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| From | "josh chasin" <jchasin@nyc.rr.com> |
| Subject | Morality and mp3s |
| Date | Thu, 20 Feb 2003 14:07:09 -0500 |
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A few days ago Jim "Synchro" posed a challenge, to defend the morality of
downloading mp3s, but independent of the economic implications.
I've been pondering this since.
First off, I would suggest that one cannot segment the economic issue from
the morality issue, for the simple reason that if there were no economic
impact, there would be no moral issue (is it still stealing if the thing is
of no value?) In other words, I suggest the issue of morality goes away if
there is no economic harm inflicted via the downloading of mp3s.
Historically, the concept of "trial", to use a marketting term, has been of
paramount importance in shifting units in the recording industry. In bygone
days you could go into a record store and use the listening booth to sample
the latest releases. And certainly, the top-40 radio station that plays the
same song 8 times a day is generating trial, which we all assume corrolates
directly to sales.
I don't think a legitimate case could be made that, by making the
intellectual property of my new single so ubiquitous by playing it to death
on the radio, the station is pirating my intellectual property, because
someone out there will decide "I don't need that record-- I've heard it
enough." (Side note: I did nott buy the Norah Jones CD because I had heard
it enough last year; every time we went to someone's house, they simply HAD
to play it for us.) No, while it may be that a consumer "burns out" on a
song via heavy rotation, on balance we all accept prima facie that free
exposure to intellectual property via the airwaves constitutes trial, and is
promotion and advertising, which generates sales, which benefits, not harms,
the artist.
Now then, mp3. Pity the poor mp3. It is, after all, but a humble
compression algorithm, a file format. When did it become the devil
incarnate? I understand the implications that might arise because I can
"possess" and re-produce an mp3, whereas a song on the radio is gone after
it has played. Yet I could always tape my favorite songs off the radio
(show of hands-- who taped Casey Kasem as a kid? David Bash, don't tell me
your hand isn't raised!) And I don't think this taping is really considered
the breach in morality that mp3s appear to be. So I submit, as someone has
already done, that mp3 is quite simply today's radio-- a new technology for
stimulating trial, bringing with it a whole new set of ramifications. (Did
I mention that I never, ever listen to the radio?)
There have always been heavy radio listeners who were light or non-record
buyers; were these knaves pirating intellectual property by enjoying music
withouut paying for it? Shouldn't the RIAA be having my mother arrested?
Now a common argument that might arise here is that in the digital age, one
can make a "perfect" copy, whereas in an anolog world, tapes of tapes of
tapes degrade. To which I reply, yes, you can. But an mp3 aint it. An mp3
at 128 kbs is roughly a tenth the size of the original wav file or CD track;
there is enough quality loss that amongst the avid live show traders I deal
with in my other life as hepcat jam band scenester, no one will touch mp3.
The compression file format of choice is shorten, or ".shn", which is much
bigger than mp3 but lossless; a de-compressed shorten file is identical to
the original wav file. (see www.etree.org or visit your local public library
for more info.) Try ripping a song to mp3, then converting the mp3 to mp3
to mp3, and compare the end result to the original CD track. The
degradation in sound quallity will be distinctly noticable (if not to you,
most certainly to your dog.)
So where are we? I would argue that the practice of downloading mp3s is not
in and of itself immoral, does not in and of itself constitute theft. Hell,
Jill Sobule, Prince, Todd Rundgren, Jim Boggia, and dozens of other artists
I'm too lazy to think of right now give them away as inducements to
patronage. Janis Ian has been very literate in her writings on the way mp3
have helped her career.
Many is the time I have emailed a choice mp3 to a friend. The most common
outcomes are either (1) "Not my cup of Joe", or (2) "I just ordered the
album, thanks for the heads-up!" I'm still waiting for someone to write
back, "Thanks for saving me $15."
What is important here is context. Does the mp3 fit in as part of a broader
marketing campaign for the recording itself? Can it indeed be construed as
today's favored method of trial among avid record purchasers? I believe the
answer here is yes. Has the industry-- and artists-- made sufficient hay of
the fact that an mp3 just plain doesn't sound as good as a CD track? ("You
liked the mp3... you'll love the album!")
Me, I guarantee you-- if I download your whole damn album in mp3 and like
it, I'll chuck the files and make a beeline to Not Lame or the like.
In colnclusion, then, I do not believe that the mp3 format in and of itself,
nor the downloading and distribution of same, is in any way a priori
immoral.
*********
PS: Some may have read Henry Laura's comments on having seen the Rosenbergs,
and his lamentations at the prospect that they might be splitting up. Dirty
little secret: Henry's first exposure to the band? I gave him my "give to a
friend" copy of their last album. Trial or theft? You be the judge.
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