Deep Green Holds Forth Once More -OR- Arrrg Matey, I are a pirate

WHY I "STEAL" MUSIC FROM THE RIAA


Actually, It's Mine Already. Several Times Over.


by Hector Askew


In 1970, when the seminal "Bridge Over Troubled Water" album came out, I rushed
down to buy it. Back then albums were really albums, a large black vinyl disc,
protected by a large cardboard envelope and sheet plastic cover. The album cover
itself was often worth the price of the record, and in some cases it was better
artwork. Albums in 1970 ran around $6.00, depending on where I bought
them. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was worth every penny. Not only did the album
live to become a genuine rock classic, but the back cover of the album had the
words to every song therein. Paul Simon, Art Garfunkle, and the recording
industry had given me my money's worth.

By the year 1971, after a nasty ex-girlfriend stole my album, I marched down to
the record store to buy another copy of the same. I paid the same price, or a
dime or two more, and had my beloved songs back.

Later in that decade, when eight-track players were the rage and you could
listen to your favorite albums in your car without needing to rely on
phoney-cool FM D.J.s or semi-hysterical AM disc jockeys to play a good song once
or twice an hour, I bought "Bridge Over Troubled Water" again. This time it
was on eight-track tape. This was my third purchase of the same songs by the
same artists. I did not get a discount for having paid all royalties twice before.

Then cassette tape came out. You could carry more of them in less space and
some claimed the sound quality was better (I heard no difference, but never mind
that). Cassette tape players, too, were smaller and many car manufacturers began
to include them with their on-board stereo systems. For the fourth time, I
purchased the same album. And it wasn't just "Bridge Over Troubled Water". There
were probably a dozen or more albums that I did the same thing with, following
the technology and shelling out a considerable amount of money to do so.

Ah, but we were at the zenith of the technology and I had my wonderful music in
a nice, well-protected little plastic cartridges that were practically
indestructible. Cassette tapes were probably the best form of media music ever
took. You could sit one one and not hurt it. You could toss luggage on them.
Unless you genuinely worked at it, the case was tough enough to stand up to
almost anything. The greatest problem was with the machines which played them.
"It ate my tape" became a common complaint--but only for low-end devices. No one
will ever be able to count the number of hours music was enjoyed--and is still
being enjoyed--on the Sherman tank of sound reproduction equipment known as the
cassette player.

While purchasing all the newer music coming out by fresh artists, I also
replaced many old albums by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Peter, Paul, and Mary,
Steppenwolf, Tom T. Hall, Bob Seeger, Johnny Cash, the Who, Fleetwood Mac, and a
host of others. Buying all the old and new music from the Stones themselves
became a considerable financial undertaking with my disposable income! And there
were newer artists, good ones, that I added. Tom Petty, Warren Zevon, Dire
Straights, U2. The Eighties and early Nineties found me adding scores of new
cassette tapes to my library.

Then a genuine calamity happened. Some miserable fool invented the CD.

Why this fate befell music lovers remains a mystery to me. CDs are fragile to
the point of being delicate, like attempting to handle a birthday cake while
driving your car. They scratch. They skip. They make rude noises. They're
destroyed instantly when handled by careless people. But they have one thing no
other media form had. They can be copied on computers.

In truth, cassette tapes could be copied too. Many high priced (and not so high
priced) stereos came with twin cassette decks, one for playing, the other for
recording. But you had to have physical access to an original tape to copy one,
and CDs triumph there. You don't need a copy to make a CD. You just need a
computer and an Internet line.

Having the sense God gave a goose (and perhaps not much more) I had already
taken all my old 45 RPM records of "one hit wonders" and put them on cassette
tape so I could listen to them while driving. The quality was middling at best,
but I had already purchased the records and was simply trying to listen to the
bloody things while on the road. According to some of the more draconian
dictates summarily announced by the RIAA later, that in itself was illegal.
Never mind that I had paid good money for the records. Never mind that I had
already paid everyone in line with his hand out, the artist, the record
manufacturer, everyone involved with shipping the product, the record store
owner, and the RIAA itself, no, they wanted more. They wanted me to buy all the
individual cassettes, all of them containing just one good song, and pay them
all again.

This was sheer nitwittery. I had already PAID for that music and would listen to
it wherever and however I wanted.

But with the advent of file-sharing, the RIAA began squalling they were losing
billions of dollars and were about to starve and have their limos repossessed.
If this is so, why do stores have endless racks of music CDs for sale? If no one
was buying them, no stores would stock them. I saw a kid once buy almost $130
dollar's worth of CDs at one purchase. He got eight of the things and some of
them had sale tags on them. (In the late 1960's, you could almost start your own
band for that kind of money.) Why do new hit CDs rake in millions of dollars in
just the first week of their release if file-sharing is so prevalent? It's
because most people, myself included, will buy new hit CDs.

I do not consider myself a "thief" by listening to music that I have paid for
the rights to, in some cases as many as four or five times over. This is akin to
paying a carpenter who installed a new door in your home every time you walk
through it. It's no longer a mere door, but a toll booth--and a genuine cash cow
for the carpenter. And if the RIAA cannot understand that simple fact, they have
no business being in business. Yes, I have the timeless songs of "Bridge Over
Troubled Water" on CD. I did not buy them in a store but downloaded them. I also
have the tattered old 33 RPM album with its faded cover and the cassette. The
other two albums and tapes I paid them for are long gone now, but in the eyes of
the RIAA I am just this side of being a sheer terrorist and at least a common
thief and danger to polite society for downloading music I have paid for over
and over and over.

When an interviewer asked John Lennon why people still bought Beatles
eight-tracks and cassettes long after the Beatles broke up, new generations
after new generations shelling out money for their old music, he just shrugged
and said, "A good song is a good song."

And bad laws are bad laws too, John. I know you'd be the first to agree.

Instead of adapting to the new way of accessing music and the new forms of media
people use to listen to it, the RIAA is still defending its Maginot Line while
faster, more mobile listeners are roaring through the Ardennes Forest at the
speed of light.

People should be rightfully compensated for their work. This includes every
band, singer, manager, PR shill, secretary, janitor, truck driver, and even RIAA
executive. But the active word there is "rightfully". If I made wooden rocking
horses for a living and attempted to charge every different child who rode it
for the next sixty years a fee I'd be laughed out of court, and possibly laughed
out of the country.

I won't pretend to have all the answers, as some portions of the RIAA arguments
are genuine. But a good start would be not bringing suit against anyone who
could prove they already owned a purchased copy of something for which the RIAA
wants to sue them to death. And the sums they demand in their suits are utterly
ridiculous, completely out of line even if the person in question did indeed rip
it off without paying a dime. The RIAA is now spoken of in the same terms as the
Mafia, the Black Hand, or any of a number of other criminal enterprises.

They need to rethink their positions, realign their rules to fit the 21st
Century, and use the Internet to gain listeners--and potential buyers--for their
products. Hounding and battering them are not conducive to cooperation. Holding
Inquisition-style court cases against single mothers, eight year old girls, and
people like me, who are only trying to stay abreast of technological changes in
their cars, are no way to go about finding solutions. In short, they need to
drop all existing suits and find another way to go about the business they are
supposedly protecting. Thumb screws and hot pincers aren't working, boys. Grow a
brain. Think. If nothing else, call in a dozen teenagers and ask THEM how they'd
set up your business if they were paid to do so.

You have the law teams. You have the powerful attorneys. You have scores of
millions of dollars merely to pursue endless lawsuits. But you do not have
common sense. And you have a vicious excess of corporate greed. Drop the latter
and find some of the former, and you will make even more money and the world's
music lovers will thank you for it.