Now, there is a headline you don’t see every day, eh?
Here’s the deal. For a long time we have debated the question of copyright law and music downloading and the ways to stop it. An assertion I have made for a long time has been that the music industry needs to go the way of the motion picture industry (via DVD’s), and make it so simply downloading songs doesn’t give you the whole album experience.
So, the other day, i went to pick up the newest album by my favorite band (and the most versatile band since the Beatles for my money), Barenaked Ladies. The name of the album was “Everything for Everyone”, and as I went to purchase my 15 dollar album, I noticed the album in different packaging for 20 dollars. Looking at the album, I noticed the difference.
Included in the second package was a second disc, a DVD to be played on a home theatre, with the album in 5.1 surround sound. 11 tracks of the album available in 5.1 surround and acoustic versions, DVD video of the band recording the acoustic tracks, behind the scenes video and an extra music track.
I promptly purchased my 20 dollar copy and brought it home to enjoy on my home theatre system. The point is this: The band does ask its listener to buy and not download. But the band doesn’t join the Lars Ulrichs and Dr. Dres of the world by suing the listeners, and inadvertently alienating the fans. This band offers a package that is worth buying, in the same way that the movie industry maked DVDs worth buying, with extras, commentaries, and an onslaught of extras that go beyond the main feature.
Oh.. and the album rocks my friggin world. 20 bucks well spent.
5.1, et al
Sharing music is a time-honored tradition. Before ASCAP and BMI, travelling musicians would hear a tune they liked, learn it from the previous artist, try to recreate it, make up a line here or there to fill in the holes, and the “oral tradition” of a song would continue. This is the natural way we’ve shared music throughout human history.
Recording music changed all that.
I remember as a child, waiting by the radio for a particular song to start. I’d fire up my tape recorder just before I thought a song would start; if it wasn’t the one I wanted, I’d rewind over what I just recorded and try again at the start of the next one. Then once I got a good collection, I’d pop it in my tape player and listen at the bus stop and dinner (much to the chagrin of my parents). I’d wear my Walkman to the playground, and exchange tapes with my friends.
Now we’re being told doing the same thing in the larger playground of the Internet is the moral equivalent of rape, murder, and thievery. They call copying music “Piracy”. Despite their doublespeak and attempts at thought control of our youth through aggressive propaganda campaigns (my kids have been through this at their elementary school, and I was appalled that they would call sharing stealing), copyright infringment is copyright infringement, not theft, murder, or rape. It’s the moral equivalent of failing to yield the right-of-way at a stop sign: while there is nothing at all ethically wrong with it, we have a set of laws that prohibit it for various technical (or in the case of the stop sign, safety) reasons. In the case of copyrighted works, we as a country decided we wished to preserve the rights of an author of a work to make an exclusive profit from that work for a limited time, to promote further progress through self-interest.
That, to me, is the big difference between morals and ethics: ethics are a self-standing set of credos that spring out of a study of human behavior and interaction, while morals are generally a set of laws people adhere to out of an authoritarian ideal. Of course, that’s my own personal semantic redefinition; the fact is, they are often used interchangeably. But there are things that are illegal that are not “wrong”, and infringing copyright is in that same vein.
At one time, I remember telling Justin when he asked me about file sharing “throw them all in jail, they are criminals”. The dramatic difference in my attitude now is largely due to a massive re-examination of what makes me tick, and a whole lot of growing up in the intervening seven years.
Anyway, what they are doing sounds way cool. I fear for the day when the music lobby is so anal as to prohibit you humming a tune at the bus stop, or being afraid to turn on the radio at a large party. We’re nearly there, though. Now that production of a home-made music CD is easily within the budget of any average geek, the “professional” music publishers really do need something out of the reach of the average geek to differentiate their product. Compete or just get out of the arena.
Glad to see at least one band “gets it”.
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Matthew P. Barnson
What I do about it…
There are bands I support, such as BNL (whose album “Everything For Everyone” YOU should go out and buy right away!), and I make sure to buy their albums. I understand the problem with downloading for the industry. For years, I went out and bought “singles” for a dollar fifty and made my own tapes from those singles. I also copied from the radio.
Then, the CD came out and singles were four bucks, CDs were twelve to fourteen, and you would go out and buy the CD and get one song you liked, and eleven that you didn’t, and that was the way of things.
