $1/song on iTunes, only to have iTunes not work in the myriad of devices it doesn’t exist on. If I disconnect from the net, now I’m without music. Unlike a CD, once I’ve bought it, I own it – iTunes can choose to yank a song I’ve bought. I want the same control that I’ve always had with a CD. A DRM-free mp3 gives me most of that flexibility.

    Until the music industry understands and accepts that their old business model is no longer acceptable to listeners, I will continue to “steal”. iTunes, Pandora and Spotify all have good elements and are moving in the right direction, where a listener can pay a reasonable amount for media, have the contributors get a reasonable share, and have enough flexibility for a listener to play the media. But there is still a ways to go.

    Suing individual file-sharers, which are listeners, are not how you sell a product. People are “stealing” because they don’t have a reasonable alternative. Think of it like marijuana – if so many people break the law, perhaps you need to rethink the whole process from the ground up.

    Scott Hartranft

  439. Pingback: David Lowery: Speaking up for Musicians

  440. My favorite artist retweeted the link to this article – so glad he did. A must-read for every music fan! I have given away dozens of his CDs – each one purchased by me. I would never dream of stealing the music I love so much, or encouraging anyone else to do so. I want my favorite artists to keep making music far a long time, and I do whatever I can to support as many of them as possible. Thank you for this well-written article; I now have it bookmarked for future reference.

  441. Pingback: Artists have earned payment: Please don’t rip them off! | Victory Rolls and V8s

  442. This is a great piece and I agree 100% with you but:

    I am from the era of 45s , LPs. Back in the 70’s I had a small collection of bootleg LPs. I don’t recall a lot of hoopla about people committing suicide because of the bootleg records industry. But mp3s are different.

    I used to plug my tape recorder in to the audio jack of my AM/FM radio and copy music. Maybe each time I made a copy another musician went hungry and I didn’t hear about it? I know that audio tape is different from mp3

    When CDs came out I re-purchased my entire collection: the boot-legs, the AM tape recordings, 45s, LPs – I think a lot of my friends were doing the same thing – it was the golden age of the Music industry: Record Profits, if you excuse the pun. I recall seeing an article in the Wall Street Journal about CD sales driving the Music Industry and a marketing survey that said folks just like me were the reason. Basically I was paying $20 a pop to get the same music I already had a recording of. Since I was replacing my Classical, Blues and Jazz collection a lot of the artists were already dead. Still, somebody got my money. No moral outrage on my part about this, just stating the facts.

    Then along came Napster. I loved browsing other people’s collections, and when I found a track that I liked I almost always ended up going out and trying to find the CD (which was pretty hard given the state of Music Tagging in those days). Once I found the CD, most of the time I deleted the mp3 I had illegally down loaded, not because of any moral quandaries but because the sound quality was so poor. More often then not: one track on Napster would lead me to purchasing a couple of the Artist’s CDs. I spent a lot of money in those days. And yes: I have crates of CDs in my garage and attic. Some of my friends were using Napster too. According to another article I read back then (Wall Street Journal?): profits were starting to decline in the Music Industry. As I recall the articles stated the obvious: the baby boomers were done re-purchasing their entire analog collection. Since those articles echoed my personal experience I believed them, I don’t believe that my usage was an anomaly.

    Then Napster shut down. Around the same time there were also a couple of expensive lawsuits where people just like me had legally purchased the CD but still had illegal copies of the some song in mp3 form on a hard drive or CD somewhere; never mind that the defendant didn’t listen to that specific mp3; never mind that defendant didn’t even know that they had that mp3, never mind that in a couple of cases the mp3 was erased and no longer accessible – They couldn’t Prove that hadn’t done anything illegal, and there was a smoking gun: an IP address that had at one time or another was associated with the defendant’s home address, or somebody who had a name like the defendant. You know: Bob Jones in AnyTown getting confused with Sammy Smith in MyCity. Any mp3 that was discovered must have been pirated and illegal. Even if you already had the CD of that track, as pointed out in this article it was and still is morally/criminally wrong to download an inferior mp3 copy of the same track w/o paying for it. And so the defendants paid – big time, plus lawyer fees. The stance of the courts has been modified a little since those first few cases days and you only rarely hear about 90 year old grandmas getting busted for illegally downloading rap. But you know those grannies are out there. And they have internet. And they have a lot of time on their hands. And they just gotta love E-40. And better yet: they can’t afford to lawyer up. So they gotta be pirates, right? How else can you explain why E-40 music sales are down?

    Me? I’ve stopped my illegal downloading. And since Napster shut down and since I have already repopulated my analog collection with CDs I also stopped buying music too. A lot of my friends felt the pretty much the same way. It was only the strangest of coincidences, just beyond belief really, and certainly in no way connected: but at –precisely– the same time I stopped illegally downloading the Music Industry was hitting hard times too. Perhaps other people had simply stopped buying CDs? No, said the RIAA, the Only possible reason for declining sales was: piracy. Recession? no: piracy. Crappy music? no: Piracy. Poor online customer experience? no: Piracy.

    RIAA gave me one choice: go to the mall and stand in line like a good consumer so I could pay $20-40 for a CD with only one decent track or I could go without.

    And then the internet music store fronts started to open.

    Sure: iTunes is nice, easy too, and the price almost right. And yes: I do get to listen to a random 10 second section of a track, if I can find it. But you still don’t get it do you: you’ve already lost me as a customer. I downloaded a song from the iTunes Store last week — it was my first music purchase in 2012. Wanna know why? For some reason iTunes had lost the iTunes original track and so I had to re-purchase it. Apparently this happens fairly frequently. And then the song has some sort of digital rights management ( to protect me ).

    Anyhow: I’ve gone from being an occasional illegal downloader who as direct result of illegal down loading was spending $200-$400/week to get the legal CDs — to — spending a couple dollars every 4-6 months from iTunes/Amazon. I have done Exactly what you asked, I stopped my illegal downloading and as a direct result I stopped buying music — as have many other consumers — so could you explain to me: why are the artists still so unhappy?

    But I enjoyed the article. really.

    p.s.
    Last week I broke my iPod. It had 53,000 songs, which @ $250,000 damages per copyrighted song means I caused: $12,500,000,000 worth of economic damages when I sat on it. I wonder why I didn’t make the news. Why didn’t Wall Street even notice? Or is this an example of copyright laws being broken?

  443. Very well written. One small problem I’ve encountered over 30+ years of purchasing music is the excessive mark-up cost placed on virtually every lp, cassette, and compact disc I’ve purchased over the years. It is irrational for me to react to this dilemma by stealing music from well deserving artists, and it is remarkably easier to ensure the money makes it’s way into the artists pocket via band website and licensed downloading hubs. Having said this, “sticking it to the man” should have been implemented many years ago in the music industry. The fat cats got fatter, and my Cracker “The Golden Age” CD ended up costing me $20.00 at a music store I worked at (I did inventory, the mark-up wasn’t difficult to figure out). The money was rolling in and artists did very little (with the exception of Fugazi, and a handful of others) to ensure that their fan base wasn’t being ripped off. In no way am I implying that an artist’s work should be stolen, or deserves to be stolen. I am saying as I watched the doc “The Stones In Exile” about the fabled recording sessions of The Rolling Stones “Exile On Main Street”, my stomach turned a little watching the ridiculously overpaid assistants, execs, PR people, hangers on, Keith Richards, galivanting around in private jets and palatial mansions because Keif and Mick wrote Jumping Jack Flash. A bloated, out of touch system will soon implode, and the music industry is no exception. It is incredibly unfair that smaller and arguably more well deserving artists are taking the biggest hit of all. I have purchased CD’s by Vic and Mark Linkous (some two times over) and was fine paying the over priced product because I love their music on record and live, but I would love to see what the musicians would be balking at if their record companies didn’t have the internet to contend with, and just continued to annually increase the cost of recorded music. My guess, they probably wouldn’t say much. Throw Napster in the mix and WOW, here comes Lars, and Madonna, and other multi-million dollar recording contract artists to tantrum in front of “daddy”, no wait “the man”, I’m sorry, ahem, Congress. I love music, I love David Lowery music especially (and have paid for it, by the way), but there are many reasons why the recording industry is in the shape it’s in
    Thanks for the awesome tunes David

  444. Great article, David, but…

    I don’t think it’s fair to take the entire Free Culture movement to task because of the actions of some music pirates. The Free Culture movement is often misconstrued as a drive to completely dismantle copyright and freely disseminate information (including music), but it’s a big tent, and that’s not quite fair. Creative Commons licenses, championed by Lawrence Lessig and the Free Culture movement, offer artists the choice to allow users certain freedoms with their work. FC is responsible, among other things, for Wikipedia, open-source software like Firefox, and has played a huge part in cultivating and bolstering the remix movement. Indirectly (through encouraging remix) I might argue that it’s contributed largely to the popularity of GarageBand and other simliar software; I certainly think that it’s getting more individual consumers engaged in the creation of music, which can only encourage consumption by deserving professional musicians.

    You’re absolutely right, musicians should be treated with respect and compensation for their time and talent, and the efforts of artists should never be taken for granted. Obviously music should come at a fair price to enable its creation in perpetuity. But when you conflate FC with “looting,” I think you’re missing the point. If anything, I’ve always perceived the FC Movement as one to enable creation by amateurs and the ability to make art a conversation through relaxing control on derivative works like remixes or re-orchestrations. We can have a conversation about whether derivatives should be under the tight control of artists that they are now (although covers, which offer a much greater threat to the economic viability of the free market, are compulsory licensed); but it’s not germane to the conversation about paying for/not paying for music and, I believe, it’s slanderous to a movement that only serves to help the public sympathize with artists.

    2. Like all things the devil is in the details. The reason I write such long posts and forgo twitter and now facebook is because i want to get to the devils in the details. I think i’ve had an impact by refusing to write short posts. I count it as a moral victory when I see micro bloggers tl/dr ing my blogs. But I digress.

      I agree the free culture movement is very diverse. I’m very aware of that. I’ve recently had positive conversations and agreements on certain issues with PP members! As you may note nearly all my live recordings are made available for free within the free culture approved music archive. I have people I work with who are part of the free culture movement. I honestly need to devote some time dissecting the movement. The reason I lump the free culture movement together is that to me they “intellectually arm” the really radical Freehadist. Let me give you an example.

      There is this free culture obsession with Jefferson and copyright. Now I like Jefferson but you know that he didn’t really have anything to do with US copyright. Madison was the copyright guy. Asking Jefferson about copyright is like asking Charlie watts about strawberry fields forever. Yet free culture enthusiasts constantly quote an excerpt of his 1813 letter to MacPherson when it comes to copyright. The problem is that Jefferson was talking about patents in that letter. And a very specific patent. This is an extremely important point because Patents protect ideas and copyright protects expression. I my opinion is that many of the leaders of the free culture movement obscure this distinction. And it’s intellectually dishonest. It’s revisionist history. Yet thousands of times a day young uniformed Freehadist perpetuate this falsehood.

      this link explains it very well.
      http://www.copyhype.com/2011/10/who-cares-what-jefferson-thought-about-copyright/

      Here is the dean of the free culture movement pushing the jefferson quote:

      Click to access NatureD3.pdf

      You also have to admit that the free culture movement can really turn out an online mob when they want to. Having been on the receiving end of one of these cybermobs a time or two (one of the reasons I don’t have a facebook page) I’m often inclined to treat the entire free culture movement as a mob. I suggest if the real reasonable adherents of free culture want people like me to spend some time on their nuances they should also direct some nuance towards people like me that only partially disagree with them.

      Kind of like what you are doing. I appreciate the reasonable tone.

      1. So, seriously your point of view here is that because some people on the Internet are jackasses you get to be a jackass, too? Sorry, but it does not work that way. Your arguments are either reasonable or they are not reasonable – on their own – irrespective of what anyone else says or does.

        Accusing Creative Commons of being part of a grand effort to change morality is not reasonable. It completely mischaracterizes what Creative Commons is and what they have accomplished.

        Also, there is plenty of academic research on the impact of file sharing on the market for audio recordings. That research does not support the conclusion that the decline in the market for audio recordings was entirely or even primarily a consequence of file sharing. Although that is a politically expedient scapegoat, the real problem is more complicated, and a constructive discussion requires respect both for the facts and for the genuine motives of those you disagree with.

      2. Why are you guys always so angry. you are illustrating my point about the mob mentality of the free culture movement. angry at artists that don’t agree with you. look what happened to lilly allen.

        and actually let’s stop spreading the lies. just as i suggested. then maybe we can get into the nuances of the free culture movement.

        what lies?

        14 academic peer reviewed studies, the gold standard of scientific proof, all show causality between file sharing and drop in recorded revenue. then all of these studies and data were sort of rolled into a meta study by liebowitz and he came to the same conclusion.

        here is a good place to start to verify all this. Notice i’m linking you to a University. not some tech industry website.
        http://www.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/intprop/main.htm

        Truth is you guys in the free culture movement don’t even know how to argue your own cause. You need to get off the “there is no evidence thing”. You guys are sounding like global warming, birther or 911 conspiracy nuts. did you see where I stated above I only partially disagree?

        I think most of you guys just want to be pissed off at someone and today it happens to be me. good luck with that.

      3. David,

        I’m not angry at you because I disagree with you. I’m angry at you because you’ve more or less accused the entire tech industry and everyone in what you call the “free culture movement” of seeking to undermine morality for profit and intentionally spreading lies. I find that accusation offensive, and its difficult to have a reasonable discussion with you when you’ll write off anyone who challenges your arguments as being part of a “mob.”
        Creative Commons created a framework that allows artists to choose to release their work into the public domain for certain purposes (such as noncommercial remixing) while reserving other rights, without having to hire a lawyer in order to do that. I don’t understand how this undermines people’s morality.
        Leibowitz has reportedly received funding from the RIAA. Does that make him wrong? No, but you did make a remark about the fact that you were linking an academic and “not some tech industry website” so I think its fair game to mention that. I cannot find an independent source that attempts to resolve the dispute between Leibowitz and Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf. However, there are a number of other studies that suggest the problem with recording sales is more complicated than piracy. For example, Seung-Hyun Hong has written a number of papers on the subject.

        http://siepr.stanford.edu/publicationsprofile/379

        The reason that I see your tarring and feathering of the “free culture movement” as a problem is that this IS a political issue. There are a variety of legislative efforts around preventing music piracy, and some of these proposals have negative side effects. The recent debate over SOPA/PIPA is fresh in my memory. If people in your industry are unwilling to listen to technologists because you believe we’re all part of some evil conspiracy than it will be very hard for us to reach an understanding when contentious proposals are on the table.

      4. you sound like a birther. I forwarded your statement to Liebowitz. you should be careful about what you say. Some people are unreasonable hotheads (like you) and start suing and shit.

      5. Nobody’s arguing against a musician’s rights under Creative Commons to give away some rights. We are, however, arguing that those who choose not to take that approach deserve to have their rights respected and protected.

      6. :-/ Look, David, I’m obviously failing to get through here – all you can see is that I’m angry. It is not my intent to badger you – I wish I could communicate this more clearly. Doing so requires, as you said, a longer explanation.

        I have operated communities on the Internet since the early 1990’s. I care about the vitality of those communities, and I have learned through experience that certain things are required in order to protect that vitality, things like due process for content takedowns. I’ve personally seen the present processes that exist for copyright enforcement abused to censor content inappropriately over many years. There needs to be a process, but that process needs to have safety valves, or it will be misused.

        Your industry is very politically powerful, and we’ve just gone through a nasty fight over these issues – a fight in which the concerns that people on my side raised about the legislation that the recording industry was asking for have been mischaracterized by that industry’s spokespeople.

        For example, Robert Levine wrote: “People on the other side don’t say, ‘Hey, we have certain problems with these certain parts of the PROTECT IP Act.’ They say, ‘We don’t want any legislation at all, things are fine.'”

        That simply isn’t true. I don’t think anybody had a problem with a process for turning off advertising on foreign infringing sites, for example. Those on our side simply wanted a reasonable process to be put in place to ensure that allegations were legitimate before things were shut down.

        It is one thing for the recording industry to argue about the need for and the nature of that process (and they did). It is another thing entirely for that industry to openly claim that there was no negotiable position, that everyone raising objections is misinformed, or worse, that the technology industry is openly interested in profiting from crime and that is the true motivation for opposition to things like SOPA and PIPA.

        Your essay – your comments about the malicious motives of the tech industry and of foundations like Creative Commons – is similar to and related to these narratives. It is a serious accusation and you shouldn’t really be surprised that it makes people angry. However, the reason I responded is that I don’t think that you are trying to deliberately mischaracterize the tech industry – I think you believe what you wrote.

        I don’t think that piracy is the sole cause of all of the industry’s woes, but that doesn’t mean I think its OK. Of course there should be enforcement mechanisms and we want them to work.

        There has got to be a give and take. A perfectly efficient law enforcement system is going to sweep up the innocent as well as the guilty. We tolerate inefficiency for the sake of fairness. Punishments should be reasonable under the circumstances too, for the same reasons. Fines in the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars for sharing a handful of songs go beyond what is reasonable and necessary. We have to find a balance. We cannot do that if we cannot communicate. Communication requires trust and understanding.

        If you think everyone who is objecting to a copyright enforcement mechanism is doing so because they stand to profit from crime, of course, you aren’t going to take those objections seriously. We need you to, because those objections are serious, and if you won’t listen to us we have no choice but to fight.

      8. @Tom “Your industry is very politically powerful”… I appreciate the position of the Creative Commons (and more towards my line of work the FSF)… But I think in order to have a constructive dialog, the pretense that there only powerful poitical interests on one side of this issue has to be dispensed with.

        As near as I can tell, the artists are the ones that are suffering, so it’s understandable they they distrust those on both sides of the struggle. All that noise thrown about that there’s no such thing as Intellectual Property and wanting to gut Copyright ain’t exactly assuaging the artists’ fears. Whether such things are the “official” position of CC or not, it seems to be a constant source of chatter. So, if these things aren’t really the goal of CC – and it’s just a desire to create an ecosphere for the Creative Commons to thrive and remain unimpeded, then it’d be nice if the community tried to separate the noise from their central goals. I suspect such things is what makes the other side suspicious of motives and ‘angry’ in the other direction.

        Personally, I think the common expression/analogy used in the open source debate years ago needs to be brought into this discussion: the message of “Free Speech” versus “Free Beer” needs to come through loud and clear. The pirate community is awash in Free Beer, and what the FC should be emphasizing is that this is not the same as Free Speech.

      9. Couple thoughts for you: First, we could both probably pick “X is your worst spokesman for your side, if you just didn’t have X you might be more persuasive”. I don’t know who that is for my side with you, but I can tell you without question who it is for me about your side: Lawrence Lessig. Hands down. And probably not for the reasons you might think. Watch this video and ask yourself how much he is enjoying demagoging the Hollywood vs. Super Big Tech to a room of rapt admirers

        It’s a short video that appears to be distributed by the UK Pirate Party and in it he says some odd things that are money shots that please the crowd: We are not going to let this Hollywood, this tiny industry, push us geeks around. Particularly not when we have Google. My daddy is bigger.

        This is just one example, there are many more. Lines like that don’t end up in his books, but it’s what the thinks. I’ve watched many of his speeches and that’s where you hear this stuff. And it seems that the younger and more unsuspecting the audience, the more likely he is to reveal a kind of hatred that lurches in and out of the pathological, almost like PTSD symptoms. I have never figured out what we did to offend him, but it is the classic example of putting in a nickel and getting a dollar in change.

        I’m not alone in this view as I think you can pretty clearly see from the reactions. He’s had his run, he’s done a lot of harm and I’m willing to accept that some people think he’s done some good. I’m not one of them, but that’s OK. I’m sure he’s fun to play poker with. Or lobby for poker with.

        But not for me and not for a lot of people.

        Remember–lines like this don’t end up in his books because no one would want to justfy these lines to serious thinkers. I think you’ll find these lines in speeches he gives to young followers.

        It is an unforgivable thing to lie to young people.

    3. “… I’ve always perceived the FC Movement as one to enable creation by amateurs and the ability to make art a conversation through relaxing control on derivative works like remixes or re-orchestrations. We can have a conversation about whether derivatives should be under the tight control of artists that they are now … ”

      Wow, birds of a feather!

      There are no jackboots going after “amateurs” doing mash ups. Just as no one went after the mix tape crowd who very effectively made “art a conversation”. But if said amateur tries to profit off or pass off others’ work as their own, it’s theft, and in the latter example, plagiarism.

      For you to claim :

      “… it’s slanderous to a movement that only serves to help the public sympathize with artists.”

      is Orwellian. The “artists” you speak of are plagiarists.
      .
      And your understanding of songwriters is highly skewed (and I do not presume to speak for David here). To state :

      “covers, which offer a much greater threat to the economic viability of the (original product) … ”

      Are you for real? What threat? There are very, very few songwriters who do not welcome cover versions of their songs, whether they make money or not. But take away attribution, real artists are not happy campers. And, yes, because of compulsory licensing of previously released songs, songwriters have an expectation they will be paid.

      But paid under the Free Culture banner?

      Full disclosure : as a music publisher I was in a very small minority arguing AGAINST term extension. Life plus 50 was absurd, life plus 70 is surreal.

  445. I am reposting this comment since my original post never showed up.

    David, I was astonished by your statement, “You have grown up in a time when technological and commercial interests are attempting to change our principles and morality.” This is true, but you read it backwards. It is the content creators who are trying to change our morality. In the US, the RIAA and the MPAA spend millions suborning our lawmakers and trying to persuade the country that a content creator has a natural right to every last penny that might possibly be squeezed out of created content. The truth is that free culture is constitutionally approved and that copyright and patents are very narrowly justified in our Constitution. Their only constitutional justification is that they “promote progress”. The founders balanced the evil of the monopoly that copyright and patents create against the good of promoting content creation. Nowadays, the content creators attempt to persuade us that that monopoly is good, and they refuse to acknowledge that it is the evil that our founders clearly recognized and attempted to mitigate.

    Kids recognize this perversion of our founding principles and rebel. I applaud them for rebelling, although I would prefer they express this by working for better laws. I also applaud those who make art because they love art, whether or not it proves remunerative. That said, I am an adult who can afford to buy music, and I do. Lots of it. I buy it on CD, in large part because I care about the recording quality. But I also buy it because I want the artists to profit from their work. I do not let my children download music illegally. And as a teacher, I urge my students to buy the music of their favorite bands. There is absolutely no contradiction between loving music and being willing to pay for music, on the one hand, and on the other hand, recognizing that in the realm of copyright the founders’ intent has been perverted and we are getting the best legislators that money can buy.

    I am personally much more appalled by the propaganda of the RIAA and the MPAA than I am by the behavior of the kids they are attacking. The ethical issues are not as clear cut as you argue. Until content creators clearly acknowledge that copyright is a limited privilege granted by law, not a natural right granted by God, they will continue to lose public support. And rightly so.

    Alan

  446. ‎1) I agree that people no longer pay for music and it’s messed up. People are more willing to pay $4 at starbucks than $5 to see 3 bands perform, or even $1 for a downloadable single. However, I don’t think it’s correct to say downloading or sharing music is unethical. That implies there is malicious intent, which I don’t think is the case.

    2) We can’t guilt people into paying for music, or changing their behavior. It’s a weak strategy to “fix” the problem. It is better to create value-added incentives and opportunities so that consumers direct money towards the artist.

    3) The only way forward I see is to start over, with artists making better decisions about who where and how they license and distribute their music. The more time spent propping up old systems, the more time wasted. The article blames consumers for artists being poor, which indicates that fans have all the power and leverage in the artist-fan relationship. Give artists resources and tools to empower themselves and eliminate any and all middlemen who take a cut off every dollar.

