by George Ziemann (Oct. 17, 2003)

Every so often I get e-mail (or posts on message boards) from some moral soul reminding me that everything I am doing is wrong. I am stealing from the artists. I just want music for free. That's my entire reason for publicly voicing my objections to the RIAA.

This means that it is once again time to reiterate my true agenda, or at least my basic philosophy on the issues, which has barely changed at all in the last year, despite everything that has gone on, all of the opinions I have carefully considered, and even listening to what little truth could be found in any RIAA testimony or press releases.

First of all, I don't use P2P. Nothing against it, I just have a Mac. I've browsed through Kazaa a few times at a friend's house and was really impressed with how much music I couldn't find there, either. The old gems are simply not there, or at least they weren't last time I looked. On the other hand, I fully support P2P because, although still flawed, I see it as the 21st century version of the radio.

As we all know, the recording industry's position is that P2P users are thieves or, at the very least, freeloaders, taking music for free without paying for it. The scholars, very concerned about the future of public domain and long the rivals of the publishing community, have now put forth the premise that P2P users are conscientious objectors, simply refusing to adhere to a limitation they do not believe is justified.

I think they're just people who want to listen to music. Five years ago, these same people would have probably picked a radio station and left it on all day, interrupting it occasionally to play a particular CD or three. Five years ago, the radio delivered new music to this casual listener on a regular basis. Okay, maybe it's been 10 years.

My interest in P2P is as a musician who still has at least one more CD to create and sees P2P as a promotional pipeline. I think the reason the RIAA is against P2P has more to do with the fact that ANYONE can get their music there than anything else. You can actually find new music on the Internet, whether it's P2P or an artist's static html pages.

What I seldom (but occasionally) see is a discussion about human perception of music, and I think it is an important factor to consider, especially if you're talking about a crowd of 60 million people.

What if half the people in the world cannot tell the difference between CD quality and a 128k mp3 file? It's hard for me to conceive because I've been listening very closely to music for decades. I listen to the sizzle of the high hat and the thud of the kick drum at the same time I'm criticing vocal effects and guitar tones. I can tell the difference between mp3 and CD, but I think some people just don't.

For those people, there is no longer an incentive to buy music, especially when purchasing and keeping a "legal" mp3 file has apparently turned into a trip through the Temple of Doom -- you can do it, but you've got to know where all the traps are. Unfortunately for the record labels, the younger members of the audience are rather fond of challenging computer games. They'll beat you every time.

They will probably never buy a CD again, but they're probably more likely to buy t-shirts, hats and other merchandise.

As an artist and a consumer, I feel like I land in kind of a middle ground. I'm independent, so the RIAA doesn't concern itself with me. I'm illegitimate. I give away mp3's of my music because I know it's inferior to a CD. I just want people to listen to the music, maybe remember the name of the band. This is why I support P2P -- because maybe someone will find me there.

If the RIAA were interested in me, they'd want my copyrights. So do the scholars, but they want them to go into the public domain. Maybe not immediately, but as soon as possible.

I don't see where either solution helps the artist. If the purpose of the copyright law is to promote the creation of new works, neither of those options is going to cut it. Lawrence Lessig's Founder's Copyright is probably the best approach I've seen yet but even it requires selling your copyright.

Why is it necessary for an author, artist, compower, etc., to outright sell or relinquish for a given period, their inherent right to their own work? If an author's copyright was inalienable and nontransferrable, at least for a limited time, those who would exploit their work would be required to license it, but could not take possession of it and lock it away with DRM, copy protection and other Indiana Jones-style trickery. At the very least, this would give the author their rights back on a recurring basis (the maximun allowable life of the license), at which time the terms could be renegotiated, depending on the value of the work at the time.

Of course, this would require the DMCA to be repealed first, but that's just a small detail that's going to happen anyway.

Did it always say that next to User Comments? "(These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)" ? I don't seem to remeber that...

Anyway, nice article. I have nothing intelligent to add.

I agree George, I do not and will not pay for an mp3, if I want to purchas the music I will buy it in wave format. mp3 are cool don't get me wrong, but a wave has all that you says it has and more. M

George,

It must be 21st century version of radio. It was for me anyway. Because about 2 or 3 years ago I almost went insane hearing the same pathetic "hit" being played over and over. P2P was a way to find good music.

Anyone who listens to the radio ought to be able to tell you that radio stations are playing whoever that evanecense group is 500 times a day. Along with alternative/popular stuff from the early 90's (i.e. nirvana, sublime, etc).

I do not listen to the radio. At my former place of work we did. And that's how it was. After a 5 hour shift I was so sick of hearing anything 'brand spankin' new' because there were only one or two main songs, and it's all they played until they finally started playing old stuff.

Radio DJ's know damn good and well that RIAA music sucks nowadays.

I have not (intentionally) listened to FM radio in 2 years. I have not bought a CD for around 2.5 years. I do not use P2P.

There's no more music left to get. I admit I own RIAA albums like Weezer (the first album), Sublime, Green Day (dookie!).

