Why record labels get what they deserve.....
A year or so ago, I spoke out at a talk about Internet Piracy/ illegal downloads. While the spokeswoman from FACT pointed out that people illegally downloading and sharing movies and music online were no better than bank robbers and crack-whores- and made us all feel guilty and criminal it struck me at the time that while this was true- something made it OK socially to do so.
When the talk was opened up to the floor I took my stand and said something along these lines- Stealing is wrong, stealing is bad. Unless you're Robin Hood. Robin Hood stole stuff but is a legend, a hero and a top bloke because he was stealing to right a social imbalance, imposed by a selfish and mean Sheriff from somewhere off the M1. Similarly, record labels have spent years charging a fortune for music- building a culture where music 'sharing' was the norm- who would buy a £15.99 album when you could get a copy off a mate for the price of a £1.99 TDK90 cassette? It isn't the internet that has precipitated the demise of music sales; that seed was planted many years ago when the record companies decided to turn the screw on their punters. As a result, it is socially acceptable (a la Robin Hood) to steal from the rich record companies and give to your poor self.For my own part, I have downloaded the odd track, and copied the odd CD but generally do buy music legally (I don't listen to music that much) and love the Amazon MP3 store (cheap and drm-free). Perhaps if people were given a reasonable and fair way to purchase music, the labels could start clawing back some of the market share they have lost to illegal downloads? I hadn't thought much more on this until the last couple of weeks. We're trying to license a track to use on an online advert. We know the track name, year it came out, who wrote it (I've even spoken to the guy that sang it back in 1958)- can we find out who has the rights? Can we f. I've spoken to every record label on the planet, every right-owning body, been sent from one to the other and back to the next.... no one can say who has the final say. So, once again, well done to them for running a system that is a total black hole- and once again encourages people to side-step legality and publish/use music without paying the correct dues. Of course, we won't do that, but it's easy to see why so many people do on their online videos.
