Stop stealing from artists

My friend Kate Taylor is a wonderful recording artist. She was on an amazing career path in her younger years but stopped to raise a beautiful family on Martha's Vineyard. Life was simple then. You went into a studio, cut a record on vinyl and it sold in stores. There was no Internet and certainly no way to share music files. You simply had
to purchase a record, and that was that.

Now, Kate has begun to record again but the world has changed. She can't be guaranteed that what she records or performs will be compensated.

Things have changed now and file sharing abounds. People do not feel they are "stealing" music if they share it with "friends" – even if these friends number in the thousands and the sender might not have ever met these "friends." The artists have been before Congress for years, ever since the famous Napster hearings. The very first time Congress took up the issue of "file sharing, "aka "stealing," was during those hearings. It has been coming up time and time again. The artists are getting savvy and political, and they need to. Their livelihoods are at stake.

The artists want absolute protection. Simply put, if you use it, you pay for it. Often songwriters receive a small up-front fee when a song they write is recorded. The songwriter/artist might also be expected to pay for the production costs. As a result, their front end net payment is often miniscule. The songwriter/artist expects that he or she will make money from what is called "performance" royalties. Each time their song is preformed or played, they receive a royalty payment.

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China is not the world example of human rights or copyright protections. Just go to any market in China and you will find illegal copies also known as "bootlegs," of songs, movies, books, computer games and just about anything that someone else creates and they can copy. These copies make their way back to the United States and deprive the artists of royalties from the burgeoning markets of China and Asia. The United States has not made this a priority in trade negotiations with China. It has been brought up but has no teeth. Unlike textiles or electronics, it has a very small constituency, and there is little political downside to dropping this from the negotiations. If you don't protect textiles and food, you could lose the voters from an entire state. Currently you can give up on Hollywood and hope you can take rest of the State of California.

The United States has stepped up prosecution for individuals who have been caught downloading music. It has hoped that prosecution of college students throughout the country will send a very strong message that that United States will act decisively to protect copyrighted material. The problem is that people still go to concerts, illegally record them and then make those tapes available. This is also done with music. It is easy to go into Staples, buy 100 CDs and disseminate your own playlist from your wedding or birthday party. If you have a lot of friends, as many as 300 people could be getting music for free. This is illegal. It is the same as purchasing a book, taking your personal copy machine, making multiple copies and distributing them for free.

You may quibble with the price of a CD these days, but it is hard to dispute the fact that the songwriter/artist is entitled to fair compensation for their work. Congress needs to recognize this and act now.