Since my car radio broke a year ago I’ve seriously dropped out of the new music scene. While I have a music player, I only play my old stuff on it. Despite my enthusiasm for last.fm, if I can’t get at it when I’m out and about — when I’m most likely to be listening to music — it’s not much use to me. Roll on pervasive wi-fi. More recently, I’ve spent much more time listening to podcasts, especially when I’m running.
Tim W’s recent post on downloading new music sparked a conversation with Tim S a couple of weeks back. If you download music without paying, is that stealing? Tim The Latter’s point was that if the music in question is available legitimately by paid download or on some other medium then it is without doubt stealing. I put this to Tim The Former, who countered that if you can get it without paying then why not?
My position on the whole subject has moved over time. A few years back I used the excuse that by downloading I was helping spread an artist’s work to a wider audience. This is a pretty weak argument, though, because if everyone applies it equally, nobody pays.
Another justification is to say that it is a victimless crime — only the record label is losing money — but this argument is false too. Firstly, a small percentage of the money on sales does go to the artist. Secondly, artists generally have to sell a certain number of albums to comply with their contract with the label. By not buying you’re reducing the likelihood that their contract will be extended, meaning less new music from them.
A lot of people consider record label contracts to be unfair as the label keeps something like 90% of the profits. However, you have to realise that they operate like venture capitalists. Most bands signed do not become profitable and have tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds invested in them that the label does not see a return on. So each successful artist may be bankrolling ten loss-making artists. Is this is a fair system? I’ll get back to that later.
These days I try to work things out from a starting point of “don’t rip the artist off”, especially if I want them to produce more work. So, this means that I don’t (in general) download anything without paying and if I do then I go and buy the CD.
Another aside: I think the days of me buying CDs is drawing to a close. I recently ripped all our CDs and packed them up into the loft so we could reuse the shelf space. If that’s how I’m going to live, what’s the point in getting a CD in the first place? I know people say “but I like to have something physical and I like reading the sleeve notes” but be honest and tell me how often you do that in practice.
So, when would I consider downloading and not paying? Well, what if it’s a well established artist who clearly won’t be hard up in retirement and who is unlikely to produce much in the way of new work? For example, let’s say The Rolling Stones. In this case I think it’s more conscionable, particularly the older work that they’ve earnt from for 20, 30, 40 years already. What I try and bear in mind is the original intent of copyright: To promote the creation of new works by granting the author exclusive rights for a limited term, at which point the work passes into the public domain.
The standard copyright term has been extended over the recent decades under the influence of businesses who wish to extend their revenues on older works. Personally, I feel the balance has shifted too far. Music copyright already runs for 50 years but lobbying groups continue to push for further extensions.
Creative Commons provides an alternative: Some Rights Reserved. This gives people an easy way to share pretty much any type of work but retain selected rights such as being attributed as the author or to prevent commercial use. One way I use this is to license my photos on Flickr for use by others under the CC Attribution-Share Alike license.
As you might expect, there are music download sites such as Jamendo and Magnatune that allow you to freely download and share music. Because the music is licensed under a CC license you can do really cool things like include the music in not-for-profit productions (such as your own podcast) or plonk a music player right into your blog just like this:
Thanks go to Wil for pointing out this album.
How is this not ripping off the artists, though? With Magnatune you can stream the music for free but you pay anywhere between $5 and $18 — the exact amount is at your discretion — for a permanent, high quality, DRM free download. Better still, half the purchase price goes directly to the artist. Jamendo is even more liberal in that you can download immediately and then donate after the fact; an even higher percentage goes to the artist here. The interesting thing about this model is that an artist can sell considerably less “units” to make the same money as on a record label’s contract, meaning they can get by on smaller fan base. I like the egalitarian nature of this.
Apart from the occasional exception, you won’t find “regular” artists on these sites. Their regular record deals won’t allow them to CC license their music. It’s early days for me in the world of CC music, so I can’t vouch for the quality yet. I’ll let you know how I get on. I’m hoping this will give me a way into some new and diverse new music.
Tags: music