File-Sharing: Destroying the Industry?

In the past I don't know maybe 15-20 years file sharing has been on a steady rise, many file sharing mediums have arisen starting with the revolutionary Napster, a service for people to download songs for free. The controversy arose when the band Metallica noticed that their song I Disappear had been circulating on the internet before it was even released. A law suit was filed against Napster, many other music artists joined in on this and eventually Napster lost and was forced to shut down. But it had already accomplished its mission and upon its demise many other avenues for file sharing began to crop up. Morpheus, Kazaaa, Limewire, The BitTorrent protocol and many sites that allow users to upload content in the form of archives for others to download directly. The popularity of sharing copyrighted material has been said to be harmful to many music artists livelihood making it unnecessary to purchase the album. Many peer to peer file sharing services have been shut down, lawsuits filed and arrests made. With the most recent attack on rapidshare sites such as Megaupload and FileSonic the question must be asked is file sharing destroying an the music industry, the industry that many so called pirates adore and love. Is it harming the artists that we hold so dear to ourselves, or are there other more positive effects?

To find out the real effects of file sharing the central question is who gets hurt the most by the drop in sales? To answer this one must ask who gains the most from CD sales? The artists themselves stand to gain much profit by this, but in the end I think the case can be made that the record companies are the ones who gain the most off album sales. Because to have any commercial success in the music industry artists have become increasingly dependent on a record label to be able to gain recognition and reap any decent profits from their work. These record labels often act as leeches reaping profits off of another's hard work and effort. Often artists are forced to change their style in order to fit in with what a certain label thinks is marketable, certain subjects become taboo for the artist who would many times rather be free to explore his own craft and write about any subject with complete creative freedom.

File sharing can have the effect of lowering profits but this is mainly a concern of big record labels because they are the ones jacking up the prices of albums and so many middle and working class citizens would like to buy an album can't really dedicate the money to doing so, thus they download it off of a website. While many well known artists may suffer from this, the underground scene and struggling artists stand to gain a lot from this. Many artists would never see the light of day had they not sent their promos to a music blog to be reviewed and shared. I think if it weren't for the corporations jacking up prices of albums and leeching so much off of the artists themselves downloading wouldn't have nearly the amount of effect on an artists profit as it does.

The reason there is such a push to eliminate this sharing of music is only because the corporations are seeing that they no longer control the industry, they are no longer the reapers of benefits and it's putting the creative control back in the hands of the artists. So while the mainstream bleeds and suffers loss, the music underground is thriving. While the wealthy record companies weep, an underground network of artists rejoice that they're getting recognition for their work. I see file sharing as a liberation from the clutches of corporate tyranny, taking the control from the hands of the money grubbers and putting it back in the hands of the people, those with artistic integrity. For then artists who are truly the best will reap the most benefits, they will be again free to explore their craft without restrictions, without boundaries and chains being put on them by those who would seek to gain much while doing little.

File sharing is not killing music, but there is something that is killing it, destroying the very foundation of artistic values and musical integrity. What is destroying music as an art form is the greed of record companies, thus infecting the artists themselves with greed, forcing them to choose between being true to themselves or being a puppet on string to dance for their corporate masters. Such is a decision that an artist should not be forced to make. Recognition and profit should be based on how relevant an artist is, how well executed the music is. In the end it shouldn't be about money, it should be about the art form itself and seeing that it survives unscathed and healthy, not writhing with the disease of greed, not suffering from the cancer of mediocrity. Music is art and art is to be cherished not as a mechanism for profit and gain for the wealthy but as a tool for the benefit of all who gaze upon it, for all who listen to glean from it wisdom from the soul of the artist. It is for the artist to put his heart and soul into his masterpieces, to share something of himself with those who will appreciate it. Don't allow greed to kill our art form, don't allow mediocrity to become the standard of greatness; compromise to become the medium for profit, or conformity to become the accepted way. Keep corporate greed away from our art form, and break the cycle of mediocrity once and for all.