One thing that the Internet did (see the previous post) was to provide a vehicle for artists to get their music to the public. It made it possible for many more people to get their music out to the public than had ever been able to do that previously. It was a boon for creativity. That was pretty much an overnight change. But the labels were too dumb to recognize it. Labels continued to think things would continue on as they always had. They literally stuck their heads in the sand when it came to looking to their future. They pretended that the whole Internet thing would just go away, and they could keep doing business as they always had. But they were dead wrong.

Labels should have recognized the potential in the arrival and popularity of the Internet. They should have seen that doors opened by the Internet were doors of opportunity for them. They obviously did not. If they had, they probably would have been able to figure out ways they could have used the technology to shape the new way of doing business. They did not do that, and consequently were forced to do that way too late, after loosing a huge amount of income, and possibly loosing their chance for a position of prominence in this new model that was emerging. They marginalized their own existence, as well as the position of many of us who had worked within their system for years.

In the past, almost all of my work came either directly or indirectly from record labels, because that was the context for most recording work. I had connections to a number of labels, and to independent producers who worked in conjunction with labels. When labels finally started to realize that they weren’t making the level of profit that they’d always enjoyed before (because of the free download craze), they cut back on budgets. When their profits still continued to nose-dive, they were forced to cut back on the number of projects they started, which directly effected my work. Then they cut the budgets for that reduced number of projects even more. And people like me, who were at the end of that chain, were out in the cold, left to find our own clients.

Being left to find our own clients in this new climate.. that will be dealt with in more depth later…

Suddenly, people didn’t have to PAY for music any longer. They could grab what they wanted for nothing, first from Napster and then from any one of a whole plethora of Peer-2-Peer sources.

I can remember having discussions with nieces and nephews back when this whole craze hit. They thought it was a gift from God that suddenly “music is FREE!!” No amount of discussion got the point across to them how this was so totally WRONG, and how it might be hurting someone close to them.

They had all the arguments down, like the one about “I only want ONE song from that album, so why should I have to pay $15 for the whole album when I can get the song I want for nothing?”

Another argument was “Madonna (or, fill in artist x’s name here) doesn’t need the $15. It’s not going to hurt her if I don’t buy her record.” That one is so lame it doesn’t require any commentary here, but I’ll just say that they didn’t even begin to comprehend my explanation of “where the money goes.”

This became pervasive throughout society. And these were GOOD KIDS who (otherwise) knew the difference between right and wrong. They knew that it was stealing (and wrong) to take something that wasn’t theirs. But for some reason, they didn’t view the practice of downloading music without paying for it to be stealing. And now years later, they still don’t.. they’re still at it.. not only music, but even full length movies. It’s there for the taking, right?

Oddly, they don’t seem to be able to make the correlation between this practice and the fact that their uncle (and a lot of others) can no longer make a living recording music. How could that be their fault?