Don't Believe Their Hype!

Has your curiousity of a newfound artist ever prompted you to download their music on the internet?  I will bet money that anyone reading this has.  And I am just as certain that before seeing a movie, you've seen ads before it saying that online music downloading is stealing.  Images of violent robberies and hijackings equate the common music file sharer to an unrepentant criminal.  Do these advertisements' messages strike fear into its audience?  Slightly.  Does it accomplish it's goal to deter them from further music downloading?  Hardly at all.  Yet these threatening advertisements persist, not to protect the artists like they claim, but to protect the asses of giant recording corporations (and mind you, those are some LARGE behinds).  So I say download away!  As long as your not profitting off of someone else's work you're doing nothing to their career than providing them with sincere exposure.  The record industries are simply afraid of losing control over their artists when online music sharing is actually promoting their careers.

Professional musician Janis Ian sheds further light on this issue in an article that proclaims, "Online Music Sharing May Benefit Artists."  She begins with stating that, "The recording industry has objected to every new consumer recording technologies... but each new technology has ultimately helped artists by enabling more people to hear their work... The recording industry claims it is fighting online music to protect artists, but in reality it is fighting online music sharing in order to maintain its control over artists" (Ian 31).  A very bold statement, yet one I believe to be spot on.  People are always going to be able to share music no matter what and, in the end, it is those songs downloaded online that introduce artist and audience.  Who is gonna spend seventeen bucks on a cd of someone they've never heard? Maybe rich kids with their parents money but not the normal consumer.  Exposure such as this is gonna push audiences to see their favorite new artists in concert, or force talk shows to host the new talent.  This is where the big bucks are made.

If anyone knows about the big bucks behind this type of "free" music exposure, its the band Radiohead.  With seven albums and innovative achievements under their belt, the band cut ties with their original record label and independantly produced the album "In Rainbows."  They posted it on their website as an mp3 download and asked fans to pay whatever they felt necessary (the range being from $0.00 to $212.00; the final average being $2.26) (Pareles 2).  This was a drastic move by a major band; a highly strategic move that I completely respect.  In a New York Times article by Jon Pareles, lead singer Thom Yorke says, "The worst-case scenario would have been: Sign another deal, take a load of money, and then have the machinery waiting semi-patiently for you to deliver your product, which they can add to the list of products that make up the myth, la-la-la-la" (2).  Radiohead recognized its situation and refused to follow through with record label control.  They played off the label-threatening idea of music sharing (or in music industry terms, "piracy") and turned it into an amazing promotional feat for the band.


Taking Janis Ian's idea to heart, Radiohead ended up succeeding.  The $2.26 per customer average boosted the band's profit to far more than the record label would have given them while simultaneously boosting their public image.  Record labels be-damned, we can exist without you.  Bands such as Radiohead push people to strive for the purest form of enlightenment: the innate satisfaction of sharing creativity.