Why I Download: Confessions of a Music Junkie Mike Prevatt, Las Vegas
CityLife July 11, 2002

I am a thief.

I am a thief because I acquire music from the Internet. Habitually.

Gleefully. Unapologetically.

I download, I stream, I burn, I rip and I glow. I shuffle through
playlists, scour file sharing engines, peruse Web sites for music video
selections and compile songs for mixes I make for my friends with less
tune-hunting time than I have.

I do it all to find The Song. The One that elevates me when I'm down or,
conversely, compliments the hurt after a rough day. The One that makes my
adrenaline surge, my serotonin flood, my blood rush to my head. The One
that connects me to another person. The One that connects me to the artist
who authored it. The One that connects me to myself.

And yet, I'm told that by doing so, I am conducting burglary. I am accused
of being unlawful. Unethical. Unloyal to musicians, even.

Unloyal? I spend thousands of dollars on prerecorded music every year; I
spend hundreds on concert tickets; and I even spend $13 a month on
satellite radio service. I stomach MTV and broadcast radio. DVDs? I have
almost as many music titles as I do cinematic ones. Singles? Still buy 'em.
Imports? Worth the extra dough. I've even dabbled with vinyl and I don't
even own a turntable.

You could never convince the music business that it's enough. Hell, you
couldn't even convince me that it's enough. I'm listless and perpetually
unfulfilled when it comes to music.

As a rabid fan, I am always craving music -- new, old and current. I want
to know what people were listening to back in the day, what they're
listening to now and what they'll be listening to in the future.

I'm not an addict. I just love music. I'm willing to do anything to get
more of it. And in all likelihood, so are you.

You Say You Want a Digital Music Revolution People like me have been
listening to music on the Internet for more than eight years now. In the
mid-'90s, you could find burgeoning Web sites that featured some sort of
musical demonstration. Some songs played as soon as the homepage came up.
Some could be streamed, where a temporary file is "forgotten" as soon as it
was over (like a radio broadcast online). And some were available for
download, meaning you could save them in your computer. The song files were
typically primitive, but it was another way to experience music.

Along came the Moving Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer III, or MP3 for
short. In 1997 or so, a couple of college students got a whiff of the
compressed file that could playback songs a couple notches below compact
disc quality, but better than that of streaming audio. They also discovered
an "Amp" engine that could play the files. They threw a Windows interface
on the Amp, called it WinAmp and began to distribute it on the Net. That's
when it all went downhill. Or uphill, depending on how you look at it.

In 1998, university students armed with dormitory broadband (non-dial-up,
high-speed) Net access, along with tech-suave geeks and music fans
worldwide, began to acquire copyrighted music online for their personal
WinAmp players. Within one year, MP3 became the standard format for
listening to songs on the Internet, and their distribution over thousands
and thousands of unregulated web sites meant that virtually any song ever
recorded was available. Portable devices, spearheaded by RioPort, allowed
the songs to move from desktop to a mechanism the size of a pack of
cigarettes. People could store their new files on blank discs, to be read
in other people's computers -- or better, they could decompress the files,
save them and play them in certain CD players. One Web site, MP3.com, a
massive community of artists and computer users willing to share their
music, developed virtual storage lockers for fans and their music.

But that was just the start of what people were already calling the digital
music revolution. In 1999, Shawn Fanning, an 18-year-old Northwestern
University dropout, wondered if there was a way for computer users to
easily swap song files online. He created Napster -- and in early 2000, the
file-sharing, peer-to-peer service revolutionized the music industry
forever. A year after its release, 60 million people downloaded the free
software and adopted it as their one-stop music warehouse.

A kid in Tokyo could have the same music library as one in Omaha, Neb.,
with just a few clicks.

This, predictably, didn't sit well with the Big Five labels (Sony,
Universal, BMG, EMI and Warner); and in 2001 their lobbying arm, the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), convinced a federal judge
to shut Napster down. The problem? Artists, labels and publishers were not
being compensated by the free trade of song files over the Internet. Sure,
there were several ways to obtain music on the Net -- even other
song-swapping programs like Napster. The inventors of MP3 had made it easy
for people to develop programs and software for it; there was no regulation
or encryption that would hinder the advancement or potential of the
technology. But no single entity had popularized the free distribution of
music like Napster. By temporarily disabling the company/service, now being
swallowed up by BMG, there would be less peer-to-peer downloading, less
copyright infringement and less money loss in the music business.

Right? Wrong. Bustling during and after Napster's reign were file-trading
services like Gnutella, Grokster, Morpheus, Aimster, Limewire and KaZaA
(which currently boasts 91 million handouts of its program on CNET's
Download.com) -- among others, providing easy-to-download, easy-to-use
technology by which music fans could swap songs. Though the RIAA has sued
nearly all of the companies behind the aforementioned services, most of
them have done nothing but increase the amount of free music downloading on
the Internet. In 2001 alone, nearly 8 billion song files were reportedly
traded online.