    4) Your comments regarding the “Free Culture” movement (whatever that is) are totally baseless and misinformed. The purpose of Creative Commons was to create an alternative licensing solution that was more compatible with the digital commons and remix culture. It was an idea started by Lawrence Lessig, not some corporate backed conspiracy. Perhaps, much like the “Free software” movement which CC shares philosophies with, you are misunderstanding the meaning of Free – as in speech, not necessarily as in beer. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

    TL;DR:
    Look, you are right. People are stealing music – but we cannot pretend to go back to the way things were before Napster. We can’t convince people sharing music is unethical. We can do better to empower artists and eliminate middlemen. The future beyond torrents, Spotify and iTunes is an actual free market made up of musicians dealing directly with fans in a balanced way.

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  448. Interesting article, but you overlook what are really the key issues.

    1. Why is iTunes (or whoever) still charging me $20+ for an album despite not having to press, package and ship that album and despite no longer having to pay a middle man in the form of a record store to hold it as stock and sell it to me?

    2. Why are record companies preventing me from getting music in the form I want it (lossless, DRM-free music not tied to a third party such as Apple or Amazon) and therefore creating an incentive to obtain an illegal copy which does have the features I want?

    3. Why am I being expected to cover the huge overheads of “marketing” when the reality is that the Internet creates a genuinely free market for music where the outdated record industry payola model of record promotion is worthless?

    When the price of lossless, DRM-free music, without third line forcing (itunes, etc), is comprised of an artist royalty, production costs and a small profit margin, you will have a point. Until then, you are defending the imposition of a totally outdated system in circumstances where it no longer applies.

    Basically, you want us to agree to pay for hay to feed the horses that pull the carriage and not to travel faster than a horse can trot, despite the invention of the automobile.

    1. Oh and – the problem with what you are defending can be demonstrated no better than by looking at regional pricing. Here in Australia, an album on itunes will cost $5-10 more than the same album purchased in the United States. As the costs of supply would be identical in each case, the logical conclusion is that price gouging is occurring via the artificial monopoly of intellectual property rights.

  450. Good article, David. A few bullet points I thought of:

    1) Very few college kids pay for their own tuition… thus, since (as you correctly point out) the cost of high-speed internet is built into general student fees, very few pay for their internet access. Many students also receive loans for laptops. Then they log on and there is free music everywhere. Nowhere is an ethical decision made. It is purely economic.

    2) You nowhere address the issue of teenagers using their parents’ internet and computer. In the 1990’s, teenagers (like myself) had to buy CDs, usually with their parents’ money. Most of those teens were not making any sort of ethical decision about who was ultimately receiving that money. Today, teens are still not making any such decision. They log onto their home computers and there is free music everywhere. They are not forced to make an ethical determination at any point in the process. Essentially, music was “free” for kids in the 90’s and music is “free” for kids now. They don’t know, or give a shit, that somewhere down the line an artist is getting screwed. If you want to try to convince a 15-year-old of that, good luck.

    3) Generally, instead of taking to task one indie-rock loving college DJ who may or may not have a misguided ethical basis for downloading free music, you ought to attack the millions upon millions of people who have destroyed the industry simply because free music is literally spilling out of their computer. It may bother you that there is a small group of thoughtful music-lovers who actually think through these things and still come to a conclusion that is illegal and unethical, but the overwhelming majority of people make the decision to steal music because it’s free and they couldn’t care less.

    -Andy

  451. I’ll gladly pay artists who release their work under smaller studios or on their own (I understand that this may not be feasible for some starting artists, given the ridiculous cost of recording studio time), but I take exception to purchasing music on iTunes or in any form that will line the pockets of RIAA/Apple/etc who don’t have the consumer nor the artists best interests at heart and are purely middle men wanting to take a cut. for those who are signed with major labels, I’m sorry, I wish I could pay you your cut without having to pay the labels that greedily take the lions share and then continue to lobby to try and persist a failing business model and extend copyright law infinitely.

    To draw a parallel – some comedians are now producing their own stand up shows and selling them at very affordable prices by cutting out middle men (ie Louis CK), hopefully more music artists can start selling direct to the consumer, as Radiohead and NiN have done.

  452. “I also find this all this sort of sad. Many in your generation are willing to pay a little extra to buy “fair trade” coffee that insures the workers that harvested the coffee were paid fairly. Many in your generation will pay a little more to buy clothing and shoes from manufacturers that certify they don’t use sweatshops. Many in your generation pressured Apple to examine working conditions at Foxconn in China. Your generation is largely responsible for the recent cultural changes that has given more equality to same sex couples. On nearly every count your generation is much more ethical and fair than my generation. Except for one thing. Artist rights.”

    You raise this point a few times but, in this article, don’t explain it directly except to infer that people aren’t seeing the direct consequences on a real person they can see/feel/touch. I think it’s key.

    *outing myself as a part-time musician here, the only money I make from music is through gigs*

    To use your specific examples, rightly or wrongly, the perception is that musicians aren’t objects of sympathy (or exploitation), someone living off the land in Guatemala growing coffee is. A musician, if they don’t like their lot in life can go do something else and at least survive, unlike the Foxconn employee. A gay person can’t change who they are. I doubt you’d get much sympathy from a doco on poor down-trodden muso’s for this reason, despite a plethora of examples of musicians suffering. There are many who I have heard (no kidding) suggest that an artist’s life should, in fact, be all about suffering because better art comes from it. The differences in what constitutes ‘success’ is important too. A successful musician is $$$, success for a gay person trying for marriage rights is, well, the legal ability to get married. Because the risk is great for a musician but the monetary reward is (potentially) awesome, reckon that lessons the sympathy angle for musicians quite a bit. Especially since so many muso’s trade on their cool and the awesome life they’re now enjoying.

    Honestly, I don’t know whether it’s possible to change those perceptions either and I’m certainly not saying I agree with them. But while they exist, I don’t think anyone feels too badly about pirating music.

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  454. Thing 1: Most recording artists I know either downloaded a lot of music for free when they were young/poor/lazy or if they’re of a certain age, then they taped it onto cassettes, etc. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing to do. I’m just saying, like with everything else in the world it’s whose bread that’s getting buttered that determines the side one takes on every moral issue…everyone considers their own survival to be paramount and all argument flows therefrom.

    Thing 2: The industry, RIAA, etc. didn’t just drop the ball, when Napster first made it so easy for the masses to get tunes. They threw the ball as far away as they could! And stuck their heads angrily in the sand, self-destructive as that was. We all had to wait almost a decade for Steve Jobs to do what the industry should’ve BEEN doing: Monetize downloading. Customers were clamoring for a product and the vendors didn’t even research acceptable pricepoints. They just kept raising the price of the CDs nobody wanted, way outside the average kid’s income. It was like NO WE WON’T SELL TO YOU. Instead of spending money and PR and goodwill on prosecuting Napster and its custies, instead of using their MBA’s to think outside the box and make good deals for themselves and their clients–the artists–they turned their backs on the whole shebang! If they could only have seen a new generation of customers–instead of criminals–and just figured out how to charge for the darn product, this would be a VERY different world right now. But they didn’t want to think about change. So instead they stood back and let a righteous outlaw mentality take over. It was only one guy, Steve Jobs, who came along and forced the industry to monetize what should’ve already been their own darn product. (Monetization was Jobs’ true genius.)

    It is sad that once again a hidebound bunch of capital-hoarders has put artists and their audience at loggerheads.

    Thing 3: Just finished “Room Full of Mirrors,” a Jimi Hendrix biography, which has some bits about problems Jimi had with “free love” type protestors, who thought he, and all the rockers of that time, should perform for free.

    Thing 4: Art, more than any drug, is an addiction that must be fed. However we have to get it, we gone get that ishtar one way or t’other. Most folks aren’t gonna put a whole lot of thought into how that hunger is fed. So appealing strictly to consciences is just not practical. No matter who they are, everyone everywhere always feels entitled to what they think they need and will perform all kinds of mental gymnastics to keep feeling that way at any cost. These appeals will catch the attention of a small percentage of polite fans, but the rest? Not so much. A more practical approach is still needed to really solve this problem.

    THING 5: GOOD LUCK! Your art and that of your fellow artists is really all that keeps our world somewhat sane.

    1. i’m a musician. i taped some cd’s/cassettes from friends when i was young. maybe 10 of them.

    2. Oops (as if anyone is going to have read all that anyway), here is a grammar-clarifying CORRECTION for part of Thing 2: ‘The industry spent money and PR and goodwill on prosecuting Napster and its own customers. Instead of using their business degrees to think outside the box, instead of making good deals for themselves and their clients–the artists–the “music business” turned their backs on the whole digital shebang! They seemed/seem neither interested in making good music OR doing good business. ::scratches head in confusion::

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  459. Oops (as if anyone is going to have read all that anyway), here is a CORRECTION for Thing 2: ‘They spent money and PR and goodwill on prosecuting Napster and its custies, instead of using their MBA’s to think outside the box. Instead of making good deals for themselves and their clients–the artists–they turned their backs on the whole shebang!’

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  462. I find it somewhat astounding that, when confronted with the most efficient information and culture distribution network ever created by mankind, the only thing some people can see is the loss suffered by those who used to profit from scarcity that is now gone. It’s as if a machine was invented that can infinitely replicate food and feed the world’s hungry, but everyone is getting bent out of shape because of the impact to restaurants.

    The internet is an information superhighway. That’s a good thing. And yet, some would change it into a supermarket to serve the needs of a privileged few over the many.

  463. David, for historical reference, how did most musicians make money in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, before the boom in popular recorded music the started in the 1960’s? And what is different between now and then?

    I’d read a book a while back called “the mansion on the hill” which led me to believe the amount of money musicians made from recordings was a relatively recent phenomena…

    1. yes. correct. so it was deplorable how the artists were ripped off in the 30s and 40s so it’s okay now? not sure i understand your point.

      1. My point is the the business model your piece refers to is relatively recent– it started only in the 1960’s– and like all models, it has been disrupted.

        People have always made music, and will continue to do so. But I suggest the expectation of making a given level of income from music varies with the times, and for musicians of today their memories are a time when incomes made my musicians were, historically, unusually high.

        You can see this clearly in finance– over the last 20-30 years, the money made by people in finance was obscenely high, and huge numbers of talented people rushed into finance. Now, for a a number of reasons, some of them related to technology, those margins are falling. Finance is trying to stem the tide via lobbying, but I believe in another few decades we will see the financial boom of the last few decades as an outlier.

        I think this may be the case with music. Clearly we are in transition right now, with no new model having yet emerged, and it may be that making music becomes for many more a hobby than a way to make a living.

        But if one looks over the last few hundred years, I suspect that was more often the case, and what we’re seeing now is more a reversion to the mean.

        To the specific point, I pay for all of my music, just as I make a point of donating for freely shared software if I find it good.

        But the notion there is a “right” amount of income a musician should expect is, I suggest, misguided, and a result of limited historical perspective.

      2. one day i’m gonna offer a remedial course to technology industry folks on the real definition of a “distruptive technology” why it’s a corollary to the “the innovatiors dilemna” and the serious critique that it doesn’t actually exist even when stated in proper form. but never mind that right now.

        IMHO you still don’t answer the fundamental questions. Why do we value “the pipes”, the hardware but not the content.

        I know many people in the technology industry (like you, be honest!), think any criticism of the status quo is a rejection of technology. It’ is the ultimate of all strawmen arguments.

        Why don’t you think of my criticisms as suggested improvements to the machine? suggested software upgrades? Like this:

        “dear sirs

        In the next version of web 2.0 i’d like to see some improvements to how the creators of content are compensated”

        Cause ultimately my critique is about the THE FUTURE. Always have been, no matter how many rude, polite and/or falsely reasoned swipes that somehow I want to go back to the past.

        Again. My main points:

        Since NOW it is possible to acquire music without paying, we need to look at our principals and ethics, to ensure that in THE FUTURE we are not rewarding the wrong people.

        As the inevitable march to THE FUTRE proceeds we should remember that we ask technology to support our principals and ethics, not change our ethics and principals to match technology.

        Why is this even controversial?

        Finally I find it amusing the technology maximalists seem to always suggest musicians go back to the models of the 1950’s 1800’s or Dark ages. While everyone else gets to go into the future. What’s up with that.

        +=+++++++++++++

        We’ve had 1 week of debate on this topic and this is the last I have to say on the subject. I won’t be answering any other comments. the debate has been lively invigorating and i feel like i’ve met many no friends, even among those that disagree. but i’m moving on to the next topic.

      3. No one is asking for a specific income, all we ask is that the fact that the people who built the machines that are destroying musicians lives take some responsibility for their actions. As there seems to be no chance that the engineers who built these destructive machines will take responsiblity for their actions, then the users of the machines can be asked to change their behavior.

        There can be no market without property rights, and there can be no property rights without reasonable enforcement at a market clearing cost. All anyone is asking for is that these rights be available to creators. That has nothing to do with guaranteeing a living or an income. All we are asking is that there be a market–there is a voluntary market now and where rights are voluntarily recognized–like iTunes–plenty of money gets made. Why illegal sites settle for a mere slice of Google’s revenue is beyond me. These are not the smartest guys in the room by a long shot.

  464. Enjoyed the article – there are so many great comments on here that I couldn’t read them all (nor expect anybody to read this). Let me first state that I found a new appreciation for independent record labels while working with three awesome ones for the past 6 months. I support artists through music purchases and vinyl (which I absolute love).

    With that said, I think most people, including folks at big and small record labels, artists, and academics would agree that it’s a bit more complicated than the “consumers are simply thieves” argument. To be blunt, the blame isn’t solely on the consumer’s willingness to pirate, nor is this only a negative impact.

    Certainly piracy overall has affected/hurt music sales in the past decade – there really is no question. However, some would argue that piracy has helped labels & artists, particularly smaller ones, reach more consumers resulting in a net gain overall (I direct you to this: http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/8763-shades-of-gray-anti-piracy-legislation-and-independent-labels/). Known as the “exposure effect”, the rationale is that digital technology allows music to be created and distributed at a vastly reduced cost (particularly when compared to the 70s-90s), while also vastly cheaper for consumers to acquire the music, listen to it, and hopefully purchase more of it (or maybe go to a show or two).

    Lets also not forget the massive failure by record labels to adapt to changing trends and technology in the late 90s and early 2000s. There were basically zero legal (or functional) options for consumers to purchase music for MP3 players until Apple developed the software and hardware, and essentially forced record labels to release mp3s through iTunes. Initially, as we all know, major labels decided instead to sue fans for partaking in this illegal activity first, instead of just admitting they messed up and offering new, digital, legal options. Then, they added DRM technology that simply didn’t work. Lastly, people were pissed off by the corporate structure that overtook over-the-air radio (Clear Channel), concert ticket prices (Ticketmaster), etc. I’m sure many or most artists were too, but for whatever reason, nothing seemed to change even to this day.

    Look, this debate is never ending and I could go on and on with pointless dribble – ultimately it is about the artists and the general rule of thumb is that if you like the artist, you should certainly support them with music & concert purchases. But to place the blame solely on Emily doesn’t show the whole picture.

    1. nicely written. but I mean this in the kindest and friendliest way. I think you didn’t read my article. otherwise it’s great. here i’ll distill my article for you: Ethics and Principals shouldn’t change because we are going through technological change. Ethics and principals guide us through times of technological change.

      1. David,

        I appreciate you reading my response. Perhaps I skirted around some points, forgive me if I make a few statements that are somewhat frank.

        Judging by the shear volume of files traded over the last decade & change, it’s safe to say that not all songs downloaded/traded/shared would have been legally purchased, had scarcity remained intact. A very large portion of these downloads were very casual in nature, & the market did not value them at $.99 (nevermind the premium price of $1.39). This shift towards more casual listening was largely brought on by the music industry itself in order to speed up the obsolescence of the song (deemphasizing artist development, emphasizing the single/video, deemphasizing enduring quality during mixing/mastering, emphasizing youth over artistic merit, etc), undermining the album, all the while depending on it for profitability. What we were seeing is the market setting a new value for a digital song, based on new behaviors largely driven by the industry itself (who were bit in the ass by advancements in technology & the industrious efforts of the fans themselves), & the industry flat out ignored it. And when this has been happening en masse for years & years (whether it was initially justified or not) & the industry still does not offer them a fair way to consume music legally in a modern way, the argument that ethics or principals should keep file sharing at bay begins to dry up. And in 2012 it is completely dried up.

        Now many songs downloaded would have been purchased legally. But they would not have come close to making up the padded profits lost during the transition of buying albums to buying singles. And then you have the rapid growth of some competing industries (particular console gaming & 3d movies), who are now grabbing a larger piece of the entertainment dollar. The point is that you’re placing far too much importance on file sharing when you paint a picture of the current sad state of the industry.

        Tragically, the possibility for profitability always existed. It never went away. The Wal-Mart strategy of selling more for less, shipping more product & accumulating profits in bulk always existed under the surface, whether this was through subscription (not streaming, which wasn’t practical at the time… subscription for high quality, downloadable, drm-free mp3s) or by correcting the price of digital music. But we’ll never know because the industry, out of spite, raised prices instead of lowering them. And so when you paint the picture of dastardly tech companies & peg legged pirates stealing out of artists’ profits, you are quite remiss to leave out the grand scale incompetence that occurred during the fall.

        And when you use antiquated formulas to determine that someone owes $X,XXX, & when you’re ballyhooing about ethics & principles, you’re committing the same mistake: misunderstanding both consumer behaviors & the market-determined value of music. At best, someone with a collection of 10,000 downloaded songs owes the same about of money they would’ve paid in the 90’s, only divided out over all of those songs. So if 150 cds as our hypothetical base, we’re looking at something like this…

        (150 cds x 10 songs ea x $1.50 per song) = (10,000 songs x $Y ea)

        Solve for Y & you get $0.225 per song, $2,250 in all. And then you extract the artists’ % from there.

        Ethics & principles are generational. Things that wouldn’t have been accepted practices in the 1950’s were done daily in the 1990’s, & things that weren’t accepted in the 1990’s are being done daily today. And at the current rate of change, these things will probably be recognized as ethical 10 or 20 years from now, if not sooner. And so I argue that the philosophical battle isn’t the one you framed, between artists & tech companies. The whole picture is that technology companies are enabling consumers to fight the music industry, & the music industry is fighting back at their own expense, & at the expense of the artists. And this is happening between generations with different (competing, even) ethics & principles.

        Consumer behavior will not change until financial pressures affecting the music industry (artists included) begin to affect them directly, but even then most consumers may have already moved on to video games or movies or something else. Or they may have given up on new music & dug into the hits of previous decades (which is more common than ever these days). But no amount of trumpeting ethics or principles is going to change consumer behavior. Because only poor people consider those to be universal or trans-generational. Sad but true.

        What has kept a lot of artists afloat during this mess is not chastising their fans, or holding them to an antiquated system. It’s been mutual understanding & empathy. And not the condescending “I’m empathetic that you’ve been an unwitting pawn of technology corporations” empathy, but real “I understand that the current distribution model employed by the music industry is misaligned to the values & habits of the modern consumer” empathy. Those artists are more likely to sell a $10 cd, or maybe an $80 deluxe merch package. (It doesn’t take a whole lot of those guys to stay afloat.)

        But I maintain that, rather than having to court fans on that level, the solution is to fix the Spotify model. And that comes by aiming our guns at the labels, not music fans.

    1. Nice mischaracterization.

      I have vics widow’s blessing. And mark linkous was one of my best friends. he actually named one of my sons. Don’t fucking tell me how, when and why I should talk about someone I loved. That is deplorable.

      Troll.

  467. The MusicBizTM has been driven by technology. Before the 1950s and the birth of popular music as we know it, the sale of music was small and there wasn’t much of an industry. It was a curiosity for the parlour. However, before that the sale of sheet music was were the big bucks lie. Folks would buy sheet music and learn to play the tunes of the day, but there was nothing stopping them from passing the sheet music around, memorising the tunes and actually getting paid for playing those tunes from memory.

    Before that, the music industry didn’t exist per se. You had performers and writers and they would be paid when they performed. Further back, in the days of the classical composer, musicians were either supported by patronage or paid to play the music of those composers through live performance again.

    Pulling further back, the earliest musicians and entertainers eked out a lifestyle playing to get fed or their lodgings. You could call them the travelling minstrel.

    And before that, the cavemen banged the rocks together and played music to build a sense of community, to mark seasons or other ritualistic events.

    The point is that the concept of being a paid musician as we know it is a relatively new thing in our culture. It was only the advent of the 45rpm 7″ single that made the pop hit available for the masses. This was bolstered by the development of the 33rpm album, refined by stereo recording in the mid-60s.

    We were warned that “home taping was killing music” on the bags inside the records we bought, but even though we might dub an album on to a C90, the likes of Jagger, Bowie and what-not still had enough money to live like rock royalty. Thus, the piracy myth was born.

    In the 1980s, the two giants of technology came up with the compact disc, which just happened to be the seeds of the MusicBizTM downfall. With startlingly clear sound reproduction, the MusicBizTM belched and came up with a cunning ruse: “Hey, we can get those bozos to buy their record collections again – we can sell them that the CD is the ultimate listening experience”. And so the culture of repackaging and reproducing music and reselling the same thing in multiple formats became a good revenue stream for the MusicBizTM.

    Of course, we won’t talk about the mechanics of the MusicBizTM. We won’t talk about the concept of the advance, where musicians are given a sum of money and then allowed to fritter it away on recording studios, expensive pop videos, their entourage before a single copy of a CD has even been sold.

    “But this is investment,” the MusicBizTM belched, “We are investing in talent”.

    They investing in their own future, for while a few rock stars have made the big time, held onto their copyright and earned enough to feed the starving African sub-continent, there are many who have been ripped off, forced into debt and seen their copyright bought up by the MusicBizTM in order to clear their debts. Then years down the line, the song is put on a compilation or featured in a blockbusting movie, and the MusicBizTM recoups some of its “loss” or “investment”.

    Then there is the artifice of the pop charts to contend with. Of course, the notion of the music charts is very different to those early charts from the 50s-60s-70s-80-90s. Back in the day, the record company could decide who would have a hit. They employed record pluggers to harass and harangue or even bribe a radio station to get playback. Then the same record pluggers would go out and buy copies of the record to ensure it got into the chart. If you fell out of favour or your star was in descent, the record company didn’t necessarily bother promoting you and so…game over…

    Then after years of research and development the Karlheinz Brandenburg at the Fraunhofer Society formalised the MPEG-1 Audio Layer III codec, which allowed for the compression of CD quality audio to a lossy smaller format. This was in 1994, and shortly after its introduction MP3 files began to spread around the Internet.

    At the same time, Internet access times were being improved thanks to investment in optical cable networks and broadband telephony systems. This meant that any file could be uploaded or download in a fraction of a time compared to the early data modems. This is where the paradigm shift occurs.

    It is around this time we start to see what I call “The New Morality” – those who are comfortable sharing music and video files, but who would be uncomfortable actually going into a store and stealing a tangible product.

    This morality has been given a strong foundation by the MusicBizTM itself who turned music into a wholesale commodity. Thanks to multichannel television, to radio, to the widespread use of music in advertising, film, and even the shopping mall, one could say that music has been completely devalued by its ease of accessibility.

    Long gone are the days when you could pop into a listening booth in a record store and listen to the hit of the day before deciding if you wanted to buy it. You could just switch on MTV or stand in your local mall and hear it being played over and over and over again for FREE. And so music suddenly lost its importance. It was as commonplace as the air that we breathe – saturation point had been reached. And for that we can thank the MusicBizTM for its overzealous marketing and “investment” over the years – it became a unwitting victim of its own success.

    Then we have the myth of the stolen song. The MusicBizTM will rattle its sabre and complain that $20 gazillion has been lost thanks to piracy, but just how many of those downloads would actually be translated into real sales? According to some research, those that download lots and lots and lots of music illegally are also the same people that spend the most on tangible product. They tend to use downloading as a yardstick to their taste, while some just download and spend nothing on real music purchases. So it is almost impossible to put into numbers just how many of these downloads would equal tangible sales, because would these people actually go and buy the record if the Internet just suddenly stopped working tomorrow? The answer is probably not.

    Also, we have to factor in other cultural changes that have happened since the heyday of the MusicBizTM (call it from 1965-1985).

