Asymmetrical Information

It might well be theft, but it's a form of theft that, short of crazy police-state action, can't really be stopped, which suggests that if the record companies don't want to go out of business, they should find a new business model.

Which amenities might those be?

I think you're wrong Jane. File sharing or not there will always be a large number of people willing to shell out hard earned cash for albums, paraphenalia, and concert tickets. It's really no different than the dire concern over audio tape, or video tape, or DATs, or DVDs, or the countless other technologies that have come down the pike and that the recording industries screamed to high heaven would utterly, utterly destroy them! And in the end every single new technology, dangerous as it may seem (or may in fact be) has made the recording industries an outright fortune, every time. The only thing that can really destroy the record industry is the recording industry itself, if they destroy the relationship with the customer (and they've been doing a fair job of trying) then the customers will seek other ways of obtaining their music without lining the pockets of those who have proven time and time again they do not have the customer's best interests at heart.

Personally I download a fair amount of music and I know a large number of people who do the same. The majority of them are, like me, simply music fans. I seek music wherever I can find it, and the internet has proven to be a good place for just that. And regardless of how much money I might save by not buying albums I can find online I continue to purchase CDs. I have more than once bought albums of music that I had entirely in MP3 format in sufficient quality to not be able to tell the difference from the CD version. Many times I have bought CDs that I had discovered I liked only through downloading the tracks previously and which I would not otherwise have bought (or enjoyed). If anything, downloading music has introduced me to new artists and caused me to spend more money on CDs than I otherwise would. Judging by my friends and acquantances my experiences are hardly unique.

Certainly there will always be people eager to get something for nothing or something for reduced price. But dormitory anecdotes aside I don't think that represents a majority of those who doanload music nor does it (on its own) represent a serious threat to the health of the music industry.

WARNING: Screed ahead.

Speaking as someone who came into college in fall 1997 just as the file sharing phenomena was beginning to arise (Napster was hugely popular in 1999-2000, when I was still witnessing filesharing first-hand in the dormitories, natch), I think you need to stop getting your info on this topic from one-sided source articles.

I don't have any links handy to back this up right now, so feel free to call me on it, but the info I have encountered in times previous indicated that file sharers account for something like 5% of the potential music market. However many CDs and DVDs that segment might buy in the absence of the file sharing option is also suspect: Personal moral views on the matter aside, actual economic damage does not occur until a file share occurs in lieu of a legally-sanctioned purchase.

This is fairly difficult to demonstrate for at least two reasons. First, easy availability nearly guarantees that persons who buy legal copies BUT ALSO have access to broadband and no qualms against downloading, are going to maintain collections larger than they otherwise would possess in the absence of that latter option. Second, many of the people who engage in 'hardcore' piracy and maintain the kind of collections described in that article are not necessarily going to go out and buy if downloading is suddenly no longer an option. There are ALWAYS ways of obtaining below-the-table for a person so inclined.

The real problem as I see it is that the record companies have gotten themselves into a bubble; they think they can continue pedaling their wares through the established formats at high prices and still see continuously rising profits -- in the middle of a recession. File sharing is the current demon they attack, but this is behavior hardly a new phenomoenon.

Every advance in musical transmission and distribution, literally since published sheet music, has been resisted by the current musical establishment as a threat to their profits, a way to undermine their intellectual property, etc. What has invariably happened -- sheet music, radio, LP, analog cassette tape, CD, etc. -- is that the new medium has actually introduced their product to a wider audience base and INCREASED their profits in the long run. This doesn't prevent tooth-and-nail fights, however (digital cassette tape, and CD-recordables prior to their being mainstreamed in computers

Presently, the music industry is tending to manufacture artists rather than finding real talent, killing off the concept of the 'single' (which -- surprise! allows a user to buy a preferred song and maybe a couple other promotional tracks for $3-5, instead of paying $17 for an entire CD they may not want), refusing to adapt its business model to target the online community, and maintaining CD prices at a level that is arguably higher than the market rate ($16-18 typical).

Multiple choice -- In light of the above, what has been the music industry response to the current decline in the industry?

(A)Seeking artists who offer greater value to justify the current cost of a CD (see also: Sarah McLachlan, who sings and writes her own music in her own style, and IMO deserves every penny she makes).

(B) Targeting the online community with attractive pay-per-download options to see IF an actual market exists for that allegedly dangerous segment.

(C) Lowering new-release CD prices by some reasonable amount -- for example, from $18 to $13 -- to see if the law of supply and demand kicks in.

(D) Attempting to legislate their right to profits through the DMCA nonsense and shills like Fritz Hollings.

I would link the questions to Tim Blair's favorite right/wrong images for a gag but frankly, I'm a very lazy man.

Sorry about that paranthetical fragment at the end of paragraph six, it should have read:

"...(digital cassette tape, and CD-recordables prior to their being mainstreamed in computers, were both killed from such paranoia)."

The fact is that sales have been declining precipitously since Napster was introduced. There is a minimum efficient scale of record production; at the point at which sales drop another, say, 20%, the industry will start to implode.

When all the bands go broke, I'll shed no tears for the leechers.

I don't download "free" music. I don't want to.

