perfidy

...A: They both want a piece of your children! 

Haw! I thought of that one myself. I kill me, really. 

Please excuse me, I'm a little punchy. Here I am, knocking on the door of thirty years old, and Michael Jackson jokes, Weird Al Yankovic and Adam Sandler crack me up. My wife has a theory that my social development stopped very soon after my potty-training, and while I'm not one to argue with someone as smart and insightful as she, I would insist that I merely appreciate all kinds of humor. I mean, look at the Germans! Two hundred years and more of dour Prussian, Fascist, and European Collectivist rule, and their favorite humor is poopie jokes. Poopie! 

Really folks, mine is a dry wit. 

But enough of that. This morning, my pre-commute fatigue-haze was rudely interrupted by an item on the crawlbar of the New England Cable Network, enough that I flew without transition into a screeching hate-fit the likes of which I haven't had since I left my black rotten heart in New York and moved up here two years ago. 

I may not be a lawyer, or even know anything concrete about American law beyond that which I studied back in my halcyon graduate school days, but I do know a little about the music industry. The little item which so rudely interrupted the vague buzz of war news and Red Sox footage was this: 

RIAA arrest 4 college students for illegal file trading 

I don't know much about anything, but I know firsthand that the business of making music is about three things: money; big money; and covering your ass. The first two are self-evident. The industry is a high-risk business in which ninety-nine out of a hundred projects lose money and only that 1 percent succeed. But those wild successes ("hits" to you mortals) are enough to wipe out the failures and keep everyone's bright green eyes fixed on the shiny brass ring. The "covering your ass" is also pretty obvious. It comes down to the two major classes of music industry managers-- mercenaries, and accountants. The mercenaries are out to gain power and prestige, and also to get their hip ticket punched. The accountants are out to ensure that the quarterly balance sheets, which normally look like some horrifying EKG, smooth out into the reassuring always-ascending undulations that mean fat times and happy investors. Neither of these types give a tinker's cuss about the music or about the long-term health of the industry. The rare exceptions, like his majesty Clive Davis or that lovable bastid Jimmy Iovine, have merely managed to combine these two traits with a survivor instinct and an ear for hits. Others, like the heads of smaller independent labels, share these traits in greater or lesser measure, but sometimes they are even in it for the music! Nevertheless, the rarity of Clive Davises and the smallness of small labels make them the exceptions that prove the rule. 

Both industry types have in common an innate conservatism. The mercenaries are afraid to be the first ones to try anything new, as failure would spell both shame and the dimming of their careers. The accountants refuse to let anyone be the first to try anything new, because an unproven investment could spell financial disaster in the short-term. Therefore, as is well-documented, they try to kill or bury new things-- home taping, the walkman, DAT, cd's, DVD, cd burners, singer-songwriter music, and now file sharing. Predictably, this mindset also makes it very difficult for the industry as a whole to grasp the possibilities inherent in new technology. 

By now, it's clear to everyone that file-trading has utterly changed the way consumers value music. Unfortunately for the industry, apart from some desultory gestures such as BMG's purchasing Napster in order to kill it, the industry has thus far refused to adapt to this new reality The way they see it, file trading is the sole factor responsible for the dip in sales of recorded music (I disagree, but won't bore you with that here). There is no question that among the teenybopper and nu-metal teenage set, file sharing and cd burning has resulted in some loss of revenue for the major record labels. But, on the other side of the coin, there is a population of music fans who use file sharing and burning as ways to find new artists to support, by buying their records. I happen to be one of those. Is it worth alienating both groups, which between them comprise the entire avid music-buying public, just to crush the first? Um.....no. That's idiotic. 

Nevertheless, it seems the die has been cast. The RIAA is going to use lawsuits to stem the tide of illegal files. This follows attempts over the last year by the RIAA to: reserve the right to hack anyone's computer with impunity to search for purportedly illegal sound files; gain unfettered access to the IP logs of ISP's; and argue that cd sales operate on a license basis like software, meaning that one does not own the cd one buys. This lawsuit gambit is a brand new low and a possibly fatal . 

Since I can see the future with perfect clarity, I predict that prosecuting college students, even those deserving penii who trade thousands of songs they don't own on cd, will have four consequences.

• It will lead to a widespread backlash against the music industry, which could further erode sales. Since the major labels are already in trouble, and no longer the happy cash cows their parent companies want them to be, this could lead to either further consolidation among the majors, or to a general crash of the system.
• If the lawsuits are carried through to trial or settlement, it will create a precedent by which even traditionally protected uses of recorded music may be further attacked.
• It will create an effect similar to the encryption community, where the bleeding edge of decryption is always just one step behind the bleeding edge of encryption. This will cost lots of money that the industry doesn't have, and could have fallout legislative effects that could also erode fair-use rights.
• It will seal the major labels' doom. Thus far they have totally failed to find a way to generate revenue out of the new realities of file trading. By attempting to hold back the tide, they will render themselves less and less relevant to consumers. Public opinion is foursquare against the industry, and major-label music isn't exactly the very staff of life.

Granted, some of these predictions are fever-dreams. But I think I'm right. Already, some of the biggest stars in music came up through alternative means of distribution and scouting that the labels had nothing to do with. Take 50 Cent, for example. He built his name via self-produced cd's before making the jump to a major label. The label simply provided a bankroll, a volume discount with a pressing plant, and a better rolodex. These services that are available in some form to anyone with the money to pay for them, and are becoming more available as companies that cater to this population are founded. Many local artists have chosen to forego the label system entirely, and let their success be limited only by how much time they can devote to administrating their own careers. Because of the ill-will I believe will be generated toward the RIAA by these lawsuits and similar efforts, I expect this route to become more common regardless of how the lawsuits turn out. 

By choosing to stand firm behind old-media ideas of copyright and music marketing, the RIAA and the labels it speaks for have chosen to go down with the ship. 

Hey... where the hell are my pants??