I bought my first CD when I was 11 years old. My mom had written me a check and allowed me to go by myself to a local Wherehouse Records store to purchase one CD of my choosing, and I was ecstatic. I spent what felt like hours scouring the isles of the store looking for No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom and finally found it at the very bottom row of one of the shelves.
I remember being filled with excitement and anticipation as I walked up to the cash register with my friend and handed the cashier my CD and money. The cashier gave me a smile, scanned the CD, and looked at the check. “There’s a problem,” he said to me. “You’re one dollar short.”
My heart sank. I looked from the cashier to my friend in disbelief and was just about to turn around and put the CD back when the man standing behind me in line said “I’ll pay for it. How much do you need?”
I will never forget that act of kindness. I had pined for that No Doubt CD for years and valued it more than any of my other possessions. I remember playing the CD again and again while pouring over the insert book, reading the lyrics and singing along. I had always resolved to find that man one day and pay him back, but of course I never got his name and I no longer remember what he looks like.
Today, if I wanted to own that same No Doubt CD the experience would be entirely different. A few simple searches on the internet would lead me to various file sharing websites where I could easily download the album for free. Instant gratification. No looking through isles, no cashier to wait for, and no money necessary.
Downloading music, whether legally or illegally, has completely changed the record industry. Consumers seem perfectly content to click their computer mouses a few times and download whatever songs they want at their leisure. Almost everyone has an iPod or some other mp3 player and the days of sitting around a stereo and listening to an album from start to finish seem lost forever.
Digital downloads are far more convenient than buying physical albums. They don’t take up shelf space in your home and as long as you back all your files up you don’t need to worry about losing your favorite album. But has this change in technology done more harm than good?
The transition from physical copies of music to digital downloads has made music as common of a commodity as a tube of toothpaste in the United States. It seems that music has been completely devalued by this evolution in technology. The excitement of going out to a record store and having to look for a specific album is gone. Virtually everything is available online and whether music fans realize it or not, society has come to take this art form for granted.
According to the Record Industry Association of America, “global music piracy causes $12.5 billion in economic losses every year.” This loss affects not only the employees of record labels, but also detracts from revenue that could be spent on finding and promoting new artists, and allowing signed artists to record more albums.
Losing money to piracy also has a profound effect on working musicians themselves. Artists are now forced to make up a large part of their earnings through licensing their songs to television commercials and shows, touring relentlessly, and selling merchandise.
Even with these alternatives to offset the fall in record sales, bands can still struggle to make ends meet. Renting a tour bus and paying for a driver and gas can cost as much as $1,000 a day.
In 2007, the Boston based band The Dresden Dolls told NPR Music in an interview that their record contract had them receiving about $1 in royalties for every CD sold, but “before a band gets to see any of that, it has to sell enough CDs to cover all of the label’s production expenses, which can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Most bands try to dig themselves out of this hole through relentless touring, but even selling tickets comes with a price. The venue and concert promoters also take a share out of ticket sales, and don’t forget bands have sound technicians and roadies to pay for.
Record labels and artists are not taking these losses lightly. In addition to public campaigns against piracy, the record industry has also prosecuted numerous people suspected and found guilty of downloading music illegally.
Most recently The Boston Globe reported that a Boston University graduate student was fined $675,000 in damages for illegally downloading 30 songs and sharing them online. That’s a far cry from the $30 he would have paid had he simply bought the songs on iTunes, yet shockingly some might say this graduate student got off lucky.
In June of 2009, CNN reported that a 32-year-old Minnesota woman was found guilty of downloading music illegally and ordered to pay $1.9 million dollars for 24 songs.
In the midst of battling online piracy, the record industry is desperately trying to find ways to encourage consumers to buy albums again. On September 9th, Apple announced its newest version of iTunes called iTunes LP.
This new program will include album artwork, photos, lyrics, and videos as part of an album purchase, in effect recreating the physical album experience. The company hopes that by offering these extra incentives to consumers, people will be more likely to spend their money on music as opposed to sharing files with each other.
Ultimately, the record industry will never fully be rid of music piracy. Friends will always burn CDs and share music with one another, and file sharing websites will probably always exist.
I believe the best way to combat piracy is to keep consumers informed about the consequences of downloading music illegally, not only for the record companies but for everyone working in the music industry.
So, next time you consider downloading music from a file sharing website or giving a CD of yours to a friend consider this: is 99 cents per song really too much to ask for the months of labor musicians, producers, engineers, and record labels put into creating an album for you? If you still feel it is, I hope you plan on spending $40 on concert tickets sometime soon.
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