Last month, I wrote here about the death of the music file sharing system Oink, in a post called “Libraries or Pirate Places“, which made note of Jace Clayton’s observation that the high quality, finely described and deeply curated collection of Oink could just as easily have described a library as a conventional file sharing site.
Through Alan Wexelbalt’s mention of the work, I chanced upon demonbaby’s more encompassing criticism of Oink’s shutdown, which not only notes the high value of Oink for both musicians and music fans, but also discourses in a long and very insightful blog piece on the changes that have ripped through the music industry’s economic model. Nothing earthshattering – but it is all well and truly put.
I have linearly excerpted a few good parts that I think well trace the evolution of demonbaby’s thinking toward music distribution and acquisition, but I encourage readers to make it over to “When Pigs Fly” and read through the entire post (and therein trace the allusion to this blog entry’s title as well).
finisMost musicians weren’t rich like Metallica, and needed all the album sales they could get for both income and label support. Plus, it was their art, and they had created it – why shouldn’t they be able to control how it’s distributed, just because some snotty, acne-faced internet kids had found a way to cheat the system? And these entitled little internet brats, don’t they realize that albums cost money to create, and to produce, and to promote? How is there going to be any new music if no one’s paying for it?
On top of that, I couldn’t get into the idea of an invisible music library that lives on my computer. Where’s the artwork? Where’s my collection? I want the booklet, the packaging… I want shelves and shelves of albums that I’ve spent years collecting, that I can pore over and impress my friends with… I want to flip through the pages, and hold the CD in my hand… Being a kid who got into music well past the days of vinyl, CDs were all I had, and they still felt important to me.
…In a few short years, the aggressive push of technology combined with the arrogant response from the record industry has rapidly worn away all of my noble intentions of clinging to the old system, and has now pushed me into full-on dissent. I find myself fully immersed in digital music, almost never buying CDs, and fully against the methods of the major record labels and the RIAA. And I think it would do the music industry a lot of good to pay attention to why – because I’m just one of millions, and there will be millions more in the years to come. And it could have happened very, very differently.
…… [It] didn’t have to be this way, and that’s become the main source of my utter lack of sympathy for the dying record industry: They had a chance to move forward, to evolve with technology and address the changing needs of consumers – and they didn’t. Instead, they panicked – they showed their hand as power-hungry dinosaurs, and they started to demonize their own customers, the people whose love of music had given them massive profits for decades. They used their unfair record contracts – the ones that allowed them to own all the music – and went after children, grandparents, single moms, even deceased great grandmothers – alongside many other common people who did nothing more than download some songs and leave them in a shared folder – something that has become the cultural norm to the iPod generation. Joining together in what has been referred to as an illegal cartel and using the RIAA as their attack dogs, the record labels have spent billions of dollars attempting to scare people away from downloading music. And it’s simply not working. The pirating community continues to out-smart and out-innovate the dated methods of the record companies, and CD sales continue to plummet while exchange of digital music on the internet continues to skyrocket. Why? Because freely-available music in large quantities is the new cultural norm, and the industry has given consumers no fair alternative.
…In this sense, Oink was not only an absolute paradise for music fans, but it was unquestionably the most complete and most efficient music distribution model the world has ever known. I say that safely without exaggeration. It was like the world’s largest music store, whose vastly superior selection and distribution was entirely stocked, supplied, organized, and expanded upon by its own consumers. If the music industry had found a way to capitalize on the power, devotion, and innovation of its own fans the way Oink did, it would be thriving right now instead of withering. If intellectual property laws didn’t make Oink illegal, the site’s creator would be the new Steve Jobs right now. He would have revolutionized music distribution. Instead, he’s a criminal, simply for finding the best way to fill rising consumer demand. I would have gladly paid a large monthly fee for a legal service as good as Oink – but none existed, because the music industry could never set aside their own greed and corporate bullshit to make it happen.
…Which is why Oink was so great – take away all the rules and legal ties, all the ownership and profit margins, and naturally, the result is something purely for, by, and in service of the music fan. And it actually helps musicians – file-sharing is “the greatest marketing tool ever to come along for the music industry.” One of Oink’s best features was how it allowed users to connect similar artists, and to see what people who liked a certain band also liked. Similar to Amazon’s recommendation system, it was possible to spend hours discovering new bands on Oink, and that’s what many of its users did. Through sites like Oink, the amount and variety of music I listen to has skyrocketed, opening me up to hundreds of artists I never would have experienced otherwise. I’m now fans of their music, and I may not have bought their CDs, but I would have never bought their CD anyway, because I would have never heard of them! And now that I have heard of them, I go to their concerts, and I talk them up to my friends, and give my friends the music to listen to for themselves, so they can go to the concerts, and tell their friends, and so on. Oink was a network of music lovers sharing and discovering music. And yes, it was all technically illegal, and destined to get shut down, I suppose.
…Ultimately, I don’t know what the future model is going to be – I think all the current pieces of the puzzle will still be there, but they need to be re-ordered, and the rules need to be changed. Maybe record labels of the future exist to help front recording costs and promote artists, but they don’t own the music. Maybe music is free, and musicians make their money from touring and merchandise, and if they need a label, the label takes a percentage of their tour and merch profits. Maybe all-digital record companies give bands all the tools they need to sell their music directly to their fans, taking a small percentage for their services. In any case, the artists own their own music.
…Until the walls finally come down, we’re in what will inevitably be looked back on as a very awkward, chaotic period in music history – fans are being arrested for sharing the music they love, and many artists are left helpless, unable to experiment with new business models because they’re locked into record contracts with backwards-thinking labels.