By Taliesin
A. Govannon
The issue of downloading music on the internet in the
Mp3 format has generated a lot of controversy in the past few years, and it
has music fans divided. Some think that being able to get free music is the
greatest thing since sliced spam, while others agree with the record
industry and think those who download are heartless bastards who care little
about their favorite bands.
Personally, I think the record industry is full of it,
because I've heard this all before. In the 80's, home taping was going to
"kill music". In the 90's, used CD's were going to "destroy labels and
artists". Now mp3's are the industry's demons. The biggest things hurting
record labels are restrictive formatting of musicians and shitty albums, if
you ask me. One band has a hit, and the labels rush out to sign everyone who
sounds or looks like that band, flooding the market with sound-alikes who
have maybe one good song in them if they're lucky. Believe me, I've
downloaded some albums that I was very, VERY glad that I didn't spend my
hard earned cash on. But remember, there's more to mp3's than grabbing that
new Britney Spears single off of KaZaa (that is, if the spyware will allow
you to use your computer anymore). There are lots of different kinds and
formats of downloadable music out there. If you'd like to take advantage of
this new digital medium without any pangs of guilt, here's a few ways to do
it:
Promotional Tracks:
You’d be surprised how many bands of all styles and
levels offer free mp3s. Most band websites have at least one or two tracks
these days, and some labels like
Century Media
and
Alternative Tentacles both have huge libraries of songs you can download
for free. And to all you people who won’t go see local bands because you
don’t know what they sound like, most of them have mp3s for download, too.
For Cleveland bands, the website
Cleveland – Ain’t it Fun
offers 5 full length compilations of local music, with more on the way. But
boo to bands who only post part of a song. I’m not wasting my time just to
hear 30 seconds of music. Put up a whole song or don’t even bother.
Albums You Already Own:
This is an easy one. If you already purchased a
recording, then having a digital backup is not only ethically ok, it's
LEGAL. Let's say you bought Suzy and The Sluts' Greatest Hits on cassette a
few years ago...the band, the label, and the store have already made money
off of you. You plucked your hard-earned cash on the counter and got a
receipt. Downloading a copy of the music on your computer instead of
hooking up a tape player and digitizing it yourself is acceptable. The
Supreme Court decided years ago that multiple copies of a legally purchased
recording for personal use is perfectly O.K. Who says that, just because
the music industry decides to come out with a new way to store and retrieve
the music you already bought, that you have to buy it AGAIN? That kind of
logic killed the mini-disc, because people who had just replaced their
favorite albums on CD did NOT want to do it again. This actually accounts
for a lot of my downloading. I have over 600 vinyl LP's, but no needle for
my turntable. Finding a needle is a bitch, as well as hella expensive. So
when I find something I already own on LP or tape online, I go ahead and
grab it. Hey, I already paid for it.
Bootlegs:
This is another no-brainer. Bootlegs are illegal
recordings of live shows. The artist makes NO money off of bootlegs, nor
does the label. The only people who make money off of you buying a bootleg
are the bootleggers. These are very seldom fans, but greedy scum who don't
give two shits about the artist OR their fans. A lot of bootlegs sound bad,
have bad packaging, and are *way* over-priced. In fact, if you ask your
favorite artists if they'd rather you download a bootleg of one of their
shows for free, or pay some bootlegger for it, they'll probably say the
former. Some may say you shouldn't have bootlegs at all, but that's an old
argument with little sway in the real world: the most fervent of fans will
always want bootlegs, because they just can't get enough of their favorite
bands. If any tell you that no, you should pay for bootlegs because you
just shouldn't get any music for free ever, then you should just tell Lars
Ulrich to shut up and make an album worth listening to, dammit!
Out of Print Albums:
This is a little stickier, but not much. When
something's out of print, then it's not available for sale...period. Sure
it's copyrighted material, but the artist cannot make any money off of
something that isn't for sale anymore. The only way to buy an out of print
album is to buy it used, which doesn't make the musician in question any
money either. So you could *want* to buy it, but aren't able to. Why not
download? In fact, the trading of out of print albums on the internet has
convinced some labels to re-issue old albums, because they realize (finally)
that there's a market out there for them. This has happened to a lot of the
old NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) bands, and the CDs that come
out are often re-mastered and sound great. It's also a boon to bands who
made a big imprint on music, but have been without an income from their
classic recordings for years, even decades. Sure, some will rip the
re-issues and swap the new versions on the net, but any sales the bands DO
make are more than they *were* making. A win-win situation, if you ask me.
What About Metallica?:
Ok, so this is a bit of a digression, but people always
ask me "So, mp3 downloader, what do you think of Metallica and their going
after Napster?" My answer: Metallica can kiss my ass. I was one of those
in the 80's who bought every Metallica album brand-new, and helped carry
them from the underground to mega-success. If they're going to begrudge a
broke fan a few songs for free, then I regret not taping their old albums
off of my friends! And then to put out crap like ‘St. Anger’ and expect me
to spend my child's food-money on it? Not likely! Hell, I think that that
‘St. Anger’ was Metallica’s solution to mp3 downloading of their
music...they wanted to make an album so horrible that people wouldn't want
to waste their time or bandwidth downloading it. That the band that put out
a videotape made up of fan bootlegs was willing to prosecute those same fans
years later says that it just isn't the same band anymore. They should
retire now and not ruin the memory of just how good they were.
