Shamim Releases New Single that Shines Light on Illegal Downloading and the Music Industry

Major Corporations are Playing Catch Up as Music Fans Continue to Download Music Illegally Off the Internet. Companies are Making Huge Business Moves in the Online Music Market, But Can They Combat an Ever Growing Demand for Free Music? Young musical artist Shamim is addressing this issue.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) October 9, 2007 -- People have been wondering whether music piracy has had any lasting effect on the industry, Jeff Robert, CEO of L.A. indie CSG Music, is eager to assuage your doubts. "The fans ruined the music business," he says, "because they wanted everything for free." Also a consultant for independent labels and artists, Robert has helped release albums for acts that range from pop to hard rock to urban. He sees music piracy as a catalyst for change in the music business, but his predictions about the future that change may bring are less than sunny. "We have a sea of one-hit wonders," he declares. "The days of the long term major artists are over."

With CD sales continuing to fall and even digital music sales finally hitting a plateau, Robert's forecast about the landscape of the twenty-first century music industry is understandable: we live in a time where consumers are always only one click away from getting something for nothing. Although Recording Industry Association of America's Mitch Bainwohl said in a recent interview on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" that he anticipates physical products will still account for 60% of all music sales by the end of the next ten years, it's clear that digital music is providing stiff competition for that optimistic figure. Six years since its creation, iTunes has risen to third place in the list of the biggest U.S. music retailers, with lifetime sales thus far surpassing three billion. Still, there are reports that ten times as many songs are downloaded for free as are purchased on-line. Like a parent trying to figure out how to maintain control over a wild and wayward teen, record companies have both tried to make nice (Hi-Def and Dual Discs) and fight dirty (Record Company v. Joe College) with their customers. And like a wild and wayward teen, customers have continued to rebel.

Michael Dutcher, General Manager of Hip Hop and Chief Operating Officer of Brands at Steve Aoki's indie label, Dim Mak Records, suggests piracy continues to be a problem in part because the RIAA hasn't yet stopped to ask the consumer why he or she steals the music instead of paying for it. "It's counterintuitive how we [the music industry] do this," he says. "I don't know of any other industry that sues its customers."

After Metallica kicked things off in 2000, when it sued then-free file sharing service Napster for allowing their catalog of songs to be downloaded gratis, the RIAA went on a mission to eradicate file sharing and punish the participants, filing hundreds of lawsuits a year against individuals for copyright infringement and issuing subpoenas to Verizon in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain the identities of file sharers. And the war continues: last year, the RIAA sued peer-to-peer file sharing service, LimeWire, accusing them of making money off unauthorized downloads. LimeWire countersued the following month, accusing the RIAA of antitrust violations. Dutcher's observation that the litigious relationship the industry has created with its audience leaves little room for discussion between the two groups is an enlightened and optimistic one, but enlightenment does not always yield practicality or meet a label's bottom line. As Jeff Robert puts it, "There comes a time when everybody's got to pay their rent."

Although one could point out that having to pay the rent is exactly what motivates would-be consumers to download music illegally, many pirates aren't even yet out of their parents' homes: it is estimated that teenagers make up more than 50% of the file-sharing public. Most teens today were born after or during the dawn of the Internet Age, meaning they've never known of a world where "Google" wasn't a proper noun, music was available only on the radio or the mall music store, and CD burning would have meant actually lighting something on fire. Because they have grown up in a world where digital music was not only available but increasingly prevalent, many people, Dim Mak's Dutcher among them, have hypothesized that teenage music pirates may not even be aware that packing their computer with all their favorite songs for free is technically theft.

"Before I started singing, that's how my friends and I got music," says thirteen-year-old, L.A.-based recording artist Shamim. "We'd just give each other CDs and burn them. It was always for free." Her attitude about swapping music changed when she began pursuing a singing career at age eleven. "If you're an unknown artist like me," she explains, "you have the problem of people stealing your music, and you have another problem of not being out there able to recoup any of your money yet because you don't have any tours set up." She worked out her frustrations by writing the to-be-released single, "You're Killin' Me," a catchy pop song that laments, "Free downloads and bootleg music/Ain't doin' me no good/It's useless."

Shamim says she's not trying to change anybody; rather, she wants to educate people about music piracy using softer means than those previously employed by the industry. Earlier this year she founded the Protection of Artistic Rights Coalition, an organization whose ultimate goal is to provide downloadable music legally at no cost to the consumer. "I want to balance it out," she says. "Artists would receive music royalties paid by programming sponsors, based on the song's popularity. Under this plan, royalties would be tied to a sliding scale much like paid advertising on television."

Is Shamim's youthful optimism about the future of digital music too optimistic by today's standards for the hard-edged music industry? Maybe, but nonetheless her "free music for all" hope indicates a coming sea change in music from the next generation in the way they regard both their own buying power and the companies who solicit their spending. Dutcher points out that one reason major labels have had such a visceral reaction to piracy is because there's not much way for the companies to profit from their catalog artists other than consumers purchasing the recordings since these artists may no longer be performing, touring, or available for branding. It seems the majors are learning the hard way what the indie labels have known for a while: says Dutcher, "You can't pirate a concert experience." In the end, the fans Jeff Robert blames for ruining the music business may just be the ones to save it.

-- Tara Tyson

###