In case you didn’t know, the Internet is a remarkable source for learning about music and finding that music for free. While many collectors are in the habit of finding full albums to add to their libraries, casual downloaders are often in search of single songs.
Earlier today, I discovered an article praising Common’s upcoming single “Universal Mind Control,” and I set out to find it. Usually this takes me about two minutes using standard search engines. But this time I found that most of my usual avenues—file-sharing sites like Megaupload, Mediafire, and Rapidshare, where users upload easily targetable files—were blocked with messages like “This file has been removed due to copyright infringement.”
Yeah, yeah, the record industry is purportedly suffering. Album sales are down, and record companies are seeing their clients move to independent labels and self-releasing their records. But, why should I care? The record industry has been ripping off both consumers and bands for years. Often bands don’t make the kind of money we think they do, or, if they do, it’s from touring rather than from album sales. In the age of digital media and instant gratification via downloads, record companies are rapidly becoming obsolete. By extension, so is the RIAA, the watchdog agency that punishes illegal downloaders.
I’m guessing that this is going to become a bigger issue as we move forward in the information age and bands realize that they don’t need record companies. It’s likely that bands will realize the file-sharing craze has helped them; in fact, some already have. Some bands, like the Hold Steady, make their albums streamable in full on their MySpaces. These bands seem to grasp the concept that the more people listen to their records, the more people will come to their shows. And I don’t have any official figures to back this up, but bands have consistently testified in interviews that file-sharing has boosted their fan bases.
Of course, there are bands that don’t agree. Metallica made a big stink out of the Napster craze nearly a decade ago, but that was one of the last times we have seen a major artist take a defiant stand against file-sharing. As far as Common’s latest, I can’t help but wonder who disables the links—is it Common? His record label? The RIAA working independently? If it’s one of the latter, screw you. I found the single anyway. It’s not great.
If it’s Common pushing for the links to be disabled, I disagree with him, but it doesn’t bother me as much. I do believe in free file-sharing. This doesn’t mean I don’t support artists financially—I do, when I can. When a single is available on iTunes (Common’s wasn’t), I’ll buy it. When I genuinely love an album, I’ll buy it. And there is still no substitute for a physical album—the artwork and accoutrements are often worth the money on their own.
File-sharing is a massive populist movement. Some bloggers maintain blogs entirely devoted to sharing new music. People all over the planet belong to sites devoted to sharing music, and some users of the popular site OiNK (R.I.P.) were arrested in the UK last year for doing so. I don’t think we can be okay with this—these people are just like us, trying to hear their favorite tunes. It’s time the artists (following examples like Radiohead, Bloc Party, and Saul Williams) and the recording industry find a way to evolve with technology rather than try to fight it.
Bend the law with Justin at jhs55@georgetown.edu.
