You’re Doing It, Internet!

NB: In all seriousness, I've never actually used the Pirate Bay to get music. It stands as a handy image representation, though.

I was reading an article on my Kindle* today from USA Today** that suggested that 95% of music downloaded via the internet was stolen. At first I was outraged, and then I reasoned out that, if the Animal Show represents 95% of the traffic on the internet (and it does) and the Animal Show supplies music free of charge (and it does), then it would make sense that the 95% of the music downloaded on the internet came from the Animal Show, and was therefore stolen. Right?

In all seriousness, the proliferation of music piracy represents something much bigger than falling album sales — customers (like you and me) are perceiving less value in an album of music than they did 9 short years ago. Listening is beginning to be seen as a right, not a privilege. I often rationalize blogs like the Show as the radio of the 21st century (because this helps me sleep at night), which is a parallel that only makes sense up to a certain point: while the internet undeniably provides fora for new music to be heard and enjoyed, it also provides unparalleled access for free. As a blog-reader, I’m going to go ahead and assume you have a relatively high amount of tech-savvy. Therefore, you would know that finding and enjoying new music doesn’t take the path that I am forced to act that it does. I’ve seen the click-through data for the Amazon links I put at the bottom of each post, and can say with some degree of certainty that they end up having basically no impact on the album sales for the artist I’m writing about. And I don’t mean in terms of “album sales” (ie on a scale of thousands or more), but instead in absolute terms — if I’ve made a post where 10 out of the 1000+ people who read it click through to Amazon to even think about buying the album, I’m doing something right. And to shoot for a 1% success rate is somewhat depressing.

But I know that, as tech-savvy readers (and, theoretically, as music lovers) you have sought out more from artists whom I’ve posted about and whom you enjoyed. Instead of purchasing their music, this takes the form of downloading the album from any number of free sources, from torrent servers like The Pirate Bay (which is dumb, and you shouldn’t do it) to online hotspots like megaupload, Yousendit, or mediafire (which provide the more intelligent way to download).

Is this worrisome? Yes. Certainly. Do I use these services? Yes, all the time. I’m proud of the fact that I spend the most considerable portion of my disposable income on music, whether it’s concert tickets, merchandise, or albums. But I simply don’t really believe in paying for digital music. Like most consumers, I want to be able to hold in my hand the item I’ve laid money out for. As a result, I probably end up buying 25% of the albums I consume. Sometimes I’ll download first and then buy and sometimes I’ll never buy. I don’t feel bad about it. I’ve grown tired of spending $18 on an album which I don’t know if I’ll enjoy. It’s much lower risk to download and delete bad albums. Hard drive space is hardly at a premium. For a long while I’d been an outspoken supporter of buying cds (which the amount of near-worthless plastic cluttering my room at home can attest to), but I’m growing tired of trying to right a sinking ship by throwing money at it.

I’m writing about this mainly because I think there are a lot of interesting issues in the music business that need discussion, and, as music bloggers and consumers of music blogs, we are the decisionmakers, tastemakers, and, at the most basic level, thieves. Again, I’m not losing much sleep at night, but that’s also because I’ve convinced myself that artists make music, first and foremost, to be heard. Not to make money. They have to earn a livelihood, definitely, but I’d bet that 98% of the up-and-comers playing weekly club-stays would say that they’d rather see a full house of people who hadn’t payed than a 60% capacity crowd that had.

This is an issue we at the Show are going to be coming back to with some semblance of frequency (fortnightly? monthly?) to discuss, from each of our different perspectives. Hopefully it’ll be really rewarding for you, the listener. Or it’ll strengthen our already-impressive bounce rate, as more people coming from Hype Machine for the songs stick around for the words. Writers are like musicians in that they want to be read. Jot that down.

Krazy Day N Nite (Pitbull vs. Lil Jon vs. Kid Cudi vs. Crookers) – A plus D (YSI)

My Girls (Gigamesh “Proper House” Remix) – Animal Collective (YSI)

Animal – Miike Snow (YSI)

*Nobody actually owns a Kindle

**Nobody actually reads USA Today