A Current Affair accuses iTunes of Illegal Downloads

Dear A Current Affair,

I was appalled at your story on Thursday 8th March "Illegal Downloads", by Paul Stefanovic.

There are a number of things wrong with the story.


#1. iTunes is not illegal.

Your image on your website shows the title "Illegal Downloads" with an image of the iTunes music store.

In fact, the iTunes music store is legal. Apple should be publicly applauded for delivering music across the internet in a method that is protected and pays royalties back to musicians.

If I were you, I'd be expecting something nasty from Apple Computer about this one.




#2. Crooks get rich and have big houses.

There were claims in the story about crooks getting rich and getting big houses and nice cars.

How many of the people who are sharing the 1 billion songs each year are actually paying anything for them at all. Not many, I would suggest, since the whole nature of a sharing systems is that everyone shares, and no one pays.

The only people who really make money from this activity are the internet service providers who charge money for download bandwidth.


#3. Piracy is not new. Sharing is not new. Call it Exposure.

Do you remember when you were a child and you copied a song off a friend onto a cassette tape? That was piracy. That's been happening as long as there has been machines that record sound.

I remember as a child doing exactly that. I didn't have enough money to buy the $30 original CD, so I copied it. On an old recycled cassette tape. I was a fan. Later, when I had a job and some money, I bought CDs and went to concerts. My money eventually went to those artists who I liked. In the mean time, that exposure increases the artists' popularity.

I don't believe that all the people who are sharing music (and movies) should be considered as "taking money away from the industry." Clearly a teenager who has no money to buy a real CD has no money to buy a real CD.

Compare that with the current buzz with myspace. There are plenty of bands and unsigned artists who put there music on their myspace page for anyone to listen to. Without paying. (Except an internet service provider, perhaps).

Musicians understand that exposure is a necessary part of the music industry. Exposure, through sharing or not, ultimately leads to more income by record sales and concert ticket sales.


#4. Parallel Imports

The part of this story about "Deals Direct" is really about parallel imports. This is allowed by law and causes problems for many industries. Musicians were lobbying the government to not allow parallel imports of recorded music, but were not successful.

This argument should be directed at the government who legally allows products to be brought into Australia from countries that do not have sufficient Copyright laws to ensure that the copyright owners (usually the record label on behalf of the musicians) earn royalties from their products.


#5. Who really gets paid?

I would like you to break down where the money actually goes from a $30 CD sale from a major music retailer.

Factor in these costs:
- running the retail shop, (staff, rent, electricity, shipping, etc),
- wholesaler's costs,
- manufacturing costs (even if they are done cheap in asia)
- running costs for the record label (including marketing and promotion).

Now consider that most of the record label's costs are recouped from the musicians royalties anyway.

What is left for the musicians?

I don't know the exact figures in the above breakdown, but I'd wager that the musicians are the ones who come last.

Musicians still have many sources of income: Royalties from broadcast, royalties from synchronisation (being used in a TV program for example), concert ticket sales, merchandising at concerts.

-

I agree with the sentiment that "kids are brought up thinking that music is free". But, I think that this is a much larger cultural shift that applies to fashion, film, television, and books, as well as music.

The sooner we learn to value what is created, the sooner our society can support more artists making a living from their art.


Matt Connolly
Sound Engineer - Film, Television and Music