The Pirates Are ….You?
The record industry’s claim sounds reasonable, but its deceiving
Recent articles headlining newspapers across the U.S. show a renewed interest in “downloaded” music – that is, files copied from the internet to play songs. News of subpoenas filed against users of such files makes almost daily headlines; a September 10, 2003 front page headline mentioned a law suit filed against a twelve year old child.
The recording industry claims every single instance of copied “music sharing” is theft and a violation of copyright law, though currently the industry is –supposedly -- keeping the focus of its legal blitz on those who share more than 1000 files.
But the issue is not just about copyright law, product piracy and the concept of fair use. The issue is also about music sales, because according to the industry, the downloading of music by computer users is responsible for record drops in compact disc sales. Is this indeed the case? First, look at the issue of CD sales, because according to industry explanations, this is what justifies such heavy-handed responses as filing suits against grade schoolers. Does music downloading compete with and take away from the sale of CDs by music stores?
First, consider what a music store has available, and then consider the selection of music available on internet file programs. After all, if the claim is that one draws business from the other and hurts sales, it would follow that they market a largely similar product, correct? Not entirely correct.
Most music stores, typified by Sam Goody, sell compact discs by recent and popular artists, established musicians and other well-known tunesters. At such a store, finding a copy of recordings by jazz great Louis Armstrong, established rock bands like The Rolling Stones, or artists from Billy Joel to Meatloaf are no problem. Most classical tunes, country music, and oldies can be found.
Who uses internet music programs? Number 1: Those who are looking for a recording no one has heard of, a band that only recorded one obscure album, or the background music from the series finale of your favorite TV show, and you will be in trouble. It doesn’t help if the music is old or of a little known genre, either. Nor does it help that many music stores only stock what’s current, with a limited selection of basics in each category and a few older tunes. Suppose someone goes to hear a local musician play a cover of Gramm Parsons “return of the grievous angel” and decides he wants a copy of that old tune? Where on earth would that person go? There are specialty shops that carry hard-to-find records but it is much easier to go online and find the music.
Indeed, this is one of the main markets of the online “swapping” medium: those who are looking for a few hard to find songs, that for whatever reason, the main stores don’t carry or never heard of. Number 2: The other main market consists of people who’ve been “pirates” for a long while, before computers came along and stole the limelight [no pun intended]. You know who they are; the friend whose cassette tapes don’t have labels on them because the tunes they contain where all recorded off the radio. These guys hear a tune they like on the radio and hit record. Or they put their old record collection on cassette tapes so that they can listen to them in the car or in a Walkman. The recording industry puts the spotlight on internet activity because it seems to be a new phenomenon and it can be easily cast in terms of “effecting” sales. It would take much more effort to blame a decline in compact disc purchasing on citizens who take all their old records and put them on tapes. Essentially, however, that is the market we are talking about here… The second most likely users of “sharing” programs didn’t become “pirates” because of computers or the internet and in all likelihood probably go a year or two [or more] between new CD purchases, getting most of their material from radio broadcasts or tapes physically borrowed from friends [remember those days?]
The third market which uses “sharing” software is, of course, children – as pointed out in that September 10th news article, some as young as grade school age. But whether 12 year olds or teenagers, youth represents the third major market of the “sharing” programs. It isn’t that these kids decided to become “pirates” one day – most of them were born after the personal computer [PC] had become a fixture of American life. And while their parents might have browsed mail-order catalogues, these children go online and brows song lists. They did not invent the technology, and unlike the first two categories are too young to have formulated a particular dislike for music stores. The first category is looking for older or unknown songs; most children listen to what is current for their age group or era; and unlike the second category of internet user, the children are not simply continuing previously existing patterns of behavior using a new technology – the computer.
Instead, these kids are simply taking to computers first. To them it is not a choice of software over CDs, because they are the first generation to really be born in the midst of the computer revolution. To them, software is the logical choice and buying CDs is going out of the way – whereas to most of the rest of the populace who are still playing catch-up technically tend to view the situation as the other way around. More to the point this third group of users – youth and children – has little money of their own to throw at compact discs. Though many would no doubt spend their parents money, many more of them – if not using computer programs to download music – wouldn’t be buying CDs anyway, because they simply wouldn’t have the money. Thus, the three main groups who use these programs are actually the least likely to be candidates for CD purchasers in the first place. In such light, “file sharing,” whatever its ultimate legality, hardly seems the major cause of the recording industry’s sales slump.
Cost Comparison: Hardly Credible:
There is also the issue of a direct product comparison. A person downloading can download files containing whole albums but most files are only one song. Even if someone has 500 songs downloaded, that doesn’t mean that without file sharing they would have gone out and bought 500 compact discs instead. The reasons for this are several. First, some of the songs may be from the same recording or CD. Others may be songs which the user wouldn’t be able to find in a compact disc store and still others would be songs the user might choose not to get if he were buying CDs, because they may be perhaps the only desired song on that particular album and the user may decide one song isn’t worth the price of a whole CD.