    If we assume that the largest group purchasers of music are young people (13-23, perhaps?) much has changed since that golden age of music sales. There are many more ways to spend disposable income. For example, you could be spending your money on a console game (one console game could equal three music albums) or using your money to fund your mobile phone or even buying apps for your phone/iPad. Then there are DVDs, fashion, and whatever else carries favour nowadays. The MusicBIzTM has seen its market share shrink compared to the increased growth of the computer game industry, but these figures are never brought out when the MusicBizTM complains about sales tailing off. And this is why we have the myth of piracy, because it really helps the cause rather than saying “we just ain’t as popular as we used to be – kids would rather be playing on their Xbox”. That’s just bad marketing!

    Of course, I am not condoning illegal downloads, it’s wrong. But it is hard to side with the MusicBizTM when all is said and done. It is a dinosaur, a relic of the past and should be consigned to history. Music technology is such that an album can be recorded and produced and put on sale for less than $5000. If you are working on your own, knock a zero off that. The whole industry has changed, but the MusicBizTM clings onto the past like a drowning man clinging to flotsam.

    Brian Eno said it best when he compared the record business to that of the whaling industry and he was surprised that they had such a good run at it. Not that long ago, men sailed the seas, killed whales and used them to light our lamps, make soap, put bones in corsets. It made a few men very rich and many died in the pursuit of the whale, while those who survived were poorly paid.

    Then everything changed with electricity being harnessed and our heat and light came from the electric filament rather than the oil lamp and suddenly the need for whaling died out.

    And that’s the MusicBizTM, that is. An industry in decline.

    For those musicians who whinge and complain and moan about piracy and the Internet, here’s some advice: get a real job. Seriously, your time has come. You could retrain as a plumber and do your music in the evenings and at weekends, because there’s not enough opportunity out there to sustain every single musician who thinks that they are hard done by the Internet and “piracy”. The other alternative is to seek out a patron like the classical composers did – and maybe support yourself like that?

    But the bottom line is that the horse has bolted, too late to slam the barn door now. No matter how the MusicBizTM acts or those who whinge and complain continue to boo-boo themselves to sleep, nothing is going to change back. It’s going to get worse. Music is not a career option.

    Of course, the only anti-piracy strategy that will ever be successful is if the music/film/game/book producers form a consortium and work out an agreement with every ISP worldwide in order to impose a levy on internet access charges. Our bills will go up $5 but at least a starving musician will have enough money to buy a can of beans…

    Thanks for reading this far.

    Toodle-pip!

  468. The tension between David’s response and Emily’s article depicts an interesting contrast between our two generations. As a classmate of Emily’s and a member of her generation, I am inclined to disagree with you David. I will not purchase music, and will continue to not purchase music after reading this article, simply because the technology at our hands has made this a possibility for us.

    To the older generation, this is synonymous with theft, and poses a clear ethical problem.

    To my generation, sharing music is as intuitive as logging onto Facebook or Twitter. For you old-timers, I will explain this thought process to you.

    When I fire up my computer, fully intent on downloading songs, I am not posed with the ethical question as to whether my action is theft. These songs are floating around in cyberspace, available at the click of the button. The song, or product, no longer belongs to the artist, it belongs to the world. As an artist, your product, being heard by a large audience, becomes as much a part of their life as it does to yours. Thus, paying the .99 cents for a song becomes a question of access, and not ownership. Sorry, but unless all artists somehow release their products to single individuals after each purchase, music downloading will continue to happen, and there is nothing a blog post can do to stop it.

    Am I really expecting this post to change the minds of you old people? Not really. I’m certainly young, but I am old enough to understand that this is a philosophical wall our generations may never overcome.

  469. Pingback: Can the music industry survive? | Josh Orum

  470. FOOKING BRILLIANT! I am not a musician, but work as a touring Production Manager, and sometimes as a Promoter Rep for shows. I’ve worked with countless musicians who perform for love of their art (or craft), but also, ultimately, because they, too, have to pay their bills. Does Emily have access to free phone and internet? Does she pay rent? Does she buy groceries, clothes, toothpaste and/or toilet paper? Does she have children to feed, or even a pet fish? Does she frequent Starbucks, or have a beer with friends at a bar? Most things in this life depend on the exchange of money for goods or services, and unless she’s living off her parents and/or a sugar daddy, then she works for her money and is compensated with a salary with which she builds her life. If she makes the very personal choice to steal the music she listens to, and tries to excuse her actions with some half assed philosophical nonesense about free culture, then she is being a hypocrite. Everything — even the air we breathe — has a price. Let her and her kind work for free and see how she/they like it.

  471. Dear David Lowery,

    The Danger of Commercialist Reduction
    As a young independent musician, I can say that making money is not nearly as important as getting my music out there. Therefore free online downloading is an exciting opportunity to share my music to new ears. When I was first exposed to the charged dialogue on the issue of file sharing and what it purportedly does to musicians, I felt somewhat insulted as an artist. I was disturbed by how the dialogue tended to reduce a work of art to a consumer commodity by imposing a quantitative monetary value as the measure of its worth. When commercialization “culture” mindlessly intrudes upon the art world, the more sensitive minds immediately wince at the discrepancy in values being conflated. Certainly the aesthetic and the economic share some common ground. The first lesson in Economics is that any currency exchanges signifies a value judgment. For me, any amount of money someone is willing to pay for my music is greatly appreciated, not just because I am making money but because it signifies a value judgment that it is worth it to spend x amount of money for my music. But what the critics forget is that downloading my music and listening to it signifies a value judgment as well. Money is not the only measure of meaning. In fact, many understand that more vital energies like time and attention are much more meaningful than cash. If someone were to replace the time spent with loved ones for a cash amount, that would strike us as abhorrently crude. Why? Because relationships develop value through means other than money. Can we not agree that the same goes for art? I would rather have a thousand people listen to my music for free than have a thousand people pay for my music and not listen to it at all. Of course, if they were to do both that is even better, but as an artist I believe in letting the unmediated artist-patron relationship dictate the price of a work of art. Who has the right to quantify the worth of all music across the board, to suggest that every song across the board is worth the same 99 cents (plus tax)? Itunes? The government? Ivy tower professors?

    Experience Precedes Judgment
    With visual art, the viewer does not pay for the experience of looking at a work of art in a gallery. Only after spending time assessing the piece can he decide if he wants to buy it. Likewise, I get much of my music for free, some downloaded, some shared by friends, and I know that if I like a band enough I will eventually pay to see them live, purchase the vinyl, or pay for the next album online.

    Collective Cultural Value and the Availability of Influence
    The most overlooked matter in the dialogue is the collective cultural and artistic value that has accumulated through the free exchange of music. Those that don’t recognize the musical renaissance that we are currently in are the same ones that condemn music sharing. Many would agree that music is currently the most vital form of art. Others would say film. What do they have in common? Legal debates galore. But while the corporate music industry is in decline, music is flourishing more than ever. Never before has there been such a huge increase in the number of independent musicians. Who says that music is suffering? It is simply returning to the people, a rare triumph of the individual over the bureaucracy. Artists are making music despite the “industry crisis.” And what the critics fail to see is that the best musicians of our generation and the following ones wouldn’t exist without the unprecedented accessibility of music that we enjoy in the twenty-first century. Beethoven wouldn’t have existed without Bach. How much more do contemporary musicians rely on the availability of influence, given the newfound capacity to draw from the widest variety of music ever made accessible to the public?

    Until Art Suffers, Art Doesn’t Suffer
    It is easy to say that Itunes makes it easy to purchase all our songs for 99 cents each, but many of us young people don’t have that kind of money. What we do have is a determined resolve to expose our ears to as much of it as we can. And I mean a lot, thousands and thousands of songs. The more the merrier. Who else is going to scratch the surface if we don’t? I hear talk about “ethical duty.” Well what about the ethical duty we have as serious patrons of the arts to expand our sensibilities beyond our wallets? Instead of making a legal fuss about it, lets anticipate the historians and celebrate living in a society that permits such a flowering exchange of art. God blessed America. Don’t piss him off.

    Sincerely,
    A musician

    1. if an artists offers songs for free. take them. honor their wishes.

      if an artist is asking that you pay for their songs. pay for them. if you like the songs. honor their wishes.

      We can have choices.

      BTW do you speak for god? how am I pissing god off. just curious.

    2. You don’t sound like someone who is currently making a living from making music. Once it’s your actual living, let us know how you feel about folks taking your music when it isn’t free.

    3. The Danger of Commercialist Reduction, wow.

      Sorry I’m kind of wasting my time here because David and cipherkid really made the points, but I’ll just add that when you talk about freedom, how does that fit with denying someone else’s freedom of choosing how they want their work distributed.

      And here’s how it really works; those who have music that people are willing to buy want to get paid, people who operate sites that don’t pay artists want the music people would pay for. If they don’t have no one will go there.

      Get serious about your potential to be good enough to get paid or get out of the way and keep your day job.

    4. This. SO MUCH this. Thanks, Mr. Stratford, for being one of the only people on here that sees what is happening for what it is. You are far more eloquent than I, but you’re exactly right – art shouldn’t be befouled with the indignity of unfeeling commercialism.

      To all the rest of you Chicken-Littles – the sky is not falling. It sounds like you want consumers to treat your art like any other commercial product. Guess what? Music is not scarce, in low supply, or in any danger of disappearing. As the above comment noted, there are more musicians now than ever. Anyone with a computer, the Internet, and the desire can compose an album. Doesn’t mean it’ll be the greatest thing ever, but then a lot of the stuff I’ve really enjoyed over the years was (objectively speaking) not fantastic. The fact remains that both *production* and *distribution* of music are now in the hands of the consumer. Certainly everyone understands that this irrevocably changes ‘the game’, right?

      Piracy is part of the Internet. Enormous networks, some over a decade old, channel unfathomable amounts of content free of charge. This is reality, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not going away. So while you wax poetic about the mysterious ‘good old days’ when artists were fairly compensated (remind me again when that was?) all that is being accomplished is you and your archaic business models are being left further behind.

      Just like journalists and newspapers, the consumer has changed their valuation of the commodity. Whereas 20 years ago, consumers were willing to pay 15-20$ for an album, today digital mp3s are inferior products – an economic term indicating that any price raise will drive away consumers. *You cannot compete with free!!!* By all means, sell vinyls; sell merch; sell amazing, engaging live performances; but don’t try to sell low-quality digital files. Consumers (not just in the U.S.) have overwhelmingly said, “No thanks,” and, at this time there exists no way to stop them from downloading it for free.

      Ethics are well and good. Yes, taking IP without permission is unethical, murky at best. Good work – pat yourself on the back next time and spare us the self-aggrandizing rhetoric about how music pirates are literally killing musicians. This is business; it’s not personal. You want to fix it, be better at business.

      Or, you could go back to creating art. But if the choice is only art for-profit or no art at all, it seems clear which side most commenters on here would choose.

      Keep yelling at those clouds; you’ll get ’em eventually!

    5. Dear A musician :

      I hereby appoint you to the Order of Dilettante, first class.

      Henceforth, it is your honor and duty to sign your pseudo intellectual comments in the following style :

      A dilettante

      Affirmed by Posh Boy (the man, the legend, not the label) , certified pompous ass.

  472. Pingback: Our Digital Innocence Just Died. And David Lowery Killed It… :Fanshawe Radio Pictures

  473. Regardless of how we feel about paying for music, I am sure that we can all agree that having some files on ones harddrive that one didn’t pay for is far less unethical than making millions of dollars for the global weapons manufacturer Thorn EMI which owned Virgin when Kerosene Hat went platinum.

      1. See? Even you don’t take your argument about the “ethical” choice seriously, you just think that you are entitled to an endless stream of money because you wrote a few words and strummed a few chords 20 years ago. That is unethical. More people died because of your choices than Emily’s. How about this, how many hours a day to you spend as a recording artist? Do you sit down for an eight hour shift of writing and recording five days a week? If so maybe we could all chip in and pay you 20 bucks an hour regardless of whether we listen to your music just so you will shut up. Or do you spend most of your time dicking around… I mean coming up with inspiration? Is that pro-rated?
        Here is the reality of the situation: Sales are down across the board, but I would assert that YOUR income as a middle aged former rock star with a hand full of borderline hits is actually higher than it would be if the industry still relied on brick and mortar stores shifting stock every week looking for the next Bieber phenomenon. It has only been in the last 100 years that there has been a recorded music industry. Industries come and industries go and with the industries go the professional class that has enjoyed the profits of the industry. There will always be craftsmen plying the trade for the love of it and many will be rewarded financially if they do it well and provide a prodcut that people want to buy. There is absolutely no reason to assume that any artist like yourself who has been able to cobble together a decent working class income for the last 30 years has done so because he *deserves* exactly that type of remuneration, exactly 9.7 cents per song play or whatever. There were a lot of business interests that aligned to place you in a position where you could have a couple of modest hits on MTV 20 years ago and enjoy a certain hipster cultural cache that you bank on to this day. Much of the value of your music was the labor of the entire production and distribution line that sold the physical product that was produced from your writing and recording. Take out those elements and the idea of “worth” has to be completely reexamined. The music industry isn’t a fucking meritocracy. Maybe music is worth what people are willing to pay for it? Maybe after 50 years of rock n’ roll the there is a new generation that is bored of what is being sold to them? Sure, they are happy to listen, and artists like yourself should be very appreciative of that, but who needs to spend $18 a month to here the same 4/4 drums guitar and vocals formulaic aural wallpaper that has been plastered over the cultural landscape our entire lives? That money may be better spent on a cool new video game.

      2. Mack this is how you entered the conversation. your first words “you’re such an asshole”

        do you think i’m gonna seriously sit here and argue with you.

        There are so many other people out there that do “trolling” so much better.

        I’m gonna let your comments through just cause I think your attitude helps everyone else look nicer and more intelligent.

    2. Not only is this off topic, contributing nothing to the actual conversation, it’s wrong – there are no degrees of unethical behavior. When an archer misses the target, he scores no points, and it doesn’t matter if he was off by an inch or a yard. When we miss the mark of ethical behavior, we are an enemy of moral behavior just as much as someone who did something else that we percieve to be worse.

      1. It is on topic. The topic is the ethics of the exchange of money (or lack thereof) in return for music industry product. Lowery says that “We are being asked to change our morality and principals to match what I think are immoral and unethical business models.” Making money off of digital information being freely distributed over networks is unethical in his opinion, worse than the old model which was to sell a bunch of records so that huge multinational corporations that profit from war and death can make millions… that’s ok, as long as artists like him, the successful ones who were marketed agressively enough to become a sellable consumer commodity, get a little kick back.

        Despite the fact that archers may not get points in certain circumstances, surely drowning one puppy is not as bad as drowning 20 children though they are both unethical?

      2. Ironic, I guess, that macthinksthissucks is replicating exactly one of the key dissociations that David Lowery points to. He’s indicting the latter for contributing to the bottom line of a powerful mega-company while ignoring the way that illegal distribution and consumption of music contributes to the bottom line of a powerful mega-company.

        At least, that’s the (perhaps undeservedly) charitable interpretation; a less charitable one would replace “ignoring” with “covering up.”

        A fine piece of writing, Mr. Lowery.

    3. Go ahead, Mack. Help yourself to your neighbour’s pot plants. It’s only a wild weed, after all. Who gave anyone the right to profit from it? I’m sure you share everything in your squat, including your dole money. Music’s for sharing, innit?

    4. Usually the conversation from those who are stuck in last century goes something like this. Hey artist, your stuff sucks, so you don’t deserve to be paid; or hey artist, you make too much damn money and your greedy. Why don’t you just do art because you love it – money just corrupts – and besides I’m doing you a favor by listening to your music. Of course, if the artist is not involved in the conversation, the subject quickly changes to how greedy the labels are and how they’re screwing the artists. All rather predictable self-rationalization for not paying for music or contributing to the arts. I guess you’re the first I’ve seen to try to use all of these variations at the same time… my head just explodes.

      And, no, I don’t “agree” at all with your premise. It’s just another rationalization for screwing the artist. If you truly believe the art to be ethically tainted, then you are guilty of having that ethically tainted art on your hard drive, as well as listening to it – whether you paid for it or not, ethically tainted art should not be consumed. If you believe the art is not tainted, but the corporation is, then it is your ethical responsibility to insure that the artist is rewarded outside of the corporation. And, of course, if you believe that a subsidiary association with a defense contractor is not inherently evil, then you’ve got no ethical qualms in the first place.

      And perhaps the author is not here to promote Kerosene Hat – there are likely far more direct and effective means to do that if that’s his goal. I suppose he gets mechanical checks. But, if you like his music and don’t want to deal with the corporations, then just go buy a copy of Greatest Hits Redux where Virgin is cut out of the loop – a very public split from that label a dozen years ago – and the artist gets a much higher percentage. Or go get a copy of Camper Van Beethoven’s New Roman Times, as it is a far better commentary on our times – file sharing may have hurt EMI, but I seriously doubt that it’s had any impact on global arms sales – so it may make you feel superior but it is an utterly meaningless form of effecting change in the sale of global weapons. Or, since you don’t seem to be a fan, why don’t you support the artists you do enjoy? Or contribute to the charities listed above?

  474. Hmm. Are we having a legal discussion, a philosophical discussion or a technological discussion? I am not sure.

    I saw someone post that it was similarly illegal for Emily to rip mp3/digital music from the CD collection at the radio station she was at? But is it similarly illegal to rip music from a used or secondhand CD that you purchased, say on a street in Adams Morgan in the early 2000s? The record company and artist receive no royalties from that secondhand CD, and vaguely recall that some companies tried to prevent stores from selling used CDs in the 1990s. How different is that from copying the original CD onto a CD-R?

    For that matter how about making copies of cassettes using the dual-cassette recorders that were so popular on boomboxes and cassette decks in the 1980s and even early 90s? Or taping from a CD or an LP? Is the only difference between copying using cassette tapes and ripping/file-sharing downloading because you could not make a lossless copy using those cassette tapes?

    I am not sure there is that much of a philosophical difference between these forms of copying except that maybe someone had to pay for the first LP, the first cassette, the first CD, and with file-sharing today that is harder to say.

    Is it similarly illegal to record in analog or digital form from a radio broadcast or Internet stream? Back in the 1980s there used to be a station (WYSP) in Philly that would play a Sunday night six pack–six albums in their entirety. People tape recorded that for sure. The late WNEW-FM in NYC would play half an album on certain weekday afternoon broadcasts too… did people tape those? Sure….

    (Yes I know there was an exception in the copyright law to allow for taping of the radio broadcast…did the royalties paid by the radio station account for these possible losses? Or was the tradeoff in publicity).

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  477. Artisis and musicians should be treated with respect, but it is a two way street. People who acquire music without paying for it are aware of ways to pay for music. They’ve made a conscious choice that it’s not worth the money to them at that point in time. How many time have you watched a movie at a friend’s place, but not felt the need to buy it for yourself?

    Blaming the consumers for for the drop in music sales because they are adopting ‘unethical behaviour’ is the same as if McDonalds said “people don’t want to eat here because they think we’re unhealthy/poor quality/give a bad experience. It’s the public’s fault that sales are bad, the consumers should just lower their standards”. Instead, McDonalds identified that the market had changed and wanted something different and so they changed their own behaviour to accomodate.

    If the second largest landowner in the world and a globally influential organisation is willing to change their behaviour (and downplay one of their flagship products) to match consumer desires then surely individual artists should be humble enough to do the same.

    The article fails to cite examples such as Radiohead’s In Rainbows which demonstrates that if the public like you enough, they will pay retail price for your stuff, even if it’s freely available. Or certain shoe companies where people will pay above retail price AND accept your unethical practices all because they like you.

    The author implies that Google is making money off people searching for illegal music because they are selling ‘maps (search results) that tell you where the stuff is that you want to loot’. Does this mean that every time I read my physical street directory, I’m supporting bank robbers because it shows where the banks are AND potential getaway routes?

    Google makes money indirectly because it would be ridiculous to charge the end user for every search. Bands who find themselves being downloaded a lot, but not seeing a lot of sales should consider doing something similar. Perhaps a joint venture with a venue – if the band pulls a crowd (and the venue has a means of turning a crowd into profit), then venue gives the band money?

    Getting angry at someone who is not paying for your music is like a busker getting angry at everyone who watches and doesn’t give a contribution. 1) It’s a game of numbers – there will always be people who want to get your stuff for free, if they’re going to get it for free, you might as well be the source. 2) It’s generally better to support the people who appreciate you, instead of attacking those who don’t appreciate you.

    If you want a tangible example of a grassroots project that ‘made it big’ by doing this – search for Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew. He fostered a community of people who like what he does to the point that when he asks for expressions of interest in a pre-order of printed copies of the same material that people can get for free from his site, he breaks records in Kickstarter.

  478. Pingback: Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered. | Just As I Thought

  479. Great, great article that says something not only about people’s attitude towards paying for music, but about the free ride attitude in general.

  480. Liked the letter and sentiments, but disappointed to see no dissenting views. Obviously there are a ton of people who disagree with this, but I see no sign of them here. I’d be very interested in hearing what people actually say in defense of the downloading culture. Perhaps the righteousness of the letter made people shy away from disagreeing.

    So let me try a small point about that righteousness. First, calling illegal downloading “theft” simply isn’t true. Comparing it to stealing a product off the shelves isn’t true either. The product is still there on the shelves. Someone just made a copy of it. And that’s I think at the heart of why people think it’s okay. So screaming about theft isn’t going to persuade most people who download, because it isn’t theft.

    Second, a lot of people never listen to the music they download. I doubt Emily has ever listened to all 11,000 songs she ripped. She obviously couldn’t afford to pay for all 11,000 songs, which isn’t $2,300, but more like at least $11,000 at most estores, because you can’t buy music for just the songwriter and artists’ royalty, you have to pay for the publisher and all their overhead. Likewise, the monthly cost at real prices would be closer to $100/month, not $18.

    Free downloads make people lazy and indiscriminate. Out of all those 11,000 songs, I bet she only listens to a tiny fraction. Which is why she thinks it’s better to pay for music by the frequency of listening, not by the cost of each song, with infinite replays for free.

    She’s actually hitting on a better way of looking at music royalties, and how the business could/should end up after the revolution (and this is a revoluton, btw). It makes more sense to have something like a cloud, and a monthly fee for music, which counts how often each song is actually listened to, than ownership of the songs by customers. That way artists get paid by the performance, not the song, with each “listen” counting as a performance.

    Now maybe Spotify itself as currently constituted isn’t the answer. But something along those lines could be a great solution, as long as artists were paid properly.

    Not sure what else is going to solve the problem. It’s hard to break a pattern once established. It’s largely the fault of the music industry from trying to stand athwart history and yelling “stop!”. It just made everyone who wanted digital music into criminals, and once that wall was broken, it can’t easily be put back in place. Humpty Dumpty and all that.

    Look at the ebook market for a completely different dynamic. Which is strange, since book files are much smaller and very easy to download. And yet, digital piracy of ebooks is very marginal. Nothing like the music industry. Partly it’s because of Amazon, who created the Kindle with the express purpose of allowing for cheaper digital prices and who has consistently encouraged independent writers and offered them great royalties. Partly it’s because people who read books are probably less inclined to see themselves as “outlaws”, unlike, say, rock’n’rollers. But a lot has to do with the industry as a whole embracing digital content. Amazon is forcing lower prices and thus less incentive to pirate books.

    But music has one big drawback – it’s much more expensive and labor-intensive to produce music than it is to write books. Musicians are much more dependent on producers and distribution than writers are dependent on publishers. So you are seeing a lot of changes going on in the publishing world that are scary to publishers, but it’s not because there’s less money overall. It’s because writers are beginning to grasp that a lot of them don’t need publishers and agents, and can make more money on their own.

    I hope the same can be done for the music industry, but it has to make piracy a lot less desirable, and it has to stop pretending that it’s theft. It’s a different kind of wrong than theft is. It’s a new world, and I don’t think you’re going to have much success in shaming people into changing their habits. Certainly not for the younger generation of music lovers.

