The music industry is behaving like thugs – arguing for indefinite copyright extensions, suing their customers (always a great business plan), etc. The music fans, for their part, are taking whatever recorded music they want, with no thoughts whatsoever toward compensating the musicians.
(I'm going to avoid using the terms "piracy" and "sharing", because the first implies a similarity with something a bit more drastic than copying music, and the second implies that the sharer owns – or at least has the right to share – the music being shared.)
It's pretty clear that the recorded music business is going to change. We're moving from hunks of plastic (LPs, 8-tracks, cassette tapes, CDs) to streams of bits (MP3, etc.). This is a big change, because bits are much easier to copy than plastic.
There are a bunch of bogus claims floating around, which need to be addressed. First, the labels would have us believe that any change to their business model is bad for music. This is pretty clearly goofy. Digital music (streams of bits) are convenient, listeners like them, and Apple has shown that there's a viable business model there. The world has changed and the labels need to deal with it.
Second, various people claim that musicians should make their money from live performances (and merchandise) and not even bother trying to charge for recordings. This has a couple problems in my view. One is that some bands can't, or won't, tour – because they have day jobs (for now), or because it's one guy playing 17 tracks all by himself, or whatever. And if we take away recorded music (as a source of income), those bands will die off (or never get started). On top of that, even for bands that can make a living on concerts and t-shirts, the quality of the recorded music will suffer. If recordings are just advertising for concerts, there will be less incentive to make them really good. And I've already mentioned that I like recorded music.
Third, there's the argument that recording labels are evil bastards, and therefore one needn't or shouldn't pay for recorded music. Granted, some labels are behaving badly (see above), but I don't see how that justifies not paying for music. If you dislike the big corporate labels, then buy indie music.
Fourth, there are certainly some bands out there that make a great living selling concert tickets and t-shirts, while encouraging their fans to trade recordings. I have absolutely no problem with this – as long as we all realize that those bands have made a choice, and it's not the right choice for all bands.
There are a few possible outcomes of all this. One is that recorded music dies off. That would make me very sad, and I hope things don't go that way. (Perhaps this is selfish of me. So be it.)
Another is that the business model changes dramatically. (Note that iTunes is not a dramatic change. You're buying bits instead of plastic. And you're buying singles instead of albums, but that's not exactly new.) When I say dramatic change, I'm thinking of things like:
- some kind of government support (via a tax or ISP fee or whatever) – but who decides which musicians get the money?
- patrons – musicians are supported by wealthy people (or corporations)
- some sort of ad-supported model – ads embedded in the middle of songs? (ugh)