The Anatomy of Music Piracy

What's clear about music piracy is, it's stealing. The surprising question after that is, "what constitutes stealing?" Then all hell breaks loose. Their is much debate on that question as we speak.

Typing "music piracy" in Wikipedia will redirect you the "Copyright infringement." No sweat, it's the same thing. Wikipedia defines "music piracy" or "copyright infringement" as follows:

Copyright infringement (or copyright violation) is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works. (Wikipedia)

Definitions in other sites do not vary as much. But in my arguments today, I''ll show that such definition is not only outdated and impractical, it also lacks in scope.

Pirated CDs

Once upon a time, the Greenhills Shopping Complex is the beehive of music pirates selling high quality pirated music and video CDs. You can hardly see them there these days. Instead, go to Saint Francis Square, right behind SM Mega Mall Building A. The beehive moved there.

Clearly, those CDs are stolen. That's because the producers say so. Those CDs are very good "photocopies" of the original. The cost of the original CD includes the cost of recording, designing the package, replicating, arranging, distributing, promoting (which is the really expensive part) and other overhead stuff.

The music pirates pay only for the cost of replicating and distributing, plus perhaps a minor overhead. They ride on the promotion done by the legitimate producers . . . and rake the profits that rightfully belong to the producer . . . and at the same sell the pirated CDs at prices way below the original.

How we wish we can be as clear as this one with respect to the other modes of piracy.

Friendly CD Copies

What about copying a music CD you purchased, keeping the original in a shelf, and playing only the copy? People do this to protect the original from scratches and be careless with the copy. When the copy gets scratched, people simply make a new copy. This is not music piracy.

But what if you make two copies and give one copy to a friend? Or make more than one extra copy and give those copies for free to friends? Technology in any computer you can buy allow anyone to do that anytime. Is this music piracy? Producers say it is.

What a very thin, almost imperceptible line of difference, isn't it? But who agrees with the producers? Who even cares about what producers think? People would argue, "How can you police that? That's happening in every home I know? Can you call the 14 million people in Manila alone, music pirates?"

Commercial Music Downloads

What's clear about music downloads is, when you sell MP3 files without the approval of the producer, you are a music pirate, in the sense that you are stealing profits that rightfully belong to the producer. That's clear enough!

So, do we have a new definition of music piracy here? MP3s are digital files. They're intangible, unlike CDs. There's no way we can control the flow of MP3 files in the digital world. But it's the profit that we're talking about now. Only legitimate entities (meaning those who pay the producers royalties) can do business with those MP3s and rake profits from it.

Speaking of controlling MP3s, they are working on it. But I don't think whatever they're doing is helping at all. People do not want those controls.

What's DRM? An invisible layer of software that bodyguards a computer file and limits what you can and can't do with it. Buy a song from Apple's iTunes Media Store, for example, and you can copy the file to five computers but no more. xxx but there's something annoyingly unfair about FairPlay even in the abstract. You paid for the music. Who is Apple to tell you where you can and can't stick it? (Source: Time.com)

I suggest you read the source of the above quote. You'll get more information there that will amuse you, including the threat from Microsoft to remove the DRM in any MP3 from iTunes.

Peer-to-Peer Music Downloads

Producers are saying that when you rip music from a legitimate CD and convert them to MP3, and then forward these MP3s to friends, you are already a music pirate. That makes users of Limewire music pirates, doesn't it? Does everyone agree? Does anyone care?

Being someone who used to be in the music licensing business, I tend to agree that indeed, peer-to-peer music downloads is music piracy ... under the "old" no-internet system. In the internet world, you can still call it music piracy if you want, but at the end of the day, how do you control that?

Conversations with music composers shocked me even more. These people couldn't care less. Gary Granada, an outspoken music composer and performer, is giving away his music for free to anyone who has the time to download his songs.

Another person, Eric Cabrera, otherwise known as Cabring of Datu's Tribe, told me, "I will encourage music piracy" in the internet, because that was his way of promoting his band!

So, is non-commercial peer-to-peer music download piracy? If it helps bands promote their music and earn profits in their gigs, how can you call that piracy? Piracy is about losing money to someone else. Gary Granada and Eric Cabrera think they can make money from giving away MP3s for free.

Other Music Piracy Methods

The RIAA has four kinds of music piracy. We have somehow covered three of them, namely:

• pirate recording (pirated sound but different packaging)
• counterfeit recording (complete duplicate of original, both sound and packaging)
  
• online piracy (Source: WhatIs.TechTarget.com). 

The last one is bootleg recordings, or "the illegal recordings of live or broadcast music." Notice how security officers make sure concert goers do not have cameras with them? But then how can they control that these days? Ban the cell phones? I don't think so.

So, who's really losing money here?

I'm no fan of Courtney Love, but that lady clearly has superior intellect and blunt about it. She made an famous or infamous (depending on perspective) speech that blasted the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). We have a similar organization in the Philippines and it's called the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI).

You can check out her whole speech here:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/

You can find the same speech at this "quote" site, and this site "quotes" the entire speech:
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/Courtney-Love/

In summary, she was saying that producers make all the money, but music bands do not. She was speaking as an artist.

The reason why her speech resonated in me was because I saw those very same sentiments from music composers in the Philippines against the music producers.

Why are producers complaining? It's because they're losing money.

Why are music composers and artists not complaning? It's because technology now allows them a  chance to make real money!

Go figure.

What Courtney Love said in her speech as an artist is something I hear music composers and performers in the Philippines are also saying...

Now artists have options. We don't have to work with major labels anymore, because the digital economy is creating new ways to distribute and market music. (Source: Salon.com)

So, as Courtney Love has implied, music pirates include producers who rake all the money, leaving none to the artists. Courtney says, "The system's set up so almost nobody gets paid" (Salon.com). I hear music composers say the same thing in the Philippines about music producers and publishers.

So, what's music piracy? I propose this definition (all emphases mine):

Music piracy is any act that deprives music copyright owners their fair share in the sale of their musical creations.

With that definition, all peer-to-peer downloads and friendly copies are off the hook (I can sense tomatoes and expletives being thrown at me now).

Those who make money from the sale of musical creations---whether online or offline--without paying royalties to copyright owners are music pirates.

But then, music producers and music publishers who don't give artists and composers their fair share of the collections are music pirates too. Courtney Love says (emphases mine),

Story after story gets told about artists -- some of them in their 60s and 70s, some of them authors of huge successful songs that we all enjoy, use and sing -- living in total poverty, never having been paid anything. Not even having access to a union or to basic health care. Artists who have generated billions of dollars for an industry die broke and un-cared for.

And they're not actors or participators. They're the rightful owners, originators and performers of original compositions.

This is piracy.

(Source: Salon.com)

Indeed, that's piracy too, big time!