But the music companies want to charge $18 for a CD whose 650 megabytes cost $0.00 to replicate an essentially infinite number of times. They want to do this with several hundred thousand computer-savvy teenagers living on college campuses with broadband ethernet.

Lotsa luck.

They claim that the $18 prices are necessary to support "the artists". Unfortunately, it's become something of a legend just how magical their accounting practices become when an actual artist wants, you know, to get some money from music sales.

Not bright.

They argue that $18 represents "value", and that this "value" is in no way lowered by the increased ease with which data can be replicated and transferred. However, for the same value, I can get a DVD that has not only sound but an actual movie. Which one is overpriced? Which one *looks* overpriced?

So, to their amazed, slack-jawed surprise ... their current business model is failing! Imagine that.

Their innovative solution? Well, until the Democrats got nuked in the November election, it looked like they were going to have their revenant Fritz Hollings make it a felony for me to run Linux boxes of the sort I've been running for the past five years -- the non-root-holed, user-controlled kind. And despite the minor setback they've suffered, they probably won't stop trying to criminalize my daily work.

Ms. Galt, I respect your pro-market writing, and I also respect your wish for responsible behavior ... but the music companies seem to have a fricking death wish. They're trying really hard to create a constituency of people who normally would be middle-of-the-road, but now would be delighted to see the music companies implode and Jack Valenti hauled off to debtor's prison. Me, for instance.

I'd say this is evolution in action. It's ugly, of course, but there you are.

I do not buy CD's without previewing them first, usually via MP3. I hate spending $18 to find out I hate an artist, or that the one song I heard and liked is completely unlike anything else on the CD. At least 1/2 the CD's I bought this year were from artists that I had heard first via MP3, usually from a link on a blog.

The digital music genie is out of the bottle. If the music industry fails to adapt they will cease to exist. Musicians might still need the record companies if they want to become mega stars, but people like Aimee Mann are proving that you don't need the record companies to get good music out to your fans. Actually, I think the record companies are often an impediment to the production of quality music.

About 12 years ago, I tried out a service called Personics, which allowed one to buy separate tracks for less than 2 dollars apiece, assemble a collection that fit on a 60-min CrDi cassette tape which had a custom lable printed for the tape and the tape case. If the music businesses
had gone for something like this online early in the Internet game, then downloading wouldn't have become such a popular alternative. Remember how Jack Valenti screamed how the VCR would ruin the movie business? When they were able to turn around and give people what they wanted, they made money. In some music company office, someone will come up with a way to make money without forcing content on their customers as they do now.

Trying to enforce unenforceable laws will only create a culture that has widespread contempt for all law.
You have to recognize that times change. You can't stop downloads. The music industry twenty years from now will be unrecognizable from today's. That will be a good thing though.

Sorry, anony-mouse and others, but unwise or unreasonable music industry practices and pricing do not justify theft. You have no inherent right to recorded music.

You may think that the record companies would be smart to follow different strategies, lower their prices, etc., but that is up to them to decide. To argue that because CD's cost $18 it is OK to steal music is to argue that because a Mercedes costs $50 thousand it is OK to steal one.

If the price to too high to suit you, don't buy. And don't steal either.

Allow me to agree with Mr. Yomtov here, and to add that the term sharing is a rather precious bit of double-speak.

Regardless of what you think of the price charged, the truth is that if you didn't buy the music, you're not entitled to it. Like it or not, "corporate dominated" or not, the music belongs to the record company, by way of that funny legal instrument known as the contract, which the producing band signed before the song you've got corralled in that 4-meg corner of your hard drive ever saw the light of day. (That they might have changed their mind later is irrelevant -- they signed the rights over.)

Please don't insult us all by claiming that you own the CD with every song you downloaded -- if that's true, you're an idiot, wasting time and bandwidth for MP3s of questionable quality when you can simply burn a file right off the perfect copy already in your possession. (I suppose I could entertain a claim of owning a tape or LP of a song, since those aren't easily digitized.)

Note that I'm not saying that everyone who's ever pulled MP3s off Napster should have their house raided and the hard drive searched. The draconian rules and straight-out-of-a-lunatic-rant "measures" that the content providers are trying to push through Congress make my hair stand on end. All I'm saying is that the deliberately obfuscatory language used signifies quite clearly that those involved realize their guilt, at least to some degree. Yes, it's a minor crime, and maybe you feel you're being gouged, and the victims can handle the loss -- but all that is true for shoplifting, also known by its own euphemisms, such as five-finger discounting and microscale wealth redistribution. But in the end, it's all the same thing: when you download music you'd have to buy otherwise, you're stealing, and when you "share" it with someone else, you're fencing.

And if that's your thing, I'm not going to condemn you for it -- simply because I can't bring myself to give a damn. But to call yourself "sharers" -- as though you're some kind of broadband-equipped Robin Hood/Goodwill for those who can't afford to buy the latest from Ja Rule -- well, that is just altogether too much. Spare me.

These record companies made their decisions. They signed their contracts. They knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash!

"To argue that because CD's cost $18 it is OK to steal music is to argue that because a Mercedes costs $50 thousand it is OK to steal one."

Consider the following hypothetical scenario.

Somebody invents 'matter replicators' a la Star Trek. Given a 'matter replicator', it costs $50K to buy a Mercedes Benz off the car salesman's lot, but essentially $0K to make an unlimited number of copies after that.

