No

by Brian Buchowski

Created on: July 26, 2007

OK. Let me preface this by saying that I personally am a professional touring musician. I make my living selling my band's cds at shows. Having spent the last couple of years clawing my way out of the debt I created while recording my last album, I can say that every cd sold helps me feel like I'm regaining a little control over my financial situation. So..

Maybe I'm a little biased.

That being said, I will freely admit to downloading music myself. I know this doesn't make it right, but I try to limit myself to downloading only music that I know I would never actually buy. Bands that I'm curious about, but not curious enough to spend real money on. Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a snob, so that broad generalization encompasses an awful lot of today's music. Call it a crime of imperfect justification.

Even if I can justify it to myself though, that doesn't mean it's "ethical". However you spin it, artists spend a lot of money on their music, and when you procure that music without paying for it, you are taking money out of their pockets. A lot of people in this debate are still subscribing to the outdated myth that "artists make so much money, they won't miss it if I download their single for free." Let me debunk that myth.

The days of multi-million selling albums are coming to an end. Mostly this is due to the big record companies incredibly short-sighted response to the internet as a communication and sales tool. There is another big issue though.

More and more, fans of music aren't learning about new bands the way they used to in the glory days of the music business. The advent of social networking behemoths like MySpace means that music fans have access to thousands of bands who don't fit the profile of Clearchannel Radio-rock. On top of that, the increased accessibility of professional grade studio gear to the hobby musician means that bands don't really need a major label to turn out a pro-sounding product.

What, you ask, does this have to do with anything? Well, these trends are having a really unusual effect on the music industry. Because kids aren't just watching MTV and listening to the radio to learn about music, the market is fragmenting. Rapidly. And as anyone in any business will tell you, it's a LOT harder to move products when you're reaching out to 30 splinter markets instead of one homogenized mass of people.

The end result of this (and my point) is that bands - even major label acts that crack the top 40 - simply aren't selling as many records as they used to. There's just a lot more quality music out there than the radio would have you believe, and for the first time in history every potential consumer can access it all, right from his or her home! Nowadays, it's not unusual for an artist to hit the top ten on the rock charts and fall off again without selling a million records. Ten years ago, that would have been a ludicrous statement. Take into account as well the fact that, in most record contracts, everyone gets paid from record sales before the band does: publicists, managers, label...

Remember that the average band gets about 12% of record sales in a major label contract. It's also a fact that most bands don't see any of that money until they've "recouped" - not just the cost of the album, but the touring expenses (bus, production, gas, and everything else) and often the publicity costs and administrative costs associated with promoting a tour. Keeping in mind that some albums still cost $100,000 or more (they don't HAVE to, but it's in the label's best interests to pad the budget a little), and the fact that renting a tour bus is $10,000 a month or more, you can do the math yourself. Remember - the recouping money comes entirely out of the artist's portion of the record sales. That means they have to bring in enough revenue out of album sales alone to pay off all the money spent on them - out of their 12%.

This is a major reason why so many bands are going the other route these days - signing with an indie, financing their own albums, touring in a van instead of a bus, and basically keeping things under control. A smart indie band can make more real money selling 20,000 records off-stage than a major label act can selling a million in stores. That's a fact, and one that I can personally vouch for.

It's also a fact that banking on selling 20,000 albums means that every hundred albums downloaded makes a HUGE difference to my bottom line - much bigger than if my business plan included selling a million or more albums. More and more of the bands you love are approaching the music industry from this angle, and this trend will only continue. It's not a bad thing; the business is evolving, and I think it's for the better. Instead of 10 unimaginative, manufactured bands selling 20 million each, now we see thousands of bands splitting up the market - bands who don't have to answer to MTV pressure; bands who aren't limited by conservative major-label A&R reps. How can that be a bad thing? These bands need every fan they can get, though - and they need those fans to buy their music, not download it for free.

There is one argument in favor of downloading that I can see merit to, however: if fans can now access and preview an entire album before purchasing it, doesn't that put the pressure on the artists and labels to write good albums instead of just writing three singles and 9 "filler" songs?

Absolutely it does. In a roundabout way, I think that downloading of music is improving the quality of music coming out. It's a twisting of logic to say that this is a way of justifying the theft of music, though. Want to hear an entire album? Go see the band live. Visit their website: more and more, bands have streaming players on their sites so you can listen to the new record before you buy it. You can't claim that you're only downloading music for free so that bands will have to write better albums - that argument only works if you actually don't like any of the albums you download. The minute you steal an album that you like, you should reward the band by going to ITunes and buying it. After all, you're going to listen to that album hundreds of times - isn't it worth TEN DOLLARS to you? That's about the price of two drinks at a bar. Honestly - you're downloading the music for the enjoyment you will get out of it. It's dishonest not to give the artist their fair compensation for that enjoyment - especially when it's the only way they can continue to make the music you love so much.

And that's the way I see it.

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