Okay, taking a quick intercession here to comment on the current state of affairs in the music biz...
This was originally written in response to a discussion board question concerning the future of music in the digital age, but I figure it's worth reposting here with a few slight alterations to take the class references out of it.
There is no future for the physical, major label record store. The age of the record store is over - the age of the independent and independently marketed artist has begun.
With bands such as Harvey Danger, Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails, and artists such as 50 Cent, Saul Williams, and Dave Peters openly defying the major record labels and artists willing and able to promote themselves and sell their own product sans middleman, the days where the record labels are able to get away with their monopolistic behavior are swiftly drawing to a close.
A self-described on and off insider in the major record labels had this to say:
"For the major labels, it's over. It's f___ing over. You're going to burn to the f___ing ground, and we're all going to dance around the fire. And it's your own fault."[1]
So-called 'piracy' - or at least what the major record labels would love to make us think is piracy - is bigger, faster, and more widespread than ever. The Canadian police have openly admitted that they are no longer targeting piracy for personal use: "St-Hilaire explained that they rather focus on crimes that actually hurt consumers such as copyright violations related to medicine and electrical appliances." (sic)
Dan Glickman, chairman of the MPAA, has publicly announced that "we recognize and we know that we will never stop piracy."[2]
Even artists belonging to these organizations are fighting back against their barrage of lawsuits: "I play in a metal band. We have sold around 200k records across 3 releases. We’re not ‘huge’ by any stretch but do alright and live off (and ON subsequently) the road. Fans and friends ask me all the time how I feel about “stealing music.” I just told someone yesterday “I have a hard time seeing it as stealing…when I don’t see any money from cd sales to begin with.
...
If you want to squeeze an opinion on theft out of me, ask me about the dude that grabbed our tshirt off the table tonight in Detroit or better yet.. ask me about record contracts."
So says Dave Peters, frontman of straightedge hardcore band Throwdown.
Continuing, he puts forth the following provocative statement:
"I encourage our fans to acquire our album however they please. The philosophy I’ve adopted is that if you’re supporting disc sales, you’re keeping the old model around longer…the one that forces dudes like me to tour 9 mos/year if they want to make ends meet with a career in music."
"If you wanna really support a band," he concludes, "“steal” their album….help bury the label….and buy a tshirt when you show up at their show and sing every word."
Even "the ones directly profiting from the sale of digital or physical music" are speaking out in opposition to the current business model being embraced by the major corporations. The recording industry, and record stores with it, are quite simply obsolete. Contrary to what they'd like you to think, record sales are most likely not declining due to piracy. Rather, the companies trying to make the sales are shooting themselves in the foot - repeatedly - in their futile attempts to bully and terrorize their own customers.
Even mainstream artists like 50 Cent have publicly admitted that "What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn’t hurt the artists".
The future of music is in the internet - middlemen are no longer necessary for musicians to make money or market their product, and as such, record stores, and the major record label conglomerates with them, have been rendered wholly obsolete.
What reason is there to go to a record store if the music is available to download straight to my computer? The major problem here, I think, is the view of record stores as strictly physical entities. If the music is available online, the only possible logical reason to go to an actual store would be a desire for the physical product in analog format. Given the rapidly increasing recognition of lossless audio formats (particularly FLAC) among the throngs of audiophiles populating the internet, however, this reason is rapidly decreasing in actual relevance. On the other hand, the future of the online record store is looking brighter and brighter by the day - all that's required is for the dinosaurs dominating the industry to catch up with current trends and adapt to current events instead of fighting the inexorable momentum of history.
As for reasons other than buying an album to go to a record store...a better place to find fellow music enthusiasts, including band members, would be an online community dedicated exclusively to those who love music - such as the former filesharing site OiNK, loved by industry heavy hitters such as Trent Reznor[3] (frontman of popular industrial group Nine Inch Nails) as well as everyday fans and music enthusiasts.
As much as the major record labels would love people to believe that they're losing millions to piracy, it's actually been strongly suggested by a Canadian government-commissioned independent study to be factually incorrect.
As for ethical implications of downloading? Hopefully, someday, the end of tyranny over music by aging executives who openly admit that they don't know what they're doing. Included in the positive ethical ramifications of filesharing, however, as opposed to negative, are free publicity for the artist as well as the potential for larger audiences than they ever could've reached without the hugely effective word-of-mouth advertising ability provided by P2P (peer-to-peer) technology.
As for the last two questions...
Hypothetically speaking, if I were to download any music for free off of the internet, whether I downloaded it at all would depend quite heavily on the circumstances surrounding the download.
For example, if the artist themselves specifically requested that people not download their music for free, I wouldn't download it.
If, however, the music was copied from CD and made available for free online by an individual who legally obtained that CD with full permission from the artist and all associated entities to reproduce and share the effort represented by and art contained upon the CD as they saw fit...I sincerely doubt that I would see any moral problem at all with downloading it for my own personal use. Continuing to speak hypothetically, if I did download something for free off the internet using the above criteria, I can even see myself sharing what I downloaded with others if I liked it enough.
Contrary to what the RIAA and its cohorts around the globe would like the largely technologically illiterate public to believe, copying is not stealing...unless, of course, the RIAA ends up getting their way in the end, in which case anybody who owns an iPod - or a computer, for that matter - would be well advised to start saving their nickels and dimes in preparation for the lawsuits to come.
When Pigs Fly: The Death of Oink, the Birth of Dissent, and a Brief History of Record Industry Suicide
Steal This Film II, 4:49-4:54
"I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now...I'm not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want."
-Trent Reznor in an interview with New York Magazine, "Trent Reznor and Saul Williams Discuss Their New Collaboration, Mourn OiNK"
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