The Average White Guy

I’ve been  having an on again, off again debate with my Uncle over the morality of the copyright laws which are enacted to protect the intellectual property rights for creative works and their owners or authors (which are hardly the same entity anymore). While I agree with him about what is legal and what is not, we rarely ever agree on what is right isn’t always legal, and what is legal isn’t always right.

He is a musician. He has composed, recorded, edited, and mastered his own works, and because of that I respect his opinion on the subject immensely. We’ve argued about how music is legally and illegally distributed. We’ve argued about who should pay royalties and why, and we’ve argued about how creative works are never really owned by the buyer. Sure, I’ll buy into that. I kind of have to; it is the law.

The most recent installment of our running debate was about how bar and restaurant owners will purchase music for their establishments and play that music aloud for their guests, or use this music for their on-hold phone music. He’s telling me (and I agree) that these places are paying royalties in addition to the cost of ownership of a disc for the right to play that music aloud, and if they’re not, they can be held liable.

I can’t argue with that; it’s the truth. I argue with this on the principle of it all. I’m essentially being told that just becaue I paid the $14.99 for an album (or even $0.99 for a single track) I don’t get to determine how I use what I paid for. I can’t play this music at a party. I can’t use it to introduce my speech to a collection of WWII veterans. I can’t do anything with it but listen to it solo (or so low) unless I pay more money for it. That’s sort of absurd, no?

Sure, if I’m charging money to hear my new compact disc, or I’ve created a pay-per-view exhibit which banks heavily on the works of someone else, I owe them something for contributing to my creative effort. Unless I do, I’m taking credit for their creative work. But on-hold music? Are you F—ING kidding me? On what planet can you show that I’m making profit from playing the likes of Neil Diamond or Captain and Tennille for an angry customer while he waits for a customer service manager. Do that to me one more time, asshole.

Ok, this is an endless debate, furthered by the claims by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) that mp3’s and other digital forms of copying music are starving the industry. They’re losing money. Well… I suppose it’s possible that it’s easier for me to obtain a copy of an album today than it was 10 years ago. I can download full discs. I can do it all day long if I wanted to. I can zip those mp3’s up and send them to friends (by the 10’s or 100’s all at once). They can send me stuff too. Sure. Legal? Nope. Moral? Nope there too. Does it happen? Yep. Has the internet, interactive media, and compression algorithms contributed? You bet. Are these things to blame? Not even close.

When I was a kid (I couldn’t have been more than 9) I wanted a “boom box” in the worst way. I’d see the older kids walking up and down the street with a boom box on their shoulders. Hey, it was the 80’s, what can I say? Most of the earlier boxes had a cassette deck and AM/FM mounted in between two enormous speakers. Some however had dual cassette decks. This gave the average Joe the ability to record a cassette. All you needed was a blank cassette.

My first boom box (knock off, of course; we Hoy’s never had the money for the real McCoy) had the dual cassette deck. It also had a switch which sped up the cassette reels, which meant I could dub a cassette (that’s 30 minutes per side) in about 4-5 minutes. Now, this feature was OBVIOUSLY designed to enable faster copying. It was a front runner for Joe Public to the internet and digital media. It’s been around for decades. Yes, mp3’s beat all in comparison to linear magnetic tape media (cassette tapes), but the concept and desire was the same: getting music without paying for it. Was the pot stirring then? Not so much. Piracy was still criminal, but no fuss was ever raised about it.

Let’s move it forward a few years… Compact discs are now the craze. Better audio quality than the cassette, more useful in that now you can skip from one song track to the next instantly and easily, and for the record company, MUCH cheaper to produce, while costing the consumer much more to own. They capitalized on us in the late 80’s and through the 90’s. Good for them; I’m a capitalist - I get it. But by embracing the new technology… by forcing it on the public and making it the defacto standard they opened a door they couldn’t close. Not only could I copy cassettes with my tape deck, I could record a CD to a cassette. The audio was better than tape-to-tape, and I could easily skip songs I didn’t like for the ones I did. It was perfect. While I still bought my share of music, I was copying more than I had before; most people were. It was at about this point the RIAA got a little disconcerted with how things are progessing. Before the end of 1993 or 1994, cassettes were all but a thing of the past. The first Windows PC’s are hitting the market, and within a year or two Windows 95  would revolutionize computing as well as the multimedia worlds.

The PC is perhaps the most profound invention in history. While the concepts of computer wasn’t new in the late 90’s, the personal computer was still pricey, and anything but a commodity. As computers did become something you might find in most households, both the RIAA and the music fans embraced the new technology. The RIAA began granting permission for certain outlets to stream music, split albums into tracks and sell them digitally over the internet, and embraced the development of new micro devices which would eventually replace the portable CD players and cassette decks. The fans obviously bought the devices and services. They also found new ways to exploit them to copy music for little or no cost.

This discussion is similar to the discussion you can have over nuclear war. On the one hand, we brought about an abrupt and decisive end to the second World War by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the other hand, we opened up the door to the world nuclear war. We can’t close that door. This is the same as the recording industry using techonology to its advantage, but not being able to stop the piracy which relies on that technology. In essence, their wounds are self-inflicted.

One last thing which contributes to the self-inflicted wounds of the above paragraph. Stop drowning us - the music fans - in garbage music. If your industry suffers, perhaps you ought to be looking inward about the sorts of things you produce. Your product is bad. I’m a classic rock fan. Of all the genres of music out there which have expired, classic rock enjoys the largest following of listeners. Why? Because rock bands from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s wrote timeless, priceless music. The replay value is huge, whereas boyband and rap garbage goes out of style when the street lights come on.

I suppose the industry has changed a bit, and for that we listeners have to accep the blame. It used to be that a band got popular because people liked their stuff. If a band sucked, they were buried on the charts, and were either never heard from again or figured out what they were doing wrong and tried again. Today, we’re told by the industry who we’re supposed to like. We’re inundated with the top 40 musicians on the radio, websites, and television to the point where even the remotely talented acts wear us out. That’s ok, because this week’s crop of shit is ready to take the place of last week’s. Since we listen to who we’re told to listen to when we’re told to listen them, we no longer have the power to say “This sucks.” and force everyone but the truly talented our of the game.

I’m saying right here and right now in this closing that I’m now assigning the majority of the blame for the current state of affairs in the music industry on the industry itself, and not on the piracy and copyright infringement bullshit they’ll have us believe. These frivilous lawsuits over a few lousy tunes are all actually pursued because the industry is doing everything it can to turn MORE profit. By the way…. Look at the profit figures by year for some of the leading record production companies out there, and you tell me if they’re hurting at all? Music today is integrated into EVERYTHING.

Remember when commericials on TV for say your Chevy truck had backing music that was written by and for Chevy? Remember when “Byyyyy Mennen” would get stuck in your head? Remember when ad agencies actually wrote these sorts of jingles for products? I sure as hell do. What happened? Why am I now watching Cadillac sell me cars accompanied by Led Zepplin music? It’s simple… Music is everywhere now. Earbuds everywhere, car stereos blasting, streaming media… etc… The recording industry is now enjoying record success; don’t let them fool you with their bullshit about losing money.