Which suggests, to me, the following questions. In such a hypothetical world of extremely easy duplication of material objects:

What would happen to the price of Mercedes Benzes?

If the car dealers tried to keep the price at $50K, would we expect them to succeed? Why or why not?

Would such matter replicators, on the whole, be a good or bad thing? Why or why not?

Would they be automatically good for everybody, or would there be benefits for some people but costs for other people?

Would matter replicators tend to favor those who had previously been doing well under a regime in which specific configurations of matter (e.g., a Mercedes Benz) were scarce and expensive, or would they tend to disfavor those people? Would this automatically be a bad thing? Why or why not?

Would somebody replicating a Benz and giving the copy away for free be a thief?

Would somebody buying food from the supermarket, replicating it massively, and giving away the food for free be a thief?

Would the latter sort of theft harm the farm and dairy industries? Would this be illegal? Would it be immoral?

If, inexplicably, an epidemic of "pirated" automobile copies arose, would we see legal efforts to ban 'unregulated' matter replication?

Would we see arguments that nobody has a "right" to replicated copies of automobiles, food, etc.?

Would the arguments be frustratingly ineffective?

Would the pre-replicator entrenched interests seek to "solve" the replicator problem by outlawing replicators rather than revising their business models?

Do laws to roll back the tide *ever* work?

By now I'm sure I've got a lot of people angry at me. However, please consider the following:

While matter replication is science fiction, so was *data* replication 50 years ago. We are living in the science fiction of 1952. It is thus not entirely obvious that business models devised for 1952 can be expected to remain completely intact in 2002.

Also, while matter replication's science fiction now, it's not at all obvious that it always will be. If nanotechnology ever actually works, or if we have certain advances in our ability to manipulate matter at the level of quantum information transfer, we may yet see libertarians gnashing their teeth at a world in which the miracle of the loaves and the fishes is totally practical -- but illegal!

Jane,

According to the RIAA (http://www.riaa.com/pdf/year_end_2000.pdf), CD sales increased in quantity by about 10% in 1998 and 1999. The increase in CD sales by dollar amount was similar. Only after Napster was essentially destroyed (and the country recessed), has CD sales increased by less than this (around 3% in dollars).

The Recording Industry has shown tremendous decreases in sales of cassettes and vinyl (they still sell vinyl?) as well as CD Singles, though from what I understand, some of that is by choice of the Recording Industry (fewer CD Singles manufactured).

Unless you believe that Napster cut into sales of cassettes and vinyl and not CD's, it's hard to argue that Napster is hurting the recording industry.

The market for recorded music is not going to vanish. Bands and CD players and the like are not going to vanish. If the RIAA businesses all fail, something will replace them. Perhaps this something will be better. It is unlikely to be worse.

BTW, I hardly listen to any music except the radio in my car and I've downloaded about four mp3's off the Internet, total. For whatever that's worth.

Bolie IV

I think that the record companies (in collusion with Clear Channel and the rest of the radio cartel) are doing a fine job of putting themselves out of business. Quite frankly, the product that they push is crap.

They're using the cover of the dreaded peer-to-peer networks to cover the fact that 1) sales are going down because no-one wants to buy the shit that they're putting out, and 2) the entire economy is in a downturn, and you'd expect CD sales to go down when there's less discretionary income floating around.

You might want to look at Janis Ian's site for an artist's view (not a record company's view): http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html

Well, free music on the net is hardly free. Not these days I think anyways. Napster and Audiogalaxy were really the exceptions, but are down now. All that's left is p2p stuff like gnutella. Gnutella costs a lot of time and effort to potential mp3 pirate.

Personally, I found the process entirely unfriendly. The first annoyance is not the search itself, it's the software, all of the gnutella clients I've heard of, use some kind of spy or ad-ware. Removing them with ad-aware crashes the client. It'd be fine with an ad in by the search window, but Gator just takes over your entire system.

Perhaps my music tastes are entirely off color, but searching for anything takes what seems an eternity; often times you have to discard the song title and instead try artist search. Ok, so you get one hit. You try downloading. No Go. What's wrong? The client at the other end (with the mp3) setup an upload limit of 1, so you're somewhere at number 264. After some half an hour that client goes link dead, too bad. You search again, this time the download starts, but at .045k sec. Clearly there is this guy in Pakistan with a really bad 14.4 connection and he's entire bandwidth is swapped with fake nude Brittany spears pics coming in. That must be it. After an hour he goes link-dead. You try this for a couple of days and think 'is this really worth $17.99?(cost of average cd) I must spend atleast 5-7 hours chasing down one album, and that is if I'm lucky'.

I don't know if that's really the common experience, I'm not a full time pirate, but I know some. There are other channels, but they are mostly usable by distributors, the kind described in the LA Time story. The amount of time and skill that go into it are not for the weak of heart. These guys don't really search for anything particular, they just download stuff in bulk. A lot of that is done on Hotline. Regular folk, the leeches, often are denied access because the servers setup complex trading rules. For example, do download a film you have to upload another film, and not just any, the ones listed in the Requests directory. The there's a 2-3 day turn around to when you're granted an account.

