Copyrights
where put in place to protect a persons or company’s right to a product to
insure that no one else could copy or sell that product for his or her
advantage. The infamous legal battle
between Napster and Metallica not only changed the music industry, but also how
musicians look at copyrights.
In April
2000, Metallica sued Napster for copyright infringement for letting users of
their site the ability to trade copyrighted music. I like to look at this as the birth of a new
age in music. With the growing of the
Internet, and its strength of bandwidth it is no surprise it has the ability to
change a industry. In the 2000’s we saw
several musicians and bands try to combat piracy. “System of a down” even named one of their
albums “Please steall this album”.
Musicians and the music industry understood the way they did business was
dying, and with how easy it had become to illegally down load music, and the
loose laws that enforced their copyrighted material was coming under fire. But who won in the long run?
Some
would say that if you like a band you will always buy the album, you want to
support that band financially, so they have the ability to make new music. But on the flip side advertising is the
ultimate power in a market. Wouldn’t you
want your music provided to more people?
Downloading music gives a person the ability to sample their music
before making a decision on whether to purchase it or not. No buddy would want to purchase a car without
driving it or a house without walking through it. What if you had a option to pay what you
thought that album was worth?
Some
look at it as the new frontier of music, and the band Radiohead took on
copyrights, and illegal downloading. The
simply asked “What if their new album was free”. Free how can someone make money of free? In the case of Radiohead, they ditched their
record label and simply released their album online and asked for donations off
their album. This gave people the
choice, do I want to donate money so
Radiohead can keep making music I love, or I hate this album and do not want them
to keep making music. Radiohead was successful
off their idea, all the money that was donated they got to keep for themselves and
did not have to pay a high percentage to a record label whose sole purpose it
to get people to purchase albums.
Since
Radiohead many musicians/Bands have followed their footsteps. They understand the in ability of labels to protect their music in the 21st century, or stop the illegal downloading that goes on. Many bands offer a free download at time of
release, or will allow fans to listen to their whole album for a weekend on
social media before choosing to purchase it or not. I think this the future of music. And shows how copyrights on music where not sully
intended for the musicians, but the label companies that back them. Yes people will lose jobs from this adaption
to the Internet, but they will find new jobs that we want to see their
resources used for. The same way the
Internet changed the USPS, or cell phones changed the telephone market. In the case of donations for music it creates
a perfect equilibrium for their music.
People will pay only the price they want and it clears the market,
musicians are happy, fans are happy.
And big business, or the government cannot get involved because all are operating
within the laws.
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/04/35670
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/McCullaghintprop.html
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