Illegal downloads devastate songwriters
Dear Editor:
As the president of the Songwriters Guild of America, I would like to respond to the article, “Lack of guilt over illegal file-sharing ensures the failure of RIAA lawsuits” in the April 21 issue of the Guardian.
If an entire generation of students has grown up with the idea that federal laws don’t apply to the Internet, there is no better way to re-educate them than the Recording Industry Association of America lawsuits. Federal copyright laws exist for a reason. For each rich artist you see on MTV flaunting a “wristwatch that would pay for your college tuition,” there are hundreds of people in the music business barely making ends meet.
Songwriters make about 4 cents per song on an album, and if the song is co-written with the artist (which most are, nowadays) we make two cents. Do the math and you will see we are making only $20,000 (before taxes) on one million sales. The vast majority of songwriters never get a song on a million-selling album. Songwriters don’t tour, sell T-shirts or endorse clothing lines. We make our money directly from CD sales. So when you steal a song off the Internet, you might as well be stealing the money right out of my pocket. Theft is theft, no matter how convenient it might be for you. Somebody is getting hurt.
Songwriters have been devastated by illegal downloading. Half of us have lost our staff songwriting jobs in the last five years. A songwriter friend of mine, with multiple No. 1 hits, is now selling handbags in a department store. She didn’t fail at her profession; she was put out of business by thieves.
But the pain doesn’t stop there. Many recording studios have had to close because declining record sales have caused cutbacks in the record-label rosters. This put hundreds of recording engineers out of business. My own nephew spent his inheritance from his grandfather to go to audio engineering school, only to be unable to find a job after graduation because illegal downloading had closed so many studios.
New recording artists have little or no chance of getting a major record deal anymore because the record labels have all merged and downsized their rosters in an attempt to survive. It is sad to see the next generation of recording artists giving up and going back home to sell insurance instead of recordings.
Producers, studio musicians, background singers, arrangers, music publishers, artist managers, publicists, record-store clerks, A&R reps, promoters, clothing designers, makeup artists, lighting technicians — the entire superstructure that props up the artist you see on your TV screen is collapsing, one piece at a time. This is why the Music United Coalition was formed by all the major organizations in the music business to determine a course of action to help save American music. Our choice was narrowed by the U.S. court system to suing individuals. The vote was taken by Music United, representing the entire music business, to begin the lawsuits.
The RIAA is leading this effort, but make no mistake, they have the support of everyone in the business. This goes double for the “little guys” like the songwriters who could never launch thousands of federal lawsuits to protect our songs on our own.
So when you receive your subpoena, even if you “feel no guilt” as your article claims, understand that you have violated a federal law. You have stolen money from real people who depended on that income to pay for their homes, their medical insurance, their children’s college tuition. You have seriously hurt real, ordinary people. If you feel no guilt for stealing from folks, then what recourse does the industry have but to enforce the law as vigorously as possible?
— Rick Carnes
President, Songwriters Guild of America
