I have a teenage son who tells me his pirating music is no big deal. Since he is a musician himself, I point out to him that someday that’s going to be his money people are stealing. But he remains unphased.
He tells me the record sales make money for the record label, not the artist. He says that the artists make all their money from touring and live concerts. He thinks the pirated music promotes the concerts and therefore helps the artist make more money. I still don’t allow pirating in my house.
But tell me what you think – as artists out there having your work “shared,” are you just glad to have it being enjoyed, or does it bother you? Admittedly, he is stealing music that is recorded by major record labels, so maybe its different than the independent musician working for his living. But I’d still like to hear what you think.
Thanks,
Valerie
Hi Valerie -
Thank you for your question. I absolutely understand your concern – the whole world is concerned about piracy and file-sharing right now. I remember first talking about this issue over 10 years ago – and we still haven’t figured out what to do about it!
First, though, we should make the distinction between piracy and file-sharing. Andrew Dubber does a great job of this in his article Should I be worried about piracy? Piracy is making illegal copies and selling them for a profit. What I think you’re describing (I assume your son isn’t selling anything) is file-sharing – also known as unauthorized copying. A small distinction, maybe, considering that they are both usually illegal, but it’s worth pointing out.
My perspective on file-sharing is probably different that you would expect. I think that your son should download every track he can find. I mean it. Download every song out there and sift through them one by one. And not just the genre’s he likes – but everything – Creole bandeon playing, French rap, hymns, metal, classical, South African jazz, samba – whatever he can find.
I say this for 3 reasons. First, if your son is really going to be a musician – I mean make a real, professional try at it – he’s going to need to know every one of those genres.
One of the things that I’ve been successful at recently is musical theatre. I’ve worked as a conductor, pianist, keyboardist – whatever was needed. Without exception the first thing I do when I’m hired for a new show is go find the cast recording and listen to it. I’ll buy it if I absolutely must, but more likely I’ll find it at a library or by more iniquitous means.
In fact, by the time I come to my first rehearsal with a new show, I fully expect that my actors will have already done the same. Modern arts budgets don’t allow enough rehearsal time to teach songs from scratch, so performers must have some idea of songs before rehearsals begin.
And this isn’t just musical theatre. Jazz musicians are expected to know a whole reservoir of standard tunes and their famous recordings. How are we going to play “Maiden Voyage” if we haven’t heard the original Herbie Hancock recording? Do I know the version of “Down By the Riverside” that Bennie Green played on his live album? Do I know the difference between Ed Thigpen’s style and Elvin Jones’?
We’re not going to learn that stuff by reading about it, we have to listen to it. I don’t mean to say that its right, or legal, or moral, but if a musician doesn’t take advantage of the avenues for acquiring this knowledge that technology has given us – then they are at a severe disadvantage to the rest of us. Because I do know the difference between Thigpen and Elvin, I know French rap (blech), I know hymns, bandeon playing and metal bands. I also know the cast recordings of famous and obscure Broadway shows backwards and forwards.
Secondly, I just personally feel like people should have access to music. When I think back to the mid-90s and before I’m struck by how narrow the choices were for music. We could listen to what was on the radio, what we heard at celebrations/church/school or what we bought in record stores (which – at least at the big chains – was often the same as was played on the radio).
I’m very, very glad that that system of music distribution has gone the way of the dodo. Good riddance. Music should not be controlled by an oligarchy of record label executives and corporate disc jockeys. Music is a privilege that is unique among our species, and it shouldn’t be kept from people like flowers in a locked greenhouse.
Thirdly, we’re all concerned about how musicians are going to make a living with all this music flying around for free, and it’s definitely a legitimate concern.
But consider this – “professional musician” wasn’t a career created by the phonograph. The musician industry has been around as long as humans have, but recorded music is, relatively, a very new invention. Mozart never sold a record. Beethoven never released an album. Yet they made careers as musicians.
