By Aniruddh “Andrew” Bansal
This is an article I’ve wanted to write since as long as I can remember, because illegal music downloading is something that bothers me more than anything else pertaining to the music industry. Yesterday, the extremely sad news of Roadrunner Records shutting down their UK, Europe and Canada offices reverberated through the metal community like a massive earthquake. Numerous employees working at those label offices are now out of jobs, and artists on the label in those territories now seek new label homes. Who knows what’s going to happen to the Roadrunner albums that were slated for release. Even though the news is not official and hasn’t come from Roadrunner yet, the rumors have been strong enough, and I feel this is as apt an occasion as ever to finally write this piece.
First of all, let me tell you, it’s not like I’ve never illegally downloaded music. But, I did it quite a number of years back, as a college kid living in India, a country which sees literally no distribution of heavy metal albums. I downloaded, not because I didn’t have enough money, but simply because I had no access to those albums. On rare occasions, I found metal albums in stores, and I did my best to save money in order to buy them. I will never forget the moment when I showed my friends a couple of Iron Maiden CDs I had purchased, and most of them laughed at me for doing so, calling it a ‘waste of money’. So I’ve practiced the act of buying music from very early on, and still do. Some might say, it’s easy for me to speak against illegal downloading because as a reviewer I get legal access to all albums anyway. But if you’re in any of my social networks, you know very well that despite getting almost every album for free, I still go out and buy the vinyl copy of albums I really like.
That being said, I can understand people in territories like India downloading music illegally, because of the lack of access to legit forms of the music. But when those in the US and Europe do it, I find it highly detestable and strongly disagree with their reasoning behind it. Albums from all kinds of bands are so easily available in physical and digital form, and there is really no excuse for not buying the albums. I constantly come across posts on social networks and public forums, wherein people brag about supporting a band by buying their shirts and concert tickets, and stating that as the reason for not needing to buy the actual CD or MP3 of that band’s new album. I do not concur with it, at all.
In my opinion, if you’re buying a band’s shirt, you pay for a piece of cloth you’re going to wear. If you buy a concert ticket, you pay for the live show the band is going to play for you. These things don’t make up for the illegal download. If you’re paying for those things, why not pay for the music you’ll listen to repeatedly at home? Using a product without taking permission and without paying for it is called stealing, and I’m sorry to say, this downloading activity is also categorized as stealing. but ethics aside, it all comes down to the financial implications. Let me explain.
People aren’t willing to understand the fact that a lot of money goes into recording an album of professional sound quality, and that money is supposed to be recuperated from album sales. I’ve also heard people say, “All that money goes to the record label and the band hardly makes anything out of it, so why should I buy the album?” Again, wrong thinking. The money does go to the label, yes, but the band still makes something from it, and by not buying the album you’re taking away even the little bit they would make. Plus, the money the label makes from the sale of a band’s album is invested back into the band to fund their tours and promotion campaigns. The exact reverse also happens a lot of the time, where the label funds a band’s recording budget, books them for a touring cycle to promote the album, and then the band owes money to the label, which is recovered from album sales. The lack of album sales is a huge hindrance in the smooth running of this process, and creates trouble for the band and the label concerned.
You might argue that bands make money by selling things such as shirts, hoodies, patches, and other merchandise, but in my view, it’s only a small percentage of their revenue model, and there are middlemen involved. Same thing with the concert ticket sales. Venues, promoters, booking agents, roadies and a lot of other people get paid before the band or label gets anything. Bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Iron Maiden are millionaires today not because of shirts and concert tickets, but because they benefited from multi-platinum selling albums released early in their careers, during simpler times, when there was no internet and people actually bought albums.
I really fear for the music industry, and feel sad to predict that eventually more and more labels will meet the same fate as Roadrunner Records. They’ll all run out of money and will end up being unable to support the bands on their roster. Bands will either release self-funded low quality recordings, or will stop recording new music completely. I’m sure they’ll still write new music, purely for their own creative satisfaction, because they can’t keep playing the same old tunes on every tour. You’ll hear new music only in live performances, and all the illegal downloaders out there will be left with nothing to download, other than live bootlegs. Imagine that. Do you really want the music industry to come to that? I encourage you to start buying music, and tell your friends to do the same. I’m pretty sure my plea will fall on deaf ears and won’t change anything, but even If you think twice before going to a torrent website and downloading your favorite band’s new album next time, I think I’ve done what I aimed to do with this article. Thank you very much.
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