The following is my response to a column from Sean Dugan in ComputerWorld Online in April of 2000. I have inserted my comments in italics. For Audio Artists beginning to now understand the threat to our creative livelihoods please read the comments below and feel free to contact me at the email address listed below.

Some of you may be visiting from the Huffington Post. I'm frankly shocked that the senior Fanning could resurface with a column of such faulty logic. Logic that was discredited by the time my original comments below were posted. I would be disappointed if by inclusion, HP endorses this line. I'll assume in included in the pursuit of "free": speech. HuffPO visitors can go here to hear. -db- 2/12/07

Dartanyan Brown

Dear Mr. Dugan, in your Friday, Apr. 28, 2000  column: (Funny it's now 2007 and Fanning's column on HuffPo can be answered in precisely the same way...)

 "Napster sends a message to music industry: 'Your customers aren't happy"

(Dartanyan's comments inserted in italics:)

 THE NOISE OVER MP3s and Napster just got cranked up a notch louder. High-profile bands such as Metallica are filing suit against Napster, alleging racketeering and piracy. Rapper Dr. Dre is threatening to sue and the attorney for Metallica is hinting that more artists are waiting in the wings. But Napster's wild success indicates that the music industry has a severe customer service crisis. Customers aren't happy so they've created a new market, albeit an illegal one.

 (By that Logic, Microsoft should shut down it's anti-piracy efforts because it has a "severe customer service crisis" in the People's Republic of China. What Napster really proves is that human beings, when left to their own devices, will ALWAYS pick the FREE DEAL. Get real!)

How often does someone buy a CD for one or two songs, getting stuck with another 10 that are, shall we say, less than compelling? It seems like many artists these days are coasting on one good song.

(Oh so now, you think just because you can point-and-click you deserve artistic control. Oh by the way, what's the title of the last album YOU recorded..You comments reveal the general feeling of a culture spoiled with perhaps, too much music and art?) There is also an implication that an artist goes into a recording studio with the intention of recording only two good songs out of 10.)

 Artists find their copyrighted music available on Napster and see dollars that aren't reaching their pockets. This is problematic, because it assumes that everyone stealing music would -- in a perfect world -- be buying that music. (Well, let's see, I hate this song, I think I'll take up my precious hard disk or CD space by downloading it....) Forrester Research claims that $10 billion was lost to music piracy last year. The entire music industry only generated $14 billion in 1999. I have a hard time believing that in that perfect world, where it's impossible to pirate songs, people would put another $10 billion more in the music industry's coffers. (That my friend, illustrates your ignorance of the significance of recorded sound on this planet, to be fair though, this point is arguable with no discernable proof of either side.)

 I wonder if there would be a Napster and MP3 debate if you could go to Sony's Web site and buy the latest single from Jennifer Lopez or Cypress Hill and download it for 25 cents? Would the music industry have been better served developing quick and easy electronic cash systems, rather than the Secure Digital Music Initiative?

(SDMI IS the answer if you folks in the computer press would really take a look at it and look what it provides--just encourage EVERYONE who creates art professionally to use it. To date, none of you have given one good technical or procedural reason why SDMI won't work. We suspect intramural technical political considerations are at work.)

If music files were of terrific quality and available on reliable and fast servers, would people pirate? With value-adds (for every 10 songs you buy online you get a T-shirt), would anyone bother to pirate? And I wonder if at the end of the day the music business would find itself with 10 times the customers for any piece of music.

(Now you are making perfect, crystalline sense. Why shouldn't the music industry, as well as the graphics and print-for-hire folks, like yourself, have the benefit of a secure, totally visa-like transaction system where every person who downloads any material from Artist X's catalog, pays the $.05 or whatever per tune. In the background, totally secure and verifiable)

 (I suspect the real problem may be that the record industry--or indeed the corporations who own them-- are trying to retain control of the business. If SDMI works, anyone can be in business for themselves and while the record companies want to protect copyrights (as they should) they also may want to prevent me as an independent artist from having the same democratic access to the marketplace. The point here is that the Artistic community is going to have to wake up and demand that links to our posted works be "wired" for transactions.

The second big point is that users need to be educated to the fact that a great many of the pictures, sounds and words we all enjoy are protected by copyright and they should be taught to respect that fact. To adopt snot-nosed attitudes voiced by the executives (albeit young executives) of these companies belies that lack of an ethical education and a lack of knowledge of the same intellectual property laws they would employ if they invent a new algorithm. There has been enough disrespect through ignorance, please start educating users to the law and the morality of intellectual property in all it's forms.Most of the computer trade press have abdicated their responsibility to educate the constant stream of new users to the realities of IP (that's intellectual property, not Internet protocol) rights, primarily because they are supported by the advertising dollars of the people who create technologies like Napster et. al. This is not necessarily bad, but a fact of life.

Radical price restructuring is not something the music industry wants to do. Some artists have hit the jackpot. Music stores and Wal-Mart only have so much shelf space. The artists who manage to get on those shelves make a fortune. They have the most to lose by an upheaval in the industry. (True, but since they are now allied to big media i.e. AOL/TIME WARNER they'll recover quite nicely thank you. I would really like to see you folks devote more mind share to the plight of smaller audio artists who really could develop independent viable careers if a secure, background-transaction system is implemented.)

