Dan Zaccagnino // Blog

The topic of this post is going to be about Piracy… but first, if you can, please bear with me because I think to really understand what I’m getting at you have to understand a few things about SXSW – especially if you haven’t been here. Interactive (the portion of the conference that ended today) is all about the internet, technology, the future of media and how we will create, distribute, and consume it… It’s been amazing and we’ve certainly learned a lot from some of the most respected members of the nerdery elite.

Music, which started today, is a little different though…The jeans are a little tighter… There’s a little more plaid, a little more facial hair, and the air has just a touch of arrogance to it. That’s right, the musicians are starting to overpower the nerds. While I enjoyed Interactive immensely, I’m really looking forward to Music and all the great shows we’ll see. The panels will be very different as well. 

Last year, I have to say, I was disappointed in the Music panels. They were very backwards looking and more about saving a struggling, if not dying, business model than inventing a new one. Interactive was exactly the opposite and was only concerned with the future, occasionally (although rarely) going a little too far from my perspective as a musician. This juxtaposition can be summed but by two panels. This year, there was a panel today called “Record Labels – What Were They?”, whereas last year there was a panel at Music called “Can Art Survive Google?”. _SPLIT_I’m not saying either of these extreme views on the current industry is entirely correct or incorrect, but it does show the contrast of how these two groups think about music and where it is headed. I wish there was a day overlap that had both crowds and just discussed the future of music. Last year I was so frustrated with the lack of innovative thinking that I walked out of the “Can Art Survive Google” panel because a group of older musicians and record label attorneys essentially asserted that there was no good to be found on the internet for music. I can’t say I encountered anything like that during Interactive but there were some points today that showed that there is another end of the spectrum that I also do not entirely agree with. 

One panel that raised some controversial issues for me today was “How Piracy Will Save the Music Industry”. The description said, “This panel will discuss how piracy can be harnessed to our advantage and why it is a positive thing for the music industry.” It was facilitated by Jason Schwartz from Robber Baron Music and Randy Saaf from Media Defender, Inc. If you are not familiar with these two guys and their companies I’ll give you the elevator pitch as I understand it. Jason runs a very innovative record label that uses piracy channels such as P2P networks and Bit Torrents to promote their artists music by giving it away and encouraging fans to support the artist by voluntarily contributing money on their website, going to shows, buying merchandise, etc. Randy, quite to the contrary, runs a service that is used by many of the major labels and film studios, where they use large numbers of fake files to flood P2P networks and Bit Torrents so that users looking for illegal files through these services get so frustrated with the fake files they download instead of the real thing that they ultimately give up and look to a legal source. 

I think you can tell who this audience thought was the bad guy here, but Randy’s company isn’t really what I want to discuss here and it’s a whole different can of worms (although I do think this practice is an interesting conversation that is probably both helping and hurting the situation/perception of the music industry). 

My main observation was that what Jason’s label Robber Baron Music is doing actually has nothing to do with Piracy, other than that it harnesses the channels that music is pirated through. This is a key, key distinction in my mind. Jason’s artists have opted in to this system. They are waiving their rights or giving up some of them and allowing their music to be distributed in this way, often using Creative Commons licenses (which I think is fantastic). But the thing that bothered me about this as an example of how piracy is a good thing for the music industry is that people easily confuse what he and other artists are doing with music piracy. Music piracy is very clearly something different in my mind. It is the practice of downloading music that the music owner – be it the artist, the label, etc – has specifically said they do not want to be downloaded in this way.

 

Before I go too far, I do want to clarify a few things about how I feel about piracy (something I sometimes feel like I’m still figuring out). I think piracy may ultimately be a good thing because it was hugely disruptive and shook up the industry and I think we needed that. I have downloaded music in the past, mainly stuff that wasn’t on CD – live shows, rarities, B-sides, etc. It was a great way to discover music. But now, there are so many other ways to discover music that I don’t do it anymore. I don’t like the audio quality, I don’t like the time and patience it requires (thanks to people like Randy!) and I don’t like how I feel about taking something from artists and labels who don’t support that distribution model even if I think they should and (in the labels case) even if I think they have taken advantage of consumers in the past – I still respect them both because there’s a lot of good here and because it’s the law – as flawed as that is. Just to come entirely clean, I do still take music from my friends, although if I like it enough I’ll often buy it, sometimes on both CD and vinyl. 

I do agree with a major point that Jason made which is that copyright is in many ways a broken system and that it has failed to keep up with digital music, but that’s not a reason to promote piracy, it’s a reason to promote Creative Commons, labels like Robber Baron Music, and a reason for fans to call for labels and artists to embrace new models. 

I’ve started licensing music I create under Creative Commons because I want to support what they are enabling artists to do and I want people to be able to take my music and share it with others, as long as they give me credit. But I wouldn’t impose that on other artists as something they have to do – people pour their heart and souls into their musical creations and they should have some say in how that is distributed and consumed. 

I’m so frustrated writing this blog because I know it lacks a little structure, and I also know I could keep typing for hours and not get everything out that I would like to say. I’m conscious of the fact that people have probably already stopped reading by this point so I guess it doesn’t really matter! I suppose my main point is just that there are great opportunities for artists thanks to the internet but they shouldn’t be confused with stealing music that wasn’t meant to be stolen. Here’s a physical analogy: I don’t feel bad when a musician hands me a CD and says – here it’s free. But I don’t walk into CD stores and decide that because I feel like it should be free I’m just going to walk out with it.

One parting thought on the issue. Artists really haven’t had much say in how their music is distributed in the past. Major labels decide when, and if, they release your album, they own the and they make the decisions. This hasn’t ever felt right to me – imagine another company owning your own music! But it isn’t any better, in my mind, for consumers to say “you know what, labels can’t control it anymore so this is how it’s going to be.” How is that any more fair to the artist? In both situations they are the ones that get the short end of the deal. I don’t pretend to have a viable solution yet but I think the labels need to open up to the reality of what’s happening and embrace the power of the internet rather than fight it, consumers need to realize that they aren’t just “sticking it to The Man” and respect the rights of artists, and artists need to have more of, or even a majority of the say in the situation. I’m not sure we’ll ever get there but it’s a nice thought.

All of this is why I wish there was some overlap in the Music and Interactive portions of SXSW - to have this conversation with all parties present. Together we’ve all created a beautiful thing here at Indaba Music. There are over 30,000 musicians registered for this site and it’s growing very quickly. Let’s start to use that voice more and engage in an informed dialogue about what we want – professionals and amateurs alike. How would you like to see your music distributed and consumed and what would make you feel fairly compensated for that? If, by some miracle, you’re still reading this, leave a comment about what you think.