  481. Apologies for the length, but I’ve spent too much time doing this. Have to send it. Hope you read it!

    …

    So, it sounds like you guys are wrapping up, but this is an issue that fascinates me so I would like to stick my…err…hand in the hornet’s nest.

    My perspective is formed by my knowledge of copyright law, book culture, and the advent of commercially recorded music. I realize that this seems small beer for the current pain being experience by musicians, but there are similar media shifts that artists suffered throughout history that can be instructive. (Melville, for instance, sold just 35,000 of all of his works combined in his lifetime-amounting to just over $10,000 in sales-, somewhat due to the absence of an international copyright law.)

    So, my throat clearing is done. For me, free exchange of digital music is inevitable and can be good. The difficulty is that the paradigm shift of the move to the digital causes everyone–producers and consumers–to ask deep questions about what we do with our time.

    Before I raise my questions, let me say that David, your concerns about platform (MAC, PC, etc.) are well-founded and well-stated. It should be obvious to everyone that we are moving towards an increase in control of the content that users create. For example, Apple’s new iBooks Author retains rights to what the user produces.

    I’ll raise three fruitfully troubling areas and you guys can respond to if you want.

    1. Producing music? Why do people make music? What is the thing they want to create? Is it a CD? This product holds a strange place in the history of material culture. It captures the music of the artist but the data begins to deteriorate after 10 years. How does this compare to the book? If an artist wants his or her work to last into perpetuity why would this be the medium? Is it the mp3? The file type that was constructed for the artist’s downfall? If the goal is to produce good songs that people will remember and pass along then you are entering into the bardic tradition, a community-based endeavor.

    2. Buying music? This is a historically contingent practice that has only existed–at least with expectations of “recorded” music–over the last hundred years or so. And, if you look at these beginnings, musicians were worried for opposite reasons, namely that people wouldn’t go see them live because they had records, or cylinders, or player pianos at home. So what does one buy? The right to listen to a song or album? The thing on the shelf (record or CD)? The mp3? Can you trade and sell (used) the mp3 like you can the record or the CD? If not, how is it a product you own?

    3. Copyright? Historically, copyright has been an exciting place to talk about the relationship between ideas and their circulation, which is what the Statute of St. Anne and the 1st U.S. copyright laws you site above address. The twentieth century has all but quashed this conversation. The big blow is the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (1998)–AKA the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act”, which purports to extend the length of copyright to small artists but really only works for the big guys. This serves the ends of big corporations rather than individual artists, most of whom don’t have the resources to mount law suits in the digital world, which would be like swatting at flies. The current copyright law is great at telling Mitt Romney to stop using your song but really bad at telling Emily to stop downloading it. It’s in the interests of these small artists to have their works in circulation because most don’t have the distribution networks on the scale of Disney. How do you compare these situations to the practice of recording Dead shows or In Rainbows or Amanda Palmer’s recent success with donations? DRM and copyright in general serves to limit the opportunities artists have for distribution.

    -Paul

  483. This is probably the most well-thought out, well written article of this nature I have read. Bravo.

    However, it’s not going to make a difference. Other commenters have made an apt comparison to the buggy-whip makers: the times, they are a-changin’. You are arguing against illegal downloads, but even that is already outdated: downloads are being supplanted by streaming. (See http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/15/tech/web/music-streaming/index.html for a recent article on the topic.)

    I used to think that the new technology would allow artists to cut out the middleman and make more (or at least the same) amount of money as before, but now I know that was naive. The reality is that new technology has radically decreased the cost of making and distributing music, increasing the supply and driving the price towards zero. The future will still have musicians, but (aside from the occaisonal super-success stories) they’re not going to be making a living from it. And yes, it’s going to suck for the current musicians who see their livelihood erode out from under them.

    On the upside, listeners will benefit from a much wider selection of music than in the past. (Two decades ago, very few people could hope to have easy access to 10000 songs.) Whether or not that outweighs the pain musicians are feeling is a value judgement I’m not going to make – right or wrong, it’s what’s happening, and there’s no stuffing the genie back in the bottle.

  484. Reblogged this on Briskin, Cross & Sanford, LLC and commented:
    A thought-provoking article by David Lowery (one of my music heroes) about the impact of piracy on musicians and other artists. While I have many issues with how our intellectual properties have failed to meaningfully keep up with technological changes, David very correctly (and persuasively) calls out those who seem to feel that creative content should be available for free.
    Creative content is neither free to produce nor is is without value. If we are not willing to pay those who create and distribute content, then there will be no incentive to create and distribute this content. With no incentive, the availability of content will wither. This is neither moral nor economically (let alone aesthetically) desirable.
    While I continue to believe that we need to find ways to update our intellectual property laws more flexible and able to deal with the changes that technology is bringing to our economy. (Not only can we not put the genie of technology back into the bottle, we should not wish to.) That does not mean, however, that we can or should want to sacrifice our morals or the economic necessity of incentivizing artists and other creators of content we want to consume on the alter of disruptive change. Technology has already brought many changes to our economy and it will continue to do so. This evolution of the informaiton economy does not change the fundamental fact that intellectual property has real and tangible value and that those who create and distribute it should be able to enjoy the benefits of this value.

  485. I was just curious, in your article you mention Spotify as being a pretty bad deal for artists but then later mention/recommend MOG in a list of legitimate services for legal music. From the consumer side they seem to be providing an almost identical service, is MOG doing something right that Spotify isn’t or were you just using them as an example of already available convenience?

  486. I pay for Pandora/One. Whenever the subject comes up around friends and family I am berated. They say, no one pays for music anymore when you can get it for free. My response is I pay for it and you should too.

      1. the article does not say that. in fact it says something LIKE spotify will one day be good. But currently spotify pays too little to the artist. This is partially because it has to compete with “free” file sharing. free file sharing distorts the market.

      2. David, as so many of the commentators are now framing this as morality neutral “technology” against the self righteousness of creators, I wonder if we could expand the discussion to streaming and why those in the creative camp are crying foul.

        First, some background.

        iTunes in its original inception leveled the playing field of distribution for creators. It was no longer necessary to use a label or distributor to receive exactly the same amount for a sale as a major label might receive. Even now, working through a distributor/aggregator, the creator does very well from iTunes and Amazon.

        But the digital space was not exactly sin free. Credit card scamsters took iTunes and the distributors for millions in losses through credit card charge backs. Many sales were phantom ones. Vested parties often pumped iTunes purchases, they still do. A variation is the bandcamp model where a band pays the website for the thousands of free downloads.

        All that does not affect me or those playing by the rules. We don’t need high chart positions to validate our existence. Historically we know, from the era of the mix tape shared among skateboarders, we will see a healthy share of paid downloads.

        Now streaming enters the figurative mix. We embrace new technologies.
        As Spotify (USA), iTunes Match were announced and YouTube came to the negotiating table, we invested greatly to bring back into print the best possible digital versions of hundreds of marginal recordings. Yes, we hope to make some coin from our efforts. But we are also motivated to rid the ‘net of horrible rips from vinyl from dubious sources.

        As many of us have reported, this past year on the Brave New Frontier has been a crushing disappointment. A combination of poor take up, pitiful new revenues and drops in receipts from the “old” stand bys, iTunes and Amazon.

        As I pointed out above, both iTunes and Amazon have been plagued with criminality. The streaming services, unless policed are highly vulnerable to financial manipulation.

        Spotify is not a level playing field. Nor is YouTube. Favored parties have equity stakes in Spotify and receive advances and improved payment terms from both, denied to the unfavored. If it weren’t planned so, Spotify appears a brilliant ploy to undermine the financial freedom iTunes has extended to “indie” creators, a real threat in the majors’ raison d’etre.

        The amount paid per stream is meaningless if you play by the rules. Those without morals are stealing from musicians by pumping their plays, this time not having to pay iTunes 99 cents per pump!

        In 5 years’ time, after the probable demise of Spotify, I would not be in the least surprised to discover the $25,000 per month in streaming royalties claimed for a successful Swedish muso was just smoke and mirrors. Remember how the dot.coms goosed their revenues by selling each other hundreds of millions in bogus reciprocal advertising?

        In my book, it is not alright to stream your own music for the sole purpose of stealing pennies from others.

        In conclusion, I’d say that Apple, Inc.’s iTunes Match is the best solution and which invites the file sharers and the rippers in from the cold. iTunes has a track record for rooting out fraud and abuse and the $24.99 annual dues is enough of a deterrent to keep the riff raff out. More importantly, we’re seeing our 70% share of those subs.

  488. I guess I have to create an account to have my comment approved? That’s cool, just feel duped by the offer to use my twitter handle! I try to avoid creating more & more & more & more accounts if I can. But will now go do so, so my comment will come through the sanctioned fashion. Oy. PS: “Lyd” IS my real name!

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  490. You certainly cover every nuance of the issue, including the sense of entitlement and detachment that help music-stealers justify themselves. The problem applies to writers (like me) as well; the internet makes everyone expect to read stuff for free, but someone has to write that stuff, and that person needs to buy groceries, pay rent, etc. The groovy Free Culture movement overlooks those at the very bottom of the food chain: the content-makers, in words, music, and art. If art is necessary to making it through life, then artists need to be able to make a living making art.

    1. The free culture movement does not advocate stealing intellectual property, instead it proposes new options for the way we use ideas. It should not be associated with piracy. More than a few artists use principles of the FCM to help promote their work.

  491. I remember the first time I walked into a record store and bought a CD without my parents paying for it. The cd was “Mechanical Animals” and i remember looking over the booklet for an hour while I played the shit out of that cd. There was something magical about music ownership that I lost a few years after that. Now I am in my late twenties myself, and much like Miss White I have thousands of illegally obtained songs on my computer. I never thought twice about it. Then I read this article, and everything changed. Thank you for expressing your thoughts on this matter. No more music theft for me. I want the magic back.

    1. You literally brought tear to my eyes. It WAS magic, wasn’t it? I loved what David wrote, but I love this even more. Good on you.

  492. Thing 1: Most recording artists I know either downloaded a lot of music for free when they were young/poor/lazy or if they’re of a certain age, then they taped it onto cassettes, etc. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing to do. I’m just saying, like with everything else in the world it’s whose bread that’s getting buttered that determines the side one takes on every moral issue…everyone considers their own survival to be paramount and all argument flows therefrom.

    Thing 2: The industry, RIAA, etc. didn’t just drop the ball, when Napster first made it so easy for the masses to get tunes. They threw the ball as far away as they could! And stuck their heads angrily in the sand, self-destructive as that was. We all had to wait almost a decade for Steve Jobs to do what the industry should’ve BEEN doing: Monetize downloading. Customers were clamoring for a product and the vendors didn’t even research acceptable pricepoints. They just kept raising the price of the CDs nobody wanted, way outside the average kid’s income. It was like NO WE WON’T SELL TO YOU. They spent money and PR and goodwill on prosecuting Napster and its custies, instead of using their MBA’s to think outside the box. Instead of making good deals for themselves and their clients–the artists–they turned their backs on the whole shebang!

    If they could only have seen a new generation of customers–instead of criminals–and just figured out how to charge for the darn product, this would be a VERY different world right now. But they didn’t want to think about change. So instead they stood back and let a righteous outlaw mentality take over. It was only one guy, Steve Jobs, who came along and forced the industry to monetize what should’ve already been their own darn product. (Monetization was Jobs’ true genius.)

    It is sad that once again a hidebound bunch of capital-hoarders has put artists and their audience at loggerheads.

    Thing 3: Just finished “Room Full of Mirrors,” a Jimi Hendrix biography, which has some bits about problems Jimi had with “free love” type protestors, who thought he, and all the rockers of that time, should perform for free.

    Thing 4: Art, more than any drug, is an addiction that must be fed. However we have to get it, we gone get that ishtar one way or t’other. Most folks aren’t gonna put a whole lot of thought into how that hunger is fed. So appealing strictly to consciences is just not practical. No matter who they are, everyone everywhere always feels entitled to what they think they need and will perform all kinds of mental gymnastics to keep feeling that way at any cost. These appeals will catch the attention of a small percentage of polite fans, but the rest? Not so much. A more practical approach is still needed to really solve this problem.

    THING 5: GOOD LUCK! Art is really all that keeps our world somewhat sane.

    Lyd K. Grier / Pity Add / Lydzatwit

  494. Pingback: Wednesday’s Word | The Kindness Kronicles

  495. This all makes me wonder if the era of the professional recording artist is coming to an end of sorts. For thousands of years musicians made money only by performing live, teaching others, and by writing songs on commission. I suppose they also depended heavily on the kindness of those who supported the arts. The recording industry has only been around for a fraction of music’s vast history, and maybe things are just returning to the way they were before the 20th century. This could mean that we are entering an era when a lot of music will be created by part-time amateurs who give away cheaply recorded songs for free (it already happens) and some artists will enjoy fleeting moments of fame. A few will make a living at it, but that will be mostly from live shows and fan donations. It might not be so bad. Recording quality will suffer without big money production studios, but the variety will be great.

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  497. i feel a lot better after i’ve seen my therapist. seriously, she’s great, and i have recommended her to others. but she wouldn’t be able to see all her patients for free. i also like the restaurant under my apartment, melanie’s, check it out if you’re in brooklyn. now i should be able to convince them to give me some free roti, right?

    1. Well, are you eating the same roti made of the same material as you ate last time?

      You’ve over-simplified the model. Stop making bad analogies and I will too.

  498. You probably should have actually quoted her if you were going to respond to her points — but she didn’t really say most of the stuff you’re responding to. So now, although you didn’t mean to shame her, you have made a 20-year-old girl an effigy for those mad about the evolution of the industry — nobody gave a shit about this until everyone was sharing your post, not hers. That’s cool, I guess. Have fun with that.

    1. You realize of course that she wrote that for National Public Radio’s blog. A blog that get’s hundred of thousands if not millions of visitors. This was the featured piece for that saturday. And National Public Radio is the 2nd largest radio network in the country?

      And I do quote her. What did you read?

  499. Thank you David. I am a profesional musician who agrees w you. I suffer from depression and other things common to many musicians and was astounded by your words. Thank you.

    I have sold about 4,00o copies of my last record with my band Velorio on a personal basis to my fans. Your description of an artist plight and wages hit home. I am fortunate to be a decent personal music teacher w 25-30 students a month. This is what pays the bills. Shows are extra and pay between $100-150 an hour depending on the gig. I will never get rich at this rate. I cant pay for my own healthcare and havent visited a doctor in two years. My entire income is spent on my son and day to day bills. I am proud to pay the bills w my talent but do feel i am being cheated. With this free culture idea even my band mates seem to feel that i as the writer of 95% of our music dont deserve payment for my art.

    I will continue to purchase music the way I have because of this letter. Thank you so mich David for defending us who have such a faint voice.

    Benjamin

  500. The other reason musicians struggle is not a lot of them are that great anymore… sadly the main reason I don’t download music is there isn’t anything worth pirating, and I bought all my favorite CD’s years ago.

    We should admit that standards have declined a lot since thirty years ago. Music used to be a lot “cooler.”

    p.s yes I think artists deserve to be paid for their work.

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  503. I feel like you’ve neglected to address the main issue here. As a college student who does not work, I understand Emily’s unwillingness to pay for music. If my friend has a copy of that new Sleeper Agent LP and I don’t necessarily have the $10 for the iTunes version, or upwards of $15 to spend on the physical CD, I won’t have any issue taking that CD and ripping it. Especially since I can then spend that $10-15 on art supplies for my classes, or gas for my car, or food for my apartment. I think that were it as simple as it is to download a CD, to “download” a piece of fresh fish or 11 gallons of gas for my Chevy, I might be inclined to do it. But it’s not. I need my money to spend on “real” things.

    It’s also important to realize THIS: If I don’t know the songs on that new Sleeper Agent CD, I’m not going to go see them live. Even if I’m already a fan. Going to a concert and not knowing the music is fucking boring. So there goes $10 for the CD, probably upwards of $20 for the ticket, and another possible $20 for a t-shirt. A loss of $50 when it could be a loss of $10. I’m not a math major, but last I checked, $10 is less than $50.

      1. Mary, I don’t normally resort to personal abuse on the internet, but in your case I’m sorely tempted to make an exception. How about becoming a college student, who DOES get off their arse and work, like my son? Running a band, taking a degree in music production and labouring for a builder when he can to earn some money. People like you decide to steal his music, because it’s ‘boring’ to go and listen to live music you don’t know…jesus h christ, what a narrow-minded, morally bankrupt philistine you are. I can’t imagine any band wanting you as a fan.

      2. reply to kevmoore: I want Mary as a fan. and she’s not a thief. ripping a CD from a friend deprives no one of buying that CD later – unlike, say, looting a record store – and it spreads the music to more potential buyers/listeners. when people in the industry say ‘it’s all about the fans’ and ‘it’s all about the music’, that rings especially hallow if you’re willing to exclude people from listening to your music just to drive its price up. to me, that defines ‘morally bankrupt philistinism’ far more accurately, as you’re willing to deprive us of this vast exposure to music in order to ensure profit. and while you’re telling college students to get jobs (which trades-off with study, another anti-intellectualism), pray tell, why can’t musicians get day jobs? elders: you are not entitled and life is not fair.

    2. “Going to a concert and not knowing the music is fucking boring.”

      Then you listen to shit.

      The joy of DISCOVERING new music in live performance — hearing it fresh and different from how it has ever been heard before — is an important part of the experience. If you want to know it before you see it, and see it the same way, save your ticket money, and BUY THE DAMN RECORDING.

      1. And, oh, yeah, if it’s worth it, an expenditure is not a “loss.” If it’s a loss to you, then don’t lose, don’t spend, and don’t listen.

    4. Mary, your argument ends up being nothing more than, “I don’t have much money, so I’m going to shaft a bunch of people making even less.”

    5. Gosh, let’s see…..a college student who doesn’t work, but thinks she should get the results of someone else’s work for free. This would sound like satire, if we were in a more ironic age, only it’s not that clever.

      And it, basically, sounds a lot like what other freeloaders are saying–if it were as easy to steal gas and food as it is to steal music, you’d be doing that too! Stunning! Not an ethics major either, I’m guessing.

    6. aw, a loss of $50? you know how much it costs to BE IN A BAND? they could use that 10 dollars for supplies too. how do you expect to keep buying art supplies when you try to sell your art and you can’t? guitar strings and batteries aren’t free. you’re losing a lot more money on gas than you would on music. that shit is more expensive than it needs to be. music is cheaper than it has ever been, even without the stealing.

      you can’t just borrow your friends cd for a while to hear the band? really? what the hell do you think we did before there was the internet? maybe, if you do not have enough money to buy music, you should just restrict yourself to music that is offered for free. that’s how people worked in the past.

    7. When you graduate from art school, can I come to one of your showings and take photos so I don’t have to buy any of your art?

  505. I pirate music, its true. But I’m also really, really poor, scraping by as an online bookseller while fruitlessly applying to absurd amounts of jobs each week; when I have money, I will always throw it in the direction of musicians. But right now, when I’m not able to justify spending $10 on anything but food or business supplies and other expenses, I don’t really have a moral issue downloading music, because I will go back and buy these albums when it becomes possible for me to do so. I’m on a six year old laptop and have a five year old ipod.

    My behavior isn’t really the point I want to make here though; we’re in a time of severe economic crisis, which I am feeling the blunt side of right now. It’s possible that there are many, many more people out there than ever before in the age of music piracy, who simply cannot afford to prioritize purchasing music into their lives, when it is available for free.

    If you’re a college student or are in a place of relative financial privilege, I don’t even understand how you can pirate music. But there are a LOT of struggling people out there right now which has probably contributed a great deal to the decline in the amount of money musicians make in recent years.

    I’m not saying any of this is right, I’m just pointing out a factor that I think is an important variable in this, at least for the last 3 or 4 years.

  506. Pingback: The Morality and Economics of Ephemera (or: Emily’s Pirate Booty) » to eleven to eleven

  508. Hello David,

    This is such an eloquent, heartfelt piece. Thank you for writing it.

    I write for the BBC and would like – with permission – to reproduce this in our blog section. I’m happy to donate my fee for writing the piece (not much, unfortunately!) either to you (via PayPal) or an artist-related charity of your choice.

    I wrote a much less effective piece last year on this very subject:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/walesmusic/2011/09/the-cabinet-maker.shtml

    It’s clouded in romanticism — I’d like to use your piece because it resonates with authority, coming – as it does – from the horse’s mouth.

    I won’t reproduce your piece unless I hear from you. And I’d give you full credit, of course.

    I’m aware that it’s an ironic request given the subject matter at hand!

    My email address, if you want to contact me about this, is themysterytour AT gmail DOT com

    Thanks again.

  510. David – while i completely agree with a most of what you say I beleive that there are perfectly ethical uses for illegal downloads.

    For example i am very interested in certain niche genres of music, in some cases the music is almost impossible to buy (not in any download stores, difficult to find for sale in my country and often difficult to find in stock on-line in other countries) therefore i am likely to download this however i am equally likely to buy it if i see it in a record store (possible after I’ve downloaded it).

    Where do you see this ethically – if you download something which is objectively troublesome or impossible to acquire?

    Also my spending on music has not changed since the days before file sharing however my consumption of music has risen, I now listen to more bands and more music from those bands, I could not afford to pay any more for the music i consume.

    Distinct from the previous case where do you think this stands – as i am not depriving anyone of any money?

  511. Dean Wareham’s autobiography made it very clear how difficult his band Luna found it to make money touring – there’s a scene where he has to explain to one of the band members that they will not be paid for their European tour – apart from accommodation and travel – and that hopefully the tour will generate increased CD sales. I find it hard to believe that suddenly touring is the main way bands will have to make money.

    Society must ask – do artists deserve to be paid for their creative work?

  512. Great piece that refers to more than just the ethics of downloading, but about personal responsibility. The point about home taping is really countered by scale. Sure we all taped our friends albums when we were young as a means of hearing new music, but did you know anyone with a thousand tapes? No, me neither.

  513. Piss off, the world is full of items, services, products that cost way too much, petrol, college fees, hospital bills. The internet has blessedly provided a way to get music, movies etc for free and we’re supposed to feel guilty or morally corrupt! Pull the other one lads, no signed musician is begging on the street because of illegal downloads and this new culture has forced the music industry to consider new revenue streams most of which are based on live music, as in gigs and concerts which is ultimately better for music’s soul. So you’ll forgive me if I download some Muddy Waters later, for free.

  514. I don’t have a disposable income to buy your music to support you. I don’t know how you feel about me listening to your music without paying you, but I like you so I’m going to listen to you anyway and I’ll follow you on facebook and tell my friends about you, maybe one of them will like you and be able to buy your music.

    -A fan

      1. okay. i loved your article, and agree with you completely, but there actually is a point you’re missing here. it’s absurd to say that without exception someone who has found a way to have access to the internet (or even to own a computer or a phone) has money to spend on music. surely you can imagine a scenario where that is not the case – where necessity or survival or something else has put those things first. that does NOT mean that stealing music is acceptable. but it is a legitimate issue that needs a solution – that is, if you accept the philosophy that music is culture and that we don’t want culture to be enjoyed and experienced only by those with money. it is my opinion that human beings NEED music. For people without the means, such as this fan of yours (and struggling artists, btw), access through sites like Spotify is a temptation just to great to resist. Until there is another option, there will be people who use it – even sometimes against their own principles. it seems to me this fan would pay for your music if they could, and they are suggesting they’re trying to support you in other ways. i don’t condone stealing, but at the same time i don’t feel comfortable saying to someone like that pay up or get lost. i wrote a comment about the need to provide access to music for those who truly can’t afford it (citing libraries for books) that seems to have been passed over (…reason?). i was sorry to see my comment didn’t make it. this really should be a part of the discussion.

      2. Of course I read the entire article. It was very good.

        No my internet isn’t free, but without it I couldn’t buy the music I listen to (it isn’t sold in stores). For that matter, without it I wouldn’t have an income to buy anything. Besides, I can’t afford a cell phone or car insurance, and I think those come before music.

