Illegal Downloading: The 8th Deadly Sin

There was a recent blog that went viral about illegal downloading. It was written by David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker fame. This is it:

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/#comments

It was written in response to this blog by Emily White, an intern at NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/06/16/154863819/i-never-owned-any-music-to-begin-with

It sparked great debate and I posted my two cents worth (still awaiting moderation,) but thought I would use it as the seed for a more in depth piece about this issue, especially since my comment was written late at night and will probably never get posted anyway. This is a hot button issue that gets oversimplified on both sides. I'm always taken aback by people's vehemence, kind of like:

 "You torrent! You're going to hell! Don't you know you're taking the bread out of musician's mouths?"

One example of this is quoted below:

On a personal level, I have witnessed the impoverishment of many critically acclaimed but marginally commercial artists. In particular, two dear friends: Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and Vic Chestnutt. Both of these artists, despite growing global popularity, saw their incomes collapse in the last decade. There is no other explanation except for the fact that “fans” made the unethical choice to take their music without compensating these artists.


Shortly before Christmas 2009, Vic took his life. He was my neighbor, and I was there as they put him in the ambulance. On March 6th, 2010, Mark Linkous shot himself in the heart. Anybody who knew either of these musicians will tell you that the pair suffered from addiction and depression. They will also tell you their situation was worsened by their financial situation. Vic was deeply in debt to hospitals and, at the time, was publicly complaining about losing his home. Mark was living in abject squalor in his remote studio in the Smokey Mountains without adequate access to the mental health care he so desperately needed.


I present these two stories to you not because I’m pointing fingers or want to shame you. I just want to illustrate that “small” personal decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly “love”. And it is up to us individually to examine the consequences of our actions. It is not up to governments or corporations to make us choose to behave ethically. We have to do that ourselves.

I opened up my response by thanking him for his thought-provoking article. The preceding paragraphs, however, begged the following response:

The two personal stories you present are sophistry, whether intentional or not. The fact is that correlating suicide, depression and struggles with addiction with illegal downloading is a stretch at best and highly manipulative. I appreciate that your friends’ struggles have had a marked effect upon you, but the issues involved are much deeper. If this country focused more on true quality of life and less on consumerism and profits, we would have better health care and better understanding and resources for mental health. If our country had focused on actual evidenced-based drug policies, rather than draconian war-based metaphors and the creation of a massive law enforcement and prison economy, humane treatment for addiction would be much farther advanced.

... I also tried to address what I believed are some of the underlying issues that created this situation and have included them below. Please realize that this was impromptu writing and I wanted to post it while the iron was hot. Since I am now transferring it to my blog, I may even edit it as time passes and I can articulate myself better...

What has actually happened is that America’s corporate profiteering and cynicism has finally come home to roost. Please remember that this is the same music industry which:

    1.    Consistently censors “obscene” language, editing musical works of art for public performance.
    2.    Frequently pressures artists to change album art to make it more palatable to the major retailers, such as Walmart.
    3.    Degraded the medium of radio into the mindless churning of heavy rotation formats aimed merely at selling advertising and disposable musical product.
    4.    Engaged in numerous shady practices around these advances you refer to, including racking up inflated expenses for engineers, studio time, producers etc.
    5.    Saddled many artists with producers and other company watchdogs to interfere with the creative process for corporate interests.
    6.    Constantly remarketed/reformatted/remastered the same material for revenue purposes, often creating a technically inferior product.
    7.    Inadequately promoted freshman albums, derailing promising young careers.

And that is just off the top of my head.

The paradigm is changing and the issues are complex. Obviously, the entitled teen or twenty-something that rattles off a shallow justification like “record companies rip off artists…” has put very little thought into the actual issue. Yet, this generation is a direct product of a society that greatly undervalued many artists who you and I can name, not to mention those who were great but undiscovered. The life of artists and musicians is difficult; they belong to a bohemian underclass that suffers from many of the afflictions of any underclass, plus others unique to their specific subculture.

I would also like to raise a few other points:

    1.    1. Musicians pirate too. Distribution of culture is something much greater than the mere sale of mechanical product. Mixtapes, bootlegs, simple cassettes from vinyl and now MP3 torrents circulate amongst musicians and music lovers. I also mention in passing the “tapeheads” of Grateful Dead culture. From those who love the Dead, I understand these recordings are a much truer representation.
    2.    Digital distribution is fraught with unnecessary complexity created by corporate agendas. From the annoying DRM issues and the low resolution of iTunes MP3s to the almost bizarre lock in attempt by these media purveyors. Do I commit myself to a iReality: buying from, playing on equipment by and storing with one corporation? That is a far cry from picking up a record from your local record store, playing it on your Dual turntable with a Shure cartridge, through a Marantz system. It smacks of unwholesome monopolies..
    3.    Misuse of copyright law (despite your upcoming arguments) has contributed to people’s cynicism. There is the obvious example of Mickey Mouse, but also the unfortunate reaction to sampling that happened in the ‘90s. The viciously capitalist reaction to perfectly legitimate original works utilizing sampling had nothing to do with intellectual property and more to do with money.

In the larger sense, I think these dilemmas are the natural offshoot of a society that lost its way on many fronts before this current issue. We have created ultimate consumers, and now technology has enabled them to circumvent certain of the mechanics of commerce. Our society failed to emphasize the true intrinsic value of creative output and we are seeing the ramifications.

For example, PBS produced a wonderful documentary series, called the History of Rock and Roll. It is no longer available, even though it should probably be used in schools worldwide. Even the YouTube version that became available has had the audio removed from certain episodes. This series could do nothing but create new fans for old catalogue or, more importantly, broaden the horizons of music lovers, yet due to licensing issues - essentially money issues - it is unavailable.

We live in a society where musicians, writers and artists are not venerated and supported, that spends millions on political media campaigns, cuts music and art programs to the bone in schools and makes the cost of further education prohibitive to all but the wealthy. You should not be surprised if the rarefied evolutionary result of decades of cutthroat consumer culture is a wholly new breed.

This is where I ended, but I feel I may have left some things out. I know that as a young person I loved music. I was classically trained, but listened to a wide and eclectic variety of music. I scrimped and saved for my precious Dead Kennedy's albums imported all the way from the States (taking forever and frequently costing $30.) I methodically taped LPs, calibrating levels, bias, equalization etc. I made mix tapes for friends. As time went on, I rummaged through discount bins, garage sales and thrift stores for exciting deals, but also poured plenty of cash into CDs at full retail (minus an employee discount at times.) It was fun and I don't regret a minute of it; I celebrated, disseminated and created music.

Do I have the same relationship with iTunes as the local record store. No. I never will. I like the convenience, I browse and pick and choose what I can afford and am somewhat cognizant if it's an independent artist I'd like to support. But fuck, I don't go overboard and act all self righteous. I also torrent things. Some of it I've bought in a couple formats before. Some I actually lost when Window Media Player store died. Some wasn't worth buying. But not all. Apple is a slick, faceless corporate entity and iTunes is a horrible bloated piece of code. It was developed to make money and sell more iStuff.

As am footnote, I would encourage all the self-righteous folks who talk about supporting musicians take a look at their own habits in supporting the independent audio industry. Is all your sound equipment made with love in a family run factory? Do you buy it from a local audio dealer? Or do you buy the cheapest Far Eastern gear made with cheap labor from some big chain retailer. Quiet as it's kept, there are quite a number of quality American and Canadian audio manufacturers (as well as European, Asian etc.) The gear costs more, lasts longer, sounds infinitely better and is made by people who love music and building fine equipment to reproduce it.

Let me know what you think.