Digital Wrongs, Digital Rights

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Digital Wrongs, Digital Rights — May 31st 2007

By James Marcus

Readers of a certain age will recall the pure joy of cracking open a ten-pack of cassettes. With their miniaturized spools and narrow ribbons of tape, they were relatively flimsy objects. The plastic shells cracked, the screws came loose, the metallic oxides flaked off the tape itself. But for males (and females) with nerdish propensities, they had a futuristic allure. You could fit two LPs on each 90-minute cassette. If you paused the record mechanism during the needle drop, and experimented with the antediluvian Dolby switches, you got a very decent facsimile of the vinyl product. Everybody won--with the possible exception of the artist and the record company. Predictably, it was the industry that tried to stamp out the plague of cassette duplication. The British Phonographic Industry sponsored an infamous "Home Taping Is Killing Music" campaign in the mid-1980s. The BPI campaign made few inroads against copyright violation, but it did spawn innumerable parodies--including the one further below.

Which brings us to the latest wrestling match between the recording industry and its increasingly irate audience. In the Western world, at least, cassettes have long since bit the dust. So has vinyl, driven out of the marketplace by the ubiquitous compact disc. But the digital reproduction of music--with its promise of infinite and exact duplication--opened a Pandora's box for the industry. In this New York Times article published a few days ago, Jeff Leeds noted the cratering sales of CDs:

Despite costly efforts to build buzz around new talent and thwart piracy, CD sales have plunged more than 20 percent this year, far outweighing any gains made by digital sales at iTunes and similar services. Aram Sinnreich, a media industry consultant at Radar Research in Los Angeles, said the CD format, introduced in the United States 24 years ago, is in its death throes. "Everyone in the industry thinks of this Christmas as the last big holiday season for CD sales," Mr. Sinnreich said, "and then everything goes kaput."

Leeds goes on to discuss the industry's loosening grip on copyright-restriction software, or DRM (Digital Rights Management), which limits the circulation of music files purchased online. Steve Jobs--along with some shaggier proponents of digital democracy--has recently challenged the big labels to throw DRM overboard. The argument goes like this: free

ly circulating MP3s are both a product and a form of advertisement. Each kid who gets a free Shins track will be moved to pay 99 cents for another Shins track. A homeopathic dose of Kanye West leads to a veritable Kanye West addiction (of the nicest possible sort). This is the same pitch that used to be made on behalf of the humble cassette. For what it's worth, I think there's some truth to it. But will it fly?

Well, EMI has now broken the ice, as reported in this tgdaily dispatch. Starting yesterday, the British entertainment giant (itself the target of a recent bidding war) began selling non-DRM tracks through Apple's iTunes Music Store. Encoded at twice the resolution of regular iTunes files, the tracks cost $1.29 a pop. In other words, the customer pays a premium for the privilege of infinite duplication. Depending on your point of view, that's either the bargain of a lifetime or another shameless attempt at highway robbery.

Will the other labels follow suit? And will the abolition of DRM save the flailing industry? For some prognostication, I turned to Joanna Demers, the author of Steal This Music: How Intellectual Property Law Affects Musical Creativity. In her book, Demers focuses on the finer points of plagiarism and artistic appropriation rather than traditional piracy. But she is an astute observer of the industry as well as a freelance forensic musicologist (sure, I know plenty of those), and her answers are persistently enlightening:

Netscape: Now that EMI has made the first move, will DRM-protected music soon be as dead as the dodo?

Demers: I wouldn't think so (although I'd like to). Many executives still believe in all sincerity that DRM is the best way to protect their rights. There are many who feel that the most pressing issue is to develop better DRM rather than to dispose of it.

Netscape: Are you surprised that the music industry took this long to capitulate?

Demers: No. The music industry is like a very big ship that takes a long time to turn around.

Netscape: Will this be the salvation of the traditional recording industry--which is to say, will the freely circulating MP3s obtained legally through online retailers prime the pump for additional sales?

Demers: I don't think that the traditional recording industry can be salvaged. The way that system was set up, there were compelling reasons why labels needed such large resources allocated to publicity, marketing, etc. But with digital technologies being so affordable, musicians don't need that support system anymore.

Netscape: Could you expand on that a little?

Demers: The way the system used to be set up, artists would usually sign away rights for their recordings to a label. This meant that artists could only make money through touring and related promotion, or through song publishing (assuming that artists even wrote their own material).

Now, artists are savvier and realize that they don't need to be signed to a label, don't need to (and shouldn't) sign away their masters to anyone else, and can effectively publicize themselves online for very little. In this system, the traditional record labels have much less to offer artists than ever before.

