THE INTERNET DEBACLE – AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW

Originally written for Performing
Songwriter Magazine, May 2002

* Shortly after this article
was turned in, Michael Greene resigned as president of NARAS.

 “The Internet, and downloading, are here to stay… Anyone who thinks otherwise should prepare themselves to end up on the slagheap of history.” (Janis Ian during a live European
radio interview, 9-1-98)   *Please see author’s note at end!

When I research an article,
I normally send 30 or so emails to friends and acquaintances asking for
opinions and anecdotes. I usually receive 10-20 in reply. But not so on
this subject!

I sent 36 emails requesting
opinions and facts on free music downloading from the Net. I stated that
I planned to adopt the viewpoint of devil’s advocate: free Internet downloads
are good for the music industry and its artists.

I’ve received, to date, over
300 replies, every single one from someone legitimately “in the music business.”

What’s more interesting than
the emails are the phone calls. I don’t know anyone at NARAS (home of the
Grammy Awards), and I know Hilary Rosen (head of rhe Recording Industry
Association of America, or RIAA) only vaguely. Yet within 24 hours of sending
my original email, I’d received two messages from Rosen and four from NARAS
requesting that I call to “discuss the article.”

Huh. Didn’t know I was that
widely read.

Ms. Rosen, to be fair, stressed
that she was only interested in presenting RIAA’s side of the issue, and
was kind enough to send me a fair amount of statistics and documentation,
including a number of focus group studies RIAA had run on the matter.

However, the problem with
focus groups is the same problem anthropologists have when studying peoples
in the field – the moment the anthropologist’s presence is known, everything
changes. Hundreds of scientific studies have shown that any experimental
group wants to please the examiner. For focus groups, this is particularly
true. Coffee and donuts are the least of the pay-offs.

The NARAS people were a bit
more pushy. They told me downloads were “destroying sales”, “ruining the
music industry”, and “costing you money”.

Costing me money? I don’t
pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one
thing. If a music industry executive claims I should agree with their agenda
because it will make me more money, I put my hand on my wallet?and check
it after they leave, just to make sure nothing’s missing.

Am I suspicious of all this
hysteria? You bet. Do I think the issue has been badly handled? Absolutely.
Am I concerned about losing friends, opportunities, my 10th Grammy nomination
by publishing this article? Yeah. I am. But sometimes things are just wrong,
and when they’re that wrong, they have to be addressed.

The premise of all this ballyhoo
is that the industry (and its artists) are being harmed by free downloading.

Nonsense. Let’s take it from
my personal experience. My site (www.janisian.com ) gets an average of
75,000 hits a year. Not bad for someone whose last hit record was in 1975….

[CONTINUED AT JANIS
IAN’S WEBSITE.]

THANKS TO J. LEWIS!