There are two groups of people in this world; those that make music and those that make money from music. In the first category fall all the musicians and music lovers and in the second category we have the Record Industry, the RIAA; the greed merchants who get fat and rich off the backs of others, who exploit the general public where they can, when they can, for what they can get.

 

What we hear from the greed merchant’s year in and year out that the illegal distribution of music is immoral and takes away food from the mouths of the musicians they represent. Of course what they really are saying is that they're terrified that the fat profits that they make off the backs of others are going to be affected by this "illegal" activity and that it is plain to see that vested interests and greed are the order of the day here. Quite plainly, a lot of the artists that they represent are so incredibly rich that if they never made another penny, they wouldn't want for another Ferrari, Jaguar, or whatever. The Record Industry speaks for it's own greed when it cries out against anything that could threaten it's fat milk cow.

 

Of course there are many many muscians/bands out there that are not rich but who would like to be rewarded for what they do. What they do, they ultimately do for the love of it, and if it makes a decent living, this frees them to pursue their love of music which benefits everyone.

 

Let us stand back and see how a band makes money. Of course good music and good musicians, like cream, will usually rise to the top. But as everyone knows, what a band needs is EXPOSURE. The more people that hear a bands music, the more chance and opportunity there is for some of those people to buy that bands music. This is so obvious and so essential and yet this very simple fact has got lost in the debate about money, greed, copyright etc.

 

Some of us remember in the 1970s when the recording industry issued the skull and crossbones logo on the inner sleeves of LP's claiming that "Home Taping Was Killing Music." Of course we can laugh about it now and yet some of us saw it at the time for what it was; absurd and blatant propoganda. In reality, home taping was just yet another cheap and convenient medium by which music could be shared with the masses and in effect, increased music sales; not killed them.

 

I, for myself, have been buying music for 25 years. I would say without doubt that 90% of the music that I have bought, I bought because I heard it and loved it. In many cases, how I came to hear this music was through so-called ILLEGAL copies of music passed to me on cassette and MP3’s. Yep, that very old adage that home taping was killing music was in fact stimulating its growth in wonderful ways.

 

Exposure, good music and good musicians are the essential ingredients to an artist/group making money from their craft. The more exposure, the better. Take for example the genre that I'm interested in: Sixties Psychedelia. These is (or was) simply no mainstream exposure for this type of music, it was mainly considered underground and an obscure genre. I would have never fallen in love with, and subsequently bought music from this era if it wasn't for the ILLEGAL activities of friends and colleagues who passed me tapes of bands from this era. And if it wasn't for the illegal activities of many taping this music and passing it on, many would not have heard and bought the original recordings that in many cases, made these artists some money some 30 years after they ceased recording and after their catalogues were deleted by the said Record Companies.

 

So much for home taping is killing music huh? If we'd listened to this nonsensical stupidity from the Record Industry, then many many artists would have never had the exposure their music so richly deserved and received the monetary gain they so richly deserved.

 

And so the same old argument and stupidity rages and rears it's ugly head again today. We are told that distribution of MP3's on the internet is the greatest threat to the music industry the world has ever seen and that the slump in record sales is blamed on this illegal activity. I'm sorry, but all this crowing from the RIAA and Record Industry/Executives leaves me totally indifferent & cold. There are so many mitigating reasons for the slump in record sales but illegal downloading is simply not one of them.

 

I do accept that there will be a small percentage of people who would have bought an album if they were not able to download it. But I would bet my bottom dollar that the exposure of music on the internet (or by other ILLEGAL means) will generate considerably more revenue for that artist than it would ever harm them.

 

The activities of the greed merchants at the RIAA etc are actually what would encourage me to pursue illegal activities. I'm all for the artists that I love for being re-numarated for their craft but those greedy executives in the high rollers leave me cold. When LP's first came out, we were overcharged and in any event, we had to pay royalties. Then blank cassette's came out and a surcharge was put on them to re-numerate those greedy swines for any potential losses incurred by home taping (but which actually stimulated interested and sales). Then when CD's came out, not only were they hugely overpriced (and still are), we had to pay the same royalties again on music that we already owned on vinyl and had paid royalties on. And now I'm paying royalties on blank audio CD's for my hi-fi Cd recorder to record LP's that I already paid royalties on! Talk about being screwed in every which way but loose.

 

And now we see the RIAA attacking anyone/everyone that dares to try and deprive it of its fat profits. It threatens court action and all sorts of draconian measures to anyone caught downloading MP3's! If it succeeded in it's objective, I suspect we'd have billions of people in jail now for trying to deprive them of the huge profits they make. What the RIAA is doing will ultimately be counter-productive and if the stupid idiots could see beyond their own greed, they would see this new technological that could, if utilized correctly, be a boon for music industry, not it's downfall. All they see is a threat to their fat profits, not new opportunities.

 

I baulk at paying the high prices charged for new CD's. £15 is way too expensive for the likes of me on a modest income with very little disposable income and if the RIAA wants to stop falling sales, it should look at how much it tries to rip people off.

 

I am a music lover and I know what motivates me to buy music; It’s exposure and good music, every music lover knows this. Most musicians also know this. The greed of the RIAA is obvious to all, even to those musicians they represent. A lot of musicians are starting to distribute their music for free on the internet knowing that exposure is the key. This is going to be the shape of things to come. I am always happy where I can afford it, to pay the artist for his music. What I do resent is paying those greedy Record Executives any more money than they already rip us off for. I cannot tolerate greed and it is plain for all to see. This is why so many hate the RIAA and what they stand for. If more money can be channelled to the musician and less to the greedy people who represent them, I’m all for it.

 

And finally, how did I get to hear Yello’s music? Yes, a friend (who can’t be named for fear of arrest) ILLEGALY taped their music onto cassette for me. As a consequence of this ILLEGAL exposure, I have bought every Yello CD and 12”/7” that I’ve come across since 1979 when I first heard their amazing and highly original “Solid Pleasure.” Of course if the RIAA is reading this, I’ve since destroyed those illegal cassette recordings so there’s no point in raiding my home!

 

Well, not so much 2 cents worth as $2 worth and a subject I obviously feel passionate about. :)

 

Peace to you all.

 

Jabberwoc

 

Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live