Many artists recognize that non-DRM serves their interests; a well-placed, free, remixable download, for instance, is the normal mechanism by which many albums are advertised. And there are still many consumers who, upon listening to that free download, pay for the whole album or selected songs.

Netscape: In the final pages of Steal This Music, you write: "What kind of musical culture do we want in the future? Before answering, consider the type of musical culture we will have if we sit back and let content providers continue to run the show." Does the end of DRM signify a retreat by those very content providers? Or will the sale of pricier, higher-resolution files leave the ball in their court?

Demers: I'd like to think that higher resolution files would be more attractive, but given the preponderance of iPods and cell phones, it makes little difference what resolution you have, because the playback quality will be limited. Most teenagers don't care about file quality; they want portability, which is what makes the MP3 format so attractive.

I think that the retreat from DRM indicates that some content providers are willing to investigate alternative options. But again, more execs than not believe that with enough effort, the old regime can be regained.

Netscape: Finally, how will these changes impact the performers, as opposed to the music industry?

Demers: Again, my sense is that artists have long ago realized that the age of the multi-platinum, multi-million-dollar-earning artist is drawing to a close. If you look at Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Madonna, etc., they were all aberrations. At no other time in world history have musicians made such incredibly large fortunes. Superstar performers like those mentioned above were able to make money because the music industry was calibrated for a very specific historical moment--a thriving middle-class population with children who had money to burn, and recording media (records, tapes) that were difficult to pirate with any fidelity. It was great while it lasted. But for every Madonna, you had hundreds of other artists who had been signed onto major labels, but lost money out of their own pockets because they didn't make enough to offset their label's original investment.

Netscape: So it's a brave new world for the performers?

Demers: Today, I think many musicians realize that they may never become rich off performing. But if they make the right decisions (like being flexible in the way they advertise, not insisting on DRM, avoiding the major labels or creating their own labels, retaining their own copyrights, etc.), they can earn a modest amount of money.

Tags: drm,cassette,theft,joanna demers, Drm,cassette,theft,joannaDemers

8 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

alexia — 8:23PM on May 31st 2007

1. Well, since James has made it so public, I have to out myself: I used to copy cassettes with a tape to tape bookbox. Casey Kasem's Top 40, to be exact. I was a pusher. I actually made copies of the Top 40 for people at school. Please don't anyone turn me in...

Seriously, though, this is great news. The old model of the recording industry that Ms. Demers talks about was silly and unethical in how it raped the artist. Long ago I worked on a biography of Cyndi Lauper for which we had her permission to use any of her music. Sadly, she didn't own a lot of it then, and had to actually get into a fight with MTV over one song. It was awful. So I'm psyched about the future for indy musicians.

Dunestar — 10:32PM on May 31st 2007

2. Don't feel bad, I believe we all recorded radio shows, records, et. al, on either cassettes or 8-tracks back in the 70s and 80s, and we never really thought of the consequences.

Mainly because not everyone who did it was out to make money on duplicates as these musicians have presumed people have been doing. In fact, usually when someone heard a recording of a song from the radio, they normally went out and purchased the record. But if it was a hard to find song, people usually requested a copy of the recording.

The problem today is, it's all about economics. People fearing about copyright infringment, and losing sales due to someone downloading an MP3, or burning a song from a CD itself. When the truth is, all this nonsense started because some guy who played with Metallica got pissed off for missing out on a sure thing with Napster.

So rather than admitting the mistake, he started the whole crap that MP3 downloading was financially hurting the music industry, and suddenly the RIAA came into play and fuelled the paranoia the reason music sales were dropping was due to MP3 downloads. Which is almost as inane as blaming cassette recordings hurt the industry's sales when cassettes and records were big.

The truth is, I believe musicians should be glad people enjoy there music and are willing to obtain it through any medium available. Because in my opinion, MP3s have helped them gain free advertising where most people have purchased their work. Like Alexia indicated, the problem with musicians having their work "protected" by companies like DRM, is they unwittingly relinquish their rights on how their music is distributed rather than preventing it from being pirated.

I'm glad some indy musicians are now coming to their senses and seeking alternative means for protecting their work, while still being able to get it out to the fans.

Matthew Thomas — 11:51PM on May 31st 2007

3. After the music business; (Musicians), did away with instruments and started midi,
the talent went down, all the damn "HIGH TECH CRAP" came out, and any
body who could push a button became a rockstar. I can't say it matters if they earn "BIG MONEY" to me anymore. I'm almost glad this happened. Now the real players of the past finally get the glory, and the new comers don't. There is a God! As far as DRM, as long as there's a way
people will always copy. People just have to have music.

