My Problem With the Music Industry By George Ziemann -- September 10, 2005 From time to time, I receive criticism from people who don't exactly understand my position in regards to the music industry, but think they do. Frankly, I don't care about their misplaced notions except for the fact that, in some circumstances, this has become a ploy to misdirect an online debate away from the issue at hand. So it's time to create a collection of my personal prejudices and positions, in no particular order, to provide a reference for critics and to eliminate explaining any of this again. Politics -- From time to time, I'll make a snide remark concerning the wisdom of Our Leaders, no matter who they are. This will not change when the other party is in control. They will be mocked, too. My view is that all politicians are simply not to be believed nor trusted, no matter which party they're with. If I want to get more specific, I'll write a song. I will not participate in online political conversation and call people names over their political position or waste my own time enduring it, as it is pointless. Mac vs. PC -- Mac. 20 years, no viruses, no security issues, no Microsoft software necessary, 16-bit audio is built in. The Vendetta Theory -- Some have claimed I have a personal vendetta against the record industry. The word "vendetta" implies a deep-rooted, long-term feud of some sort. This is usually accompanied by "because you're a failure." Apparently, this is supposed to hurt my feelings, although I'm not sure what they're referring to. If I look back at all the people I started out with 33 years ago, as well as many others who I have encountered along the way, I feel pretty successful. There was a nightclub I tried to start a couple of years ago. THAT was certainly a failure of monumental proportions, but other than that suicidal interlude, most of my life I have accomplished what I set out to do. I haven't been spurned by the record industry; I never solicited them, never sent out demos. I just like to play music with other musicians and try to make a decent recording now and then that's worth keeping or listening to. My problem with the music industry isn't really about me; therefore it can hardly be considered a vendetta. Peer-to-Peer and RIAA Lawsuits -- Bottom line on this one is that it does not effect me in any way, shape or form. I have an objection to the lawsuits, but it's an indirect objection that questions the true purpose. If the RIAA sues two people or 2000 this month, it makes no difference. I won't be one of them. If Kazaa and Grokster and Bitorrent are all shut down tomorrow, I don't care. The Boycott -- People seem to think that boycotting the RIAA is a statement about the music. Boycotting is an economic weapon to use when a large enough group of people refuse to buy a product that they might otherwise be inclined to purchase because they are offended by an organization's conduct. I remember boycotts involving grapes. It wasn't about the quality of the grapes, it was about the way the workers were treated. PETA doesn't protest against wearing fur because they hate the way it feels or its ability to provide warmth; they don't like what happens to the animal it comes from. I've been a huge music fan for decades. I love music and appreciate a wide variety of styles, genres, and performers. What bothers me is how the business operates -- the way the artists are treated, what happens to the humans that the music comes from, the manner in which record labels consistently defraud contracted artists of what is properly due to them. As widespread as the music industry's lack of ethics may be, this only effects a very small percentage of the country's working performers, namely the ones who have been offered a recording contract. The complaints and examples of how major artists have been financially taken advantage of are numerous, go back decades, and the practices continue today. This, in and of itself, would be sufficient reason to boycott (or at least to avoid signing a major label contract), but it's really nothing new. It's always been like this. Those complaints are really for the signed artists to take up. They can't, of course, as this would require discussing the terms of their contract and most of them have terms in their contracts specifically prohibiting them from discussing the terms of their contract. The Back Story As much as I have immersed myself in the music throughout my life, as a performer, entertainment editor, photographer, audio engineer, music trivia/history buff and even as a fan of those artists I admire, I never really paid attention to the organization called the RIAA, aka the Recording Industry Association of America, before the year 2000. They were simply the people who gave out gold records and were responsible for technical specs for record players. Bean counters, in my opinion. Then came Napster, which I paid little attention to because I was at the tail end of a five-year gig as a database developer, building customized accounting software for a manufacturing company. Although I was into the Internet as far as building web sites, Napster did not run on a Mac. It was a non-issue and still the primary thing that prevents me from caring about p2p. In 2001, I bought a copy of ProTools, which is digital multitrack recording software, just about the same time that people were asking if we had a CD. So we made one and decided put it "out there" to see what would happen. When I started out in 1972, this was simply impossible. Your average musician on the street was simply incapable of creating their own physical product. First of all, you would need to have a way to melt vinyl, make master molds and things like that. Then you'd have to figure out how to get album covers printed. And, other than at gigs, how could you possibly even let people find out you had a record, much less get them to hear it? In 2002, not only was this possible, but I could (and still can) make finished, saleable copies of our CD at home, one at a time, for $1.14 in materials. Then we started looking at mp3s, so we could have some songs on the Internet for people to listen to. Give people a few songs for free and if they like them, maybe they'll buy a CD. Where's the Beef? In the database devloper job, one of my tangential responsibilities was to sell stuff on eBay. Sold thousands of dollars worth of merchandise and never had a problem. The minute I tired to sell my own product, there were nothing but problems. The difficulties had much less to do with the venue than it did with the RIAA. In the name of preventing piracy, they accused me of copyright infringement over and over. After a few weeks, eBay promised that they would mark my account so that it wouldn't happen to me any longer. Assuming that other acts were dealing with the same roadblock, I pursued the issue. It took two months to get to the bottom of it, when it was revealed that the real "offense" was that I had mentioned more than one musical influence in my ads, which had never been mentioned prior as a reason my ads were being taken down. Quite a few people wrote to thank me for solving their problem, which was exactly the same as mine. At the same time, there were thousands upon thousands of sales on eBay involving CD-Rs packed with mp3 files of major artists. Each and every one was obviously pirated, but the record labels weren't going after them. It was obvious that there was more to the piracy story than was being printed anywhere, so I started looking at what the RIAA had to say, as well as what they suddenly didn't say anymore that they consistently used to. Having just been deep into accounting, it was painfully obvious that the RIAA was misrepresenting the truth. Their numbers simply don't add up. Many others more knowledgeable and/or in the industry have acknowledged and even followed up my article with reinforcing data. That was December, 2002, just two months after we had finished our CD. It was already obvious that if you took a look at the big picture, a great portion of the fight against piracy seems to be an attempt to criminalize all of the new tools musicians have embraced -- CD-Rs, mp3 files, peer-to-peer. For 80 years, the only way to create a sound recording was through a record label. Now everyone can do it. I believe the primary motivation behind the assaults on Napster, Kazaa, Grokster and everything else, including lawsuits against children, to drive home the point that if you did not buy your music from them -- if you acquired it in any other manner -- you are "stealing" from the artists.