I do it. You do it. Some people’s grandparents do it, though they’d never admit to it. Everyone does it, unless they’re real hardliners or they’re getting plenty from elsewhere.
What am I talking about? Music piracy, of course. The British Music Rights group, which claims to represent over 50,000 music publishers, songwriters and composers, recently revealed the results of a study that concludes over 90% of “young people” (how patronisingly vague) engage in some sort of illegal music copying.
Well duh. While this has sparked outrage from the usual quarters, I’ve been left wondering quite why anyone’s surprised by this. I’ve certainly never known anyone, for example, turn down the offer of a burnt CD of a new band. In reality, this sort of piracy has ceased to seem illegal or exceptional; it’s just Something That Happens, it’s been normalised. It’s seen as acceptable because there are no ulterior motives. If you lend someone a CD, it’s for their enjoyment. There’s no profit there, distinguishing it from film piracy where people can make vast amounts of money. People subconsciously know it’s illegal, but when you’re copying an album for someone it just doesn’t register.
Aside from the bizarre reaction of the industry to this report (surely they’ve realised by now the extent of the thievery?), the media are bound to weigh in on the debate again. There’ll be some hip, young, trendy haircut spouting lines like “it’s stealing, but, like, the record companies steal from our soul”, and a representative of The Man advocating the sending of offenders to Guantanamo Bay, or else talking some PR nonsense designed to make the record companies seem all cuddly and nice. D’aww. The reality, however, is a little different from either of these takes.
Yes, this sort of copying and lending is stealing, and stealing is naughty. That’s the uncomfortable hypocrisy of anyone with any experience of this trying to write about this subject. I know I’ve copied music before, lent people albums, and even in a moment of youthful folly used the virus-ridden p2p software Limewire (don’t do it, kids. And definitely don’t download the .exe files). But were it not for the illicit joys of file-sharing there are countless bands I’d never have heard of and so would never have spent money on anyway, and therein lies in the paradox. Had a friend (thanks Sam!) not copied me Radiohead’s The Bends on his newfangled techmalology machine all those years ago, I’d probably never have bought the £40 In Rainbows discobox or a £50 ticket to see them this summer. That’s £90 that would otherwise not have gone to the band, and it far outstrips the cost of the three studio albums I don’t own hard copies of.
There’s a risk that acknowledging the benefits of illegal downloading will breed only vacant anti-capitalism and rubbish about fighting the system. You know, the idea that if we don’t have to buy music, then what use are the corporate vultures at EMI at all? Well for a start, they allow that music to be recorded and distributed. Sure, the record companies are evil, but they’re allowed to be because bands keep signing to them. Dribble all you want about Myspace and the myriad of new ways to get music out there, but we still rely on the labels to cut through the abysmal swarms of sub-Doherty songsters to The Kooks for us. Okay, bad example. But you see my point.
As unfashionable as it might be to say, record labels are still necessary. Big acts like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails might be able to play the system a little, but smaller bands need that support. The music industry is doing what any industry does: try to make money. And it does it very well. Yet because there’s this idea that music should be free, that it’s somehow a necessity, it’s demonised for it in ways that, say, food companies aren’t. These protestors really should get their priorities straight.
Part of the problem lies in the industry’s baffling choice of targets in the war on filesharing. Grandmothers, single mothers and students have all been strong-armed into massive showpiece lawsuits, leading to parody news site The Onion running a disturbingly plausible story claiming their next target was to be radio stations for “giving away free music”. Whilst the BMR claims to protect artists, some aren’t impressed, as a few recent high-profile new distribution methods have shown (although the physical copies of In Rainbows are still fully RIAA-protected). They also don’t seem to realise that the vast majority of bands form through shared music – I doubt Keith Richards forced Mick Jagger to buy his own John Lee Hooker records.
Despite this seemingly inexorable trend towards illegal fileswapping, there is hope. Feargal Sharkey, former lead singer of The Undertones and now the BMR’s chief executive, is looking at new ways of music distribution, such as advertising-funded downloads that rely on users clicking on adverts to “earn” downloads, to fit the behavioural patterns of “young people” (that’s you!). If he wants, he can call it Teenage Clicks. I’ll let him have that for free. Such services could revive the industry and allow it to continue with a less acrimonious relationship with their customers (who, after all, provide it with its massive revenues), and really cut down the illegal activity. It’s so easy to acquire free music that the record companies have to find ways of providing music that’s equally as easy; relying on morality of consumers alone to get you profits rarely works.
Oh, and they really should stop calling it “piracy”, because that makes it sound amazing. I definitely want to be a pirate. Yaargh.
