To superstars, it's stealing, but some musicians jump on the free file-sharing bandwagon

01:00 AM EST on Sunday, January 2, 2005

BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer

Ask someone at one of the four major record labels and their innumerable subsidiaries, or ask a major recording artist, about file-sharing of music on the Internet.

They'll tell you the same thing: It's killing their business; it's taking money out of their pockets; it's costing jobs.

For the traditional economy of the record business -- driven by record sales and the artist royalties that come from them -- a downloaded CD is a CD sale lost.

But there's a second economy out there, and many independent musicians and small labels say that free downloading of their music doesn't bother them. In fact, they encourage it, saying that the range of the Internet introduces them to more future customers than anything the artists could do for themselves or a record label could do for them.

"Who gets hurt by free downloads?" singer-songwriter Janis Ian wrote in 2002. "Save a handful of super-successes like Celine Dion, none of us. We only get helped."

Christian Blaney, until recently a member of the Rhode Island punk group M-80, says that file-sharing has been "a nice springboard" for the band's career. "And it continues to be."

And Ben McOskar, of Providence, who runs Load Records, says, "I don't mind file-sharing. I think for a label my size, it's really important."

Sharing of music on the Internet has exploded in popularity since Napster and a few other services began the practice in the late '90s. (Napster has since shut down and has reopened as a pay-download service.)

At the same time, sales at major record companies have dropped significantly, and many in the record industry have cited downloading as the culprit. They've spent the last year suing downloaders.

In fact, the recording industry has fought against file-sharing in a number of ways, saying that artists are the ones hurt most by the practice.

According to Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, the association has sued 5,441 people for illegal downloading, and so far 1,100 defendants have settled (reportedly for around $3,000 apiece).

Before starting to sue violators, Lamy says, the association and record companies worked with downloading sites to provide listeners "a compelling, legitimate alternative" way to download music, on commercial services such as iTunes.

The association also undertook several public-relations campaigns, featuring stars such as Sheryl Crow, Missy Elliott and the band Good Charlotte, "to try and communicate the message that this activity is illegal, that it harms the people who create music and there can be consequences to that activity."

Michael Greene, then-president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, took the stage at the 2002 Grammy Awards to warn the audience of the effects of downloading on the record business. He went on to say that "many of the nominees here tonight, especially the new, less-established artists, are in immediate danger of being marginalized out of our business."

But Janis Ian, the singer-songwriter who had a hit in the late '60s with "Society's Child" and in 1975 with "At Seventeen," wrote a column for the magazine Performing Songwriter in May 2002 that set out a musician's case for free downloading. (Entitled "The Internet Debacle: An Alternative View," it's now available on her Web site, www.janisian.com.)

In the piece, she argues that the artist isn't the one helped by the recording industry's stand.

"I have no objection to Greene et al trying to protect the record labels, who are the ones fomenting this hysteria," Ian wrote. "RIAA is funded by them. NARAS is supported by them.

"However, I object violently to the pretense that they are in any way doing this for our benefit."

She goes on to lay out her own figures on the matter.

"When Napster was running full-tilt," Ian wrote, "we received about 100 hits a month from people who'd downloaded 'Society's Child' or 'At Seventeen' for free, then decided they wanted more information. Of those 100 people (and these are only the ones who let us know how they'd found the site), 15 bought CDs.

"Not huge sales, right? No record company is interested in 180 extra sales a year. But . . . that translates into $2,700, which is a lot of money in my book. And that doesn't include the ones who bought the CDs in stores, or who came to my shows. . . .

"Every time we make a few songs available on my Web site, sales of all the CDs go up. A lot."

(Reached late last year by e-mail, Ian wrote, "I don't keep figures on that any more; just don't have the time. But I do know that we're still running double the merchandise we ever ran, and the only difference is that we have free downloads available.")

Ian wrote in Performing Songwriter that the record-company-driven economic model of the music business is dying -- if it ever really existed. And that the typical recording contract is such a one-sided deal that most artists don't make serious money from it anyway.

"Everyone is forgetting the main way an artist becomes successful -- exposure. . . .

"In 37 years as a recording artist, I've created 25+ albums for major labels, and I've never once received a royalty check that didn't show I owed them money. So I make the bulk of my living from live touring, playing for 80-1,500 people a night, doing my own show. I spend hours each week doing press, writing articles, making sure my Web site tour information is up to date. Why? Because all of that gives me exposure to an audience that might not come otherwise.

"So when someone writes and tells me they came to my show because they'd downloaded a song and gotten curious, I am thrilled!"

M-80's story

M-80 started its Web site (www.M80punk.com) shortly after the band formed in Rhode Island in 1999.

"Big, major-label acts all had Web pages at that time, obviously, but small local bands like us really didn't," Blaney says. ". . . And right away, we put our songs up, and that has paid off since the beginning."

Blaney says the band's songs are downloaded from its site 500 to 1,000 times a month, "depending on what the band's up to." M-80 got about 500 downloads during the week in August 2003 it spent on the nationwide Vans Warped package tour.

"And what that allowed us to do is go to places like Milwaukee and have kids know the songs. To us, that's enormous, because it helps us get the word out.

"Now, obviously, we're not making a lot of money off of that. But what it does do on the local level is allow a much larger turnout. It allowed us to move from the Met Cafe to the much larger Lupo's room at the Strand, and we make extra money at the door by getting kids to come in who know the songs. So I would say, judging by that route, it's been invaluable to us."

