There has been a lot of hubbub and an occasional brouhaha about music downloading in years past, and especially recently. From a single mom being fined over $200,000 for victimizing helpless billionaires to the recent shutdown of a popular BT site, the industry has been cracking down. People are getting scared, and wondering just how big an infraction needs to be to appear on the radar.

In some cases it seems they must be huge, where in others you have to wonder. Sites with far more traffic than the one that was shut down still thrive, while guys like Prince seem willing to draw a very hard line. But then again, Prince is an asshole.

I've spoken about this once or twice in my Trolling the Underground posts. When you're in the underground, the copyright on those specific recordings is not being asserted, thus no loss can be claimed. The sites protect themselves by not allowing any artists who ask that their music not be allowed, and by not allowing any torrent that contains commercially available material. That means that if you wish to offer Zappa's Berlin show from Feb. 15, 1978, you'd better cut out the jams that made it onto the Sheik Yerbouti album.

Now, 98% of my downloading is from such sites, but the other 2% has made me think.

A lot of it is scans of old comic books from the 30s to the 80s. I've had the opportunity to read things I've only heard about before, the chance to completely read things I'd only read part of before, and a chance to re-read some things in a fashion more convenient than dragging them out of whatever box they may be in. Oddly enough, downloading decades-old comics is the only thing I've gotten a warning about. It made me laugh. I'm allowed to sell old comics at a profit. I have an X-Men comic I bought for 40 cents back in high school, I could probably get about $50 for it now, perfectly legal. I didn't write, draw, edit, or publish it, but I can sell it for a huge profit and it's all mine. But I can't share those same stories for free? Please.

As for the music, yes, I can see the point in many cases, which is one reason I favor the underground. However, I can see many reasons why the "pity-the-poor-artist" approach has failed to work (which of course leads us to the courts). For one, we know that it usually isn't the artist (whackadoos like Prince excepted) who are protecting their profits, but the record companies. They never dreamed that the people who pay the bills would ever get their hands on digital technology, and they're freaked. People understand that the musicians are the poster kids, in most cases, and little more.




Many don't buy claims of "intellectual property theft", either. I bought Dark Side of the Moon on LP when I was in high school, and wore it out. Literally. You could put on side one and hear side two, it was so worn. I then bought another. Then I bought the gold plated CD when it came out. Now, I obviously don't need to download Dark Side (though I do still download live versions) , but if I did I would not feel that I was stealing it. I paid for this intellectual property three times! Likewise, if I replace an album I bought on LP with a download, I don't feel like I'm stealing the music. I'm just not paying more than double what I paid for the music in the first place just to have it digitized. I have, in fact, done it the latter way more than the former, so I certainly won't feel too bad.

Then there was the copy of Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason CD that I got from a used bin. The packaging was correct, and the CD itself was stamped with the correct information, but the music was not Pink Floyd. It was closer to Cletus Cornshucker and the Shitkickers. The store refused to take it back because it was a cut-out, which I had not noticed before. Well, if it is legal to sell defective CDs and refuse to take them back, I'm not going to feel bad for downloading the music I thought I was buying in the first place.

I think they also make an error in assuming that every download is a lost sale. We all make purchasing decisions, and many are on a graded scale. I may be willing to pay $30 for a Peter Gabriel import that was not domestically released, but only willing to pay $10 at the most for a Ramones disc. Some things I wouldn't listen to for free. I think a lot of downloads are things that people would be willing to try out for free, but wouldn't buy. This might be because they are not familiar with it. If they like it, they may pass it around, and that can actually work out for an artist, they way it did for the Grateful Dead. Ironically enough, these are the situations where the artist really does have a point. However, these beginning artists might want to consider the fact that while some people are hearing their music for free, many would not have taken the time at all otherwise, and this can help their word-of-mouth further on down the road.

Many people try to find a way to buy directly from the artist and eliminate the "music biz" middleman, but I'm picky there. Is the artist who is thus eliminating the middleman giving his audience a break? Many times I see the artist charging me the same for a direct purchase as I would pay at Border's. Well, screw the artist then, that's just taking the extra for yourself. In other words, gouging. If I'm going to pay the same price anyway, I'll remember that truckers and retail workers have kids too and give them a cut of the pie. Dealing directly with the poor, starving artist is not necessarily better than dealing with the big, mean corporation.

And the fact that CDs have only gone up a couple dollars since 1987 tells a lot of us that we've been getting gouged all along. Especially now that CDs are being re-issued with a lot of bonus tracks that they had room for in the first place. It's easier not to care about playing fair with an industry that you feel jacked around by, is it not? If that gas pump starts dispensing $1.00 gallons right when you get there, you're not going to go tell the clerk, you're going to fill up and run home to get the other car.

And the main reason people fail to sympathize? We heard it all before twenty years ago when the record industry wanted to take away our Maxells. They survived just fine, it seems, against their own dire predictions.




I'm not here to defend anyone, mind you. Like I said, I stick to the underground for a reason, most of the time. It just strikes me that this issue is nowhere near as cut and dry as many like to think, especially when it comes to intellectual rights on properties that you already purchased in another form.

I also stick to the underground because I find the landscape far more interesting, but that's me. Nothing can suck the creative juice out of a body of music faster or more completely than a good record company.

Whatever way your pleasure tends, be careful. There's plenty of safe stuff to do - I am at this moment downloading a Yes concert that I saw at Alpine Valley in 1984. But there are dragons out there for those who get greedy and don't take a moment to think about what they're doing.