To a Mother Concerned About File Sharing

Musician Wages recently received a question about file sharing from a reader and decided to open up the responses to all music bloggers. My answer is below. I'll post links to other sites that answered the question later in the week. It's a tough issue with lots of different layers. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Question: 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

Answer: Good question. I know you’re going to get a lot of answers, and a lot of those answers are probably going to seem to contradict each other. Confused? Hold on to that feeling, because that’s your real answer. The music industry itself is confused about your question and how to deal with it. I’m glad you asked, though, and it’s great to see you and your son really considering the issue. I can’t claim to have the right answer, but I definitely have some opinions based on experience. Here goes:

I think to really answer your question, we have to consider how file sharing impacts the music industry overall, and so I’m going to start off with a broad assessment of the issue. I’ll lay my cards on the table up front. To me, file sharing is approximately the 1,578th thing that is wrong with the music industry right now. First, for the argument against file sharing to hold true, we have to accept that file sharing is the reason that music sales are declining. Here is what we know about trends in recent years:

• Music sales have declined
• File sharing has increased

OK, but what do we know about the causality here? File sharing can be increasing while music sales are declining, but that is not solid evidence that file sharing is the cause of music sales declines. In fact, some studies have demonstrated that that is decidedly NOT the case. I’m partial to a joint study by UNC and Harvard that found that the impact of file sharing on music sales was statistically zero. Of course, other studies have had results that differ. I’m just inclined to believe in UNC because I graduated from there and I’m partial to this study because it suits my argument. The RIAA (The Recording Industry of America – that group that will sue your grandmother for her retirement savings when her teenage grandkids use her computer to download some songs) quotes a number of other studies that indicate file sharing has disastrous results for the music industry on their website – the difference is that they don’t fess up to only quoting studies that suit them. They’re remarkably disinterested in getting to the bottom of the real issues for an organization that is support to be an advocate for the music industry.

The bottom line here is that no one has definitively demonstrated that file sharing does or doesn’t hurt music sales. I can think of about a million and one other things that could be driving music sales down, including:

• Labels have not adapted quickly enough to the changed marketplace
• Many labels have been employing the strategy of “throw lots of things out and see what sticks” for years now – where is the artist development and investment in long term careers?
• Related to the previous point, labels have focused on releasing albums that include one or two singles and 10 filler tracks
• Music is (was?) overpriced – this has been brewing since before file sharing was an issue. Charging upwards of $17 or more for a CD is ludicrous and only necessary because labels are overspending on recording budgets and ridiculous promo campaigns. Customers have been feeling ripped off for a long time, and they’re not wrong.

I can’t prove any of these things are responsible for the decline in music sales, but I’m much more willing to believe them to be the cause than file sharing.

Why? Because people have always shared music. The internet might have made the practice more efficient, but it’s really nothing new. Sharing music is part of the experience for fans. I remember holding my cassette player up to the TV to record songs off of MTV. I remember when I got a stereo with a dual cassette player that let me make mix tapes easily. I was in heaven. I have traded TONS of music in my life. Some of my favorite musicians – people whose whole catalogues I own – are musicians I’ve discovered on mix tapes people made for me. I’ve also used file sharing networks to discover new music. I’m a music lover. I’ve spent more money on my music collection than anything else I have in the world. Yes, even more than my car. Trading music has only deepened my love for it. I don’t believe that I am unique.

Back when blank cassettes hit the scene, labels freaked out. “Home taping is killing music” was the rallying cry of the day. It was dumb, and it didn’t happen. Of course, major labels managed to finagle it so that a penny out of the sale of every blank cassette went into a kitty for them. They got reimbursed for the supposed money they were losing to those mix tape thieves, the indie labels got screwed in the process, and the music industry universe was returned to its balance. In retrospect, can you believe the labels thought blank cassettes were going to kill music? I can’t think of many symbols more associated with a music lover than a worn out mix tape.

