BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Young ‘prefer illegal song swaps’
So, the question of file sharing and illegal music sites is coming up again. One consequence is that dylanchords is temporarily down. “Sam Spade” first posted a note in a different thread, about the record industry being intent on stopping sites like this one. Fair enough, perhaps. I took a consequence of that. An overreaction, perhaps, but that was my decision.
The post also contained a link to a report about a study that Jupiter Research has undertaken, about the music habits of young people. One conclusion is that illegal file sharing networks are used three times as much as the legal ones.
I don’t know what to say about this: of course artists should be paid for their work, but according to artists like Roger McGuinn, there isn’t much that gets past the record company. Then again, they also need to make some income to run the whole apparatus of production and distribution.
All in all: fair enough, and I do pay for my music.
But there was another line that caught my eye:
[The report] also warns that file-sharers, particularly young people, have little concept of music as a paid commodity.
That’s the most vulgar, obscene, inhuman expression I’ve heard in a long time: music as a paid commodity.
Here’s the dictionary definition of “commodity”:
That which affords convenience, advantage, or profit, especially in commerce, including everything movable that is bought and sold (except animals), — goods, wares, merchandise, produce of land and manufactures, etc.
At least animals are excluded…
Raise your heads, clap your hands, sing hallelujah or Allahu akbar! “Young people” have little concept of music as a movable item that is bought and sold. There’s still hope.