RIAA puts price on priceless

During the file sharing “debate” that was held in Hoyt on Feb. 16, Cary Sherman simply dispensed the gospel of the recording industry. Sherman said that sharing music was driving down record sales and this was “hurting the artists.” Although I disagree with his assertion that file sharing is responsible for the decline in CD sales, what really draws my ire is his notion of the artists suffering. I believe that the biggest losses are suffered by the record companies, who gain the most from record sales. Due to technological advances, the price of making a CD has dropped dramatically. So where are these billions of dollars going? Advertising. Record companies are investing huge amounts of money to promote artists and develop an image for them, banking that the revenue generated by CD sales will turn a profit. This formula has been responsible for the proliferation of pop megastars such as Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson. How many songs that you download are made by struggling artists? Chances are that if you’ve heard of this artist before, they’ve either been around for a very long time and are possibly dead or you heard them on MTV. The artists who have been around for a while are either very rich or very dead, so either way you’re not causing them any deal of financial grief. The artists whom you know of from watching MTV are probably doing pretty well for themselves financially but the record companies are the ones who could lose a lot of money. Investing in an artist’s notoriety can be quite expensive and not selling a lot of records could seriously harm these companies. If anything, file sharing is helping artists rather than hurting them. Music is a medium that is constantly evolving and this happens through feeding upon its musical predecessors. On a grander scale this is how rock and roll came about, feeding upon bluegrass and jazz. On a smaller scale, artists draw their creativity from their listening experiences. Giving people access to different styles of music will enhance the experience and possibly give rise to many new genres. Nothing can be created in a vacuum and the vaster the range of “stuff” an artist has to draw from the more diverse and authentic his or her sound will be. The importance of freedom of information is even more noticeable in the literary world. What would happen to the world of authors if every person had to go to Barnes and Noble and pay $24.95 to read a book? Can you really put a price on art?Goldner can be reached at bgoldner@campustimes.org.