Why don't you pay for your music?

Just read an article @ Wired.com about the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publisher (ASCAP) and their efforts to prevent people from contributing money to organizations who oppose copyright law. Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation are advocating “copyleft” practices, asserting that “music should be free”. Despite my continuing commitment to the rights of artists to be compensated for their works, I’m starting to side with them on the issue of music.

First off, who the hell do they think they are?! Trying to tell people which causes they can contribute money to? As recently as last January the US Supreme Court ruled that contributing money to a cause is fundamentally similar to the exercise of free speech and as such cannot be curtailed. I mean seriously, the balls! But that’s a side issue to my real thoughts on this subject, and I’ll start with some of my own perspective.

Peer-to-peer sharing networks have been around for more than a decade. I remember when my friend attended USC, he showed me the LAN for his dorm room and there were quite literally thousands of MP3’s to be had—and this was pre-iTunes—by anyone who wanted to snag them off the network. Napster was on an upswing, LimeWire hadn’t hit it big yet, and I’d never heard of an iPod. Enough nostalgia already, truth be told those were the old days, not the “good old days”! All I’m saying is that sharing music goes back beyond the beginning of the internet, all the way to bootlegs and mix tapes.

So, why do people feel so cavalier about downloading music they haven’t paid for? I blame the radio man! When I hop into my car and turn on the radio I get to hear all the songs I’d like to download for free. The radio promotes the music, people go buy it, and in between songs there are lame commercials and “segments” sponsored by various interests. So you pay for your music in that respect by leasing your ears to the station and listening to their advertisers. But when I sit down at my computer and I’m looking for a song I just heard on the radio, it’s no surprise that paying for something I just got for free meets with conscious resistance.

Now, I want you to imagine something: What if musicians were paid to play their music? By that I mean they had to divvy up the $50,000 to $100,000 they get paid to show up and perform live at a concert. They would use their recorded albums simply as a means of promoting their concert tours. We’re past the era of LPs, even CDs as a means of distributing music seems a bit silly to me. In my vision a band enters a recording studio, lays down an album during the months that they’re not touring, and then releases that album in the hopes that people like the songs enough to come see a live show.

Musicians in this model would still be earning far more than the average citizen, but they wouldn’t be earning millions of dollars for a day’s work (overly simplified) done decades ago. They’d also still get endorsement deals, get paid to license their work in other for-profit projects (movies, commercials, radio), etc. Would that really be so bad a deal? Do you think for a second U2 would stop touring if that were the case? Do you really believe that there isn’t someone out there, waiting to replace them if the world were thirsting for a new voice?

I’m not advocating piracy. In fields where the only way to recoup the investment in a project is patronage I’m adamant about not stealing their finished product. They can’t go around the world performing Avatar live (dear god not another Broadway musical please!) and someone needs to pay the programmers who create my favorite video games… those types of projects require paying patrons to continue to exist and if you think your purchase is a small drop in the proverbial bucket you’re probably the type of person who doesn’t vote either—and either way the result is the same: By opting out you lose your right to say what comes next.

Fail on purpose? What's the deal with the iPad!

Just saying the word "Apple" fills me with so many conflicting emotions these days—longing, frustration, jealousy, disgust, admiration—they’re all twisted together. As a company, Apple has the advantage of being the curve when it comes to portable communication, so why are they intentionally dragging their feet when we’re on the threshold of a universal communications device?

Please, take a moment and think about how data moves in and out of your home. Phone line? Probably. High speed internet? Check. Television? Gotta have it! Cellular phone? Even my ten year old niece has one now… Data plan? Texts? Tethering surcharge? Add another line for just $5? Might as well!

At the end of the month I look back and it frustrates me to realize that I'm paying AT&T for a half dozen separate services when essentially they're all the same product: data transfer. They’re just one of many telecom companies milking the last days of an era and they know it. We're on the verge of a technological transition that will fundamentally change the type of world our children are born into, but no one wants to pull the trigger on that big change. We’re being held back intentionally.

Imagine that for $30 you could send/receive all the same calls, text messages, emails and photos you currently do. Dock your device and have a face to face conversation with someone in another time zone. Watch a movie while you wait at the dentist office. Respond to a vendor’s email while on an airplane. All of this technology exists, is readily available, and should have been integrated as core design elements for the iPad—but then what would they put in next year’s iPad, who would buy the iPhone4, and what would that do to Apple’s strategic partnership with AT&T?

Technology is advancing faster than the marketplace is, faster than most people care to imagine. Rather than release the best possible product though, companies maneuver to have something up their sleeves for next year’s model. They’ve created an atmosphere where they can spend the first six months of the year selling you a product, and spend the next six months making you feel that it’s obsolete compared to their next big release…effectively allowing marketing considerations to drive the pace of technological proliferation.

The answer, clearly, lies in more competition. Unfortunately, the failure of previous tablets has given Apple an incredible head start in this marketplace. They’ll be releasing a second generation device as other companies bring their first offerings to market. We can look forward to tablets powered by other operating systems, but not for another six to twelve months in all likelihood—by which time Apple’s iPad could become as synonymous with tablet computing as the iPod is for portable music, and iTunes for digital distribution of media.

As each carrier establishes increasingly competitive price points for integrated data service (Sprint most recently offered unlimited voice/texting/data for $70) I predict we’re going to see new devices pop up—4G tablets, compatible with multiple carriers, running a variant of Android OS (probably) and capable of purchasing/installing apps from a myriad of outlets, even directly from websites. Cellular companies will complete the cross-over to scalable data plans, and instead of adding a new line for $5 a month you’ll be offered the opportunity to sync an additional device for a nominal increase.

That’s the revolution! That’s the real goal. But in the meantime, we’re stuck in the end zone waving our arms, waiting for Steve Jobs to throw a touchdown—all the while he’s trying to run out the clock.