Hello lunáticos,
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of maintaining a blog devoted to the sharing of music is the misinformation that the entertainment industry (aka "Big Content") and its political minions constantly disseminate regarding the relationship between copyright laws, piracy and file sharing. Simply put, at least in the U.S., file sharing does not legally equate to theft, this according to the U.S. Supreme court in a 1985 decision, which drew a clear distinction between theft and copyright infringement: "The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone [....] But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use." The upshot of this is that file-sharing and personal copyright infringement
are not criminal acts unless in pursuit of profit (they are technically referred to as "civil matters"), despite the endless flow of propaganda stating otherwise emanating from the MPAA and RIAA.
The real discussion to have is whether, ultimately, file-sharing negatively impacts the artists. Such arguments usually claim that sharing music is tantamount to taking money out of the pockets of artists, but what gets left out of the equation is the fact that copying music, whether in the form of ripping a CD to a harddrive or years ago, making a cassette mix-tape for a friend, in other words, people sharing music, has been an integral part of the appreciation and promotion of music for decades. While there are many artists who vociferously oppose file-sharing, Metallica and Julian Cope come to mind, there are many more who understand the promotional breadth and power of a free internet. Having said this, another way to look at this issue is to ask to what extent the major labels themselves are even necessary in the context of a free internet? They may claim to be looking after the financial welfare of their artists, but in reality, the artists take away a very small percentage of the profits generated by their work. In fact, it is easier to argue that it is the RIAA, not the music sharing community, that is truly guilty of theft. Perhaps it is time for these greedy corporate lackeys to go the way of the dinosaurs.
As a blogger, I have read countless comments by readers who, after discovering an artist on the blog by downloading shared files, say that they intend to purchase a physical copy of the posted album. While this is by no means true for all downloaders of shared files, it is far from the exception. I myself have purchased more music in the fifteen months I have been blogging than at any time in the past five years. All this brings me to the real point of this post, to introduce a new way of thinking about the issue of file-sharing and artist compensation: an artist donation platform & collective webzine called Amour & Discipline, which will make it possible to send voluntary donations of any amount to any indie artist or label on the planet.
From the founders of A&D, idealistic diy activists from Lyon, France, who have clearly put a lot of time, energy and passion into coming up with what could be the next stage in this ongoing conversation:
"The goal of A&D is notably to reach those who download a lot of music and don't buy records anymore. Let's face it: RIAA and others will never stop filesharing, nor convince everyone to opt for "legal" offers. Besides, most of them aren't very fair with artists (iTunes, Spotify...except Bandcamp). Technology leads to the fact that bands and labels have to give away their music, whether they like it or not. However, we think a lot of people downloading those records for free still want to support the artists/labels. So we want A&D to provide a direct, responsible and non-constrained way to pay back, in order to humbly help independent musical scenes to keep it up. A&D can also be very useful to support bands/labels whose records are out of print."
Here are a few links to the A&D website, which go into great depth about how this will all work:
Amour & Discipline Manifesto (Short, Reductive and Incomplete Manifesto for Those in a Hurry)
More on How the A&D Donation Platform Will Work and on Transparency in the Donation Process
Amour & Discipline has impressed me with its emphasis on, and commitment to, transparency in the donation process, and I want to stress that donations are entirely voluntary. Also, the author(s) of this blog (which is only me at the moment) receive absolutely NO COMPENSATION through Amour & Discipline.
Meta (~) Luna is committed to the principle that music-sharing blogs should in no way generate profits for their authors, whether it be via donations, ads, file-host points or anything else.
Thank you for reading ~ v