What if we’re just coming out of a prolonged, 100-year tech bubble for the music industry? What if the easy money of the record-selling days is gone, and we’re back to selling live performance and commissioned compositions just like things were before the bubble?
Certainly we’re in a different cultural and economical landscape than we were in the 1800s and it’s hard to make a clear comparison, but my point is that the musician industry is more resilient and adaptable that we often think. Piracy will not be the end of our careers.
What will happen to the music industry? Will the new music industry make enough money to sustain all of our careers? I don’t know. But one thing is certain – resisting file-sharing hasn’t helped anything.
David J. Hahn
David J. Hahn is a Broadway conductor and keyboard player. He co-founded MusicianWages.com with Cameron Mizell in 2008. Visit his new project, Songwriter.fm and sign up for his songwriting newsletter.
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Wow, Dave! You made some great points here. Who knew that you were such a music educator?!
You’ve given me food for thought…Now to come up with my own blog post on the subject, hmm…
Carla
Love the distinction between file sharing and piracy, I’d never thought about that difference before.
Ultimately, they are both “stealing” though, if you believe a musician should be paid for his work.
To me, there are two fundamental shifts that have happened:
1) Music can now be traded in seconds, irrespective of distance, whereas before, it had to be done real time (mostly) and a physical medium was required. As a result, an activity that once required serious effort, now requires none at all, so many more people are doing it.
2) Culturally, we now seem to believe music should be free, that we are entitled to have unfettered access to it. To me, this is culturally unhealthy, because work and reward should go hand-in-hand. All of history has proven this to me the case.
I don’t know how to “fix” the music industry, I really don’t, but to say, “Well, shoot, people can get music for free, and will, so why try to legislate the weather?” is a cop-out (not that you’re saying that!)
Oh, and for what it’s worth, performance is one kind of music work, composition is another. They are fundamentally different and to muse that one kind of work is worth something and the other not, well, that makes no sense to me.
Jeff
You make some good points.
I have a qualm with one of your points though – “Secondly, I just personally feel like people should have access to music.”
You point out that you feel this way “personally,” which of course you have every right to. Of course, I have the right as a musician and creator of content to believe that people need to pay for the content that I produce.
Even ignoring legal precedent, shouldn’t my personal belief be respected, or should be people be able to download and distribute my music with impunity just because they believe that it should be free?
“Music should not be controlled by an oligarchy of record label executives and corporate disc jockeys.” I totally agree. But, I think this argument hits one of the pitfalls that many of the pro-sharing arguments hit: that all music is still produced and distributed this way. If I produce the CD myself, none of the middlemen/3rd parties are losing out – just I am as an artist.
I do believe that sharing and distributing music freely can be a great tool, but it should be up to the content creator, not the consumer when this happens.
JN, I agree with all of your points.
What if we tagged music as ‘tainted by the labels’ vs. ‘self produced?’
The labels have done us bad for decades, by (a) overcharging listeners, (b) stiffing the content creators in order to create large internal profits, (c) selling ‘albums’ which weren’t an album at all, but a single hit padded by nine crap tunes, etc…
In other words, if listeners are going to share without purchasing, perhaps we could at least get them thinking about being kinder to self-produced tracks. If the big labels are doing the ripoff thing and creators involved with that model are getting stiffed anyway, there is some small logic in say “i can share this with little impact, other than taking back from the rich guys.”
Ultimately, of course, this is not enough.
I’d like to see us move towards a model where all creators can do what they do, and control distribution and pricing according to their own desires. If one could reliably control “ownership” of a copy of a created work, including whether or not it could be shared [promotional purpose], and what the price to get it initially is, this would be Good(tm).
I want artists to be funded and own their content. Given both production and distribution are no longer issues that need centralisation, why can’t we simply dump the labels and their unfair practises, while still recognising and compensating the creators?
