In defense of David Lowery
posted by Dave Allen, Leave a Comment
Photo credit: Jason Thrasher
In light of the events of the last few days (I’m sure regular readers know exactly what I mean,) I now have an opportunity to focus on something that my post about Emily White wasn’t concerned with: The illegal downloading of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker music files. For the record I have never supported or condoned this activity, either in public, at conferences, in my posts here or in any of my writings. My focus has always been on how technology actually helps musicians and why I think they should embrace it and never fear it. I also focus on user behavior and user actions when people interact with websites and mobile devices. Everyone by now must have acknowledged that I am not concerned with what is happening to my own music online. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about it.
David Lowery has every reason to be outraged about the way he and all musicians can lose income to illegal filesharing. It is his absolute right to do something about it and I support his endeavors. We may never see eye to eye on all the issues but I feel certain that one day we could have a more muted conversation about those issues. I look forward to that day.
Here’s an image of a bit torrent screencap showing the damage done. Click on it to enlarge:
Bit torrent screenshot image via Robert Steele of Digital Rights.
June 27th, 2012 @ 3:09 pm
Dave, I am very curious if you consider ‘illegal downloading’ and ‘duplicating files from your friend’s computer’ the same thing. As Emily’s post pointed out, it is easy for one to amass gigabytes of ‘free’ music without ever even connecting to the Internet. All you need is a laptop/hard-drive and some willing friends who will let you rip their entire digital library/CD collection. This is why I think it is a disservice to the argument to only point to Google or bit-torrent stats to estimate the damage done.
June 27th, 2012 @ 3:58 pm
Matt, I’ll never win this argument because the hard and fast rules of this debate and interacting in the debate are not written down somewhere! Not that I want to win anyway..
As I say in my post I am not concerned with how people get their music. The gatekeepers have to deal with that. I just wanted to share a thought about how David Lowery is correct in his stance about “illegal everything to do with music..” I really don’t have the energy to fight that battle and he apparently does. Some of my points in my original post did him a disservice and that was unfair of me. That’s all.
The point that never gets discussed that much across all of the blog posts from me and others on this particular case is – why are musicians not changing their business models and taking the Internet’s disruption into account? They seem to be more focused on attacking the Internet rather than adapting to it. If the focus is always going to be on downloading I fear that the argument will rage for years, go dormant for a decade like a volcano, and then erupt again in the future.
I have no idea what the answer is. What I do know is that it has been about 14 years since the advent of Napster and there are no obvious solutions in sight. I wonder what 14 year olds are up to right now?
Clearly the old model is broken but we have yet to invent the new model.
Thanks for bearing with me, it’s been an exhausting 4 days..
June 27th, 2012 @ 4:43 pm
Dave, thanks for writing this. In all the discussions I’ve seen the point you make here is almost always forgotten.
June 28th, 2012 @ 3:33 am
Jason Gross twattered saying you think Lowery is right Dave. By all the goths in the Faversham I believeth not so. Why don ppl ever read stuff?
June 28th, 2012 @ 5:55 pm
Dave, you posted above:
“why are musicians not changing their business models and taking the Internet’s disruption into account? They seem to be more focused on attacking the Internet rather than adapting to it. ”
But they do. Don’t tell me David Lowery, Cracker and CVB haven’t used the Internet a ton to promote stuff. They do, and it works. That’s part of doing the band thing that we’ve all been part of for quite some time. The problem David and many of us have is the idea that music that you have created and own is being distributed without consent. Torrent sites, rapidshare and other stuff like that does need to be responsible for their actions, and Google placing ads on illegal download sites has to be addressed. Yes, the cat got out of the bag. Now let’s get some rights back. It CAN be done. It’s not a stupid goal. And it has NOTHING to do with stifling free speech.
June 29th, 2012 @ 12:40 am
Hey Larry,
Thankfully the firestorm dampened down. The commenting moved on over here http://www.north.com/latest/we-never-read-a-postscript-to-the-emily-white-fracas/ where it is more reasoned I believe. That said, if the argument will always be about “stealing” music we will never solve the problem. It’s a societal change that needs addressing and there are many culprits, not just the Internet.
June 29th, 2012 @ 6:18 am
@Larry, while I don’t endorse it, file sharing does drive sales. People who say we can “do something about” file sharing make me think they’re into DRM or some kind of RIAA lawsuit trolling, but I’d be very interested in hearing some creative, non-litigious ideas about how it would be accomplished. I’m just not sure it CAN be accomplished without one or both of those odious things. Am I wrong?