Now, I can’t tell you that everyone who uses file sharing networks still buys music. Some people who use file sharing networks are doing it so they don’t have to pay for music anymore. You can’t control for that, and even if you removed file sharing networks from the equation, people would still have technologies that allow them to share music. But it doesn’t ring true to me that these people are in the majority – and in fact, many studies into the issue have indicated otherwise. To me, for the music industry to concentrate on stopping these people as a business plan would be like the Berlin Zoo focusing all of their efforts on making sure no one jumps into the polar bear enclosure again. It’s bad when it happens, but it’s foolish to assume that everyone who comes to the zoo wants to swim with the polar bears. To funnel all zoo resources into preventing that would be way off base. It’s bad when someone replaces buying music with file sharing, but that doesn’t mean that chasing down that person should be goal number one for the music industry. It’s just not going to save us.

Your son is right that many artists are stuck in deals that benefit the labels more than them, but that is not true across the board. Further, major labels have a lot to answer for, but trying to bring down every label around is not good for the music industry. I don’t think either of these notions makes a good excuse for file sharing. What I can tell you and your son is that I know lots of musicians and lots of people who have labels or otherwise depend on the music industry to pay their bills – as I think about it, nearly everyone I know fits into that category - and I know very few (if any) who are against file sharing across the board. I know a lot of musicians who do it. I know a lot of people who have labels who do it. I don’t think musicians who encourage sharing of their music are off base – having people recommend your music to their friends has always been one of the best promotional tools around. Smart artists have parlayed file sharing into a promo tool to build their audiences, get people out to shows, sell merch and even yes, sell music. For indie musicians who are often locked out of radio, locked out of major publications and unable to pay for huge promo campaigns, having someone discover your song on a file sharing network and decide to learn more about you is gold.

Musicians need to sell music to make a living. It is also morally right that people are reimbursed for their work. I’m just not convinced that the file sharing argument is as much a part of the debate over how to ensure musicians make money in the current music market as some people make it. The new music industry needs a new business model that puts musicians in better control of their rights and that gives customers a way to purchase music for a fair price. We’re not there yet. We’ll get there. The file sharers aren’t the ones standing in our way. People can share music AND buy music – these activities are not mutually exclusive. They never have been. When your son downloads a song from artist Y rather than buying it, he is technically taking money out of that artist’s pocket. If your son had been born 30 years earlier, he also would have been taking money out of the artist’s pocket when his friend taped artist Y’s new album for him as well. The industry survived that. It survived because music fans still wanted to buy music. I believe they still do.

The bottom line here is that I don’t think musicians’ lots in the industry are going to be changed if file sharing is stopped. It is our job to change the industry so that artists are fairly compensated for all of their work, and it is our job to develop a business model that brings customers back and gives them value for money. Internal problems in the industry have much more to do with the problems musicians are facing than music fans swapping songs. I wish groups like the RIAA that focus so much time and energy on suing music fans for downloading would turn their attention to really and truly being an advocate for musicians. That could be such a powerful thing. They can’t do that, however, because no matter what lip service they pay to championing musician rights, they work for the major labels. Promoting musician rights would require then to take on their funders and demand better deals for musicians. And herein lies our problem – musician rights advocacy and major label advocacy seldom go hand in hand. Making the customer the enemy is so much more convenient.

I’m glad you and your son are considering these issues. I think it proves the point that most music fans are not interested in ripping off their favorite artists. The thing is: file sharing is not going to stop. When all the dust settles, I think we will realize that file sharing is this generation’s blank cassettes. I look forward to that day when we can accept that as an industry and move on to working on solving the royalty issues that are really causing musicians to lose out. I look forward to the day when we focus our attention on shaking out all of the companies that have tied musicians into unfair deals. I look forward to the day we stop trying to work against new technologies and start working with them. These are the things that will really help musicians.

Hope that helps a little bit!

PS – Do you really want to do the right thing for the music industry? Don’t worry so much about the file sharing. Instead, don’t ever buy music from Wal-Mart or Best Buy. That is far more damaging in my book.