Pirating music.

[flutterscotch]

Here's a thought-provoking little read about the effects on pirating music, in the guise of an open letter to Emily White at NPR (National Public Radio for those of you who are outside of the United States) who recently posted a blog post on the NPR blog about how only about 15 of the CDs in her 11,000 song collection were purchased, the rest either pulled off peer to peer networks, or ripped from existing CDs in libraries/friends/etc.

Now keep in mind that All Songs Considered tends to play and feature the music of up and coming bands (not always the rule, but in my experience it is more likely), and we're not talking about multi-millionaires. Exactly the kind of people who are only making a regular salary comparable to what you or I make (I know some people who have been featured. While they are fortunate to be able to hold down their creative jobs as their sole means of existence, a lot of their income is supplemented by engineering because music sales from their albums alone just don't cut it). After all, how do you make time to make the best music you can when you have to have several jobs to fund it?

Do you agree that artists shouldn't be compensated by consumers to listen to their music (please read both articles before commenting)?

I personally, if I like a band, I want them to make more music. Therefore I buy their stuff. Anything 20+ years old that was and still is on regular radio, if I want to listen to it, gets spotified (Aka I listen to it on Spotify which is legal, but doesn't make the bands much money...bands I firmly know make millions). Or I just turn on the radio. Stuff difficult to get because it's out of print and any sales on the secondary market will just line someone elses' pocket make me a little more morally ambiguous, but mostly it just means going to used record stores unless it's live and unreleased which gets listened to on Youtube.

[Rosewind]

Interesting reads! Pirating media (as this problem extends beyond music, too!) is always going to be a sticky area. I personally think it's a fantastic means of preservation. Let's say someone has only one copy of a very old CD, or even a record. If they digitally recorded it and shared it, the content is preserved for future people to enjoy, even if the original rights holder isn't around anymore. Many historical artifacts have been stolen and recovered, and they might have been destroyed if they had stayed with the previous owner.

I don't think paying consumers should be punished by DRM, as the people who are going to steal the media are going to do it anyway, while leaving the real consumers with a less-than-desirable crippled product.

Should artists be paid? Absolutely. I also think they need to adapt to survive, as we live in a digital age where everything is easy to download, so it's smart business to embrace that technology and avoid the old hat music distribution as a means of making money. I also think they should strive to make content that's worth paying for, but that's a matter of personal opinion.

My two bits! I'm sure there will be a lot to discuss. I'm extra-curious what Swirly, Phil, and Weesh have to say.

[flutterscotch]

I personally think it's a fantastic means of preservation. Let's say someone has only one copy of a very old CD, or even a record. If they digitally recorded it and shared it, the content is preserved for future people to enjoy, even if the original rights holder isn't around anymore. Many historical artifacts have been stolen and recovered, and they might have been destroyed if they had stayed with the previous owner.

Oh, that I am totally fine with. As a matter of fact it should just be shoved into library of congress archives when it's reached the public domain point, or ultra-limited release things or live events, or TV shows that never made it to DVD or digital download should just be posted as download on sites after, say, 20 years. You don't actively reuse it, you should share it anyway.

What I am concerned with, though, is the things that are active. All Songs Considered does tend to showcase new and up and coming artists who haven't even made it yet. The admission of piracy on the part of one of their employees on their blog when the sea change to transition from physical media/digital media releases to newer formats more in keeping with modern technology hasn't even HAPPENED yet is just horrible, when they're partially supposed to be encouraging people to discover new music.

That being said, I personally like Bandcamp.com. Artist uploads. You can buy it by the track or by the album and you can listen to it as much as you want before you shell out cash. But if you're mass distributing it via radio, whether traditional or internet, you'd better be paying for it SOMEHOW.

[Rosewind]

I completely agree with this! If you're making money off of it, you really need to be giving royalties where they're due!

BandCamp (and even iTunes) with individual pay-per-track downloads is wonderful technology, and it really makes sense and should continue to be embraced by artists. However...it is a double-edged sword. They can cut you off from music you've purchased before, which is why a physical copy is what is sometimes desirable -- or at least a personal back up.

