An Unexpected Defense of the Record Label.
So today over at reddit, I was having a conversation with someone about how people prefer to organize and manage their soft music collections and the formats they choose to use and the such, when I was surprised at how brazenly they admited to pirating 100% of their music. Surprised I guess only because this person was a self-style music lover and collector.
Below is my response. It’s something I hadn’t really thought about in any organized fashion before, it just kind of came out. With that in mind, I wanted to share it in case anyone felt differently or thinks I’m off base or has something to add. It’s not a subject I’m super informed on, and like I said, I didn’t even see my own argument coming.
Well, you know me, it’s a big one; thank you for your kindness/boredom if you bother reading it at all.
I have always been in the habit of paying for my music, but also sharing it. I suppose there may be no real technical or legal difference (at least in the eyes of the RIAA), but for whatever reason, giving a friend a copy of an album to check out feels ok to me while just going out and taking a copy of brand new album from a stranger off of the internet always seems like kind of an icky thing to do. However, I have no love for the RIAA. Fortunately for me, I would say that at least 85% of my collection is work released by independent labels, the majority of which are not part of the RIAA. Since being more educated in recent years I make a point not to buy anything new from labels of are RIAA members if possible. No judgments on your end at all, but I guess the music collector in me is always happy trade an album (or make someone a “tape”, so to speak, to see if they like it), but never blantently rip-off the label and artists who made it possible. It’s a hard thing to stay afloat as a small record label, and without them, most music would never get recorded. The largest amount of music out there, and often the best and most important music is produced by labels that struggle to turn a profit if any, and typically give their artists very fair shares of said profit. They also work hard to bring-up and artistically cultivate promising musicians. It’s mostly the just the crap on MTV and playing in stadiums that’s a matter for the RIAA and not only is that a very small fraction of the music being recorded in the world, it’s almost never some of the best.
Many argue that the tools to record and distribute music are so inexpensive and accessible now that even a hardworking and fair-minded small record company isn’t needed anymore and artists can record and promote themselves. While is true for some successful people, there is absolutely no comparison to a recording made with resources available to most people and using someone who not only has professional equipment, but professional expertise and talent. Recording music is a true art unto itself and the producers time and resources as limited as anyone’s and they need to get paid too. As far as distribution and promotion goes, aside from this being something that a worthy musician may have neither skill at or time for, there’s also the matter of weeding out every asshole with a guitar and myspace page. Small independent labels aren’t in the game for the money, they’re in it because music is the most important thing in the world to them. Not only are they going to seek out only the best to spend their limited resources on, they also can’t sell anything unless they’ve really found good music worth supporting. They don’t have the advertising, chain stores, the cooperate radio and television to saturate people with their latest offering and build an image around it to sell rather than the music. All they have is the music they’ve recorded, selling itself. This is incentive to seek out only bands that really have something worth supporting and recording and putting out there, instead of what’s just easy or fashionable. Of course you can make-up your own mind about music, but without small labels picking through thousands of local music scenes and hundreds of thousands of artists around the world, you’d be left to drudge through an endless wasteland myspace pages, perhaps narrowing-down what your looking for based on only the most superficial aspects like genre rather that the actual quality of what’s being done.
I have no love for the RIAA, but we would have nothing but what the RIAA spoon-feeds over corporate media if it weren’t for the institution of real record companies, the love of music they have and the risks they take for it. I will always be happy to pay them kindly for that. It should also be noted that even the big guys are sometimes willing to take a risk or really invest in an artist and often own some smaller more interesting labels in order to support some of the better music that might otherwise be viewed as less than marketable.
Again, I genuinely hold no moral judgments against people who pirate all of their music. However, I also do want to defend what I believe is the continued importance and relevance of small, independent record labels. I believe they have a vital role to play in the future of music, especially if we’re to get past the harmful and arcane practices of the RIAA. We won’t have any of them though if they don’t get paid. It would say that best argument I can think of not paying for music (in soft-form at least), is that “anything that can replicated and infinite number of times without capital, inherently has no value.” However, even if this turns out to bare true, I think it’s important that some sustainable way is found to keep some form of “record company” in existence (even if it’s very different from today) if the real vanguards in music out there are still be given a platform and the support an artist needs to really blossom and succeed.
