The Music or the Misery

For as long as there has been music, there have been pirates. But really, what effect, if any, does piracy have on an industry that has been in existence for so long and as of yet has shown no serious detriment suffered? Is piracy really that bad for the music industry? What, exactly, is piracy? How can the industry successfully combat what it perceives as its greatest threat?

Piracy is said to be the unauthorized and illegal infringement of the copyright on audio-visual material. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, music piracy “generally refers to the illegal duplication and distribution of sound recordings”. The most common perception of music piracy in modern times is that of peer to peer (P2P) hared networks, where music is uploaded and shared onto the internet in clear violation of copyright regimes the world over. Part of the music culture is sharing, and P2P software is essentially just that. So, from this, the question must be asked is there a decline in the music industry, and how much effect does piracy and peer to peer sharing has on the industry?

The truth is, the music industry is not dying; it is thriving. The Recording Industry Association of America claims that the world music market is estimated at $40 billion, and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry puts it at $32 billion, neither a figure to scoff at. The perceived mortality of the music industry belies its ability to both survive the moral panics it itself creates. Media moral panics or a reaction by a group of people based on an exaggerated opinion that a certain action, group or idea is detrimental to society. This kind of moral panic is commonplace. The music industry has survived the copying of cassettes and the Napster fiasco – it can survive piracy.

As a result of the so-called “death of the music industry”, the industry itself has developed a new revenue model to help combat what many see as its decline. While compact disc album sales are still strong, the singles of physical CDs have declined drastically in comparison to their digital counterparts, to the financial damage of neither medium. Ones sales are decreasing, ones are increasing. This new emphasis on the digital single as opposed to the physical single is one that will serve the music industry well as a whole. The digital single is the natural successor to the physical single, and this new market is replacing the previous one, not taking away from it. Similar arguments were made when cassettes replaced vinyl records, when CDs replaced cassettes and when DVDs replaced VHS. This is not the death of an industry; it is their rebirth in a new medium.

The problem, however, with this new revenue model for a new medium is that it does not take into account the stringent security measures put in place by corporations to protect their product. This Digital Rights Management system, despite being draconian in nature, is designed to ensure that only the user that purchases the product has access to it. In actuality, this puts more and more limits on the rights on the individual to do whatever they want with their legitimate purpose, driving many audiophiles to download music just to be able to have that freedom. With such severe limitations placed on rights of digital music owners, listening to music has now become a privilege.

In fact, because of DRM, it seems all digital music listeners are infringing on the copyright of music corporations. Lemi Baruh discusses the development of a “permissions culture” where “the usage limits imposed by the changes in the legal and the technological infrastructure that governs use of digitized music creates an environment within which music enthusiasts will be stripped of their already limited ability to determine and/or anticipate which types of content use are "kosher." Music piracy does not cost the music industry any money, and a large majority of case, actually leads to legal sales of their product. However, Baruh states that “every time an individual purchases a CD or downloads a song from a different online store, a new set of standards regarding appropriate uses of content are presented to her. Buying cultural products and buying software and hardware to consume cultural products increasingly resemble going through an airport security check point when the terror-alert level is orange. You never know what will prompt alarms. As a result, every [end] user will increasingly wonder whether she is doing something wrong.” However, if a person downloads, listens to and likes a song, it is possible that he or she might seek out the band and legally purchase their CD. Stranger things have happened.

What really terrifies the music industry as a whole is that no matter what, the music will live on. With the advent of the internet, it is possible for artists and bands to upload their music and bypass the middle-men. No more agents, publishers, distributors, promoters and recorders. The music goes straight from the composer to the listener, and the industry gets no slice of the action, to their financial detriment. The industry, while acting in the interests of self preservation, has not acted in the interests of its customers, driving many of them away in droves over their staggering overreaction to the perceived threat of music piracy and copyright infringements. It is not enough that they seek to protect their own investment; they need to offer the consumer a reason to stick by them while they weather the storm they themselves have created to justify this draconian regime.