I think the Trent Reznors and Radioheads of this world have already sorted out what should be done about file sharing–accept it as a force of nature, use it to the maximum advantage possible and move on.
June 29th, 2012 @ 9:20 am
I think it’s a bit of a mistake to point to a list of torrents and call that evidence of “damage done”.
Most of the demand for music supposedly indicated by piracy is ephemeral. If it ever became possible for musicians to eliminate free distribution almost none of those downloads would turn into sales. Artists would be left competing for a slice of entertainment spending amid a sea of other entertainment alternatives without the benefit of the additional exposure provided by file sharing. Artists would turn one problem – piracy – into a worse problem – obscurity.
It must be galling for a musician to hear anecdotes about people who amassed libraries of tens of thousands of songs for free over a couple of years, but it’s important to keep in mind that if a library of 30k songs would have cost a kid 60k to amass, the likelihood of all the artists represented in that library getting paid is zero. Most of them won’t get a dime because the kid’s real entertainment budget might cover 3k songs instead of 30k, and since those who lose out won’t get heard either, they’re unlikely to sell tickets or merch either.
All that is a long-winded way to say that I think a lot of musicians don’t appreciate what they’re pining for. A world without piracy is a world where a few acts that are super popular will probably do better, but where a lot of acts that at least make something now will probably do a lot worse. Musicians would be wise to think hard (and honestly) about what group they’re likely to fall into.
June 29th, 2012 @ 7:52 pm
Your Bittorrent screenshot shows only 8 seeders and 4 leechers for the Camper Van Beethoven collection, and 12 seeders and only 1 leecher for the Cracker album.
In other words, 5 people in the whole world were trying to acquire any Lowery-related file via this system – and for all we know they each only wanted one mp3.
As of right now, the numbers are 9 seeders, 5 leechers for the collection, 9 seeders 1 leecher foe the Cracker album.
Damage done = not much. Even better news, there’s been no Streisand effect.
July 1st, 2012 @ 6:16 am
After reflection and the previous comment, I see what you did there. Well played.
July 1st, 2012 @ 10:41 am
Rodrigo, I feel your first comment was well stated and I apologize for not responding. I’m not sure what the context of your second comment is..but I’ll take it.
Thanks, D.A.
July 2nd, 2012 @ 11:29 am
[...] David Lowery has his heart in the right place. He wants nothing more than to ensure that all copyright holders, be they musicians, authors, creators of any copyrighted work that can be digitized in other words, be fairly compensated for their work. His approach though focuses on the money. I don’t believe that’s a strong foundation for his argument as many people have a less than happy relationship with money. He also focuses on “theft” when he ought to be focusing on “why aren’t the artists being paid?” So David moves the argument toward “stealing is wrong.” Fair enough. Now the defense of this argument rests on the moral fact that stealing is wrong. So musicians, David included, move to metaphors to support their argument and often use an analogy such as “you wouldn’t steal an iPhone from the Apple store..” My good friend Justin Spohn addressed this in a post on his blog: [...]
July 2nd, 2012 @ 4:23 pm
@John S. You’re missing the point. For CVB, 8 seeders of the 7899 who had downloaded the torrent. For Cracker, 12 seeders of the 9017 who downloaded that torrent.
But even so, It’s hard to quantify how much of that is real damage, as damage only happens when someone who downloads from demonoid or gets from a friend foregos a legal purchase. If in the absence of file sharing they never would have purchased, how is there damage?
And how many of those downloads brought the bands’ existence to the attention of an under-30 listener, who would be more inclined then us 40-somethings who bought his music back in the day to actually go see him perform live and buy something at the show? I used to go to nearly 100 shows a year, now if I get to 10, wow.
July 13th, 2012 @ 3:24 pm
[...] David Lowery has his heart in the right place. He wants nothing more than to ensure that all copyright holders, be they musicians, authors, creators of any copyrighted work that can be digitized in other words, be fairly compensated for their work. His approach though focuses on the money. I don’t believe that’s a strong foundation for his argument as many people have a less than happy relationship with money. He also focuses on “theft” when he ought to be focusing on “why aren’t the artists being paid?” So David moves the argument toward “stealing is wrong.” Fair enough. Now the defense of this argument rests on the moral fact that stealing is wrong. So musicians, David included, move to metaphors to support their argument and often use an analogy such as “you wouldn’t steal an iPhone from the Apple store..” My good friend Justin Spohn addressed this in a post on his blog: [...]
July 18th, 2012 @ 11:54 am
It was Dennis Healey who said the “saveged by a dead sheep” thing. Thatcher didn’t have much of a sense of humour. Incidentally, Howe later helped bring about her downfall.