As the University and its students tussle with the Recording Industry Association of America in a high-profile illegal downloading case, I find myself mulling over our decade-old cyber environment and where it is headed. As a fan, musician and music-beat writer, I must admit I listen to music online all the time – sometimes legally, sometimes not. I wouldn’t exactly be on the RIAA’s most wanted list, but every now and then I hear a song and I want to get it fast, so I download it off the net.
Musicians are a demographic that have both gained and lost during the Internet revolution. While it is infinitely easier to reach an audience, it is much harder to pay the bills as music has become a free product. Today’s musician essentially plays shows for free, and because fans can get albums for free too, the bands are left to sell T-shirts and posters. It’s the struggling garage bands, not the MTV mega-hits, that are suffering.
The RIAA claims that file sharers account for $12 billion of economic loss annually in the U.S. However, I beg to differ because downloaders, who get an album for free, would not have necessarily bought the album or paid for it anyway. We then have this odd scenario, in which the bands are suing their own fans for an illegal activity that concurrently draws more fans.
And as a music downloader, I must admit that they are right to sue. It is impossible to argue with. Stealing is wrong, there’s no way around it. No matter what the argument, it is their music, their creative invention and therefore, their property. You can’t just download bread from the baker, and you shouldn’t be able to download creative works, like a book or a painting.
Of course, the situation the University is facing is not as simple as just bakers and bread. There is an overlying problem that has so far prevented any solution for our current framework.
The RIAA’s effort to dissuade and criminalize downloaders – whether seen as acts for justice, or the terrorization of students – is inevitable. As technology develops, both regulators and pirates will get better at what they do. But the problem is much more basic; it is not in the technology, but the nature of society.
That is, there will always be pirates. There are infinite acts of CD burning and copyright infringement that are simply out of any regulator’s control.
Therefore, while technology develops, our leading thinkers struggle to find an answer to discover a new model to meet the demands of different parties in a changing society.
Meanwhile, millions will continue as downloaders, a list that will occasionally include myself.
[email protected]