"Information wants to be free"
- Stewart Brand, 1984
Sharing, and the definition of sharing, has been making the headlines recently. There are several forces looking to action much higher penalties for the sharing of music, media and software.
I'd like to give a brief synopsis on sharing in the modern age before I weigh in on this topic. The advent of personal sharing has been influenced by several technological advances - I will focus on the record/gramophone, cassette tape, and then digital media.
Want to come up to my room and listen to some records?
The record player took form in the late 19th century, representing the desire to capture and share the essence of a musical performance. Records were expensive to produce, but it changed the nature of experiencing a professional musical performance. Previously, you would have to pay every time you went to a concert. Now you could buy a record and hear an artist perform whenever you wanted. You could even bring a few friends around and they could hear the music on your record player for free.
I have heard reports that there was opposition from a number of artist groups, complaining that the record would spell the end of live performances. I was unable to find an authoritative reference for this but if you know of one please let me know.
Records became cheaper and the quality improved. People listened to more recorded music. The record industry flourished and artists became national or even international stars.
I made you a mix-tape!
Usage of cassette tapes peaked in the 1980s, and gave more musicians the ability to share their music more easily. Listeners could create compilations to share, and copy tapes to share with friends. They could tape songs from the radio or from records, and generally began to take control of how they listened to music. The Walkman cassette-players also allowed for music on-the-go, giving birth to a culture of music being everywhere and choosing the soundtrack for your life.
There was much opposition to the cassette tape amongst the record labels, including the "Home Taping Is Killing Music" campaign. People still bought music (in record numbers), but the culture was certainly changing.
One of the main changes is the people stopped thinking of the music as locked to a physical medium. This only increased with the CD boom of the 90s. Music was much easier to share, cost less to distribute, and could be easily placed onto a convenient medium.
"Rock and Roll will never die. It is, however, being reborn."
Here we are in the modern era of music. Music is everywhere. We carry it in our pocket, it fills our computers, we can stream it or listen on Youtube or Soundcloud or buy it on iTunes.
Music is easier to make. Garage Band and Fruity Loops make the process between having idea to having a finished song painfree and liberating.
And music is easier to share.
Over time, recorded music went from being something that was easier to make than distribute, to something that was easier to distribute than make.
Record companies have gone from a positive social influence, enabling the sharing of culture, to social enemies demanding obedience. They have turned against the culture of sharing, despite the fact that the human desire to share is the reason they existed in the first place.
The reality is, sharing digital content is free, easy and global. Companies have tried to make it harder to use their content in response - making their DRM'd content inferior to the illegal copies in free circulation. Making your customers pay for a reduced experience is not an effective business model.
This irrational behaviour was perhaps most spectacularly demonstrated in the recent attempt to sue Limewire for all the money in the world.
Where do we go from here?
The only reason the record companies still exist is the amount of money they have amassed, and how they have used that to influence government appointments and copyright laws. How long this can go on is uncertain, but the cracks are showing.
The music conglomerates have gone from a provider of content to a restrictive bottleneck. And if they keep attacking people for wanting to share and participate in the culture they have fostered, it won't be long before they are forgotten altogether.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramophone_record#Early_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Cassette#Introduction_of_music_cassettes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_Inc._slogans#iTunes
http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202486102650&Manhattan_Federal_Judge_Kimba_Wood_Calls_Record_Companies_Request_for__Trillion_in_Damages_Absurd_in_Lime_Wire_Copyright_Case
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