For nearly ten years now the Internet and platforms such as Kazaa and Gnutella have been the talk of the town             when it comes to issues of free music distribution online. What started with Napster in June 1999 initiated a discussion about copyright laws and the never-ending question of who is actually the villain in this story: the consumer/user or the music industry. The price of a CD does not seem justified anymore, especially when really looking at the industries main target groups. So the stigmatisation of the consumers as pirates seems to be exaggerated, especially when facing the major labels’ [1] need to keep their final purchasers in order to make profit. In contrast the point for the musicians seems to be obvious, as they have been suffering the most. Not only has the copyright issue concerned them, the value of their music and its status as art has also been challenged. The different sides have very different opinions. However, the contemporary approach of the music industry towards its customers must be reassessed, as the consumers might rather be Robin Hoods than evil pirates.

The music industry, which mainly consists of the four international major record companies Sony BMG, Universal-Vivendi, AOL Time Warner and EMI, but also of retailers and music publishers, has had to face a decrease of CD sales during the last 8 years. Although the amount of legally downloaded music increased, the worldwide CD sales (including albums and singles) have declined from $3.799 million in 1997 to $2,959 million in 2006 [2] (Bundesverband Musikindustrie, 2007). According to industry observers this plunge has been caused by various factors such as the “lack of ‘blockbuster’ releases, competition from other media such as computer games...and the availability of free music on the Internet” (Fox, 2004, p. 201).The latter is claimed to have had the highest impact on the loss of music sales. Despite the rise of sales from music download by means of so-called subscription and à la carte (single download) offers, music is still illegally downloaded via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and other programmes (Fox, 2004). Thus, the discourse of the user and consumer as a 'music pirate' and their behaviour as 'piracy' is still dominant (Woodworth, 2004). They are depicted as criminals who do not care about intellectual property and the loss in profit they have presumably caused. And of course the prospect of thousands of employees of record labels and shops losing their jobs does not make them shine in a favourable light (Hiatt & Serpick, 2007).

But are the listeners and fans really to be blamed alone? What about the soaring CD prices which the music industry has imposed on them for years? Today the people do not want to pay as much for music anymore (Bishop, 2004), especially when comparing the option to download one’s momentarily favourite song for free with that of paying the high cost of an album - of which one likes only one song - or a single that you get fed up with quickly.
In fact the act of music piracy is nothing new; it has been practiced for more than a century (Fox, 2004; Woodworth, 2004). Since the advent of copyright law back in the time of the distribution of sheet music, people have always attempted to copy music – no matter whether it was for themselves or for their friends. It has been an ongoing process from sheet music, to tape-trading over CD-burning to the download nowadays (Woodworth, 2004; McLeod, 2005; Fox, 2004).

The cost of music in any form has been a factor in music copying throughout history, and thus also when looking at the so-called music-piracy on the web today. The high costs for CDs are simply not adjusted to the income level of most of the countries that constitute the music market (Bishop, 2004) and this is especially true when the economic standards of the music industry are applied to the entire world. The music consumers are forced to pay the price the industry has set up. Moreover, the major labels increasingly attempt to coerce the consumers to buy their products being supported by the legal institutions and their copyright and piracy laws.

However, in developing countries this counter-action provokes the opposite. It evolves to even more “piracy”. An instance of this is Brazil where, as a result of globalization, prices are generally so high that the profit margin is even higher than that of the US. In such low-income countries the industry can gain much more than in the US or European market (Bishop, 2004). However, the local culture is not taken into account. Music is an essential part of Brazilian culture and pirates are not even considered to be bandits. Due to the pricing strategies of the industry most people cannot afford buying CDs anymore. Downloading music, burning it on a CD and selling it on the black market is hence the only way to pursue their culture. Thus, “Brazilians view any attempt economically to limit access to music as an attack on their culture and national identity” (Bishop, 2004, p. 104). This leads to a substantial amount of support of the liberation of music and a good reputation for the 'music pirates' by the population. The case of Brazil is a good example of how little the music industry actually seems to know and care about their consumers, which, by being good marketers, they should ideally have perfect knowledge of.

Another cause for the loss in profit from music sales is the change of the nature of the music industry that is appearing in general (Goniprow, 2007). The Big Four labels now dominate the market, giving smaller and independent labels little chance to distribute their products. Furthermore, the major labels also control the mass media and hence diminish the possibility for the indie[3] labels to advertise their music. There has not only been a shift in the relationship between record company and consumer, but also between label and artist. The music industry today is being rather exploitative and not interested in the artists and their music. Their main interest is directed towards the profit that can be made (Goniprow, 2007).

Copyright has become one of the main instruments leading towards such monetary gains. Although its original aim was to give an incentive for creativity to artists and authors, it has long been employed as an excuse to attack any kind of free music distribution. Through copyright laws the industry sees itself justified in having the rights of publishing and broadcasting music. Thus, they also want to control who can have access to which music. They are trying to institutionalise a “monopoly right” (McLeod, 2005, p. 90), which neither the artist nor the consumer can profit from. However, the artist is actually the character that the music industry is claiming to support. The industry’s aim is supposedly to do the artist a favour through copyright laws and consumer sanction as they maintain the value of music and help not to devalue it by publishing it freely on the web. This in turn raises the question how music can and should actually be valued and if downloading is truly depreciating this value.