With a number that huge, it's extremely likely either you or someone close
to you obtained a recording online at no cost.

Too Little, Too Late While music mavens were gobbling up digital music to
our hearts' content, the music industry literally sat and did nothing. Not
understanding the technology, the impact of an intangible format such as
MP3, the distribution potential online or its own customers, the Big Five
failed to develop their own mechanisms for marketing and selling music on
the web -- and paid for it big time.

During this year's South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, the
head-hung-low industry revealed how the digital music revolution not only
snuck right past it, but robbed it. Last year, the top 10 bestselling
albums -- the bread and butter of the business, many say -- sold 25 percent
less than the year before. Sales overall were down between 5 and 10
percent, depending on which statistic you read. And no single album sold
more than 5 million copies.

To add insult to injury, recordable compact discs -- which many digital
music fans use to store MP3s and burned or recorded music -- outsold
prerecorded albums 3-to-1.

Why? The industry refused to give consumers what they wanted.

For eons, the industry conducted business on its own terms, and people had
to go along with it. This recently included CDs with a suggested retail
price of $18.98, and very little in the way of digital alternatives. Now
that consumers have found a way around the standard CD format -- and its
high cost -- the labels are scurrying to catch up.

Universal and Sony teamed in 2001 to create Pressplay, which is one of two
high-profile subscription services offering legal downloads. EMI also
joined the service. In addition, MusicNet (or RealOne) was launched last
year by Warner, BMG and EMI -- in conjunction with RealNetworks -- as
another subscription-based function. These two services took the master
recordings of the labels' music and made them available to computer users.

Both services, which cost about $10 a month, claim that they offer
high-quality music and that the artists get compensated. A no-lose
situation, right? Wrong. There are several problems with Pressplay and
MusicNet -- and it's the music consumers who pay.

First, the Big Five failed to agree on a single service that would allow
all of their music -- 85 percent of the recorded music out there -- to be
accessed. (Big surprise -- they can't agree on much of anything, really.)
So now, music fans must know the label that released the song they desire
in order to download it, or subscribe to both services. Someone seeking
rocker Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" won't find the song on Pressplay, as he is
signed to Warner; it is only available on MusicNet. Conversely, you won't
spot rapper Jay-Z's recent material on MusicNet, as he has been linked with
Universal since 1997.

Second, the songs are not in MP3 format. You must use their players to hear
the songs. Many of the songs are in streams, which often come out of
speakers in a faded, echoey manner. And if you download a song, it can
never be a permanent part of your collection. Once you quit the service,
the files go along with your subscription.

Third, there is no unlimited amount of downloads for either service. In
some instances, you can only download two songs from the same artist during
one month. To accrue more download opportunities, you need to subscribe to
premium plans, which come at a higher monthly rate.

Other ventures, such as Streamwaves, EMusic and Listen.com, are making
inroads with the Big Five to make more music legitimately available.

Listen.com, in fact, recently became the only service to offer music from
all five labels. Sony and Universal are also facilitating the direct
purchase of songs and albums online, from 49 cents a single to $9.99 an
album -- clearly a step in the right direction.

The major flaw with these efforts is they offer no incentive to the music
devotee to pony up the dough. If I've been downloading some or all of my
music for the past year for free, why should I start paying now? Been
Caught Stealing Even a hardcore music fan like me knows that downloading
music from KaZaA and the likes is pretty much illegal. Then again, so are
smoking pot and speeding, and some of us think nothing of committing those
crimes. But there's a conscience to acknowledge when it comes to freely
swapping songs online, and it pertains to the creator of the music. Without
the download option, we might normally buy the physical recording in the
store or through e-commerce means. Then, the artist could theoretically be
compensated for his work.

Downloaders take the musician and his work for granted, but God forbid
anyone should raise hell about the subject. Hard rock act Metallica tattled
on 300,000 Napster users who traded its songs, and it subsequently suffered
massive backlash from its fans and the media. Michael Greene, president of
the Recording Academy, launched into an outrageous diatribe during this
year's Grammy Awards that called file sharing "the most insidious virus in
our midst" and a "life-and-death issue."

The widely ridiculed speech was rumored to be one reason behind his forced
resignation in April.

Still, one can't ignore the idea of an artist and his need to make a living.

"I think there's a terrible perception that artists shouldn't do anything
for themselves," says Don Henley, pop musician and staunch critic of free
file trading. "It's almost like there's a guilt factor that we didn't earn
any of this, unlike other professions. [Some people think] music should be
free, and the people who make it are not supposed to really be in the
business for themselves, or looking out for themselves. They are just
supposed to be providing free entertainment for the rest of the world."

The arguments among peer-to-peer advocates and users range from the fair
use of recorded material (VHS taping) and the innocence of KaZaA and the
likes in facilitating piracy, to the notion that users will ultimately
support artists they download financially by purchasing their CDs and
attending their concerts. But many in the industry aren't buying it. They
use the decreasing sales numbers as evidence of their plight. They also
point to mislabeled files, poor recording quality and unreliable service as
reasons to forgo file trading services and opt for label-sanctioned
services like Pressplay, MusicNet, MP3.com (now owned by Universal) and
Listen.com.

