Given the recent death of OiNK.cd, now seems an opportune time to repost something I wrote a while back on downloading music. I may write an updated version, dealing with the second wave of file-sharing technology and the subsequent clampdown. Meanwhile, peruse this at your leisure.

The most famous example of the internet as a music distribution tool is the Napster controversy which raged throughout the last few years of the twentieth century. (I have fond memories of struggling to download Nirvana bootlegs with a 33kbps modem before the thing was finally shut down for good.) While the corporate music industry was united in its condemnation of file sharing software, individual artists took the opportunity to make their cases for and against the newly emerging technology. The most famous champion of peer-to-peer software was (and still is) Public Enemy’s Chuck D, who repeatedly went head-to-head with Metallica’s Lars Ulrich over the issue.

Ulrich argued that the new technology would create a dystopia for artists, a world in which theft was rampant and new artists would struggle to survive financially. One aspect of his argument was based around artist control, namely that as they had never consented for their songs to be distributed on Napster the company was violating their intellectual property rights. Lars stated, “It really is about this whole perception about if it’s intellectual [property] do I have a right to it for free because technology allows?” In other interviews he argued that the difference between Napster a conventional radio station is that after downloading a song from Napster the user had a first generation quality reproduction of the song- debatable, considering the low-bitrates in use at that time. But ultimately, his argument was that as the creator of the music he should be paid whenever anyone obtains a copy of it, and that he was taking this stand for the benefit of emerging artists who could not afford not to get paid for their work. In his testimony to the US Senate he largely concentrates on this economic argument:

“How can we embrace a new format and sell our music for a fair price when someone, with a few lines of code, and no investment costs, creative input or marketing expenses, simply gives it away? How does this square with the level playing field of the capitalist system? In Napster’s brave new world, what free market economy models support our ability to compete? The touted “new paradigm” that the Internet gurus tell us we Luddites must adopt sounds to me like old-fashioned trafficking in stolen goods.”

Phrases such as the “level playing field of the capitalist system” come straight out of the lexicon of neo-liberal economists such as Milton Freidman. Without wishing to delve too deeply into the economic argument, it should be noted that Lars’ assertion that the world economy operates on a level playing field does not sit comfortably with reality. The idea that those who have no capital can compete fairly with companies which have at their disposal huge amounts of money and resources is questionable to say the least.

Like Ulrich’s argument, the argument advanced by Chuck D in numerous debates and his own testimony to the Senate was also based around artist control and the importance of a level playing field. Some background is necessary here.

Chuck D’s group Public Enemy were the most popular and important hip hop group in the world at the end of the 1980s, proponents of a vision that hip-hop could be a vehicle for social and political change as well as a form of entertainment. However, by the mid 1990s the taste of the public had moved on. Hip hop had become a much more corporate affair, largely due to the introduction in 1991 of the Nielsen SoundScan information system to track record sales, which revealed that hip-hop groups had a much larger share of the market place than was previously thought. The independent labels which gave a home to hip hop’s most famous names were taken over by the majors in the years thereafter. When Public Enemy’s Def Jam label was bought out by Polygram in 1994, the group received nothing. The feeling of betrayal this caused led to a bitter confrontation over who owned Public Enemy’s music. When Def Jam showed no interest in releasing new Public Enemy material, Chuck D posted the songs on the group’s website as free MP3 downloads. Polygram’s lawyers immediately sent him an order to remove the songs. He complied, but left the following message in place of the songs:

“It seems like the weasels have stepped into the fire. The execs, lawyers and accountants who lately have made most of the money in the music biz are now running scared from the technology that evens out the creative field and makes artists harder to pimp. Let ‘em all die… I’m glad to be a contributor to the bomb.”

Thus we see that the counter argument to Lars Ulrich’s is based on the idea that the music industry as it exists already is a dystopian world where exploitation of artists is commonplace. Media exposure and distribution, it is argued, are subject to the whims of the major labels, which back artists based on their ability to make money rather than artistic merit. Thus the internet can be seen as a method of levelling the playing field, allowing artists to reach a worldwide audience with a minimum of expense through MP3 downloads. Similarly, internet video and radio allow artists to generate publicity without the acquiescence of the corporate media. The fact that Metallica own their master recordings while Public enemy do not may go a long way to explaining their different views on the subject.

Public Enemy released the first ever internet distributed album on 18th May 1999 and later set up their own internet based independent label (or ‘Intie’) to distribute new music. While Metallica put their faith in copy-protection technology, Chuck D’s vision of “a million artists and a million labels” moves closer to reality with the success of sites such as MySpace and YouTube, allowing anyone with a computer and some basic editing software to get their work seen by a potential audience of millions of people.

It is impossible to ignore the comparisons between the arguments discussed above and Marxist and anarchist philosophies. Worker control of the means of production is a fundamental principle of Marxism; absence of state regulation a fundamental principle of anarchism. Indeed, peer-to-peer file sharing often used to be referred to as ‘Internet Communism.’ It is largely down to your own personal philosophy whether you consider the copyright violations described above to be the liberation of music from the control of multi-national corporations, or mass theft; similarly, the inevitable corporate crackdown on such technology may be viewed as the actions of a reactionary ruling class or the rightful assertion of artists’ rights. It is notable that many of the groups who adopt a DIY philosophy (particularly with respect to MP3s) exist on the left of the political spectrum, while those opposed to such technology tend to lean to the right. Thus, your view of the internet as utopian or dystopian for musicians and other digital media artists may well depend on your political views, as well as your position within the industry.