Be Like Water

            When I purchase music, I want to support the artist because I enjoy the majority of that artist’s work.  I often cannot afford to go to many live shows, when I do go it’s often an opportunity to see the truth of the artist’s talent through musicianship and entertainment.  Personally, if the musicality isn’t there, it’s not entertaining.  As much as I believe in putting on a good show, I think there should be a balance between lively presentation and simply sounding good.  If I share music, it is often an economical choice as well as one of scarcity.  For my particular tastes, there’s a lot of music that is just hard to come by.  So the degree to which I comply with copyright issues is very much based on immediate circumstance. 
            To be honest, when it comes to recordings, I don’t listen to that much variety. I like what I like and I tend not to stray too far from that.  I think many musicians are like this, in that, if you sing or play, you most likely listen to what you can, or would like to eventually sing or play.  Any venture outside of that sphere is probably related to eventually creating your own interpretation. I don’t enjoy many types of music. But I appreciate all of it. (Okay, most of it. I loathe anything with an auto-tuned voice.) 
            My personal path to becoming a professional singer/songwriter has been one that has considered and encountered issues with copyright. While I fully respect the artist who wants to live of her or his craft, I have come to realize that artists have left their ability to do that up to the wrong entity for too long, namely, the recording industry.  Anyone with a bit of time to do the research will find out that record labels were basically lenders who quickly became loan sharks if an artist didn’t break the platinum sale mark.  This reality was much to the dismay of many artists who rejoiced at “getting signed” only to find out that they end up with mere pennies once they reimbursed labels for producing, marketing, promoting and distributing their work.  In many cases artists still didn’t even own the rights to the songs.  
             The advent of the digital era has rendered the current model ineffective and outdated.  Most of all, it suppresses artists and artistry.  This brings me to this question, why should the destruction of the music industry be prevented (Condry, 2004)? Ian Condry’s assessment of peer-to-peer networks illustrates its superior over the recording industry model:

Peer-to-peer systems follow the principles of network economics, which hinge not on supply-side economies of scale, but on demand-side economies of networks (Shapiro and Varian, 1998). The more participants, the more sharing, and the more distributed users and content, the more valuable the network is. (Condry, 2004)

Photo from www.indieandunsigned.com

            This type of exchange is much more in line with sharing practices between artists’ communities long before there were plugs in walls.  Conceptually, it is exactly what led previous societies to nurture, and flourish art and culture.
            These days of low quality albums, and better quality songs is not cutting it for consumers. It is often record labels, not artists who strongly influence, and in some cases dictate which songs are included on an album. Music has become more about commodities, than art.  Condry makes a great point that the lack of soul these practices produce in the final works disconnect fans from the music (Condry, 2004). The fact remains, people are reluctant to pay for music they think sucks.
            Steinmetz & Tunnell illustrated a contradiction in their research between the socialist practices of sharing versus the capitalist characteristic of consumption inherent in the culture of piracy (2013).  I believe it is viewing these complex issues through these divisive paradigms that prevents a sound solution from emerging. The coexistence of these elements is not contradictory if viewed holistically.  Can something be truly shared if it isn’t consumed on some level? Otherwise, it is straight giving. Sharing allocates.  When we share, we all benefit. I can benefit without us, but we cannot benefit without me.  We consume together.
            It is no surprise that the motivations behind file sharing are rooted in social and economical frameworks (Steinmetz & Tunnell, 2013).  Mostly, these debates just highlight the flaws of our cultural ideologies.  The struggles of the big label record industry only illustrate that being greedy makes you greedier, until you are rendered useless. Then nature takes over.
            So how might record industry deal with what they perceive to be piracy? By going away. Big labels need to disperse their subsidiaries, and return to more community supported independent models.  Digital rights management laws create ways to be more rigid. Why bother when it’s easier and more profitable to adapt (Condry, 2004)? Business is fluid, go with the flow.

References

Condry, I. (2004, September). Cultures of Music Piracy: An Ethnographic Comparison of the US and Japan. International Journal of Cultural Studies , 7 (3), 343-363.

Steinmetz, K. F., & Tunnell, K. D. (2013). Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger: Study of On-line Pirates . Deviant Behavior , 34 (1), 53-67.