June 18, 2002

 
More about the RIAA and the demise of Audiogalaxy

I think the fundamental difference in opinion in this matter comes from how a person views music. If you view music as a commodity, as something that intrinsically involves dollar signs, then you take the RIAA's side in this matter. If you think of music as being important cultural information, something from which knowledge is gained, then you will agree that having valuable online libraries of this shared information is in the best interests of the people. This isn't even an argument against people selling records, or artists making money from their work. It is an argument in favor of libraries.

Only the hacks will stop making music if there's no money in it, or more accurately, less money than they would have in the old distribution model. Thousands of people make music without making much (or any) money from it. A lack of compensation has NEVER stopped people before, and it won't stop people in the future. File sharing does not hurt the overwhelming majority of musicians, and it can be debated whether or not Audiogalaxy et al have had all that much to do with the marginal decline in overall record sales. The industry seems to want to blame everyone but themselves, and meanwhile they are the ones who are constantly boosting cd prices which are already marked up far beyond their production costs in the midst of a recession. It's not hard to figure out why people are buying less albums - as Videodrome says on Barbelith:

Oh, and by the way, Hilary [Rosen]? That whole slumping sales thing? You probably haven't noticed, but the US is in a fucking RECESSION. That $18 Mudvayne disc at Sam Goody doesn't look so good compared to food.

It is shameful that the RIAA is blaming the record industry's steady loss of sales on the file sharing of a relative minority of people rather than on the fact that the industry is pricing records out of the hands of ordinary people. Even those who have a lot of money to burn will buy fewer records if the price is too high - it's just simple logic! If records were priced reasonably (somewhere in the $6-11 range), sales would inevitably increase, and file sharing would be viewed no differently than the public libraries that they are.

The industry is trying to stop the future - a future in which information and culture can spread freely, a future in which people can potentially have access to music as easily as they have access to the contents of their public library - easier even, since they would not have to deal with waiting for what they want to access to be in stock. Ultimately, I side with the people in this matter - I strongly believe that people should have a right to access to information and culture regardless of their income.

The analogy of what the record industry is about to become - that is, the book business - in New York Magazine is accurate. People still buy books, and people will still buy records. People are conditioned in our culture to like owning objects. This isn't going to change. There's no sense in fighting file sharing, and the RIAA will be made to look foolish when future generations look back on what they tried to do. Hilary Rosen will look just like Joe McCarthy and Fredric Wertham...

Boycott the RIAA.