An Artist's Best Friend

The digital media wave was recently at a crest. CD burners were widely used (and widely accepted) as do-it-yourself piracy kits, bringing much joy to the lives of nearly every computer-literate student and much distress to the careers of Tower Records executives who, coincidentally, declared a no-return policy on all compact discs. Thanks to Napster, people didn't need to leave home for a five-fingered discount on music. The recording industry's nightmare was the morally flexible college student's dream.

But even now that the recording companies have muzzled Napster, their real solution is nowhere in sight. Computer nerds, bless their souls, seem to have an unyielding desire to boast their virtual manhood. Encryption codes will be broken; system will be beaten. Gnutella, for example, is a small, mysterious little file sharing program that has no central servers to blame and will probably allow piracy to thrive as long as the Internet exists. No one can stop the wave.

The practical solution would be to do what the movie industry did when VHS threatened movie sales in the '80s: embrace the technology and find a profit in the end. Movie rentals and sales currently enjoy an enormous market. A good business, after all, is adaptive. Yet still the recording industry, perhaps because of the relative effortlessness of digital piracy and near-immunity from the law, feels it deserves special protection. Many pop icons, such as Metallica and Dr. Dre, applaud efforts to preserve record sales as grounded in good principle and in recognition of the blood and sweat of up-and-coming artists. Though we may not be able to articulate opposition to arguments of their tragic monetary loss, many of us just don't buy it. After all, are they really speaking for the struggling artist?

Record companies are afraid of a market where their success hinges upon the quality of their product rather than its marketability. Easily replicable products still find their way into American homes--if they are truly worth owning. We haven't stopped buying novels, which we can get for free from the library, because we truly enjoy owning a copy of our favorite things, even if we won't use them twice.

Record companies are slow to admit (but painfully aware) that the typical pop album is generally quite disposable. Sorry to tell you, kids, but 'N Sync didn't get on the radio every four minutes because of talent. Record companies buy their way onto airwaves by threatening to ban stations from playing any songs under the label--that is, you can't play our other top 40 hits if song X is not played Y times every day until consumer Z couldn't get it out of his head with an electric chair. To some extent, our music tastes are chosen for us.

But this is still America, and we are still free to decide. Grass roots bands thrive on listener support, and even the most hopeless MTV junkie has felt the goldrush thrill of hearing a no-name album and discovering that it is really, really good. Word of mouth is the advertising market of music that stands on its own, that refuses to be ignored. Simply put, if an album is worth owning, people will hear about it. Napster, for all its blatant disregard for the law, provided the most organized and extensive word of mouth forum on the planet, and has swayed the purchasing power of at least one consumer, me, toward support of relatively unknown bands.

Napster has facilitated breaking the law, but every age needs its Robin Hood. Before we give a few pop stars a multi-million dollar pat on the back and put our tails between our legs, ashamed of our overflowing hard-drives, perhaps we should consider getting pissed off. Napster has been regulated and commercialized, stripped of its lawless integrity. Apparently a grass-roots industry was just too good to be true.

Luke W. M. White '03 is a psychology concentrator in Quincy House.