[Davroth]

Actually, copyright law, as it was originally written in the US, intended for the copyright to expire after, I believe, 15 year, turning it into a common good after that. But then that time limit got extended over and over again. So now it might as well be lifetime, and ever longer then that.

Anyway, there's a couple of European countries that legalized private filesharing, even by means of torrents and the like, and they didn't do that without some science behind it. There have been plenty of studies that showed that filesharing are not only not hurting the entertainment industry, but actually helping it by what they call the sample effect. Whether all that is true or not is hard to tell, but personally, one argument that does have some merit to it and that I can't refute just like that is that your entertainment doesn't increase just because you stop pirating.

http://www.escapistm...-In-Switzerland

I really don't care for the way that open letter is written. If you want to present the facts, that's great. More power to you. Claiming that she doesn't want to shame anyone is just wrong, because that's clearly her goal. Otherwise she wouldn't use stories like the two suicides by musicians, who, as she says yourself, "suffered from addiction". That's just plain manipulative to try to burden their deaths on whoever pirated their music. But I don't want to get worked up about that letter, so here is some constructive ideas of how to tackle the subject of piracy.

It is my personal opinion that that kind of piracy will never disappear. Instead of fighting it, the artists should try to profit from it. How? Well, my idea (that I heard somewhere before but I for the life of me don't remember where) is pretty much this:

Give the artists a cut from the ad revenue generated by pirated content. Say someone uploads a music video to youtube. Youtube already indentifies copyright protected music. So instead of putting a cease and desist on the user, just put an ad in front of it, and pay the artist for views, just like you would a youtube partner. The same could be done with torrent sites, too. Offer corporate run torrent search engines, let people click through 2 ads and a popup, which you probably have already on current torrent sites, and give a cut of the generated money artists. If you are smart about it, don't even tell people that you are doing that, because if they don't know, and it's the first result on google, chances are the will just go with it and never waste any thought on it.

[flutterscotch]

Actually, copyright law, as it was originally written in the US, intended for the copyright to expire after, I believe, 15 year, turning it into a common good after that. But then that time limit got extended over and over again. So now it might as well be lifetime, and ever longer then that.

........

Give the artists a cut from the ad revenue generated by pirated content. Say someone uploads a music video to youtube. Youtube already indentifies copyright protected music. So instead of putting a cease and desist on the user, just put an ad in front of it, and pay the artist for views, just like you would a youtube partner. The same could be done with torrent sites, too. Offer corporate run torrent search engines, let people click through 2 ads and a popup, which you probably have already on current torrent sites, and give a cut of the generated money artists. If you are smart about it, don't even tell people that you are doing that, because if they don't know, and it's the first result on google, chances are the will just go with it and never waste any thought on it.

Yeah, it's 70 years after the creators' death, which seems MIGHTILY excessive. Which is why the stupid 'Happy Birthday" song is not public domain and you have to pay boatloads of money to Time-Warner (who bought the copyright because they're greedy) to use the MOST RECOGNIZED SONG ON THE PLANET commercially. And it's not going to expire until 2030 in the US. Sooner elsewhere (and holy crap when it does, I hope anyone reading this in other countries just dilutes the crap out of the copyright).

I like this second idea. I like it better if its stated that the person who uploaded it doesn't make a dime off it. All the time on Youtube I see people uploading some stupid graphics about their "production company" usually done with bad stock animation effects, for a video, song, trailer, etc that they didn't do ANYTHING to except add that bit and throw it on youtube.

[Star1228]

The way i see it, over bearing copyright protection is caused by people pirating the music, but that is sometimes caused by the over bearing copyright protection, which is caused by people pirating music...

I don't agree with pirating things, especially when it just came out, but i do see the appeal with it, and actually do take into account that the companies actually don't lose too much money. yes the money may seem like a lot to us, but a thousand is just a drop of water to them. Honestly, if i do pirate anything, i usually wait until the sales start to die down, or the item in question came out years ago. my share on copyright, is that if, say you include a song in a free game, you can be sued, because you gave access to the music in question without paying for it. but say you mention the name of an game or movie, you shouldn't be sued, since you didn't give any access to the item in question, even though you referenced it.