Dump the middle man, basically…
BG,
Unfortunately, I think this still leads to a “slippery slope” style situation, where people justify what they’re doing. As the second commenter said: “Ultimately, they are both “stealing” though, if you believe a musician should be paid for his work.”
yes, jn, it is a slippery slope, but at least there could be a rating of “evilness.” that’s not sufficient, but i think it could be useful. if i know U2 is rich and someone else is not, this could give someone pause about sharing media. it’s the smaller ensembles that get well squeezed by the big labels.
in the case of this listener, however, i don’t share anything — ever. even if i record a live performance, i ask permission first, give the results to the creators, and ONLY keep a copy for my personal later perusal, giving all rights to those whom i’ve recorded. i certainly don’t share tracks that i’ve purchased.
i’m after getting the labels out entirely, coz they don’t any longer add value IMHO.
when distribution becomes creator direct to listener, then creators/producers can control the terms of engagement. we can enforce this with DRM if creator so chooses.
i just don’t want to have to pay the label 90% profit to them [which the creators don't see] for a ‘collection’ that isn’t anything more than a hit plus buffering tracks. OR, same way, the label takes a large percentage for doing [what?] and the content creator sees a minority
I see where both of you are coming from. But I think what BG is proposing seems too complicated. Would it be like stamping an organic label on all albums that were home-grown? I’m not sure that would be any easier to regulate than file-sharing itself.
But also – as others have pointed out elsewhere today – not all record labels are bad guys now-a-days. There are some legitimate, helpful indie labels that are partners with musicians. It may not be useful to demonize all of them.
To Jeff – I didn’t mean to imply that composition and performance were different and that one should be compensated and the other not. Do you mean recording and performance? Sorry, I’m confused by that.
Altogether, I think everyone has a valid point here, one way or another.
Before anybody assumes Dave is suggesting we NOT support artists efforts to create music, let me say nobody is more supportive than Dave. I suppose this comment is aimed towards JN’s comment about getting paid for the content you produce.
I am one of those fools that relies on selling recorded music to make a living. Dave has always bought my music. We’re friends, so I would have given him all of it for free, but he chose to pay for it with money he makes as a full time musician. I’ve seen him do this for many musicians. To assume he doesn’t support the content creators couldn’t be further from the truth. Frankly, we should all be following his example.
Dave and I decided to start this site because we’re both completely different types of musicians. Despite the fact that he’s union and I’m not, I plan in bands and he doesn’t, we still share that common goal of making music our day job. Whatever it takes to support our peers, we’ll do it.
I’ve read a lot of the open letters today, and I dug most of them. I appreciated how many people were struggling with the nuances of the problem, instead of just saying “downloading is wrong” or “music wants to be free”. We’ve come a long way since Napster started the argument.
So I liked almost everything I’ve read on the topic, but I have to say, your first point – “your son needs to listen to everything” – is the only one that filled me with joy.
Thanks.
“Oh, and for what it’s worth, performance is one kind of music work, composition is another.” Indeed. Then again, I can’t stress enough how important it is to perform your own compositions. For instance, we see many of the record labels (the big, suing machines) getting remixes out there everywhere, or managers that just don’t get the right musicians to do the job the way the composer wants. This issue is reflected in my opinion much more harshly in latin music than in any other genres. Through the late 70s and 80s it happens that the market was more competitive than ever on that side. As a result the term “salsa” was coined to reffer to a music that was wildly popular and had among other things, great selling rates. As a result many don’t know the difference between the cuban song or a guaracha, ETC. Its further important to say that futile efforts on comercialization have truly downgraded especially this type of music. Whats hot on those latin music charts is already been payed to the producer (the producer makes entire tracks and simply sells the license to a singer–so musicians are thrown out thanks to the aid of a computer and need for mass production). Hear a recording of Tito Puente, a legendary percussionist who worked almost 18 hours a day. All of his musicians (a 23-piece latin ensemble!) are clearly heard. Its clear that this is being played by musicians. Now, go onto youtube and find one of the most contemporary and hot latin artists (I.E. daddy Yankee) and hear all of the computarization through. no, better yet hear some “salsa romantica” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeMSnjAzk8Q
Maybe when the artist plays it live as oppposed to the number one hit played on the radio or the cd you bought (like that above youtube clip) will sound different and thus why people might be supporting live music more than ever now. In my opinion its not piracy, but things like those that single out musicians the way just described which have caused musicians to suffer while music sales are of course pulling up their figures without compensating even the composers. Do you understand why its better to make a living out of performing as opposed to making a living out of the most sales?
