DIGITAL DISASTER -- ©👺 Illegal File-Sharing

“So, Willy, let me and you be wipers

Of scores out with all men -- especially pipers!

-- Robert Browning – The Pied Piper of Hamelin

No problem hip downloader

No reason you should have to pay

Your software is just too slick

For me to ever stop you

From taking what I own away

And hell – it’s only music

Help yourself – I don’t write these songs to make a living

You take what you want – I’ll keep on giving

All the music I have made

And you say “pipers don’t get paid”

Below is a response I wrote regarding a piece written by one Peter Spellman called “The Future of Music Careers”.

I thought perhaps the best way to respond to the optimistic (and very vague) picture Mr. Spellman paints of his future “musician business” would be to imagine a pre-digital mid-1980s music biz quest by Joe Blow -- and a future-quest by Jane Doe in the better world Mr. Spellman envisions – one free of “corporate owners driven by rigid corporate imperatives” -- where Jane can “be in charge of her own destiny” and have “direct access to global audiences”.

I will try to show there are some major tradeoffs for Jane that Mr. Spellman may not have considered. Let us assume Joe and Jane are both “winners” -- exceptionally gifted and motivated. I also want to assume Joe and Jane have great ambitions of hitting the “big time”.

First and foremost, if I am reading Mr. Spellman correctly, Jane Doe’s 21st century quest will be in a world without a huge incentive enjoyed by Joe Blow – the possibility of striking major gold. In Joe’s dreams of a career in popular music, fame and fortune are entwined. As for Jane, however, Mr. Spellman suggests she think more along the lines of “making enough money to go on making music”. He points out that with the Internet “musicians are capable of . . . building support models to help them earn a sufficient living.

How much are we taking about here? What is “sufficient” -- enough for Jane to live her life in a rat-hole apartment -- enough to buy a decent used car every few years? Well, how about enough to support a family and have a reasonably good lifestyle for a few decades and comfortably retire? Isn’t that what careers are supposed to be able to do? That’s what the old business model did for major-league artists, songwriters, engineers, producers etc.

Anyway, in Joe’s 80’s quest – to put it as briefly as possible – he leaves Podunk and kicks around, say, NYC for a few years, performing and pitching demos and networking, and finally gets discovered by someone in the music industry. This leads to a recording deal. Long story short, Joes does all right. He releases a few albums, hits it big and stays on top for a few years. Then it’s over -- but not entirely.

He can still make money performing, although this income will likely shrink fast, and get more and more unreliable as years go by. Luckily for Joe, his career is taking place in a world where copyrights are protected. His CDs and especially the copyrights on his songs may continue to generate income for many years – even decades beyond his death -- something his children will greatly appreciate. And, down the line, new acts may cover some of his songs. Additionally, if he is talented as a songwriter, he could generate new income (via copyrights) writing with -- or for -- other acts. He also might move into producing acts. Of course, all this non-performing income materializes only in a world where the public is willing to pay for recorded music.

Although Mr. Spellman may find this amazing, Joe does not get screwed over by the industry, and neither do the great majority of people he comes to know during his active career. Joe finds his successful peers to be a motivated, hip, and intelligent bunch of folks who love being in the business. But, like athletics or acting, most careers are short – not because the industry is unscrupulous but because it is a brutally competitive business marketing to a fickle public. But all in all, during Joe’s era people with genuine talent, motivation, perseverance, a reasonable amount of brains -- and copyright protection -- could do very well in this profit-driven industry.

Now let’s look at Jane’s imaginary quest in the future-world portrayed by Mr. Spellman – one in which we’ll assume there is no corporate music industry – none of those slime-ball “corporate owners itchy for corporate-size profits” -- and also very few of those copyright royalties. I don’t suppose she’d have to move to NYC (or LA or Nashville) – that’s a plus. Also, she can certainly get – without too much investment -- fairly good recordings/videos of her songs and post them on her website or YouTube for the “global audience”.

Of course, this is also what her competition will be doing. Millions of acts will have made their music available – for free -- to the world. Also on the downside, there will be no star-making machinery. It will have been dismantled. How, exactly, is Jane’s global audience, sitting down at their computers, going to find her little golden needle in the vast Jupiter-sized haystack of millions of websites? I will make another assumption here: her global audience isn’t even going to try. The percentage of citizens willing to spend endless hours sifting through countless unknown amateurs’ websites before finding Jane’s music will be about zero.

Somehow Jane will have to find a way to publicize herself and her music pretty much on her own. (In the old business model, a label would have gone to a great deal of trouble and expense to get her noticed. They would also have given her – at least initially -- a great deal of support – everything from publicity to showing up at her gigs to tour-support money to getting her radio and TV exposure.)

Probably playing live gigs -- and YouTube/website recordings and videos -- will be her best shot to get noticed. This could happen, but I think it will be very tough. But let’s assume she gets over that hurdle and the world begins to download and enjoy her music and attend her performances.

The problem is, of course, that she still has no income beyond live performing – and that means no reliable income off the road. If she wants to have a child or just take a year off the grind or breaks a leg -- her income instantly stops. There may be those fans who will buy her CDs even though they can get her music for free, but realistically, as high-speed connectivity and downloading have become the norm, I think this will be more and more unlikely. Perhaps any real income beyond live performing will come, as Mr. Spellman suggests, from making an “alliance” with some company or by finding “patrons” paying “$30 to $40 per year”.

