iTunes. Pretty outside, ugly inside?

Download with Poisoned, then burn with iTunes - stealing music will magically make the music industry do our bidding!

	We can do so much better than to score hits off the success of iTunes
	The internet should eliminate exploitation of musicians, not perpetuate it by spreading their art around without fair compensation. iTunes pays artists. Here are some facts that Downhill Battle overlooks in damning the iTunes Music Store: Most musicians like the iTMS because it lets people buy music, not steal it. Downhill Battle assumes they can crush the RIAA with piracy and good intentions. They forget that a band without promotion and a distribution system that pays them still needs to eat. Filesharing is fraught with annoyances and perils and lawsuits. As iTunes grows, so does the ability to cut out the label and the overhead. Artists should be paid for each download, no matter their label. You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. share The claim is that peer-to-peer networks provide even more efficiency by eliminating the cost of server space and bandwidth. And don't forget, they also help people steal music. The downside? Song quality is variable and the karma is mighty low. But maybe that doesn't bother you. It sure doesn't bother Downhill Battle. After all, they only grouse about compressed music formats when they have to pay for higher quality versions of them. And they only think bands deserve to be paid when they're small. The Downhill solution? Fans provide a free distribution network for the artists they like, and somehow, and in a manner entirely unlike the way file sharing works today, the artists would get paid. Let's face it. Big record companies may sometimes be evil, but without them a lot of bands wouldn't be marketed or produced very well. Much of the music you love best wouldn't exist today. A new solution is needed, but it's not going to magically spring into place by refusing to pay for music and pretending to be a revolutionary. It's going to happen, at least in part, by supporting services that liberalize the way music is distributed. Like the iTunes Music Store. It makes large scale distribution accessible to big and small acts alike.

	Are people being mislead?
	Downhill Battle presents misleading claims about iTunes sales Yes, iTunes sales are falling after an initial high, but that's not really surprising given that the only people who can use it presently are those Mac OS X users who live in the United States. Downhill Battle wants you to ignore the fact that most major columnists and analysts consider iTunes an astonishing success. In fact, the iTMS sold its ten millionth song in September 2003. Each download is money in the bank for an artist who would otherwise lose a sale to filesharing.

	Piracy killed the radio star
	Complain, complain. Barraged by criticism, even Downhill Battle admits that Apple's iTunes Music Store is a reasonable deal for independents: they get a new revenue source, and their music is displayed alongside the major labels' with no pay-for-placement. But then they say: "So right now independent labels should take Apple's money, but in the long run iTunes hurts them by shepherding the major labels through a period in which they might easily die. If services like iTunes can force out free filesharing, then the majors survive and independents lose their only chance at a level playing field." So, on the one hand, Downhill Battle says "people are catching on" to the rotten iTMS deal by downloading fewer files. On the other hand, Apple will "shepherd" the major labels through a period in which they might easily die. Which is it? Is iTMS doomed or is it dooming filesharing? RIAA Radar Boycotting the RIAA sounds good until you realize that you're taking money away from the artists who've signed with major labels. Most of your favourite bands are probably signed to an RIAA member label, which means the only way to listen to your favourite music is to pirate their albums. Who wants a cure that's worse than the disease?

	Real revolution?
	Downhill Battle says that they're not anti-Apple. What an inconsistent story they have. So long as it gets people clicking and talking, they'll bash Apple but good. They tell us that the iTunes software and Apple hardware, which they like just fine when burning pirated music, is "an expensive jukebox." The million-selling iPod? They call it a "long-playing walkman." They wrap it all up in revolutionary jargon and wishful thinking. It's nice to think of the day when nobody ever has to pay for anything, compensation is voluntary, cars can fly, and there are no commercials anywhere, but stealing music is a strange and unlikely way to make any of that happen anytime soon.

Downhill Battle claims that iTunes AAC files don't sound as good as CDs. AAC is a "lossy" compression format: it shrinks the sound file by discarding subtle variations you probably can't hear. Ironically, Downhill Battle doesn't complain about the even lower sound quality inherent in 128kb .mp3 files, which are the lifeblood of filesharing networks. The thing is, most people who listen to AAC files and CDs in double blind tests really can't tell the difference. You won't notice listening to your iPod, but Downhill Battle claims that if you listen to your new iTunes album on a real stereo, it won't have the same nuance, punch, and presence that a CD has. Of course, Downhill Battle uses words like "punch" "nuance" and "presence" because they're subjective and intangible, as opposed to objective and quantifiable. Downhill Battle claims a burned copy of a real CD will always sound better than a burned iTunes album. You decide.

