Music for free…. Yea or nay?

P2p File sharing and what this means for musicians and music lovers…

I would be lying if I said I had never downloaded music for free off the Internet.
I know that technically this is a crime and I am ripping off the very musicians I love by refusing them the revenue they deserve from their hard work.

But what if I had never discovered this band? If a friend had not recommended them to me, lent me a CD or I had not downloaded a couple of tracks to listen to, I may have never become a fan, never bought their CD, never bought tickets to their gigs and never introduced them to other people who in turn would become major fans…

So which is worse? To withhold the $1 (if that) that a band may receive from me purchasing one of their tracks (whether in hard copy or as a digital copy) or to withhold the potentially hundreds of dollars I may spend on them once I had become a fan?

The main argument against p2p file sharing is that it infringes copyright law. Music rights are generally owned by the producer of the music, which in most cases is the record label. The recordings created by the producer are copyrighted but not the creative ideas themselves. For anyone to use the copyrighted material, they must agree to the terms and conditions of a music license (which means pay a certain sum of money to the copyright owner) to gain access to the music and limited rights to use it and recreate it.

The problem with traditional copyright law is that rarely do the actual creative artists own the rights to their music, so that even if they wanted to use their music for a certain project, they would need copyright approval. This means that artists actually have little if any say over how they’re music is used if they don’t own the rights to it!!

In their article ‘Rip, mix, burn: the politics of peer to peer and copyright law’, Bowrey and Rimmer explain that while copyright laws were created with the intention of protecting the rights of artists, they have been warped through events like the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act (which extended copyright to 70 years after the authors death), to protect commercial interests of the corporations that own the industry rather than the artists or consumers. This may be part of the reason for the steady increase in piracy, argues Fox in ‘Technological and social drivers of change in the online music industry’, as individuals rationalise music piracy as a rebellion against corporate greed. This makes a strange kind of sense to me.

Under a typical recording contract, a band receives royalties of about 15% of an albums wholesale price after expenses are recovered. That is roughly 50 cents per album, provided that an album is successful enough for expenses to be recovered (expenses include recording costs, marketing, CD printing, distribution etc).

Vast developments in digital technology mean that a band can eliminate a lot of these costs by doing the work themselves on easy to use and access software and technology. Programs like Cubase, Pro tools and Garage Band allow for excellent quality recording and mixing in the comfort of your bedroom. These recordings can then be easily uploaded onto Social Networking Sites like MySpace and Facebook, allowing instant fan access and far reaching marketing possibilities. Videos and live footage can be disseminated via YouTube and merchandise and gig tickets can be sold easily and effectively to all corners of the globe. The Internet allows a much closer relationship between artists, their music and their fans/ consumers. It also saves artists a lot of money.

An interesting example is Radiohead, who in 2007 released their seventh studio album ‘In Rainbows’ as a digital download with no set price. People could choose how much they wanted to pay for it, with prices ranging from 0 pence (plus 45p shipping fee) to 99 pounds, with approximately a third of people paying nothing for the album. The average price was about 4 pounds ($8 AUD), which went straight to the band due to the zero material costs for download and distribution. The band released the album digitally without DRM (copy restriction software), and also in a hard copy. They opted against Internet only distribution, as not all fans would have “the technological means to obtain the new material”.  The benefits of this experiment were

1. The band could release their new material immediately, not having to wait for months for CD manufacturing and marketing etc.
2. They had control over the price and distribution of their work (they sold it digitally form their own website, not using any other platforms like Amazon or iTunes), effectively cutting out the middlemen.
3. They could distribute their work further, quickly and effectively.
4. They earnt more money per album ($8 per album compared with the traditional cut of 50c per album once costs are taken out).

Of course Radiohead may be a slightly biased example as they already had an established reputation and fan base and so anything they produced was likely to be successful, whereas a less known band may not have the same success. 

But this is an interesting example of how p2p file sharing and digital technology can serve the interests of both the musician and the music lover. The musician has more control over their creations, how it is used and distributed, and fans have a more direct link to the artist, and potentially set their own price for their favourite music.

New copyright contracts such as those created by Creative Commons, allow artists to choose how they want their material to be available. Licenses include non-commercial, attribution, no- derivative, share- alike or a combination of the above. This means that control is no longer in the hands of the corporations who traditionally own the music industry, but in the hands of the artists themselves. Current Government regulations are laughably out of date with the ever- evolving new media. 

For example the most recent update to copyright law in Australia is the 2006 Copyright Amendment Act, which permits you to make a copy of a sound recording that you own (must be legitimate and not a pirated copy) for your own personal or domestic use (so you can put it on your iPod, burn it to a CD to play at home) but you cannot lend it to a friend, and technically they can not be present if you are playing it. Yep, it is hilarious. The law is at least 10 years out of date!

Creative commons licences are one answer to the redundant laws that currently govern copyright and user/ producer (produser) relations. Of course these style of licences would mean putting a lot of big businesses and corporations out of business (who needs a record label?), which is why they are not yet the established norm, but I think they are the way of the future.

So as a musician myself, I have come to the conclusion that I support the free sharing of music so long as it is for non-commercial means. P2p file sharing allows the entire world of music to be easily accessible any time and any place. It allows music to transcend cultural, time, language, religious, geographical and generational boundaries, which is an amazing and important thing.

Music is the lifeblood of culture and it needs to be shared. In saying this, I do believe that it is incredibly important to support creative artists and give them the payment and respect they deserve. I think it is fair that if you plan to make money off someone else’s music, someone else’s hard work, then you pay them royalties. But to simply share the love, appreciation and knowledge of music, that should be free.

SOURCES

Fox, M. ‘Technological and social drivers of change in the online music industry’ in Special Edition; music and the Internet, First Monday Online Journal, originally published Feb 2002, republished July 2005.

Bowrey, K. & Rimmer, M. ‘Rip, mix, burn: the politics of peer to peer and copyright law’, in Special Edition; music and the Internet, First Monday Online Journal, originally published 2002, republished July 2005.

Moore, C. ‘Creative choices: changes to Australian copyright law and the future of the public domain’, Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture and Policy, 2005, no. 114, pp71-82.