This article is relevant I think to the discussion on intellectual property.
THE CAPITALIST MUSIC INDUSTRY IS
OBSOLETE: WHAT CAN TAKE ITS PLACE?
A music industry that prices music out of the reach of tens of millions
of people, intentionally keeps most music off the radio, and censors
musicians has clearly outlived its usefulness.
A music industry that gets laws passed to prevent the distribution of
music by computer technology, makes music a slave to the whims of Wall
Street, and would rather work with the FBI to combat "piracy" than put
money
into artistic development is not only obsolete, it's dangerous. The beauty
and power of music can no longer co-exist with the corruption and greed of
the capitalist music industry.
These harsh assessments may seem hard to accept, since the rise of the
popular music that dominates most of the world today has been closely
linked
to the rise of post-war capitalism and to thousands of music business
entrepreneurs.
The Post-War Music Industry
As rock and soul music emerged in the 1950s, new record labels took the
stage and made the new sounds available at affordable prices. Clear channel
radio stations beamed music from the deep South out across the country.
Even
payola--the payment of bribes by the record companies to get records played
on the radio--had a positive aspect. Payola helped to break down many of
the
barriers in the broadcast industry, allowing the music of Southern blacks
and
whites to break out and become the raw material of an emerging culture.
Entrepreneurs were indispensable to this process. Although they
brutally
exploited artists, the owners of record labels and radio stations helped to
create and shape a previously non-existent teen market (the idea that youth
has a culture of its own did not exist before the 1950s). The emergence of
the teen market was an important step in the evolution of today's
revolutionary youth culture. However, the music we take for granted today
did
not emerge peacefully. In the 1950s, there were constant attacks on music
by
politicians, the media, police, district attorneys, the Klan, and the
church.
In the late 1960s, a concert industry developed which brought a variety
of artists into every town in America with a decent-sized theater at an
affordable price. At the same time, both national record store chains and a
new breed of independent record stores brought a diversity of recorded
music
within driving distance of most Americans.
The strength of the U.S. economy--not just high profits but the growth
of
jobs and even welfare benefits--allowed music to develop as it did. For the
first twenty-five years of the rock & soul era, the stock market allowed
music companies to raise the capital they needed to fund an infrastructure
that brought music to almost everyone. It allowed corporations to raise the
money they needed to build the factories and offices that kept us employed.
Those jobs provided the money we needed to buy records and concert tickets.
In the 1980s, entrepreneurs made sure that new styles of music became
widely
available and, in the most striking example of that process, rap was
transformed from a New York neighborhood phenomenon into an international
language of the greatest importance.
The Worm Turns
The 90s has seen a resumption of the full-scale war against music that
took place in the 50s. Once again, politicians, the media, the police,
district attorneys, and the church are attacking music, blaming it for
everything from drug use to the depressed state of the economy.
But there is a very important difference today. The same music industry
that helped make our culture possible has become one of the foremost
obstacles to getting music heard.
High Retail Prices.... Although total manufacturing cost for a CD is around
50 cents per disc, the consumer pays up to $20 for it. In a world where 3
billion people live in poverty (including 80 million people in the U.S.),
many music fans can no longer afford to buy the music they love.
Live Music.... Many concert tours now have average ticket prices of over
$100. Ticketmaster surcharges are now sometimes more than the price of a
concert ticket itself was only a few years ago. With millions of Americans
who used to enjoy a night out now living in poverty, many clubs have gone
out
of business. Those that remain often force bands to pay for the privilege
of
playing while fans suffer from high cover charges and drink prices. Many
clubs have become dependent on tobacco company promotion money and, as a
result, musicians must promote lung cancer in order to be heard.
Censorship.... The major record companies now place warning stickers on
many
of the albums they release. This means a lot of music that does get
recorded
can't be sold to teenagers or, in many cases, anyone. The major record
store
chains all actively promote censorship. The record companies all have
in-house censorship committees that, among other things, forbid criticism
of
the police.
>From its beginnings in the mid-1980s, the current wave of music censorship
has been orchestrated from the highest levels of power, led by politicians
who receive strong music industry support. For example, in 1986 a secret
meeting was held in the Maryland countryside to discuss the danger music
presents to the ruling class. Sponsored by the Parents Music Resource
Center
(an organization founded by current Second Lady Tipper Gore), participants
included the commandant of the Marine Corps, representatives of foreign
countries, most Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates of the
past
twenty years, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission,
current vice-president Al Gore, a vice-president of Merrill Lynch and a
vice-president of Northwest Airlines. The music industry has gladly
accepted
many of the demands of the Parents Music Resource Center, such as placing
warning labels on CDs and cassettes.