Let me here address these two suggestions. I think it highly unlikely Jane can align herself with some company that doesn’t attach big strings to their support – strings regarding the content of her music and the content of her act. Since nearly all companies are terribly concerned about their image, I think Jane will be far more constricted by these kinds of strings than by the strings of traditional labels – which typically gave an artist a great deal of creative freedom

As for mini-patrons, I can imagine Jane on the net or phone conducting her annual pledge drive. To make a cool hundred grand a year she only needs about 3,000 patrons to sign up each year. Of course, she’ll need to be one hell of a bookkeeper, and she’ll have to hope these patrons don’t love too many other acts. Assuming a typical patron loves, say, 10 acts, this fan will need to cough up roughly $350 (a year) to have “first call for all new tracks, and extra values like discounted tickets, fully-packaged recordings, posters and exposure to any other works of the artist”. Or, after thinking it over, would-be patrons might simply prefer to spend nada and get all the music for free – minus, of course, the posters and discounted tiks, etc.

Also, good luck if Jane ever goes down to the bank and applies for a loan or credit card based upon her 21st century career. In the old business model, because of copyrights, she could at least predict her income for a few years -- if not longer.

Another big tradeoff is she will have lost the ability to make overarching musical statements via collections of songs – like the traditional record album. After she has posted, say, 2 CDs onto her website, someone venturing onto her site is unlikely to see her songs as 2 collections. To the downloader it will simply be 20 something songs. Her “blue period” album or her “rock” album will be sliced and diced.

Moreover, rather than fully listening to each song, the downloader/browsers are more likely to taste a few seconds of her wares and download only those songs that instantly grab them. This is a much bigger negative than it may first seem. This now-necessary "instant gratification" factor in a song will tend to force Jane away from writing in-depth, more complex songs and more towards spinning cotton candy.

Which leads me to another overlooked but terribly important trade-off: The “grow-on-you” factor. Fairly early in my record buying youth I realized it was a mistake for me to buy a bunch of albums at one time. This was because invariably I didn’t listen to any one of them with the same focus as I did when I bought a single album. Instead I would listen to the first album of the bunch one time and move on to next and then the next. When I was finished listening to all my new albums I often found I didn’t care that much for any of them. However, when I came home with a single album my tendency was to give it several spins. This – particularly with music that had any complexity and depth – could be vital to my appreciating much of the music. It was often on that 3rd or 4th listening that certain songs began to work their deep magic in ways that were far more powerful than the immediate cotton-candy appeal of the more radio-friendly songs.

So, would-be artists, imagine giving away your music – via the web – to a fan that has coincidentally picked up several dozen other free songs that same day. Even though you may have reached this unknown fan, getting his or her attention long enough to get truly involved in your music – especially if it has any complexity -- could be very, very, tough.

To conclude:

Mr. Spellman makes much of the “global restructuring of the economy”. “Business worlds are deconstructing and reconstructing,” he writes. He gives a naturalistic spin to this transformation, stating: “Like humans, industries pass through developmental stages: birth, youth, maturity and death (or transformation)”. Of course, the truth is that most industries are doing business as usual. Many are, of course, evolving – or dying or growing -- as a result of competition, or technology that improves products or the manufacturing of products, etc. etc.

The death of the traditional music business has nothing to do with improved goods or better manufacturing processes. It has to do with technology that allows citizens to easily duplicate and give away its products -- it has to do with the impossibility of competing with “free”. And like nearly all proponents of free music, Mr. Spellman prefers to believe that it’s too late to do anything about it. “The train has already left the station” is how I often hear it put.

Actually, trains have been forced back into the station many times. Smoking in public places is a good example. When I was a child the majority of adults smoked, and they did it with impunity just about anywhere and everywhere. Students today may find this hard to believe, but when I was in college in the ‘60s, smoking was allowed in class – and was a common practice. How did this train get forced back?

First, the pubic finally realized that it was in their best interests to reverse it. Second, the public decided the way to back the train up was to go after – via law enforcement -- those who practiced the behavior. The only difference between a downloader willingly going along with a smoking ban, and being indignant at the music industries’ attempts to curtail his file-sharing, is that he can grasp the harm in the former but -- thus far -- not in the latter.

Right now, way too many free-downloading enthusiasts don’t see anything at all wrong with the practice. They are convinced the benefits of having any and all music available for free far outweigh any other considerations -- considerations such as artists, songwriters and publishers being paid for the works they have created. They turn a blind eye to their casual destruction of the livelihoods of thousands of top-flight artists, songwriters, producers and engineers -- among others.

The pure truth is these free-loaders are thieves who are destroying an industry which -- until they came along -- was an old and highly regarded member of the community. Only when they began to steal did downloaders develope rationales as to why the record industry deserved it. This is a classic behavioral syndrome -- the victimizer must vilify the victim. It is how he alleviates the nagging tension in his conscience.

I believe in the long term our society will be much the worse for their "freedom". There is an old bit of business wisdom that goes: “Free is the most expensive thing there is.” I predict free music is going to be very expensive, indeed. And the dearest price will be paid by recording artists, songwriters, and publishers seeking to make a living in a world that believes music has no value. Accordingly, if the world prefers to pay nothing for its music, it will soon be receiving a quality of product entirely consistent with that price.

No problem cool downloader

No need to keep my family fed

They don’t mean that much to me

I’m here to make you happy

Hell, I don’t bust my butt for bread

So you go on and screw me

Help yourself – I don’t write these songs to make a living

You take what you want – I’ll keep on giving

All the music I have made

And you say “pipers don’t get paid”

Don’t we all love science and high technology

And I bet one day they will find a key

So I can copy and I can share

Even the children that you bear

Help yourself – I don’t write these songs to make a living

You take what you want – I’ll keep on giving

All the music I have made

And you say “pipers don’t get paid”

Pipers Don't Get Paid -- copyright Hugh Prestwood Music