        I would just stop listening, but instead I listen to music people give away. If there is an artist I love, I steal. I have a list of artists to pay back. It saddens me, and yeah, I guess I’ve basically stolen from some online record shop, but because I can’t pay and because I promise to buy the CDs as soon as I can (and I do mean that).

        Your article didn’t completely change my mind, but I’ll say one thing. I’ll stop stealing music from any artists who is against it. Which is fine, because the artists I like are understanding. I’ll probably never get to hear your music though.

      3. Huh?? So you want your favourite artists to be a kind of charity to help poor ‘ickle cash-strapped you? Deluded, or what? Get over yourself. Grow a backbone and compensate the people who brighten your miserable day with their music, OR STOP STEALING IT. YOU ARE A THIEF. What part of that are you having a problem understanding?

      4. I think you do know how I feel about you listening to my music without paying for it.

    3. i had a response to a similar comment somewhere, but their comment is gone, so i’ll reiterate. my therapist is great and i’ll recommend her to you but she is still not going to let me see her for free. i recommend restaurants to people all the time, but i don’t run in and steal food just cause i hope that maybe my friends will go in and actually buy something.

      obviously in this case you should do what you want, but you should feel bad about it, because what you want is to steal as long as you won’t be arrested for it. music doesn’t cost that much. seriously. yes, music costs a lot if you want to have and listen to -everything-. but there is so much music that people -are- actually giving away for free (not just online, but junk sales, free shows, etc.) that it doesn’t make sense that you just happen to NEED music that people are not giving away for free. buying a used cd is really really cheap these days.

      why not just send a band you like a $5 donation if you love their music so much? that would be something. but people -don’t- do that. because they don’t have to and they don’t care that much.

  515. I have a pastor friend with whom I share music interests. One time he said he’d like to borrow a copy of some Celtic punk bands I listen to. I told him to listen to it, but don’t burn a copy of it. He sneered at me and said it would be okay for him to do that. I thought for a moment and told him that I wanted to borrow a copy of the book he just had published. I wanted to run copies of it and give it to friends, but to not actually buy the book. He grinned and said I understand. Now he has to come with me to the next punk show and buy anything he wants from the artists!

  516. Pingback: Frank Gutch Jr: Are You Stuck In a Musical Rut?… All the Cool Bands Redux… The Emily White Debacle… Jon Gomm Storms Canada (Soon)… and Notes « Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say

  517. An alternative:

    Perhaps there should no longer be professional musicians. If musicians are no longer getting paid will this lower the quality of our music or increase its “purity?” At least, it will decentralize music (with some highly probable extreme exception), as has been demonstrated for the past decade.

    David speaks of morality through much of the article, but never questions if selling music is moral to begin with. He simply dismisses this question with an argument of tradition.

    With the advent of the evil technologies and networks described, with an added instrument (and a desire) one can record, produce, and distribute music.

  518. Fools weep for the crops they could have sowed while they played at art.

    Welcome to the coming reality of post-scarcity you “talented” hacks. Your “work” is at most a service, at least an advertisement. And we’d no sooner pay for the privilege of your self-satisfaction, that for the pollution of our thoughts with property and obligations attached.

    Arrogance is reserved for those that have advanced the species and most of them have slipped into the dark, thankless and unrewarded.

    Your ideas are not yours. You know nothing.

  519. I think a lot of you are coming down too hard on this young woman. She never advocated taking all music for nothing. She merely suggested wanting to change things so that digital consumers and artists benefited more: a better system for everyone, right? She admits to leeching hard, true, but she also indicates she’s an avid concertgoer. Can everyone on this page say the same? It sounds like she really really enjoys music and I think that’s great. If this is the younger generation, I suggest you change your attitude and realize that the old model is gone and we are all adapting and exploring a new era of rapid information sharing and no one really knows where all of it is going. I 100% agree on the topic that musicians do not get their due, but attacking the perceived “sense of entitlement” of younger people is not going to get you anywhere. I think many of you are unleashing your moral outrage on the wrong party here and that older people need to temper their future shock with kindness and open-mindedness when it comes to communicating the young and understanding the world.

  520. Pingback: Travis Morrison: Hey Dude From Cracker, I’m Sorry, I Stole Music Like These Damned Kids When I Was A Kid | Le monde de l'information
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  522. Thanks for the great article David, and the other commenters for their insights. If I can add a couple quick observations which I don’t believe have been exactly covered:

    1. The argument that artists receive their money from touring is a slippery argument. In the last 10-15 years, the outlets for gigging and touring have dried up significantly. Various styles/cities/etc are different, but my general observations as a musician/engineer are that an average ‘decent’ band with a couple albums and a couple thousand loyal fans (and thousands more streaming or ‘sharing’) can book a couple home gigs a month (~$500 split between members) and maybe a 10 city regional tour a year to support a new album (~20,000 total split between members/manager/expenses). That equates to about an average of $400-500 a month per band member – which is why most musicians need a day job and have to play in multiple bands and capacities to survive. Restaurant and bar venues for singer/songwriters, folk, jazz, or blues are increasingly rare, pay little or nothing, and expect the artist to bring the audience – a hardcore audience that has likely already purchased the album and merch. Even if your band gets invited to the festival circuit (SXSW, etc.), many of those few high profile gigs barely cover the transportation costs – and their target audience is the least likely to actually go online and pay for the album. As mid-level labels flounder, the mechanism for selecting and propelling musicians from the coffee house circuit to self-supporting regional or national tours is disappearing. It is true that the ever-elusive ‘viral’ factor is now more potent, but you’re far more likely to have your gear stolen at a gig then to have a youtube audience flock to itunes. The labels really do serve an important function, regardless of their occasional transgressions, and do deserve to be paid for their work and investment.

    2. The claim that anyone with a computer can produce label-quality music is largely false. It is true that a skilled engineer/producer with about $10-20,000 in gear, can come pretty close to emulating a classic studio chain with carefully selected mics, pre’s, ad/da, DAW, plugins etc. But that requires both the skill and artistry to use the gear properly and the cash to buy the gear. It is the artist, not the label, who makes the investment and the risk. If the artist goes to a local studio to record/mix/master, it will cost them at least $5-10,000 out of their own pocket. If you just focus on mechanical and royalties without also considering production and promotion, you shortchange the artists. I strongly believe that any effort should be rewarded accordingly. The album sales should pay for production and the touring should at least pay for the transportation, rehearsal, and performance time of the players. Illegally downloading the album deprives the first, and the current live-music situation often deprives the second.

    3. The assumption that every musician is great and deserves album sales is false. There are a lot of crappy bands and whining musicians out there. Many of the young musicians today have the same sense of entitlement that their peers feel when they download the music for free. Still, when their music is appreciated and downloaded, they need to both recoup their costs and receive some monetary reward for their hard work, training, and creative accomplishments.

    4. This argument is crucially important, but already somewhat arcane. The trend in the music industry and venues is towards DJ’s and related styles. The overall primary market for traditional ‘bands’ is decreasing in favor of styles that agglomerate the original works. This adds another level of complexity to sort through.

    5. I don’t think that the current supply side of the equation is very far wrong. The music is easily available and affordable. I don’t think that ‘sponsoring’ will stick in the long term. However, I do believe that demand is cyclical and I have hopes that it will turn around. More great bands will disappear in the next ten years, but eventually people will demand new music. It might be a rough decade, but if we musicians can hold on until a streaming format can find an equitable balance, then I hope that listeners will once again be willing to pay to get us back.

    But to be honest, I have hundreds of my own tunes in scratch format that I just give to my friends and loyal fans because I don’t see the point in spending a few grand to upgrade my home studio in the off chance that the broader market will actually reimburse me for the cost (perhaps my stuff sucks after all). But I think this attitude is very common today. There is simultaneously a glut of mediocre music and a vast treasure trove of unproduced gems. Say what you will, but the big labels, passionate A&R reps, and quality periodicals served the market well in many ways and deserve to be compensated for their efforts just like the artists. As I said earlier, culture and taste moves in cycles and waves and I think eventually people will lament the decline in music quality. If and when that happens, we may be able to engage the market on our own terms again. There are no guarantees in art.

    As for the other issues, I think a class action suit against google/youtube and others has merit, but it requires the cooperation of the musicians and the industry – and a leader. I nominate David!

    1. thanks. I don’t quite agree that venues for touring have “dried up”. it’s actually the opposite there are more venues for touring, this is reflected in pollstar data.

      but the aggregate audience can only practically attend a limited number of concerts a week or month. So you have more shows to smaller audiences. From a creative point of view this is interesting and positive.

      For people like my wife, a concert promoter, this is an overall positive. At least right now.

      For artists from a revenue point of view this is bad. lower grosses lower nets. The problem with touring was it was never a way to make much if any money for most bands.

  523. Pingback: Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered. | The Trichordist « wesbound
  524. Pingback: Roundup: Radcliffe Does His Own Video, Tower Records to Live on Online | Weeping Elvis

  525. I’m confused. The article accuses Ms. White of not paying for music. So I went and read her post. It says quite clearly that her only illegal downloads date from the 5th grade and she paid for the vast majority of her huge collection. This seems blatantly unfair to her. Did I miss something?

    1. you must have skimmed her piece and my piece.. it’s addresses the fact she is a huge music fan but paid for very little of her music.

      she tripled her library copy by copying college station library
      her boyfriend gave her 15 gigs of music
      she copied friends cds and libraries.

      go back and read the whole article. she explains it quiete clearly.

      1. She tripled her library by copying albums at the college radio station, but that doesn’t answer the question of how large her library was before, or what percentage of her collection that binge makes up now. A boyfriend gave her 15 gigs of music, and she swapped songs with friends and family from their libraries, but it doesn’t mean she kept everything that came her way. She downloaded some songs herself in 5th grade, but few of us still like the music we listened to when we were 11, so that’s no guarantee she still has those mp3s. She says she’s only purchased 15 CDs, but she does not say how much digital music she’s purchased, or how much of her collection comes from ripping CDs she owns/was given (as in owns but did not purchase) or legitimate digital purchases/downloads (there ARE legitimate free downloads out there).

        She does not say that the illegal downloads/swaps form the whole, or even majority, of her music collection–just that she got music through these routes at one point in time. For every music lover who still owns the first album they ever bought and every album since, there’s a music lover who goes to his collection, sees something he bought during his boy band phase, and prunes it (in hopes of burying all evidence).

      2. sorry. this is a dead end. we wrote NPR to make sure just how much of her library was illegal. they let our characterization stand.

        also if you read her piece she clearly states she has not given any money to artists except for live ticket and t shirt sales.

        the point of the article is how to ethically support the bands you love. nothing else.

      3. all of which, i might add, is totally legal and legit. college DJs are often encouraged to copy their station’s libraries in order to enhance their music knowledge for their broadcasts, and listeners also have a right to share music. to hear some of your prohibitionists talk, one would think that lending a CD to a friend is a criminal act.

  526. thank you so much for this elegant piece, david. it is by far the most informed op-ed that i have ever read on the subject. i have been making this very argument for 5 years now but have never been able to illustrate my points as soberly and composed as you have here. i have forwarded your blog post to my ‘music friends’ and it has spurred a great dialogue and has actually resulted in several of my friends coming over to our side of this issue. btw: ‘i want everything’ and ‘sweethearts’ are two of my favorite songs of all time. cheers to you and your good soul, mr lowery!

  527. Pingback: My take on music consumption. « Illuminaudio

  528. Stunning article David.

    FWIW, the majority of bands touring on a national or even international level are not making money, let alone making good or even barely adequate money. I tour manage a band who on the face of it are doing great – high profile indie label, great agent, good festival slots, supporting well known acts. They’re on their first album so it’s building slowly and who knows where it will go?

    But, we rejoice when we get food on the rider that we can squirrel away til the next day to make breakfast and lunch. When we get money for a buy-out meal, we don’t spend it – we save it so we can buy a coffee or sandwich on the next day’s drive. When we’ve got a day off, we do everything that’s free in that town – museum, gallery, sight-seeing. Hell, we might even crack open a beer that we saved from the previous night’s rider. That’s the day-to-day reality.

    No-one’s complaining because the band are really excited and appreciative that they get to do this to begin with. No-one expects to get rich. But to do it, people have to quit their regular jobs. They have mortgages, bills, to pay. Everything becomes survival. And that becomes less and less possible over time. Touring does not make up that shortfall. Right now, it doesn’t even pay for itself! The risk is this becomes a more of a rich person’s plaything, available only to those from well-off families. Art by the few, for the few. That’s not what I learnt from the underground/DIY/punk scenes that are my ground zero.

    Your point about who younger generations are sticking two-fingers to is spot on. We’ve got it the wrong way round.

  529. From non-anonymous Steve Greenfield, again, still hoping my message from last night survives moderation, but not surprised if it doesn’t.

    Anyone remember The Real Book? Back in the 1970’s and 80’s every single jazz musician and student trying to study jazz owned it. Your private or conservatory teachers told you to get it, like any other important textbook, and where to get it. You could get it at any music shop and many record stores. There would be no jazz musicians today without it. Around a thousand standards, transcribed by hand off records, transposed in C, B flat, E flat, and bass clef editions. Better than legal versions because the melodies and progressions came from specific recordings rather than from the lead sheets at the Library of Congress. And hardly any of us got the book for “home use.” We got it to play gigs for money, so we were stealing twice. I still have mine, and I used it to pull together a paying set as recently as 2 years ago, even though I’ve long since become a rock musician. I did not send a nickel to Vernon Duke’s estate or publisher for doing Autumn in New York. Fascinating thing about the Real Book — amidst all the standards, there were a lot of modern tunes by Steve Swallow. Turns out the book was being made by a group of his students at Berklee, with his participation. He wasnted his music out there. He put it directly into countless thousands of musicians’ hands, so it wouldn’t just be listened to, but would be performed in public even though he wasn’t getting his mechanicals from either the print sales or the performances. And multiply that by all the other fake books of pop tunes that made every piano and guitar lesson, and cocktail lounge and wedding possible, since the beginning of time.

    Long story short, if you ever played Johnny B. Goode in a bar wtihout sending Chuck Berry a quarter, STFU. You sound like a two-year-old, Mr. “I used to be in Camper Van Beethoven but now I’m important because I teach at a college, so my whining matters.” You’re not, and it doesn’t, and you’re wrong. As with the Real Book, downloading increases the viability of music as a profession, but the data doesn’t show up at ASCAP or the IRS, so you ignore it. I saw you at CBGB’s once when you were cool, but now you’re just another suit.

    2. in the 90’s you had to get the real book by illegal means. at least in nyc. you’d buy it from someone’s house and they’d act all covert about it. and yeah, it was and is totally illegal. but playing cover songs is not the same as buying a real book. and committing a crime and then telling other people not to is hypocritical, but it doesn’t make committing the crime any less immoral (assuming it’s an immoral crime to begin with).

      i was once in a band that payed for itself. we broke even when we went on tours we did, where we played in people’s basements and slept on people’s floors. (minus food, which we paid for ourselves). it wasn’t our living, obviously, but we could afford to play and tour because we made some money doing that. now i can’t really play and tour because it doesn’t pay for itself. because it now costs money for me to play a show, with gas and car insurance (i live in nyc. i wouldn’t have a vehicle if not for the band), and tolls. when it comes to tour, since i’m not at work, i’m not making money from work. downloading music has -seriously- changed this form of touring for diy/punk bands, from being able to play and tour to not being able to unless you make a bunch of money doing something else.

      so stfu.

    3. I don’t know the details, but I’m pretty sure any music venue pays fees to BMI and ASCAP. Certainly all of the live music venues in my home town did. And then those royalties are disbursed to artists based on the best statistical information that these organizations have at the time. The real book being ubiquitous, I’d bet those writers got a cut of that. David, could you verify if this is correct?

  530. David: Very well written and presented information. It might be helpful to point out (educate) to persons who take music without paying for it this thought – when you purchase a book, a magazine, a DVD, a CD, music file, computer software or ANY medium that has intellectual property on it, you DO NOT own that intellectual property – you are “licensing” it per the terms of the purchase agreement. For example, buy a book, you own the book itself – the physical book itself – you can do what you like with it. You do not own the content within that book. Buy a CD – you own the physical CD itself – do what you want with the physical CD itself, scratch it, cut it up, use it as a coaster on your table, however, you do not own the content on that CD. It is “intellectual property” as you point out. Young people today seem to have trouble differentiating what a physical item is and what a non-physical item is, regarding something like getting music without paying for it.

  531. I’m interested in where the articles on speeding are? Certainly there are a huge amount of automotive deaths a year…yet so few protest their friends when they speed and you don’t see major news broadcasts or net articles written regularly about it. I wonder why there is such ethical debate over this topic but not one that actually and obviously inflicts more harm? Down with the speed freaks! You immoral potential killers! Yes, that’s each and every one of you who is wagging your finger at music pirates! Well, unless you take the subway or bus. heh.

  532. Sounds outdated to me. Who steals music? Who buys music? Spotify, Pandora, Iheartradio, Youtube, Myspace. All “legal” ways to listen to music without paying for anything. It is no longer a “moral” choice. The death of the record label will make way for the rise of the true artists. Those artists will figure out how to get paid without a record label (either via live performance or through advertising). Such is the life of an artist. Maybe now we can stop getting the crap produced by record companies….

  533. I enjoyed this article. I illegally downloaded a bunch of music, from Oink mostly, and was given some by friends. At some point a couple years ago, I felt that because I sell music for a living that I needed to get rid of all that I owned by illegal means. Out went the burned cd’s and deleted all of the music of dubious origins. I felt so much better. I started buying music again, from different places and it actually helped me want to create art again myself. Go figure, valuing someone else’s work, made me value my own more… As a person who has been buying music all my life I still have way more music than I could ever listen too. Thousands of LP’s alone, that I will never listen too. It’s kind of crazy. I still am the only person who I know, and I know a lot, in the music industry that I have worked in and around for the past fifteen years who has done this. Most people think that I am a total extremist, even those who sell music for a living. They think that I am taking it way too far.

    Luke Jenner, The Rapture

    1. No, you’re not, I’m right there with you. I worked in various record stores during my teens and twenties and I feel the same way. I go to Amoeba and still buy vinyl occasionally, and mostly CDs for convenience. I’ll take any improvement in sound over mp3s and am willing to fork over my limited funds to get it. I also go to as many shows as I can and buy from the merch tables since I know for example, Mike Viola schlepped his CDs in his suitcase and brought them to a show. Keep doing what’s right, there are more of us out there and when my 18 year old music loving daughter starts speaking to me again, I’ll share David’s post with her. We can and must teach them what’s right. Disclaimer: my kid buys CDs and spends plenty on iTunes, but I’ve been remiss in discussing this issue.

  534. Three rules we need to adopt instead of continuiong this pointless debate:

    1. it’s not ok to let venue owners pay you pittance when your performance is the reason why their bar is full or even half full.

    2. Wanting to be a rock star does not mean that the performing you do as an amateur should be for free.

    3. The “exposure” argument to both downloading and performing for free is total BS, never take that as a reason to be taken advantage of. (getting on the radio is exposure, getting an ad for your gig is exposure, palying a gig is your WORK!)

    4. Be an activist when you see a fellow musician allow a venue or anyone else make them feel as though they should perform for free or give them their music for free. Stand up for your fellow musician OR ostracize the musicians who you see doing this regularly.

    So,
    While i agree with the notion that it is NOT right for people to steal music that is otherwise being sold in the regular market and that certain internet services should absolutely not be able to make money from music if the creator of the music does not make money (the latter being more important, IMO), i really think just like everything else that is aweful and heartbreaking about the injustices in the economic system, we just need to suck it up and figure out a new way of looking at what it means to be a professional musician.

    We just need to be realistic, as musicians, and concentrate on some of the changes in how WE do things in order to combat the denegration of our craft.

    What has ruined the music business is oversaturation in a market where the barriers to entry are minimal and where even the artists are willing to be taken advantage of simply because they HOPE TO HIGH HEAVEN that it will bring them glory.

    maybe the lessons to young musicians should include stories about ex members of formerly popular bands, who simply work regular jobs now, or who are destitute because their star rose and then fell again. because the focus on being a star is a HUGE liability…

    2. Another issue ruining music is related to what you mentioned in your last paragraph: even artists are willing to be taken advantage of because of false hopes.

      The issue is that only very, very newbie artists are this naive. By the time an artist has become seasoned — and improved in their art — they learn rapidly that they are being seriously screwed over, or they simply can’t keep it up without starving. And they leave. Thus thanks to piracy, music is made overwhelmingly by naive newbies who will disappear in 18 months once they learn what’s really going on, once they begin to get sick of not eating well and sleeping on other people’s couches, or once someone somewhere gets pregnant and it’s time to grow up. Mature, seasoned artists who will make mature seasoned music will be found nowhere.

      But since the only music that anyone will be able to find will be music by naive newbies, there will be no competitive disadvantage to it. And there will be an endlessly supply of not-very-good newcomer music made by bands that evaporate the minute they get wise and get sick of being taken advantage of. All hail free music: an endless stream of cheaply made newcomer junk.

    3. wise words. Not sure I get point 2 but is it because bars make money off your work? That’s immoral, but performing for free seems fine if no one’s making money off it.

  535. first of all I have to say the stick it to the man comment was very, very good.
    but
    As someone that has bought a large number of 45’s, LP’s, CD’s and AAC’s in his life I’m reluctant at best to come up with a model that goes after ISP’s or anyone else that will pass their costs on me. Additionally, not everyone on the internet is interested in music.

    I understand that there are those that still download their music for free but there are way more that use itunes or Amazon. It’s not my fault that his industry cut crap deals. They did it with Wal-Mart and BestBuy. Those companies used music as a loss leader to get you in the store and put independent record stores out of business in the process. They cut a deal with Apple to sell individual songs and use them to sell their ipods. How is all of this my problem?

    He works in an industry that gave an 8 figure up front contract to a crack head (Whitney).

    Before Camper Van Beethoven guy looks to pull more money out of my pocket he needs to address the issues of the people he works for. It would appear that they aren’t very astute.

    On a personal note, I recall purchasing a Camper Van Beethoven CD in the early 90’s when they cost $18 – $20 for Pictures of Matchstick Men. You’ve already gotten $16.71 more out of me than you should have.

  536. You still haven’t addressed this crucial point: Emily White wasn’t making an argument in favor of stealing music, she was saying that she wants to see a pay-for-play system in the future. She didn’t say she wanted convenience for free. She said she wants a universal database for download, where “performance royalties would be distributed based on play counts (hopefully with more money going back to the artist than the present model).” I agree with most of the points Lowery makes in this article, but that big straw man hanging over it and much of this comments section is a problem.

    Those in the comments who have criticized Emily and her entire generation might consider that the previous generation actually started the illegal downloading business. Many of Lowery’s own generation were comfortably distributing illegal copies of vinyl and tapes among their friends long before technology allowed high quality copies and easier access to a wider library of music. Morally speaking, their actions were no better than what Emily did when she ripped tracks from her college radio station’s CDs. It also might be worth considering that Emily was in gradeschool when she did the illegal downloading that was a small part of how she acquired her music collection. If I could have done that when I was 12, it sure would have beaten trying to tape tracks off the radio. Now I know better, and so does Emily, but that part of her comment was overlooked.

  537. Interesting points, but at the end you overlooked some conveniences of not paying for music.

    Sharing – try and share that Itunes playlist you made with your friends
    Control – 6 skips per hour, making playlists
    Freedom of medium – burning cd’s, taking them with you in the car, gifting to people, mix-tapes for your crush.
    Freedom from bloatware/exploitation – an industry vet like yourself should know that as soon as you give a large corp. money, all they want is more. They will find ways to make it from/off you whether it be sharing your info, forcing you to install bloatware, or more shady tricks like hidden fees. I hate having Itunes on my comp, but having an Iphone makes it necessary.