Now as for the movies, you can forget about that without a broadband connection. Most films are cut up into 2 or 3 separate files, each some 600mb in size. With a really good connection on both ends, you might get a film per day, and that's really a stretch.

I haven't looked up the figures for the Record sales and how they're affected by file sharing. I don't think there's much impact. I'm not sure about the legalities of internet radio, but I think the concept from an argument standpoint of say promoting new bands or finding new artists and then going out and buying their cds clearly has more weight. When you're using Gnutella or such, you are searching for particulars, there's no search parameter for funky or jazzy, nor can you cross reference the stuff you like in case you might find something else. You are mainly concentrating on finding something you already know of. With a radio station, you don't tune in for one particular artist, but liking the music, you listen more and gradually discover the new artists that DJs somewhere out there pick. That's been the case with me, I, on average, switch between about 5 different shoutcast stations, all got me to buy cds and listen to music I would never (in a thousand years) otherwise have heard. Outside of Beasty Boys, in terms of rap, you could have colored me clueless, but I'm discovering new stuff all the time. I ordered tons of Country and Latin music as well. Just obscure artists, finding their way into my headphones.

I have trouble with the word “theft” in regards to file sharing. To me, “theft” indicates someone being deprived of a purchased service or product. If I see a CD in an unlocked car, open the door and take the disc, that’s theft. The car owner returns and no longer has his CD, I am depriving him of his property. Now, let’s say that I take that CD and quickly put in my laptop and copy off the tracks, put the CD back in the car and walk away. The car owner comes back to find his CD right where he left it and he drives away. Is that “theft”? If so, who is being deprived of a product or service?

You may say that the record company is a victim of “theft” in the above case because my actions result in a lost sale. What if I had absolutely no interest in buying that CD? Is listening to the radio “theft”? I’m not paying to hear a particular song on the radio. If that satisfies my craving for that particular song, who is losing out?

What if I borrow a book from the library? Couldn’t the author and publisher cry foul and say that the library is taking money out their pockets by encouraging people to read it for free instead of paying for the privilege? What if I made a photocopy of that book?

Let’s say I videotape a show on the Discovery Channel to watch at a later date. At the end there is a short message saying that I can order a VHS copy of the show I just watched for twenty dollars. Should I immediately erase the tape I just watched or quickly order the twenty dollar version to avoid being guilty of a crime?

I agree that the recording industry has a huge problem on their hands with file sharing. It may lead to their destruction. I don’t know how this will effect recording artists. Perhaps CD’s will become nothing more than free marketing gimmicks to promote concerts. It’s now possible to record and produce a professional quality CD in your basement without any help from a record company. Promotion also can be accomplished by the band themselves via websites.

I believe that personal technology is making record companies superfluous and unnecessary.

Megan, as others have said, you need to distinguish between 'theft' which involves depriving someone of their property, and 'copyright violation' where the 'loss' is an opportunity cost. We do need ot come up with a new way to have a viable marketplace with ubiquitous digital copying. I have defined what I think is a workable and fair market solution over at http://mediagora.com and I'd love to hear your views on it.
As for the 'sales decline', the most thorough survey I have seen is by Stan Liebowitz:
http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/knowledge_goods/records.pdf

This shows that US per capita album sales have dipped, but form a remarkable historic high. They are now back to 1995 levels. Selling unrestricted digital fiels online shoudl be a huge opportunity for incremental revenue, with zero cost of goods and no distributors to pay.

The reasoning you will hear from the average file sharing fanatic is completely ridiculous and predictable but most importantly it is irrelevant. As long as there isn't an effective and practical system that sustains the current business model, it will fall or change. The industry deserves and will get any reasonable support from the legal system that it requests.

Blaming the file sharers themselves is innaccurate (it's the technology), and accusing people of whining is a very petty insult.

I don't think the record companies are losing all the money they're whining about because of downloading. I think they're losing money because the vast majority of their products these days are garbage.

Up until three or four years ago, I bought at least a couple of dozen CDs a year, roughly half of those new releases (and many. many more catalog titles a year during the early to mid 90's; at this point, though, I have most of what I want). More recently, I haven't bought more than one or two discs a year, and I'm not downloading instead--I just don't want much of anything that's being released, whether I have to pay for it or not.

Radio is worthless (thanks, CrapChannel) for finding anything decent to listen to, and mining downloads for new music is frustrating to the point of being pointless. I think the record companies and radio conglomerates are doing a fine job of putting themselves out of business with little help from the downloaders...

So, Mr. Yomtov and E. Nough, if I listen to a friend's album, or I hear an album at a party, or I hear the bass track of an album while a neighbor plays it loudly then I'm "stealing it" unless I own it before hand?

First and foremost, my listening to an artist's music without purchasing the album does not directly deprive the artist, the producer, or anyone else involved in the making of the album of any profit. Only when I would otherwise purchase an album but do not would that constitute a loss of profit. Otherwise the issue comes down to whether I have a "right" to listen to an album I have not yet purchased, which is a much different and a much more complicated question. Frankly, if I am in any way more inclined to purchase an album after downloading and listening to it then that represents, on average, a profit to the artist for every album I download and continue to listen to. Even if I purchased only 1/10th of the music I listen to. As it happens I'm much more likely to purchase the music I download than that. My downloading music translates directly into money in the pockets of the artists and their producers that I listen to. I think of music "sharing" as something akin to a really good radio station. Music sharing demonstrates the health of the music industry, if the recording industries were intelligent they would embrace it and restructure their business plans accordingly.