[TortoiseShell]

We will sometimes buy CDs when we REALLY love the band/artist. However, record companies get so much of the money and so very little actually goes to the artists. Put that on top of how ridiculously expensive CDs are getting in some places, and it just rubs me the wrong way anymore. Sure, it's cheaper to buy digital albums, but the same principle applies.

Some artists have experimented with this, and I like it: "Pay what you want." I will gladly pay for music if I know MOST of it goes to the artists - of course there are recording costs, etc, but it's nothing like the percentages associated with regular purchases.

In response to the original articles - I do think it's very sleazy to broadcast pirated music. Either it should come from a company to be broadcast, or SOMEONE should have paid for it before sharing it with the masses.

[TheColtofPersonality]

The problem with the RIAA and other things like it these days is that if you are a pirate if you use the internet rather if you download things or not.

Sure the artists should get paid for their works but these days its the companies who reap the most benefits from copyright laws and not the actual people involved.

Its the problem with how US copyright law works these days, its broken, corrupt and favors those with loads of money.

[Ancre]

Aye, I don't pirate stuff, mainly because I'm too lazy to learn how to do it. And I use youtube to listen to music. If youtube is somehow damaging artists' lives, I sure as hell will be angry if I'm the one blamed for it. After all, I 'pay' for that use of youtube in the form of being bombarded by ads there. It's not my job to redistribute the money they earn. And as far as I know, it's not illegal to use youtube.

And all in all, yeah, if I like a band, I'd be happy to give them money (well, as soon as I have some) - but I'd like to see that money go to the artist, and not some big corporation, as I do have a gripe against big corporations.

And I kinda disagree with that article. The "inconvenience" with legal services isn't having to pay, it's the DRM, the digital laws and whatnot, and the general trouble I have with making non-apple stuff work with apple stuff. It's that when I buy a CD rom for twenty euros, I don't actually know where the money goes, but that I'm pretty sure the money doesn't go to the artist, and isn't swallowed in material cost or worker wages. It's because in general digital and copyright laws do little for artists, hurt the legitimate user but not the pirate, and are a crutch for companies that would rather render innovation illegal than adapt and not become obsolete. If I ever become a pirate, it will be out of a desire to see those companies fail, because I sincerely believe musicians are better off without them. If I ever become a pirate, it will be because I am fed up of seeing people trying to control me into behaving with various anti-piracy (how ironical) restrictions slapped on the products I buy. If I pirate something, it will not be so much an act of convenience as a political statement. Fortunately (I guess) I do not have a need or want to own any kind of music yet, and I am too lazy to actually read in detail who does what and where does the money goes.

(As an aside, from what I read so far, bandcamp is pretty cool. I'd buy stuff on their platform.)

As a related point, I find it very interesting that those who download music illegally are called pirates. Pirates in popular culture are the sea robbers in the caribbean during the era of european empires in america. They flourished in a time where the common economic ideology was to enforce monopolies and exclusive rights of commerce, where merchants purposefully brought less goods than there was demand in order to inflate price, because colonies were here to bring wealth to their main country. Most of them were simply bandits, but in their ranks there was a lot of political and religious ideas that were at odds with the repressive societies they came from. And they have been romanticized a lot once they disappeared. The parallel is quite intriguing.

[SonicRainboomGirl]

I don't pirate from up-and-coming bands/artists, or ones that I expect to hear more from. Being a musician, that feels so wrong to do. But downloading, say, The Wall? Look, Roger Waters is probably sitting in a mansion surrounded by luxuries right now. I don't feel so bad downloading music that's already made millions of dollars, by legendary rockstars.

Additionally, CDs are expensive! I own a ton of them, but they keep raising prices. In my area $5 is a STEAL. Getting free music is so important to me, as a listener and a musician. If I need to learn the lyrics to a new song, I don't want to go buy an entire album until I am fully invested in what I am buying.