The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Making Music

1.3.08 @ 12:01AM

PLAYING THE FIELD
Re: Colby Cosh's Naming Names:

Colby Cosh is quite right to note that fans and reporters have paid far less attention to the use of steroids and HGH in pro football than in major league baseball. It's quite obvious to even the casual observer that both baseball players and football players are much bigger and stronger than they were just a few decades ago, and this can't all be natural.

Why the scrutiny on baseball? I think it's because, until very recently, an ordinary fan could go to Wrigley Field or Fenway Park and see a lot of "athletes" who didn't look so very different from him. In the Seventies, there were tiny players (Freddie Patek), scrawny players (Mark Belanger), rotund players (Wilbur Wood), even players smoking cigarettes in the dugout. At most, each team might have two guys with bulging biceps. So, when that fan looks at a modern ball club and sees benchwarmers and utility infielders with six-packs and rippling muscles, he NOTICES immediately and wonders, "What the heck is going on here?"

Even though pro football players have become far more massive in that same period, the fact remains, football players have ALWAYS been much bigger than their fans. Sure, today Bob Lilly and Alan Page would be too small to start for most junior college teams -- but fans NEVER looked at Page or Lilly and thought, "That could be me out there."

When little guys get big, it's far more noticeable than when already-huge guys become enormous!
-- John Leavy

MUSIC MEN
Re: Robert VerBruggen's Ripping the RIAA:

Ever since I bought my very first record in 1967 to this very day, I have loved putting all sorts of popular music together for my own personal enjoyment. First there were cassette tapes, then CDs, and now the hard drive. The hard drive is vastly superior to any format I have ever used as I can put thousands of songs in one place and divide than into categories (rock, jazz, country and classical) that I can pick as I please. I pay for every piece of music I get. I do not file share. I used to make "mixes" on CDs and give them to a few friends; but since I learned that this was considered "stealing" I have stopped.

It galls me that my pastime is now claimed to be "illegal" by the RIAA. The recording industry provides me nothing similar to what I have amassed for my own enjoyment in my own home. I paid for every CD I have and my CD collection is so large that some might question my sanity. I want to know where is the harm. I understand the record industry would like for me to buy the same piece of music over and over again; but if the RIAA is successful in its campaign to outlaw ripping one's CD onto one's own hard drive then any concept of "fair use" will be meaningless.

The RIAA should be very careful. If it antagonizes the very customers it needs to stay alive, then it creates the conditions for which fans will purchase music directly from the artists and bypass the recording companies. With the advance in recording technology for the average musician, this is already possible. That could well be the commonplace reality in ten years.
-- Name withheld
Indianapolis, Indiana

I generally agree with Mr. VerBruggen thesis but diverge on two counts:

1) As a consumer I would rather see the % of dollars going to the artists increase rather than majority of it going to the Suits as it currently is established. RadioHead and the Eagles seem to agree, as both have gone "open source" to distribute their music without a major label backing them.

2) Sales figures for CD's is not the total income pool of the music industry. There is post on this topic here. But sales of everything but CD's is up. Concerts -- +4%, Single Tracks -- 46%, ringtones -- 86%, and CD's -18%.

The music industry is quite healthy in fact, except for CD sales. I would suggest that the CD sales are down for the following. a) Prices are too high relative to the song hits contained in it. It's why digital singles sales are thru the roof. b) DRM attempts have been damaging to that segment of the industry. WalMart in fact has insisted that the major labels drop DRM as WalMart is getting too many returns for bad product. c) Business practices that sue the customer using blind suits and third party shills does not bode well for future sales.
-- John McGinnis
Arlington, Texas

Ever since the personal computer age and digital revolution began back in the early eighties the big players in the Movie/TV/Music industry have been working overtime to return the industry to the point where it was back in 1960s or absolute control over the distribution and "use" of recorded information. I've been in the computer business 35 years and anything that is worth anything to any measurable market segment has moved from single use/play formats such as records to digital form. I have a whole record collection I can't replace with industry produced CD's because the record industry does not produce copies of my 1960-1980s products. I can and will convert them over to CD and eventually MP3 for the same reason. Record players are gone (mostly); CD players will follow and everything will end up on some kind of memory device ultimately. That's the way the market works and the market place is what organizations like RIAA can't stand or tolerate. There will always be "stealing" of digital material but there are market ways to mitigate the level that exists for commercial gain.

The latest attack has been tried before and shot down in courts of law repeatedly for the reason sited in your article. End users have a right to protect their investment just as the producer of the material does. As long as an end user does not receive material benefit from the copies the RIAA has no ground to stand on. The industry said the same kinds of nonsense when 8 track and eventually cassette tapes came along too. The idea that they have a right to control the use of the product to such an extent (beyond material gain) belongs in a bygone era in places where everyday life was considered a nightmare. They are barking up the wrong tree and this tree will respond precisely as one would expect when someone tries to use the law to swindle them. When the RIAA replaces my original bought record, tape, CD collections at no charge to keep me current with the market place and protect my investments in said products they will get my respect and perhaps my agreement to pay a nominal fee to have my investment on multiple media (going back over 30 years). I won't hold my breath and I would advise that no one hold their breath either. The RIAA is just another money hungry corporation that can't figure out how to work with the market instead of against it 24/7. I'm still paying the same or higher price for CDs (relative to inflation) as when they came out and CD players were hand-made and cost $1500 then. CD players cost what today? Blank CDs cost what today compared to 10 years ago? The market notes the monopolistic practices of organizations like RIAA over the years, the millions it pays successful recording artist while claiming it is starving to death.

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