My record collection is comprised of approx. 12 CD's. It's pathetic. There's nothing to listen to.

And now I'm boycotting to make up for the jerk across the hall buying 7 albums yesterday.

My points are that P2P *is* the new radio.
Radio DJ's also know that RIAA music sucks, and it is evident by how often they play older music compared to just a few years ago. And I think of this as a 'natural boycott' or whatever you want to call it. I just stopped buying because it sucks. I wanted to buy.. but there was no product. Now I don't even want to buy.

i yearn for good music. i can't find it, and i love music.

Great read!

My comment is about the copyright ownership. I really don't understand why a record company gets ownership of the musicians work. It makes no sense at all. The record company is basically just marketing the work, why do they have to own it? If I create something, I don't want someone else to have control over it.

Not quite the same thing, but as good an example as I can come up with:

I used to run a fan-based web-site for an NFL team. I created graphics and desktop wallpaper depicting the members of the team. I created them, but I didn't copyright anything. I gave them away to the people who spent time on my site. To me, it wasn't about money, it was only to get my graphic designs out to the public.

Isn't that what musicians want first and foremost? They want people to listen to their music in every form available. If the people like their music in the simplest forms, they may buy the cd and get the best quality. If I were a professional musician (instead of just a practicing guitarist), it would be hard for me to sell my music to greedy label execs. I would have to do it all myself or go with a small label. Not nearly the exposure, but I wouldn't have to worry about my music being locked up.

Dieriaa, Dieriaa, Dieriaa (say it 3 times fast) :^)

I guess I'm really lucky, because I like a lot of music from the 20's through the very early 90's.
I considered it a public service to share my collection of oldies. These songs are almost impossible to find in the originally released version.
It made my day to see someone upload a particularly hard to find oldie from me. I just knew that they were going to relive some good memories while hearing that song, just as I did after I first found it.
The riaa has no right to bottle up these hits and not release them into the public domain. 28 years is long enough for everyone involved to make it or break it.

So-called "oldies" radio is a sick joke. They have a top forty list that they seem to think everybody wants to hear. I stopped listening years ago. If I had heard Stairway To Heaven, It's My Party (by Leslie Gore), or Smoke On The Water one more time, I would have screamed.
When this is all over and the dust clears, I am going to rip every CD and good quality LP I have and add it to my shared collection. Who knows ? Maybe I helped someone get through a troubled time in their life. I know music has helped me survive some tough times, and I want to thank those who made so many great songs, that I never thought I’d hear again, available to me.

BTW. The disclaimer was not there last night. Probably some necessary legal requirement to keep from getting sued due to one of us who might get a little wound up (such as I did after reading about the latest rolling wave of lawsuits. I mean, someone needs to put these people out of business. That someone is you and I, so let the boycott and information campaign continue.).

The Kid

copyright reform is essential. and, we need to toss out this european born DMCA crap, asap.
everyone should write their congress people at congress.org, and start demanding repeal of the DMCA.
let a congressman get email after email demanding DMCA repeal, and just maybe they will see it as a re-election issue.

I've written my congressman and senators at least twice. also senators and comgressmen from around the country. I wonder if any of them listens. it really gets frustrating but I've gotta keep pluggin

Listener supported radio is a great option.

If there isn't one in your listening range, many are streamed on the internet.

Here are some suggestions, if you don't know where to start-

if you like bluegrass, folk, country music-there is: www.wets.org

If you like celtic, 60's, gosh, any genre:
www.wmnf.org

Or start googlin'..

Give it a shot. Breathe a sigh of relief, because there are stations out there that have playlists you want to hear.

And never have to hear "Freebird" again.

As I said in another thread--

Crap floats, you have to dig for the gold.

I aggree with you 100 percent George, I could have wrote this myself.

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy

except, unfortunately, I use a pc. Couldn't afford a mac at the time.

@bulkeraser
i know that this is an emotional issue, and that sometimes words just get out of line, but i nevertheless have to comment:

erm, maybe i missed something, but what the heck do you mean by european born dmca?
hmmm, europe doesn't closely follow the american line, so naturally everything bad must come from europe???

thanks to the dmca, we in europe now have a similar legislation crap which also makes fair use impossible if the content is copyprotected!

oh, maybe soon you'll also blame us europeans for the mess bush made of the international community with his unilateral 'either you're with us or you're against us' approach and with all his lies and fabrications!
note that most 'old europeans' (term coined by the beloved rummy) are against bush and his neocons, but don't have anything against americans themselves!

here's a clue: this dmca-crap is big business politics and has nothing to do with continents, nations or specific governments!

I agree with George totally. The government and RIAA can't be allowed to infringe on the rights of copyright holders who want to release their works on P2P. P2P is starting to be used for more than "illegal downloads". Mandrake Linux is using an P2P application named bittorrent to release the latest Mandrake 9.2 to the Mandrakeclub members before releasing it on public ftp servers.

Are you the George Ziemann who ebay wouldn't allow to sell his own cds?

That's affirmative on the ebay story.