The Prosumers

My daughter Katie, as well as all of her friends, are crazy about music. Katie, on the far right, is majoring in cello and vocal performance. Her best friend Courtney, center, is a dance major. Music is, quite literally, at the center of their private and professional lives.


One of their collective gripes is the lack of access to music on the web. They are quite outraged at the thought of being fined for downloading music. As a member of the older generation, I have a better understanding of intellectual and proprietary rights issues. I understand those issues. I have to admit that I do not always open up my mind to the the younger generations argument that copyright laws are as outdated. Laws which define underage curfew, appropriate sexual behavior between consenting adults and copyright infringement law are, to them, part and parcel to infringement of their constitutional rights - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.


I make the argument to Katie that someday her livelihood may depend on collecting royalties. She makes the argument that, first, she doesn't want to be famous, or rich, and second, she would have more people listening to her music if it were available to more people. As she points out, there are more music revenues available than are currently being utilized by the music industry. She accurately points out that iTunes and others are very successful at selling individual songs, uTube has an enormous audience and could be utilized by musicians much better than it has been to date, and besides, most of the money goes to the recording studio. Artists do not need to be tied to recording studio contracts anymore. Or at least that is her argument.


I suspect that she is right about this, at least to a degree. I think about getting her some recording equipment and encouraging her to put some of her music out there. She writes some of her own music and plays cello and piano, as well as being a vocalist. Of course, I would want to copyright her songs. I would hate for some recording studio to make a fortune off of one of her pieces. She probably wouldn't care, so long as people were enjoying the music. Me, I'm old fashioned. I would definitely care.