Blaney doesn't think the band has lost any money from sales, but if it has, it wasn't much anyway.

"We've always done everything pretty DIY [do-it-yourself], so if we can produce [CDs] for two dollars, we're going to sell them for five. We're not looking to gouge fans . . . plus we'd rather sell more of them because they're at a lower price."

All about promotion

Many major-label recording artists fight against "leaks" -- records appearing on the Internet before their official release date. Often, release dates -- including the one for Eminem's latest, Encore -- are moved up to thwart leakers, or because an album has been so pervasively leaked that an earlier release is considered the only way to get any sales at all.

M-80, on the other hand, put four songs from its latest CD, American Road, on its Web site a month before the recording came out.

Free downloads, Blaney says, "give [the fans] a nice taste of the CD. And we come from the old punk-rock ethic of 'Here's five songs, and if you like it, then buy the 15-song CD.' "

Letting people hear a few songs is one thing, but with file-sharing, people could get a whole M-80 CD for free, couldn't they?

"Yeah, they sure can. When Napster was kicking strong, somebody had both [of M-80's previous full-length] albums up there," Blaney said, not sounding very disappointed. "That only helped us, because it helped get the word out. Our whole thing was promotion -- let's get anybody who will listen to know about the band."

When M-80 started in 1999, Blaney says, band members hung out in front of Lupo's handing out CD singles to people going into and coming out of punk-rock shows. So money from record sales has never been a critical factor.

"Our whole thing was, let's get started at the local level, and then move up to the national level. . . .

"We started to realize pretty quickly that we could make our money off publishing deals and show attendance, and selling merchandise like T-shirts. . . . You put the songs up and let the other stuff do the work."

The "other stuff" includes money from performances of the music in other media. M-80's music was used in the Fox Sports television show 54321. As part of the Fox contract, the band's Web address was flashed on nationwide TV each week.

"Now we're getting e-mail from people in Czechoslovakia," Blaney says.

To people such as Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, a frequent critic of file-sharing, Blaney says, "I would say, 'Check your bank statement.' " Ulrich, Blaney says, will find that there's still plenty of money in his account.

"It's tough to say, because I haven't been in Metallica's position . . . but for us it was a nice springboard. And it continues to be."

Trying-to-buying link

Harvey Reid, an acoustic musician with a national focus and more than 10 records to his credit, sells his records through mail order on his Web site (www.woodpecker.com) and at shows.

"I make most of my money from record sales," he says, "so I don't know -- but record sales are still good. . . .

"At least if everyone stole my music off the Internet and didn't pay for it, I could still eat by doing live shows. And I hope it would mean that they would want to come see me perform. There's no question that it's a stimulus for that.

"And a lot of people come around to my shows, and buy my CDs, and I know that they've already got them -- someone burned them a copy, and they want to get their own -- an autographed copy or something. So no, it's not the instant death that major labels would like you to think it is. . . .

"The big guys are hurting, and that doesn't bother me. I'm doing fine."

McOskar, of Load Records, says, "I think people, myself included, buy what they try. . . . I sell relatively difficult and challenging music, and people who are looking for that are going to be looking to see what it is before they buy it."

Eric Garland, president of Big Champagne, a Los Angeles-based company that tracks and provides figures on downloading to major recording labels, radio groups, film studios and retailers, agrees that, for everyone below superstar status, downloading is a help, not a harm.

"On balance, file-sharing is probably a really good thing for most artists, most of the time. It's a devastating, crippling liability for one specific kind of record.

"It happens to be the type of record that has accounted for the overwhelming majority of record sales; it happens to be the kind of record on which the four major label groups depend to stay in business. And that is the jingle: The hit single that is on MTV and plastered all over commercial radio, that they hope, and in the past have counted on, to drive CD sales. . . .

"[Downloading] is decimating their business, but . . . you have to think about how many artists are responsible for those big should-be-platinum jingles. Only a handful. You've got tens of thousands of working musicians out there . . . who are making a living, and you've got a few dozen who are trying to sell 10, 12 million records and failing to do that.

"If you are anybody other than those, your main challenge will never be piracy. . . . Your biggest challenge is, nobody knows who you are. . . . Well, guess what? Now they can find you on the Internet."

Creative control at risk

"Do I discount that?" says Lamy, of the recording-industry association. "No.

"Here's what we have always said: It is up to each individual musician to decide how they want to distribute their work. . . .

"Some may feel that distributing their works on a peer-to-peer service, or another form, is to their financial advantage. As long as they, the copyright owner, the creator, have made that choice, we think that's absolutely fine.

"What is happening, though, more often than not, on today's popular file-sharing services like EDonkey, Grokster, Kazaa and the rest, the choice of the artist has been taken from them. Someone else has taken it upon themselves . . . to distribute the artist's work.

"And that is what we are fundamentally fighting and bringing the litigation about."

Still, it seems that even the recording industry is starting to see the virtues of downloading. Garland says that when Neil Portnow succeeded Michael Greene as president of the recording academy last year, the group started the Web site www.whatsthedownload.com.

"The tone is very inclusive -- it's 'we, we, we,' " he said.

The site nearly constitutes a how-to on downloading. It mentions that some larger record companies don't like file-sharing, and that some are suing downloaders, but that many artists have no objection.

"It's almost as if Portnow has heard the artists on this," Garland says. ". . . So maybe somebody heard ol' Janis."

Stream or download songs uploaded by local bands at projo.com's MP3 site. Scroll down to 'Listen to local bands' at

http://projo.com/music/