Then you're in good company: lots of people just want to hear the songs they like and don't mind listening to compressed music. Many of those people (the dishonest ones) choose peer to peer filesharing programs like Kazaa or Acquisition to get their lower quality mp3s. Sure, downloads are fast, as long as the files aren't duds and the person who has the song you want isn't overloaded by other downloads. Best of all, peer to peer sharing doesn't prop up the music industry or compensate artists. That's because it's free.

A shiny new site built on top of circular reasoning is still stupid

Apple says iTunes is "better than free" because it's "fair to artists and record companies." Downhill Battle says that Apple helps exploit them. This simply isn't true. First of all, before iTunes, people were downloading music and not paying for it at all. Some might say that filesharing is a blow against the RIAA "regime," but what it really does is rip off bands. Apple came along and provided the servers, the bandwidth, the interface, and the labour to make paid downloads work. It's obvious that Apple can't get any major label artists, who make downloads viable, without the RIAA. Even Apple has to make some concessions to reality. iTunes nevertheless balances consumer freedom against the artists' right to be paid with liberal digital rights and fair prices. Apple also allows independent artists to sign on through organizations like CD Baby. This means independents have the same access to iTMS as the big names, with none of the overhead. Furthermore, buying music through iTunes means artists get paid. Downloading music through peer-to-peer networks and sending bands money as an afterthought is just wishful thinking. Quibbling over the share Apple gets is ridiculous. It isn't Apple's job to get artists out of bad contracts. The "raw deal" that Downhill Battle laments about is still the envy of local bands everywhere who are still trying to get noticed. The real targets should be the big labels who have all the negotiating power, though it's worth noting that even they deserve some money for investing in, promoting, and signing new bands.

 

Downhill Battle dismisses iTunes as just a shiny new facade for the ugly, exploitative system that has managed music for the past 50 years. They credit peer to peer filesharing with the opportunity to implement change. But the major labels aren't going away. They have huge cash reserves, a phalanx of lawyers, a wealth of copyright law, and the backing of consumers who aren't going to abandon their favourite artists. Yes, the major labels have a lot to answer for, but the best threat to them is the health and growth of independent labels. Even Downhill Battle admits that iTunes is great for independents. Meanwhile, it provides a middle path for those who don't want to pay inflated CD prices, like the instant gratification of downloads, but don't want to rip off hard working musicians by downloading pirated music for free. Depriving musicians in the guise of self-serving revolution is something to really feel guilty about.

Look at it this way: 100% of the people who buy music on iTunes are paying for their music. Even if the wishful thinking model of voluntary contributions to artists took off, and made it possible to actually pay money directly to most artists, it's still relying on good will as an afterthought to downloading music in large quantities, at will, for free. iTunes has been a hit because it's well-designed, easy to use, and allows people to buy the music at the point of download. The more successful that well-designed models like iTunes are, the less demand for pirated music. If iTunes were bad for artists, independents wouldn't be clamoring to get on board. No matter how much you wish it were so, the big labels aren't going away. We hate gouging artists just as much as you do, but stealing music doesn't change recording contracts. Stealing music doesn't create a revolution. Since iTunes, the major labels and most bands have actually come to embrace paid downloads -- something that had never happened before. Evil or not, the big labels do a lot of promotion and backing of bands that would never have gotten a break without them. Those same bands you can now support by attending concerts. No matter how you slice it, 11 cents per song still buys you more than sanctimonious ranting will.

Downhill Battle
They claim their project is about more than just iTunes. We certainly agree with their underlying philosophical grudge -- that large corporations have too much might and use it to maintain monopolistic holds on the music industry and engage in anticompetitive practices like price fixing. But taking on Apple and promoting things like filesharing and CD burning is just wrongheaded. If artists have to recoup their production costs with big labels, illegal downloads and burned CDs rob them twice over because they lose the profit on the purchase of the sale AND leaves them with more unsold CDs to pay for. That doesn't solve anything. iTunes means few overhead costs for artists who release songs online, and provides a vast and reliable distribution network for independents and big names alike. Which is exactly the kind of model Downhill Battle wants to see, only it's legal, it's practical, and it's already here. iTunes provides the best balance for everyone in an imperfect world. Downhill Battle has some thoughtful points, but they're impractical ones. We also can't shake our cynicism generated by the fact that they're planning to launch a larger site later on in the year. It underscores the suspicion that they're taking on Apple to generate buzz and site hits without really offering constructive criticism. True or not, they are certainly highly selective in the rocks they've turned over in this crusade.

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We have no problems admitting we're preachy too.
Yes, we have rods up our butts and bees in our bonnets.
We recognize that everyone's broken the law at least once
(and that downloading one little song probably never killed anyone).
Nevertheless, we like music, we like sound reasoning, and we like giving musicians their due.
We're Canadians -- we can't even use the iTunes Music Store yet. But we can't wait.