Copy Kills Music Options

[Marcus Siepen]

Since some days ago this "downloading/copying" thing was tackled here, I thought I give you guys my point of view on this whole topic, and I would like to hear your opinion on this.

Well, the music industry created this slogan "copy kills music", but is this really true? In my opinion it isn't, the problem is not really copying. Music has always been copied and most likely always will be copied. Back when I started to listen to music me and my friends also copied new albums for each other, the only difference was of course that back then there were no 1:1 copies on cd's, we had to use tapes, so there was a loss in quality. And, unlike today, you had to know somebody if you wanted to check out his albums. Today this is a bit different, in theory it is enough if one person on this planet buys an album, as soon as he uploads it to the internet the rest of the world could have it.

But as I said in the beginning, I don't think that copying music is the basic problem, in my opinion the real problem is peoples attitude towards all this, specially towards music itself. Back when I was a kid it was something SO special to go to town and buy a new album. I remember that I went to all the record stores in town every single day when I knew that a new album of one of my fave bands was supposed to be released, until the day when it finally reached the stores. I immediately bought it, went straight home and was not seen anymore for the rest of the day (or the rest of the week). I listened to the album all day long, while getting lost in the lyrics, the cover artwork, the pictures and all those things, I was in a different universe. As I said before, we also copied albums back then, but not to get them for free, for us it was a way of checking them out. If a friend of mine bought an album that I didn't know he gave me a copy so I could check it out myself, and if I liked it I bought a copy for myself, I always wanted to have the original if I liked an album.

And this is exactly the point where the problem starts, in my opinion the attitude towards music has changed completely. Today getting a new album is nothing special anymore. Kids don't wait for the release day anymore, they are not excited about this day to come anymore, they get the album weeks (if not months) earlier already, either on the net, or on a dvd filled with thousands of albums, that somebody gives to them in school. Music turned into a kind of fast food, something that is consumed while doing something else, it is not really something special anymore. Those kids get this dvd with tons of mp3's this week, so during the next couple of days they might listen to a few of those songs (most likely on the way to school, with only one earphone in their ears, so they can still talk to their friends at the same time...), and by next week they get a new dvd with another load of mp3's. There is absolutely no chance to listen to all of those songs of course, but they don't really care, it is only about HAVING them all, not listening to them.

And of course this attitude leads to this thought of "why should I pay for music when I can have everything for free?" If music is not special for that person anymore, if it is only "consumed" as something secondary, the will to pay vanishes, specially since it is no problem anymore to get any album for free. And of course the world is full of excuses for this, because nobody wants to admit that he/she is doing something wrong or illegal. My fave excuse is "I am not doing anything wrong, I downloaded this album for free, but I would not have bought it anyway, so the band is not losing any money, they would not have got mine anyway"... Well, this is complete bullsh...t!!! If you go to the next music store and just grab an expensive guitar, giving the argument that you would never buy it anyway, you will go straight to jail, because you just stole an expensive instrument, very simple. Illegal downloads are nothing different, you take something that is for sale, but you don't pay for it, sorry, but per definition this is stealing. And of course this is harming every single band that there is on this planet, no matter if we are talking about Blind Guardian, Metallica, Madonna or small newcomers.

As I said above, I also traded music with friends, I still do sometimes, but the difference is that I only do it to check out new bands that I don't know yet and that somebody recommends to me. If I like the band, I will go and buy the album, if not, well, I delete the file. As long as people have this attitude, if they are still willing to pay for the music that they like, if they are still willing to support their fave bands, downloading is not that much of a problem, actually it can be a good advertising for a band (I for example talked to many fans of BG that got to know about us by downloading some of our songs), but if somebody comes to me, telling me that he is our biggest fan, that we are the greatest band in the universe, and then he askes me to sign his whole BG collection, which consists of one dvd full of copied mp3's... well, sorry, there is something wrong (and yes, this actually happened in exactly this way!).

But anway, I think I babbled enough for now and I would like to hear your opinions on this, so this topic is open for discussion now

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This post has been edited by Marcus Siepen: May 20 2008, 06:42 PM