I think one element needs to be added to the discussion and that is the importance of network effects in the distribution of music. I am in my 30s and I rarely trade albums with my friends these days but when I was in my teens I did it all the time. It's generally hard for me to find out about new bands and new albums these days. A couple of comments that flow from these observations:

1) No wonder college students are always mentioned in connection to file sharing. It isn't just the infrastructure these students can access; they also have a social and cultural atmosphere that supports filesharing. Does this process continue after graduation? It's not a sure thing.

2) The record companies may be losing sales due to downloading -- my information indicates that it isn't -- but they're also losing money because I think millions of music fans are in my position, where they simply can't/don't find out about new music. Internet radio may be a promising remedy for that.

Interesting discussion. Thanks.

Instead of adapting to and taking advantage of new technology, the record companies are trying to use the strong arm of the law to ban any and all software that might be used for illegal recordings, AND introduce hardware that limits consumer options. Oh look, my new CD won't play on my computer, or even on my cheap CD player, because the recording industry used crappy theft protection.

I don't download MP3's because I have a ridiculously law-abiding personality, but I have no sympathy for the record companies, who are unwilling to give consumers what they want.

poo!

Property is theft!

Because a twenty story apartment doesn't naturally cost anyone anything. And it's like a tree. anyone can live in it.

Mmmmm, amenities like the life size cardboard cutouts of the stars!

Oh, well, I understand your point, but I truly hate going to blockbuster. Me, I download music AND I buy my CDs used.

The key thing is to focus on payment enablement rather than copy prevention.

There is an excellent explication of these issues in chapter 7 of Stan Liebowitz's recent book, "Re-Thinking the Network Economy".

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0814406491/qid=1038936759/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-9178889-7616813?v=glance&s=books

The perfect stocking stuffer for that economist on your Christmas list.

This issue can be made into baser stuff, beyond record companies or digital technology - especially by virtue of the fact that college campuses appear to be the most brazen sources of this soft-serve theft. How long has it been since some of us went away to "higher education"? Not five years for myself, and the impression I took away is still fresh: Pinocchio, Pleasure Island.

An uneven reward-to-work split is what we struggle against from childhood to our early twenties (those of us who do attempt to defeat it). College is the last frontier before we've no excuse for immaturity, and is a pinnacle of sorts; combining the last vestiges of youthful freedom with a parental absence and unbelievably broad access to all sorts of material. No rules, yet gobs of trouble and loot to seize.

The digital arena simply casts new veneer onto an age-old materialist conflict. The most interesting phenomenon I noticed was the divide between how acquaintances used their broadband access. Some kids, like myself, were happy with our modest (physical, purchased) music collections and enjoyed what we did possess to the fullest; others literally stuffed their hard drive with MP3s. Hundreds, thousands. Now, what really struck me was that most of these ripped songs would go unlistened to - of greater importance was that the student had appropriated the files for possession rather than an attempt at any practicality, economy or musical familiarity.

As JT pondered, it's my guess that our friends and neighbors recede from mad downloading and bootlegging as they assume greater and greater responsibility and financial wherewithal; that people can gradually appreciate a transaction and the pride of legal ownership. Keeping this in mind, a drop in CD prices would benefit sales to those who preferred to buy in the first place. It's not unlike computer program piracy or, if you can stomach a nice, long analogy, drug use - either you do or you don't. My response to the Big Four's exhorbitant pricing is simply to pick and choose albums that I purchase or else buy them used, so if mainstream-market albums became reasonable I'd respond by shopping more often. The bootlegging community - which I suspect will remain on the lower rungs of age and experience - those will continue to scramble about, trading hacked music.

Is downloading music "theft" even if you wouldn't otherwise buy it? Yes. Theft does not require another person be harmed, it just requires that you use someone's property rights without just compensation. For example, if you come into my backyard and swim in my swimming pool (without permission) and then leave without damaging my property, have I been harmed? No, but you have "stolen" the use of my property. Only I have the right to determine who will use my backyard and by trespassing you have stolen that portion of my property right.

Borrowing a book from the library is not theft (purchasing a book does not grant permission for it to be read only once or only by one person). Copying the book (whether by machine or by hand) is theft -- whether the author or publisher of the book would make more money by allowing the book to be copied does NOT change this fact. Allowing your friends to listen to your music CD is not theft (again, the purchase of the CD allows the owner to let it be played over and over again in non-comercial venues). Burning multiple copies of the CD and giving it to friends is theft. If a matter duplicator existed, copying a car would be theft. The car company spent a lot of time and effort designing the car and has the right to prevent others from using its design. (The matter duplicator would reduce the costs of production, which would allow others to sell similar cars for less money -- which would cause the price for all cars to fall, but that would not make it OK to duplicate a particular car without permission.)

We can have a good discussion about whether or not such a theft (whether we are talking about the use of my pool or the downloading of music)should be against the law. We could even have a profitable examination of how "serious" the "crime" of downloading music ought to be -- is it like jay walking or something more serious. But playing semantic games to deny that downloading music is anything but theft seems pointless.

