This may not make any sense to you, but I've developed a code of conduct as pertaining to music piracy: I don't have a problem with people downloading music--I have a problem with people not feeling guilty about downloading music, people who feel that they are entitled to download something because it's freely available--that the universe owes them music, that it's rightfully theirs and therefore people who buy CDs are brain-washed capitalist consumers.
I'm hypocritical. I've downloaded hundreds of albums, and for most of them I didn't even stop and think twice about downloading. I tell myself it's okay to download them because I don't have the money to purchase CDs; the sales wouldn't exist anyway. I rationalize that I buy the CDs I love when I do have the money, and end up using downloading as more of a preview service than a collection of music. I tell myself the musician makes very little on each album and a few cents isn't going to make that much difference either way. I go to shows, I recommend music to people I think will like it, I support the bands I love and don't support those I don't like, and therefore it's okay to pirate music because I'm shaping the music industry with my purchases.
But a lot of that, and other arguments for illegal music downloading, is muddled thinking, and it's a result of an excessive music industry. While I'm going to defend my position on music piracy, I feel obligated to acknowledge that I think the music industry is inherently broken. I find it hard to justify paying anything for music downloads, yet alone the bloated prices of songs on digital music stores such as iTunes or Amazon. But I'm also part of a group of people that needs a tangible object in their hands, a group of people that may very well be growing smaller and smaller with every generation, and I might even stop purchasing music altogether if the CD dies out. I'm not going into any more depth on what's wrong right now and my ideas for a solution (mostly because they aren't fully thought out), but there needs to be some kind of massive overhaul, and until that happens piracy will continue to occur.
What prompted me to write this piece was a post someone left in the shoutbox for on the Mount Eerie page of last.fm, in regards to pirating the album Wind's Poem,
"Why not? The music sounds the same whether you buy it or not - Culture should not be a commodity that must be brought - Culture should be free to all. If we can make it free - why choose to buy? Purchasing music does not make one a more 'real' or 'authentic' a fan of music. If one feels it does, well done consumerist culture, Capitalist Ideology has made us think that buying things makes us whole! Yay!"
I get agitated every time I read it. It's the product of illogical thinking, of blindly choosing one view of an argument without considering the other.
Even if we ignore the audiophile side of the argument (that the music on CDs is in a lossless format and to many sounds better than MP3s) there are numerous examples of music being leaked to the public before it's even done being mixed. But mp3 (lossy) degradation also occurs offline, when someone burns CD for a friend from MP3s. The point is that with society in love with the MP3, many times a pirated copy does sound inferior to a CD.
I don't think anyone's trying to say that culture should come at a price, but part of the problem with piracy is that there's access to so much music, it's easy to become overwhelmed by it all, and overlook something great because you didn't like it on an initial listen. I'd argue that with fewer CDs it's easier to form an attachment to them. The act of making an investment on a CD makes you more prone to give it a fair chance.
This post comments that "if we can make it free, why choose to buy?". Music is not free just because it's free to you; it still costs the musician money to purchase instruments, rent a studio, pay studio musicians, mix, master, pay for cover art, promote the CD, and living expenses. No musician should be in it for the money, because that's a stupid idea. The money's pretty bad unless you're in the top 0.5%, but that doesn't mean a musician shouldn't get paid for something he or she spent hundreds of hours working on and poured immeasurable amounts of themselves into.
Furthermore, like it or not we live in a capitalist society: how we spend our money chooses what we support, what is continued to be produced and what isn't. I've spent over $200 on headphones that were probably made in a sweatshop, and I feel bad that my money went to the owners of sweatshops rather than the musicians of the CDs I could have bought with that money. It doesn't make sense to me to continue pouring money into something I don't support over something I do. But at the same time I'm not going to go into a store and steal headphones.
A few days later the poster responded to the discussion in the shout box as such:
"How amusing, Art should be free as it should not be something limited by how much money you make, it should not be something the rich can have and the poor cannot have. Supporting artists is all well and good, but the price on albums is rather ridiculous. If I were to change my sinful ways, I would have to spend over, say 10 thousand pound. Now before I downloaded music I barely listened to anything as I didn't have the money. Packaging is not why I want to listen to music and at the end of the day if I were Phil I'd be happy that my music was getting to more people than ever, rather than getting angry at the leak and subsequent lack of money. Now if you believe that Art will disappear if artists don't get a lot of money, you have reached heights of cynicism that not even I approach. Also I have not met you, so why are you calling me a dumb stoner?* Also, I actually do buy films** and I have spent way to much money on them, as I love them and think the higher quality pays off."
*Note: No one made a comment whatsoever about him being dumb or a stoner.***
**For people unaware of the piracy scene it's just as easy to pirate movies as it is music.
***After he made this comment I looked at his last.fm page and saw this: "I am a communist a film, music and video games nerd and I love drinking tea and smoking green."
It makes me feel better that not all people are as stupid as him. Now getting back on the subject...
Downloading music has allowed me to come across great bands I would NEVER have heard of otherwise (Brasstronaut, The Middle East, Seagull), and to show my support I buy their albums. New CDs probably won't exist in 40 years, and all my CDs will be worthless pieces of plastic, but I won't consider the money I spent wasted because it went towards supporting the artist. The only thing I have to show for the hundreds of dollars I've spent on concert tickets are my memories, but I also know that some of the money I spent allowed the artist to continue to make and play music.
Finally, this will probably sound stupid, MP3s aren't an adequate replacement for the CD; there's no soul in an MP3. It's something that exists only in the hard drive of my computer as a group of ones and zeros. Every MP3 I own appears exactly the same in iTunes, and I don't feel that much for any of them. Whereas with most of my CDs I can tell you where/when/why I purchased them, the memories surrounding the music, and to what other CDs those purchases lead me; they tell a continually evolving story of my music tastes.
In the end I think most artists would rather have someone buy a CD if only to distinguish it from everything else they download--because I think people are much more likely to give something a fair chance if they have it on CD, if they paid money for it; if they aren't spoiled by the technology available and half-listen to it once while making comments before dismissing it with the ten other albums they downloaded that day.
