Indieoma

Announcements made on the 28th October 2009 in the Times Newspaper see the government bringing in new legislation to penalise repeat illegal downloaders on the internet, employing a number of tactics, including, firstly sending out warning letters to identified offenders (irrespective of the difficulties posed by people hiding their IP address or assuming someones elses), slowing down internet connections, and eventually suspending the internet altogether (with nothing having been said over what happens if the downloader in question was just one person in a household).

The move, backed by such illustrious figures as Sir Elton John, Noel Gallagher and James Blunt is a classic example of the government both resisting change and pandering to the needs of big business.

To be sure, illegal downloads are the cause of great annoyance to both established and aspiring musical artists (arguably more in the latter case than in the former, surely Elton John could afford to give all of his music away for free; one struggles to see his plight), but what is at stake here seems to be greater than the issue of legality and illegality as regards sales of music.

Changes in the production and relay of music have implications that go far beyond the music industry itself. It seems a great pity that musicians and politicians, who enjoy a fair share of the limelight, culturally speaking, should hog the debate on this issue.

I’d like to point to a middle ground here – that is to say that where there are benefits in freely sharing creative products they should be encouraged, but that new creative business models are needed if artists are to be able to benefit financially from their endeavours. Clearly there is something positive to be said about freely available art forms and the internet has opened up many possibilities to be further explored. And we have by no means exhausted the potential here: Free downloads of academic texts have proven successful recently, and have not adversely affected sales of print on demand versions of the same books.

Indeed the arcehtypal academic study on freeware, written long before the potential of freely distributed music had been fully realised – Noise, the Political Economy of Music, by Jacques Attali – should be made freely available to all, so that the debate currently held on free downloads might begin to reflect the magnitude of the subject at hand. In the said book Attali traces the history of music, arguing that from the point that music migrated from the Royal courts to the concert hall, to its exit from the concert hall onto vinyl, from vinyl to recordable cassettes, and so on, it has always led a revolution not just in cultural production, but in the relations between people and production per se. Following this model, the possiblity of freely distributing music over the internet may have wider societal repurcussions, leading to the wide dissemination of business models that work on similar bases: we might all one day enjoy reading, eating and seeing precisely what we want when we want at a local level, and for a reasonable cost (or even for free).

Now, aside from the sickening utopian aspect of such a model, we can see positive benefits even now to free availability of music and of musical production techniques. In fact, such a model has inspired cheap travel (until carbon taxes were introduced) free contract phones and laptops and even, in Israel, free electric cars. Moreover, the level of public debate has increased hugely due to blogging technology. We don’t have to listen to the likes of Lily Allen whining, because there are others better qualified than her to talk in a balanced manner about the subject.

Here is where the balance comes in – whilst free downloading of cultural products is good for the public, it may be bad for the cultural producer. In fact, unless a workable model is introduced one can envisage the musician and the writer being the principal loser here. In the short term this is bad. In the long term one can imagine ways around it. Would it be so bad if there were millions more writers to choose from when reading, even if that means that those writers need use their ingenuity to get the reader to part with their money in other ways? Ditto musicians. What is needed is a brave new business model. Free music bad? No, free music is good – illegality is bad. Hence illegal downloading is bad. Free music is not inherently misguided.

Put simply the legal and business system is not adequate to the challenges of today. Meanwhile, the argument between various musicians, the record industry, politicians, and the downloading public lacks something. There is nothing in the current model of exchange that needs remain as it is. It just appears that way as we have lived with it for centuries.

Re; the current state of things, one feels that some kind of framework is needed to protect the artist. However, if that be to the detriment of progress, of the unfolding of a multifaceted framework in which cultural and other commodities might be produced and shared freely, locally, on a small scale, between friends, in any other manner befitting but not supported currently, or all of the above, then we need think again, and challenge the mentality signalled by this proposed legislation from the ground up.

That means not just voting with your wallet but voting in the choices you make daily about how you and how we all consume. The fact is that internet downloading, despite its illegality, points towards a world that is free, open and which entertains endless possibilities. This is precisely the kind of world that governments appear to want to curtail for fear of the kind of dangers that limitless freedom may unbind. And it is with reticence that I must say that many creative people are buying this viewpoint hook, line and sinker instead of standing up for the new world that might otherwise come forth, and which would be more reflective of the naturally beneficient nature of creativity than would be the NIMBY reflex reaction of the artist who tries to protect their assets or career. In reality the government have never held the interests of the artist’s way of life as a priority.

The government are effecting a knee jerk reaction on the part of the panicked media industry to what is a long term change in the state of things at large. It may be a little rash to see this as a stand off between true creative impulses and the Capitalist machine, yet this may signal the death throes of an industrial era Capital system not willing to pursue the freedoms that technological and creative advance bring forth for fear of what they might unleash . Never is this clearer than in the hypocritical difference in approach over the handling of the Bank’s affairs in comparison to the handling of illegal downloading. Where in the case of the Banks, new fluid technologies and more Liberal practices were allowed force a near collapse of the world economy, a similar relaxation in the flow of creative information meets with legislation before it sees its tru positive potential.

No one stops to point out that this in fact runs contrary to the principles of Liberalism and democratic freedom. If the banks had been left to rot, whilst light infringements of the law with regard to creative production and consumption were allowed to develop to their ultimate conclusion (in the way that the move from the Courts to the concert hall to vinyl to tape, precipitated the move towards the wide – mostly legal – freesharing of the internet), we might be living in a very different world now (sure it would be tough for a while, but perhaps it would necessitate the kind of changes long needed, if it didn’t simply lead to levels of carnage unseen since shortly after the Great Depression).

Don’t leave it to the legislators, they are too scared. This change must be from the bottom up.

Utilise technology.

Think, create share, consume.

Liberalise creative freedom.


Links to the other Voting with Your Wallet posts:

Johnny – Fishy Business

Farryl – Sustaining Fair Trade

Ric – The Credit Crunch

Gala – Italian Cultural Finance [Italian and English]

Karim – Brandon Holding Hands With Everyone

Open Ideas – Truth Machine – Free Stonhenge