As far as i am concerned copyright has served it’s purpose, it now does far more harm than good and needs to be abolished. it was enshrined in law to promote creativity but has grown so out of control that in many cases it inhibits it instead. it was intended to target large scale organisations but now affects everyone in their everyday lives. it is a violation of our rights as human beings, copying and sharing are part of being human and always have been. our society never would have gotten where it is today without sharing, and our world would be a far worse place without it. with the internet we can now use other ways to viably promote creativity and restore the peoples natural rights back to them. a really good site to read that explains what i believe is http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=197 I really hope people start considering alternatives to copyright, because at this point the only way to enforce it is to invade the privacy of the general populace on a massive scale. there ARE alternatives, there is just a select group of people out there who have grown used to making money at the expense of the rights of the public and see it as their right rather than a privelidge granted to them by the people for a purpose. those same people are the ones who have corrupted copyright’s scope and duration far beyond what is necessary for it’s purpose. the artice i linked to proposes a potential solution. but there is no doubt there are many more. please think about copyright not as something set in stone, but something with a purpose and think about whether it now serves that purpose the way it should and remember that as the public are giving up their rights for it, it should be as much in our favour as possible while still serving it’s purpose. if we must keep it, at least bring it back to what it should be. thanks for your time and i hope that you will at least consider the things i have said here.
Adam
I am a musician myself, with recordings that I have produced and distributed on my own on CD and online. When someone obtains a digital copy of my work without paying for it, I NEVER consider that person a thief. Why? Because I know that I have a fundamentally flawed business model. I create a product which can be reproduced for free. Why would anyone ever think that this is a good business to be in? One creates music because one loves doing so. If you are not motivated to create music without the promise of profiting from it, then you probably shouldn’t consider yourself a creative artist in the first place. I would, of course, LIKE for people to pay for my art, but I don’t think it is stealing if they don’t. I have always understood that making a living from music is largely dependent on the generosity of others. To say that Beethoven and Mozart ‘made a living’ without selling recordings, one has to note that they were supported by noble patronage as well as by salaries from church institutions, in many cases. This is a flawed business model also, as Mozart well knew, because it depended heavily on having the favor of a relatively small number of privileged people. Recorded music was a decent business model for a while – until it wasn’t. But that was always about selling the physical media. There are no more piano roll salesmen anymore because the physical media is no longer in demand. There will soon be no more people selling CDs either. It is quite possible that eventually digital recordings will no longer be sold. Guess what? Real artists will still create and perform. They will support themselves in whatever way works. And just remember, at the peak of the record industry’s success, there was always only a tiny percentage of musicians, the superstars, who actually made a living from their recordings. It was never such a great deal for the vast majority of musicians. Performance has been, and remains, the most reliable way to put bread on the table.
Didn’t both Beethoven and Mozart die prematurely from bad medical care and poor? They lived on the patronage of kings and princes. Perhaps foundation grants are the closest we have today.
More people have made money on the “long-tail” of these composers than the composers themselves ever could have imagined in their lifetimes.
I think you are more correct to say we’ve been thinking about the problem for ten years with no answer. But at this point, I’m really not fond of the romantic idea of living in squalor and suffering for my art — I’ll do my art anyway!
