Country Time
Piracy Is Bad For Everyone
By: Matt Bjorke
Last updated July 23rd , 2010

Recently James Otto tweeted about the success of his current single "Groovy Little Summer Song" and said  "I've known music piracy was rampant but check it out. This week I sold 7500 singles (which is pretty good) but 80,000 people stole it." 

While one could argue with the 80,000 figure, it's probably not all that far off and it's a shame.  Because artists who write and record the songs fans grow to love, should be paid for their hard work, shouldn't they?  

I know people consider music disposable, but like Otto said in a later tweet "People pay $5 for coffee and they can't pay $1 for a song?"  He's right.  Music isn't any more disposable than a cup of coffee or a bottle of soda pop so why shouldn't people pay for it, if they want to own it?  

The access to music is greater than ever.  People can find legitimate ways to listen to a song as much as they want on websites or pay nominal monthly fees to places like Rhapsody and (probably soon iTunes) to stream as many songs as they want over and over again.  

The music business' reluctance to embrace Napster, mp3s and the internet may have ultimately helped it get to the position it is in these days, but it has been at least six years since iTunes has been around for people to purchase their music.  With all the stores out there selling music, why hasn't the digital model worked or replaced the loss in sales for music? 

What has changed?  Do people suddenly not want to buy a CD anymore?  No.  They do. They buy singles.  There's a whole generation now, though, that has been brought up with the knowledge of music being 'free' instead of something you should value.    It's not.  Music cost money to make, and it's a job just like being a cashier at a store or a lawyer is a job.  Musicians may be working at a job they dreamt about their whole lives but they're still working and each time a song like "Groovy Little Summer Song" gets downloaded illegally (from any number of illegitimate sources), it hurts more than a company.  

Illegal music downloading hurts the singers.  It hurts the people working at recording companies, it hurts the musicians who played on the recording, it hurts the songwriters, it hurts a whole economy.  Parts of Music Row in Nashville, which once were bustling, are now virtual ghost towns because of rampant piracy.   Nashville may not have been hit nearly as bad as other genres (due to 50% of its core audience still without high speed internet service required for many of these illegal activities) but it still has felt the pain.

If people want their music (or movies or TV entertainment too) to still be made and available for them to own, they need to pay for it. It's that simple.  Piracy hurts everyone, from the ones creating and supporting the creation of it to the people who buy it.   Artists may never become millionaires even if the music isn't pirated but they can't even make a living wage if people steal it.  

If you've ever had anything stolen from you, you've likely felt violated.  That's exactly how artists and the industry feels about piracy.   

To help combat their feeling violated, please, please please purchase your music.  If you don't, I may be out of a job too; because if nobody wants to pay for their music, they must not care enough to read about it, either. Right?

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