What i didn’t know until much later was that the Recording industry has been fixing music prices, gouging its customers, serving up substandard product, and making a killing. For instance, i support the artist Ben Folds. I bought his Live album for sixteen bucks and resented it. I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would, and so there’s eighteen bucks out the window. Meanwhile, there’s this ablum recorded from concerts with fans already having paid the ticket price. This is an album that the recording company MADE money in the recording of. But I had to pay eighteen bucks to listen to it and decide it was not for me.
And we wonder why downloading is so prevelent.
Despite all this, I will pay 20 bucks for the BNL album because I want the band to continue making CDs, and because they gave me a fantastic product I can’t get easily off the web. Beyond this, I think the other solution is to make CDs affordable. A six dollar CD would sell well, make money for the industry, the band, and sell off the racks. I would buy it as opposed to taking an hour to find the songs in good quality, download them, burn them, and make a label.
From Sam
Matt, for clarification, the rise of BMI and ASCAP didn’t have as much to do with recorded music as it did with broadcast music. The big cases of prohibiting the public performance of music came from instances where live musicians or radio trasmissions of live radio performances were used by other businesses, and that was a no-no. Furthermore, to me, protecting original compositions isn’t a moral or ethical play. It’s an economic play. You think the government doesn’t want Microsoft selling it’s OS overseas? It’s got to be the nation’s largest export. Also, we’re not the only country that has linked protection to the progress of arts and science.
But we’re talking music, here, which I think is funny, considering how minimal substantive creation can be validated by the Library of Congress. If I ever got sued by the recording industry for stealing their recorded music, I would lodge a counter-complaint, invalidating their “alleged” copyright on the basis that the underlying composition was stolen from me. Let’s face it, most pop music is three/four chords anyway. “Your honor, I believe that I didn’t infringe upon Third Eye Blind’s **latest hit here** by sharing the recorded version because the original compisition was stolen from a song I wrote 10 years ago.” That would be fun and make a mockery of the whole industry at the same time.
Is it sad that would be my idea of fun? This may be what happens when you turn 30.
Anyway, the BNL have been placing video on their albums for many years. They also have released eggs on file-sharing networks. I agree with you Justin. I think BNL does a great job of getting fans excited about music and involved with their music without alienating.
ASCAP, BMI, etc.
Thanks for the clarification, Sam. Yeah, ASCAP and BMI have little to do with recorded music. They’ve been on my mind lately because I’ve read about some local bars that normally play original, live music that have decided to forego it due to ASCAP/BMI coming down hard on them — even though the music isn’t part of their libraries.
Then again, they also regulate the playing of the radio or CDs in establishments of any substantial size, so they are definitely involved somewhat in the recording business.
I’m excited to see bands taking “the high road” on dealing with file sharing. Of course, it raises the bar for the smaller bands, but those are often the bands that care less about their music being freely traded, too…
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Matthew P. Barnson
ASCAP, BMI, etc
Matt, you’re right, today’s BMI/ASCAP is heavily involved with recorded music, because most broadcasting or live entertainment channels are distributing popular music recordings. For example, radio stations pay a lot of money when purchasing the blanket rights. I was talking about the rise of BMI/ASCAP (the 1930s) rather than today’s market.
Here in Minneapolis, a club stopped using live musicians because they freaked out after receiving the blanket license bill.
You mentioned above that the day will come when people won’t be able to hum simple tunes anywhere without paying a license. That day is here! Restaurants pay the PROs (Performance Rights Societies — ASCAP/BMI/SESAC) for the right to perform….you guessed it!…”Happy Birthday”…so their waiters can sing to the celebrant diners. Yes, it’s true. How sick is that? They can’t charge the individual so PROs go after businesses. Universities, municipal transport, retail shops, and entertainment houses that pump programmed music to its customers all have to pay (there are exceptions for businesses playing a radio, though).
First off, if I’m a composer, I WANT file sharing to happen. Right now, Harry Fox is clearing all the mechanicals for songs swapped online. Anytime somebody makes a copy of my tunes, I get $$. A digital public performance. I make more money if my tune gets played for 30 seconds on a major network then I do selling thousands of CDS.
Bare Naked Ladies Downloads
I never heard of the band before someone downloaded a song and gave me a copy. I loved it so much I went out and bought the CD AND plan to go to a concert in Grand Rapids Feb 11th. This seems more like free advertising to me. A Mom
Either Way.. BNL RULES!!
Free advertising.. maybe.. I do support the band and want people to buy the CD.. but the fact is, I appreciate the trend toward “Special Edition”izing CDs.
Thanks for liking my fave band, though.
justin