Radio.... Since the 1996 Telecom bill made it legal to put together giant
radio chains--including ownership of several stations in the same
city--radio
has played a narrower and narrower span of music, focusing on selling
advertising to national corporate clients. Record companies now openly pay
hundreds of thousands of dollars to radio chains to get their records
played.
This keeps anyone without a multi-million dollar slush fund from being
heard.
Many people have turned to unlicensed ("pirate") radio as a way to
broadcast the music and news ignored by the big radio chains. The response
of
the broadcast corporations has been to pressure the Federal Communications
Commission to shut down all pirates. Over the past few years, the FCC has
raided hundreds of unlicensed stations, often at gunpoint.
Technology.... There has been a steady stream of advances in music
technology
since the end of World War II: stereophonic sound, eight-track, cassette
players, compact discs, DVD, etc. The music industry embraced and promoted
them all until the most important advance ever--the Internet--came along.
A lot of people all over the world use computer technology to listen to
and distribute music without paying for it. The response of the giant music
monopolies has been to hire people to search the web for "unauthorized" use
of music, to sic their lawyers on music-lovers who use the Internet to
distribute music or lyrics for free, to prevent artists from putting their
music up on the Internet for free, and to get legislation passed to
criminalize the free distribution of music.
The Stock Market
The role of the stock market has changed. Today, the only thing Wall Street
wants to hear from a company is how many jobs it's going to eliminate. The
more people who hit the street, the higher a company's stock price goes.
The
increase in poverty and homelessness that results undermines the
distribution
and enjoyment of music because it removes millions of music consumers from
the economy.
The stock market is also used as a club to force record companies to
censor themselves. Politicians in several states who control pension funds
that own record company stock have threatened to dump that stock on the
market if music that's critical of society isn't eliminated. For instance,
every major record label passed on issuing a pro-choice compilation album
featuring several well-known musicians, saying that to release it would
cause
them to be attacked in the stock market.
What can replace the capitalist music industry?
There was a time when it was almost impossible to even record music
without using a full-blown studio controlled by a record company. Today,
it's
easy for any musician to make high-quality recordings and to distribute the
result via the Internet. In other words, we no longer need the capitalist
music industry. For anything. It's obsolete. It's worthless.
But the rapidly-growing music underground is only an indicator of what
a
bright future culture can have. By itself, the underground is not that
future. We can't settle for simply finding ways to circumvent the
capitalist
music industry while most musicians remain in poverty and the attacks
against
the music underground continue in the form of lawsuits, raids, and punitive
legislation. That is a losing strategy.
The League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA) proposes that we
turn the music underground into an overground of unlimited musical creation
and enjoyment. We already have the capability to guarantee the basis for
the
full creativity of every human being: Food, shelter, medical care,
education,
and 24 hour a day access to all the tools anyone needs for producing music.
It is computer technology that makes the current music underground
possible and modern technology also produces an abundance of food, shelter,
medicine, and, of course, musical instruments. We simply need to take music
and the other essential elements of life out of the hands of the
capitalists
and place them in the hands of the public. By removing the barriers of the
music industry, of the stock market, and of capitalism itself, what
naturally
wants to happen will be able to happen.
The result will be that everyone who wants to create music will be able
to. Musicians will be able to be heard by anyone on earth who wants to
listen. They won't have to work at degrading day jobs. Music and other
forms
of culture will finally be free to fully reflect and uplift the human
spirit
as part of a cooperative society that nurtures humanity every step of the
way.
This is the lead article in
Music & Revolution, number 3, which is now available
on-line. M&R 3 is a special
edition of the People's Tribune, the newspaper of the League of
Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA).
Music & Revolution 3 is designed to help change the world by providing,
for the first time, an in-depth analysis of music's place in the revolution.
We would greatly appreciate it if you would forward this e-mail far and wide.
The entire contents can be found at: <A
HREF="http://www.lrna.org/league/mr/mr3.html">http://www.lrna.org/league/mr/mr
3.html</A>
