More on the straw man (burning issues?)

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

JE:  I have inserted some comments below, but first I want to remark,
paraphrasing Bill Clinton, that I don't have a dog in this hunt.  My own
experience with piracy as a publisher has been with hardcopy in Asia.  My
comments are marked "JE".--Joe Esposito

I responded that this was a straw man argument in the sense that Malik
mischaracterizes "supporters of [...] file sharing."  Malik contends that
file sharing advocates claim file sharing increases sales of retail CDs,
and attacks that claim. In fact, file sharing advocates rarely claim that
file sharing increases retail CD sales,

JE:  I don't know if anyone speaks for all file-sharers.  How about my kids?
They're too young to go to performances.  They download files precisely so
that they don't have to pay for CDs.  (I put a stop to this by charging them
a whopping 50 cents per blank CD.)  But the claim that file-sharing
increases CD sales is widespread.  Do a Google search and see.  The
unaddressed question is, Even if file-sharing is a good marketing tool,
shouldn't the record labels have the right to control their own marketing
and promotion?

       but instead that it increases
visibility and popularity of artists. Artist revenue increases
proportionately to attendance at live shows, not to retail CD sales.

JE:  How's that again?  So Carl Orff benefits from live performances?  Are
we talking about all artists here or only those who see recordings as an
approximation of the "real thing," the live performance?  How about those
artists (e.g., the late Beatles, much of Electronica, etc.) who see the
recording, if that is the right word, as primary?  Are we proposing that
file-sharing will discriminate between artists who depend on performances
and those who opt for a pure studio model (which, by the way, is my personal
aesthetic preference--as John Lennon said, "I'm a record man")?   It seems
most likely that widespread file-sharing will put a premium on live acts and
pretty much stamp out the studio type.  It's a shame that the artists
themselves are being denied the opportunity to make this decision.

Retail CD distribution is one way recording artists have historically
boosted their visibility and popularity. I accept your claim that
revenue from superstars subsidizes CD production/sales for smaller
artists, but that is beside the point.  The goal, from the smaller
artist's point of view, is not increased CD sales, but rather greater
visibility and dissemination of their music.

JE:  For some artists this is absolutely true.

File sharing is an alternative to CD sales as a means of increasing
artist visibility and popularity. In fact, many smaller artists
distribute their works freely online in the hope that they can boost live
concert attendance, which is the only way they actually make money.

JE:  Also true.

If file sharing decreases sales of superstar albums and consequently
provides the recording industry with less revenue to "subsidize" smaller
artists, file sharing also provides an alternative means of dissemination
of creative works for those artists, offsetting any loss from the
industry "subsidy."

JE:  Not true, at least not always.  The problem is that the point can't be
generalized.  This is true for some, not true for others.  What file-sharing
will do is eliminate much music whose basic aesthetics do not accord with
live performance.

If Malik wants to critique the position of file sharing advocates, he
should start with an accurate characterization of their position, rather
than an untenable one.

JE:  Accurate?  How about comprehensive to begin with?

--Adam Kessel