 But industry upheaval happens. The automobile was brutal to the horse-and-buggy industry. New technologies are introduced that change the dynamics of the game. Some will win, and some will lose.

The software industry struggles with the same piracy issues. Microsoft's main competition for Windows is pirated Windows (probably not in the US anymore) . And the software industry makes lots of money.

 But software has a value-add to the basic product: the documentation and the technical support and warranties.

 (Music's primary value-add is to quality of life, psychological utility if you will. Not to mention all of our friends who rip music for a multimedia presentation to pitch the VC guys. I hope you are not seriously positing that music has no value-add. =-(

The Napster question essentially asks, "What value does the music industry provide?" The music industry's best consumers (college students) are the most fervid users of Napster. They're saying every day they don't perceive enough value for their money.

So now, we're going to let the spoiled class of 2004+ tell us that they deserve "free music" because in their 'wisdom' they deem the works of Miles Davis, Bonnie Raitt, and even poor Metallica not valuable enough for them. Cheez, I really hope you don't seriously believe that statement. The Napster question should be: How can we take this great resource and use it to engender RESPECT for intellectual property. After all, no music, no kidNapster. Not a lot of pirated college lectures being accessed up there I bet. Hmmm new market idea there fellas...=-)

The Recording Industry Association of America wants to educate consumers with the message, "Artists deserve to be compensated -- artists won't make music if they can't make money." I can only imagine the public service announcements with multimillionaire artists pleading for their right to a seventh Porsche in the driveway.

(I may scream if I keep hearing insensitive computer folks sending out mis-information about the typical audio artist. And even if it were true, this is the USA and nobody says we should rip off buildings from Donald Trump because he has enough of them already. C'mon get real. Do you rip off stuff from the ComputerWorld office supply room because the corporation you work for already has enough money. You folks will one day have to start realizing the real "gotcha" of the computer age: Computer folks have performed a great service but they are now using music, and all art as a "loss leader" to get users to try new technology. It is becoming clear that MP3.com et.al. have no interest in music other than to sell their hardware and algorithms.

If they have to give away the music of Miles, Metallica or even the Muffins to sell their stuff than well, nudge, nudge, wink, wink who's gonna know, right?

There's no rationalization for piracy; it is what it is. (right, acceptable and ignorable..for now) However, rampant music piracy online indicates that the music industry's distribution and pricing model is out of whack with what people want. (That is totally wrong, what it really means is that someone left the door open and the music-hungry ethics-challenged masses will steal anything not nailed down.). The problem isn't the piracy; the problem is unhappy customers. (funny, before MP3, I never heard any outcry for downloadable free music. Too be fair, I know too well about the 2-good-songs-out-of-10 problem) but that, after all, is a matter of taste, not a reason to steal. Seek out higher quality music and that problem goes away.

 And the music industry had better do something about it. This is a dinosaur moment -- with the big rock looming overhead -- where the music industry needs to ask itself how it will adapt. (If the music industry falls, America will be the one flattened.)

 Because, to protect copyright with technology, the music industry needs to make it impossible to copy files. (Not true, the music industry just has to be able to know WHERE and WHO files are going to, an easy task on the web.) But the Internet is built on copying files. It is the most fundamental characteristic of computer systems and the Internet (yep, right next to an addressing system which makes it possible to know instantly who has accessed your files. Just ask Ted Nelson, creator of the term Hypertext and he'll take you to Xanadu for the facts) To protect copyright with technology, the music industry needs to create a system that swims against the entire tide of computer technology. (that is absolutely wrong, Visa does the same thing and we all think it's great. Face it, Artists deserve to win in the new economy just like computer geeks. We all produce software. Some for humans and some for computers.

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Well, its now 2003, June 8th to be exact and now some three years later, Steve Jobs has finally done the right thing. Licensed the music, gauged the market, set up a killer delivery system and is set to rectify the damage done by greedy Shawn and everyone in the 'Free Internet Music' crowd.

It's funny, in all the hubbub about Apple, Itunes, 99¢ downloads and royalty payments to artists and sleek interfaces, there has not been a word about the technology behind it all. The Apple store (namely WebObjects) has been steamin' away underneath it all. That begs a question raised back in 2000 when it was said that "The music industry needs to create a system that swims against the tide of computer technology."

I say huh? It seems as if the Apple solution, (and the new crop of similar web services soon to be available to every independent label who wants a reliable, online sales tracking system) puts true independence into the hands of audio artists who seek a secure and fair way of being compensated for their work. This puts the moral onus back on the user/listener and in America, well-taught people usually make the right decision.

The cat is out of the bag, and unless something very weird happens, the solution to artistic freedom has finally arrived at the WWW. Thanks Steve, now make a shrinkwrap version of it and watch a million new record companies arise.

Dartanyan June 8, 2003

Back to www.dartanyan.com/News

Thanks to Mr. Dugan for providing such a well stated target for me to address my concerns. Contact me at dartanyan@dartanyan.com

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Dartanyan Brown

SoundRangers of Marin

415 740.7115

http://www.dartanyan.com

"Art challenges technology and then technology inspires art,"

(John Lasseter)

edited 02/12/07 -db-