In her recent article “College correct on stronger illegal downloading penalties” (2.18.10), Opinions Editor Angela Aiuto ’11 hit the nail on the head regarding the moral implications of illegal downloading. It is, for lack of a better word, petty theft, and taking a song—or really, any other piece of art in any medium—without the express permission of the artist or the holder of the copyright is not only legally dubious at best but a morally reprehensible thing to do as well. Aiuto made a clear and well-reasoned argument on this front.
She did not, however, go far enough with her defense of the College’s policy regarding the punishment for illegal downloading. In the event that the College was caught allowing its students to illegally download music and movies, it would be liable for all the fees and penalties that, under normal circumstances, would be paid by the individuals responsible. Students need to understand that, whether they agree with it or not, Vassar College has to follow the law, and if they do not want the College’s protection from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America, they should feel free to deal with those organizations directly. To give just a little taste of what that would be like, in June of last year, a Minnesota jury found in favor of the RIAA over a 32-year-old woman to the tune of $1.9 million ($80,000 per song, 24 songs). Yes, Vassar tuition is expensive, but not that expensive.
Last winter, I was faced with a very unique situation; I was given the opportunity to work with the band Beirut when they played a gig at Vassar and at two subsequent gigs in New York City. I also got a chance to meet and talk to a band that, prior to that time, I had not been aware of and whose music I had never heard. At one point, a friend of mine offered to let me borrow her Beirut CDs so I could burn them onto my hard drive. On the verge of accepting, I stopped: Something just felt...wrong. I’d done that sort of thing before, so why should it be any different this time?
Let’s imagine for a minute, in an example that I hope everyone can relate to, that you have illegally downloaded every Beatles album. You love them so very much, listen to them every day and fall asleep every night clenching a Paul McCartney body pillow ever so close. Then, one day, you happen upon Sir Paul in the street. Are you going to exuberantly exclaim to his face that you downloaded all his music for free? Are you going to feel proud for listening to “Abbey Road” every day without paying a penny for the right to do so? I hope that anyone in that situation could only feel shame and guilt, and would even posit a theory that anyone who doesn’t is possibly psychopathic. So, of course, having met the members of Beirut, I felt uncomfortable partaking of their music for free. I politely declined my friend’s gracious offer and went without downloading Beirut’s music, illegally or otherwise. Quite frankly, this whole matter could be avoided if people could learn to go without something they can’t afford, even if it can be acquired illegally with little or no consequence.
Things change once you’ve worked closely with a recording artist or a record label. Yes, a few of the labels and several of the artists make it to stardom, winning fame and fortune and everything that goes with it, but for every band as successful as Queen, there are hundreds struggling to sell their albums on iTunes; for every Lady GaGa, there are prospective pop stars making the rounds at the clubs of New York City just trying to get by. Radiohead offers their most recent work for free because they can—it’s not an indication of a rich, bloated industry that can afford to bleed money to satisfy the urges of liberal arts students.
Most artists do not get big multi-album recording contracts anymore, and most record labels can’t afford to give them, either. More and more often, contracts are simply an agreement between an artist and a label to go in on the distribution of one album together, so that if they’ve both done their jobs right, they might make some money. During my time working at an independent record label, one of the artists we signed had spent all her savings from her day job simply to record and mix her album. You may wonder how downloading bigwigs like Death Cab for Cutie and Aerosmith possibly mess with small-time artists, and the answer is quite simple: as record labels lose more and more income to illegal downloading, they invest less and less money into developing new and upcoming talent, opting to conserve it for spending on their surefire winners instead.
On an even more personal level, I am quite good friends with (as far as I know) three current Vassar students that are hoping to someday make a career out of their music. Having worked with two of them professionally, how could I honestly live with myself if I had to confess to their faces that, in their formative years as a songwriter, during all their struggles and hardships, I had illegally acquired their music instead of paying for it? For me, and for any of you who have friends that are musicians, professionally or otherwise, this shouldn’t be an issue about legality or illegality, morality or immorality; it should be, above all else, about respect. If you truly enjoy what an artist does, it only makes sense to show it in a way that will enable them to continue doing what the musician (and presumably you) love.
—David Wojciechowski is a member of the Class of 2009. He was a music major.
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