This brings one to another reason “file sharing” can’t compete with CD sales; it cost literally or almost nothing. Many free programs still exist, though they are often slower to use; but even pay programs do not cost as much as buying a vast number of CDs. Because of the relatively insignificant cost, if any, of downloading, a person is not influenced by costs when choosing what to download; he or she may download many hundreds [or even thousands] or songs without regard to cost because to him the financial cost is nothing. It does not follow that if file sharing were stricken from the virtual world the same downloader would be purchasing an equivilent number of compact discs from Sam Goody. The reason is that unlike the downloaded music, each CD costs a given sum, which means there is a financial limit to what each downloader could purchase. Downloaders do not pay twenty dollars a song; buyers of CDs can pay that much – or more – for store-bought albums. Even if we assume, say, and average of ten songs on each store-bought album, it still leaves a gap. A person who downloads 2000 songs would otherwise be purchasing 200 CDs – or spending $4,000 dollars on CDs [at $20 a piece]? Put in the form of hard numbers, it is hardly a credible claim. But essentially, that is what the recording industry is claiming, in justification for its blitzkrieg against “file sharing”.
The Copyright Laws:
Make no mistake, a person who creates an idea, invention or even a song has a right to protect it from infringement by others. The protection of property rights is part of what our society – a free society – was founded upon.
If you invent a new type of car, and someone else steals the blueprints and tries to manufacture it as their own invention, it is a theft. And if you take a rock and roll tape, make five thousand copies, and sell them on street corners in Chinatown for three dollars a piece, that is also theft. One violates patent laws; the other, copyright laws. Patents exist to protect physical inventions, like motors or gears; copyrights exist to protect intellectual property, meaning thought given structure and form, be it a formula for a chemical compound, a short story collection, a movie, or song lyrics.
The mass theft or the theft for profit of copyrighted and patented material is morally and legally wrong, and in many cases is punished legally.
But what if a person buys a CD and then copies songs from it onto a tape to listen to in a portable tape player when they jog, or walk to university? Technically, this is still a copyright violation, but it doesn’t take away money from they recording industry because the person already bought the album. The argument could be made that it deprives the record industry of the additional sale of a recorded cassette version of the album, but the amount of money made by that would be relatively insignificant – and even considering the incidental loss of that sum, the intention was not to profit from the copying, but to make a copy for portable use. This is the main difference: private copying of music, be it by people who already own one form of the recording [either on record, CD or Tape], or via the internet, is not intended to make the copier rich at the expense of the owner of the copyright. It is not copied for profit unlike big time piracy operations which can run up FBI penalties and counterfeiting charges. This isn’t analogous to the guy on the street corner who makes his living selling bogus Rolexes to passers-by or hocking pirated video recorded on the sly. And while the recording industry may claim that the past increase in downloading has led to its slump of record sales, the two are not proportional, as previously observed, unless Sony believes the average teenager, college student, and middle aged adult would all be forking over $4,000 for compact discs. While profiting from the results of someone else’s hard work is morally reprehensible, unethical, and illegal, downloading music doesn’t constitute “profiting” from the copyrighter’s efforts – because the downloader makes no profit.
In the few cases where the industry loses a small sum, such as in the case of the person who chooses not to buy the cassette version of every CD he already owns and wants to listen to in his car or Walkman, the copying doesn’t cause the copier to make any money off the music, and the sale the company doesn’t make is incidental. To wit; the person makes the copy not to spite the music business and not buy a cassette, but simply because he desires a taped version of the CD he has already paid for. It comes down to intent; intent is a motive of every crime. Well, if copying the music is a theft in the sense of violating copyright law, it should then be done with the intent to profit from the copyrighted material. But that is rarely the case, with the occasional exception of syndicates that produce pirate movies or CDs for commercial sale.
But what really takes the air out of the entertainment industry's argument is that it is hypocritical.
The record, film, and news industries are among the most left-leaning in the country; recall Eddie Vetter symbolicly slaying President Bush at a concert when he impaled a "George W" mask on his microphone stand, or the Dixie Chicks dissing America on the eve of war with Iraq's regime? Many of these performers are even more leftist than their fans, as evidenced by the disgusted Pearl Jam fans, some of whom actually booed and walked out on Vetter. And the record companies who produce the artists are just as leftist; at least, they are not alarmed by their partners' conduct. Many of the bands and performers do not believe in individual rights, especially where property is concerned; most of them adhere to the typical leftist idea of raising taxes on one person to pay for benefits for another, or of stealing Grandma Edith's house so that some environmental issue or species may be artificially preserved.
The industry, if it is really concerned about property rights, should look warily at the government, not the citizens. After all, it is the government which has been eroding property rights via onerous laws and regulations for years – laws and regulations the predominantly leftist media and entertainment industry supports, and which cost the entire country millions of dollars. Some regulations, such as EPA restrictions of certain chemicals under dubious scientific justification, may even risk human lives, as the recent Columbia space shuttle disaster and subsequent realizations about shuttle foam indicate.
If the record industry is really concerned about its property rights, it should address the biggest threat, and all the sub-threats thereof, including its own support of dangerous leftist agendas.
Even IF downloading a four minute sound clip is considered "stealing" or "violating property rights" by the recording industry, why should anyone care? The record industry's own political bent is clearly opposed to everyone else enforcing their property rights. Why is it okay for the EPA to seize your house, or the government to confiscate a third of your earnings, but not okay for you to download a song? Simple. Like many on the left, the record industry is a "limosine liberal" -- it wants to advocate ideas that could essentially lead to socialism and the total control of property by any gang that can sway the bludgeon of government force -- but it wants its own rights and alleged assertions thereof to be protected.
Hogwash.
There are many dangers to Americans' property rights, but they don't come from a twelve year old at a computer.
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