There's a new Web Site in town and it's called Downhillbattle.org. The Site, another in a plethora of anti-Recording Industry Association of America Sites, came out of the gate in late August slamming the new "revolution" (Apple's iTunes store) and has concluded that the only way to save music is to steal everything from the major labels (who are represented by the RIAA) and take them out of business for not just suing downloaders but also for ripping off artists for decades. They've put up posters all over the U.S. to spread the truth about exploitative major label contracts that fatten the labels' wallets while leaving the real music creators penniless and use it to rationalize downloading.
Perhaps it's just me being in Canada and thus being removed from the RIAA threats (which have proven real), but I'm not fully convinced it's time for open warfare just yet. Sure, what the labels have done for decades is wrong and I as much as everyone else would like to see a fairer system for artists. However, their system is almost like musical anarchy, with the suggestion that people simply donate directly to their favourite artists after downloading, and doesn't help the artists one bit. You see, maybe three out of ten people will actually donate to their favourites- the rest will just download and not care. You COULD circumvent this by forcing people to donate a minimum of say, $10 before accessing all of the artist's songs for a particular album, but unless they're non-transferable files like Liquid Audio, those files would end up again on file-sharing networks and we'd be back at square one- with no one paying for music.
So I believe it's time for a more rational and reasonable solution than musical anarchy. We can lobby to the labels- and even to the government, since they ARE workers- to improve the artists' lots, but we also have to remember that if music is to evolve with technology quicker, we have to work with the labels first. One development is the Electronic Frontier Foundation's campaign down in the U.S. to try to make file-sharing there legal and I believe this is the way the music industry has to go. Music has outlived a medium for which it must be directly paid for (to control demand) in that they can just be infinitely-accessed and download files, so, in theory, no one in the public would ever have to pay a single cent for music. Like the EFF have suggested, those who run the P2P networks that provide the files can compensate the artists for whatever is downloaded- say, at $2 a song- with the costs for that being covered in a number of ways, including advertising and a special rate from the ISP.
There would be obvious benefits to such a system. First of all, obviously, someone would never again have to worry about paying thousands of dollars a year just to get the music they love- it's all right there at the click of a mouse and for free (or at least a HUGE fraction of the cost). Second of all, no label or artist would ever have to worry about distribution and no customer would have to worry about availability- all the music they need can be found easily by search engines. Third, it could open up new revenue streams- labels could charge for "enhanced content" found on many of today's albums, which I think is a good idea because at least for me the only reason I want an album is for the songs, not some special extras. Finally- and this is probably the biggest benefit of them all- piracy would be dealt a major, if not mortal blow- since people can get the music for free, why would they pay money for the same music only pirated? The previous advantage to the black market is that it is cheaper than legal products, but now the legal product is cheaper than the pirated copy.
Now, I know there are problems with this- for one, what would become of all the retail stores? No one would ever need to buy a CD (or, with MP3 players, ever need a CD-R) again, so why have them? It may sound cold, but we don't anymore, because technology has simply outlived the medium. Secondly, how would the system work? Ideally, it'd be like Napster- on a single server with checks to ensure what is uploaded are the actual songs and not "three minutes of silence" or, worse, a virus. There could even be checks to ensure that the songs are of a required quality before getting uploaded. Finally, though, there is the hurdle of international law- since P2P networks are international, changing the laws in one country to accommodate it will not affect another country. However, I believe they can and will be worked out.
So, no, I don't believe it's time, as the Downhillbattle guys would want, to start an open warfare against the labels- let's work with them first. Music has seen enough chaos in 2003- it's time we brought some stability and some sense to it, because that's the only way things can get better faster.
-DG