Opaque Lucidity

The Band Plays On

The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the august organization best known for suing grandmothers and dead people for "stealing" music over the internet has hit on another scheme, one that may actually have some legitimate teeth. The Association is teaming up with large broadband ISPs who have agreed to forward cease and desist notices to users who the ISPs and the RIAA deem are stealing licensed content via their internet connections.

Most tech-savvy folks I know have been reading and cursing about the RIAA for years. Initially, I would preface my comments by stating that, yes, it IS illegal to pirate music and you shouldn't do it; I'm done with such pronouncements. I have come to the conclusion that the game has changed and the buggy-whip merchants at the RIAA need to adjust or, better yet, go away.

Before it was technologically possible to record music, humans only had the live performance to provide their listening pleasure. Artists made money selling sheet music, but that was generally a pittance. The wax cylinder and, later, the vinyl record made music available almost anywhere at any time. The modern music business was born.

About 15 years ago, the transition of music from tangible object (record, CD, tape) to easily traded electronic file began. Several years after that, the RIAA began its war against music fans. It only made sense: since the 1920's, record labels had raked in billions of dollars providing packaged products in the form of artists and bands who were stuffed down our throats on radio stations from coast to coast. We accepted the fact that a talentless facade like Britney Spears could make millions with CD sales, product endorsements and tickets sales. After all, this is capitalism at its finest: charge what the market will bear and give people the product they demand.

Fine and dandy, but here's the point the RIAA is missing: that obscene profit never had a guarantee attached to it. We have arrived at a time when anyone who can play an instrument and use a PC can produce music for distribution online. From a technological standpoint, an mp3 from Coldplay has no more value than an mp3 from a group of 16-year olds from Jeffersonville, Indiana. The value comes from each listener who decides he likes group A more than group B. For decades, the record industry has stacked the deck by promoting the hell out of their client groups, which is well within their rights. But as a result, it is incredibly expensive to produce the banality you hear on Top 40 stations today. And so when the labels cry about lost revenue, you have to ask why that really is.

Like it or not, music is moving away from tangible, touchable media forever. A generation from now, the successful artist will be his own promoter in charge of his own web presence. The idea of backing from a major label will be the stuff of fairy tales. Performers like arrogant fellow Hoosier John Mellencamp, who believes artists such as he should not have to stoop to self-promotion like other self-employed people who have to promote themselves every day, are dinosaurs who will soon disappear forever. Good riddance.

The RIAA and every ISP on the planet are not enough to stop piracy. What needs to change is the perception of the artist or actor as someone who has some God-given right to make an obscene salary when the market no longer supports it. Like every aspect of a free market, the movie and record industries will simply have to adjust to the realities of the 21st century instead of acting like the robber-barons of an earlier era.