File-Sharing

I have'nt updated in ages, but I wanted to rant a bit about this article which I found doing my usual tour of news websites.

The article refers to the recent development of British music companies seeking compensation for music files that have been illegally shared on the internet. Now this may sound fair enough, after all the general consensus with most people is that stealing is wrong. However, calling the sharing of music "theft" seems a little too harsh to me.

Music is, and should be something that is made to please those who listen to it, and for the most part this is the case. We hear songs played, say on the radio, like it, then perhaps go and buy the album. And although we have always had to pay, the prices of albums have never been as extortionist as they are today. £18 for a piece of plastic. Add together the costs of producing a CD, add on little extra as pay for the artist, and I still fail to see how a price of £18 is justified.

It is an age old expression that music should be about the music, and not about making money. And as cliche as it may have become, I still very much agree with this statement. Of course I'm not denying that artists should be rewarded for their work, far from it, but when it comes to what we have now, where people are being sued, I think its a pretty dire situation. The amount of money being lost by file sharing is minimal, compared to the money they are still making through record sales. Also take into account that file sharing does not mean that when someone has downloaded a song they are not going to buy it. Ask anyone and they will tell you that if they really like a song they have downloaded, they will go out and buy it. After all, nothing beats physically holding a new album in your hands. If anything, file sharing is a new, and since it matters so much these days, free advertising medium. And moving back to my original point, surely it should be enough satisfaction to artists that people are listening to their music, and enjoying it. After all, isn't that why they do it? According to the article, it seems not.

Pete Waterman, the hitmaker behind Kylie Minogue and Steps who was on hand for the announcement, said: “This is industry, not the National Health Service. This is music. You buy it.”

To me, that is typical of modern music. An industry. To be produced, and bought. Call me old fashioned, but isn't music an art form? A form of expression, something that can be enjoyed by everyone? It always used to be, until certain people realised that they could capitalise of the popular love of music. Thus was born the record company, and turning music from art into industry.

“There is only a relative handful of people in the music industry who ever make much money — 95 per cent of musicians out there can’t afford to buy their guitars and this kind of theft hurts them as much as anyone else.”

Okay, fair point, but this isn't new. There have been a lot of bands in the past who struggled to replace the strings on their guitars when they were starting out, but they carried on due to their sheer love of playing music. And I am fairly confident that lack of funds were not due to a slump in CD sales, considering CD's hadn't been invented in the 1970's.

Which brings us to the slump in sales. Perhaps this slump is just a result of high prices. A lot of the people buying CD's are teenagers or younger, and are not going to have a lot of money to spend on new albums. The fact that file sharing is to blame is typical of the record companies attitude - prosecute any who will cost them a few pennies, compared to the revenue they are still receiving.

I am not condoning theft, and I am not saying that all music should be free. I realise that would be lunacy, but all I am saying is that shouldn't the authorities being trying to tackle real problems, rather than prosecuting 12 year old kids?