When looking at the value of music one can do this from various perspectives. Wilfred Dolfsma (1999) discussed the value of music in economical terms. According to Dolfsma pop music affects society in the sphere of economics as well as in the social and cultural area – “comprising people’s life worlds” (p. 21). He argues that the economic influence of music does not only apply to the music industry but also has an effect on other areas of life. Pop music has a considerable impact on many countries’ economies and the music industry has gained great importance in economic terms. In 1997 people in Great Britain spent $ 46.4 on music items per capita. This was actually more per capita spending on music than on fruit and vegetables. This shows that many people spend a relatively high part of their income on the “symbolic good” (Dolsfma, 1999, p. 22) of music. A life without pop music has become difficult to imagine in most countries all over the world. Thus, according to Dolfsma the value of music is not only of economic but also of cultural and social nature, as could be seen in the example of Brazil.

In this respect Dolfsma is following the idea of the founders of the Frankfurt school Adorno and Horkheimer (1979), who think of music – and art in general – as having an 'exchange value'. For them “no object has an inherent value” (p. 110). Its value can only be appointed according to what it can be exchanged for. However, since it was agreed that art should be measured in terms of money, a shift in “the internal structure of cultural commodities” (p. 110) has happened. A work of art adjusts itself to the people’s demands and takes away the principle of utility that art should usually incorporate. Thus, the abovementioned shift is one from a 'use value' that is be experienced by those who care about music and an “exchange value” that depicts music as an object of prestige. The consumer becomes the target of the music industry and is unable to escape its institutions. So one could claim that free music download leads away from the exchange value of music and rather returns the use value to the listener. Music in times of download could bring back the utility of listening to music rather than measuring it in economic terms.

Others, in contrast, argue that the free download of music depreciates the value of music (Woodworth, 2004). They claim that the value of music lies in its inherent “intangible genius” (p. 165) - the personal quality an artist puts into his work - rather than in its material form. The genius of the artist is already taken away by the constant marketing of its person, forcing him into a category rather than promoting his real genius. Thus, it is said that music download will not kill the artist, but that his genius is threatened by the combination of free download and marketing approaches that value the personality and name of the artist higher than his work.

All opinions on the value of music are as diverse as the reality of the business can be. However, they show that music is a concern of many groups, the industry, the consumers and the artist. For each of them the option to download has different implications. When calling the consumers pirates, the music industry should, however, always consider that the economic value of music diverges from a social or cultural value. The consumers see an increasing gap between the price of a CD and the utility the get from it. It is only natural though that a prohibitionist attitude is clearly recognizable      Source: www.ecu.edu                                           among the industry leaders (Jenkins, 2006), who attempt to regulate and criminalize the practice of downloading music for free: after all, they want to make profit. For them the value lies rather in the consumer buying the music than in the music itself (Fox, 2004). According to Jenkins this is a pattern found in most of the old media companies.

This way of thinking – by both, consumer and industry - and sanctions directed against the consumer by the government leads to circularity in the argument. While the music industry complained about high losses they increased the costs of CDs even further by imposing a piracy fee, which in turn had the effect that the consumers downloaded even more (Bishop, 2004). This behaviour implies a high risk of alienating the consumer. Increasing prices and the danger to be sued will not lead to trust in the music industry but rather to a rebellion against it (Woodworth, 2004). Although claiming it consistently, the music industry is not the victim in this discussion. It is, as Woodworth puts it, on “the wrong side of a David versus Goliath scenario” (Woodworth, 2004, p. 174). No company or industrial branch should refer to their consumers as pirates, when they are highly reliant on and could risk alienating them. The consumer gets assigned a whole wrong identity, especially as not all of them only get their music online. In such a vast amount of people that download illegally not all must necessarily be criminals. The so-called pirates might as well be modern Robin Hoods fighting for a more open music landscape where profits are also distributed to the consumer making music more affordable.

 If the music industry still intends to gain money from music sales in the future, it will have to explore new ideas and areas. One idea would, for instance, be to practice a different pricing strategy to make downloads from legal and corporate platforms interesting for the consumer (Fox, 2004). This has partially already happened with Apple’s iTunes offering one song for only € 0.99, being affordable for everyone. Furthermore, completely new ways need to be explored by the music industry. The original approach to making profit with music sales only will have to be rethought and other fields such as merchandising and concerts will have to be included. The free or cheap download could also work as an incentive to buy more CDs again or to visit an artist’s concert after having listened to the digital version already. Eventually the sound quality on a CD and live is much better than that of a compressed mp3 file. 

From a consumer’s perspective downloading - despite the option to get sued - only has advantages. It is for free; it means rebellion against the industry and last but not least provides us with more diversity. Every artist will get the chance to be heard and every consumer can pick whatever he likes. Since the ongoing process of putting and retrieving music online is irreversible the industry needs a different strategy (Fox, 2004). If the music industry keeps on blaming their potential customers as being pirates they will be the Sheriff of Nottingham in this musical Robin Hood version.


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