FREE MUSIC DOWNLOADING
 
 

Although it's hard to resist the opportunity to get something for nothing, nothing comes without a price. Free, unauthorized downloading of music has some very real downsides.

Each of our downloads (multiplied by tens or hundreds or thousands or even millions) robs the bands and artists of money they need in order to survive, thrive, and keep on recording. It steals between 4 and 8 cents per song from songwriters and publishers, whose incomes rely solely on song royalties. It injures the bottom line of the record companies, whose main activities are the financing, promotion and distribution of the music which is an integral part of our culture.

The argument exists that only mega-huge record companies and high-profile acts, those fat cats who command huge resources, are losing by the downloading - since 90% of the product which is being taken for free is of their making. This argument holds water until you examine the downstream significance of a reduction in their earnings.

These high-profile acts, bands and artists were once unknown, struggling to rise to a level where their work would begin to be financed and promoted by record companies, then rewarded by public acceptance and a healthy income.

Where is the cash to record and promote these acts to be found? It comes principally from one source: the surplus earnings of successful recording acts which have gone before.

The yearly financial picture of a moderately successful recording band might look something like the following (numbers for illustration only):

Total earnings from record sales:

$5,000,000

Total expenses connected with record sales (incomes for band members, marketing and promotion, videos, touring costs, record manufacturing costs, costs of developing their next recording, taxes, legal costs, etc.):

$3,000,000

Record company costs, including employee salaries and profits to investors:

$1,000,000

Surplus to finance development of new acts:

$1,000,000
 
 

On average, 9 out of every 10 acts which receive development money from record companies never break even on the investment. This is nobody’s failure, it’s just the way the business of firing up the public’s imagination works.

The record company employee known as ‘artist and repertoire person’, or ‘A and R person', makes an educated guess and convinces their company to put money into a band which appears to have the sound and the look to generate big bucks, yet for some reason the public, like the horse led to water, refuses to drink.

At this point, all of the development and recording money put into that band is a dead loss. The band may emerge elsewhere at a later date (and often does), but the loss still exists. However, the earnings of the 1-in-10 band on the label which attains super success provide enough surplus for the process of speculative development to continue.

Therefore, each download of a successful act like Eminem, Pink, Smashmouth, or Alanis fractionally reduces the possibility of success for that little garage band with the big sound, whose members are all living at home with their parents, working minimum wage jobs, and sharing a rusty old Chevy van while they drive themselves toward their dream.

The millions of unauthorized free downloads which have been occurring have had major negative consequences, among them the following:

1) record companies, suffering lowered incomes due to downloading, are forced to reduce the number of new acts they can develop in a given period, decreasing the chances of a particular new, exciting and significant talent ever being heard by anyone but the next-door neighbours, the crowd at the local auditorium, or those who stumble across its website.

2) publishers whose revenues have undergone a reduction due to their song products being taken for free, must extend cash advances (the song-writer equivalent of development money) to fewer and fewer of the new and up-coming writers - writers we'll be relying on to provide the next wave of songs for us to enjoy.

3) the studios which record the bands being developed by record companies, whose revenues may have dropped by 30% due to the lack of resources that the record companies can spend there, have to close their doors and force engineers, maintenance people, and receptionists to be looking for (and possibly not finding) new jobs somewhere in a shrinking industry.

Aside from its ‘no-cost’ aspect, one of the main attractions of free downloading is our ability to ‘cherry-pick’ our favourite songs instead of buying a CD which may contain two or three hits padded by material we would not choose to own.

The following policy addresses this.

We agree to buy ourselves one full-length music CD for every given number of downloads we undertake. The specific number should be approximately equal to the number of songs on each packaged CD which we would not have deliberately bought, given the choice.

This gives us the opportunity to give back to the music industry a little of its lost revenue.

As one can see from what I’ve outlined above, it matters little whether the CD contains some songs we have already downloaded, or different ones — our money still goes to nourish the industry.

For the ethics of this solution to be truly effective, the CD purchased would have to be for our own use, bought with our own money, and not a purchase which we would have made anyway in the natural course of events.

Under these self-imposed terms, I believe the buying of one or more CD’s must come first, THEN the downloading can start: otherwise, it could become ever-so-convenient for me to keep on downloading and allow my good intentions to fade, to be forgotten, or to be modified to the detriment of their effectiveness.

Exceptions would seem to be fair in two cases:

1) if a song has been specifically provided free-for-download by whomever owns it, that’s their decision made in their own economic interest - and the song need not form one of the self-imposed quota.

2) if the music I am downloading is unavailable at any record store and can’t be bought over the internet, then how could I pay for it anyway? In this case, it seems fair to exclude it from the quota.

In closing, as one who respects the music industry’s right to survive and thrive, and who enjoys the benefits it provides, I feel it is improper for a household which maintains itself primarily on the proceeds of that industry to be involved in a practice which, in becoming widespread, seriously diminishes those proceeds. Even though our personal downloads are like fleas on an elephant, if there are enough fleas the elephant feels its suffering.

Until a rational and convenient form of paid-for downloading is made available by record companies, I urge us all to accept the above suggestion. Let's agree on our quota and place our usage of recorded music on an ethical footing. In this small way we can make up for the downsides of downloading.
 
 

November, 2002