    Also, screw musicians! They get all the girls. As far as I’m concerned, that is payment enough. You want to make money expressing your art? Too damn bad, that is not how art works. Either stop complaining and practice your art for the love of it, or accept it is as a business and work your ass off for every cent(Hint: you might want to update your business model.) If you don’t want do the second one, let your label/manager do it, but complain to them not me when you aren’t making enough. Honestly, I don’t care what you do or say, but if you saw the chicks I’m getting, you wouldn’t feel bad for you either.

    1. one last thing

      Who “gladly” gives money to big corporations. If there were a way to infinitely replicate macbooks and distribute them over the internet at no cost to the customer, I’m pretty sure everyone would do that. In essence, I would totally download a car if I could, as well as everything else.

  538. I listen to the radio in the car, or iheart radio on my computer. I like the ads and news breaks, how else are you going to know about concerts in the area, or what is going on in the world. The worst thing in the world for me is living or working in a fishbowl.

    I don’t have an ipod. Couldn’t be bothered to spend time organizing music when there is work to be done or a house to clean with the radio on. 🙂

    My husband and I are movie lovers. We go to the movies and PAY! We always have, because the experience is more important to me than just SEEing it. Then, I BUY the DVD when it comes out, if I loved it.

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  540. Waaah! I originally brought my responding over here because responding on a friend-musician’s site was making it seem like I was responding to THEM instead of this article. But for some reason I can’t seem to get my response to show up over here. (I even re-posted when it wouldn’t go thru with my twitter handle, thinking I needed to create a wordpress account just for you!) Perhaps my argument that the RIAA is pretty much responsible for the current state of affairs is too logical to refute? Because it’s more fun to rail against fans than take action vs. the much harder RIAA? (That’s gonna be my story!) (Censorship!) (So nu?) (Tee hee!)

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  542. Hi David,

    I feel the independent film industry is in a very similar boat. I have had to deal with people pirating my award winning and critically acclaimed documentary The Battle of Long Tan narrated by Sam Worthington for the past few years. This documentary contains all my blood, sweat and tears as well as my own savings & debt to partially fund it.

    Just under 2 years ago it just got to the stage where I had to put it online for free on Vimeo & YouTube so at least I could ensure people watched it where I wanted them to watch it, watch it safely free from unscrupulous websites and of course so I could at least ‘own’ the eyeballs and statistics behind it. (Ironically I have to use someone like YouTube owned by Google to make it easily discoverable).

    We hear the same arguments as with the music industry that it’s OK to rip off Hollywood because ‘they make so much money’. But they forget most films and documentaries are independently produced and only a small percentage make lots of money. The average salary for a film industry practitioner in Australia is something like $35-40k per year.

    This same thing is happening with writers whereby organisations like Google are scanning books and putting them online and paying almost nothing for it and trying to get special considerations through the courts and governments in relation to copyright. They are constantly purposely investing in lowering the value of content, getting favourable conditions and reaping benefits which are not being shared with content creators/artists.

    You have said everything I’ve wanted to say for the past few years. The irony is I am a very experienced GM Marketing / Head of Digital in my day job and I totally understand the era we are living through but I simply cannot understand the moral compass of many people in relation to content.

    I’m also sick of the people who disingenuously dismiss and denigrate anyone who speaks out against the free culture movement.

    Regards,
    Martin (Sydney, Australia)

  543. I’ve only scan read this due too time constraints, I’m a lecturer of Music Business at Point Blank Music College in London. It has been a hot topic between the user who wants to be the artist within our groups. A student refered me to this article and I will share this with my students. Many thanks for your posting,

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  545. Any musician or record company exec expecting someone who once attained all their music for free to start purchasing it at prices on par with DVDs and videogames is crazy. If Napster, Bittorrent, Limewire, Newsgroups, or Megaupload never existed, music would still struggle in the marketplace against other types of media. Why buy a 60 min stereo music CD, when for the same price you can own a 2 hour movie with 5.1 dolby digital audio and high quality video. The same comparison can be made with an iphone app or videogame with 1080p video, 5.1 audio, and 30+ hours gameplay. When a concert DVD sells for the same price as the audio-only CD of the same concert, its hard to deny that the problem lies with the business model.

    As long as people like you, Mr. Lowery, continue to brow beat the “Free Culture Community”, you lose the credibility to promote and sell the new business model needed to make your music profitable again.

    BTW, I am the owner of a Rhode Island hifi store, where my clients are having a hard time legally purchasing music to play on their expensive high performance systems. I may have just as much skin in the game as you.

  546. 110% in agreement. Only disagreement is sometimes you only want one favorite song and iTunes bundles it with the whole album with no option to just buy one. And some songs just aren’t available or on any records.

  547. Pingback: Music Without Barriers: Emily White & David Lowery Edition
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  549. Spotify, LastFM, Youtube, the endless music channels on TV and the endless radio stations on the net – between al these, exactly how many records do you think people would be buying, even if all illegal downloading came to a complete end? Ten years ago, if you wanted to hear underground music in England, you would have to either order by post or travel to a city that had an independent record store. Building a collection cost many, many thousands of pounds. Because of this, American and European bands used to touring in packed out venues (Converge, Darkest Hour, Samiam, Sick of it All, to name but a few) would come to the UK and play to empty pubs. These days, they play to packed venues, and there is always a long queue to the merch stand. (The last time I heard what a band got paid, it was Converge in a pub in Camden, and they got paid eight-hundred quid – not bad for a night’s work) And if the band have any vinyl printed, it’ll sell out by the end of the tour. The underground scene has been enriched beyond words since the internet hit its stride, and bands are making a living working in genres that previously had no presence over here. Whether illegal downloading has helped or hindered this, I’m not sure, although I’m damn sure that many more people have a broader knowledge of music, precisely because it’s so easy to gather large collections. I’d love to see people contributing to struggling artists, giving them as much as they can afford, but the idea that everything that can be an industry should be an industry seems horribly blinkered. I don’t see free music as a way of taking money from ‘greedy’ musicians, but I do see it as a way of releasing music from what was a brutally restrictive framework, where a select group of people in record companies had the power to choose what the majority of the world woul listen to. This article leans too close to passive-aggressive, knee-jerk hysteria for my tastes. The mere suggestion that illegal downloading is, or indeed can be, the cause of suicide is absolute madness. The decision to work as a musician will always involve massive risks, and if an indivdual has mental health problems the potential consequences of those risks will be greatly amplified. That does not mean their lives are in the hands of consumers; it does not mean that a kid who tapes their album or rips it from someone else’s computer has put a gun to that individual’s head and pulled the trigger. People won’t be guilted into buying music and they never should be.

  550. Suggestion: artists should alter a version of their music that allows 5 complete plays before self-deleting. Then implant these versions onto all of these piracy websites. The pitiful 20-somethings would not have the patience to listen a full 5 times when downloading and would be unable to tell that they’re spreading the virus as they continue to share. On the chance that any of them actually liked the music enough to buy it, they would then feel compelled to separate themselves from 99 cents (forsaking 1/4 cup of iced latte). Maybe then they’ll realize that a lifetime of guilt-free listening to a song is worth 1/10 of a movie admission (that only lasts 2 hours).

    1. Better yet: after 5 plays, the volume is set 5% lower on each successive play. Imagine all of them with 11,000 songs, all with different volume settings (that change gradually, so its barely noticed). They keep dialing up the volume really loud, then a newly-ripped song comes on and their ears get blasted. Kinda like the poor fidelity that we had from taping LP’s back in the day.

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  555. One of the best arguments against the “free culture” that threatens to destroy good music, quality journalism and meaningful creation in postmodern society that I’ve read. I’ve always taught my daughters the joy and importance of making a monetary investment in the music, writing and art they love. I started taking them to record stores and book stoes at an early age, and they often spend a portion of their allowances at wonderful cultural gems such as Music Millennium in Portland, Oregon. I hope it sticks.

  556. Pingback: Emily White and the Celestial Jukebox | The American Conservative

  558. Why do so many artists encourage their fans to listen to their music on Spotify? Do they benefit from it or not? (i.e. Twitter: @GracePotter on 6/14, @dirtyheads on 6/12, @cotlife on 6/19, etc.)

  560. David,
    You’re an incredible artist and person. Bless you. It’s pretty simple to me, and has been since I bought my first group of albums in 1972 when I was 12: We honor the artists we love, the musicians we spend hours with, by ensuring their continued abilities through paying for the gifts they create. It is out of respect, out of honor, out of love of their abilities that we gladly pay….and to me it’s more affordable now than ever….for the wonderment they create. Now let’s get off this and get on with it!

  561. Pingback: “Buying” music: a response « DANIEL SLOAN

  562. Blah, Blah, Blah… Oh, such a headache! It would require a university degree in ethics, philosophy, business, law, etc., just to make sense of all these arguments and counter-arguments — and everyone wants to see their name in print and prove their position is THE correct one, and… so let’s just reduce these arguments to their lowest common denominator and see how it plays out: A creates or owns something, a commodity, that B wants. A can choose to give it away free, gratis and for nothing, or he/she can choose to sell it, barter for it, or find some way mutually beneficial and agreeable to both parties to part with his possession — bear with me folks, I’m simplifying, but it doesn’t require a huge leap of faith to see this, it’s not a convoluted science fiction film — and that, as they say, is that. However, it’s unethical in any culture, in any language, from any perspective, for B to simply take something that belongs to A without his/her permission, or without compensating A for it. In all cultures, in all languages, from all perspectives, that is simply theft… whether it’s a roll of toilet paper, a car, a stick of gum, or a work of art, yes, even a song. If not, try walking into a restaurant and ask them to feed you for free, or run into your neighborhood Gap, or even a Salvation Army store, and demand a free shirt because you need something new to wear to Starbucks (where you’ll probably ask for a free latte…). Get the picture? So, enough of the bullshit arguments and lame explanations, enough name calling and passing the blame on to “the old model” or the “free culture” folks. I was taught early on that nothing is free, even liberty has a price. Educate yourselves and stop living the good life at the expense of others… or, as George Clinton would say, “free your mind and your ass will follow.” And, by the way Dave, I didn’t know who you were so I did some research on your bona fides… I am proud to say I that back in the day (when things were a tad less complicated) I bought and owned several CDs (yes, CDs!) by CVB, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them many times over. Keep up the good work! (this is my second post on the subject because I feel strongly that if you take something, you should pay for it. That is what my parents taught me and that is what I’ve taught my two kids.)

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  565. I liked this article, but there’s an assumption you’re making that I feel makes you overlook her real point. The assumption being this idea of a “free culture” movement and a shift. From Emily’s article, she said that she didn’t ever buy music. I’m 25, and I’m in the same position. The real difference between our generation and yours is that you come from an era where music was purchased. We don’t. When I was 10 years old and couldn’t afford music, I would sit by the radio with a cassette tape and record songs that way. Once Napster and CD burners came into existence, I didn’t see it as, “I previously purchased music, but now I can get it for free,” but rather, “Finally, a convenient way to access music for free.” I know it’s almost impossible for your generation to grasp that concept, but trying to persuade us to start paying for something when we never did in the past is not going to work. And I’m not trying to be a pessimist. Just a realist. Our approach to music acquisition is already ingrained, and we see music as a “free” product.

    Furthermore, most from our generation started acquiring music with the mind state that musicians were wealthy. Why? Because them, their labels, the media, etc all created this image. And we accepted it. So the initial guilt that we probably would have had didn’t hit us until we were much older and realized that artists are actually broke. Furthermore, the music industry is a business. Rather than the consumer should adjust his or her thinking to be more “ethical,” we can argue that the artist should be better business-minded and find ways to sell the product. I’m an artist myself, and I wish getting people to pay for my product was easier, but complaining about it won’t get me anywhere, and it’s up to me to accept how music consumption is today and work harder to get my work out there. A select few figure it out, and the rest of us….. We need to or we’ll be the equivalent of someone with a talent in any given industry who doesn’t “make it.” That’s life. It sucks, but a lot of people invested their lives in becoming professional athletes, and that didn’t pan out. We don’t make excuses for them and make a full analysis of their situation. We accept that hard work doesn’t always pay.

    What you consider an “ethical” decision, we consider an “economic” decision. I liked how you broke down the actual cost of free music, but people use their networks and computers for more than just music, so I don’t think that argument will really resonate with people in their 20s whether it’s true or not. And the real truth about ethics is that “guilt accompanies unethical actions.” If we don’t feel the guilt, we’re going to continue downloading. And from an economic perspective, the music industry might just need to accept that music is now overpriced due to the volume of artists out there today. Maybe a song really should be worth $0.10. I don’t even like thinking that because I’m a strong advocate of having a minimum wage(which should be higher than it currently is), but being an artist is a choice. It’s not having no option than working fast food, so if one chooses to be an artist, accept all the positives and negatives of the profession.

  566. You clearly didn’t read her post. She doesn’t want it free. She just doesn’t want it physical. Learn to read. I’m with her. If someone creates what she is asking for in the last few sentences of her article (like Spotify, but way better), I’ll buy that in an instant. It’s just like Netflix. I have better things to collect dust in my house that jewel cases, poorly designed ones at that.

    And I’m totally paying for the cloud! I have to listen to advertisements. Someone is making money off of that.

    Learn to read.

  567. I read every word, which unfortunately is more than most people Emily’s age will do. While his points are exceptionally well made, Emily’s generation is a generation of Tweets. Anything longer than that and you’ve lost them. Really it’s a simple message. When you don’t pay for music you are a thief. It is literally like going into your friend’s room and taking something you like just because you can. That they get. Their whole generation has been raised on getting away with  things because they can. There’s where the focus needs to be. We need to help them understand that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. I taught my children from a young age that life is a series of choices. “Choose well”, I would tell them (and still do). I am sometimes surprised that most kids Emily’s age do in fact know right from wrong. It’s our job as the older and wiser mentors to remind them of this fact. Theft is a pretty straightforward concept. There are a lot of entities Hell-bent on telling our youth that theft is ok. We need to remind them it’s not. Setting an example is a good start. I have paid for every song I’ve ever downloaded or purchased the CD outright. I give iTunes gift cards to encourage the same. There will always be thieves. I taught my kids to choose not to be one. I applaud the writer of this article for trying to show Emily the consequences of her actions. Her generation is also one of short-sightedness and instant gratification. But I have great faith in this generation. When they see the truth, they take action like no other. So those of us that stand for making the right choices need to remember to help them see right from wrong despite the seduction to take the easy way.

  569. In a capitalist economy, morals and ethics aren’t part of the equation. The work-place and economy is robbing us of our conscious… remember we live in a world where banks broke the law and society paid for their mistakes. This trickles down to our children who think it’s OK to be thieves. This is more complex then people stealing songs and devaluing artists… it has to do with moral consciousness and how we value each other’s place in society. This is a good thing to read about… Moral Economy — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_economy
    What I really want to ask though, is what have musicians been doing. I hear people complain but do they talk to their managers and labels about this… you have to be aggressive and just don’t assume they know it’s bothering you. And if you are part of a union, you must express your concerns. Like I said, people will assume it is fine if you don’t complain. You must be brave to make a difference. Musicians standing up for themselves will help other artists and workers. We can really make a difference if we want to.

  571. My father was a member of a number of bands that had record contracts in the 70s and 80s (and was even offered a job as a producer at Atlantic Records), and this is all painfully true….except one thing.

    Back then, at least (and to a certain degree now), making an album was almost to the artists ‘ detriment. They would make a fraction of a cent for an album, and even less for singles (Starland Vocal Band is one of the most well-known instances of this). Touring didn’t hurt the artist, on the contrary, it was the only way my father made any money during his years as a professional musician.

    Now of course, times have changed and this is no longer the case. But your post is truly phenomenal; a multi-faceted defense the artists’ rights. Thank you and keep up the great work.

  572. Thanks for this read David. You called out so much in a well aimed, well proportioned response. From the perspective of an artist, I have lived pieces of this argument, and from the view point of a family member and close friend of many musicians that have been incredibly dear to me, I learned so much about the industry of independent music labels and artists. YES, the road is often where those who want to continue making work have to live. This is what free culture sharing results in. Not in some fancy bus or flying around from country to country, but often with grueling schedules, crazy tour routing (especially in Europe!), and just generally having to live on a specific kind of wheel in order to make a living.

    That wheel is something you live your life based on, from writing, recording, touring, press, to recovering for a bit before you start it all over again…and I don’t mean that causally. Most decently appreciated bands coming from independent labels are on the road for at least have the year if not more, coming home to sales on records that won’t support them for the next year. These aren’t myspace bands, these are bands that you know, you listen to, who are reviewed in Spin, Pitchfork, Rollingstone, The New York Times, NPR and are lucky to get an offer for their music to be included in films and commercials, where you can be paid properly, and be canonized (as with Grizzly Bear for example, whose cycle finally slowed after a series of commercials included their music). I’m happy for that to happen, I love their music, and I avoid TV.

    Considering you’re a musician, not an engineer, or a judge, a ups driver or anything else, this is your life. So yeah, in order to make an album (and you already constantly make albums), you have to be willing to tour like hell to support it. The minute you aren’t present in the circus of show cycles, you threaten your own ability to survive. Being on the road constantly, however, may do the same thing to you. It’s definitely devastating to your relationships.

    The problem is, the free culture movement is largely disconnected with the more relevant issues of humanity that are involved. This argument is not the SOPA argument. SOPA, though it effects this conversation, is concerned with internet rights on a much much larger scale. Its sole concern is not the artist getting their fair shake. What is being discussed here, in this music to music listener experience, is that the listener somehow, especially a listener like Emily, is basically stating that she does not pay, because she doesn’t have to, and that she doesn’t really care, which her opening sentiments reveal, even if in an earnest way. Its on NPR’s blog, which actually is demeaning for the artists who are regularly featured on NPR, for example. Without David’s response, Emily’s new post kinda stands alone in reinforcing a bad sense of ethics on a site that should be provoking the conversation actively, given its interest in the artists themselves.

    Maybe the best thing to add is a call to contribution, rather than comparing notes about money. Paying for your music isn’t losing your money. Its contributing to art, art you use, art you need. The only, ONLY reason you have this experience with music today is because independent music decided to leave the corporation as best as they could. Their whole system, is built on contribution. Often it pays 50% of profits on album sales to artists, rather than the 13% offered by Subpop and other more corporate interests. The artist and the label feed each other, even if it can be a tense relationship at times. This is what independent music can be if you support it to, join the food chain, and pay into the structure where you are another partner who is feeding and being fed. Why wouldn’t you want to?

    Emily’s not bad. She’s just incredibly disconnected to the source of the joy in her music. She has no connection to what it takes from someone to imagine, practice their skill set, and get to a stage where what they make is incredibly meaningful for her experience of life. She could replace it if it was lost, because its never really lost. That in itself is a testament to its power and importance. Not just anyone can write a Big Star song, Emily’s of the world! Only Big Star could, in fact. Why ask the meaning of that to be minimized in the name of your convenience? What have you done to earn it? “You can’t always get what you want….”

    In response to some heckler above: EMI has always been a music industry giant (and evil, sure, I give you that). They were evil when they paid The Beatles 2 pence (you know, like pennies) per album they sold…I’m sorry, have you never listened to The Beatles as a result? You want to crucify the artists who can do what you can’t, and give you something you desperately need, namely joy, because of their need to work within some sort of system to live? Or would you rather them just make a catalog of outstanding records, like both Vic Chestnut and Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous, and off themselves conveniently so that their martyrdom and purity will always impress you by comparison? Obviously there are so many alternatives to living in basic poverty and depression (because the world doesn’t value your work enough for you to be able to live a life of health? for convenience’s sake? isn’t that ugly?), or corporate greed taking over the music of the land, David here is challenging you, and everyone, to begin participating in the potential solutions, rather than expanding the void, the problem. Be thankful there is a voice like his out there who can actually highlight the crux of the matter, because without support, the music you love (need sometimes? right?) may die before its time has come.

  573. I pay for all my music downloads, so don’t shoot…. but there is a huge stench of hypocrisy in this room. I’m 35, and when I was younger most of my music collection consisted of cassette copies of albums borrowed from friends / public libraries, as I was pretty broke, and I’ll wager many many of the angry posters above have a similar history. I sincerely doubt there is not one of you who has never copied an album from a friend, yet you are the same people shouting “thief” at the illegal downloaders. Morally, what is the difference between what you did and what kids are doing now? Zero difference, except the scale of it. In personal moral terms, there is no difference, and you cannot square that circle. You say “don’t you think musicians deserve to get paid”? Well, didn’t the musician whose album you copied from your friend deserve to get paid? You say “well why is it not ok to steal iPods / Macs” – well, why doesn’t this argument apply to all the albums you illegally taped? No, it doesn’t make it right. But it does those pointing their fingers massive hypocrites.

    Of course musicians should get paid (that’s why I pay for my music), we should be enouarging youngsters to pay for music as much as they can because it’s the right thing to do, but all this finger pointing (mostly referring to the comments, not the original article, which by and large I rather liked) is likely to have the opposite effect. It’s like an adulterous politician preaching about family values.

  574. Like Emily, I’m a student of the music industry. We started downloading music illegally because it was the only way to download music when we were 10 years old. I’m currently a senior in the Bandier Program for Music and Entertainment industries at Syracuse University.

    Generally speaking, we will avoid paying for music, but if it’s even the slightest bit hard to find then it’s no problem at all. Music industry is slowly shifting into the lifestyle industry, which was devoid of mention entirely, only from what I believe is thinking inside the box. We go to shows and buy merch, but that’s just the basics. If Madonna was monetizing on her style, branding tutus and fishnets, I would have wanted them then and I would want them now. Outdated statistics and the bitter tone of the post was somewhat offensive as a music industry student, but we don’t need to change music retail or our music consumption patterns. I’m a Spotify Premium subscriber and Sirius XM subscriber, will buy new music on vinyl if it’s really meaningful and impactful to me, and always love live music, but ultimately I want to be part of the lifestyle. I currently work with an artist whose name bears little to no meaning to most people I talk to, but his 4 business ventures in branded collaborations and sponsored content put him well over 35k and year and probably a higher salary than David Lowery himself.

    Modern musicians need to realize that they are more than just artists and they themselves are lifestyle/culture curators. They are sole creative business entities that need to think like businesses, reaching out to other companies/artists/brands/labels that are in line with their creative/artistic endeavors to support the music (lifestyle) that they’re selling. What makes you stand out as a musician? Why would I want to buy your music? It’s not much different than another indie band’s, honestly. I want something that only you have or produce – your lifestyle. That is what I will pay for. Artists need to take their careers out of the hands of “the man” and put them in the hands of mine and Emily’s. We know what we want from an artist (because we only pay for what we want) and will nurture that creativity into a full time CAREER, not a side-gig in a band.

  575. Great article, I admit I was guilty of illegal downloading and I justified with the saying “the people who download the most buy the most” and I figured that I would buy the music later. I guess you do get carried away with being able to easily attain free music and that as a fan of the artists you are helping by suggesting the music to others but in truth you are still stealing. I suppose it is true that because it is so easy to get the music for free, you don’t feel like you are stealing but the fact is that you are. If you really do value the artists then you will spend the dollar per song or buy the album. No matter what, nothing beats having the actual album in your own hands and being able to place it in you music player/ stereo. I suppose we are just become too lazy to buy an album an actually listen to it instead of clicking on a song on our mp3 players.

    We have to show our support for the bands by buying the music, how can they keep going, how would there be any music to download for free if people just keep taking it for free. The music business would collapse in itself but I think if we spread the word people will open their eyes that illegal downloading hurts the artists. Somehow it just escaped people’s morals that stealing music is bad. I think there is a gap on how people associate music as a product. It is not really something you can hold in your hand, I mean you can buy the album but you can not necessarily hold the music. I think that is why people don’t associate taking music as not stealing.

    This is such a great article, I will share this with many others so they can open their eyes about illegal downloading. Musicians deserve to be paid fairly for their work, you would want to also.

