Expensive songs!

In what appeared to be a rather shocking move, the US Supreme Court declined yesterday to hear an appeal by a certain Joel Tenenbaum, an admitted (mini)-music pirate who had been sued by a record industry conglomerate, headed by Sony BMG, and which included Warner Brothers and Atlantic Records among others. What is not contested is that in 2003, while a 20 year old maths and physics student, Tenenbaum downloaded and shared a rather small quantity of songs, 31 in total, from a file-sharing site. After a lengthy drawn out period of legal wrangling, the bottom line was that in 2007 the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) sued him for copyright infringement, and in 2009, a jury of his "peers" ruled against him, with an outrageous penalty of some $675,000. 

It goes without saying that Mr. Tenenbaum is hardly unique: copying music "illegally" is something that kids have been doing for decades. The technology has always been there to do so, with ease! For example, in the good old-bad old days, copying cassettes with pre-recorded music on them to blank cassettes was always possible with two cassette decks, and in fact, ghetto blasters started hitting the stores that had side-by-side decks that were an explicit temptation to copy music. Recording from vinyl onto cassettes was a given when Walkmans appeared on the marketplace, because it allowed music lovers to carry their vinyl around with them, when walking, running or shopping. Even when CDs first appeared on the market and there was a magic and mystery inherent in them, it was stated that there was a loud noise that would appear if you tried to record from a music CD to a blank, and initially the technology did not exist to readily record onto a CD. But the digital age soon put an end to that, when everyone found out it was just a digital code that could be transferred onto your computer, and simply pasted onto a blank disc with no fancy recording equipment needed. Then the internet took over the world, and we didn't even have to find someone who had the CDs we wanted; there were sites like Napster, Kazaa etc. that had all the music you wanted, for download and sharing with friends. But the record companies were in free fall due to the digital age, and like all industries that previously gorged on the fat of the land, and suddenly found themselves left behind by technology and trends, they cried out in pain. That pain simply had to be transferred onto someone else. It's not that much different from the publishing industry that similarly resents the digital age of self-publishing, to the extent that many companies allegedly conspired with Apple to price-fix e-books to preserve at least some of their dwindling bottom lines. Nobody was saving money for the rainy day that came, they spent it all like there was no tomorrow. Now that tomorrow has come and we aren't making the same money, find someone to blame, and make them pay. 

Now of course, copyright exists for a reason, and protection of an artist's copyrighted material is a definite legal issue, and one which should not disappear. I think we all can agree on that. But it is clear that musicians do diverge on the extent to which they want those rights protected. One might imagine that people align along generational lines: older aligns with the record companies, younger aligns more with the rights of kids to share music. I don't think that is truly the case, and I often hear extremely different opinions on it from people from the same age group or background. I do remember hearing a very sober take on it while listening to an interview with Kid Rock, who was asked how he felt about his music being downloaded/shared, in relation to the rather rabid actions of Metallica in preventing any aspect of their brand from being used without their consent. His answer was rather illuminating, I find: "You know, man, I'm already fucking rich so why would I care about some kid in a small town in America downloading my music, I say good luck to 'em!" It's a very cool take on a very touchy subject, and one that clearly differentiates greed from copyright law. But it's also a slippery slope, and if it's taken too lightly, then all-out war against the rights of record companies and artists would ensue. Some may argue that this has already happened. But, I agree with Tenenbaum also, that in general, people who share music with their friends, and even downloaded some music, are people who are sufficiently into music that they also buy it, and often do so after hearing a few downloaded tracks. It's the age we live in. Music fans do contribute to artist wealth by legitimate purchases, even if as well, they get some music for free. 

The bottom line is that, yes, the industry and its lawyers needed to send out a message that it would not tolerate blatant copyright infringement. For sure, they got the kind of shock-and-awe penalty they wanted, to the tune of roughly $22,000 per song. But come on, a guy who only recently graduated from Boston University with a PhD  in physics is going to have to declare bankruptcy if the total of $675,000 stands. Here's my creative solution. The fine stands, and will serve as a great deterrent to others who consider trying to blatantly pirate copyrighted music. But in that list of 31 songs were some extremely rich and uber-successful music stars, who got rich out of kids like Tenenbaum buying their music. So, in a one-time gesture of solidarity with someone who is their fan, why don't the 20 or so individual artists/groups involved each cough up a measly (for them) $30,000 and pay this kid's fine for him, quietly and out of the spotlight? 

Yes, they don't need to do it. But that does not mean it's not the right thing to do. Hitting a 20 year old kid with a life-changing $675,000 fine is totally out of line, and we all know it. Violent criminals get off more easily. The message was sent, and everyone now knows the risks of file-sharing in music and what the consequences will be. So, why don't some of these stinking rich artists do a Kid Rock, get together, with their parent companies, and take this burden off a young man's shoulders, whose only "crime" was loving music and probably making some contribution (along with millions of others) to their staggering wealth along the way in any case. Letting go of greed can be a very liberating process! - Kevin Mc