Unchained melodies

Singer/songwriter Janis Ian defends downloadable music on the Internet. But the recording industry, feeling burned itself by all this CD burning, is ready to take the offensive.

By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer

© St. Petersburg Times
published September 30, 2002

[Times photo illustration: Patty Yablonski]

The whole Internet music debate became clear to Janis Ian when parents started coming to her after her concerts offering her money. Usually a dollar or two. Sometimes more. They said they had gone online and copied one or several of her songs for their kids. And since they got the music for free, they wanted to pay Ian back.

Those parents represent a tiny fraction of what has turned into a music copying epidemic. In the last two years, sales of blank CDs have skyrocketed, while sales of recorded music have dropped. Every month, an estimated 2-billion songs are traded, for free, online. And many of those songs end up on those blank CDs.

It's a matter of economics. Which would you rather do: Go to a record store and pay $15.99 for a CD that includes two or three songs you like, or stay at home, download only the songs you like, and transfer them to a blank CD you bought for about 50 cents?

The loser in all this, of course, is the record industry, which claims it's watching billions in sales slip through the Net. (Sales of recorded music decreased by an estimated 10 percent in 2001.) The industry refers to the process of downloading and burning CDs as piracy, and has launched an aggressive lobbying campaign to stop it. Or at least slow it down.

One of their first successful targets: Napster. (In typical Internet fashion, after Napster was shut down, several similar sites sprang up, including kazaa.com, which recently surpassed the 100-million download mark, far more than Napster ever had.)

One thing the record industry wasn't counting on in its war against piracy was a voice of opposition from its own ranks.

Janis Ian.

Janis Ian

An Emmy Award-winning singer/songwriter best known for her 1975 hit, At Seventeen, Ian did something some other recording artists, and certainly any record company executive, would consider an act of treason. She turned down the money, and told her fans to download all of her music they want.

"I thanked them and told them it was absurd (not to download)," Ian said recently from her home in Nashville. "And then I started telling people at my concerts, 'You have the legal right to make copies of these CDs. Please go ahead and do so. Because it drives me crazy that the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that represents most of America's record labels) has put a terrific spin on this.

"And my little article is one of the things that, hopefully, is helping to unravel that spin."

Her little article.

Last May, in a story Ian wrote in Performing Songwriter magazine titled "The Internet Debacle -- An Alternative View," the 51-year-old artist argued that downloading music from the Internet promotes interest in music and helps record sales. Specifically, Ian made these points:

Much of the music being downloaded is new music that is not given air time on most radio stations, or old or obscure recordings that are no longer available for purchase.

Artists don't become successful without exposure. And without exposure, no one goes to concerts or buys CDs. Also, it is a myth that artists receive huge royalty checks from their previously recorded work. "In my 37 years as a recording artist," Ian wrote in the article, "I've created more than 25 albums for major labels, and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money. (Downloading) gives me exposure to an audience that might not come otherwise, so when someone writes and tells me that they came to my show because they'd downloaded a song and gotten curious, I'm thrilled."

The decline in sales of recorded music can easily be linked to the downturn in the economy, and with a few exceptions, a steady downward spiral in the quality of new pop music. "A conservative estimate would place the number of newly available CDs at 100,000 per year," Ian wrote. "That's an awful lot of releases for an industry that's being destroyed."

The RIAA argument is relatively simple: copyright laws apply to music on the Internet, regardless whether the music is bought, sold, traded or shared for free.

"When you post digital music files on the Internet for anyone to take and keep, it's not promotion but distribution," reads a posting on the RIAA Web site. "Though most people do not realize it, only about 15 percent of all releases sell enough copies to make a profit, and those record sales support the other 85 percent, including new and emerging artists.

"It's also important to remember that sales of recordings don't just support the musical artist. Piracy cheats producers, composers, sound engineers, studio musicians, publishers and vocalists out of their share of royalties on which they generally depend for their livelihoods."

The record industry is especially worried about younger consumers -- teens and twentysomethings who traditionally buy lots of music, but also know their way around a computer.

"There are numerous red flags and warning bells that illustrate conclusively the harmful impact of illegal downloading on today's music industry," Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, wrote recently on the association's Web site. "For example, 63 percent of Internet-connected music consumers tell us they've acquired at least one burned CD in the past year. And of those, 24 percent say they've acquired 11 or more burned CDs.

"This industry must continue to combat piracy in new and innovative ways."

But Ian and others say it's not the artists who are being squeezed; it's the record company executives.

"When the record companies make $5 for every $1 the artist makes, I don't see where they get off making those remarks (about artists losing money)." said Eagles frontman Don Henley. "It's another spin tactic."

More important, some artists argue, downloading music doesn't cut into CD sales.

"She (Ian) is absolutely right," said David Wilson, a sophomore at the University of South Florida. "When I'm interested in a band, I go to the Internet and try to download a song or two, just to see what it's like. Before I waste $13 or $15 on a CD.

"But I still buy CDs at the same rate as always. That's because I've discovered a lot of new bands I've never heard of before."

Wilson, 19, has about 900 songs in his computer file. Of his 300 CDs, about 250 were bought in a record store. He said much of the music he downloads is out-of-print songs or live music that was never released.

But as Sherman, the RIAA president, pointed out, that's still piracy. And it has prompted the record industry to be on the lookout for "new and innovative ways" to stop downloading. The major labels, for example, are trying to make CDs uncopyable. And then there's a tactic called spoofing.

Wilson says he's been a victim. He downloaded songs and found there were huge gaps in the music. Or the music was garbled. Or the opening lines repeated themselves over and over.

It's no coincidence. The files he downloaded were essentially hacked. But by whom?

The RIAA has called spoofing a legitimate way to combat piracy, and at least one company acknowledges that it has been hired to distribute spoofs.

But to date, no one has acknowledged being the mastermind behind spoofing.

"I don't see why the Internet is all that different from a library or a bookstore," Ian said. "And the idea that consumers are being held accountable for the excesses and mistakes of the record companies is just not fair. Next thing you know the music business will be going to Congress behaving like United Airlines and saying, 'Gosh, we've made a lot of mistakes. Please pay for them.' "

In Ian's eyes, the music industry missed its chance to take advantage of the Internet, and now is trying to stop a runaway train. By one estimate, if the major labels had taken the lead and charged just 5 cents to download a song, they could have earned at least $500,000 a day.

"You can't stop (downloading)," Ian said. "That's the hole they (the major labels) have dug themselves into. And now they've got an entire generation of consumers they're educating not to go to stores."

Jann Wenner, the founder, editor and publisher of Rolling Stone magazine, is another who thinks it's impossible for the record labels to keep their music under lock and key.

"The labels have played defense instead of embracing the Internet age and have spent millions of dollars trying to shut down trading sites -- from Napster to Kazaa -- rather than recognize the potential of the Web to market, promote and sell music," Wenner wrote in an editorial last week.

"If the labels continue to blame the public for their own mistakes, rather than lowering prices and finding ways to effectively deliver music online, then music fans will grow even more alienated than they already are.

"And then, by comparison, the current sales slump will look like a boom."

Janis Ian will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Largo Cultural Center, 105 Central Park Drive, Largo. Tickets are $19-$22. Call (727) 587-6793.

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