John — 11:20AM on Jun 1st 2007

4. When parasitic copying ruins music as a self-supporting venture for artists who can come with more than 15 minutes of attention-getting, then the little imbeciles will have no music --not that that will distress them. In their "minds," music is just teens getting excited with other teens; whaddya mean, bands can make "statements" or "developments" in music. Bands deserve to starve after a year of polishing their stuff. Dude, we're too cool to reward quality or talent --what's that anyway? Yeah, stealing cars is good advertising for car makers. No attention span; no life. The degeneration that asks, "how can you patronize my my complete lack of logic next?"

Vince — 12:45PM on Jun 1st 2007

5. It's very easy to analyze an industry when you're not even part of it. I think doctors are ripping us off, too. So are firemen and lawyers and policemen. I think Police should get paid just for the amount of time they actually do something to protect us, not, for the time they spend sitting in cars waiting for something to happen. That is a BIG rip-off. The Police have us all bamboozled! Getting paid to sit in cars, while nothing is happening! Our tax dollars!

The reason the Music Industry is suffering, is not because the CD is passe or it's a Brave New World that warrants brave new business models. It's because bottom line, NO ONE WANTS TO PAY FOR MUSIC. Most people can't wrap their heads around paying for something that doesn't weigh anything. It's all just ones and zeros man. It's a digital world. What am I really paying for? Why pay for something I can attach to an e-mail and send around the world simply by hitting "send" on my computer? That's like paying for dust that clings to my shoes.

Music comes out of the radio for free, doesn't it? Isn't my I-Pod just like a radio? No.

Why should a composer get paid for writing music? Why copyright?

Boy, if only Cindi Lauper owned her own copyrights, this would be a better world.

Tell Cindi Lauper to answer the phones, fulfill record orders, license tv/film and commercial uses of her music, promote and market herself, book concert venues for herself, arrange television appearances, press interviews, engineer her own recordings, play all the instruments on her recordings, set up her own microphones, design the artwork for her CD's, write liner notes, copyright her music and sound recordings, get her recordings into stores, follow up on payments for her "art," etc. etc. etc. on her own time in her own house (which of course, doesn't carry rent or a mortgage - because artists don't live in the REAL world) in her fuzzy slippers, while she tries to write more music. See what Cindi would tell you.

This whole debate is analogous to the four blind men holding a different part of an elephant - none of them knew the whole picture.

Very easy to analyze and criticize something you've never been part of and have no idea of how it works.

David Halko — 1:26PM on Jun 1st 2007

6. The process of breaking someone's copyright destroys the lives of people who are artists and trying to earn a living!
Fair-use is the issue... DRM which allows a limited quality reproduction may be a reasonable option - so people can make limited use, but multiple reproductions are inhibited.

jr — 4:06PM on Jun 1st 2007

7. There are lots of people in the world with talent that don't get riches or glory but it doesn't stop them from making a living day-to-day. To say that musicians are suffering because they're not making millions on their work is an insult to everyone that takes pride in their work. Is it fair that musicians, actors and sports figures make more money than policemen, firemen and health care workers? Get a life! Musicians will always write/perform music, if not for the money then for the attention or creative fulfillment they receive.

How many times do we have to pay for a song so it won't destroy an artist's livelyhood? Radio stations pay for it but retail stores have to pay to let you hear the radio within their walls. Bands sing other peoples songs but don't have to pay them for it but yet they charge us for their rendition. And when was the last time you saw a concert ticket for less than $100? You might as well say that karaoke is destroying an artists livelyhood too!

Taking DRM out of the mix will go a long way in scraping off the leeches that feed off those that aspire to make it big in the industry and spawn countless smaller businesses to assist those that are willing to do it themselves. It's a brave new world out there - get used to it!

Vince — 2:28PM on Jun 7th 2007

8. That's part of the problem. Musicians and the public who don't think musicians should be remunerated for their efforts because they "love" what they do.

Time for real musicians to grow up and to think like real businessmen and business women.

And to take themselves seriously.

The more you adhere to the "starving artist" concept, the more you will struggle to keep your job at the 7/11 and to make some headway in your chosen musical career.

If all you wanna do is strum your guitar at the music store and catch an occasional chick's eye, then, that's fine. That's your prerogative.

If you think writing or performing music is easy, then you've never taken it, or yourself, seriously.

At NewsQuake!, the Netscape staff blogs about breaking news of every stripe. Looking for context, commentary, and lively reportage? You’ve come to the right place.

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