  576. Here’s a different perspective from a 40-year-old who falls kind of in-between the old-school and new-school music days.
    I grew up in rural North Carolina, and fell in love with music the summer between 6th and 7th grades (1983). I did not have access to music at all other than whatever FM stations my crappy hand-me-down stereo could pick up, none of which were college stations, so my tastes centered squarely on the Top 40 to which I had access. Anything new or different I had to absorb vicariously via reading about it in my brother-in-law’s Rolling Stone magazines.
    Whenever I had a little money to spend, I would buy an LP or cassette based on whatever was on sale at TG&Y for $5.99. And then as I got older I discovered, thanks to my best friend, a great new opportunity to discover new music: thrift stores.
    He and I religiously cased out every Goodwill and Salvation Army in the Triangle, Triad and even Danville, Roanoke and Lynchburg VA for old LPs, 45s, cassettes etc. Even well into my adulthood, I regularly patronized the Goodwills in Richmond VA (and Plan 9’s basement in Carytown) for an economical alternative to $18 CDs or $1+ downloads.
    I briefly did the whole pirating thing as well, but it was not quite as fulfilling or interesting.
    The bottom line is that probably 90% or more of my 2,500+ piece collection of LPs, cassettes, CDs and MP3s was purchased for less than $10, and 95% of it purchased used or via the now-defunct music clubs like Columbia House and BMG. I absolutely never would have thought twice about purchasing those items at full price, as I simply could never have afforded it.
    In fact, I bought Vic Chesnutt’s Little from a Camelot Music in a mall in Wilson, NC for $1.99 from the cutout bin. Absolutely positively never would have thought about buying it if it were even $2.50. I had never heard of the guy and was only interested because I saw Michael Stipe produced it (or something). Maybe that didn’t help Vic much, but that $1.99 CD later begat a full-price purchase of About to Choke.
    I also have most of Cracker’s catalog, purchased almost exclusively used via Half.com. Even have a CVB LP scored from a Durham, NC Goodwill.
    My point is that maybe the music industry could rethink it’s pricing. Why does an album off of iTunes still cost as much as a physical CD when you don’t have to print any material, produce an actual CD or use packaging and plastic wrap? Why are there still hundreds of thousands of out of print albums not available digitally, just rotting away in the archives? Wouldn’t selling those for a dime a track be more lucrative than not selling them at all?
    A huge mistaken assumption you and others with your point of viwe make, David, is that you think every song/album taken from you without going through the normal purchase route would by default have been purchased thusly if not available through other means. As my thrift store bolstered collection points out, that’s simply not so. I have a shit-ton of music BECAUSE it was free or damn cheap, that I never would’ve paid full price for because it wasn’t worth the risk. I became a big Graham Parker fan because his records looked interesting and paying $.25-$1 for one at a Goodwill wasn’t a big risk; if it sucked I was out $1 or less, not $15. This was how I built my collection, becasue remember, I wasn’t going to hear Graham Parker on local Top 40 radio, which is all I had. The more expensive music is, the less people want to risk their dollars on hopefully getting a good product.
    21st century radio is abysmyl. In 20 years I think I’ve heard at most 5 Cracker songs ever played on a decent-sized station, for example. A lot of music has to be bought on faith because options of hearing it in advance are slim – unelss you have a chance to stream it via Spotify, for example. If radio formats would improve and track costs would come down, I have no doubt more people would be willing to buy more music. I certainly would. Instead, I don’t pirate – I’ve just written the music industry off as a viable entertainment option altogether. Something to think about.

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  578. Dear David – thank you for a very well stated essay. The moral argument is often the most difficult to articulate as it requires actual thought by the casual consumer. I also commend you on your links to charities in memory of two lovely and troubled souls, Vic and Mark. Keep up the great work.

  579. Kind of a rude question, I realize that, but it pictures something forgotten in this debate: Are you watching online porn clips and paying for online porn? If you are against music piracy, how do you behave with porn piracy? I do not really believe those sites are exclusively visited by people who also do music piracy. I have a feeling people measure with 2 morals, because one is ‘art’ and the other is ‘dirt’. Feel free to comment, but first answer my first upfront question in honesty.

  580. not that I’m in favor of illegal downloading but …. It’s interesting conundrum. I have always bought 90% of my music second hand (albums vinyl etc), because i can pay anywhere from $1.99 to $9.99 at my local shop instead of $15.99-$19.99 just for extra shrink-wrap. Or i can get out of print music on ebay, Gemm, discogs, etc etc. The artists doesn’t see any of that either but who’s been complaining about record shops selling second hand stuff and ripping off the artist?? the argument is the same as for illegal digital downloads. the artist and label made money off it once only, but stores have made more money off it after that, or it got put on a file sharing site. only when digital media came along and physical album sales started to decline did we hear about it. i blame steve jobs. actually i don’t, i think this problem has been coming since the introduction of CD’s, but he exacerbated it. record companies set a price for CD’s back in the day when they were expensive to manufacture. when those manufacturing prices came down the record companies did not bring their retail prices down, and i feel we’ve always paid over the odds for CD’s in particular (especially when i found out how much it actually cost to make my own bands cd’s and yes i know that there are a lot more overheads for record companies than me but still …). in other words the RC’s have been overcharging for CD’s since day one and i won’t pay their prices, sorry to say (don’t even get me started on remasters and re-issues where their costs are even less). in the digital world the manufacturing costs are a factor smaller as there is no physical media, but if you look at itunes, albums are still $9.99, so if i buy downloads i go to Amazon as they often discount an album vs 1 song. i know this is more a rant against RC pricing policy and the artist suffers, but the issues are not always black or white. on the plus side, if an artist is selling stuff at a gig i will buy them as they get more money for that. also, google Steve albini’s letter going around the internet that dates from the early 90’s about who actually makes money when a band is signed to a label, his description of an ‘advance’ is not the same as the authors for one thing.

  581. Pingback: As I Write My S-A: The Morality of Free Music « Lemonade…

  582. Was I rude too and is that why none of my comments showed up?

    FWIW I forwarded my comments to Bob Lefsetz. I hope he posts them. I made a sensible rational argument using examples from philosophy such as Stoicism. I’m not sure why that would be considered rude.

  583. Artists don’t make money off their songs anymore, they make it off touring. There are many artists who don’t care if people download their tracks for free, as long as the same people are paying $50+ for a ticket to their shows. The old model of musicians making bank off their album sales is dead thanks to the internet. Shift your focus.

    2. Kelly “…Artists don’t make money off their songs anymore, they make it off touring. …”

      hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! No seriously, I think I’ve wet myself.

    3. first of all, most musicians are not playing shows for $50. a lot of shows i play are $5 – $8. i am still not selling records like i would have 12 years ago. and those show prices haven’t gone up since then either.

      then, probably, if a show is costing you $50, that money is also going to pay the OTHER PEOPLE WHO WORK IN THE VENUE. bouncers have to get paid. soundpeople. lighting rig folks. the manager. the cleaning crew. the booking agent. the promoters.

      it’s true artists aren’t making money off their music anymore. but they were -never- making money from playing shows.

  584. David:

    Amazing article, I’m actually blown away but how you broke this down. I’m one of those people who downloaded for free but now that I have my iTunes account with my iPhone, it’s so much easier paying 99 cents for a song instead of looking for it online.

    I’m currently doing a documentary on online sharing here in Toronto, Canada, would you be interested in appearing in it? After reading your response, this is definitely the most articulate and common sense explanation I’ve ever come across in regards to music downloads, it’s excellence at it’s best.

    -Dale

  585. Pingback: maybe you think i’m beating a dead horse, but i ain’t ready to bury it yet— UPDATE « Albedo~~~chronicles of concupiscientia oculorum
  586. Pingback: How About Standardizing The Technologies That Enable Artist Compensation? | Solveig's Blog
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  588. Pingback: How I am “artist,” or how I failed and still succeeded at said…and you can, too. « Jason T. Lewis/Sad Iron Press
  589. Pingback: Emily White's Unwillingness to Pay Raises the Wrong Question
  590. Pingback: On NPR, David Lowery, Travis Morrison, and Paying for Music - Arts Desk

  591. You should follow up this post with criticisms against what you’ve said. It’s a thorny issue, so there’s obviously going to be backlash. I’d like to read what you have to say on some issues brought up from your argument.

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  593. You just think that paying for music is the good way because it has been done like that for so many years. If the music industry haven´t started with a phonograph but with mp3s, sharing and streaming anyway the creators would founded a way to make music and be profitable. We have to kill the old model and think in new models. All this things you say are like people working in traditional photography camplain because de digital cameras ruin their life, Life evolves, things changes and you just have to adapt. Just look Amanda Palmer and her great kickstarter campaign. She create great products and get $1.200.000 from 25.000 people. Selling cds it wuold be just $350.000 and she would be under the recoumpent. Adapt or die.

  594. Pingback: NPR Intern Gets an Earful After Blogging About 11,000 Songs, Almost None Paid For « makananz
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  597. Reblogged this on The Steampunk Opera and commented:
    I’m going to take a day’s break from the noir stuff (almost over it… almost) and post this exceptional letter. Well worth the read and as a musician a major issue in my life.

  598. I first want to commend David on a very exhaustive, well written post. I have shared it. However, I need to respond to the statement that “Only the very top tier of musicians make ANY money on the road. And only the 1% of the 1% makes significant money on the road.” This is false and shows how out of touch he is with the grassroots, independent music community these days.

    I am part of a large majority of independent musicians who don’t bitch and moan about the old music model and the “good ol days” when we could make money by sitting at home waiting for album sales checks to pour in. We understand the reality of the new music industry and embrace it. It’s a losing battle to scream that “it’s unfair.” It’s ALWAYS been unfair.

    I have spent the past 4.5 years as a FULL-TIME independent musician spending about half of my year on the road MAKING MONEY. I had to get quite creative on how to make LOTS of money, but I have made between $35k-70k gross annual income as a completely independent artist (no management, no label, no publisher, no agent) by being smart about the business side of music and embracing the new model. I, like many of my friends’ bands, spend a big part of our year on the road and are building our fan base in a grass roots manner and actually making money. I’m far from a “top tier” artist. I guarantee you have never heard of me. But 8,345 Facebookers have as well as thousands more who have been to my shows.

    Do I think artists should be paid for their recordings? Absolutely. I shelled out about $15,000 for my latest album (thanks in part to Kickstarter). Am I going to cry that I won’t make this back on solely album sales? No! I will in ticket and merch sales and a bit of licensing.

    I think David makes great points, but misses the biggest point: the industry is changing and instead of presenting the moral arguments on why we should return to the old system, talk about how to move with the times and enter into the new model. Recorded music is now a loss leader (unfortunately) for everything else.

    Will musicians like me sacrifice quality in our recordings because people aren’t going to buy it? Absolutely not. It’s our art and we will perfect it and keep quality at the forefront of everything we do because that’s important to us as musicians and artists. But us young, independent, grassroots artists understand that to be successful in this new industry is to understand the reality and current state of the biz and use it to our advantage.

    I lay all of this out and explain how I did it and try and help other independent musicians enable themselves to do it as well in my (very new) music biz advice blog (shameless plug) Ari’s Take. Google it to find it.

    Thanks for the healthy, constructive discussion.

    Ari Herstand (27), Minneapolis/Los Angeles

  599. Pingback: My Evolving Position | The Carriage Iron

  601. In a capitalist society where market demand determines a product’s marketability (as is seen in true, fair capitalist markets), more producers means lower prices for consumers until the cost of materials once again overcomes profitability. It’s called competition and it is the basis for a true capitalist market, which the U.S. is supposed to still have, though, we see very little resembling competition when corporations buy politicians and receive bailout money for failing, but that’s another rant.

    One thing that is missing from your article is the history of the RIAA and it’s attempts to control the market, the price a consumer pays, and the consumer’s choice in where to buy, right up until Napster forced a change. The music industry had it’s hand forced into accepting the digital distribution model and fought tooth and nail to prevent it before finally embracing consumer complaints about cd’s being loaded with filler material and the average price of a disc remaining at the $15-20 range. Even today, many full albums, if purchased thru individual downloads at $0.99 a song, still come to the $15-20 range. Why?

    If every other industry followed the same scheme as the major recording companies, almost no one would own a microwave, cell phone, tv, dishwasher, washer and dryer, etc. Why does one industry believe it is immune to the advances in technology?

    The same trend of lower production costs brought on by competition is the very same movement that has allowed the music industry to become flooded by Do It Yourself Artists, who honestly, with today’s cheap digital technology, are putting out material that is equivalent to around 90% of 1990’s music (remember a lot of terrible albums were still produced whether anyone was listening or not) but at a fraction of the costs. I hear plenty of people argue about this, but it’s true. Home production quality has skyrocketed. It is the same as any other industry: too many people flooding a job market means less demand for those skills and lower overall pay for those skills. Again, the music industry wants to believe it is immune to a pitfall of every other industry, and now so does the movie industry.

    The moral of the story is the market will no longer bare as many middle men gleaning wealth off a few successful artists by holding both the consumer and artist hostage. That business model really is done. Diamonds will continue rise to the surface and be supported and all the rest will fall to the bottom where they belong. No more forcing bad artists down the consumer’s throats by hijacking radio and playing them over and over, and no more quiet price setting among major labels.

    All that said, I am still a supporter of artists receiving their fair share and being compensated for their work, but the price needs to reflect the market. Want to sell an album? Keep the price around $5. Want to sell a single? Keep the price around $0.25 a song. Want the new generation to buy your album directly from you? Get rid of the archaic middle men, already, so there isn’t any more confusion about who is getting the money.

  602. A few years back I had over 450 cd’s stolen out of my car; I ended up downloading each one of those albums illegally.

    I also want to note that I too am a musician, albeit, not a commercially successful one. I do however love to make music, and even though I do not make much money from making music, I still love to create and share it with the world. My music does not support me, so I have a job on the side to pay the bills. But my point is, even though I don’t make money from making music, that doesn’t keep me from wanting to make music and share it with others. The same could be said about many different aspects of life, for example, take an adventurer: they don’t necessarily have any monetary benefit for traveling the world by bicycle, or canoeing or kayaking miles and miles of the coast; they do it because they love it. The same can be said about the musician and the creative process of making music. Now the model in which they are paid has been exploited and they need to find new ways to get paid

    So what I am trying to say is that musicians should think about their art differently and try to make money and adapt to the new technological advances. People are going to download illegally. You made some good points but ultimately nothing has changed in the grand scheme of things.

    1. I don’t know if you are aware of this. but all the time we get emails to our band website that their ipod was stolen, cds stolen from car, computer crashed. can i file-share them back? We then send a link from our site that gives them access to download and replace the catalog. I know dozens of other artists that do the same thing.

      1. I am disappointed that Brent equates music with adventure cycling, canoeing and kayaking. Those activities do not have the possibility of creating a lasting product, which can generate income and/or be stolen, nor are they typically done for an audience.

  603. David,

    Excellent well-written piece and I agree with pretty much everything you say, however, Spotify isn’t totally the bad guy – the major labels do have shares in the company (I think about 18%), so technically the revenues they (majors) earn could be invested back into artists / musicians etc.

    Also, like the film business, the music industry have often been criticised for their ‘Creative accounting’ – there’s not enough space to go into detail here. In short, your piece does hit the nail; undoubtedly blatant piracy & expecting to ‘own’ / ‘steal’ music for ‘free’ is wrong though, as above the music business aren’t always the most ethical in their practices.
    (I can speak from 20+ years experience having worked at MTV, Xfm, Music Supervisor etc.)

    1. agreed. and this is one of the issues with spotify. it’s the major labels own a piece of it, but then cut a deal with spotify for how to pay the artists. I suggest transparency could solve this. It would put pressure on who needed to be pressured to play fair spotify? labels? publishers?

  604. I love this article. I couldn’t have said it better. I constantly remind my teens that they are stealing by downloading free music (I am a musician- I buy CDs still, and pay for downloads). I will post this on facebook.

  605. For those of you just joining us–

    This whole debate is essentially:

    [Insert industry bigwig who is clinging to the last desperate remnants of an industry getting completely restructured / lawyer / struggling artist / brainwashed record label employees / radio / record store employee / anyone who is stuck in 1998] vs [anyone who can’t afford to pay for music, techies, forward thinkers who realize this is a new generation]

    The commonality is that everyone in that list wants artists to get paid, and for the industry to succeed. But the people in the first column think that can be done by yelling at the people in the second to stop stealing, start buying music, and stop being honest about it.

    Well they won’t. The people in the second section will be the ones creating Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, and whatever else makes up the industry that our children will be seeing in the near future.

  606. I believe mechanical royalties only cover the songwriting, not the recording, so the true cost to “ethically and morally ‘get right’ with the artists” would be far higher than $2,139.50.

    1. actually i did include a artist royalty to make arrive at that. the artist royalty is recouped against the recording cost. so i think i got it right. what it does not cover are any of the record label promo costs, advertising etc.

  607. The only sad thing about downloading music is that our generation (16-30) is not helping our peers, who are the majority of music makers. You rarely hear about music execs losing money from piracy.

    It amazes me that the older generation can aim at us Millennials for ‘stealing’ music as some sort of terrible ethical crime while we are saddled with incomprehensible debt, low-paying jobs, a stagnant economy, a public system that is bloated to the point of collapse by the older generation demanding their entitlements and a corporate machine (which includes Sony, Time Warner, EMI et al.) that is literally taking control of our political system thanks to their unending wallets.

    At 21, Emily is being screwed by just about every business and political interest in this country and will continue to be screwed by them for the foreseeable future. Stealing music, in the sad grand scheme of things, is the least of America’s problems and as far as I can see, one of the few things Emily can do to get ahead of anyone.

    1. Yes, that’s correct that musicians saddled with incomprehensible debt, low-paying jobs, a stagnant economy, a public system that is bloated to the point of collapse by the older generation demanding their entitlements and a corporate machine (which includes Google and ISPs) that is literally taking control of our political system thanks to their unending wallets and desire to print money for litigation budgets by selling stock in the public markets.

      At 21 or any other age, musicians are is being screwed by just about every business and political interest in this country and will continue to be screwed by them for the foreseeable future. Stealing music, in the sad grand scheme of things, is the last final insult from a dehumanizing system where musicians do what they’ve always done–try to make life a little easier to live, try to explain both inhumanity and love, try to offer tell their story in a way that is entertaining and enlightening sometimes. Charging for their album or concert or book or movie shoudn’t be a huge problem for anyone and as far as I can see, one of the few things that musicians can do to get ahead of anyone.

      Some people look at musicians and say, here’s a few bucks for something good in a crappy world. Other people say, there’s someone who has something I want and no means to stop me. They’re all inspiring an all, but what they really inspire me to do is steal. Then give me this tattered but complex blanket of false moral relativism I can wrap myself in while I break private property laws that have been fundamental to socity since the dawn of time.

      As I’ve said before and repeat because it bears repeating, it is an awful thing to lie to a child. Christopher Hitchens said that, and it bears repeating daily.

  608. The tech is the content. The music is just the delivery vehicle. 🙂 The music is an ad. Some ads are free (newspapers, and largely unwanted), and some are paid for (T-shirt logos, that big honking Tissot on that watch you picked up in Geneva for … how much?). And some music is paid for (ring tones)… the trick is not to turn music into the content (it isn’t), but to make it one of the paid ads. And that’s the way it is in the post-human age. 🙂

  610. Reblogged this on Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs and commented:
    With summer here and the hard work of writing my mid-year list done, I’m going to post a blog by David Lowery (formerly in bands Cracker and Camper Van Beetoven). His take on the current state of the music is eye-opening and sobering. If you’ve ever stolen music online or used programs like Spotify and Grooveshark, this long entry is worth the time spent reading it.

  612. Dear Trichordist,

    I read your careful and respectful letter to Emily White. To start with, you seem a very caring, intelligent and sensitive person. I don’t personally download music, although have downloaded a couple of textbooks and movies in my life, and I swap them freely with friends. I don’t feel guilty about this but I guess it’s because the stigma seems heavier for music that I don’t do it.

    My husband is an artist. He makes music videos and will work in every aspect of the video production. He uses Vimeo instead of a business card and thanks to a lot of videos he’s made for free, he also gets paid jobs with some lables and also a lot of advertising work, which is his bread and butter. The videos he makes and his reputation are thankfully circulated largely because they are freely accessible. With a bigger budget, the videos can obviously be more spectacular, but with no budget they are still professional and highly entertaining. He is so pleased that people see his work and wouldn’t dream of charging anyone to see it or show it, unless they wanted to use it to make money for themselves, in which case he would negotiate a cut. Most of our friends are artists, some professional and some still only in their free time, but none of them would want their art to be appreciated by less people because they couldn’t or even didn’t feel like paying for it. Most of them give away their art for it to be enjoyed; isn’t this the purpose of creating? It’s such a unique aspect to our existence that there could even be the argument that charging for it is the real moral crime, but our society is definietly not that far along yet.

    In no way would I disregard the tragedy that touched you and the families of your two friends when they took their own lives. Charities that support artists are vital, especially as it often sadly seems that genius is coupled with other mental differences that make it hard for the bearers to interact in society as most of us do, and they can be more vulnerable to depression and experimenting with drugs (and all the myriad mental and mood changes that can cause), among numerous other possibile vulnerabilities.

    My husband and I invest almost all of our savings (whenever sufficient accumulates) into equipment he needs to make videos. It’s expensive and often has a short useful lifespan and we can’t afford to insure it. I still never hesitate to buy it because the value and potential of having it far exceeds any price tag. Making “free” videos usually costs us too, if we need a nanny, or other expenses that would be strange to ask the music group to cover. He is lucky because we can live off my salary, and he can dedicate himself to art. The commercial jobs are often dull for him but he agrees that the equipment needs to pay for itself somehow and invariably takes the jobs when they appear. In the photography industry in Spain, top photographers are expected to do some of the biggest budgetted photos for free, although the rest of the team and materials are covered. They, too, often produce work at their own expense, simply for the enjoyment of others. The same goes for my musician friends who just want their sounds to be enjoyed, they work and then produce professional quality music as a hobby.

    I don’t download, but the a lot of the little music I have was given to me several years ago. When I was at high school I had the radio, and once or twice a year would save up and buy a CD. Now I enjoy a lot more music thanks to Youtube and Spotify, but paying for it I would simply live without it; life being just that little bit less rich and varied. I was even gifted an iTunes voucher which expired because it took me 2 years to decide which album to buy with it…I still don’t feel the need for music very often.

    Many people have enjoyed your article and didn’t pay you for it. True you didn’t rehearse much or hire a studio for it, but everything has it’s cost. Skype is genius, invaluable, and incredibly FREE, even to business clients who use it for video conferences. Most cities allow you to walk in maintained parks for free and visit libraries and read books for free. These are demanded by the public and strived for by councils and governments as conventional symbols of development, and even “rights”. Yet we pay for the zoo, if we can afford to go, and museums and the theatre, because we know that, well, some things have a cost if we want to enjoy them. Don’t you think it seems that in general, people are prepared to pay for tangible things they can possess or have contact with and use (like beauty or hospitality services), and yet reluctant to pay for anything that, without touching, just provides sensory stimulation.

    New Zealand has a benefit that supports artists to help get them up and running in their chosen media (PACE), it sounds to me like an idyllic benefit with true benefits to society in the long run. I had an artist friend with a full-time job who resented the fact his sister-in-law was supported by the taxpayer so she could smoke pot and live a transient life until the creative flow began, while he had to work hard to make enough to buy a new guitar so he could continue playing with his band in the odd pub of an odd evening. I would suggest he was actually the most fulfilled of the two (at the time anyway).

    For me the real issue is that anything is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, from music to modern art to celebrity cast-offs. Top quality music will never die because it no longer makes sales. World history is testimony to that, and historically many of our best artists lived in poverty and weren’t even recognised (let alone paid) until near-to or after their deaths. I applaud any artist who is able to make a living from their art, and ultimately I strive for the same, albeit off my husband’s talent. However, the music industry will find another way around this downloading issue…Spain already have a special tax on any devices that can be used for recording, storing or playing-back music and the tax supposedly goes to artists (at present, sadly via the corruption-plagued organisation SGAE). The tax was a hugely unpopular move, but we will evolve and music will continue to be produced: moreso now thanks to these Mac and other resources, which may sometimes include illegally-copied programmes, people can now make their own high quality music and movies and publish columns and research a doctorate all from the comfort of their living-rooms. I propose a toast to art that is not only accessible to everyone, but is also produceable by everyone, so we can all live a little richer. May we feed this innate desire to create and bless others with our artistic expression, and do as Lady Gaga said dedicating every bit of us to love and art.

