Support Musicians and Illegally Download their Music
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 by DGreen
Record companies are fast becoming obsolete as more and more artists are choosing to bypass them. While record companies have traditionally been required by artists to front the money needed for recording, promoting and distributing their music, technological advances have enabled musicians to perform these activities themselves. When we illegally download music we don’t harm artists rather we speed up the decay of an archaic industry that has only managed to survive this long by implementing exploitation.
The music industry as it stands favours corporations rather than individual artists. By the time the retailer takes their share, the distributors take theirs, the promotion costs are deducted, the recording costs are deducted, the record company has taken their share and all other expenses are deducted the sale of a record company produced CD returns next to nothing to the artist. See Courtney Love’s Courtney Love Does the Math (2000) for a more in-depth description of how this works.
Therefore when we download music it is not the artist that suffers - they had little to lose from the sale of a CD in the first place. Rather it’s the music industry that has much to fear from downloading and “the Internet for its philosophy of open source, sharing, freedoms, and common space. For their’s was a world built upon strict control” (Bishop). Furthermore the by-product of this controlled industry can be seen in consumers’ desire to own music, “the ‘perceived’ social necessity for the music is created by powerful media marketing campaigns, which according to communications professor James Lull, promote an anxiety in consumers, which perceivably can be relieved only by obtaining the product.” (Bishop). So when record labels fight illegal downloading they are fighting an urge that they created, that was constructed for their benefit.
But with advancing and increasingly affordable technology, “artists [now] have options. We don't have to work with major labels anymore, because the digital economy is creating new ways to [record,] distribute and market music.” (Love). Musicians can record, promote and distribute music from their computers thereby eliminating the need for record companies. Therefore rather than reinforcing the myth that record companies are a necessity, when we illegally download music we are encouraging artists to promote their own music to audiences. These artists can then potentially earn incomes from live performances, radio and music video play, and from licensing their music.
References
Bishop, J. (2005). Building International Empires of Sound: Concentrations of Power and Property in the “Global Music Market. Popular Music and Society, 28, 443-471.
Love, Courtney. (2000). Courtney Love Does the math. Salon.Com. Retrieved October 6, 2009, from http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/
The music industry as it stands favours corporations rather than individual artists. By the time the retailer takes their share, the distributors take theirs, the promotion costs are deducted, the recording costs are deducted, the record company has taken their share and all other expenses are deducted the sale of a record company produced CD returns next to nothing to the artist. See Courtney Love’s Courtney Love Does the Math (2000) for a more in-depth description of how this works.
Therefore when we download music it is not the artist that suffers - they had little to lose from the sale of a CD in the first place. Rather it’s the music industry that has much to fear from downloading and “the Internet for its philosophy of open source, sharing, freedoms, and common space. For their’s was a world built upon strict control” (Bishop). Furthermore the by-product of this controlled industry can be seen in consumers’ desire to own music, “the ‘perceived’ social necessity for the music is created by powerful media marketing campaigns, which according to communications professor James Lull, promote an anxiety in consumers, which perceivably can be relieved only by obtaining the product.” (Bishop). So when record labels fight illegal downloading they are fighting an urge that they created, that was constructed for their benefit.
But with advancing and increasingly affordable technology, “artists [now] have options. We don't have to work with major labels anymore, because the digital economy is creating new ways to [record,] distribute and market music.” (Love). Musicians can record, promote and distribute music from their computers thereby eliminating the need for record companies. Therefore rather than reinforcing the myth that record companies are a necessity, when we illegally download music we are encouraging artists to promote their own music to audiences. These artists can then potentially earn incomes from live performances, radio and music video play, and from licensing their music.
References
Bishop, J. (2005). Building International Empires of Sound: Concentrations of Power and Property in the “Global Music Market. Popular Music and Society, 28, 443-471.
Love, Courtney. (2000). Courtney Love Does the math. Salon.Com. Retrieved October 6, 2009, from http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/