PIPA, pirates, music, and you.

Piracy. It’s not a very threatening word. As far as crimes go,  it conjurs up about as much fear and guilt as jaywalking. Most of the time the word probably just makes you think of Johnny Depp, which is not very scary. I mean, you wouldn’t ever want to smell Jack Sparrow, but he’s  kind of dreamy in his way, right?  Wait, what was it we were talking about? Oh, yeah. In real life, piracy is no joke. It does a lot of harm. It has turned several entire creative industries upside down and inside out. So much so, that some lawmakers are trying to find ways to put a stop to it somehow.

Right now the internet is ablaze with talk about the evils of PIPA. And basically, I tend to side with the folks blasting it. From what I understand about it, which is admittedly not tons, it seems to be a bill that has some major potential to severely mess up the internet.  I love the internet. I don’t want my or any other government to get their greasy mitts on it and start controling it. One of the things I love most about the internet is the way it’s kind of like the modern day wild west. You can find anything you want there. Some of my songwriting friends think I’m crazy for not passionately throwing all of my support  behind anti piracy legislation that would place more restrictions on the internet. But the internet in it’s current form is so important to a songwriter like me. Especially a stay at home mom/songwriter. While it’s true that any successful writer or performer is going to have to do some touring and catch some planes to meet various important people, the internet has made it possible for me to do quite a few things that would never have been possible before. I can record something in my basement and release it to the world the very next day. Someone all the way across the nation can listen to it and love it within hours after the recording is made. I don’t have to wait till I have a whole album done and have copies pressed and in the trunk of my car, and then hope a fan might show up at the coffee house where I’m playing in a month or two. That stuff still has to be done, but it no longer is the only thing that can be done. I can put things up for sale right away. I can occasionally release things for free. I can shoot little videos, and my fans can post them on their facebook pages and pretty soon thousands of people have seen me perform, without me ever having to leave my home. As I understand it, under the PIPA plan, my kind fans would get the threat of 5 years jail time if they dared repost my video or shared a link to my new song.  That sounds like a bad idea. It kind of makes me think I might be better off with things the way they are.

Here’s another wonderful thing the internet has done for the music world, both for creators and consumers. A little thing called iTunes, and all of it’s copycats. You can now buy one song at a time. This seems like an obvious win for consumers. When I was a teenager, (brace yourself for a trip that is painfully far back in time here), if I loved a song I heard on the radio, I had a couple of choices. I could either camp out by my boom box with a tape in the player, and wait till the song came on again so that I could tape it from the radio, and have some irritating announcer’s voice on the beginning and end, or I could go to the store and buy the tape. You heard me. Tape. And I knew, like everyone knew back then, that once I paid my 12 dollars for this tape, if I was super lucky, there might be one other song on the tape that I’d like. Pretty dismal. Buying one song for one dollar would have been a dream come true for me. But as the years have gone by, it has gotten even better than that. The fact that people can choose to buy a song at a time has been something that has made entire albums so much better. That’s why I think this has helped artists and writers. We no longer have any reason to release a song that might be classified as “filler”. It is just not worth the time or money because it will no longer do us any good. We might as well wait and only record our very best work, so we can get every single dollar. Record companies hate this. But I think most music creators would admit that an entire industry improving their craft has to be a positive thing. I think so, anyway. So, hooray for the internet. As crazy as it gets, I honestly believe it does most singer-songwriters more good than harm. So does this mean that songwriters and pirates should all join hands and live in harmony? Not so fast.

Music fans and consumers, we need to sit down and have a little chat. Let me figure out a nice and not too heavy handed way to say this in a way that we can still be friends, and you won’t think I’m a total downer. (Most artists won’t bring this up with you for fear of this type of image.) But here’s the deal. Some of you are stealing stuff, and it’s hurting me and my friends. Dang. That was uglier than I wanted it to sound. But I don’t want the government to have to step in and mess up my internet, so I’m hoping you can just think this through and then start doing what you can on your own to help. You know I love you and believe in you.

As I have thought about it, it seems like there are a couple of main reasons people steal music, whatever way that might be; burning CD’s, finding ways around paying the dollar to download it, etc, etc. I’m not tech savvy enough to even know all the ways this happens. But here we go. Reasons why people do it.

