USA Today
October 23, 2002
Page 13A
Music industry spins falsehood
By Janis Ian
The recording industry says downloading music from the Internet is
ruining our business, destroying sales and costing artists such as me
money.
Costing me money?
I don't pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do
know one thing: If a record executive says he will make me more money,
I'd immediately protect my wallet.
Still, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is now in
federal court trying to gain new powers to personally target Internet
users in lawsuits for trading music files online. In a motion filed with
the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the RIAA is
demanding that an Internet service provider, Verizon, turn over the name
and contact information of one of its Internet subscribers who, the RIAA
claims, might have unauthorized copies of songs on a home computer.
Attacking your own customers because they want to learn more about your
products is a bizarre business strategy, one the music industry cannot
afford to continue. Yet the RIAA effectively destroyed Napster on such
grounds, and now it is using the same crazy logic to take on Internet
service providers and even privacy rights.
The RIAA's claim that the industry and artists are hurt by free
downloading is nonsense. Consider my experience: I'm a recording artist
who has sold multiple platinum records since the 1960s. My site,
janisian.com, began offering free downloads in July. About a thousand
people per day have downloaded my music, most of them people who had
never heard of me and never bought my CDs.
Welcome to 'Acousticville'
On the first day I posted downloadable music, my merchandise sales
tripled, and they have stayed that way ever since. I'm not about to
become a zillionaire as a result, but I am making more money. At a time
when radio playlists are tighter and any kind of exposure is hard to come
by, 365,000 copies of my work now will be heard. Even if only 3% of those
people come to concerts or buy my CDs, I've gained about 10,000 new fans
this year.
That's how artists become successful: exposure. Without exposure, no one
comes to shows, and no one buys CDs. After 37 years as a recording
artist, when people write to tell me that they came to my concert because
they downloaded a song and got curious, I am thrilled.
Who's really hurt by free downloads? The executives at major labels who
twiddled their thumbs for years while company after company begged them
to set up ''micropayment'' protocols and to license material for
Internet-download sales.
Listen up
Many artists now benefit greatly from the free-download systems the RIAA
seeks to destroy. These musicians, especially those without a major-label
contract, can reach millions of new listeners with a downloadable song,
enticing music fans to buy a CD or come to a concert of an artist they
would have otherwise missed.
The RIAA and the entrenched music industry argue that free downloads are
threats. The music industry had exactly the same response to the advent
of reel-to-reel home tape recorders, cassettes, DATs, minidiscs, VCRs,
music videos, MTV and a host of other products and services.
I am not advocating indiscriminate downloading without the artist's
permission. Copyright protection is vital. But I do object to the
industry spin that it is doing all this to protect artists. It is not
protecting us; it is protecting itself.
I hope the court rejects the efforts of the music industry to assault the
Internet and the music fans who use it. Speaking as an artist, I want us
to work together -- industry leaders, musicians, songwriters and
consumers -- to make technology work for all of us.
Janis Ian's popular-music credits include 17 major-label albums, nine
Grammy nominations and 37 years of experience in the music industry.
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