Stan Liebowitz in his new book points out that the invention of the photocopier proved a boon to those whose works were most copied.

He cites: Edmund W. Kitch, "Elementary and Persistent Errors in the Economic Analysis of Intellectual Property", Vanderbilt Law Review 53 (November 2000): 1727.

The reasons for this being that publishers were (1) able to indirectly appropriate the additional value created by photocopying, and (2) the convenience of being able to make copies was so great (among academics) that the market for journals increased relative to that for books.

Stan also has the best explanation of what happened in the Napster case that I've read.

Sheesh. I have no love for any of the major antagonist in this absurd economic melodrama.

1. Music Companies. The biggies are venal, without doubt. Inflexible and, worse, lazy. Every music-company rep I've ever met has been a shallow wanna-be hipster, intent on basking in the reflected glow of someone else's fame. "Work" is a strange combination of adulation and theft, accomplished by flattering the fame-producers while siphoning as much revenue as possible w/o the artist noticing. These folks are identical and interchangeable, from the lackies hovering around super-stars to those malingering at lower levels, hoping to ensnare "emerging talent". Glom onto the right "talent" & you may rocket to the top with them. The talent they pick is invariably awful; their aesthetic antennae are attuned to what will reach smash-hit status on the radio; all else gets tuned out. And, as I said, lazy. Having already learned to maximally exploit the system with a minimum of effort, any systemic disruption incurrs mighty resistance.

2. The "Artists". Many are simply the dreadful offspring of the music bizzy's greed. The pop music super-structure creates a negative feedback loop. As the ingredients of a radio hit are further refined via modern marketing methods, the result is fresh "talent" that perfectly mimics the vibrations to which the music bizzy's aesthetic antennae are tuned; that is, the vibrations of sonic crud. Others simply want fame, whether as rocker, rapper, crooner, whatever, and are willing to do what the bizzy tells them to get it. Many other are just musical journeymen. Lots of people are born with a reasonable amount of musical talent. It's a common human facility. However, this in no way means they have taste. Kenny G, for instance, is a technically impressive musician with fairly massive chops. He employs this facility to generate aural shit. Sold his soul? Nope. He's just shallow. Taken together, all these types are perfect revenue cows for the bizzy. (Actually, the Kenny G's I have no beef with. They are lamentable, but straightforward.)

3. The Fans: Many, of course, are victims of the same negative feedback loop described above. Exposed to unending loops of craptastic music, they develop a taste for it. Many others, though, are the untalented siblings of the Kenny G's. They have no innate musical ability, but they do have the innate human appreciation for music. Any old recognizable crap will do, so long as it doesn't get too weird on them. That's because they don't NEED music, it's just nice to have around. Doesn't matter if the musician is a genius or a moron. (I don't have a beef with these folks either.)

4. The File-sharing musician: (Yes. They ARE whining, but so are the music bizzys.) They are committing some sort of theft, obscured though it may be by modern replication techniques. It doesn't matter that the internet is the setting for the crime--the 'net is a nifty wonderland but it doesn't suspend the basic rules. If you find yourself constructing elaborate explanations about why file sharing isn't theft, then what you're doing probably is theft. An elaborate deception is necessary to obscure a simple truth.

Further, no one deserves the music. It isn't a natural-born right. Your life will not curl up and get all frowny because you can't access cheap or free music. Maybe it's unfair that the music biz charges $18 per CD, and for junk at that, but it's no injustice. Think of this: in 1900 the only way you could hear music was to either make it yourself or seek out someone who could. Some file-sharing defenders seem to think that pop music is some sort of immutable law of existence, that it's so integral to their identities that heck it ought to be federally subsidized or handed out like surplus cheese.

All that said, I don't care if people keep pirating music, the music biz collapses, and another CD of original material doesn't get burned for 50 years. Let it happen!! It won't be some cosmic tragedy. Music will still happen; people will make it and some sort of distribution system will arise. And the replacement could hardly be worse that what we've got. If the music companies prove to be to stupidly inflexible as to scuttle the industry, great. That is infinately preferable to instituting some sort of draconian technological anti-theft superstructure that will compromise everybody. The music biz certainly isn't worth that!!

I, as well, think that file sharing is going to put at least a few record companies out of business.

But not Napster-type sharing. It's practically defunct. How many people who complain about file downloading have actually tried to find an mp3 in the recent past? I'll go ahead and paint myself as a pinko and tell you: it's nigh impossible. Especially if you don't want to download software that's known to siphon money off of amazon (one company everybody loves!).

I'm talking about artists self-promoting online. When they start being able to book their own concerts based upon online word of mouth and downloadable tracks, the record companies will take a step towards the inevitable hole. I once heard someone in favor of file sharing say that mp3 downloads encourages removal of "the suck factor" from popular music. Well, anything that culls the industry for quality's sake is going to have an adverse affect on pricing for the consumer. But as a music nut, I have a hard time not being excited about the prospect...