Selling recordings created a culture of music where the world opened up to those who could not afford expensive events. File sharing tends to open up music to people who would rather buy another Coke than spend $.99 for non-drm music.
My father was a poor child in the depression, but his parents prioritized to buy opera records (78′s!), even though sometimes they didn’t have enough to eat in those hard times.
Yes, music for all is important. Is it important enough to get people to make the mature decision to support the arts when they don’t gotta?
Great post. I blogged some similar ideas related to my dad’s music (he’s a professional musician) a few days ago:
http://ragesossscholar.blogspot.com/2009/08/most-insane-bit-of-us-copyright-law.html
For the vast majority of people who make their living playing music, the centralized corporate model of music distribution can’t die soon enough. Copyright is supposed to balance incentive to create against public access to immaterial goods (ideas, music, art, knowledge, etc.), and it’s clear to everyone except those very very few at the top of the music industry that the balance is way out of whack.
this has been covered on techdirt, and quite adequately. Great write by the author and amazing to see an RIAA shill so fast(jn – fyi your lazy shilling was noted by citing incorrect legal precedent).
Meanwhile, if all we ever did was pay for music, nobody would listen. Remember, other people listening to your music is unauthorized records. Thus, only the person who paid for the CD can legally listen to it. Does JN or anyone think in this day and age that we don’t make mixtapes, burn cds, etc?
This has been around for way more than 10 years, and people seem to forget that. It is not the recording company that makes the artist. Plenty of artists get by extremely successfully (easy techdirt example: Amanda Palmer) by deliberately asking people to “Steal” their music.
What people need to wrap their head around, is that “stealing music” is not the same as stealing a CD. The CD is physical, and cannot be exactly reproduced. The digital copy can be reproduced at 0 cost.
If a CD is 10$, and that person sends 10 copies to 10 people and so on and so on and the artist makes sales off that, does the recording industry deserve a penny out of that? No. It is the artist that we are buying, not the record company.
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I agree with you completely. Music and all copyright covered materials need to get back into the public domain faster instead of slower.
When copyright first came out it was for 14 years and you could get a one time extension of 14 more years. But there was a significant difference then: It could take years to get your books and other works published, printed and sold. These days you could record your music, book, movie, etc. on sale within hours of finalizing your work. BUT instead of copyright time getting smaller and smaller it has gotten exponentially long. It now lasts over 100 years.
Any song that comes out today will not be in public domain until my grandchildren have grandchildren.
The original intent of copyright was to allow authors a way to make money to support them continuing their artistic endeavors and bringing MORE works to the PUBLIC DOMAIN. Currently there are NO works being put into the public domain.
My personal opinion is that in current times with current technologies copyright should last no more then 1 year after publication and a possible 1 year extension. This allows artists and publishers plenty of time to make it to the top 10 of their respective list sell their movie tickets, books, records, etc.
It’s interesting to consider what IS legal with current copyright laws, rather than what isn’t. For instance, you can legally purchase used CDs from a used CD store. The artist sees no financial gain from this arrangement. You can also sell your used CDs and LPs to the same store and pocket the cash — again with no financial gain to the artist. This has been going on for decades with barely a squeak of complaint.
The situation becomes even more interesting when you attempt to sell your used MP3s to such a store. They won’t buy them because used MP3s have no cash value. Can anyone name anything else that becomes valueless the moment that it is stolen? What is the motivation for theft if the item stolen has no cash value?
MP3s greatly resemble broadcast radio: The sound quality is noticeably inferior to a CD. They vanish into thin air at the sign of any technical difficulty (a radio station might go off the air just as a hard drive might crash or become corrupted). If we acknowledge that MP3s are inherently inferior to CDs, then we can accept them for what they have unquestionably become: A form of promotion, not unlike pop radio. Of course, we may have to criminalize the transmission of FLAC or other lossless formats for this situation to properly resolve.
