Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama

The recent – and admittedly, controversial and questionable ruling – against a Minnesota woman accused by the RIAA of using Kazaa to file share songs (over $9,200 a song for 24 songs was the “judgment”) seems to have riled up a certain segment of the music-listening populace. That particular part of the populace believes that recorded music should NEVER be paid for.

Excuse me?

The typical refrain from these people. “Don’t pay for recorded music – download it for free instead. If you want to support an artist, go see their live shows and buy a T-shirt from them.”

Wonderful utopian fantasy, huh? Do these people get their food and utilities for free? How about the computer that they use to download music? Can any rational person reading this say TOTAL AND COMPLETE COPOUT?

“But, dude,” these people will say, “it doesn’t matter – the artists don’t get paid by the labels anyway.” or “The artists have enough money.”

Oh, now you want to talk money, huh? Well, here’s a real-life economy lesson:

Any recording artist, with any label, in any genre, from any country, active or not, would be a good example. But for argument’s sake, since I’m thinking of good old American “entitlement to free music” here, let’s stick to a current, relatively successful American band for discussion’s sake.

The recordings these “entitled” people download without compensation (and that the rest of us either download legally, or download a leaked copy in anticipation of a CD they’re going to buy the week it comes out anyway) cost money. A band signs to a label (it doesn’t matter whether the label is a major like Columbia or Virgin, or an independent label like Dischord or Epitaph), and takes an advance against royalties from the label to record an album. The label has to put in money of their own to promote the album – advertisements, videos (if the artist so chooses), promotional copies sent to radio stations and journalists, and so forth.

It’s often said that bands tour to promote their records, which is true. It’s also been said by Mike Watt that his recordings are “flyers” for his tours, this is also true. They go hand in hand.

Have you ever wondered why a lot of bands either play in smaller venues tn certain areas and larger venues elsewhere, or don’t perform in certain areas at all? The given reason is that the artist isn’t popular in area X as they are in area W. Want to know a major reason why this is? Because the record isn’t selling as much in those particular spots. Oddly enough, there will be claims from fans in these areas that Band A has just as many fans in Region X as in Region W. The act’s music, or at the very least, their best-known songs, may be just as familiar to people in Region X, but the record has only sold more copies in Region W – most of the “fans” in Region X only downloaded the songs – and not necessarily from iTunes (although some may have). The label and their booking agent will look at these sales figures and determine from how many CDs and legal downloads have sold in each market if it is worth it for the artist to play in each region. “OK, it’s worth it for our artist to play in Philadelphia and maybe Hershey, but not in Harrisburg or Wilkes-Barre.”

The eventual domino effect: The artist doesn’t recoup their recording costs, the label doesn’t make back what they spent in promotion, the band gets dropped from their label and either ends up on a smaller label with even less of a budget for everything, or ends up breaking up.

Yes, the RIAA in its present state sucks. That doesn’t mean that the labels are as bad. Some of the labels do some stupid things (Sony-BMG’s thankfully short-lived XCP anti-copying software that pissed off countless law-abiding Windows-based iPod users, anyone?) but for the most part, they still help bands record and promote music and bring it to a potentially huge and/or devoted audience.

Now, I am not fully against downloading. While most of my downloads come from iTunes and eMusic, there’s always going to be people who want to hear an album out of curiosity and may download an album from a sharing community on LiveJournal. That’s fine. That’s their right as a consumer. If they don’t like the album, they wipe it off their hard drive and that’s it. If they do, they go out and buy it – and if their local store doesn’t have it in stock they can always go on Amazon or CD Universe and buy a copy and maybe burn a CDR copy to tide themselves over in the meantime. I’ve done that a few times. I’ve downloaded a couple of leaked albums in my time because I liked the artist and wanted to hear their new music and was an impatient boy… — and in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll gladly name names: Hawthorne Heights, Bruce Springsteen, NoFX and Sonic Youth – but I still bought the physical CDs when they came out.

“But dude,’ the entitled will say, “Look at what the major labels sell us. Geffen has Ashlee Simpson on their label. We shouldn’t buy CDs from the Geffen label until she’s dropped from Geffen.”

Geffen also has Sonic Youth and Mary J. Blige on their roster, both of whom I am a longtime fan of. Not buying anything on Geffen will hurt Sonic Youth and Mary J. Blige more than it will hurt Ashlee Simpson. If you don’t like an artist – don’t buy their music. If you like an artist – buy their music so that they can keep making more. Simple as that. It’s called voting with your dollars.

And yes, go see live music. I’ve seen the Stooges this past April and Flyleaf twice (once as part of Family Values Tour –blame my girlfriend for that one – and once headlining a club in Scranton six weeks later) and a bill with Breaking Benjamin, Seether and Three Days Grace as part of the lineup right after that second Flyleaf show. Yes, buy their merchandise. But none of these bands are in the clothing business, although the merch money helps keep them fed and on the road.

But don’t ever tell me that you’re a fan of the artist but you only own download their music – and not from iTunes. In reality, you’re a leech. Don’t come crying to me or anyone else if either your “favorite band” breaks up or if the RIAA comes after you next.