Those remarks aside, I'm also skeptical of any big changes. The 80's college student had a glove compartment full of recorded cassette tapes; the 90's college student had a computer full of mp3's. If the industry is suffering, it's not because of the technology. It might be because they've willingly allowed themselves to be painted as the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Robin,

“So, Mr. Yomtov and E. Nough, if I listen to a friend's album, or I hear an album at a party, or I hear the bass track of an album while a neighbor plays it loudly then I'm "stealing it" unless I own it before hand?”

No. The person playing it has the right to do so, and to let others listen.

“First and foremost, my listening to an artist's music without purchasing the album does not directly deprive the artist, the producer, or anyone else involved in the making of the album of any profit. Only when I would otherwise purchase an album but do not would that constitute a loss of profit.”

Nonsense. First of all, as David Walser points out, you have no right to use my property without my permission, regardless of the degree of economic damage you do or do not cause. Second, it is impossible to know exactly what would have happened without file-sharing. It is ludicrous to say, “I wouldn’t have paid for this CD, so no harm done.” If you download lots of music, you probably would have bought some of it. It may be hard or impossible to say exactly which items, but that doesn’t mean none. So someone is hurt, even if we don’t know exactly who. Third, if you let your friend copy your stolen music, how do you know she wouldn’t have bought the CD? Finally, let me point out, in response to Kevin, that opportunity costs are not to be shrugged off; all costs are opportunity costs.

“Otherwise the issue comes down to whether I have a "right" to listen to an album I have not yet purchased, which is a much different and a much more complicated question. “

Nothing complicated about it. You have a right to listen to it if someone who legitimately owns it, a friend, a radio station, etc. lets you listen.

“Frankly, if I am in any way more inclined to purchase an album after downloading and listening to it then that represents, on average, a profit to the artist for every album I download and continue to listen to. Even if I purchased only 1/10th of the music I listen to. As it happens I'm much more likely to purchase the music I download than that. My downloading music translates directly into money in the pockets of the artists and their producers that I listen to. I think of music "sharing" as something akin to a really good radio station. Music sharing demonstrates the health of the music industry, if the recording industries were intelligent they would embrace it and restructure their business plans accordingly.”

You are confusing the issue. It doesn’t matter whether you think your actions benefit the music industry. It doesn’t even matter if you’re correct. It’s their property and their business. The decisions are theirs to make. Suppose you go into a store and steal some clothes. Would you claim that you weren’t really shoplifting because you’re so popular and cool that by wearing these clothes you actually benefit the store? Suppose you come to my house and steal one of my CD’s – one I never listen to – and leave me a nickel in payment. Would you claim that that was OK because I was really better off? No.

It is truly wearisome to hear it repeated that foolish practices by the music industry justify stealing their property. Going on vacation and leaving my doors open would be foolish behavior, and could easily lead to my home being burglarized. But that doesn’t absolve the burglar of his crime.

Ewin, not only have they allowed themselves to be painted as the sheriff, they are now endeavoring to live up to that caricature. This is most likely a case of the proposed cure (stringent copy protection, DMCA, et al) being much worse than the problem.

Bernard Yomtov >> "It is truly wearisome to hear it repeated that foolish practices by the music industry justify stealing their property. Going on vacation and leaving my doors open would be foolish behavior, and could easily lead to my home being burglarized. But that doesn’t absolve the burglar of his crime."

It is equally wearisome to hear the music industry says that they should be able to violate my fair use rights to protect their outdated business practices because they're too lazy to adapt. The fact that some people are thieves does not give them license to treat everyone as a thief.

Thieves and children will always find a way to steal. Middle class adults will continue to pay for those services we value.

But nothing gives corporate interests the right to use their power to steal my rights by crippling my computers or creating restrictive legislation.

Their attempt to do so gives me the right to defend my rights. Maybe not stealing, but certainly boycott and speaking out, and wishing and encouraging their demise in other legal ways.

"If a matter duplicator existed, copying a car would be theft. The car company spent a lot of time and effort designing the car and has the right to prevent others from using its design."

What about my question about what would happen if it kept trying to charge pre-replicator prices?

That's really the core issue here, as far as I can tell -- the music companies now have the ability to replicate music just as inexpensively as the teenagers on college campuses do, but, they still feel magically entitled to those wacky $18/CD prices. It isn't working.

It doesn't help matters that the music companies are very difficult not to despise. The musicians they most heavily promote are, well, not exactly competitive with Mozart. Conversely, they don't seem to treat most non-Britney-Spears musicians very well.

And their recent attempt to buy passage of the CBDTPA ... is a profound "occasion of sin" for me, because it seriously tempts me to want them dead and in Hell, which is not a charitable thing to want.

Erich - "'If a matter duplicator existed, copying a car would be theft. The car company spent a lot of time and effort designing the car and has the right to prevent others from using its design.'

What about my question about what would happen if it kept trying to charge pre-replicator prices?"

If the car company continued to try and charge pre-replicator prices, another car company would offer a substantially similar car for far less money. Most consumers would opt for the lower priced car while some might opt for the status of the higher priced one. At some point, the first car company will need to recognize the world has changed and either adapt or fail.

The same is true for music companies. Newer technologies allow music to be produced and distributed more efficiently than in the past. You may have to pay a premium to hear Kenny G, but many consumers might be willing to listen to "Kenny H" (who might be just as good or better than the original) at half price.