I’m no idealist on these matters as I am a musician as well. I’m disappointed that I will always have to work a crappy day job in order to write and perform my music. However, the music industry has a long history of outright thievery from working artists, so maybe I’m better off in the long run. We should regard any shrieking of “Piracy” by the RIAA as merely the latest attempt at theft on their part.
“Culturally, we now seem to believe music should be free, that we are entitled to have unfettered access to it. To me, this is culturally unhealthy, because work and reward should go hand-in-hand. All of history has proven this to me the case.” — Jeff Shattuck
The idea that “work and reward should go hand in hand” confuses me. Do you mean the work of the artist or the audience?
If you mean the artist, your statement says that someone who does work should expect to be rewarded. What if 30 years ago (pre file sharing) I’m trying to make it as a musician. I spend long hours writing and practicing, but I don’t manage to get anyone to sign me. So I do lots of work for no reward. Very common then.
If you mean the audience, your statement says that someone who receives some sort of reward should expect to do work for it. This is more reasonable, but still has problems. I use firefox and ubuntu linux on my computer. Both are free. I’m getting a good bit of reward. Is this culturally unhealthy?
One could argue the opposite direction: tying music to monetary reward is culturally unhealthy. Juan writes above that salsa music suffers from lots of problems, which mostly boil down to it’s being too commercial: people create music that sells well not music that’s good. This complaint is pretty common across genres. People look to ‘world music’ to find musicians from cultures where the musicians are still somewhat insulated from the forces of mainstream commercial popularity. So are you sure that this is unhealthy?
Hi jmilster – Actually I’m not sure I agree about shortening the life of copyrights. It seems to me like an artist should get to keep their copyright for at least as long as they are alive.
For what it’s worth, I’m an old guy whose music buyine and listening days are far, far behind me. Let me tell you this: I have had the privilege to experience two of my favorite artists — Neil Young and Leonard Cohen — in concert, and not even a barnful of their CDs will ever come close to the uplifting, pure joy I took away with me afterward.
Cheers
I take a more bloody-minded view of the whole thing. As a performing and recording musician myself, I really resent the assumption that is attached to music. This assumption is: good music = money. So many times after playing a show, I’ll listen to strangers going on about how ‘you should be rich’ and ‘why aren’t you famous’. Shouldn’t good music be its own reward? It’s a cultural, creative expression, not a business. It becomes a business because humans have such an innate love and thirst for music, and people seek to profit off this.
I support piracy and file-sharing in all its forms, in the hope that this money-grabbing celebrity-worshipping culture surrounding music is worn away. With an abundance of choice, and shrinking promotion budgets, I’d like to see music become regional once more. People could focus on music close to home, knowing that they could see these acts live.
Music is a fundamental part of human culture, and will never die. All you need is a voice box and an object to bash rhytmically, and you have enjoyable music. As such, any claims of ‘the death of the industry’ are false. All that file-sharing will do is change the ways we access music, and who can profit off of them.
Personally, I think it’s the most basic example of ‘supply and demand’. When record companies and radio stations could easily control the supply, the demand for paid music was higher. Finding good, cheap music any other way took a bit of work and commitment, something most people didn’t have. Now that the supply of music is abundant, the value of the music is no longer artificially high. People can now pay what they want. Lo and behold, most people don’t feel the majority of music is worth paying for, because it isn’t.
Artists need to get off their high horse and remember why they got into music (for fun and creative expression, I assume).
Totally disagree that piracy and file-sharing are both stealing. Stealing means I’ve taken something from you. The argument that file sharing is stealing a sale doesn’t work because the commodity, in this case some song, was only worth nothing to the person/people sharing it. It’s not a potential lost sale because the sharers probably wouldn’t have spent the money to begin with. If anything, after they dl it, and if they like it, your chance INCREASES to get a sale (perhaps a concert ticket or a tshirt). Only a massive ego, which must be typical of major musicians, would assume that they must have lost a sale.