#1. You had no idea that what you were doing was actually stealing. Here’s something that happens to me all the time. I am at a table signing CD’s, and a fan comes up to me and proudly tells me they love my music so much that they have burned copies for everyone they know. Or I will finish a performance and someone will come up to me and say, “Your music has been on my iPod for years, but I had no idea who the artist was! It’s so great to finally meet you and solve that mystery. Will you sign my notebook? I don’t own anything of yours, otherwise I’d have you sign a CD for me. I’m not buying anything tonight because I already have it all.”  I write a lot of inspirational music, and I think a lot of the unintentional piracy happens to people who work in this type of industry. People believe that inspirational thoughts are so lovely and helpful that certainly the artist would want to give it away to everyone for free. And really, a lot of us would be glad to give it away for free if we could afford it. But the reality is that most of us musicians are scraping the change out of our couches and making really big sacrifices in order to make that recording for you. Our families are making sacrifices. We put off vacations and badly needed new furniture and sometimes even some of the groceries we want, so we can afford to pay for musicians and studio time. We do it because we love it, and we love you.  All it takes for us and our loved ones to keep wanting to make these sacrifices is for the project to at the very least pay for itself. I honestly don’t personally know very many rich and famous songwriters. We want to keep giving you what you love, because we love making music. But we can’t do it if we can’t afford it.

I understand how it can get confusing with the religious stuff.  Some churches produce products that they make available to members for very cheap or free, just for the betterment of mankind. Some people don’t realize the difference between that, and  artists who are doing it all themselves and actually have to make the money back to feed their families. When in doubt, visit the artist’s website and write them a note. Ask them for permission if you want to burn multiple copies of something for a youth group. It may not be free, but you might get a discount. Most of all, the best thing you can do if you love something, is to buy it.

#2. Some people steal music because they want to stick it to “The Man”. You think those big record labels are evil. You think the big famous artists they produce are spoiled brats who make too much money. You’ll listen to the stuff they make, and you’ll put it on your computer, but they can’t make you pay. And the artists who aren’t rich or spoiled, they’d want you to be mean to the record labels. Right? You’ve heard that the artist only gets a tiny royalty when the label gets their millions.

It would take too long to point out the flaws in all of this. Mainly, let me say that no matter what you think of big record labels, stealing music eventually ends up hurting the people who make the music you love, and that ultimately hurts you. A big record label will not want to pick up the tab on another album with your favorite artist if no one is buying the current one. Pretty soon your selection of new music gets pretty small. Big labels only want to take chances on the artists who’s songs already get played 80 million times a day on the radio, and that wasn’t the stuff you loved the most. So there’s no way to get around it, if you want to keep being able to find the stuff you love, you have to buy the stuff.

As a side note, if you really hate what’s always on the radio and want to show the record labels who’s boss, consider something more productive, like supporting local music. You don’t have to wait for a big company to tell you what you should like.  Seek out amazing things that indie artists in your area are making. Listen to it. Buy it. Want to be a rebel AND a hero? Blog about your favorite indie music. Tell your friends all about it. Host a house concert.  You won’t be a pirate, but you might actually have more fun. Besides, that eye patch was annoying, wasn’t it?

So, maybe some of you are confused. Are you a pirate if you share a link I posted of my song on your facebook page? Is it stealing if you put a link on your website to the blog on my website? No way! I’d love it if you did those things. Now, if you want to upload one of my songs to YouTube with a video montage of Japanese anime or pictures of your cat, it’d be nice if you could send me a note and ask permission. At the very least, could you tell people who I am and provide a link to my website?

In general, we songwriters love for you to spread the word. We give things away on purpose sometimes so that the word can be spread. We love you for helping us in that way. But if you find yourself visiting bandcamp and streaming an album all day every day for free, even though that might be legal, consider how much good it could do the artist if you would buy it and download it to your computer. It might just shorten your wait for us to come out with something new that you’d love even more.

Wow, you still with me? Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Go have a banana split. You deserve it.

Love,

Cherie.