Having said that, if a music company tried to charge $18,000 (instead of $18)for a CD, even this outrageously high price would not justify copying the CD without permission. The fact one can get away with downloading music for free does not make it right or ethical to do so. Neither does the fact the industry is going to have to change anyway justify abrogating the industry's rights.

What bothers me about all of this is the attitude that, because of abuses of the music companies, morality all but demands the downloading of music. In the history of human activity, pirating music doesn't seem to rate as one of our greater sins -- but its not a virtuous activity either.

"Having said that, if a music company tried to charge $18,000 (instead of $18)for a CD, even this outrageously high price would not justify copying the CD without permission."

If you're *stupid* enough to try charging $18K for something whose cost of replication is $1e-06K, it seems to me to be a practical certainty that you're going to fail.

And it seems to me that, if you're sane, and if you're in a business that's gotten used to charging $$$$ for something that's just become incredibly easy to replicate, you would be well advised to try to alter your behavior to accomodate this harsh reality. (The alternative, as far as I can tell, is to jump off the cliff while huffing and puffing that gravity has no "right" to splatter you.)

So much for the objective universe we all reluctantly inhabit. As for legality and morality: somebody else has already pointed out that intellectual property is not equivalent to material property, and that federal copyright was not, originally, intended to be "70 years + lifetime" in duration. Perhaps the founders of the United States understood something that the Disney Corporation doesn't?

And trying to "solve" the problem with the CBDTPA would be pathetic if it weren't infuriating.

Erich,

So you're saying that if copyright period was rolled back to a more reasonable 10 years, you'd restrict your file sharing. Hope you like metal bands!

Also, I'd like to hear your chain of reasoning whereby if someone commits a stupid act, like selling a CD for 18k, you're allowed to steal it. Do you steal from mentally imparied people as well?

Wonder if the matter replicator can create a moral compass?

"So you're saying that if copyright period was rolled back to a more reasonable 10 years, you'd restrict your file sharing. Hope you like metal bands!"

Please read my first post on this thread. I in fact have *no* file sharing to restrict. I don't download (or 'share') music files and don't want to -- but I *do* work on an operating system that the music industry has tried to outlaw. That gives me a certain perspective on the whole wretched situation.

"Also, I'd like to hear your chain of reasoning whereby if someone commits a stupid act, like selling a CD for 18k, you're allowed to steal it."

It is not a question of what I myself may do or what I myself am "allowed" to do. It is a question of what, given the facts of general human nature, is simply STUPID in the main. In general, if you try to charge $18K for a CD that people have the ability to electronically replicate for $0K, you're an idiot. No matter how angry that makes you, it remains a hard fact of this dreary world that stupidity is always a capital crime, sentence sometimes suspended.

Me, personally, if I see some bozo trying to charge $18K for a CD, I'll just ignore them. But I'm an abnormally nice guy. Most people will cheerfully file-share the bozo into nonexistence.

"Do you steal from mentally imparied people as well?"

I never steal from mentally impaired people, but have no compunction about injuring mentally "imparied" people.

"Wonder if the matter replicator can create a moral compass?"

Morality is exactly where it was before. We're a fallen race. We're neither as good as we'd like to think we are, nor bad enough to become comfortably content with evil.

But some of us do seem to be getting a big high from screaming self-righteousness, I will say.

Look, I'm doing you a favor: I'm offering you a free clue. I'm pointing out to you that if you find *this* situation painful, it could in fact get a lot worse if and when we develop the ability to effortlessly replicate material objects in the way that we can currently replicate pure information.

Now, you can whine and complain about how evil I am for pointing out that radical changes in technology *cannot* leave norms of behavior entirely unchanged -- or you can get a grip on yourself and try to boggle at the idea that what was reasonable and workable in 1902 may not be still reasonable and workable in 2002.

Your are not the only one.

I believe that so-called "file sharing" is both theft *and* socialism, no matter how much those who benefit by it (in other words, rip off people more creative than themselves) would like to rationalize it. There's no sharing involved, it's just people reaching through a broken store window and grabbing whatever they can. If they occasionally hand some music to the person in the mob behind them, does that make it any less theft? It's a wonder that musicians still want to perform at all...

i am cool

i am cool

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I am shop owner of audio Cd car tape in USA. And i
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was just begin told about your reccently from one of my bussiness partners.
Anyway i will like to order some 15 piecies of audio cd car tape and i want to know, if you ship inside U.s.a.
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Your regards.........Md. John Williams

Hello,
I am shop owner of audio Cd car tape in USA. And i
used to order my product from europe and asia.But i
was just begin told about your reccently from one of my bussiness partners.
Anyway i will like to order some 15 piecies of audio cd car tape and i want to know, if you ship inside U.s.a.
please reply with feed back and i will provide you with my credit cards details and shipping address for the purchased.Thank you
Your regards.........Md. John Williams

Hello,
I am shop owner of audio Cd car tape in USA. And i
used to order my product from europe and asia.But i
was just begin told about your reccently from one of my bussiness partners.
Anyway i will like to order some 15 piecies of audio cd car tape and i want to know, if you ship inside U.s.a.
please reply with feed back and i will provide you with my credit cards details and shipping address for the purchased.Thank you
Your regards.........Md. John Williams

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