The RIAA has long used litigious intimidation to counter what it sees as
widespread piracy. Now, it may seek to punish the real perpetrators: you
and me. Recent developments suggest the labels are discussing ways to sue
file traders -- in particular, those distributing the highest volume of
copyrighted material -- a tactic they have previously shunned. The threat
is clear: Play by our rules or we'll take your ass to court.

The Defense For a music fan, the web is a limitless supply of tunes and
resources -- legit or otherwise. In eight minutes, with high-speed Internet
access, you can download KaZaA, figure out how to work it, and then
download -- say -- Dirty Vegas' "Days Go By."

You can visit Launch at Yahoo and watch hundreds of music videos on
authorized streams. You can hear snippets of songs at Amazon.com, to see if
buying a particular album seems worthwhile.

You can preview the yet-to-be-released Flaming Lips album on MusicNet or a
new Red Hot Chili Peppers song on AOL. Or you can choose a song off
Limewire (one of the few Macintosh-friendly peer-to-peer services), look at
whose copy you're downloading and see if that user has any other selections
you might be interested in.

This phenomenon has commercially aided artists more than the record labels
would like to admit. A few examples:

* In 2000, Brit rock act Radiohead's Kid A was already being downloaded
from the file swapping services, before it was released in October. This,
despite concerted attempts from the band's label (Capitol) to keep it out
of the public's hands before release. No matter -- the album, considered to
be the band's most un-mainstream work, sold 200,000 copies in one week,
landing Radiohead its first No. 1 effort and eventually going platinum.

* Rock band Wilco, after being dumped by Reprise Records in 2001, streams
its new work, Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, online before it finds a distributor.
In April, Nonesuch releases it on CD, and the critically hailed work is on
pace to be the band's most commercially successful album to date.

* Punk-oriented group the Offspring had the most illegally downloaded song
of 1999 with "Pretty Fly For a White Guy," and still sold more than 4
million copies of its Americana album. Pretty fab for an oft-downloaded band.

Why We Do It We download because we are tired of radio either not featuring
enough variety or playing too many advertisements. Thanks to the narrow
playlist of media conglomerates like Clear Channel, the majority of
broadcast radio no longer caters to anyone but fans of top 40. Online we
can hear countless unsigned and unbroken artists; it is there they thrive
beyond their hometowns.

We download because MTV and VH1 rarely play videos anymore, and when they
do it's the same label-hyped artists over and over again. MTV2 has sought
to focus on videos and not programming, but it is not available to the
majority of cable subscribers. Going to Launch, Sputnik7.com or even the
artists' web sites can allow us to see the visual accompaniment of songs
from all genres.

We download because we will not pay $20 for albums that typically feature
one or two songs of quality or appeal. Even with Best Buy, Wal-Mart and
Target pricing albums below $14, and sometimes as low as $6, there is no
way to obtain a fraction of the music being marketed relentlessly by major
labels. And forget about being offered a decent array of singles, forcing
us to fork over the $20 for the full-length.

It is increasingly hard to find music worth that amount of money, and the
industry is reluctant to accept that.

We download because it is difficult to sympathize with a business that
claims its artists are losing money to the file sharing phenomenon, and
then typically pays them last -- after the label, the managers, the
lawyers, the label's promotion department and everyone else involved in
making and promoting the record. Artists make little, if any, money from
albums unless they are megasellers. It is through touring and merchandise
sales -- and maybe publishing royalties -- where artists have any hope of
recouping the costs of making an album and earning a living. Downloads
can't infringe upon concerts, radio play and T-shirts.

We download because the government -- largely uneducated on the issue of
copyright infringement on the Net -- has been slow to legislate whether
we're actually stealing or not, and intervene on the issue of proper
licensing payment.

We download because we love music. We want unlimited music, which we can
use in any way we want, for the least amount of money. The Internet, right
or wrong, provides us with the means to accomplish that. The white label
versions, rarities, hard-to-find b-sides, out-of-print titles, live
performances, hard-to-find remixes -- they're all floating in the cyber
ether, within grasp at any moment. How do you convince a music junkie to
ignore that?

And we download because for the first time in years, after the
price-gouging and marginalization of the art form we love most by the music
industry, we have something to be excited about. And it wasn't started by
the Big Five -- it was started by music fans and computer users. We changed
the music experience forever.

Immediately after relocating to Los Angeles, former CityLife A&E Editor
Mike Prevatt received such an overwhelming surge of culture and
intellectualism he blacked out right on the sidewalk. A nearby transvestite
resuscitated him, and now he's steadily acclimatizing. When he's not parked
on the SoCal freeway system, he checks his e-mail at [log in to unmask]


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