A  special to the  East Windup Chronicle written by: A Contributor  

Sadly, I’ve spent a great deal of my life trying to get free music.

This started when I was about 15 and my friend and I would ride our bicycles miles upon miles, from one mall to another, to return cassette tapes we’d spent the afternoon copying at home.

We had quite a racket going. Blank sales receipts, bags from every music outlet in  town, plastic wrappings we could show as proof that we’d  purchased the “defective” item. We kept long inventoried lists of our booty. The date and even time of where we’d procured the item. The name of the store, even the individual clerk that helped us.

I had hundreds of tapes. I spent hours carefully  printing the song titles,  as if  by printing cleanly  I might trick myself into believing that my copied tape was somewhat close to an  original. It wasn’t even out of the question to cut out a photo a certain band and slip it inside the cassette for a cover.

Then CDs came along. They were new and shiny and allegedly sounded better although it was hard to tell. They sounded more tinny at any rate, more new. Suddenly it was more difficult to get free music. If we said a CD was defective all the clerk had to do was pick it up and inspect it for a scratch. We were cooked. We either had to plunk down the $20 or go without. In many cases we went without.

Things are a bit different today. This afternoon  I  received my email linking me to the new Radiohead album In Rainbows which I purchased  for a price of my choosing. I paid pounds 5  ($10.44 U.S.).

Normally I would have downloaded the album  from a site…I’ll call it “Piggyback”,  not to protect the innocent, but in the way some won’t take the Lord’s name in vein.

You see in Piggyback I have fulfilled a childhood  dream I couldn’t have conceived during all those hours on my bicycle, riding from store to store–all the music I want, when I want. For free.  

I’ve been using Piggyback for about 2 years running. I live in Korea, which, in case you don’t know, is about as friendly to entertainment pirating as they come–with the possible exception of China. We have broadband everywhere, and there isn’t much of a United States/British record company presence or the RIAA  here. In fact  I’m quite sure there is none.  

I download three or four releases a week, depending on what’s put on Piggyback. I’ve gone through periods where I download more. You see, in Korea I don’t have access to buying Western music. It isn’t popular here. That, and the fact that CDs and the stores that sell them  already nearly obsolete. DVDs too.    

This iTunes thing? Well, sure, it exists and while a dollar per song (at least I think that’s what they charge) sounds appealing, that’s still a bit much in the case of a 17-song album. That’s getting into new CD territory.

Besides, the only reason I would buy music on iTunes rather than Piggyback is because I want the artist to reap some of the benefits of their work. If there’s anything I give pause to in downloading music illegally it’s that the artist sees no profit.

However, even this argument holds little water with me. First and foremost it seems artists ought to do what they do first for the love of it, right? You think the guys who do this blog get paid for any of this? Heck no. Now, do I want to enable a band like Radiohead to avoid  getting a day job so they can concentrate on music? I suppose, although I won’t lose much sleep over it.  

But of that $1 you spend on iTunes how much does the artist actually get? Hard to say. Probably more than they’d get from a CD sale. Maybe the same. But there’s still others involved. The label,  publishing, Apple…people who just might not  be so concerned with the music itself. Naturally they want their cut.

The reason I love Radiohead today and willingly  paid for  In Rainbows is because it’s a big f-you to the music industry. It’s  blowing it up so-to-speak and proves that this “middleman,” (which is all it’s really ever been)  is antiquated and unnecessary to this world.

And that it comes on the heels of this “victory” by the recording industry–chasing down a working woman and charging her $200,000 for downloading music  illegally, makes it all the sweeter.    Way to go guys. You won, everyone is scared. I guess I’ll go start paying $20 for a CD again.

The recording industry has never been about fair competition, and since music downloading became a threat 10 or so years ago  they’ve taken on  an air of entitlement that is disgusting. They’ve been slow to react (so slow they just sued a woman for using Kazaa) and they haven’t  adequately changed their business model.

Surely other bands will follow suit. This paying-the-artist-directly is going to catch on. Other bands (namely Oasis and Jamiroquai) already have hinted they’ll do  something similar, and other artists have weighed in with approval.

I’m happy to pay. I’m happy to be a part of it.