My journey through file sharing and digital downloading has been kind of a strange one. I had Napster back in the day, then switched to Morpheus. I think I had Limewire in college, but I can’t exactly remember. Even in those days, it took FOREVER to download a song (or god FORBID a movie), and you never knew what you were actually going to get at the end of the day (i.e. is that really An American Tail or Debby Does Dallas?? Fuck it, it’s free, right?!). My junior year, Napster came back as a legit subscription service and worked out a couple of licensing agreements with a bunch of Universities – my now alma mater, University of Miami (aka “THE U”), was one of those schools.
I stuck to Napster like white on rice – I absolutely loved being able to stream any music I wanted for a small monthly fee. In fact, when I was in college, Napster was FREE to UM students; I just loved it so much, I started paying the measly $12.95/month after I graduated to keep the features. To this day, I am still a Napster subscriber, and the price has gone down. Now, it’s only $15 every three months AND you get 15 free credits for tracks. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and they have a great catalogue. Plus, I’m in control.
I didn’t jump on the iTune bandwagons until I got my iPhone in…. god, I’m so embarrassed to say this… November 2009. I never owed an iPod; I always have third party MP3 players because iPods were compatible with Napster (they are now). I’m going to say it – I honestly don’t like iTunes. I think the only thing it offers is mild convenience, esp with my iPhone (or the iPod Touch), you can get your music instantly, but only if you pay for it each time. Napster “feels” more free to me. Sure, I can’t instantly grab music on my MP3 player on the go, but I can stream it from up to 5 PCs at a time, and, honestly, that’s mostly where I listen to my music.
I think the fact that people want a lot of music but they don’t want to pay for that music (or feel like they’re paying for it) has given rise to this kind-of “customized” radio services like Pandora. Because you can interact with the genome and “refine” it by adding variety and thumbing up or down certain songs to refine your taste. I actually have friends that spent months refining their genomes to get the “perfect” station. It’s fun! It’s kind of like building a CD collection – it takes time and effort. Remember how rewarding that used to be? All their shiny cases lines up in a row, sorted alphabetically, or (if you’re daring) maybe by genre or cover art. But I digress. My point is that people still take pride in their music selections, and Pandora feeds that need.
But what if I crave MORE customization? What if I crave “on demand” content all the time? The music I want when I want it. None of this “you can only interact with the genome up six times an hour.” I want music without boundaries! And I want to be free! Well, industry folks say, you can’t have it for free. As my old music business professor used to say: “when music is playing, someone is paying.” Advertising just doesn’t cut the mustard for the licensing fees (plus, users hate commercials… yet still don’t want to pay for music. Have you guys ever heard the expression ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too’??)
Enter Grooveshark. They say… why yes, you CAN have your cake and eat it too. We’ll even BAKE your cake and handle all the liabilities and law suits when it poisons someone! Ta da! Grooveshark has taken a similar approach to Limewire and Grokster – “Come and get us.” However, unlike Limewire and Grokster, Grooveshark preemptively offered music as an enticement for the majors to garner licensing deals with them. Lots of indies are on board, but the real meat and potatoes (and what their success depends upon) are the major label releases.
Well, their plan has worked…. Kind of. In ’09, EMI inked a licensing deal with Grooveshark licensing their entire catalogue under undisclosed terms. Did EMI take equity? What kind of licensing fees is Grooveshark paying? Where is their leverage here?? Ooh… the contract deets are KILLING ME!! But it appears that Grooveshark is leading the way in a new(er) approach to copyright licensing. Give the people what they want, and when Big Daddy sees people love it, offer them a piece of the pie. If the Copyright Act isn’t working for digital downloading (and, in many instances, it’s not), private contract seems to be the way to go. Innovation can’t be stopped, so we need to contract around it. All’s fair in music and war, I suppose.
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