My Master’s course (ETEC511) is currently focusing on Politics & Technology.  One of the questions to consider is, “Illustrate with an example how a value that was inherent in a particular technology changed your values.”  This is my response:

Napster(and other methods of downloading sites, software and methods) is an example of technology changing how I looked at what I considered entertainment and the value I placed on it. It also changed my values toward what is considered theft. I am a huge fan of all kinds of music and I have about 400 legally purchased CDs. Before that I bought records and cassettes. To be sure the music industry has received a lot of my discretionary spending money. I remember reading an article when I was in high school in the 80’s that talked about Bon Jovi  (sorry, never been a big fan) receiving about 25 cents for every $10.00 casette they sold and a sick amount of the revenue went to the record labels. At the time they had one of the biggest selling albums and when I did the math I was really struck by how little rock stars receive off it. In the article it said that most of a rock star’s money at the time was made mainly off of concert shirts and touring for a good part of the year.  It made me feel it was harder for them than I thought and they had to work (sex, booze & drugs aside) in a pretty grueling lifestyle.

Fast forward to the late 90’s and the debate over Napster, one of the first illegal download sites for music lovers, and this debate changed my values toward entertainment in general and what is “theft”. At the time arguably the world’s biggest band, Metallica (again, never a big fan), was against Napster and testified in congress against them. I lost a lot of respect for mainstream, superstar musicians like that because I realized that what they were fighting for wasn’t their own and their fellow less well known musicians’ well being, but really the well being of the record company and corporations. These musicians who marketed themselves as rebels were exposing themselves as corporate phonies who were interested in keeping the system exactly the way it was. The amount of money the band was making off of each CD was still miniscule and the distribution of it through the Internet could arguably be seen as PR for their real money making, the concerts, merchandise, etc. Instead they chose to sue their fans for illegally downloading their music, the very same people who put them where they were in the first place.

Worse yet, when you really think about how much it costs to make a CD it is not worth near its retail value (we are talking about big name artists here, not smaller artists that need to sell as many CDs as possible to break even). Why so much? For company profit and unecessary marketing. The Internet and music downloading made me question whom was really stealing from whom? What do I as a consumer need with endless marketing blitzes polluting my eyes and ears? Have you ever been to Tokyo’s Shibuya area?  If not check this out.   Most of the noise you hear and the electronic billboards you see are music industry advertising.  Wow factor aside, do we really need this?  Can I still buy music online and eliminate the money that goes to these marketing eyesores?  The music industry is overcharging for a product that they used to have a near monopoly on.  Why isn’t that theft?  Isn’t it “theft” by robbing our public places of (relative) peace and quiet to blare unnecessary advertising, forcing us to consume it even if all we want to do is walk down a street?

Metallica later changed their view about the Internet and downloading once they saw that it was still possible to make money off of it, but it was too late. While I would never begrudge an artist for making money, the question of how took on greater importance for me. I began to question many things around me that I took for granted as pure entertainment and realized that most, if not all, had a political and economic slant to them.

** Update:  Craig Newark, founder of Craigslist, has a something to say about the subject.