    Thanks for taking the time to read my opinion. If you want an early example of an unpaid, zero-budget music video, watch Hkanino’s “Defiendo Lo Mio” on Youtube. I’m proud of these artists. I measure their success by the number of hits on Youtube and I respect them for putting so much passion into their art…with or without any money.

  613. I can honestly say that this is the most refreshing thing I have read concerning the music downloading debate. I’ve heard the “well if you really supported the artists you’d go to shows and buy t-shirts” as an excuse to download for free WAY too many times. A lot of artists actually offer their music on their websites for purchase, so even if you are sketched out by itunes and supposed “big business”, why not obtain music that way?

  614. Pingback: Will Kennedy | Producer. Mixer. Engineer. » White And Lowery: The Discussion We Need To Have

  615. @davidclowery – another great article.

    When software giants go after pirates, their consumers accept it. When the recording industry goes after pirates, the SAME CONSUMERS rush to the defense of the pirates.

    Figure that one out.

  616. I’d love to know which fifteen CDs she actually ponied up for. Wouldn’t that be telling?

  617. Pingback: Love and Theft | Professor Mondo
  618. Pingback: Geek Media Round-Up: June 20, 2012 – Grasping for the Wind
  619. Pingback: the piracy question | diary of a(n accidental) housewife

  620. Reblogged this on CarlitoJERK's Blog and commented:
    I thought this was an absolutely brilliant, thorough & well-versed analysis of individuals who think it’s okay to steal music from artists they apparently “like”. Call me crazy but I want to actually HELP the artists I like by paying for their music, going to their shows, buying their merchandise. I actually want them to stick around and keep creating music and art I love, hopefully for decades to come. If you’re an artist/band, you want me as a fan because I’ll shovel the money out for the previously said items and I usually try to get bands/artists I like over with anyone that will listen. This goes out to all of the music “lovers” who find it too inconvenient to pay for music. Especially to the one shitty hipster who sneered at me a couple years back, “Who pays for music anymore?” I do… douche. Enjoy.

  621. First, I want to commend Mr. Lowery on a very well-written article.

    Second, a few thoughts from a middle-aged music junky. I will be the first to admit that I have about 6 gigs of music on my computer. However, I acquired this music very legally… it was either burned from CDs or albums (I have a turntable and piece of software that handle this task quite nicely), which I or a family member had previously purchased and are still in possession of to this day. I still own about 300 LPs and will never part with them or my belt-drive turntable, and I have lost count of the number of cassettes I have.

    Back in the days of my youth, we bought 45s or albums, mostly based on either (A) our love of or dedication to a particular band/artist, and (B) the songs off the new albums we heard on the radio. Some music stores (and I’m not talking about Target or Walmart here!) had things set up so you could preview an entire album via headphones (see the movie “Empire Records” if you’re not following me) before you shelled out the $7.99 to buy it, which was a lovely feature. I have albums I have owned for 30 years that have only been played twice… both times while recording the album to cassette tape for use in my car or on my home stereo or “ghetto blaster”.

    While these methods of enjoying music may seem archaic and antiquated to the younger generation (my own son included), I cherish those days and my connection with the artists I supported via album purchases, concert tickets, T-shirts, etc. Yes, some were huge bands (Boston, the Stones, Zeppelin), but some were also small bands with more of a “cult” following (The Dixie Dregs, Jean-Luc Ponty, Warren Zevon), and some were even smaller than that… one of my favorite CDs is by a guy I saw playing in a shopping mall who was selling CDs on a rickety little table next to the stage!

    My point is this: While the “convenience” of digital/electronic music is certainly an real thing, I worry a lot about what it is doing to the music industry as a whole. Are we looking at the loss of the Billboard Top 100 and platinum records? If what I suspect is true, artists are not only unfairly compensated for their work, they are also unfairly not credited with it either… thus, in another 5-10 years, artists will no longer have the opportunity for a gold record or platinum-selling album. Bands like Nickelback and Staind better have enjoyed their “big-selling” status, because the handwriting on the wall indicates a rude and abrupt end to that kind of notoriety.

    I also fear the end of the era of the “concept album” a la Rush, Pink Floyd, and Yes… I was thrilled when PF won their lawsuit and forced their record label to sell their albums as a whole and not as individual songs! What a great day for the concept album! But here we sit, only a few years later, and it seems it was all for naught, and that makes me sad.

    I have known (and still know) many musicians in my life, and I’m here to tell you it’s a grueling, unforgiving, time-consuming, ball-busting, helluva lot of hard work with few returns save two: Being able to do what you love and love what you do, and those measly little royalty checks (if you’re lucky enough to have a record contract) and/or the receipts at the end of the night after a gig. I for one have absolutely no problem with paying for my tunage… the artists I love put their blood, sweat, and tears into every chord, every chorus, and every contract they sign, and I figure the least I can do is cough up a few sheckles to pay their pauper’s wages in return for bringing such joy, pleasure, mental health, and entertainment into my life.

  622. Pingback: Admired, Inspired 06.20.12 | Glass Lens, Gold Key

  623. I join the majority here who agree with you and hope that Emily will take to heart this FREE education about the cost of doing business as a musician. Thank you for writing so thoughtfully.
    GRAMMY winner, Cathy Fink

  625. David, I found the article fascinating, but I am going to take to task a couple issues brought up in it. Most notably morality first. Over the years, I have seen, heard, or read about countless musicians doing the following:

    Living off “fat girls” by “crashing at their place” eating their food, using their utilities with lots of false promises.

    Trying to pickup someone’s girlfriend, wife or daughter at a show by feeding them drugs and alcohol, then when challenged gathering as many roadies as possible to defend them from a certain ass-beating.

    Bullshitting fans out of weed, drinks, food, hotels and rides places only to make fun of the generous soul once they are gone.

    You get the idea. These examples and others range from the local dreamers to bands like Guns N Roses, Metallica, etc. Please, morality and many, many musicians do not go hand in hand. For those that do, I commend you.

    Secondly, there is no such thing as “fairness”. “Fairness” is a bunch of nonsense you are taught typically by a “have not” in society, or a Socialist president looking for votes. The answer to “fairness” is going out, busting your butt, not taking NO for an answer and defeating your competition to achieve your goals. Yes, in the music industry there are numerous barriers and skeptics in your way, just like any other profession in the world.

    3. Brett: are you seriously trying to tell me that, as a professional musician of 33 years standing who doesn’t drink, smoke and has never taken drugs, that I have to accept having my music stolen because some bands are junkies and live with their girlfriend??????

  626. If something doesn’t cost you anything you won’t value it. I had a discussion with a neighbor about paying for Final Cut Pro. He thought it was OK for his little brother to “rip” a copy so he could get into editing/directing because he couldn’t afford it. My argument was that if he saved up for it, if it took him a month, two or six months, then when he got it he would value it and actually be more likely to learn it, use it and make his dream a reality.

    I had to cut grass all Summer back in the 70’s to get my first Gibson Les Paul and now I make a living playing guitar. I had friends whose parents bought them nice guitars and amps, whatever they wanted. Those guitars just sat in closets unused because it didn’t cost them anything. When I would buy LP’s I devoured them. Knew every note.

    How many of those 11,000 tunes has Emily listened to? How many does she really know?

    1. This is a great point Tom, the current generation by en large (though, I admit, not all) do not value things as people once did. The Have it Now culture of the 80’s has given way to the Have it now and For Nothing culture of the 21st century. Some of the excuses given on here whilst lambasting Mr. Lowery are beyond belief. Stealing an artists music is indefensible, end of. But perhaps most worrying is the societal spectre this issue raises. We say the technological advances shouldn’t alter our morality and honesty, rather that we should use our morality and honesty to introduce new technology. But, all the internet and its anonymity really does is put under a microscope the human condition – namely, that in the absence of law and order, a scarily high percentage of people will get away with what they can. We witnessed it in the London riots, where such a breakdown seemed to give ordinarily law-abiding people carte-blanche to wander through broken shop windows and claim plasma TV’s as their own. And this was with a much higher risk of getting caught than internet piracy. You know society is broken when there is uproar because the government insisted on giving a custodial sentence to a teenager who had stolen a bottle of wine during these riots. Of course he should be punished! HE STOLE SOMETHING THAT WASN’T HIS! Or does that simply not matter anymore? Well, it has to matter. Because the alternative is anarchy.

  627. Anecdote, statements with no data to back them up, completly ignores hard copy pirates, disregard other economic factors, ignores that every album that went gold otr platinum had there music widely distributed by pirates first.

    Ignores music quality, ignores consumer treatment.

    “There is no other explanation except for the fact that “fans” made the unethical choice to take their music without compensating these artists.”

    Seriously? no other reason? The whole article is written to wrap up a clear bias.

    Hey, whats this, the economy is improving and then we see an increase in sales?

    http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e37f350-7b38-11e0-9b06-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1yOs04pkA

    “They already know what they are doing is wrong.”
    wrong by whose standard?

    “And I would guess that the most inconvenient part is….step 3.”
    Of course you would think that, you are emotional wrapped up in what you see as the only possible reason. You appear unable to consider any other reason besides you preconceived notions.

    Why does someone automatically deserve to get paid for the same work over and over again?

  629. I just read Emily’s article. It seems she is saying she only bought 15 physical CDs but most of her catalogue is digital which she obtained (mostly) legally.. that’s not word for word. I still agree with David’s point of view in his article.

    Anyway, hopefully there will be something in the future that will somehow mesh the past enjoyment of opening a new record or CD and reading the liner notes, with this new digital era of microwave products that need to be done in under a minute into a new form. As we lower our patience, and speed up our life, time flies by much faster. Maybe if we slow down a bit, we’ll find the time to actually innovate a new musical landscape within the digital arena.

  630. Lowery – you are a freaking genius. I love your thinking. I love it that you are not afraid to speak out. NPR should invite you on, although poor poor Emily may get you blackballed before her summer is over and she goes back to whatever posh East Coast Liberal Arts college she attends.

    Meanwhile, I think “intern” is the key word here. What is she 18- 22? She comes from a generation that believes that everything should be free… I mean, why not? She’s been doing it all of her life and so have her friends… She doesn’t get paid so why should the artist?

    These days if you want to be in the music business you’re either an “intern” – work for free; an “employee” – work for minimum wage (if you’re lucky) or commission; or the “owner” – making 6 figures or 4 figures, depending… Ever notice most music business people these days are either former drug dealers looking to legitimize their gazillion dollars in cash or trust fund kids?

    Ultimately, she works for free, so she should get the music for free. That’s fair, right?

    I don’t think so. I have a degree in Arts Management and the second the internet took over the business, I was out of a job (or I had a choice of one of the three above). I chose #3. So I started my own company which made approximately THREE figures its first year and I held down two other jobs just to pay my rent. Legally, I still own this music business company but have absolutely no time to pursue anything because 15% of $0 is, well, $0. And my time is worth much more.

    So what do I do now? Actor, Wine Hostess, Secretary, Ebay Seller, “Party Favor” middleman. Seriously? I do just about everything I can possibly do to stay afloat. And the only things I get for free music-wise are tickets when friends who play in bands come through town. I still pay money for their records. And I usually get that money back in beer or comps. I love beer and comps. It’s fun.

    Oh–and I don’t go to SXSW anymore. Once the FreeCreditReport.com people started their own showcase and had the Fake Pirate Band (or whatever they are this week) headline, I knew that the Hot Topic Showcase wasn’t an anomaly and it was OVER. SXSW officially jumped the shark about 5 years ago. Pay me, I’ll attend and network on your behalf. Otherwise I’m staying home, far, far away from the Austin Mafia.

    Yours in Lowery Solidarity,
    Julie D.

  631. Pingback: Read This: David Lowery’s Letter to Emily White at “NPR All Songs Considered.” (The Trichordist) | Shark Patrol Boston

  632. I feel that if they’re read & pondered daily – their ideals will soon become evident in our lives – and we’ll internalize them.

  633. I wonder if you read her post, I quote:

    “But I didn’t illegally download (most) of my songs.”

    This contrasts strongly with your statement:

    “I applaud your courage in admitting you do not pay for music, and that you do not want to but you are grappling with the moral implications.”

    I also don’t buy’s CD’s, they are SO last century but that doesn’t mean that I don’t pay for my music. Personally I use iTunes and emusic mostly, sometimes I buy directly from the artist and sometimes I download stuff for free when I am confident that it is approved by the artist.

    I guess that I would agree with a lot of what you wrote but my BS detector went off in the first paragraph. That probably means that I am intolerant, sorry.

    1. My bad. I misread Emily’s statement to mean that she mostly paid for her music, this was apparently not the case.

  634. As someone who buys 3-4 records a months and pays for a Spotify Premium account, but still has lots of downloaded/ripped music on my computer (most of which I don’t listen to), I feel I fall somewhere in the middle of both sides of this. So now my two cents:

    Lots of good points, but I guess what bothers me most about the argument for paying for every last bit of your music is the sense of entitlement behind it. An exaggarated version of the argument I always hear goes that because you spent time and paid money to make a record, anyone who ever hears a single note of it owes you whatever price you see fit. As someone who has both paid money and spent a lot of time putting work into writing songs and making recordings that not many people pay for (nor do I expect them to for a number of reasons) I strongly disagree. The technology and industry has changed and people can hear your stuff as much as they want before they decide to pay you for your efforts. Sorry, but that’s the way it is now, and it’s never going back. Period. I’d like to believe that enough people are like myself and will still pay for the music they deem worth their hard earned dollars and will spend as much as they can afford. If not, tough luck. You’re probably just not that good anyway. If that’s cool with you and you love it, then great, keep doing it. If not and you just want to whine and get paid, get out of the way. You should be doing it because you love it or because something inside you tells you that you have to, not because you expect monetary compensation. To very loosely quote an analogy I heard (from someone who makes a living as a musician) for this line of thinking… Before cars there was probably a pretty big industry for horseshoes and a couple guys probably did it because it was profitable. Then the Model T came along. Most people stopped making horseshoes. Now you can waste your life away in futility standing outside the Ford plant with a sign every day or if you just love doing it you can go right back to making horseshoes. If you’re good at it, the collectors/breeders/whatevers of the world will pay you top dollar for your horseshoes. If not then grit your teeth, get a second job and do it on the side just because you love it.

  635. You’re actually mad at Emily White for the wrong reason. Here is a study which claims to show that radio play has a *negative impact* on record sales: http://www.ftc.gov/be/seminardocs/060928liebowitzimpactradioplay.pdf. Here is one that claims to show that “illegal” file-sharing has a neutral impact: http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf.

    Don’t be mad that she copied her radio station’s CD library to her laptop; be mad that she played any records on air at all!

    Stop blaming the share-alike generation and start blaming us radio DJs. we’re your true enemies, Mr. Lowery.

  636. Yesterday I posted a comment. This one was denied (censorship?). My question was how about free online xxx movies. If you are anti-piracy regarding music, what’s your idea about p-piracy? In other words: do you watch free p or do you pay for it, being aware it is not fair to steal from p-actors? I’m really curious, not because of your private habits, but I assume there is a double moral and inconsequent opinion.

  637. A couple of points:

    1. The original author claims he is giving Emily a “break” by factoring together how much she would owe the artists per song, taking the record company out of the mix – 9.1 cents. What does it matter how much it would cost for her to “get right” with the artists? The reality is that her music catalog would have costs her $11,000+ to accumulate. Given the fact that she is a full-time college student who has never had the opportunity to earn a real income, it seems misguided to believe that any young person could afford to be a music junkie. Is music only for employed people? Rich people? Adult people with jobs? What about the morality of closing poor people or young people who can’t work off from enjoying music?

    2. I don’t understand why so many refuse platforms like Spotify. Okay, they may not be paying the artists enough royalties RIGHT NOW, but what is to say that this cannot be renegotiated in the future? Why are we categorically rejecting this as a possible solution, just because we have not yet found the right formula?

    3. You [and the anonymous internet] are chastising a young girl who is currently being exploited by a similar system to the one you are desperately trying to refute. She is working for free – doing a job that some other person used to do for a salary. That’s what “interns” do. They do some job at a professional level for college credit – which they PAY for. Don’t you think you are perhaps targeting the wrong audience? You think an unpaid intern is the person to ensure that the artists make a good living? She’s working for free – giving away her art of writing for free. Should people who read and like her work pay her? No. If there is unlimited written content available for free, why should we have to pay for it? Why should I have to purchase a music industry magazine when I can read your blog for free? You read her piece – a piece that 20 years ago, you would have had to pay to read, through a subscription to a magazine, yet you seem to have no problem reading all of the free content you’d like now. Or does the publishing industry’s strife not bother you as much? Like it or not, you and other blogs are destroying the publishing industry – taking from the market share Rolling Stone and the other music publications used to have. Is it not comparable, at least to some degree?

    The crux of the music industry’s problem is over-saturation. Is that linked with piracy? Sure. Is piracy wrong? Sure. But there are just too many damned artists to navigate the music scene in any meaningful way without stepping on a few toes or committing one of your supposed moral wrongs. The reality is that now more than ever, in this economic climate, self-marketing will win out. Savvy artists will find ways to make money. Look at Taylor Swift – a passable talent, but a marketing genius. Her record sales aren’t hurting one little bit – she still sells millions of records like it’s 1999, and sells out stadiums across the world. Just by being smart and knowing exactly how to put herself out there. Look at Gotye – you can scoff at the meager earnings Spotify generates, but judging by his Youtube play count, I’d venture to guess Spotify isn’t doing too badly for him these days.

    It takes talent and wits to rise in today’s industry. All of the people who want to make a living being artists simply cannot do so. You can blame the young folks all you like, but the reality is that our purses are tight, and we vote with our dollars. I can’t afford to support all of the indie artists I marginally like. Only the ones I love. And it’s not a matter of take-take-take either. We young people will also have to be savvy marketers of ourselves and our own talents if we’re ever to make any money doing what we want or love to do. We, too, are struggling to survive and make ends meet. Emily will be lucky to ever see $35,000 a year without benefits as a writer. That’s the breaks. That’s the industry. That’s what we’re all working with. We’re all operating under terrible economic conditions. Why are you pointing fingers at the young people, like we’re the ones with money to burn? Like we’re the ones to blame?

    This is my issue with finger-wagging baby boomers. As a generation, they’ve been largely responsible for the destruction of the economy, the bad policies in this country, and the disintegration of benefits, salaries, medicaid, social security, unions and EVERYTHING that the working man stands for, yet they point their fingers at our generation, accuse us of being useless and disaffected, and expect us to foot the bill. With WHAT? We have no jobs and few opportunities. We’re ready to work, which we demonstrate by working for free at exploitative unpaid internships, and have to embarrassingly live off our parents ’til we’re like 30. I’m not saying this makes stealing okay, but why don’t you think of cutting us some slack? Rather than chalking us up to a useless give-me generation, perhaps you should consider the fact that it is our generation who is constantly innovating and looking for solutions to these problems? We’re the techies, the innovators and the entrepreneurs, because we have no other options – we have to innovate, have to sell ourselves, or we fail. Should artist not have to operate the same way writers, lawyers, business people and others have to? We have all had to adapt to new technology and deal with loss of potential income. Why is the music industry dragging its feet?

    And yes, as a generation, we young people like free music and things on demand. But we also don’t mind paying when we have the money and we feel like it’s worth it. I repeat, WHEN IT’S WORTH IT. Do I spend less money on music now than I did 15 years ago? Absolutely. I also don’t have to waste my money on terrible albums now, just to listen to all of the songs. And frankly, I’m glad to not be bloating the pockets of industry execs, or even artists who are putting out bad music.

    4. Also, just to be perfectly clear:
    -Spotify has led me to click “buy” many-a-time. If an album is really good and selling at a decent price, I WILL spend.
    -As many others have said, I try to “pay” to artists as often as possible. I WANT to put my hard-earned money into their pockets, but it’s really hard, as there are few platforms. I live in NYC, so I can’t get tickets to anything without paying outrageous scalper markups, and I really don’t have the space/capacity/desire to collect a ton of merch. I would happily just give a few bucks directly to the artist if there were a way.
    -I am generous with pay-what-you-wish indie albums.
    -The two thousand or so songs I pirated years ago were not, for the most part, anything I would have purchased ever. And anything I would have purchased, I’ve gone back and purchased now that I have a little bit more money to spend. This has to be factored in when we’re talking about pirating. A lot of what is pirated is not something which the pirater ever would have paid for.
    -I, too, work a “real job” to support my pursuit of my dream job, so I can relate to the artist’s plight. I am also an amateur musician.
    -I don’t own nearly as much music as I would like to.
    -I think music industry types need to stop pointing fingers and start innovating. We’re all struggling. Stealing is wrong, but I don’t think you’ll see your profits rise much by boxing out
    the trendsetting youth… AKA the future problem-solvers, and the ones who have to give a damn if the music industry is to survive as a for-profit model at all.

  638. Pingback: Mythical album dollars at stake: Beyond Lowery v. White | radiocrystalblue
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  640. Thanks for all your great writing on this subject David!
    The solution needs to be a legal one , not a humanitarian one achieved by shaming people who have much enthusiasm but not much money.
    The Constitution speaks very plainly about the importance of intellectual property so the legal basis is very strong.
    Emily is not the problem, the problem is our failure to address new technology the same we we did with radio, television, blank cassettes and recordable CDs.
    Every time, the solution was always to ‘guess-timate’ the activity and pay royalties.
    It was never perfectly accurate or fair but it worked, musicians thrived and people could listen to the radio or copy their favorite music .
    If we collect from the internet providers we will have a golden age of music because the new paradigm of the listeners becoming the promoters and distributors is very powerful.
    A dollar or two of the $20 to 50 a month we pay for internet should go to musicians.
    Approximately 100 million people or more pay for internet in the in the US alone, so the revenue stream is very robust.
    Some libertarians will say “I don’t like music why should I pay for someone else to listen to it? ”
    I would rather say fuck off to them than to Emily, let’s fix the system, not criminalize music lovers!

  641. A great article.

    My minor contribution here will be to mention Triple J’s Unearthed (http://www.triplejunearthed.com/), which is a free, Australian government-paid for site where unsigned Australian bands can upload their music for the chance of getting noticed. It’s a great thing if you are a music lover – lots of songs, all free! – but if you are an artist it strikes me that you’re trying to start your career by giving away what you do for free.

    I’m sure the plan is get noticed, get signed, make money, but that seems to be a false door for a lot of muscians to go through (although the successes – which are highlighted by Triple J such as Missy Higgins or Grinspoon – are the hope that keep them signing up).

  642. I’ve recently released a book on the place of pirates in our culture – Mutiny! Why We Love Pirates and How They Can Save Us – which has a long section on music piracy, and how celebrities like Jagger have done their fellow musicians a disservice, as did the profiteering record labels in the 80’s and early 90’s.

    People need to change their behaviour. Some need to pay more for the music they listen to, but, in parallel, some musicians need to be more realistic about their ability to make a living from their craft. What is music really ‘worth’ is a complex question.

    For most of human history, musicians only made money through performance. The past 60 years have been an anomaly. What we are seeing is a series of corrections…and things are not settled yet.

    I’ve blogged more fully on this here: http://www.kesterbrewin.com/2012/06/21/thoughts-on-music-piracy-gift-copyright-and-technology/

    And you can buy the book here: http://www.kesterbrewin.com/pirates/

  643. Very well written and reasoned response to a young person just now dealing with a problem they obviously are just wanting to deal with, or at least confess to. While I now qualify as an “older” music fan, I have no issue with teaching my three children the responsibility to artists by obtaining their music through iTunes or other apps that guarantee renumeration to the artists. Great job, Professor Lowery.

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