I was reading the thread about posting tab and the law and it got me to thinking, so I wrote this editorial. Was wondering what you folks thought? Here it is:
File Sharing: A Question for Our Time
Is downloading a song for free the same as stealing a CD from a store? Either way you are obtaining music without paying the artist or recording company, but there are significant differences between taking a manufactured item from a store and transferring content to your computer. The question comes down to tangibility and measurable costs versus intangible costs and the still emerging properties of the internet.
Whereas the argument condemning unauthorized downloading of music as stealing requires no further explanation, file sharing can be defended on at least three fronts: 1. Inevitability, 2. Transfer as Marketing, and 3. Unknown Consequences of an Emerging Medium.
First, you can’t arrest progress so how are you going to police a friend from sharing a file with a friend? As the community of internet users is expanding to the far corners of the earth this file sharing between friends has become a worldwide phenomenon that will only escalate as more and more users come online.
While admittedly not an emotionally satisfying initial argument, neither is this point dismissible. When such reasoning is both sound and valid, as it is here, legal standing is attached to arguments citing inevitable consequence; watch the court cases surrounding file sharing and you’ll hear plenty of this lingo.
Two, while obtaining content without paying might initially resemble thievery it may more appropriately be understood as the most cost-effective advertising possible for an artist – and the recording company. This is because downloaded music reaches a prospective audience across the globe, and of this multitude, perhaps tens or even hundreds of millions of samplers, a certain percentage will go on to purchase the recordings. Essentially, if only 1% of listeners are going to purchase sampled music then 1% of a hundred million is still exponentially more than 1% of a few thousand. Additionally, because of exposure via the internet it would also stand to reason that live performances by the artist would also attract a vastly larger audience of ticket buyers in a broader array of venues. The same could be said for action figures, band literature and whatever swag the artist(s) stick their logo on or endorse. As the music industry is dominated by conglomerated corporations with all types of horizontal and vertical market integrations, who is likely to manufacture all this ancillary stuff?
So, it is extremely cost ineffective for a recording company to limit the sampling of music to a few in-store displays with headphones.
And finally, three, the unknown consequences of an emerging medium: A downloaded song transferred to a digital electronic player and broadcast to a party is then stolen and shared among a group who otherwise would have considered this musical genre passé. Exposure leads one member of this group to fuse the lyrics, rhythms or other elements of the song into a new hybrid musical form innovative enough to garner a contract with a recording company. The new music quickly takes another trip across the internet where it is sampled by the original kid with the music player, who buys a ticket to see the reworked version performed, and comes away from the experience determined to take the sound another step forward. Let us suppose that he fails but eventually refocuses his efforts elsewhere, perhaps into medicine or law, and this same creative energy inspired by the music leads to a discovery or breakthrough. There are no metrics with which to measure such a dynamic process, but the possibilities are real and not so difficult to imagine.
So while it may be counterintuitive and not altogether pleasant to accept the idea of downloading music without payment as something other than theft, there are arguments to explain how this is not only not theft but actually smart business practice in our new post-vinyl digital millennium.
File Sharing: A Question for Our Time
Is downloading a song for free the same as stealing a CD from a store? Either way you are obtaining music without paying the artist or recording company, but there are significant differences between taking a manufactured item from a store and transferring content to your computer. The question comes down to tangibility and measurable costs versus intangible costs and the still emerging properties of the internet.
Whereas the argument condemning unauthorized downloading of music as stealing requires no further explanation, file sharing can be defended on at least three fronts: 1. Inevitability, 2. Transfer as Marketing, and 3. Unknown Consequences of an Emerging Medium.
First, you can’t arrest progress so how are you going to police a friend from sharing a file with a friend? As the community of internet users is expanding to the far corners of the earth this file sharing between friends has become a worldwide phenomenon that will only escalate as more and more users come online.
While admittedly not an emotionally satisfying initial argument, neither is this point dismissible. When such reasoning is both sound and valid, as it is here, legal standing is attached to arguments citing inevitable consequence; watch the court cases surrounding file sharing and you’ll hear plenty of this lingo.
Two, while obtaining content without paying might initially resemble thievery it may more appropriately be understood as the most cost-effective advertising possible for an artist – and the recording company. This is because downloaded music reaches a prospective audience across the globe, and of this multitude, perhaps tens or even hundreds of millions of samplers, a certain percentage will go on to purchase the recordings. Essentially, if only 1% of listeners are going to purchase sampled music then 1% of a hundred million is still exponentially more than 1% of a few thousand. Additionally, because of exposure via the internet it would also stand to reason that live performances by the artist would also attract a vastly larger audience of ticket buyers in a broader array of venues. The same could be said for action figures, band literature and whatever swag the artist(s) stick their logo on or endorse. As the music industry is dominated by conglomerated corporations with all types of horizontal and vertical market integrations, who is likely to manufacture all this ancillary stuff?
So, it is extremely cost ineffective for a recording company to limit the sampling of music to a few in-store displays with headphones.
And finally, three, the unknown consequences of an emerging medium: A downloaded song transferred to a digital electronic player and broadcast to a party is then stolen and shared among a group who otherwise would have considered this musical genre passé. Exposure leads one member of this group to fuse the lyrics, rhythms or other elements of the song into a new hybrid musical form innovative enough to garner a contract with a recording company. The new music quickly takes another trip across the internet where it is sampled by the original kid with the music player, who buys a ticket to see the reworked version performed, and comes away from the experience determined to take the sound another step forward. Let us suppose that he fails but eventually refocuses his efforts elsewhere, perhaps into medicine or law, and this same creative energy inspired by the music leads to a discovery or breakthrough. There are no metrics with which to measure such a dynamic process, but the possibilities are real and not so difficult to imagine.
So while it may be counterintuitive and not altogether pleasant to accept the idea of downloading music without payment as something other than theft, there are arguments to explain how this is not only not theft but actually smart business practice in our new post-vinyl digital millennium.
"The only funeral you should ever try to interrupt is your own, and that should be a full-time job." -Kinky Friedman