Piracy on the other hand, IS a sale and thus a potential purchase was definitely stolen. A 3rd party with no right to sell your product has profited. That’s a major distinction.
Do you have any idea how much the Chinese have stolen Microsoft products? To the tune of billions upon billions. The trade deficit might not be so nasty between us if they actually paid for their software. But asia is out of legal reach. Domestics are not. It reminds me of child abuse when the father is angry at some adult but can’t attack them so he goes after his kids/spouse/etc. The RIAA is a slob of a man wearing a gin soaked wifebeater…
Personally, I have very little pity from an industry in a capitalist society that refuses to recognize a shift in the market. Bittorrenting and file sharing does not have to kill an industry.
For example: I believe that I should be able to watch television for free, anytime of day or night, as I please. Lots of people record television shows and put them on torrents to be downloaded. The television industry could have freaked out about this and started suing people…but they didn’t. Instead they did the sensible thing and put their shows online, for free, at high quality with a few commercials thrown in. Given the choice of spending an hour downloading a show and risking getting a virus (or someone’s porn *sigh*) instead, or going to fox.com, nbc.com, abc.com, or cbs.com and streaming the show live with a few commercials, I’ll go stream the video from a legitimate source. I’ll watch the commercials, because they’re very brief, which thanks to TIVO means I actually am exposed to more advertising than I would be if watching via traditional means. It’s a practice that is friendly to all involved–the people that make the shows, the people that broadcast them, and the people that watch them. The networks adapted to filesharing…why hasn’t the RIAA? Is music so very different from a television episode? Why aren’t the record labels putting sites online that let you pick a song, any song, add it to your playlist which has a brief commercial every 5 songs that funds the venture? Why prosecute people for millions of dollars when you could simply come up with a new business model that actually works.
The Times, they are a changing…
Music industry needs to catch up.
[...] musicianwages via [...]
“It seems to me like an artist should get to keep their copyright for at least as long as they are alive.”
David, you can still do this and shorten the life of copyrights. Why not shorten copyright to just Life, or Life +10? Right now, Copyright is Life +70 or 95/120 years (for works of corporate authorship). That’s a little excessive, IMO.
Yes, that’s a good point. I would think that Life or Life +10 is pretty reasonable.
I find it very interesting what you said about the last 100 years just being a bubble in the music world. Now that I think about it, it does seem that musicians will continue to live perfectly fine without the dead-end record label business model.
Now that technology has allowed the distribution of music over the internet, you would think that musicians would want as many people to hear their music as possible. And young musicians certainly deserve to have access to music. There are some things that can only be learned by listening.
retry, you say this: “Do you have any idea how much the Chinese have stolen Microsoft products? To the tune of billions upon billions.”
Microsoft have actually used piracy as their promotion! Imagine this: high school kids all copy (and perhaps sell) to each other the latest Microsoft software. They install it illegally at home, whatever. Now when those kids grow up, which software manufacturer will they choose to put their money into on their home computer, say they have a job where they control the IT budget of a school or business, will they buy microsoft (because they know it already) or will they buy something they haven’t had much experience of (even if it’s cheaper or more fit for purpose)?
Allowing software piracy of their products has helped microsoft, here’s why: they are the market leaders. How they got there is another story, of dubious ethics, but they are, fact.
I am not a market leader in music. Nobody’s heard of me (well, a few hundred have maybe). I can’t utilise this model, and anyway, music can’t work this way anyway. Nobody sticks to one musician exclusively on their stereo the way people stick to only one operating system manufacturer (or even only one radio station!), and i wouldn’t want them to.
I want to listen to tons of different music, i want others to do the same, and i also want people to give me money! As Andrew Dubber points out though, in the linked article, trying to stop people downloading my music for free is not the answer, it’s not even possible, really.
Anyway, just wanted to say it’s different for software, and it’s different for market leaders, like U2 or Radiohead, to use music biz analogies.