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Jewish World Review August 26, 2003 / 28 Menachem-Av, 5763
James Lileks
This time, the record industry doesn't stand a chance!
They're located in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank.
You can imagine the discussions in the Recording Industry Association
of America's legal office: "You serve them with papers." "No, YOU serve
them." (Pause) "OK, we'll send an intern."
Earthstation illustrates the problem the record industry faces: It's a big
planet, it's wired together, and it's filled to the gunwales with pirates.
You've heard of Napster? So 2001. Now there's Kazaa. Now there's
Grokster, whose corporate location in the West Indies just screams,
"Come and get me, copper!" There's Blubster, another music-swapping
program provided by a company in Spain. The day there are two
servers in Greenland, the second will be devoted to letting
20-somethings in a Vilnius dorm room download Metallica songs.
The recording industry hasn't just lost control of its product; the product
itself has lost its reason for being. The CD is as dead as the album, and
for the same reason: Most bands have one or two good songs, a couple
of so-so numbers and a half-dozen tracks of dreck you'll never hear
again. We all know what CDs cost you can get a hundred blanks for a
sawbuck. So why does the disc cost almost 20 bucks? Well, there's the
cover art, the distribution, the advance to the artist, the cost of catering
a five-week recording session for a band made up of ultra-vegans who
eat only imported Irish loam, and of course the all-important $19.99
PROFIT.
You can't begrudge them a profit, of course. It would be nice if it trickled
down to the average recording artist as well, but let's not be silly
dreamers here. What really plagues the industry is an antiquated
business model that requires putting out 10 tons of overpriced junk in
the hopes that 3 ounces will make 11 tons of money.
But no one wants albums anymore. They want songs.
Unfortunately, they want them for free, and that's where the RIAA steps
in with hobnailed boots. They've threatened file-sharers with huge
fines for each download, meaning that kids with 30 gigs of "shared"
music could face fines equal to the gross domestic product of
sub-Saharan Africa.
The downloaders insist they have the moral high ground; they'll
complain about the cost of the product, the unjust contracts musicians
sign, the shoddy treatment the industry gave Blind Willie Simon in 1937,
etc. They'll sniff that the musicians should give away the product and
make their money touring, which is akin to saying restaurants should
give away food and make their money selling souvenir forks. They'll
craft shaky analogies to libraries as if the public library lets you take a
book, make a perfect copy, and give it away to 4,982 people.
It's all a justification for the Internet's eternal problem: No one wants to
pay for anything unless that something is nekkid women. And even then
they'll complain about the price.
So what's the solution? Congressional hearings, of course. That'll fix
everything! The creepily named Senate Government Affairs' Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations will soon hold hearings on the RIAA's
dilemma.
But get this: The subcommittee's chairman thinks the RIAA is being
"excessive." And he's a Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota
solon who admits to having used Napster himself.
Coleman has a point; copyright laws permit fines up to $150K per tune.
There's no sense in suing some kid eleventy million bucks for
file-swapping songs. On the other hand, no one is going to stop stealing
music unless he's scared of being arrested, sent to jail and forced to
share a cell with a smelly old hippie who sings Mungo Jerry songs all
night.
But there will never be enough arrests or convictions to stop the
hard-core downloaders; there will never be a technological fix that
someone won't find a way around. Copyright violations will cease when
enough people decide they're morally wrong, when the old explanation
"But Ma, even senators do it!" doesn't feel right. When the Internet
is governed by reason, decency and conscience.
Never, in other words. See you in Jenin.
08/18/03: Assessing the Schwarzenegger Factor in Republicanism
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