Who Owns the Music?
I occasionally listen to Leo Laporte’s technology shows. On today’s AM radio show, he ranted about the injustice of the RIAA success in enforcing “small web radio stations” to pay royalties for songs they play. He labeled the RIAA “greedy” and slammed them for not allowing “freedom” for web radio–essentially causing the Internet radio stations to shut down because they’d not be able to afford the royalties. He then cited an anecdotal reference to an actual musician who claims to want his music to be freely distributed without payment.
This stance is purely Marxist and is a blatant ploy to smash and grab the unearned.
“Free” Internet radio exists by offering value in exchange for web visits and traffic and exposure to advertisements. The value that these “free” Internet radio sites offer is music that they did not create, did not commission, and did not pay for. Yet, somehow, they believe it’s morally right to reap the benefits of using this unearned value. Even if these people choose to pay the operating costs without income from advertising, they are still giving away the unearned.
In exchange for creating music, the recording business has offered musicians wealth and perhaps fame. The recording business takes on the marketing, production, risk and all the other costs associated with selling music to the public. Most music that people enjoy has been a result of marketing by the recording industry–they get the music in to the ears of the public by radio play, organizing concerts and producing polished CDs. The demand that the public has for listening to most music comes from the recording industry.
Left to their own devices, musicians would generally reach very few people. If it weren’t for the gamble of the recording industry, they would offer their few customers relatively shabby products.
Generally, the recording industry pays the musicians for their music. The musicians agree to sell the rights to their music in exchange for a lump sum payment and many times, royalties. They have sold the music that they created to the recording company. So the musician that Leo says wants his music to be given out for free doesn’t mention that he has sold the songs long ago.
Leo also doesn’t fault the greed of the free web radio operators who get advertising income for giving out others’ products. The popularized version of a Marxist premise is “everyone who makes more than I do is greedy.”
While the RIAA has endorsed some intrusive methods to protect its products from mass theft and has not offered convenient transactions in the digital world, everyone should recognize what the facts of the relationships are, and recognize the right for a company to own music as a result of voluntary free trade with musicians. Those who wish to steal music that was originally sampled freely on commercial radio should be treated like the thieves they are.