JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Petition to stop P2P-users abuses

"Now my point: How does anyone find out about new music and artists? 30 years ago, radio was that source because the stations then played a wide variety of music and artists. Radio today is boring and monotonous, playing the same 20 to 30 songs over and over and over . ."

This is easy to address:

Kids aren't downloading the zillions of files people are happy to share. Go to CDBaby and you can find roughly a half million free songs to sample, listed by genre and with artist bios etc.. easily available. If people want to sample great music.. they need look no farther. (Other sites offer similar opportunities.. but I doubt anyone would ever run out just surfing CDBaby alone).

If you want to download tracks (rather than sample them) then you can still find many free files from artists who are happy to have you do just that. But.. you're missing the whole point..

Most music downloaded is NOT an attempt to sample new music.. it's an attempt to get a free copy of whatever is popular or hip. And it's misleading to think that Madonna has plenty of money, so downloading her song doesn't hurt anyone. It's true.. it won't hurt Madonna.. because as a top tier artist, she's going to make up for it with larger contracts and percentage deals on all the businesses she does. The people who lose are the artists who never get signed, never get developed, or who get less to tour with, make a video with, spend on marketing, spend in the studio etc... which will logically lead to less success for more artists at the bottom of to market, not the top. Steal from Bill Gates, he doesn't lose a dime.. the person who loses is the trickle down salesperson at the software store who gets laid off.

I hope all those who support "file sharing" also support their neighbors helping helping themselves to anything in their garage.. or eating out of their fridge.. or using their pool without permission.. or driving their car when it's not being used. That would be consistent. If people have no right to control their property when it's music, then you should have the same philosophy when its the lawn mower or your playstation...

As for the comment about Janis Ian selling more stuff when it was free.. that's great... but it still has no relevance to how other artists choose to do business with their work. If an art gallery wants to give out a free small painting to anyone who walks in the door and that leads to more sales overall, should ALL art galleries be forced to let people walk off with free small paintings? Of course not.. let the owners decide. And finally, if an artist has transferred ownership of their work to someone for money or a contract, I don't feel the new owners have less rights to control it than the artists either.

Brian

Brian