A Fogging of Basic Values

Preface

While many writers have discussed the legal nuances of music piracy, the greed of music labels, the industry’s apparent mistreatment of artists, and the resultant rampant litigation, we have yet to see a cogent discussion of the psychology of the marketplace.  Such a discussion would present a reasoned understanding of the new, globalized, digital econometrics-the law of unlimited supply and variable frequency demand, if you will, and how these play against each other.  This book is an attempt by a founder of MusicRebellion.Com® (Digonex Technologies, Inc.) to offer a rational, behaviorally based view of the marketplace with some comments directed towards possible outcomes.  There is no claim of correctness of viewpoint, and certainly readers are entitled to their opinions.  As you grasp the concepts that will be developed herein, then you will also understand the logical consequences to a society accepting of piracy.

The relevancy of this treatise to the average reader occurs on many levels.  The music industry in theory represents five percent of the gross national product.  Said another way, it is at least a forty-billion-dollar-a-year industry worldwide, or was in a previous incarnation.  Thousands of jobs (beyond those people we all know) depend directly or indirectly on the survival of the industry.  It is just the first domino in a series of bedrock industries that could fall in an interdependent, digitalized, global economy.  There are serious socioeconomic implications that we hope not to overstate, but of which to make the reader aware.  We aren’t talking about just you or your kid “downloading” a song from the Internet without paying using peer-to-peer (P2P) software.  We are talking about a change in the moral fabric of America that reaches into politics (copyright law, first amendment issues, and so forth), certainly the economy and jobs, music ownership (formerly a major “fun” part of life), destruction of our cultural artifacts, attitudes, philosophical justifications, and the fogging of many of our basic values.  We will attempt to address each of these areas in at least a cursory analysis to allow you to see what has evolved. Then you make the call if you are pleased or displeased with the direction events are taking. We will point out how some businesses have been changed forever and can never go back to the way they were.  This is not about good guys and bad guys. This is about values.

* * *

Shawn Fanning’s impact on the world should not be underestimated.  The disruptive technology that he developed was not very sophisticated, nor programmatically difficult, nor even creative.  It was more the result of looking forward and piecing technology together.  Part of his genius did lie in applying his invention to the music world, though that was probably driven more by his love for music than that for business.  In fact, he had a very poor business model; and had he been older, possibly wiser to the ways of the world, he might have chosen to base his system upon some type of economic system. But he didn’t, and this is one of the reasons for the original Napster’s demise.  Had there been a pecuniary base, the whole idea of P2P and file-sharing would not necessarily have never happened, but would have taken a different path.

Behavior took over, initially born of Eureka-ism and serendipity, but then of misinformation, attitude, misplaced trust, feelings of invulnerability, and eventually vengeance among the more hardcore proponents and users of the P2P models.  P2P publishers, accordingly, responded by engaging in legal defensiveness.  The battlefield is strewn with casualties:  the financially ruined, mega corporations forced to merge, uncompensated stakeholders, and the self-proclaimed disenfranchised consumers of the products.

Had P2P not emerged, music might well have been the early E-commerce engine of the Internet, as E-mail is the communications engine.  The confluence of 9/11 and accompanying dark, socio-economic results, internalized citizenry paranoia and fear on a grand scale, and the reconstruction of the music industry and possibly other digitally dependent online products through a breakdown in moral behaviorism have taken a heavy toll on the heart and soul of America.  As stated before, music sales represent five percent of the GNP; and a loss of that much capital moving in the marketplace is significant.  But what also happened is that millions and millions of individuals suddenly got the idea that they could take music files and download them for free and no one would care.  It is a rather naïve and silly idea when subjected to analysis.  How could anyone think that they could take someone’s honest work and not pay for it?