Finding the Rhythm

A surprising truth

January 6, 2008 at 6:33 pm 3 comments

OK, at the risk of sounding all preachy and holier-than-thou… I make this post.

As I said in a recent posting, one advantage of DJ’ing in Second Life is that I have a direct conduit to the audience, who freely IM comments, questions, and so on. While it’s sometimes difficult to spin music and stay on-top of all the text communication being thrown at me, it’s one of the parts of Second Life DJ’ing I particularly enjoy.

As I speak with fans, I continue to be surprised at the nonchalant attitude so many people have toward copying and sharing music. Starting with Napster, AudioGalaxy and others several years ago, peer-to-peer file sharing apparently has instilled a belief that all music should be free, and has no inherent value. (Please stick with me before you think I’ve gone all RIAA on you.)

I have to say that it’s really difficult for me to shed many tears for the Justin Timberlakes and Alanis Morissettes and Fergies and Norah Joneses of the world. These products of the corporate music machine are crammed down our throats like yesterday’s leftover french fries whether we like them or not. And whether justified or fair or otherwise, I also don’t stay up at night worrying about whether Sony or Universal/BMG or EMI or Warner (the big four international music companies) are suffering from piracy-related sales drops. Quite the contrary… If they’d spent half the dollars they spend on piracy lawsuits instead developing business models to adapt to 21st century realities, they wouldn’t have this problem to start with. (And I’m politely ignoring the fact that they don’t take risks, and instead spoon-feed the public the same formulaic pap that worked at some time in the past, hoping against hope that some of it will gain traction.)

But all the “big corporate machine” commentary and grousing about garbage music doesn’t change one single, simple fact: Piracy actually is theft, and in my view, nobody is hurt more by it than the dance and electronic music genre.

While dance and electronic are relatively “big” in Europe, here in the United States, it’s a niche genre in the extreme. Some major radio markets (about four of them at last count) are fortunate enough to have a radio station playing dance; most aren’t. Walk into a Best Buy and try to find dance music, and what you’ll find is half a rack, sparsely stocked, largely with mass market compilation CDs like Now That’s What I Call Dance Vol. 78. (Yes, that’s a joke.) You might find named CDs from the biggest artists, like Tiësto or Van Buuren if you’re lucky. But there’s just not enough retail interest to justify anything more.

Further, dance music’s emphasis on singles; the fact that many artists crank out maybe one or two songs a year; and the fact that much of it originates in Europe and isn’t even licensed for sale in the United States; well, it’s just plain difficult to buy a lot of dance music even if you wanted to. Add into this mix an overall feeling many have that music should be free, and you end-up with a music sharing free-for-all.

What made me wake-up to this issue is getting to know people in the industry. Months ago, Tim Corrimal interviewed Amber for his GoRainbowRadio podcast, and among the things Amber talked about was piracy. Amber, who used to be affiliated with a major label, is now an independent. The woman works her ass off to earn a living to take care of her and her children, and she’s very passionate about what she does. Suddenly sharing an Amber song takes on a new meaning. Now you’re taking money away from an individual, not a faceless international corporation.

How would you like it if people chipped away at your paycheck, 25 cents at a time? One person wouldn’t be noticeable. Hundreds of people doing it, and suddenly it starts to hurt. Thousands, and suddenly you wonder how you’re paying your mortgage.

That’s quite literally what happens with the majority of dance and electronic artists. They are people in their basement studios, their garages, their small apartments, doing what they love, and hoping that maybe somebody might take an interest and actually buy something. Most have real jobs to pay the bills.

So, who’s it hurting? Yeah, I don’t really give much of a crap about Justin Timberlake’s bank account either; I have to be honest. But dance artists I know quite personally like Rikah, Cory Conley and Jennifer Rivers (Pleasure Center), Jacinta, James Roy, and Cary August among others are not faceless companies. They are real people, genuinely nice people, they work hard at what they do, and frankly, they deserve the 25 cents a pop or so that they actually receive when you buy one of their digital downloads instead of snagging a copy from a friend. It’s personal.

And really, what’s a buck or two at Beatport or iTunes? That’s less than a latté at Starbucks, and while the coffee’s gone in minutes, the song download goes on and on, play after play.

The other side of this coin is that the dance music industry needs to try harder too. Most are well ahead of the game, recognizing that quality counts, and that consumers don’t like DRM (digital rights management, i.e., copy protection). Most dance music (except those tracks from major labels, like remixes of major artists) are sold as MP3 files, easily copied, burned to CD, etc. Most of those are high bitrate (often 320 kbps), which purists prefer.

But distribution continues to be an issue. Territorial licensing restrictions make it tough to buy tracks in the United States that are created in Europe (and perhaps vice-versa, I don’t know). There needs to be market demand for a track before a US label will pick it up for distribution here. If you can’t find a track any other way than pirating it, what options do you have? This has to be made easier for the consumer. In time, hopefully it will be.

Meanwhile, you might give it a little thought before you go handing out your music to your friends like a stick of gum.

As for me, no, I’m not above all this. While I have never (not even back in the day) served or hosted music (i.e., put-up a shared folder and let people download), I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do some downloading when the original Napster was in its heyday. But it’s been years since I’ve even loaded (let alone used) Limewire or any of the other popular sharing systems, and I’m proud of that.

However, I do seem to have people e-mailing me tracks so I’ll play them, and I’ve not done enough to discourage that. I refuse to label it a “New Year’s Resolution,” but that practice stops today. As I said earlier, this has become personal. Unless you’re a record label, a recording artist, or someone with the rights to a track and are sending it to me for promotional purposes—do not send me music. I’m sorry I don’t have a song you want to hear, but if you have the song to send it to me, then stop listening to me and press the “play” button on your iPod.

I have very rarely given copies of music to others in recent years, and when I do, it’s to other DJs. That doesn’t make it right either, so that practice stops today as well. If I have something you like and want, go buy it. If you’re too cheap to buy it, or you’re too lazy to secure legitimate promotional copies (in the case of a DJ), then load Limewire and do the dirty work yourself, instead of trying to make me complicit in an act of theft.

In closing, I want to be clear that I don’t really like the four major international record companies. I am no fan of the RIAA, or their over-aggressive tactics of suing and threatening and scaring the bejesus out of consumers in an effort to stop piracy. It isn’t working, it won’t work, and it’s a waste of time and money at a time when the recording industry is already bleeding to death. The RIAA and their member companies need to wake the hell up to today’s reality, and put their MBA brains to work coming-up with a product consumers want and an approach that consumers want to use to buy that product.

But for all the deficiencies the RIAA and their member companies might have in my view, stealing is still stealing, and I’m sick to death of watching good friends work their tails off pursuing their passion (music), only to have to slog through the muck to eek out the occasional pocket change as their reward for it. Simply put, that’s just not right, and I’m not going to be even a small part of it anymore.

Entry filed under: Dance Music Industry. Tags: Alanis Morissette, Amber, Armin Van Buuren, Beatport, BMG, Cary August, Cory Conley, DRM, EMI, Fergie, GoRainbowRadio, iTunes, Jacinta, James Roy, Jennifer Rivers, Justin Timberlake, Limewire, MP3, Napster, Norah Jones, piracy, Pleasure Center, RIAA, Rikah, Second Life, Sony, Tiësto, Universal, Warner.