Saviour in Disguise?

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Music piracy has become one of the most acceptable crimes across the western world in recent years leading to a battle between the professional music industry and internet pioneers running illegal sites who both claim to have the moral high ground. The industry claims that using illegal sites means you are, in effect, stealing from the artist whereas the site owners feel that music is an art form that we all have the right to share.

Most illegal sights work on a file sharing system; users sign up to the sight and through it make their music collection available to other users.  This means that the more people that sign up the more music is available and therefore leads to there being a few popular sights that cover the majority of the market. The first big file sharing site to really take off was Napster. Started in America by high-school dropout Shawn Fanning it grew to have 15,000 users in its first week. The sight grew from this and was eventually trading around 2.79 billion songs at its peak in February 2001. However, the industry started to fight back and eventually the site was closed down. Napster was turned into a legal download site and still exists today. Despite this a host of other sites were started up to follow in its footsteps and are still running today.  

But what affects do these sites actually have on the industry and what are artists and record companies doing to try and combat it?

Though most of the industry claims that file sharing leads to decreased record sales it has also been suggested that it is actually beneficial to artists. When it’s considered that the majority of people using the sights are young people, normally students, it is unlikely that they would be able to afford to buy conventionally as much music as they access online. Music technology student Tony admits to using a file sharing system set up by students living in halls but also says “I prefer having something physical to go with my music like a booklet to read I just can’t afford to pay for all the music I want.”

 File sharing can help increase the fan base for up and coming artists and this market can then be accessed with other products such as merchandise and live tickets. It can also be seen as an important publicity tool for new bands. Website “indiebandsurvivalguide.com” recommends bands put their songs on file sharing sites as it is “one of the most inexpensive ways to get your music heard by new audiences.” Artist Ben Folds staged a fake leak of his album “Way To Normal” onto file sharing sites in order to create publicity before its release. This was a successful move and created initial publicity over the “leak” and then another wave of interest focused on the way he had used the technology that others were criticising to his advantage. 

It has been suggested the only way the music industry can fight the move online is to come up with new ways it can sell music. Resurgence in the marketing of vinyl and the introduction of USB albums is amongst the recent developments seen. These forms allow the music to be sold more like merchandise as they are seen more like a novelty item and can be collectable. We have also seen a rise in the importance of live music in recent years. Phil Jones, lecturer for the music industry management degree at Southampton Solent University says: “music venues and clubs will replace CDs as the main form of income for artists. This will lead to a greater diversification of music as it is a more accessible way for artists to be heard”

The invention of illegal downloads has hit the music industry with force however it may be more realistic to say that instead of destroying it, as the hype has suggested, it is just forcing it to evolve.