Dear Music Industry
Dear Music Industry,
Have you ever read “Life, The Universe, and Everything” by Douglas Adams? It’s a book. I know it seems like an odd question to ask you straight out, but keep with me for a minute, I think you’ll find this interesting. There’s this guy in the book who makes it his goal to insult every one in the universe who ever existed at least once. He has a list and a time ship things, and he travels around tossing off insults one-by-one.
The thing is, the book ends with him accidentally insulting someone for a second time. It’s pretty funny, actually, but that’s not the important part. The reason I’m mentioning it to you is that you kind of remind me of that guy.
Holy crap, you’re THAT guy!
Except with you, it’s not insults, it’s lawsuits.
My worry is that in your quest for an infinite amount of lawsuits, there will be some confusion and overlap. I was thinking about that and decided that I would like to do my part to avoid that situation —I only want to be sued once and when I’m sued, I’d like it to be done right. There’s a lot of space for mix-up — after all, almost every person I know has indulged in some copyright indiscretion and that means there are a lot of pirates out there for you to round-up. Eventually, I bet there will be more pirates than consumers! That’ll be a great day if you’re in the eye patch industry.
I’m guessing you’ll be on top of any downloading I might have done on my computer — you’re so sneaky, it’s kind of cute but sort of irritating, too — so I wanted to come clean about other copyright infringement I have indulged in, stuff that isn’t as easy to figure out but is no less horrible for me to have done.
It occurred to me that my dreadful piracy dates back to my younger years, when I would record songs off K-Tel records like “Goofy Greats” and slip them to my friends for distribution. In high school, not only did I record mix tapes with licensed music by bands like the Doors and the Tubes and Asia, I also passed around complete albums on tape again and again and again. I was a veritable international distribution center at the time and it pains me to think that, even after two decades, these tapes might still be floating around, stealing sales away from Paul McCartney.
Actually, a very big concern of mine is that I am held accountable for exactly what I pirated and no more. For instance, you can probably mark me down for at least three duplications of the entire Yes album “Tormato,” but I know for a fact that when it came to the Beatles “Revolver,” I only had one hour tapes and, not wanting to upset the symmetry of one album per side, edited out a song or two for the album to fit into the half-hour constraint — I believe I had to do the same with the other side, which, to my recollection was “Rubber Soul.” Or maybe “McCartney II.” Anyhow, the point of this is, I technically only distributed, say, eight out of 10 songs on these works and I’m willing to pay through the nose for that, but I think it’s only fair that I’m not penalized for the two songs that I didn’t include on the cassette. I mean, this is about being fair, right?
Oh, once, when I was 16, a friend and I made a little promo video for the local mall to show the head office. We used the song “Cat’s in the Cradle” — that one about the crappy father — and I think your records will show that we never asked permission, nor paid any sort of licensing for it. I don’t even like to think how much that must have screwed up your cash flow in 1981.
Also, on a couple of occasions, a friend came over and went through my record collection and recorded things at his will. At the time, I wasn’t paying too much attention to which recordings he was choosing, so I don’t have any records of them to present to you. Am I liable for those? I certainly hope not — he had horrible taste in music and my suspicion is that he probably picked all the records I was just going to throw away anyhow. I have no proof of this, but I have strong feelings about it, and I really hate to think I am going to be doing time for music I didn’t like much.
That’s another question I am curious about — since the recordings are not technically my property but something I am licensing the right to have privately, am I in trouble for throwing away records and cassettes and CDs that were legally your property? Should I have packaged them up and sent them back to you? If that’s the case, I bet you have a big closet.
Another thing I was confused about — and I’m not admitting to anything here, it’s purely hypothetical — is if I happened to download Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows from a source other than Radiohead, is that something you will be suing me over or is that something Radiohead will be handling? Not that I downloaded it anywhere other than Radiohead’s site, I’m just curious.
Actually, that brings up another issue and it’s one I am pretty sensitive aoubt. I have a wireless network and I also have extremely well defined taste in music. Some people think I’m a bit of a snob, others a weirdo. Either way you look at it, I haven’t been downloading anything off the Top 100 — or whatever the charts are called these days — then someone is tapping into my wireless network. I barely know the names of the artists who sell big these days — and, for the most part, I wouldn’t even know what to search for in order to illegally download their work. I mean know Britney Spears — she’s in all the tabloids and she’s so mean to her kids, even worse than the guy in “Cats in the Cradle” — but I don’t know whether she records music anymore, nor do I have any intention of finding out. But I’m willing to take the blame for all those weird Ukrainian pop albums and old New Wave hits that never sold the first time around — fair’s fair.
Oh, and there was also all the stuff that I downloaded in order to listen to it and see if I liked it. I didn’t.
I was wondering if there is any sort of barter system that might negate some of the disputed albums from the charges? This is the sort of thing I’m thinking of — let’s say that, back in 1982, I purchased a Scandal album and still have it. Twenty years later, I got wistful to listen to it, but I don’t have a turntable because you convinced me to throw mine out sometime in the 1990s. I was thinking since I already paid for that album once — or, more precisely, a license to play that album in my home — I could download it in order to sate my wistfulness. Now I’m thinking I shouldn’t have done that. Could it be that I require a totally separate license for the digital version, that they’re not transferable? Am I still allowed to just buy a turntable and play the album that I am licensed to play, or do I need a license to do that? I don’t know how long these licenses are good for.
Now that I think about it, I realize that in the 1980s, I bought a few promo albums from used record stores that were not only clearly marked “Not For Sale” but were also not officially released at the time of my purchase. I know you frown on the passing around of pre-releases, so I’m thinking I really screwed-up with that copy of Madness’ “Mad Not Mad.” Actually, I was going to purchase a new copy on CD down the line — the promo wasn’t very good quality — but I couldn’t find one anywhere. It didn’t seem to be in print. If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have flushed the evidence down the toilet in the first place.
Rather than pay you out of pocket for all my misdeeds, though, I was thinking maybe I could sign a piece of paper promising you to never to have any contact with you again — kind of like a restraining order without the threat of physical harm factored in. I would swear to never have anything to do with music again. This might be the best bet — paying you for all my crimes doesn’t guarantee that I won’t, say, take a promo CD that someone gives me and pass it along to someone else or hear a song in the grocery store that is paying for a license to play music and then having it get in my head and never leave, repeating over and over, even though my head does not have a license that covers any plays, let alone repeated ones.
I will promise never to touch your product again; you won’t have to worry about me. I bet that if I passed some sort of affidavit around, I could thousands more filthy pirates to promise that they will never touch your property again, for money or theft. You will have your integrity, which will be so great for you again. It’s been so long.
Sincerely,
CONTACT _Con-3D164E1D1 \c \s \l John
P.S. On the list of offenses, I am including some music I wrote and recorded myself. My feeling is that if you don’t own it now, you eventually will, and I know you are sticklers about activities that prevent possible future sales. I don’t mean to deny you of one cent of what you have coming to you.
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Tags: BitTorrent, illegal downloading, music industry, RIAA
