File Sharing Is A Good Thing!

File sharing - exchanging music online - is a GOOD thing! It is not stealing! Those who claim that file sharing is stealing from musicians are - ironically - the very ones who have been stealing from musicians since the invention of the tape recorder: recording industry tycoons. These scoundrels could teach a course on stealing. It would go something like this:

Find poor, starving artists desperate for money.
Convince them to sell you their copyrights for peanuts.
Get rich from their copyrights.
Never pay them another cent.

Yes, artists should be paid for their work, and paid well. Not just the few chosen "stars" that were marketed into the spotlight, but the thousands of gifted musicians toiling in obscurity because the recording industry passed them by. The recording industry has been in charge of the music we hear for far too long, choosing only a handful of musicians out of thousands (usually the most commercial, generic sounding), to feed to the radio stations, to feed to us, as if we were animals in a zoo.

Meanwhile, music is everywhere. Music that will make your heart swell and burst. Incredible music, of all kinds, and we never get to hear any of it. Because of the recording industry.

Then along comes the Internet: a true "land of the free" where anything is possible, imagination is king, and communication is unprecedented. Into this environment a young genius with bad hair appeared. He always looked like he'd just woke up from a nap, and was given the nickname Napster. He invented the first file sharing program so he could share music with a few friends, and it turned into a global phenomena that forever changed the relationship between humans and the music they create and enjoy.

Increasing access to music is increasing access to peace. Music is the common theme running through us all, no matter where we were born, or what color our skin is. Music is the great communicator. Music stops wars. Music increases seratonin production in the brain, so the Prozac can go in the garbage, where it belongs.

And the recording industry has done more than just try and stop file sharing. They have also successfully lobbied legislation that has extended the term of their stolen copyrights, keeping valuable cultural creations out of the public domain for generations to come, so they can squeeze even more profits out of someone else's work. Read all about it at Copyright Extension.

The final irony is that a study conducted by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina concluded that CD sales should be unaffected by file sharing. Read the results of the Harvard Study.

Digital technology has sounded the death knell for the giant greed driven recording monoliths that have built empires out of the labour of others, and have kept so much good music from ever being heard. Small neighbourhood recording studios are appearing everywhere, allowing anyone to record their music for a fraction of what it used to cost, and without selling their souls and their copyrights to do it. And file sharing has taken care of the marketing, allowing world wide exposure for free.

People will still buy CD's, especially if the prices come down, which they're bound to do without the recording giants taking their huge cut. Besides, downloading is time consuming and the quality is often poor. True music lovers will still want a professional CD in their library, with its professional recording quality, packaging and liner notes.

And there are other ways for musicians to make money, like live concerts, teaching, and endorsements. Canada has a copyright tax on blank recording media. The sky's the limit.

A final note, as the cartoon below suggests: we do it with books, don't we?

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