You Wouldn’t Steal A Car…
Years ago, record companies were vital to getting artist created music out to the consumer public. When every copy distributed had to be cut into a vinyl record, it took considerable time and money to create one copy of the album. The record company would then send these copies to distributors and then record stores, and end purchasers would have to travel to those stores and buy the records. Costs included in the price of the record covered manufacture, numerous shipping activities, and overhead for the record store. Paying a substantial sum of money for these records was acceptable, as a lot of people had a hand in getting that record to the home listener, and taking one for free from a store would have been shoplifting.
However, in today’s information age of instant data transmission, it is possible to make endless copies of existing music and distribute them anywhere in the world absolutely free of cost. It still costs money to record the music session, mix and re-engineer the sound, and pay those involved an acceptable salary for what they have done. After this, distribution is essentially free of cost once the product is finished. Good music can still be separated from sub-par music by critics and those on the leading edge of the industry, and there is no longer a need for overinflated promotional budgets. Musicians can still gain money for their efforts through concerts, merchandise sales, and other efforts that can not be replicated and enjoyed for free. As it is, most artists already make comparatively little from album sales as the companies that license their music take the largest share. These companies offer little to no benefit for most of society, and still exist only to serve their own purposes.
The band Radiohead already tried offering a full studio album on-line for free download, and accepted any donations that consumers felt they should have for providing the music. Statistics released months later stated that 38% of downloaders contributed an average of $6 for the album. This works out to an average of $2.28 that they received for each time the album was downloaded. The average label signed band receives about $1 for every album sold in stores, so this format is clearly something worth considering. Once you remove the tremendous cut that labels take for “protecting the rights of the artist”, the artists are actually free to make more money through the generosity that a pleased audience will provide.
As the MPAA and RIAA are the two biggest forces protesting the free exchange of entertainment, movies must be considered as well. Movie distribution will always have the theater experience, which is unparalleled at home. As long as people are willing to watch a movie at a theater, the motion picture industry will have a source of income. While this is a more complex issue as those involved in movies do not have an equivalent of concerts to fall back on, something tells me that there is plenty of money still left in the motion picture industry to support the artists involved. Julia Roberts does not need to be paid $20 million per film, and in general the salaries that actors are paid are not at all in line with societal norms for the service that they provide. If they have to take pay cuts, I’m not too sure that anyone outside of Hollywood would feel badly.
While the above statements may sound like inane, naive, free-market ramblings, my main point is this: bureaucratic bloat and inflated salaries in the entertainment industries have established a system where the consumer must pay to support no longer necessary functions that are obsolete and self-serving in the information age. The free distribution and sharing of content threatens this archaic setup, and the constant litigation and scare tactics used by the MPAA and RIAA especially show two outdated industries in their death throes fighting against the advent of a new entertainment age brought on by technological advancement.
-Michael Wurz
Excellent work. This is an example of technology disrupting an industry.